Hunt very seedy, so I send him to Field Ambulance. At night hear a rumour that the evacuation of Suvla Bay has been decided on. Go down on beach in the evening to see about arrangements for getting off, but am led to believe it is only baggage for a Division which is leaving.
November 26th.
Yes, I think evacuation has been definitely decided on, so our little camp has been built for nothing. However, it keeps us employed, for life is deadly dull. This, then, is to be the end! After all these months of blood and sweat, of feverish anticipation and dismal results; after all the toil, the hardships, and sorrows, with the little graveyards getting fuller and fuller every day as I have passed them—all this is for nothing, and we are leaving. I am glad, yet full of regrets—excited, too, at the prospect of getting back to civilization once more. Alexandria and all its delights will seem like Paradise; the cosy dinners at the club, the shops, and the meeting with old friends left behind. These are some of the emotions that I experience at the thought of evacuation.
The wind is getting up once more, and the sea becomes stormy. The Field Ambulance receive orders to evacuate all patients at once to casualty clearing stations. At the clearing station they are hard at work evacuating all cases on to the lighters for transmission to the hospital ships.
Afternoon.
The sea is very rough. A lighter full of sick and a few wounded has been washed ashore. Two cases have been drowned. All further evacuation has stopped.
The battleships are heavily bombarding Turkish positions. Over Imbros black clouds, heavy with rain, are sailing towards us. We are in for a dirty night.
We are in the middle of loading our A.T. carts when heavy spots of rain drop, and looking up, we see the sky getting blacker and blacker with storm clouds. Luckily, issuing is nearly finished. The transport of many of the battalions has moved off, when a flash of forked lightning rushes from the sky to the sea, and almost instantly a deafening crash of thunder bursts overhead. This flash is followed by another and another, and then several in different parts of the sky stab the black clouds at the same moment. The rain gently begins to hiss, the hiss getting louder and louder, developing into a noise like the sound of loudly escaping steam, until, as if the clouds have all burst together, water deluges the earth in a soaking torrent. Black night soon falls upon us, changing at short intervals momentarily into day as the forked flashes of lightning stab the earth, sky, and sea. The beach men, bending double under the downfall of water and the struggle against the wind as they walk, appear in vivid detail and disappear in the fraction of a second as the lightning plays overhead. Soon a pouring torrent of water a foot deep is raging down the gullies, turning the ravines, large and small, down the slopes of the hill into rushing cascades, washing away dugouts as if they were paper, and filling to the brim every crevice and hollow on the lower land. The new camps of trenches into which men have rushed for shelter are half filled with water, which, in less than an hour, overflows the drains on either side that we had dug to prevent such an event happening. All the weary weeks of Engineer labour lost in a short time. I go back to our new dugout and meet a sorry sight. Our cookhouse, wherein our dinner was being prepared, washed off the face of the earth. The roof and the back part of the messroom had fallen in, covering furniture with mud and debris, and flooding the floor with water 6 inches deep.
I have to go to the Corps Transport depot about some water-carts for the trenches, so, taking my torch, I cross the gully. The rain is pouring in torrents, and as I walk the rushing water from the hills washes round my feet high above my ankles. Parts of dugouts, boxes, men’s kits, etc., continually come floating down on top of the rushing stream. The thunder crashes overhead and my torch is unnecessary, for the incessant flashes of forked lightning illuminate my way. The wind beating against my face takes my breath away, and makes the climb up the high slope exhausting. I arrive at the mess dugout of the IX Corps Transport. Their dugout is intact, for it is on steeply sloping ground, but their floor is over 6 inches deep in water. They are all sitting at dinner with gum-boots on, and are a merry party. Afterwards I climb to D.H.Q., arriving breathless. Back in our dugout, the storm still raging, appearing to go round and round in circles, first dying off somewhat, then rushing back with renewed fury; it runs its wild course till about eight o’clock, when it seems to pass away over Sari Bair, leaving heavy clouds pouring their burden of rain into the flooded gullies and trenches. Towards nine the downfall slackens, and shortly after stars become visible, and the black clouds gradually roll away over the hills of Gallipoli. We have a meal of bully beef and bread, for our dinner has been washed away and no hot food is possible. The wind from the north-west still blows with great violence, and it becomes steadily colder and colder. Two of our dugouts are intact, and we turn into these and get off to sleep, wondering if the drainage system in the trenches has answered its demands.