The beggars had the cheek to come over yesterday and demand that we surrendered. After such a pommelling as we gave them two days ago this is colossal. I think they just wanted to spy out a bit more of the defences.
Sunday, May 23rd.
There is a furious bombardment going on out in the harbour. The warships are all standing in close and tackling the last of the main Turkish forts and strongholds in the Dardanelles....
Quite a minor excitement was caused by the arrival of some submarines, supposed to be the pair that slipped by Gibraltar some days ago. The fact that first drew our attention to them was the small or mosquito craft which were running all round in circles, and the bigger vessels were all on the move. Nothing was heard as to whether they were captured or sighted again. I suppose the idea was to keep a good look out and also to provide a much more difficult mark than if they were standing still.
I had a night’s sleep last night, the first undisturbed since we landed sixteen days ago. I feel splendid this morning, Sunday—not much like our usual one, though. I absolutely pine for St. John’s, Wagga Wagga, for their singing and for one hour of Canon Joe Pike. Tommy Thornber is with me in this respect. The most profitable hours of my life were undoubtedly spent there....
The Turks around us are very quiet to-day. It is Sunday, so they ought to be.
Empire Day, May 24th.
Peculiar thing—the long-expected armistice arrived to-day, instead of yesterday.... I, being of fair size, was one of the assorted few who were to form the burial party. We set out at 8 a.m., and started carting the Turks to their own lines and handing them over to their friends. To attempt to describe the condition of the bodies, some of them having lain out in the sun for twelve or fourteen days, some of them since they landed a month ago, would be futile....
A line of flags was drawn equidistant from both lines, and each party of men kept between their line and the centre line of flags. As this line of flags was made up by one Turk and one Australian alternatively, we had a good view of live Turks. In point of physique they are not our superiors, as I imagined, but of a stock top-heavy—all-chest-and-no-legs sort of build; dark almost to blackness, with such a variety of casts of feature that they cannot be said to possess a distinctive one.
The officers are undoubtedly German—that is, the principal; and a scowling, evil-looking lot they are, though some of them attempted to ingratiate themselves with our boys by offering cigarettes and so on. The body-carting finished about one o’clock, and such work as exchanging ... equipment has been going on.