I learn that a French ship was torpedoed while I was away, but none of the crew was drowned, and ship was empty of supplies.
Findlay-Smith came to dinner. Awfully amusing hearing him grousing about the shelling, just as he used to grouse in the old days about such a thing as a train being held up between Clapham Junction and Waterloo. It is topping dining in our “bivvy” listening to the gentle wash of the waves, and after dinner enjoying the view of the sun setting behind Imbros, while we smoke and have coffee. Guns from Asia seem to have been silenced. Cannot see any signs of life on the plain of Troy, which looks pretty peaceful meadow land! Can see it in detail from here. They must have observing stations there, and see all that we are doing, and hence the shelling of “W” Beach.
Farmer, Neave, and Balfour, of the 88th Brigade Staff, have been sent home invalided. Hear that there is to be a new landing further up, but when, I don’t quite know, and that this time we shall land quite six Divisions. I predicted in the early days that 250,000 men would be found necessary to make this job a success; and troops which have come and gone, and are coming, nearly reach this figure. It is surprising what a little bit of land we are on, just as if it was a small corner of the Isle of Wight.
Fancy being able to take in at a glance our front lines and the Turkish lines, Krithia, the West Coast, the Dardanelles, and Asia’s mountains, and the formidable position of Achi Baba, with its supporting ridges on either side. That is what we can do with the naked eye from the edge of the cliffs on either side of “W” Beach. And over three months have now passed since we landed.
July 31st.
While issuing this morning at depot, high explosive shells come over from Achi. They burst in different places, searching the beach. One bursts near Way’s depot, and one man and two mules are hit, the man badly. Next one on aerodrome. An interval of two or three minutes passes between the arrival of each shell.
Shortly after the one had burst near Way’s depot, I, standing with issuers, drivers, G.S. wagons, A.T. carts, N.C.O.’s and ration parties all around me, hear the shriek of one coming straight at me, for it shrieks too long. Those who say that, if killed by a shell, one never hears the shriek of the shell that hits one, are quite mistaken—that is to say, when being shelled by one, two, or three guns at a time. In a bombardment, of course, the din is so deafening that you can’t tell which shell is addressed to you and which is not—and after a bit you don’t much care. A deafening explosion and dense smoke, dust, and stones, and I find myself locked in the arms of a transport driver with my face buried in the stomach of a fat sergeant, and mules kicking all round. Not a man hit, and the shell five yards away. The nearest I have ever had. It had burst in a mound of soft earth and right deep in the ground, and that saved us. I look up, and all the others get sheepishly to their feet, and I get out another cigarette and smoke. I smoked six of them hard, and tried to be facetious and to pretend that I did not care, but not one man there could have been in a more miserable cowardly funk than I was, while waiting for the next, which, however, gave us a long miss.
Later in the morning we got a few high explosive shells from Achi. One pitched clean on the roof of our signal offices, which is a timbered erection, sand-bagged, and proof against splinter only. There the clerks work, tap-tap-tap and buz-buz-buz to and from all over the Peninsula, messages being sent and received every minute, almost all the day and night, like a central telegraph office in London. Down came the shrieking thing: a deafening report; splinters of timber, torn sand-bags, dust, stones, and smoke fly into the air, and then silence. A pause, and men rush, not away, but to the ruined office. Nine men and one Signal Officer have been killed outright. Several wounded are carried up the cliff to the hospital. Operators immediately get to work connecting up the severed wires to new instruments. Improvised tables are put in position. In half an hour a wire is sent off to G.H.Q. that all is “O.K.,” and tap-tap, buz-buz is heard once more, tapping and buzzing busily away, not for a weekly wage, but—for the King. It was a near thing for old Findlay in his office, twenty yards away.
I rowed to a submarine this afternoon and went aboard. Delightful sitting on deck and chatting to the Captain. He has just heard good news from Persia, and we are all cheery. Go up to Brigade H.Q., Gully Beach, and have tea, and chat to battalions in rest on cliff-sides. While away, hear shells from Achi screeching overhead for “W” Beach, and feel therefore quite safe. The Ordnance had it this afternoon.