"This Suvla Bay country, a jungle ringed round by high mountains, is essentially a country for Boers or for Indian troops. De Lisle and others who have watched them closely in India, say that a native soldier on the Peninsula (although there, too, he goes to pieces if he loses his Officers and under too prolonged a strain) is worth at least two Indian soldiers in France. The climate suits him better, but, most of all, the type of enemy is more or less the sort of type they are accustomed to encounter. Not Sahibs and Ghora Log in helmets but Mussalman Log in turbans. As to the South Africans there can be no two opinions, I think, that they would stand these conditions better than those of Northern Europe. Indeed, we have one or two Boers serving now with the Australians, and they have done extremely well."
Some of K.'s questions take my breath away. I wish very much indeed he could come and spend a week with me. Otherwise I feel hopeless of making him grasp the realities of the trenches. On the 30th of August he cables, "If required, I could send you a fresh consignment of junior Officers. Or have you sufficient supernumerary Officers to fill all casualties?" I have replied to him that, in my four regular Divisions, I am short of 900 effective Officers in the Infantry alone. To meet my total shortage of 1,450 Officers I have twenty-five young gentlemen who have lately been sent out here to complete their training!
De Lisle and Hardress Lloyd sailed back to Suvla in the evening.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FRENCH PLAN
2nd September, 1915. Imbros. An ugly dream came to me last night. My tent was at Imbros right enough, and I was lying in my little camp bed, and yet I was being drowned, held violently under the Hellespont.
The grip of a hand was still on my throat; the waters were closing over my head as I broke away and found myself wide awake. I was trembling and carried back with me into the realms of consciousness an idea that some uncanny visitor had entered my tent. Already the vision was fading. I could visualize the form of the presence, but the face remained hidden in shadow. Never had I suffered from so fearful a dream. For hours afterwards I was haunted by the thought that the Dardanelles were fatal; that something sinister was a-foot; that we, all of us, were pre-doomed.
Dreams go by contraries. Strange that so black a night should be followed by a noon so brilliant—so brilliant beyond compare.
K. cables the French are going to send three or four Divisions to work with us along the Asiatic mainland. From bankrupt to millionaire in 24 hours. The enormous spin of fortune's wheel makes me giddy!