deserves a little more description than is given by the diary. The
process of catching Turks fascinated the Australians, and amongst them
an R.A.M.C. doctor who came round on that occasion. This officer prided
himself upon neatness and a smart appearance, when the dust and heat
of the Dardanelles had turned every one else into scallywags. After he
had attended to the first wounded man, he pointed out the second Turk
lying between our trenches and the Turks’ and only a few yards from
either. “You go out again, sir,” said the Australians; “it’s as good
as a show.” I, however, took another view. I called out to the Turk:
“Do you want any water?” “By God,” he whispered back, “I do, but I am
afraid of my people.” We then threw him a rope and pulled him in. He
told us that the night before he had lost direction in the attack. Fire
seemed to be coming every way, and it had seemed to him the best plan
to fall and lie still amongst his dead comrades. The doctor gave him
some water, with which he rinsed his mouth, and I left him under the
charge of the R.A.M.C. doctor. This is what happened subsequently. They
had to crawl back through the secret sap, from which the bodies of the
dead Turks had by that time been removed and left at the entrance. The
Turk was blindfolded, but he was able to see under the handkerchief,
and when he saw his dead comrades, over whose bodies he had to step, he
leapt to the conclusion that it was our habit to bring our prisoners to
one place and there to kill them. He gave one panic-stricken yell; he
threw his arms round the neck of the well-dressed officer; they fell
and rolled upon the corpses together, the Turk in convulsions of fear
clinging to the neck of the doctor, pressing his face to the faces
of the dead till he was covered with blood and dust and the ghastly
remains of death, while the soldiers stood round saying to the Turk:
“Now, don’t you carry on so.”
* * * * *
_Diary._ _Friday, July 2._ _Anzac._ This morning I had a magnificent
bathe with General Birdwood. At night a great storm blew up. The
lightning played in splendid glares over Imbros and Samothrace. The sea
roared, the thunder crashed and rain spouted down. After a time that
stopped and a cloud, black as ink, came down upon us like a pall.
Yesterday mourning met the two Whittalls going to Helles with General
de Lotbiniere and his periscopes.
I went off to the _Sicilia_ to see Jack, and had a lot of trouble about
a pass. I saw Jack. He said they had re-bound his leg on the beach, but
that it had not been looked at for eighteen hours on the boat. It had
swelled to double its size. Then a doctor came and said the bandage had
been done too tight, and there was a chance of his losing his leg. I
felt absolutely savage.... Saw General House,[16] V.C., on shore and
got him to promise to do what he could. We had a bad time going home.
We were slung off the ship in wooden cases. It was very rough indeed,
and when the wooden case hit the flat barge it bounced like anything.
Then we were towed out on this flat barge, open to the great waves and
shrapnel, to a lighter, and left off Anzac for a couple of hours. The
Turks sent a few shells, absent-mindedly. Finally, a trawler brought us
off, very angry.
S. dined, a scholarly fanatic, interesting about the next war, which
he thinks will be with Russia, in fifteen years. A lot of people going
sick.
I saw Cox to-night, who said that this is the worst storm we have had.
We have only one day’s water supply. We could have had as much as we
had wanted, but many of the cans stored on the beach are useless, as
they have had holes knocked in them by the shrapnel. We are not as
abstemious as the Turks, who had been lying for so many hours under the
sun, and shall suffer from thirst badly.
_Saturday, July 3, 1915._ _Anzac._ Macaulay has come as our artillery
officer. I dined with him and H. Woods last night. Yesterday it rained.
Jack’s boat has gone. We are being badly shelled here. I shall have to
change my dugout, if this goes on. The guide Katzangaris has been hit
in the mouth.
_Sunday, July 4._ Saw the Maoris, who had just landed. General
Godley made them a first-class speech. They danced a very fine Haka
with tremendous enthusiasm in his honour when he had finished. They
liked digging their dugouts, and seemed to like it when they came
to human remains.... More people going sick. Doctor F. told me that
he and another doctor had asked to be allowed to help on board the
hospital ships where they have more wounded than they can deal with,
short-handed as they are, but have been refused permission by the
R.A.M.C.
There has been a great explosion at Achi Baba. Macaulay saw a transport
of ours sunk this afternoon.... G. L. came ashore with depressing
accounts of Russia. He is probably going to come on this beach. Hope
he does. Went off and bathed with Macaulay. Saw Colonel Bauchop, who
promised me a present of some fresh drinking-water to-morrow.
