Gallipoli Diary

by John Graham Gillam

September 7th.

Awake at five, and on becoming conscious of the fact that to-day I have to go back to that Peninsula, to remain there for Lord knows how long, I have the same depressed feeling, only more so, that one has in the days of school on the last day of the holiday.

At 6 a.m. Phillips and I and the Supply Section embark, and on a tossing trawler, bucking about like a wild horse, we undergo the misery of a four hours’ crossing in a very rough sea to Suvla Bay, where we arrive at 10 a.m. We lie off the Swiftsure for an hour, and then two pinnaces come alongside, to take us on shore. Shrapnel is bursting steadily over the low lands, and one or two high explosives are now and again bursting on “A” Beach and “W” Beach. We land soon after 11 a.m., and on arrival back at our part of the promontory we find that our camp has been moved to the end of the long gully, where on the side of a hill D.H.Q. are dug in.

The contours of the country are curious. Great natural scars run down to a flat plateau washed by the waves. In these gullies hundreds of men and animals are getting what protection they can. The Engineers are building a road, on one side of which is a row of dugouts, artfully hidden by a row of great boulders. This is our advanced Horse Transport depot, and a pretty hot shop, as the Turks have the exact range. In front of the dugouts are the horse-lines, where rows and rows of mules and horses are packed into the throat of the gorge for shelter. A dry watercourse winds down the gorge, so the place will be impossible in winter; as it is, Death takes his daily toll of men and animals, while down the path comes a never-ending procession of sick and wounded from the front line, and very occasionally a prisoner or two. Up the same path, at night, the reinforcements march to rest in dugouts just behind the line until their turn to take over arrives. To the left of the gorge a huge rocky point runs out to the sea—this point also is a thick mass of men and animals, practically in the open, so limited is space. Truly an unfriendly and uninviting country. The hot dust is over everything—the flies torment, and shells take their toll of us, while we are powerless to hit back. The mouth of the gorge widens to the beach, where there are three tiny bays, which with the plateau form “A” Beach: Kangaroo Beach, with its lighter and pontoon quays, its sand-bagged dugouts, and the like; West Beach—the main landing-place, with rather better piers and offices; and Little West Beach, a sort of overflow to West Beach proper, embellished with a tram line for horse-drawn trucks, the Ordnance depot, etc.—all these places are swarming with men, and over all hangs the eternal dust!

Further along on the plateau from West Beach, and looking towards Lala Baba, is the Supply depot and the watering-places for the animals, all in the open, with no protection at all: a wonderful spectacle, if you like to think of it, and only possible because John Turk is short of ammunition. Here in the bare open the troops live from day to day, a few sand-bags only between them and death, and very few of the dugouts boast a real roof; blankets and waterproof sheets answer that purpose, and so it is not difficult to imagine the havoc wrought when shrapnel is about. To the north lies the bold, forbidding point, before mentioned, with the waves flinging their white manes in anger against its sides. Such, roughly, is Suvla Bay as I see it now, and I cannot say that it impresses me as a practical proposition.

Dug in on the side of a slope the others have built a house, or, as far as dugouts in Gallipoli go, a summer residence. The door faces the rise leading up to the rugged point, from the craggy back of which one sees the cliff-side dropping sheer to the sea.

The roof of corrugated iron slopes at the same angle as the slope of the ground in which we have dug. For walls, the dugout earth forms the back wall, and the side walls are built of biscuit boxes. We spend the day improving on this. Immediately in front is our Supply depot, divided into three dumps, one each for the 86th, 87th, and 88th Brigades. At dusk the pack-mules and A.T. carts form up, and we load on to the set of mules or carts allotted to each unit the rations and fuel. The transport then moves off by Brigades to the front, the mules led by Drabis, the carts driven also by Drabis, and the whole escorted by Indian N.C.O.’s under a white N.C.O. Q.M.S.’s Transport N.C.O.’s, guides of the units, and the A.S.C. Transport Officer accompany them to the respective battalion and dumps, situated a distance of two hundred to three hundred yards behind the front line. In some cases convoys proceed direct to the regimental cookhouses. The transport dares not show itself by day. To-night our Brigade arrives from Imbros, and is to spend the night in De Lisle’s Gully, some short distance to the left of the road that leads to Lone Tree Gully, but up the hill rather, and so our rations go there. Water has been put there for them by Carver last night. We watch this water question closely. It needs careful handling and foresight. A man can go hungry much longer than he can go thirsty, and water is far more difficult to transport by sea than food. Imbros is the source of our supply, and water-tank lighters are filled there and towed over each day.

The water dump is on “A” Beach, and all the Divisions that are being supplied from this promontory draw from this dump. An able man, one Private Jones, is in charge. Though before the war an L.C.C. school-teacher, he appears to be the one man in the world who could be chosen to be the most efficient and tactful organizer of the difficult task of satisfying an army of 30,000 men with their daily requirements of water, from a limited source, and by means of a limited supply of receptacles, steadily diminishing in number.

At seven I go up with Carver to the H.Q. of the 86th Brigade. Instead of walking up the road that leads to Pine Tree Gully, we bear off to the right, and pass along a lower road through the wooded, gorse-covered low lands for a distance of about a mile and a half inland, until bullets are merrily singing their song of war overhead. “Zi-i-ip” goes one between us. A pause in the conversation, and Carver says, “That was not pleasant,” to which I agree, but adding, “If hit, it means Blighty, my boy, the Savoy, and theatres, or ‘Finish,’ as we say in Egypt.”

We come to a wide space in front of us, and to our left is high ground, rising in one place to about 30 feet. Carver tells me that we are at Brigade dumping-ground. A.T. carts are packed here in readiness to bring the baggage back to the beach for the 86th Brigade, as it is their turn now to go to Imbros.