several men with sunstroke coming in. I saw George Hutton, Royal Welsh
Fusiliers, who has become a Colonel. He had a hand-to-hand bayonet
tussle with a Turk, in the last fight. Another man came up, and killed
the Turk with his bayonet. Then, he said, the man, instead of pulling
his bayonet out, dashed to another man and asked him for his bayonet,
saying: “I have left mine in the Turk.”
* * * * *
The battle-cries, by the way, were for the Turks the sonorous,
deep-voiced “Allah, Allah,” and “Voor” (“God, God,” “Strike”); while
the New Zealanders used often to shout: “Eggs is cooked.” This
apparently irrelevant, unwarlike slogan had its origin in Egypt. There,
on field days in the desert, when the men halted to rest, Egyptians
would appear magically with primitive kitchens and the cry of “Eggs is
cooked!”
* * * * *
_Diary._ _Monday, August 16, 1915._ _No. 3 Outpost._ Christo will spit
on my razor-strop; otherwise he is a good servant.... Bathed with
Charlie B. yesterday afternoon.... I don’t think we want Roumania in.
If she has no ammunition and takes a very bad knock from Germany, it
would give Germany a very strong strategic position. The Turks who have
come in do not really seem very disheartened.
* * * * *
At about this time the Expeditionary Force entered upon a new phase.
The agony of the struggle had passed its crisis. Both sides sat
down grimly, to wait for the winter. In many ways our position had
distinctly improved. There was more room, and space banished the
sense of imprisonment that had afflicted us. The country was not as
battle-scarred as Anzac, and walking over the heights at sunset was a
feast of loveliness.
We moved our Headquarters again, and I went up to a large dugout in
what had been a Turkish fort. The troops quartered in this fort were an
Indian Field Battery and sixty-three New Zealanders, all that was left
of their battalion. These men had been in the first landing. They had,
every one of them, had dysentery or fever, and the great majority were
still sick and over-ripe for hospital.
As time went on, and illness increased, one often heard men and
officers say: “If we can’t hold the trenches with sound men, we have
got to hold them with sick men.” When all was quiet, the sick-list
grew daily. But when the men knew that there was to be an attack,
they fought their sickness, to fight the Turk, and the stream to the
hospitals shrank.
I admired nothing in the war more than the spirit of these sixty-three
New Zealanders, who were soon to go to their last fight. When the day’s
work was over, and the sunset swept the sea, we used to lean upon the
parapet and look up to where Chunuk Bair flamed, and talk. The great
distance from their own country created an atmosphere of loneliness.
This loneliness was emphasized by the fact that the New Zealanders
rarely received the same recognition as the Australians in the Press,
and many of their gallant deeds went unrecorded or were attributed to
their greater neighbours. But they had a silent pride that put these
things into proper perspective. The spirit of these men was unconquered
and unconquerable. At night, when the great moon of the Dardanelles
soared and all was quiet except the occasional whine of a bullet
overhead, the voices of the tired men continually argued the merits
of the Expedition, and there was always one end to these discussions:
“Well, it may all be a ---- mistake, but in a war of this size you will
have mistakes of this size, and it doesn’t matter a ---- to us whether
we are for it here or in France, for we came out to do one job, and
it’s nothing to us whether we finish in one place or another.” The
Turks were not the only fatalists in those days.
We were now well supplied with water, but food of the right kind was a
difficulty. It was very hard to obtain supplies for sick men, and here,
as always, we met with the greatest kindness from the Navy.
Horlick’s Malted Milk and fruit from the Islands did us more good than
anything else. Relations of mine in Egypt sent me an enormous quantity
of the first, which I was able to distribute to the garrison of the
fort. Later, when I was invalided, I bequeathed the massive remnants to
a friend who had just landed. Greedily he opened my stores, hoping for
the good things of the world--tongues, potted ham and whisky--only to
find a wilderness of Horlick’s Malted Milk.
Our position had at last been appreciated at home, and we were
no longer irritated, as in the early days, by the frivolity and
fatuousness of London. Upon one occasion, shortly after the first
landing, one of the illustrated papers had a magnificent picture
entitled, if I remember right, “The Charge that Won Constantinople.”
The picture was of a cavalry charge, led quite obviously by General
Godley--and those were the days when we were living on the edge of a
cliff, where only centipedes could, and did, charge, and when we were
provided with some mules and my six donkeys for all our transport.
