Once Burnt Hill was ours, the Turks would be forced to retire to Anafarta. A further attack on our part would capture Anafarta and the high hills on our left, enabling the Anzacs to capture Sari Bair. Thence to Maidos, Achi Baba cut off, and the Dardanelles forced.
I am just about to leave, thanking them for their hospitality, when shrapnel burst outside overhead. I say to them, “Surely this hospital does not get shelled?” And they tell me that now and again a stray shrapnel does burst here, but that they are shelling a small column of carts passing along the beach, a small cluster of horsemen riding in Salt Lake, or a few men passing over the flat wooded country. No target appears too small for their shrapnel, even people bathing. The shore in the centre of the bay is within easy reach of their field-gun shrapnel, but as a rule they respect this Welsh hospital, though it is within full view and easy range of their guns.
I continue my walk and keep close to the water’s edge, for shrapnel now and again bursts not more than a hundred yards inland. I reach the Supply depot that I had seen from Lala Baba, and learn that we are now IXth Corps, that I have arrived at the Corps Reserve Supply depot on “A” Beach, that they get shelled regularly every day, also that Foley and Way are further up the road, towards the end of the promontory.
I walk up there and find them sitting in a small depot that they have formed, with a little camp of wagon-covers and ground-sheets, supported by logs obtained from a broken lighter. I feel glad to see them. O’Hara comes up soon after with Badcock, who is over from G.H.Q. to get transport in order, having been here since the landing. We make ourselves a little more comfortable during the morning; a bivouac for Way and myself is made of a tarpaulin stretched over balks of timber, forming a little house open at the sides. We are out of range of shrapnel, but I learn that high explosive and howitzer shells often come our way.
In the morning I see Cox, who has returned from Alexandria, and learn that the 88th Brigade are not to be in action to-day, for which I am thankful. We get ready to send up rations by A.T. carts and pack-mules to-night.
At 1 o’clock Way goes up to see his Brigade H.Q.—the 86th—on Chocolate Hill. The 87th and 88th are there as well, and D.H.Q. and other H.Q. of other Brigades, and the side of the hill must be very congested. I can see hundreds of troops sheltering on the low ground by Lala Baba across the bay.
2.30.
The four battleships and all our guns on shore open a heavy bombardment on the Turkish position on the hills in front, and especially on Burnt Hill, and an hour later the gorse on that hill and on the low ground to the right of Chocolate Hill catches alight, and is soon burning like a roaring furnace, spreading like the fire on a prairie. At 3.30 I hear rifle fire and learn that our attack on Burnt Hill has started. The artillery simultaneously increases its range. The bombardment, however, does not ring so confidently as did our bombardment in the victorious battle of June 28th, nor does it appear to be so powerful.
I see the Yeomanry now marching steadily in open order across the Salt Lake. It is the first time that they have been in action. Several years ago I was a trooper in the Warwickshire Yeomanry, who are now with the rest marching into battle. The Worcesters, Gloucesters, Middlesex, Sharp-shooters, Sherwood Foresters, Notts and Derby are there, and I think several other regiments, all troopers and troop leaders on foot, their horses left in Egypt. Little did they think, when they trained on Salisbury Plain for cavalry work, that when the hour came for them to go into battle they would go in on foot as infantry. When they did their regular fourteen days’ annual training, some of their friends used to laugh at them, saying that they were playing at soldiers. What I see before my eyes now is no play. Yet they look the same as they did on Salisbury Plain. Ah! the real thing for them has come at last, though many of them only landed this morning, for I see a white puff of shrapnel burst over their heads. It is quickly followed by another and another, developing to a rapid concentrated fire. They run the gauntlet without losing their Salisbury Plain steadiness, except for an occasional bunching together here and there. Soon casualties occur and prostrate khaki figures can be seen lying on the sandy salt of the lake for the stretcher-bearers and ambulance-wagons to pick up—the harvest of war. At last they are at Chocolate Hill, where they nestle under its slopes for protection till further orders.
At 6 p.m. Way returns, and tells us that Chocolate Hill was “Red Hell” while he was there, smothered in shrapnel and flying bullets; that an officer in D.H.Q. has been killed quite near him, but O’Hara is safe. It was not safe for Way to leave until five o’clock.