Turks busy with shrapnel. Go up to Brigade H.Q. with Horne. While up
there, Turks shell beaches. Suddenly they open fire with two guns
and shower of 5·9 shrapnel along the new second-line trenches which
we have just passed. We have not had this 5·9 shrapnel since October
27th. About forty shells come over in rapid succession, two at a time.
I hope they do not pepper the beaches with them. The ground is still
damp after the flood. We are warned to expect many of these floods and
blizzards. We pass General Byng and Staff while up at Brigade. General
Cayley still as cheery as ever. Everybody busy repairing damaged
dugouts. Work of evacuation proceeding very well. I wonder if John Turk
can see. We have the advantage of the piers and beaches being under
cover.
_December 3rd._
We now hear a rumour that we are not evacuating at all, and that
only the 29th are going, but I do not believe this. We learn this
rumour from Sergeant Jones, of Jones’s water dump. Every day rumours
are circulated from Sergeant Jones’s dugout on “A” Beach. All day
officers and men who pass call in here and say, “Good-morning [or
good-evening], Jones; what is the latest rumour?” They are invited to
sit down while Jones tells the latest and best that he had heard from
all sources—trenches, Navy, and beaches. I have seen at one time in
Jones’s dugout a Brigadier, Major, and two Captains and a corporal all
sitting round the oil-stove fire while Sergeant Jones, at his table,
is eating his supper. As an officer comes in, Jones stands up, saying,
“Good-evening, sir; what can I do for you?” If it is water required,
then that worry has to be settled; if it is an ordinary call at this
half-way house, then the officer is invited to sit down by the fire,
Jones adding, if he should be at supper, “You will excuse me going on
with my supper, won’t you, sir?” One night he said to me, “May I press
you to a plate of porridge, sir?” We do not look upon him as a soldier
or an N.C.O. It is difficult to describe how we regard him.
He is popular with everybody, and all officers, after a while, fall
into the same manner of dealing and talking with him. Personally, I
feel my relations with him are as they would be to the landlord of a
familiar roadside inn. “A” Beach now being deserted, all and sundry,
with the exception of Jones, being shelled out, Jones has to remain
there, for this beach is the only possible place for a water dump.
Dugout and dump remind me of a lonely roadside inn where I call on my
journeys between the beaches and the line. He gets shelled now and
again, and has had some remarkably lucky escapes. Men have been killed
right and left of him. But most of the drawing of the water is done
under the cover of the night. Happily, for our Division the water
question has been nearly solved by our Engineers finding wells behind
our part of the line, although we still have to draw water by cart from
Jones to augment the supply from the forward wells. Other Divisions,
however, are not so fortunate. They continue to nightly draw water from
Jones for the troops in the line and reserve nullahs by all kinds of
receptacles, and cart it up on A.T. carts.
Scotch mist and drizzly rain all day. Hardly any shelling on our front
or on part of Turks. More drafts for 29th Division arrive. We are now
making a rest camp in one of the nullahs, where men can change their
clothes in case the weather gets bad again.
_December 4th._
A very calm day, cold, cloudy, and dull. All last night there was
quite a lot of rifle fire and bombing. Starting at daybreak, Turks
get very busy with shrapnel, of which they appear to have plenty. At
midday they are bombarding our position very energetically. We reply,
and the battleships join in. In the afternoon our neighbourhood is
shelled with these new high explosive shells, one shell dropping in our
Supply depot; but no one is hurt. Dusk, and all is quiet. A relief.
Poign Destre leaves Peninsula. Lucky devil! We have shipped off to-day
a lot of base kits, surplus baggage, ordnance stores, and even food
supplies, by means of the A.T. carts and on the tramway running in the
sunken trench. A.T. carts returning empty from the trenches have been
bringing large quantity of surplus kit and stores away during the last
few nights. Under the cover of the protecting mounds of earth they have
been off-loaded on to lighters, which with no attempt to disguise their
intentions have been towed out to supply ships, making fast on the side
away from the enemy, their cargo being loaded by the ships’ derricks
into the various holds. Very little of this work has been done so far,
but it is obvious to all that we are evacuating in the near future. I
can’t describe our feelings. Up to a short time ago stores were being
busily unloaded day and night, and now the reverse is happening. It is
as if a High Commander had suddenly shouted the order, “As you were.”
