6 p.m
Safe in our dugout now, and one passes over us into the sea. Now they are falling on the beach. Nearly everybody is under cover.
7 p.m
Shelling stopped, and we are allowed to have some rest.
As Williams has to go to Brigade H.Q., I offer to show him the way, the H.Q. having moved forwards.
We start off at 8.30 p.m. and ride at a good smart trot, as we are a bit nervy of Asia sending one of those horrible big shells over. But all is quiet, and we arrive at our Brigade dumping-ground, about three-quarters of a mile in front of Pink Farm. (Pink Farm is practically razed to the ground now by shell fire.)
We leave our horses with an orderly, who ties them up under cover and takes cover himself. Stray bullets are flying over now and again, and we get down into the nullah and go along it up the communication trench. After about half a mile of it, we pass an R.A.M.C. orderly, who says, “Keep your heads low, sir, as you pass that point,” pointing a little farther along, “as there is a sniper watching there.” Of course he is wrong, suffering from “wind up,” and what he thinks are snipers’ bullets are “overs” passing through a gap in the side of the trench. We hurry along, heads well down, as bullets are pretty free overhead. After another half-mile we come to Headquarters. The Staff are just finishing dinner in their dugout—beautifully made by the Engineers. The Brigade Major is at the telephone, and later the General gets up and talks over it. D.H.Q. are speaking at the other end, discussing some G.S. point, just as if two business men were discussing the price of some contract.
After the General resumes his place at the head of the table, the Brigade Major on his left-hand side, next the Signal Officer, on his right hand, the Staff Captain, the Brigade Machine Gun Officer and a Major of the R.N.D., who had recently arrived. Williams and I are seated at the other end. The dugout is lit by an acetylene lamp, and Miller, the Staff waiter and chef combined, is standing, acting butler.
Outside the “ping-ping” of bullets goes on incessantly.
Sitting there round the table, smoking and chatting, I could not but compare the scene with that of the after-dinner coffee and cigars at a dinner-party, when the ladies have gone to the drawing-room. The conversation is also witty and bright, with no mention of war.
Miller is a character of his own. He is as dignified as a real butler would be, and yet a Tommy of the old school, through and through. But instead of black cut-away coat and side whiskers, he wears khaki trousers rather hanging over his ankles, and a grey shirt open in the front—for the heat is excessive—and sleeves rolled up. He always embarrasses me, for every time I happen to look his way he catches my eye and beams benevolently on me. I suppose it is because I look after the Tommies’ tummies. Lightning now begins to play about the sky, which gets rather cloudy, and then “L” Battery, just to our right, barks out suddenly. That arrests my thoughts and brings me back to reality. “Y” Battery starts, and then the darling little Soixante-quinze, and bullets begin to fairly hiss over. A hell of a shindy! Our mission over, we rise to go. We salute the General, who says good-night, and off down the trench, keeping our heads very low instinctively, though really it is unnecessary.
Lightning is now flashing all over the sky, and what with the flashes and roar of the batteries near by and the pitch darkness that comes immediately after a lightning flash, the walk back along that trench, one whole mile of it, was most weird and Dante-esque. Now and again bullets hit the bank on our left, but most of them are going over. We pass troops coming up, and later see a man sitting down at the side of the trench, and finding that he had been hit in the wrist (lucky devil!), we take him along with us. Arriving at the nullah, we find another man who has been hit at the dump, in the leg, and we send them to the dressing station behind Pink Farm.
We see the transport is all right at the Brigade dump, mount our horses, which have been tied up in an awful tangle, making us use some “’orrid language,” and then “forrard away.” Off we go back, with “overs” pretty free around, and Turkish shells screaming over, well on our right.
The lightning frightens our horses somewhat, and blinds us after each flash. It is incessant, and lights up the Peninsula in detail, but no thunder follows. We hope that Asia will let us go home in safety. She does, but half an hour after we arrive home, and when everybody except night-workers and guards and pickets have turned in, heavy shells come over, and at the rate of two an hour they continue all night, and so our night’s rest is not as good as it might be.