By the time we had passed along the whole of the French second line and part of their front line trenches, I had had about enough. So took leave of these valiant Frenchmen and cheery Senegalese and pushed on to the advanced observation post of the Artillery where I met General Stockdale, commanding the 15th Brigade, R.F.A., and not only saw how the land lay but heard some interesting opinions. Also, some ominous comments on what armies spend and what Governments scrimp:—that is ammunition.
At 3 p.m., got back having had a real good sweat. Must have walked at least a dozen miles. Soon afterwards Cox, commanding the 29th Indian Brigade, came on board to make his salaam. Better late than never is all I could say to him: he and his Brigade are sick at not having been on the spot to give the staggering Turks a knock-out on the 28th, but he's going to lose no more chances; his men are landing now and he hopes to get them all ashore in the course of the day.
The Intelligence have just translated an order for the 25th April found upon the dead body of a Turkish Staff Officer. "Be sure," so it runs, "that no matter how many troops the enemy may try to land, or how heavy the fire of his artillery, it is absolutely impossible for him to make good his footing. Supposing he does succeed in landing at one spot, no time should be left him to co-ordinate and concentrate his forces, but our own troops must instantly press in to the attack and with the help of our reserves in rear he will forthwith be flung back into the sea."
2nd May, 1915. H.M.S. "Arcadian." Had a sleepless night and strain was too great to write or do anything but stand on bridge and listen to the firing or go down to the General Staff and see if any messages had come to hand.
About 10 p.m. I was on the bridge thinking how dark it was and how preternaturally still; I felt all alone in the world; nothing stirred; even the French 75's had ceased their nerve-racking bark, and then, suddenly, in one instant, hell was let loose upon earth. Like a hundred peals of thunder the Turkish artillery from both Continents let fly their salvoes right, left and centre, and the French and ourselves did not lose many seconds in reply. The shells came from Asia and Achi Baba:—in a fiery shower, they fell upon the lines of our front trenches. Half an hour the bombardment and counter-bombardment, and then there arose the deadly crepitation of small arms—no messages—ten times I went back and forward to the signal room—no messages—until a new and dreadful sound was carried on the night wind out to sea—the sound of the shock of whole regiments—the Turkish Allah Din!—our answering loud Hurrahs. The moments to me were moments of unrelieved agony. I tried to think of some possible source of help I had overlooked and could not. To hear the battle cries of the fighting men and be tied to this Arcadian—what torture!
Soon, amidst the dazzling yellow flashes of the bursting shells and star bombs, there rose in beautiful parabolas all along our front coloured balls of fire, green, red or white; signals to their own artillery from the pistols of the Officers of the enemy. An ugly feature, these lights so beautiful, because, presumably, in response to their appeal, the Turkish shell were falling further down the Peninsula than at first, as if they had lengthened their range and fuse, i.e., as if we were falling back.
By now several disquietening messages had come in, especially from the right, and although bad news was better than no news, or seemed so in that darkness and confusion, yet my anxious mind was stretched on the rack by inability to get contact with the Headquarters of the 29th Division and the French. Bullets or shell had cut some of the wires, and the telephone only worked intermittently. At 2 in the morning I had to send a battalion of my reserve from the Royal Naval Division to strengthen the French right. At 3 a.m. we heard—not from the British—that the British had been broken and were falling back upon the beaches. At 4 we heard from Hunter-Weston that, although the enemy had pierced our line at one or two points, they had now been bloodily repulsed. Thereupon, I gave the word for a general counter-attack and our line began to advance. The whole country-side was covered with retreating Turks and, as soon as it was light enough to see, our shrapnel mowed them down by the score. We gained quite a lot of ground at first, but afterwards came under enfilade fire from machine guns cunningly hidden in folds of the ground. There was no forcing of these by any coup de main especially with worn out troops and guns which had to husband their shell, and so we had to fall back on our starting point. We have made several hundreds prisoners, and have killed a multitude of the enemy.
I took Braithwaite and others of the G.S. with me and went ashore. At the pier at "W" were several big lighters filled with wounded who were about to be towed out to Hospital ships. Spent the best part of an hour on the lighters. The cheeriness of the gallant lads is amazing—superhuman!
Went on to see Hunter-Weston at his Headquarters,—a queer Headquarters it would seem to our brethren in France! Braithwaite, Street, Hunter-Weston and myself.
Some of our units are shaken, no doubt, by loss of Officers (complete); by heavy losses of men (not replaced, or replaceable, under a month) and by sheer physical exertion. Small wonder then that one weak spot in our barrier gave way before the solid mass of the attacking Turks, who came on with the bayonet like true Ghazis. The first part of the rifle fire last night was entirely from our own men. The break by one battalion gave a grand chance to the only Territorial unit in the 29th Division, the 5th Royal Scots, who have a first-class commanding Officer and are inspired not only by the indomitable spirit of their regular comrades, but by the special fighting traditions of Auld Reekie. They formed to a flank as if on a peace parade and fell on to the triumphant Turkish stormers with the cold steel, completely restoring the fortunes of the night. It would have melted a heart of stone, Hunter-Weston said, to see how tired our men looked in the grey of morning when my order came to hand urging them to counter-attack and pursue. Not the spirit but the flesh failed them. With a fresh Division on the ground nothing would have prevented us from making several thousand prisoners; whether they would have been able to rush the machine guns and so gain a great victory was more problematical. Anyway, our advance at dawn was half heroic, half lamentable. The men were so beat that if they tripped and fell, they lay like dead things. The enemy were almost in worse plight and so we took prisoners, but as soon as we came up against nerveless, tireless machine guns we had to stagger back to our trenches.