_December 5th._
Heavy gunning all day by both sides—very heavy and continuous. From
twelve to one the Turks give us a general bombardment, and we get our
share in our little camp. Men’s cookhouse wrecked, but no one hurt;
the cook happens to be at the depot a hundred yards down the gully
drawing rations. It is evident that the Turks are now getting regular
supplies of ammunition, probably direct from Germany. We are looking
to Russia. If only she can come through Rumania and attack Bulgaria in
the rear and cut off Turkey, Turkey is finished. We get rumours that
she is through, and are rather looking towards her as a besieged city
looks towards its deliverers. Snipers busy just now, on account of the
exposed position of our washed-out trenches. Fresh drafts arrive for
the 29th. Is it to be an evacuation for all, or is the 29th only going.
If so, why do drafts arrive for the 29th?
_December 6th._
A very beautiful day. Turks busy shelling us. We reply energetically.
One continued roar of guns all day. Our beaches shelled midday and
late afternoon. But very few casualties, the mounds of earth affording
excellent cover, and all shells are high explosive, no shrapnel.
Trenches are still in muddy state in low land. At night we shell their
positions.
_December 7th._
A very beautiful, cool day, but it is getting colder. Turks start
shelling us early. Their shells are much improved and are evidently
new. Horne and I start off to Brigade H.Q. after lunch, walking up our
gully. We pass a boxing match in full swing. I do not think that the
men know anything of the evacuation. I hear unofficially that it has
been postponed indefinitely. Perhaps it is off altogether. We appear
to be getting through the winter so well, that perhaps it might be as
well to stick these storms and not give up this job of forcing the
Dardanelles, which if successful would mean so much to the cause of the
Allies. As we near the top of the gully, we hear the boom of a gun,
coming from the direction in which we are walking. It is the first time
that a shell for the beach has come from this direction. By its sound
I know instinctively that the beastly thing is coming down very near
us. I shout to Horne, “Drop flat!” and both of us fall beside a prickly
gorse-bush as the thing bursts with a deafening explosion on the high
ground on our right. We get to our feet and look back at the boxing
match, and cannot help being amused at the way the Tommies have quickly
cleared or lain down, with the instinct of “veterans of the beaches.”
The combatants in the ring, who have paused, resume their match. The
crowd again collects, continually being added to by a stream of men
coming over the skyline from the next gully. This should draw Turkey’s
fire; and sure enough it does, for as we reach the hill at the top of
the gully we hear another coming. We duck behind a boulder as it passes
over our heads and bursts twenty yards our side of the boxing ring.
This clears the crowd and ends the match for the day. The Turks cannot
see the gully, but know that men are collecting there by the procession
of them streaming over the skyline of the promontory. As we walk on
towards the 88th Field Ambulance, about four more shells scream over
the hill to the gully, which by this time is deserted; and as we sit in
the ambulance waiting for a friend who is walking up with us to Brigade
H.Q., the Turks increase their range and send a few nice fat, juicy
ones over to the beaches.
Leaving the ambulance, we walk down the slope to the Gibraltar road and
meet Grant, our G.S.O.3, who has just come back from the trenches. He
is in shorts, caked with mud up to his knees and thickly bespattered
over the rest of his body, which gives evidence of the present state
of the trenches, even though it is over ten days since the storm. He
tells us that in fifteen minutes we are going to open fire with all
guns on to the unfortunate Pimple. We continue our way up the Gibraltar
road, when at four o’clock precisely the ships’ guns—with a roar that
makes me jump, for I am again walking in a direct line from which
they are firing—fire, and the great shells screaming overhead can be
seen bursting with great violence on the insignificant geographical
formation. Almost at once all shore batteries pour shells in rapid
succession on to the small target of the Pimple, which disappears from
sight under a great cloud of drifting dust and smoke of all colours.
