Rifle fire has died down; hardly a shot on our front comes over, and no shells at all.
On our right, shell fire continues. I hear that “V” Beach is taken. It was taken midday yesterday, but with heavy casualties. The Dublins, Munsters, and Hants had the job, and the Hants did magnificently. Colonel Williams, the G.S.O.1, behaved most gallantly. Snipers were worrying after the village was taken, and in crossing a certain part of the village he exposed himself by mounting a wall, and, standing there for a time, looked down, saying to men round him, “You see, there are no snipers left, men.” They leapt after him like cats, and were through the village in no time. Man after man had been hit on that wall that morning.
I make a little depot of boxes just behind the battery, and go back to the beach and load for another journey. On arrival there, Colonel Beadon orders me to proceed to “V” Beach to collect all stores there and make an inventory. For at first this was to have been our beach, had we been able to land on the first day. The French are to take it over now, as they are coming back from the Asiatic side, evacuating it entirely. I go down to “W” Beach for a fatigue party of the R.N.D., and am told to apply to the Naval Landing Officer, and an officer standing talking on the sands is pointed out to me as he. I go up to him and wait for an opportunity to catch his eye; for he is an Admiral. He is talking to a Captain, and two midshipmen are standing near. I wait fifteen minutes, manœuvring for position so that he may ask me what I want. I think I must have shown signs of impatience, for the Admiral turned full round toward me, and after looking at me in mild surprise for a few seconds, during which I felt a desire to turn round and run up the cliff, quietly turned round to the Captain and continued his conversation. A minute or two passed and he walked away with the midshipmen, and the Captain asked me what I wanted. I told him a fatigue party, and he pointed out an R.N.D. officer a hundred yards away, to whom I went, at once obtained satisfaction, and to whom I should have gone at the start. I find I have made an ass of myself, and therefore administer mental kicks. With my fatigue party, my corporal, private, and servant, I march up the cliff toward “V” Beach. We pass the lighthouse, which has been badly knocked about, following the line of the Turkish trench, which is along the edge of the cliff, to the fort, which had withstood the bombardment well. At the fort we see two huge guns of very old pattern, knocked about a good deal. Then we dip down to “V” Beach, a much deeper and wider beach than “W,” and walk towards the sea. Then I see a sight which I shall never forget all my life. About two hundred bodies are laid out for burial, consisting of soldiers and sailors. I repeat, never have the Army and Navy been so dovetailed together. They lie in all postures, their faces blackened, swollen, and distorted by the sun. The bodies of seven officers lie in a row in front by themselves. I cannot but think what a fine company they would make if by a miracle an Unseen Hand could restore them to life by a touch. The rank of major and the red tabs on one of the bodies arrests my eye, and the form of the officer seems familiar. Colonel Gostling, of the 88th Field Ambulance, is standing near me, and he goes over to the form, bends down, and gently removes a khaki handkerchief covering the face. I then see that it is Major Costaker, our late Brigade Major. In his breast-pocket is a cigarette-case and a few letters; one is in his wife’s handwriting. I had worked in his office for two months in England, and was looking forward to working with him in Gallipoli.