There was a remarkable contrast between our war against the Germans
and the Turks. In France the British soldier started fighting
good-naturedly, and it took considerable time to work him up to a pitch
of hatred; at Anzac the troops from the Dominions began their campaign
with feelings of contempt and hatred, which gradually turned to respect
for the Moslems. At the beginning the great majority of our men had
naturally no knowledge of the enemy they were fighting. Once, looking
down from a gun emplacement, I saw a number of Turks walking about, and
asked why they had not been shot at. “Well,” said one man, “it seems
hard on them, poor chaps. They aren’t doing any harm.” Then up came
another: “Those Turks,” he said, “they walk about as if this place
belongs to them.” I suggested that it was their native land. “Well,” he
said, “I never thought of that.”
* * * * *
_Diary._ _Monday, August 16, 1915._ _No. 2 Outpost._ It’s curious the
way the men speak of the Turks here. They still can’t be made to wear
gas helmets, because they say the Turks are clean fighters and won’t
use gas....
It’s good to be high up in this observation post, above the smells,
with a magnificent view of hill and valley. We shoot from here pretty
often at the Turkish guns. Last night the Dardanelles droned on for
hours. This morning the machine-guns on both sides were going like
dentists’ drills. To-day it’s absolutely still, with only the whirr of
aeroplanes overhead.
Bartlett turned up to-night. He had not much hope.... Poor Bauchop is
dead. News came to-night.... A gallant man.
* * * * *
On Wednesday, August 18th, I was sent to G.H.Q. at Imbros, and heard a
full account of the tragic battle down at Helles, and the condition of
the wounded at Mudros.
When men have gone to the limits of human endurance, when blood has
been spilled like water, and the result is still unachieved, bitter and
indiscriminate recrimination and criticism inevitably follow. But Anzac
had one great advantage. Our leaders had the confidence of their men.
The troops were able to see General Birdwood and General Godley every
day in the front trenches with themselves, walking about under fire as
if they had been on a lawn in England, and the men knew that their own
lives were never uselessly sacrificed.
The work of many of the doctors on the Peninsula was beyond all praise,
but there was black rage against the chiefs of the R.A.M.C. at Imbros
and in Egypt. The anger would have been still greater if their attitude
of complacent self-sufficiency had been known.
* * * * *
_Diary._ _Thursday, August 19, 1915._ _No. 3 Outpost._ Returned to
the Peninsula with Bettinson and Commander Patch and Phillips, the
navigator. When we had come up to the fort I told them not to show
their heads at the observation post, as the fort did not belong to me,
and I did not want to become unpopular. I got Perry, Captain of the
fort, and he sat them down on the parapet, showing them the lines of
our trenches. While we talked, a sniper shot at Patch, just missing
him, and hitting the parapet beside him. They were very pleased, though
the others said I had paid a man to shoot in order to give them fun.
Perry said in a friendly way: “That’s a good sniper; he’s thirteen
hundred yards off, so it was a pretty decent shot.” Then he talked to
them, and they felt what any one must feel talking to these men. They
gave us a lot of things, and are sending all sorts of things to-morrow
for the men here.
_Friday, August 20, 1915._ _No. 2 Outpost._ Last night was the first
cold night. This morning I went out with the General, who was like a
bull-dog and a cyclone. We met Birdwood, who was there to see the last
Australians arrive, 17th and 18th Brigades, in Reserve Gully. They
looked a splendid lot, and it did one’s heart good to see them. Some
more officers from the _Bacchante_ turned up with stores, and special
cocoa for me. I was just going off to find Perry when I met him. He is
off out; there is a fight to-morrow. I gave him the cocoa. He was glad
to have it.... The men are all tired out with heat and dysentery and
digging and fighting. The General and I went up to Sazli Beit Deri. I
didn’t think it over-safe for him.
_Saturday, August 21, 1915._ _No. 2 Outpost._ Work in the morning. Was
to have gone with the General in the afternoon, but prisoners came in
to be examined. They said: “Curse the Germans! We can’t go on. There
are no more men left.” One of them was killed by their own fire after
I left. G. L. came to luncheon. Charlie B., he and I started off
together, I feeling pretty bad. It was very hot. We went at a great
pace over two or three ridges and across valleys, our guns thundering
about us. Finally, I felt so bad I let them go on, and came back....