_Monday, July 5, 1915._ _Kaba Tepé._ A breathless, panting morning,
still and blue and fiery hot, with not a ripple on the sea. Colonel
Bauchop, commanding the Otago Mounted Rifles, was shot in the shoulder
last night. This morning we have had an exhibition of “frightfulness”
in the shape of vast shells. They burst with a tremendous roar that
echoes to the sky and across the sea for more than a minute. Their case
or bullets fall over the sea in a great area. They started by striking
the sea and raising great columns of water. Now they burst and fall on
land and sea.
It has had the great result of getting rid of Mr. Lock, the Socialist
Czech, from the doorway of my dugout. He was an undergraduate at ----
and afterwards a Labour candidate. Now he is Colonel P.’s cook.
The transport that Macaulay saw go down was French. Six lives lost. The
explosion down south was a French ammunition store. This shelling makes
one’s head ache.
_Tuesday, July 6th._ _Kaba Tepé._ Yesterday I went to Quinn’s Post with
General Godley in the morning. There was a fair amount of shelling.
They had just hit thirteen men in Courtney’s before we got there. We
went into a mine that was being dug towards and under the Turkish
trenches. At the end of the sap the Turks were only six to eight feet
away. We could hear them picking. The time for blowing in had very
nearly come. These underground people take it all as a matter of
course. I should hate fighting on my stomach in a passage two feet
high, yards under the ground. The Turks were throwing bombs from the
trenches, and these hit the ground over us, three of them, making it
shudder. Down below they talk in whispers. We went round the trenches.
Saw none so fine as last time, when we came to the Millionaires’ Sap,
so called because it was made by six Australians, each the son of a
millionaire.
In the afternoon I tried to sleep, but there was too much shelling.
Kyumjiyan was hit, and has gone; S. B. was grazed. It was 11.2 shells
filled with all kinds of stuff. We answered with a monitor whose
terrific percussions shook my dugout, bringing down dust and stones.
A submarine appeared, and all the destroyers were after her. Then
two aeroplanes started a fight as the sun set down towards Helles,
appearing and vanishing behind crimson clouds. Captain Buck, the Maori
doctor and M.P., dined with us, to wind up an exciting day.
This morning is like yesterday. No breath of air, but the day is more
clear, and Samothrace and Imbros look very peaceful. Early again the
shelling began. As I was shaving outside three shells hit the beach
just in front. I wasn’t watching the third, but suddenly heard a great
burst of laughter. At the first shell a bather had rushed back to his
dugout; the shell had come and knocked it in on the top of him, and he
was dug out, naked and black, but smiling and none the worse. “Another
blasted sniper,” he said, which made the men laugh.
Active preparations are being made to fight the gas, as the
Intelligence says it is going to be used. Am going out with the General
at 9.30. Was sent to get Colonel Parker, but found him sick, and under
pretty heavy fire, having a new dugout built. Came back and stood with
the General, Thoms and others outside Headquarters. A shell burst just
by us, bruised the General in the ribs, and filled his eyes with dirt.
Went out with Colonel Anthill and Poles. Talked of arranging a truce
to bury the Turkish dead on our parapet. They said that otherwise our
men must get cholera; the heat and sand and flies and smell is awful.
We met Colonel Bauchop with his arm in a sling, but the bullet out
of his shoulder, and Colonel White with his head still bandaged. The
Australians very cheerful.
_Wednesday, July 7, 1915._ _Kaba Tepé._ A fierce, expectant dawn. We
shelled furiously at 4.30 a.m. Now absolute peace on a glassy sea.
Last night Bentinck, Jack Anderson and I bathed. I was at the end of
the pier; as I was beginning to dress a shell burst very close, the
smoke and powder in my face. I fled half dressed; Colonel P. rose like
Venus from the sea and followed with nothing. A calm marine gave me my
cigarette-holder.
One of the prisoners reported that on the occasion of the armistice
Turkish Staff officers had put on Red Crescent clothes in order to have
a look at our trenches.... No news of Jack.
The Turks put up five crosses yesterday, all of which we shot down.
I first thought it was probably Greeks or Armenians who wanted to
show they were Christians, wishing to surrender, and telephoned to
Courtney’s to see if I could get into touch with them, but now I think
it’s probably Turks who were anxious to make us shoot at the sign of
our own religion. In this they succeeded.
Colonel Johnson, Commanding the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, gone
sick. I persuaded the mess to get inoculated for cholera. Last night I
dined with Woods and Macaulay. They told Eastern stories, and we had a
very contented time, drinking mavrodaphne and looking at the sea.
