August 1st.
Artillery duels go on again to-day, and several high explosive shells come over while I am on duty at the Main Supply depot. This afternoon I am drawing forage for to-morrow’s issue to the Division. We draw men’s rations for the same day’s issue at six o’clock in the morning, and forage at four in the afternoon before.
Greek labour loads the wagons with the oats, maize, and hay, which carry the forage three hundred yards away to our depot of four dumps. When shelling is on the gang of thirty to forty Greeks melts away, and often, when at work checking each wagon, one finds when one looks round but ten Greeks left. Then it is necessary to hunt round behind and in amongst the large high and wide stacks of grain and hay, where the missing Greeks are to be found quietly hiding here and there in twos and threes. Some are very good at sticking to the work, more so the boys (as young as fifteen) and the elderly men, some of whom are quite benevolent-looking.
This afternoon, one or two shells coming close to us, it was necessary for me to stop work for fifteen minutes to make sure that no more were coming, and to place the mules with their wagons behind the stacks of hay, which afford perfect protection. I have never yet seen a shell penetrate a wide stack of trusses of compressed hay. A pause—no shells—and out we pop from our hiding-places like rabbits, and load busily away once more. It is really funny. Like a game of hide and seek.
Panton dines with us to-night, but I have to leave immediately after dinner, for I am again on duty at the depot drawing extra supplies. These are now being drawn nightly, to form a reserve depot in the gully, but a little way up from Gully Beach, to be ready for us in case we advance.
As I walk across the high ground on the left of “W” Beach looking towards Achi, I hear the booming of a Turkish gun, and instinctively I know that the shell is addressed either to me or in my direction, and accordingly fling myself to the ground in a manner to rival the best stage fall. The usual sound of the sky being rent in two is followed by a deafening explosion, and dust and stones fall on top of me. The smoke blown my way makes me cough.
I arrive at my depot; a man runs up and reports that the shell has hit a dugout in which three of our supply loaders live. I send a man back for Panton, and start to run across to the dugout. I hear the heavens torn asunder again. I fall flat behind boxes. The beastly thing bursts in the hay. I wonder if the farmers at home ever realized how we would bless their compressed trusses of hay, as protection from shell fire. I run to the dugout. Two men are lying dead. One man, wounded, is being carried away by his comrades. Panton, who has arrived, takes their identity discs. One cannot be recognized but for his identity disc. I go over to depot and continue my job of seeing the wagons loaded. I go to mount my horse. As I am about to put my foot in the stirrup I hear again the boom of a gun. I feel jumpy and duck. I hear a laugh. It is from a driver. It is dark and he can’t see who I am—or my blushes—for the boom I heard was from a friendly heavy French gun over by Morto Bay. I ride round the top road with Cooke, who is waiting for me behind the dugout a little way up the West Coast.
We speculate upon the reason why the advanced depot is being formed in the gully. If the landing further up is successful, then the Turks are bound to retire from before Achi, and the hill will at last be ours. At last! We must therefore be prepared for an immediate advance. Hence the advanced depot.
We arrive at the gully, riding on to the beach down the winding road. It is a beautiful starlight night. The gully and its slopes are illuminated by a host of little lights from the dugouts of various H.Q. signal stations, dressing stations, etc., all unseen by the enemy; but from the sea they look like the lights of a small fishing town nestling in the shelter of gorse-covered irregular cliffs. I call at Brigade H.Q. and then at a dressing station, where some cheery R.A.M.C. fellows give me a whisky and soda. Afterwards I accompany Cooke, who is in charge of a convoy to fetch ammunition, up to Pink Farm. We ride up the high road on to the high land, and after being stopped now and again by the “’Alt, ’oo are you?” of a sentry, arrive at the ammunition depot near Pink Farm, in Trafalgar Square. There we load up with ammunition, which we cart along Artillery Road, meeting the gully half-way, dip down, and, our loads disposed of, we ride back home, arriving there at 2 a.m. Cooke persuades me to stop at his dugout and have a “nightcap,” which I do.
He has built for himself a nice cosy room, dug in on the cliff-side. Sitting there in the early hours of the morning, I am reminded of that whisky and soda most men enjoy at 2 o’clock in the morning when arriving home from a dance. He has made a dug-out stable for his horse, and invites me to leave mine there for the night, to save me the fag of taking him back to his lines, and to enable me to take the shortcut back to the dugout, which is but a little way along the cliff towards “W” Beach. I therefore tie up my horse, water him, and give him a little hay, and go back along the cliff to bed.