The battle developed and the shooting was fierce and general. While
I hunted for General Monash’s Headquarters I met Colonel A. J., who
was rather worried. We had a close shave.... I left him, and had an
odd adventure.... Went home alone through deafening noise, all the
valleys under fire.... Got at last into a shallow nullah that led into
a regular gully, and so home.
* * * * *
That day I saw an unforgettable sight. The dismounted Yeomanry
attacked the Turks across the salt lakes of Suvla. Shrapnel burst
over them continuously; above their heads there was a sea of smoke.
Away to the north by Chocolate Hill fires broke out on the plain. The
Yeomanry never faltered. On they came through the haze of smoke in two
formations, columns and extended. Sometimes they broke into a run, but
they always came on. It is difficult to describe the feelings of pride
and sorrow with which we watched this advance, in which so many of our
friends and relations were playing their part.
* * * * *
_Diary._ _August 21st._ Charlie B. and G. L. came back all right....
The Turks had come over in three waves down Chunuk Bair. The first two
were destroyed by naval fire; the third got home into our trenches.
Charlie B. was full of admiration for one old fellow whom he had seen
holding up his finger and lecturing to the men when they hung back.
Hutton is wounded again.
_Sunday, August 22, 1915._ _No. 2 Outpost._ Last night, or this
morning at 1 o’clock, I was called up. They said there were 150 Turks
in one place and others elsewhere, anxious to surrender. I took the
miller, Zachariades and Kyriakidis out to Headquarters. Sent back
Kyriakidis and the miller, as there was nothing doing and I wanted to
keep Kyriakidis. Went on with Zachariades and guides sent by Poles
to Colonel Agnew to his H.Q. There we lay on the ground, very cold.
They said the Turks had wished to surrender, but there had been no
interpreter, and they had been fired on. The Turks were then attacking
heavily. Eastwood telephoned that they had fourteen prisoners. I went
back to see if they could give any news about our immediate front.
Every one worried. The ---- Battalion of Australians had gone wrong.
Nobody knew where they were. I sent my escort to try and find them. The
Hampshires, who ought to have arrived, had not come.... They came along
gradually.
We attacked at about four in the morning. The Turkish fire tarried
a little, then got furious. We went towards Monash, and met the
Hampshires, very tired and wayworn. Bullets sang very viciously, and
burst into flame on the rocks. There was a thunder of rifle fire and
echoes in the gullies, men dropping now and then. Lower down the gully
I found the Hampshires running like mad upwards to the firing line;
beyond this a mixed crowd of men without an officer.... My guide, wild
as a hawk, took us up a ridge. I fell over a dead man in the darkness
and hurt my ankle. We had to wait. There seemed a sort of froth of
dust on the other side of the ridge, from the rifle fire, and I told
the escort to take us down and round the ridge across the valley. He
admitted afterwards we had no chance of crossing the other way. In the
valley the bullets sang. We came to the half-nullah where I had taken
such unsatisfactory cover in the afternoon. There we waited a bit, and
then ran across the hundred yards to the next gully. Zachariades and
the escort grazed. Found the prisoners; the other Zachariades examined
them.... Spent bullets falling about, but the Greeks never winked. A
surrendered Armenian could only tell us that the Turks were very weak
before us. The rifle fire died away in the end, and we walked back at
dawn, getting here by sunrise. Then examined more prisoners till about
11, and slept till 1.
The position is still indefinite. It’s on the same old lines, on the
hills we are the eyebrows and the Turks are the forehead.
_Monday, August 23, 1915._ _No. 2 Outpost._ Perry is wounded, but
not badly, I hope, in the arm. There is hardly any one in the fort.
The interpreter question becoming very difficult. They are all going
sick. Had a quiet evening last night, and read on the parapet. It will
be very difficult to keep these old troops here during the winter.
The Australians and New Zealanders who have been here a long time
are weak, and will all get pneumonia. There was a great wind blowing
and the sound of heavy firing. I went to Anzac to-day, and found men
bombing fish. They got about twenty from one bomb, beautiful fish,
half-pounders.
_Tuesday, August 24th._ _No. 2 Outpost._ General Shaw has gone sick to
England; General Maude has taken his place. He commands the 13th. He
and Harter dined here last night. Longford was killed, Milbanke said to
be killed or wounded, and the Hertfordshires have suffered.