The Turks shelled a little after eight, in answer to our tiresome
provocative monitor fire. This morning Tahu arrived from Egypt with
letters. The Turks are bombing something cruel from Kaba Tepé.... It’s
a beautiful sight--a sea like lapis-lazuli and a burning sun, with
columns of water like geysers where the shells hit. A good many men hit
here to-day.
_Saturday, July 10, 1915._ _Kaba Tepé._ I went with General Godley
to the _Triad_, and dined with Admiral de Robeck. Took the General’s
things to put them on board the picket-boat, but as I got there a
shell struck her and knocked a hole in her. There was another one,
and we sat and waited uncomfortably in this till he came.... Found
Alec Ramsay on board. Slept in Commodore Roger Keyes’ cabin. Very
comfortable. He was very kind. Went to G.H.Q. and had lunch with L. and
Bob Graves.
_Sunday, July 11th._ Felt much better. Went ashore and saw Colonel
Hawker and the Turkish prisoners.... Came back late at night, after
some very jolly days. Best week-end I ever spent. The Turks have asked
for another armistice in the south. This has been refused. If they
attack, they will have to do it across their dead, piled high, and this
is not good for morale.
* * * * *
By this time the persecutions of the interpreters had greatly
diminished. They were still badly treated by a man called Ot, but to a
large extent they had won the respect of the troops by their behaviour.
The chief interpreter was an old Greek of some sixty-two or sixty-three
years, Mr. Kyriakidis, who was given a medal for conspicuous gallantry
at the bombardment of Alexandria and had served with General Stuart’s
unfortunate expedition. He was a gentleman, and one of the straightest
men I have met. His simplicity, courtesy and unfailing courage had
gained him many friends. He was also endowed with considerable humour.
A relation had sent me a gas mask, at that time a rarity at Anzac. I
did not believe that I should need it, and made a present of it to
the first man I met, who happened to be Mr. Kyriakidis. He went down
and played poker with the other interpreters on the beach. He put
on my respirator as a poker mask, with much swagger. This put the
fear of death into the interpreters, who sent a deputation to G.H.Q.
Intelligence, insisting that they should also be provided with masks.
* * * * *
_Monday, July 12, 1915._ _Kaba Tepé._ By the way, an unhappy shadow was
shot yesterday, an interpreter of whom we none of us knew anything,
and who was on no list. Things are not very comfortable. The fire is
increasingly heavy. All the air is full of thudding and broken echoes.
No one minds anything much, but high explosive.... The hospitals are
being moved. They had too many casualties where they were before.
_Tuesday, July 13th._ _Kaba Tepé._ Tremendous fire round Achi Baba
yesterday. French advanced 150 and we 200 yards. Don’t know what the
losses were. I went with Macaulay and Woods to No. 3 Post, to Bauchop’s
Fountain. They can snipe there very close, and killed a man a couple
of days ago, two yards off under the olives, and wounded his mate,
who crawled back into the sandy way. On both sides there is tall wild
lavender and what M. calls pig’s parsley.
We crawled down a sandy path to the sea, M. rather sick. Met the
General going back, who told us not to bathe. In the evening Tahu got
out his gramophone and we had some good songs when the shooting was not
too much.
Ramadan began to-day. George Lloyd arrived this afternoon and said they
wanted to send me to Tenedos for a special job.
Yesterday evening General Godley went to Courtney’s Post. As he got
there the Turks shelled with heavy stuff, killing and wounding about
twenty men. Reynell came to see me. I like him very much indeed.
* * * * *
_Diary. Sunday, July 18, 1915. Kaba Tepé._ They are now shelling the
pier, and killed a doctor, cutting off both his legs, and several other
people, when I was bathing from the pier. Everybody is again going
sick. The situation is changing. Every night we are landing guns. The
moon is young now and growing. It seems, therefore, reasonable to
expect that we cannot land forces of men that take time before the
nights are moonless; that is, in about a month’s time the preparations
ought to be ready.
A few days ago we had an attack on Achi Baba, won about 400 yards and
lost about 5,000 men. Two battalions got out of touch and were lost for
a considerable time. The “Imbros Journal,” “Dardanelles Driveller,” or
whatever it’s called, said “their return was as surprising as that of
Jonah from the belly of the whale.” Good, happy author!
A German Taube over us throwing bombs and also heavy stuff, but not
much damage lately. George Lloyd[17] was here this afternoon, and while
we talked a shell burst and hit four men.