Arriving at Brigade H.Q., we find McLaughlin on the roof of his dugout
looking at the show through glasses, and we join him. As is always
the case when John Turk is being bombarded, the bullets become free
and frequent, and “overs” begin to fly about us. We have tea with
McLaughlin and sit around the nice brick open hearth, in which a log
fire is burning, and chat. The General and Brigade Major are up at
Gun Hill observing the show. Heavy gunning is heard in the south all
the afternoon; at night the Turk sends a shell over our way at odd
intervals, but in our gully we are practically safe, for his targets
are usually the beaches.
_December 9th._
Yes; the evacuation of Suvla is now a reality. I hear to-day that
we have now begun the intermediate stage of the evacuation. It has
been a reality for some days. The storm only delayed it. We have
just completed the preliminary stage. We hear that it will be but
a few days now when not a British subject will be left alive here
unless as a prisoner. The shelling to-day is in fits and starts. High
explosive shells are searching the beach, bursting well and with a
louder explosion than in past days. But West Beach is well protected,
and the steady shipment of vehicles and ordnance goes on all day. At
night, empty ration carts go up to the line to bring back men’s surplus
kits, blankets, surplus ammunition, and the surplus part of the usual
accumulation of baggage that a regiment takes with it to the trenches
and to dumps just behind.
Horne, Elphinstone, Hunt, and I are on the beach all night, taking
shifts in superintending the unloading of the carts as they arrive back
full. They come back in a steady stream. The carts that have taken up
rations, stores, special ammunition, such as bombs, etc., earlier in
the evening, all return loaded with kits. We have a few men to help us,
but hardly enough, and we therefore work ourselves to keep warm. It is
a monotonous job. The Drabis appear fed-up, and we have to watch them
carefully to see that they do not slope off with their loaded carts
to their lines. Kipling once said “East is East and West is West, and
never the twain shall meet.” Is this correct? I wonder. For our Tommies
seem to work amicably with the Drabis. The white transport corporal,
who is with us marshalling the transport, on receiving an order from
me, shouts out into the darkness of the beach to the Indian jemadar,
“Mahommed Hussan!” A voice answers back with a drawl, “Hullo”; my
corporal shouts back, “Wait ’arf a mo, will yer?” and the voice answers
“A-all ri-ight.” East—and West.
All night, lighters are being loaded up and towed out to the ships.
Last A.T. carts unloaded at 5 a.m. We turn in at 5.30 a.m., ready for
sleep.
_December 10th._
A fine, cool day. Usual shelling with “hot-stuff” shells. Evacuation of
stores going on apace. I think the 29th is to be the last off. Medical
comforts in the way of champagne, port, brandy, and whisky are now
going cheap, and I send them round to all the battalion messes, the two
Brigades, and Divisional H.Q. They are not troubling to evacuate this
stuff, and I am trying to get a full share for the 29th. Personally, I
should like to give them champagne dinners every night, after what they
have been through. No food being landed now, except a little bread and
fresh meat. Instead of that, the reserve at the depot is being steadily
reduced.
_December 11th._
Last night work went steadily on—the loading up of lighters and the
towing of these to ships, where the derricks, rattling away feverishly,
emptied them. A surprisingly large quantity of all kinds of material
has been evacuated, yet the beaches and the life thereon appear
unchanged. All tentage and camps are to be left standing, and up to the
last day as much transport as possible will move about on the top of
the promontory. To-night the 89th Field Ambulance has left, together
with some men on light duty. Also a large number of men from the 11th
and 13th Divisions.
_December 12th._
Nothing of much account to-day. Everybody hard at work, dismantling
and getting away all impedimenta. It can readily be realized what
a vast amount of all kinds and conditions of stores and equipment
this impedimenta represents for an army of 60,000 men who have been
stationary on a small bit of land for over four months. The work goes
on, punctuated at intervals by a few shells from the enemy’s batteries;
but it is quite normal shelling, and I feel sure the Turks know
nothing. They can see nothing. The Staff work is excellent. The beach
each day appears unchanged. Many troops, beach details, etc., move off.