This morning we talked about the winter seriously and of preparations
to be made. I am for a hillside. The plain is a marsh and the valley a
water-course. We ought to have fuel, caves for drying clothes, cooking,
etc., and mostly this hill is made of dust and sand. A great mail came
in last night, but the machine-guns got on to the men as they passed by
the beach in the moonlight, killed some and wounded five men. So there
are the mails lying now, with the machine-guns playing round them....
I advised Lawless yesterday at Anzac to move out from the beach, lest
the sea should rise and take him like a winkle from his shell.
Saw D. to-day. He has a curious story to tell of the other night, when
I was telephoned for. He said I was called three hours too late. A lot
of Turks had come out of their trenches, some unarmed and some armed
and some with bombs. He had gone out and pointed his revolver at one
of them, who shouldered arms and stood to attention. Some of the Turks
came right up, and the New Zealanders said: “Come in here, Turkey,” and
began pulling them into the front trench. D. had feared that the Turks,
who were about 200, might rush the trench, and had waved them back and
finally fired his revolver and ordered our fellows to fire. It was a
pity there was no one there who could talk. Later I saw Temperley, who
said when we took Rhododendron Ridge there were 250 Turks on the top.
They piled their arms, cheered us and clapped their hands.
To-night I went to Chaylak Dere with the General and saw General Maude,
and his Staff, who looked pretty ill, also Claude Willoughby, who was
anxious to take the Knoll by the Apex.
There was a tremendous wind, and dust-storms everywhere. In the gullies
men were burying the dead, not covering them sufficiently. My eyes are
still full of the dust and the glow of the camp-fires on the hillside,
and the moonlight. It is an extraordinary country to look across--range
after range of high hills, precipice and gully, the despair of
Generals, the grave and oblivion of soldiers.
* * * * *
Here the diary stops abruptly, and begins again on Saturday, September
23rd.
_No. 2 Outpost._ After writing the above I had a bad go of fever, and
was put on to hospital ship. Went aboard with General Birdwood, General
Godley and Tahu Rhodes. The Generals had come to inspect the New
Zealand hospital ship, which was excellent. That night there was a very
heavy fire. I felt some friend of mine would be hit on shore, and the
next morning I found Charlie B. on board, not badly wounded, hit in the
side.
My friend Charlie B. had a temper, and was often angry when others
were calm, but in moments of excitement he was calm to the point of
phlegm. When we were off Mudros there was a great crash, and a jarring
of the ship from end to end. I went into Charlie B.’s cabin and said:
“Come along. They say we’re torpedoed. I’ll help you.” “Where are my
slippers?” he asked. I said: “Curse your slippers.” “I will not be
hurried by these Germans,” answered Charlie B., and he had the right of
it, for we had only had a minor collision with another boat.
At Mudros the majority of the sick and wounded on our hospital ship
were sent to England, but my friend and I were luckily carried on to
Egypt.
* * * * *
_Diary._ _September 23rd._ There was a remarkable man on board the
_Manitou_, Major K. He had led 240 men into a Turkish trench; three had
returned unwounded, but he got most of his wounded back with eighteen
men. The Adjutant was killed on his back. He himself had already been
wounded twice. Finally, he left the trench alone, and turned round and
faced the Turks at 200 yards. They never fired at him, because, he
said, “they admired me.” This officer found a D.S.O. waiting for him
in Egypt, and has since earned the V.C. in France, for which he had
been previously recommended in South Africa. He and I returned to the
Dardanelles together while he still had a long, unhealed bayonet wound
in his leg.
* * * * *
At Alexandria, fortunately for myself, I had relations who were working
there. I went to the hospital of a friend. It was a great marble
palace, surrounded by lawns and fountains, and made, at any rate,
gorgeous within by the loves of the Gods, painted in the colours of the
Egyptian sunset on the ceilings.
The Englishwomen in Alexandria were working like slaves for the wounded
and the sick. They did all that was humanly possible to make up for
the improvidence and the callousness of the home medical authorities.
Thanks to their untiring and unceasing work, day and night, these
ladies saved great numbers of British lives.
One day the Sultan came to inspect the hospital where I was a patient.
For reasons of toilette, I should have preferred not to have been seen
on that occasion by His Highness, but the royal eye fixed itself upon
my kimono, and I was taken aside for a few minutes’ conversation.
* * * * *
_Diary._ (_Subsequently written on the Peninsula._) The Sultan said
that he was very grieved about the Conservative party, because of the
Coalition, I suppose, and also about Gallipoli. There I cordially
agreed.
