Now—I feel better.
The plot thickens. A cable just come in from the S. of S. for War:—
"The following statement has been made in letter to Prime Minister, Australia, by Mr. Murdoch: 'The fact is that after the first day at Suvla an order had to be issued to officers to shoot without mercy any soldier who lagged behind or loitered in advance.' Wire me as to the truth or otherwise of this allegation."
Murdoch must be mad. Or, is there some method in this madness?
Mr. Murdoch was not a war correspondent; he is purely a civilian and could hardly have invented this "order" on his own. No soldier could have told him this. Someone not a soldier—someone so interested in discrediting the Dardanelles Campaign that he does not scruple to do so even by discrediting our own troops must have put this invention about, per Murdoch. Doubtless we strike here upon the source of these "unofficial statements" which have been flowing into the War Office. All I remember of his visit to me here is a sensible, well-spoken man with dark eyes, who said his mind was a blank about soldiers and soldiering, and made me uncomfortable by an elaborate explanation of why his duty to Australia could be better done with a pen than with a rifle. He was one week at the Press Correspondents' camp and spent, so they tell me, a few hours only at Anzac and Suvla, never once crossing to Helles. If then his letter to his Prime Minister is a fair sample of the grounds upon which Braithwaite has been condemned, Heaven help us all!
As a relief to these disagreeable thoughts, a Taube dropped a couple of bombs into camp. She flew so high that she was hard to see until the bursting shrapnel gave us her line. As she made tracks back through the trackless blue, the ships gave her a taste of some big projectiles, 12-inches or 9.2. The aerial commotion up there must have been considerable.
At noon, sailed over to Suvla in H.M.S. Savage. We took our lunch on board. As we came into harbour the Turks gave us a shell or two from their field guns, then stopped. Young Titchfield, the Duke of Portland's son, met us at the beach and brought us along to Byng's Headquarters, where I met also de Lisle and Reed. After hearing their news I started off with the whole band to make a tour of the trenches held by the 88th Brigade, under General Cayley. On the way I was taken up to "Gibraltar" observation post to get a bird's-eye view of the line. Besides my old friends of the 29th Division I saw some of the new boys, especially the 1st Newfoundland Battalion under Colonel Burton, and the 2/1st Coy. of the London Regiment. This was the Newfoundlanders' first day in the trenches and they were very pleased with themselves. They could not understand why they were not allowed to sally forth at once and do the Turks in. The presence of these men from our oldest colony adds to the extraordinary mix-up of people now fighting on the Peninsula. All the materials exist here for bringing off the biblical coup of Armageddon excepting only the shell.
In the course of these peregrinations I met Marshall of the 53rd Division, Beresford, commanding the 86th Brigade, and Colonel Savage, R.E.
After tea with Byng, including the rare treat of a slice of rich cake, we went down to our friend H.M.S. Savage. The wind had risen to a fairly stiff gale, and the sea was beginning to get very big. Those field gun shells had caused the Savage to lie a desperate long way out to sea; we had a very stiff pull in the teeth of the waves, and every one of us began to think that salt water rather than the bullet was going to end our days. However, we just managed by the skin of our teeth and the usual monkey tricks, to scramble up on board. As I said in my wrath when I first stood on the firm deck, I would sooner have a hundred shells fired at me by the Turks.