It was cruel luck that he even was not permitted to land, for I learn that he was hit in the heart on the hopper shortly after General Napier was laid low. His last words were, “Oh, Lord! I am done for now.” I notice also that a bullet has torn the toes of his left foot away; probably this happened after he was dead. I hear that General Napier was hit whilst in the pinnace, on his way to the River Clyde, by a machine gun bullet in the stomach. Just before he died he said to Sinclair-Thomson, our Staff Captain, “Get on the Clyde and tell Carrington-Smith to take over.” A little while later he apologized for groaning. Good heavens! I can’t realize it, for it was such a short while ago that we were all such a merry party at the “Warwick Arms,” Warwick. I report to Captain Stoney, of the K.O.S.B.’s, who is the M.L.O., and he hands over supplies to me. I clear the beach, make a small Supply depot and take stock, and start to issue to all and sundry as on “W” Beach the previous day. All day the French are arriving from the Asiatic side. No shelling. Evidently the Turks have no artillery. Davidson, an R.N.D. officer, tells me that he is quite used to handling the dead now. He has been told off to identify them on this beach and to take charge. I have a good look at the River Clyde. She managed to get within two hundred yards of shore, and now she is linked to the beach by hoppers. Two gangways are down at either side at a gentle slope from holes half-way up her sides, and very flimsy arrangements they are. It is difficult for the troops to pass each other on them. Men poured out from these holes in the ship at a given signal early on Sunday morning, and were quickly caught by machine gun fire, dropping like flies into the sea, a drop of 20 feet. Some of those who fell wounded from the hopper in the shallow water close inshore drowned through being borne down by the weight of their packs. Colonel Carrington-Smith, who took over command of the Brigade when General Napier was killed, was looking round the corner of the shelter of the bridge through glasses at the Turkish position on shore when he was caught by a bullet clean in the forehead and died instantly. Sunday night on the Clyde was hell. One or two shells, luckily small ones from Asia, burst right through the side of the ship. Doctors did splendid work for the wounded all night on board. A sigh of relief came from all on board when the signal was given next day to land and take the beach, which was taken after much hand-to-hand fighting, the enemy putting up a gallant resistance, encouraged as they were by their success in preventing us from landing on this beach on Sunday.
Addison, of the Hants, is gone; he met his end in the village of Sed-el-Bahr. He was leading his men, firing right and left with his revolver. He met a Turk coming round the corner of a street; he pulled the trigger of his revolver: nothing happened. He opened it, found it empty, threw it to the ground with a curse, went for the Turk with his fist, but was met by a well-aimed bomb, which exploded in his face, killing him instantly.
It sounds horrible, but it is war these days. Perhaps I am over-sensitive, but a lump comes to my throat as I write this, for just over a month ago Addison and I used to talk about books at the “Warwick Arms,” Warwick, and the sight of him reading with glasses, smoking his pipe before the fire of an evening, is still fresh in my memory. It would have been hard to believe then that such a quiet, reserved soul would meet his end fighting like a raging lion in the bloody streets of Sed-el-Bahr a few weeks later. But that has now actually happened, and similar ends will meet like brave men again and again before this war is over.
A little amusing diversion is caused in the afternoon of to-day by a hare running across the beach, chased by French “poilus,” and being very nearly rounded up.
At 5 p.m. while making up my accounts for the day, I hear from the Asiatic side the boom of a gun, followed by a sound not unlike the tearing of linen, ending in a scream and explosion. Not very big shells, and the first, so far, that I have experienced on shore. I look towards Asia and see a flash in the blue haze of the landscape there, and over comes another, dropping in the sea near the Clyde. They follow quickly in succession, and each time I see the flash, I duck with my three stalwart henchmen behind our little redoubt of supplies, proof only against splinters. The nearest falls but twenty yards away, and does not explode. I see through my glasses two destroyers creep up towards the enemy’s shores and fire rapid broadsides. After a few of these we are left in peace.
I am once or twice called up on the telephone—a telephone worked by a signaller lying on the ground, the instrument being in a portable case. It is strange saying “Are you there?” under these conditions and with these surroundings. The signal arrangements are excellent. Calls come in constant succession from “W,” “X,” and “S” Beaches. A wireless instrument is hard at work, run by a Douglas engine in a tent, controlled by a detachment of Australians. One of the Australians, a corporal, offers me a shakedown in his tent for the night, and lends my men some blankets for their bivouac, which they have constructed out of my little Supply depot. Owen, O.C. Signals, says that I shall not get much sleep in the wireless tent, and that I had better share his tent, which is in a little orchard behind a ruined house close handy. I have my evening meal of bully, biscuit, and jam, and lighting my pipe, go for a stroll in the village, but am stopped by sentries, for snipers are still at large there, and several casualties have occurred to-day there through their industry. I cannot help admiring the pluck of these snipers, for their end is certain and not far off. Two mutilated bodies of our men are lying in a garden of a ruined house, but this case so far is isolated. We have seen the Turks dressing the wounds of some of our men captured by them. The Turks appear to be a strange mixture.