* * * * *
I went up to Cairo for a few days, and found the city and life there
very changed. Shepheard’s was filled with the ghosts of those who had
left on and since April 12th.
In Egypt the danger of the Canal had passed, but anxiety had not gone
with it. There was much doubt as to what the Senoussi would be likely
to do and what consequences their action would have. They had little
to gain by attacking, but all knew that this would not necessarily
deter them. I was in Cairo when Fathy Pasha was stabbed, and those in
authority feared for the life of the Sultan.
My friend Charlie B. and Major K. and I left Alexandria in brilliant
moonlight. Our boat could do a bare twelve knots an hour. On the
journey rockets went up at night, S.O.S. signals were sent us, all in
vain: we were not to be seduced from our steady spinster’s course to
Mudros. When we again reached that place we found that our sister-ship,
the _Ramadan_, had been torpedoed.
* * * * *
_Diary._ (_Written September 23rd._) General Godley was on the _Lord
Nelson_. He had been sick for some time, and had been taking three
days off. Roger Keyes desperately anxious to go up the Dardanelles,
come what may. He is the proper man to do it, but I think it’s only
singeing the King of Spain’s beard.
At Imbros the General, Charlie B. and I had a stormy row ashore and
a long walk to G.H.Q., where I found Willy Percy, who had been badly
wounded, now recovering. I saw Tyrrell, G. L. and Dedez. The news had
just come through of Bulgaria’s mobilization, but they did not know
against whom. I wonder if the Bulgars will attack both the Serbs and
the Turks. That would be a topsy-turvy, Balkan thing to do, and might
suit their book. We ought to have had them in on our side six months
ago. From G.H.Q. we came back to Anzac. The General has had my dugout
kept for me in the fort, where Christo and I now live in solitude, for
all the rest are gone. I found a lot of new uniforms and a magnificent
cap. When I put this on Christo cried violently: “No, no, no, not until
we ride into Constantinople as conquerors.”
H.Q. are on the other side of the Turkish fort, in a tiny valley across
which you can throw a stone. They have all the appearance of a more
comfortable Pompeii, and are scarcely more alive; it is the quietest
town I have ever seen; there lies in front a ridge of valley, a dip
of blue sea and a good deal of the Anafarta plain. The first night on
arriving the cold was bitter, also next morning. Pleurisy has already
started. This morning the General went up to the Apex and behind it.
He was not at all pleased with the fire trenches. He nearly drove C.,
the officer at that moment instructing the Australians, mad, first by
criticizing everything--I thought pretty justly--and then by standing
about in view of the Turks and not worrying about shells or bombs. I
did my best to get him in. The Australians were all laughing at C. for
his caution and fussiness. Incidentally, one of the big mortar-bombs
fell in the trench as we arrived. Hastings is Intelligence officer.
It’s luck to have got him.
_Sunday, September 24, 1915._ _No. 2 Outpost._ A lovely morning. There
was a bracing chill of autumn and yet warm air and a smiling, southern
look across Anafarta plain, with great hills on the other side, stately
and formidable. Swallows everywhere. Up till now it’s been very silent.
I thought that the noise of war was past, but bullets and shells have
been whining and moaning over us. At Anzac yesterday morning they had
about twenty men hit by one shell, and I saw a lot of mules being
dragged down to the sea as I went in. We walked through the “Camel’s
Hump” with Colonel Chauvel and Glasgow, on to No. 1 Outpost, now
deserted, with the beautiful trench made by the six millionaires. I
wonder what has happened to them all.
Cazalet, of whom I had grown very fond, is dead, Hornby’s missing. I
was very sad to hear that Reynell was killed on the night of the 27th,
when we left. A fine man in every way. His men worshipped him....
A lot of French transports were leaving Egypt as we left, maybe for
Asia. We shall do nothing more here unless we have an overwhelming
force. We have never done anything except with a rush. Directly we have
touched a spade we have ceased to advance, and have gone on adding
bricks to the wall which we first built and then beat our heads against.
This morning we had a service in the valley, which is extraordinarily
beautiful. The flies are awful, horrible, lethargic; they stick to one
like gum. The men in the trenches are wearing the head-dresses that
Egypt has sent. I went with the General in the afternoon to Anzac. We
walked back as shelling began. We had one whizz round us, and a man
fell beside me on the beach. I heard a tremendous smack, and thought
he was dead, and began to drag him in to cover, but he was all right,
though a bullet had thumped him.
* * * * *