_Monday, July 19, 1915._ _Kaba Tepé._ My dugout has now become a centre
for Australian and New Zealand officers, all good fellows. I had it
made small on purpose, so that no one would offer to share it with me,
and that makes it less convenient for the crowd that now sit in it. Two
old friends come when the day’s work is over, and grow sentimental by
moonlight; both ill and, I am afraid, getting worse. All the talk is
now about gassing. It is thought that they will do it to us here. As
usual, new troops are reported to be coming against us.
_Tuesday, July 20, 1915._ _Kaba Tepé._ There is always something fresh
here. Now a lot of sharks are supposed to have come in. During the last
two days there has been absolute silence, no shelling at all, nothing
but the sound of crickets and at night a singsong chorus as the men
drag up the great tanks prepared for water. S. B. yesterday worked out
a theory to prove that the Turks were to attack us last night. (1)
No gunfire yesterday; the reason being they (the Turks) were moving
troops. They didn’t want us to fire at their troops, therefore didn’t
draw fire by shooting at us. (2) Ulemas have come down. There must be a
special reason for this. (3) 10,000 coming up. Gas being prepared. All
this means an attack on Anzac. To wipe us out would be a great feather
in their cap. I am inclined to doubt another great attack.... Tempers
all a bit ruffled. General Birdwood is sick. The heat is fierce and the
stillness absolute. This afternoon I heard from Dedez, who asked me to
go to Tenedos for a time....
_Wednesday, July 21, 1915._ _Kaba Tepé._ There is something uncanny
about this calm. No shots at all. News that the Italian Ambassador at
Constantinople has gone nap. We have had very little news of Italy....
I wonder if the Turks are likely to attack on the eve of Constitution
Day.
_Saturday, July 24, 1915._ _Imbros._ On Wednesday I went over to G.H.Q.
and met old friends among the war correspondents. Met some of the New
Zealanders who had come over for a rest, but were coming back for the
expected attack. Meanwhile, they had been kept on fatigue most of the
time, and were unutterably weary. At Imbros I was ordered to go to
Tenedos and Mytilene.
_Thursday, July 22nd._ Came back to Anzac in the same boat with Ashmead
Bartlett and Nevinson,[18] and got leave to take them round in the
afternoon.
* * * * *
Later on, during one of the worst days of the Suvla fighting, I met my
friend Nevinson picking his way amongst the wounded on their stretchers
under fire. “After this,” he said, decisively, “I shall confine myself
strictly to revolutions.”
* * * * *
_Diary._ _July 23rd._ Started for Imbros and went in the _Bacchante_
pinnace, which was leaking badly from a shell hole. There were six of
us on deck, and one man was hit when we were about a hundred yards out.
We put back and left him on shore.
_Saturday, July 24th._ _Imbros._ Went for a ride on a mule, and had a
bathe.
* * * * *
At this point in the campaign, though the morale was excellent,
depression began to grow. There was a great deal of sickness, from
which practically no one escaped, though it was less virulent in its
form than later in the summer. I had been ill for some time, and was
very anxious to avoid being invalided to Egypt, and was grateful for
the chance of going to the islands for a change of climate and light
work, for the few days that were sufficient to give another lease of
health.
The feeling that invades almost every side-show, sooner or later,
that the home authorities cared nothing and knew nothing about the
Dardanelles, was abroad. The policy and the strategy of the expedition
were bitterly criticized. I remember a friend of mine saying to me:
“All this expedition is like one of Walter Scott’s novels, upside
down.” Walter Scott generally put his hero at the top of a winding
stair, where he comfortably disposed, one by one, of a hundred of his
enemies. “Now,” he said, “what we have done was, first of all to warn
the Turks that we were going to attack by having a naval bombardment.
That made them fortify the Dardanelles, but still they were not
completely ready. We then send a small force to attack, to tell them
that we really are in earnest, and to ask them if they are quite ready.
In fact, we have put the man who ought to be, not the hero, but the
villain of the piece, at the top of the corkscrew stair, and we have
given him so much notice that when the hero attacks the villain has
more men at the top of the circular stair than the hero has at the
bottom. It’s like throwing pebbles at a stone wall,” he said, mixing
his metaphors.
* * * * *
_Diary._ _Sunday, July 25, 1915._ _On the Sea._ I left for Tenedos; a
most beautiful day. We have just been to Anzac, very burnt and wounded
amongst the surrounding greenery. Pretty peaceful there, only a few
bullets coming over.
* * * * *
Perhaps the record of a sojourn in the Greek Islands on what was really
sick-leave, as the work was of the lightest, should not be included in
a war diary, but the writer looks back with amusement and pleasure to
days that were not uneventful. They were passed with friends who were
playing a difficult and most arduous part, and whose services, in many
cases, have not received the recognition that was their due.
