August 4th.
Perfect, calm sea; hot day. The big gun at Achi Baba left us alone while issuing this morning, but in its place a howitzer on Asiatic side kept us alive and steadily dropped shells around us. Phew! I am glad when that morning issuing is over, for every morning regularly now we are shelled.
Later in morning, she tried dropping them on edge of cliff, and reached once or twice. Not much damage, and a howitzer gives plenty of warning. But one cannot so easily gauge where their shells are going to drop as with the other guns.
2 o’clock.
Shelling by big guns from Achi has now started, and they are dropping on the beach, and everybody is taking cover for dear life. Now howitzer from Asia is joining in. Nothing much happened to-day, except heavy artillery duels, and with the anniversary of the war we find ourselves not much further forward than we were two months ago.
August 5th.
Another hot, depressing, monotonous and nervy day. Was officer of the day at the Supply depot, and, as usual, shells came over. A fuse whizzed near our heads with a most weird singing noise. French battleship at entrance bombarded Asia, and two British cruisers on West Coast bombarded Achi.
Something big is going to happen soon. I may add that this sentence has been passed from mouth to mouth for the last week, and if that something does not happen soon we shall all be in a devil of a fix on this tiny little tip of the Peninsula.
So dangerous has it now become to walk about in the open that a communication trench has been dug from “X” Beach right to the firing-line, and so troops landing on “W” Beach can walk round the road at the foot of cliffs and straight up this trench to fire-trenches. Most of the transport by day goes by this road, only venturing in the open on high land by night.
Our depot, however, still remains in the same place, exposed to and ranged on by enemy’s guns, with the result that we get shelled regularly every day, and the sigh of relief that will go up to heaven when we have orders to move will echo from Asia to the Ægean.