In writing K. I try to convey the truth in terms which will neither give him needless anxiety or undue confidence. The facts have been stated very simply, plus one brief general comment. I tell him that the Turks would be playing our game by these assaults were it not that in the French section they break through the Senegalese and penetrate into the position. I add a word of special praise for the Naval Division, they have done so well, but I know there are people in the War Office who won't like to hear it. I say, "I hope the new French Division will not steam at economic, but full, speed"; and I sum up by the sentence, "The times are anxious, but I believe the enemy's cohesion should suffer more than ours by these repeated night attacks."
CHAPTER VII
SHELLS
To-day, the 4th, shells were falling from Asia on both "V" and "W" Beaches. We have landed aeroplanes on the Peninsula. The Taube has been bothering us again, but wound up its manœuvres very decently by killing some fish for our dinner. Approved an out-spoken cable from my Ordnance to the War Office. Heaven knows we have been close-fisted with our meagre stocks, but when the Turks are coming right on to the assault it is not possible to prevent a spurt of rapid fire from men who feel the knife at their throat. "Ammunition is becoming a very serious matter, owing to the ceaseless fighting since April 25th. The Junia has not turned up and has but a small supply when she does. 18 pr. shell is vital necessity."
5th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian." A wearing, nerve-racking, night-long fire by the Turks and the French 75's. They, at least, both of them, seem to have a good supply of shell. To the Jews, God showed Himself once as a pillar of fire by night; to the French soldier whose God is the 75 He reveals Himself in just the same way, safeguarding his flimsy trenches from the impact of the infidel horde. The curse of the method is its noise—let alone its cost. But last night it came off: no Turks got through anywhere on the French front and the men had not to stand to their arms or use their rifles. We British, worse luck, can't dream of these orgies of explosives. Our batteries last night did not fire a shot and the men had to drive back the enemy by rifle fire. They did it easily enough but the process is wearing.
An answer has come to my prayer for 18 pr. stuff: not the answer that turns away wrath, but the answer that provokes a plaster saint.
"We have under consideration your telegram of yesterday. The ammunition supply for your force, however, was never calculated on the basis of a prolonged occupation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, we will have to reconsider the position if, after the arrival of the reinforcements now on their way out to you, the enemy cannot be driven back and, in conjunction with the Fleet, the Forts barring the passage of the Dardanelles cannot be reduced. It is important to push on."
Now von Donop is a kindly man despite that overbearing "von": yet, he speaks to us like this! The survivors of our half dead force are to "push on"; for, "it is important to push on" although Whitehall seems to have time and to spare to "consider" my cable and to "reconsider the position." Death first, diagnosis afterwards. Wherever is the use of reconsidering the position now? The position has taken charge. When a man has jumped off Westminster Bridge to save a drowning Russian his position has got beyond reconsideration: there is only one thing to do—as quickly as you can, as much help as you can—and if it comes to a choice between the quick and the much: hark to your swimmer and hear him cry "Quick! Quick!! Quick!!!"
The War Office urge me to throw my brave troops yet once more against machine guns in redoubts; to do it on the cheap; to do it without asking for the shell that gives the attack a sporting chance. I don't say they are wrong in so saying; there may be no other way out of it; but I do say the War Office stand convicted of having gone hopelessly wrong in their estimates and preparations. For we must have been held up somewhere, surely; we must have fought somewhere. I suppose, even if we had forced the Straits—even if we had taken Constantinople without firing a shot, we must have fought somewhere! Otherwise, a child's box of tin soldiers sent by post would have been just the thing for the Dardanelles landing! No; it's not the advice that riles me: it's the fact that people who have made a mistake, and should be sorry, slur over my appeal for the stuff advances are made of and yet continue to urge us on as if we were hanging back.