This afternoon the same thing starts, and one shell pitches into the sea. If they move their gun five degrees right, they have the range of our “bivvy” nicely.
May 26th.
It is another perfect day, and it is absolutely ideal at our “bivvy” on the cliffs overlooking the south-west tip of the Peninsula. The sea is perfect, yet while admiring the view we hear the old familiar whistle of a shell, and one comes right over us, “plonk” into the sea. Another soon follows, and we have to go beneath the cliffs, and our aspect of the peaceful view is immediately changed. Shelling lasts half an hour, and after lunch we can come back.
Go up to Brigade H.Q. this morning, and find that South Lancashire Division have been merged with the 29th Division. Laird, quite fit and chirpy as usual, in a topping little dugout near by. Reinforcements arrive to-day, and I show them the way up. One chap asks if there is a chance of his getting into the firing-line. I answer that he will be in the firing-line in half an hour, and, poor chap! he looks queerly at me. He will get used to it, though, in a day. He asked the question as if to show that he was longing, after months of training and waiting, to get there, but had rather a shock when he found it was so near.
Flies, ordinary houseflies, are beginning to be awful pests here, simply myriads of them. People in England do not know what a fly pest is. They make a continual hum as they fly round, there are so many of them. One of our officers named Jennings gets very annoyed with them, and when trying to get a sleep in his dugout of an afternoon, has a few minutes’ indulgence in Hate, not against Germany, but against the flies, murmuring to himself “Gott strafe the flies!” over and over again.
Ritchie, my old H.A.C. pal of the Goring days, who was on the Arcadian, turns up at Supply depot and invites me to dinner in the near future. It does not seem so very long ago that we were having a pigeon-pie dinner in our barn at Stoke-on-Thames, when we were both gunners in the H.A.C.
Late in the afternoon shells come whistling over our bivouac once more, well overhead, and burst in the sea near to Supply ships. About fifteen come over, and the transports weigh anchor and clear out of the way, taking up moorings again behind the Majestic, which is lying about a thousand yards off the centre of “W” Beach. Evidently the Turks are being “spotted” for at Yen-i-Shehr, where no doubt they have many observation posts which are in telephonic communication with Chanak, further up the Straits, which in turn is in telephonic communication with Turkish H.Q. on Achi. What more ideal conditions for laying their guns could be wished for? It is fortunate for us that their artillery and ammunition are scarce. Were the full complement of artillery against us that the Germans would provide to an army of the same strength as that of the Turks, I think that we should, as things have developed now, pack up and be off within one week, and not even the dear little “75’s” could save us.
The field bakery is in working order now, in a little gully further up the coast, and we are having most excellent bread each day—not a full ration, about 40 per cent. being made up by the biscuits.
It consists of three Bakery Detachments of six Bakery Sections each, a total of twenty-four ovens, and is capable of making bread for sixty thousand men. The ovens are made of curved metal; the troughs are in a large marquee, where all the mixing of the flour and ferments is done. The bread supplied on the whole is good, but of course, under the conditions in which the men are working it is difficult to turn out bread of the quality that one expects in London. Baking goes on practically the whole of the twenty-four hours. The whole bakery is under cover, and cannot be seen in any way by the Turk, though the gully in which it has been placed can be shelled, should the Turk become aware of its presence.
I dine with Ritchie at 7.30 p.m. in his dugout under our cliff, between our position and the bakery. Five other officers are there; amongst them is Major Huskisson a charming “Gypy” Army A.S.C. man, who is in charge of the Main Supply depot here, and also a man who was in the River Clyde at the landing and who saw Colonel Carrington-Smith killed. Ritchie is O.C. a Labour Corps, camped on the side of the cliff around his dugout. We play bridge after dinner, and I actually have a whisky. First game of bridge I have had since we landed, and it is weird playing in such surroundings. Outside, a perfect moonlight night.