Go up to Brigade H.Q. and have tea. Gale dies down towards evening. Beautiful colouring of sky over the sea. A background of grey rain clouds, golden-buff coloured strips of sky, grey sea, against which are silhouetted sepia-coloured trees and gorse-bushes. Imbros, now grey as the sea, is always in the picture—the eternal picture in which is painted our monotonous life on Gallipoli. We are waiting, waiting, with no news, and some of us are saying with no hope. These latter, however, suffer from “tummy” troubles.
October 25th.
Six months ago to-day I landed at Helles—it seems like six years. To-day we are still an hour’s walk from the sea to the front trenches, at all three landings. This morning is a cool, beautiful summer morning. Flies seem to come again from somewhere, but not so bad as before, yet sufficient to be called a pest in England. Usual artillery duels all day, and we are shrapnelled again in the afternoon. At 6 p.m. go up to C.R.E. dump about the reserve rations we are putting there. Cloudy evening.
October 26th.
A cool, fine morning, rather cloudy. Birds again flying in large coveys overhead—wild geese and crane, etc.; men fire at them, though it is strictly against orders. Hardly any artillery duels in morning. Go up to C.R.E. dump with Major Fraser, and later, leaving him, go on to Brigade and have tea. Adjutant of Worcesters, who was wounded in the landing in April, and who has been back in England, was there. We who have been out here all the time look upon those who have been back in England with great interest.
After tea, Morris, the Machine Gun Officer, takes me out to see his machine gun emplacements on Gun Hill, which is a little hill lying some two hundred yards behind our front-line trenches, the ground on its left rising steeply to the high ridge overlooking the sea, and on its right sloping gently down to the low land.
We pass the Worcester Regiment in the reserve trenches dug in an open space on the left of Brigade H.Q. looking inshore; then we pass down a communication trench, coming out into an open space behind a small mound called Gibraltar, round which we pass down a slope leading to a rocky ravine filled with large boulders, a few trees, and patches of thick gorse-bush. There the Hampshire Regiment are dug in.
To the left of the ravine are a few graves, and now and again a bullet kicks up the dust close by them. Smith, the Hampshire Quartermaster, jokingly informs me of a certain way of getting a cushy Blighty wound. If I want one, all I have to do is to stand by these graves after dark, and wait. In under two hours, most probably in five minutes of waiting, I shall get one in the leg. The bullets come from a Turkish trench high up on the cliff-side on our left front. To the right of the ravine one is safe, protected by a rise in the ground. On the left of the ravine one is in constant danger of a smack from a bullet, and more so at night.
We continue our way, passing down another trench, and shortly after come out into the open in a lovely glade of grass and trees situated in dead ground, protected by a little hill in front called Gun Hill. On its slopes we once more enter a trench, which encircles the hill, very similar to the ramparts of an ancient castle. It is a little fortress on its own, standing aloof from the system of trenches situated behind our front line, but in front of our support line, yet blending in with the uneven lie of the land, thereby not making a conspicuous target. At intervals are machine gun emplacements, with machine guns in position, pointing through apertures in the sand-bagged breastwork. At the first that we come to we find the sentry not looking out. I shall never forget the frightened look on his face as it meets Morris’s suddenly appearing around the corner of the sand-bagged wall a few inches from him. He gets a stiff “strafing.” We continue our way, and at the next emplacement come upon a sentry who presents a unique object. For his head is covered by a sand-bag, through which are holes made for his eyes and mouth. To this headgear are fixed sprigs of gorse-bush, and as he stands stock-still, with his head and shoulders filling the gap in the breastwork, it must be impossible for an enemy observer to detect his presence from the background of gorse and trees. Yet if he is detected a sniper has him for a dead certainty. It is so far safe for such sentries, however, for up to now no casualties have occurred amongst them from a sniper’s rifle.
Morris asks, “Is everything O.K.?” and the sentry, without looking round, replies, “All’s well, sir.”