_December 13th._
A cold south wind is blowing and makes us all very anxious. Is it
going to develop into another storm which will upset all our well-laid
plans and so place us at the mercy of the Turk? These are anxious
days. We are now issuing rations from the forward reserve stock in the
C.R.E. nullah nightly, and our dump on the beach is now clear. Medical
comforts are liberal, and also milk, which the troops appreciate, but
bread and meat are issued only in very small quantities. The rations
at Hill 10 are untouched, remaining there to be issued should we have
to hold the second line of trenches, which are now complete. Work is
being carried on feverishly for completing the third line. All work
on the low ground has to be done at night, but on the high ground,
where nullahs and dips in the ground afford cover, work goes on by day
and night. Meeting-places have been arranged, where the troops will
concentrate before proceeding to the beaches on the night that they
have orders to evacuate. They are termed “posts,” and are lettered
“W,” “Y,” “Z,” etc., the letters showing illuminated through a dark
background. Of course, all such posts are placed in positions which
are under cover. Each unit is to be guided to the post allotted to
it, there to await orders, which will be telephoned up to the post
from the piers. An officer of the Evacuation Staff will wait at the
post telephone for the message from the beach, after marshalling and
checking the troops on arrival there.
I see Brigade H.Q. each night now, when I am up at the C.R.E. dump
issuing the daily rations. Their H.Q. are now in the same H.Q. as the
C.R.E. had. Next door is the Brigade H.Q. of a Brigade of artillery,
the guns of which are in position near by in front, just behind and
round about. While there, an officer told me that if necessary his guns
will be putting up a curtain of fire over the Turks should they attempt
to follow on after our troops have evacuated the first line. Their
guns are being left in position for this purpose, and will be rendered
useless after the infantry have passed back. Two medical officers and
about twenty R.A.M.C. men have been detailed to remain at the casualty
clearing station after all troops have left on the last night. Their
duty is to attend to any wounded who may have to be left to fall into
the hands of the Turk, they of course giving themselves up as prisoners.
If it is at all possible, pinnaces from one of the battleships will be
ready to take them off, provided there are no wounded. Their tents are
being lined with sand-bags as protection against bullets. The Turk will
not shell them.
_December 14th._
The time gets nearer, yet the aspect of the beaches does not change.
Shelling is about the same, but getting rather bad, at odd, but
fortunately rare, intervals. The days are now lettered, but the letter
of each day is secret to all but a very few. All we know is that when
the last night does arrive it will be “Z” night. I have a shrewd idea
that to-day is either “W” or “V” day, so that the time is near. It will
be hard luck if I collide with a shell now, after dodging them all
these months. What of the schemes for evacuating the first line when
all those in rear are clear away? The line for the last few nights will
be very thinly held by us.
The second and third lines are thickly wired with barbed wire in front,
which stands in fences 8 feet high. At intervals there are passages
through these fences to allow us to pass through on our way to and
from the line. On the last night these passages will be closed, and
the only way to get through will be by barbed wire gates across the
few roads. Officers will be on duty at these gates, and they will
have fixed thereon telephonic communication to the beaches. The final
evacuation of the front line will be carried out as is the present
daily evacuation of troops, keeping to a strict programme. The officer
in charge of the last party down a certain road will report his unit
and name to the officer in charge of the gate. This will be checked
by the list which the officer will have with him of the last parties
down, and if correct the officer, who will then know that the last
troops have passed through, will telephone this information to the
beach, close and bar the gate, and proceed with the party to the next
line and himself report to the officer at that gate, where the same
procedure will follow. And so on to the beaches, the only way to which
is by the roads. After the last parties have passed through the last
line, then those on the beaches will know that all have passed safely
through, and that there are three lines of trenches thickly protected
by barbed wire between the beaches and the enemy. The last parties to
leave will be hurried on board the waiting destroyers, trawlers, and
ships; the skeleton framework of the Supply depot, the remaining stores
which have been unavoidably left, will be set ablaze by the igniting of
petrol-sodden hay. The remaining officers will make a bolt for the few
remaining pinnaces. That is the scheme.