It was pleasant once again to be lord of the horizon, to have space
through which to roam, and lovely hills and valleys to ride across in
the careless, scented air of the Mediterranean summer, with the sea
shining a peacock-blue through the pines. It is this space and liberty
that men cramped in a siege desire, more than the freedom from the
shelling of the enemy’s guns. There was much, too, that was _opéra
bouffe_ in the Islands, that made a not unpleasant contrast to the
general life at Anzac.
If there was spy mania on the Peninsula, it was multiplied tenfold,
and quite reasonably, on the Islands, where part of the population
were strongly pro-Ally, another part pro-German, while others were
anti-British by an accidental kind of ricochet. These were the royalist
followers of King Constantine, who hated Venizelos, and consequently
the friends of Venizelos, Great Britain and France.
The situation on the Islands was one with which it was extremely hard
to cope. We were very anxious to safeguard the lives of our men, and
to prevent information going to the enemy, and, at the same time, not
to pursue German methods. It was unceasing work, with a great strain
of responsibility. There was an inevitable _va et vient_ between the
Peninsula and Imbros. From Imbros boats could slip across to Tenedos,
Mytilene or the mainland. The native caïques would drop in at evening,
report, be ordered to stay till further notice, and would drift away
like ghosts in the night. Men, and women, performed remarkable feats,
in appearing and disappearing. They were like pictures on a film in
their coming and their going. Watchers and watched, they thrust and
parried, discovered and concealed, glowed on the picture and darkened.
Anatasio, a Serbian by birth, was one of our workers, conspicuous for
his quickness and intelligence. At the outbreak of the war he had
already been five months in an Austrian prison at Cattaro, but the
prospect of battle stimulated his faculties, and he escaped. One day at
luncheon I asked him where it was that he had learned Italian, which
he did not talk very well. “While I was in prison at Smyrna,” said he.
“What for?” said I. “For stabbing a Cretan,” said he, and added that
he would rather be five years in prison in Turkey than one in Austria.
Then there was Avani, one of the most vivid personalities that I have
ever met. He was a poet and a clairvoyant, a mesmerist and a masseur,
a specialist in rheumatism and the science of detection, once a member
of General Chermside’s gendarmerie in Crete, and ex-chief of the Smyrna
fire brigade. The stories of him are too many, and too flamboyant, to
tell.
* * * * *
_Diary._ Avani mesmerized the wife of the Armenian dragoman.
Unfortunately it went wrong. Her obedience to his volition was delayed
and she only obeyed his commands in the wrong company some hours after.
* * * * *
He had given proof of rare courage, and also considerable indiscretion.
On one occasion, armed to the teeth, he burst into a perfectly innocent
house at night, and, revolver in hand, hunted a terrified inhabitant.
His only evidence against this man was, that when he had been caught
and hurled to the ground and sat upon, his heart had beaten very fast,
which would not happen, insisted Avani, if he had not been guilty of
some crime.
Amongst our opponents were the romantic but sinister Vassilaki family,
two brothers and three lovely sisters. Talk about them in the Islands
was almost as incessant as was talk about shelling on the Peninsula.
* * * * *
_Diary._ _Monday, July 26, 1915._ _Tenedos._ Yesterday I was very ill,
and again to-day, but was injected with something or other and feel
better, but weak. Tried to sleep yesterday, but one of our monitors at
Rabbit Island bombarded hugely, shaking the bugs down on me. This place
is clean, but there are bugs and some lice. Last night I dined with the
Governor, Colonel Mullins, and a jolly French doctor, and Thompson, who
has fallen ill. Am carrying on for him at the moment.
_Tuesday, July 27, 1915._ _Tenedos._ Went to the trenches at Tenedos.
They face the enemy. That is the most military thing about them.
Thompson went out to see the inhabitants. I was going with him, but
felt worse and went to rest. The Turks here are in a very bad way. We
do not allow them to work. It’s inevitable. They mayn’t fish or work at
the aerodrome.
_Wednesday, July 28, 1915._ _Tenedos._ Interpreted for the Governor
of Tenedos, who, like Jupiter, rules with might, in the afternoon. In
the evening I saw the Mufti, who had a list of starving, widows and
indigent.... Last night the Cretan soldiers started ragging the Turks
and singing, till I stopped them. They were quite good.
Still ill, but better. Had a beautiful walk in the evening, and a long
talk with the Greek refugees working in the vines by the edge of the
sea. The old patriarch addressed me all the time as “chorbaji”--that
is, Possessor of the Soup, the Headman of the village.