"I believe that the Press should have representatives with the forces," he began, "to tell the people what is being done. If the war is to succeed, you must interest the democracy first, for it is the democracy's war. By all means have censorship, but let your articles be written by a journalist, and not literary men who think they are journalists. The trained man who knows how to interest people in things that cannot matter to the army is the fellow needed. However, it has been decreed otherwise, and I can do nothing. You are free British subjects, nevertheless, and can always take a ticket to the nearest railway-station. If it is possible, I shall do all I can to help you."
We wished the General success and left him, receiving then, as always, the greatest courtesy in all our dealings with the General Staff. It was an encouraging attitude, we felt, and for this reason we decided to land on Imbros and wait an opportunity to reach the mainland after the troops had advanced. I may say here that General Hamilton, true to his promise, did make a great exception for me later, and I was enabled to spend July and August on the peninsula itself. For the present, on a Greek steamer of uncertain tonnage, carrying a mixed cargo that included onions, garlic, and much oil and fish, I left for the islands lying round the entrance to the Dardanelles. I quitted the vessel at Castro, the capital of Lemnos Island (if a wretched little township with a decayed fort dominating it might be called a capital); and curiously enough, just afterwards that vessel was boarded by a British destroyer and sent to Malta for carrying flour to Dedeagatch, a Bulgarian port. Flour had been declared contraband since we had left Alexandria, for Turkey had obtained enormous supplies, 500,000 tons I was told it was estimated at, through the agency of King Ferdinand.
My experiences of being in "The War Zone" were only beginning. At Castro I was arrested on landing, and asked if I did not know that the island was under the command of the Admiral. This was the British Admiral, Admiral de Robeck, though I did not know, but might easily have guessed, for the whole of the assembled fleet of transports, as well as the Allied battleships, were sheltered at Mudros at this time, waiting for the day to be determined on for the landing—this event subject now to the weather. Once already plans had been postponed. It was not until the 25th it was agreed that it would be possible to have a sufficiently long and fine spell of calm seas and a favourable phase of the moon to make the attempt. I had already experienced something of the storms of the Mediterranean on my journey north. For two days the sea had been running high and we were tossed about like a cockleshell. What, then, of small destroyers and landing-barges! By the time, however, we had passed the Dardanelles on our way to Lemnos the sea had grown perfectly calm again, and in the distance I could hear the boom of the guns—a solemn, stately knell it seemed at that time, as of a Nation knocking at the door of another Nation, a kind of threat, behind which I knew lay the power of the army.
MARCHING ORDERS FOR THE FRONT.
Men of the 3rd Brigade leaving Mena Camp in March for Mudros Harbour.
LEADERS AT THE LANDING.