The British population of Suvla daily dwindles away, unbeknown to
the ignorant Turk. Ammunition and ordnance and all manner and kind
of stores and equipment are daily disappearing into the holds of the
waiting ships. These ships are not more numerous than the ships which
have lain in the bay in the safety of the boom since August 6th, so
that from their presence our plot is not given away. To the enemy
our daily life appears the same, and he gives us our daily ration of
shells—now of good quality and effective—and no doubt is laughing at
us, with the memory of the recent awful storm and the coming blizzards
of a rigorous winter. If all goes well, if the well-laid schemes of
our G.S. “gang not agley,” and no bloody rearguard action is forced
upon us, it will be our turn to laugh in a few days. To-night the wind
has changed to the north-west; we may hoodwink the Turks, but not
the mighty elements, and we pray that they will be our allies in our
task. If our enemies, then we must give ourselves up in unconditional
surrender, hoping for no mercy.
Carver has just arrived from Helles on a mission quite apart from
the scheme of evacuation. To our surprise he is unaware that we are
evacuating, and tells us that all at Helles are also ignorant of the
coming event. No preparation of any kind is being made to evacuate
Helles. He leaves again to-night, back for Helles. The 86th Brigade and
part of D.H.Q. are now moving off. I go to “Y” forming-up post, just at
the foot of our gully, and view the scenes there. The beaches have been
shelled this afternoon. If they but drop a few over this evening they
cannot fail to claim many victims. Shadowy figures march up in perfect
order and form up. Roll-calls are made, sharp commands issued: “Stand
at ease!” “Stand easy!” whereupon the figures talk, lean on their
rifles, or lie down resting on the ground.
Elphinstone is going off with his Brigade, as he is their Supply
Officer. I make him up a box of the plentiful medical comforts,
including a few bottles of champagne for his Brigade H.Q. to feast on
while on board. I say good-bye to many friends in the Brigade, as the
order to move down is telephoned up from West Beach to the officer at
the receiver attached to “Y” post. Troops are called to attention, and
in two deep they march down towards the beach, entering the safety of
the trench that has been dug there, pass in safety behind the mounds
of earth and the small, rocky promontory, and file along the pier in
single file up a gangway on to a small paddle-steamer, which sails out
to the bay to the waiting ship. I listen to the chatter of the Dublin
Fusiliers, to their philosophical comments on the situation, and feel
glad for them that they are seeing the last of this damnable campaign.
One of them has heard “on good authority,” and tells his friend, “that
they are bound for Aldershot.” I leave them and walk back. No shells
come over. Inland I hear the steady crack, crack, crack of the rifles.
I turn into bed. Our Brigade, the old 88th, alone of the Division is
left in the line.
_December 15th._
The wind is cold and blowing steadily from the north-east, yet the sea
is not too rough for the getting off of stores. Lord Howard de Walden
and General Percival, the Brigadier of the 86th Brigade, which embarked
last night, are now on the beach as part of the regulating Staff of the
evacuation programme. This Staff, controlled by General Fanshawe, is
almost as efficient as could be, with the result that the last stage of
the evacuation is working like clockwork. Every man is accounted for.
_No_ man can leave before his time, _no_ man should be left behind.
Commander Unwin, who gained the V.C. at the landing of April 25th for
gallantry on “V” Beach, is in charge of conveyance of stores, animals,
and men from the beaches to the ships, and night and day he is on duty
on the piers. He stands over 6 feet and is broad in proportion, with
the typical clean-shaven face of a sailor, and with a voice that roars
orders through a megaphone, causing those who are ordered to jump about
a good deal quicker on their jobs than they probably would do otherwise.
I go down on the beach with a Staff officer this morning after a few
“Good-morning” shells have crashed on the beach roads and on the mounds
of earth, and we call at the embarkation office, in a sand-bagged
house, dug and built in the cover of a rock. There we find a few of the
Staff hard at work. The weather has been kind, and we are up to time
with the programme. We talk to two Yeomanry officers who are on the
Evacuation Staff. Everything is working perfectly, and I feel confident
that we shall succeed in evacuating long before the Turk discovers our
absence. Ships, when loaded full with supplies and passengers, proceed
to Mudros Harbour, where they are unloaded quickly, coming back the
following night. No ships pass to and fro between here and Lemnos
during the day, so that every morning that the Turk wakes up he notices
no extra ships lying anchored or the absence of the ships departed.
The view of the shipping lying in the bay inside the boom appears
unchanged, as is the case of the beaches day by day.