July 31st
While issuing this morning at depot, high explosive shells come over from Achi. They burst in different places, searching the beach. One bursts near Way’s depot, and one man and two mules are hit, the man badly. Next one on aerodrome. An interval of two or three minutes passes between the arrival of each shell.
Shortly after the one had burst near Way’s depot, I, standing with issuers, drivers, G.S. wagons, A.T. carts, N.C.O.’s and ration parties all around me, hear the shriek of one coming straight at me, for it shrieks too long. Those who say that, if killed by a shell, one never hears the shriek of the shell that hits one, are quite mistaken—that is to say, when being shelled by one, two, or three guns at a time. In a bombardment, of course, the din is so deafening that you can’t tell which shell is addressed to you and which is not—and after a bit you don’t much care. A deafening explosion and dense smoke, dust, and stones, and I find myself locked in the arms of a transport driver with my face buried in the stomach of a fat sergeant, and mules kicking all round. Not a man hit, and the shell five yards away. The nearest I have ever had. It had burst in a mound of soft earth and right deep in the ground, and that saved us. I look up, and all the others get sheepishly to their feet, and I get out another cigarette and smoke. I smoked six of them hard, and tried to be facetious and to pretend that I did not care, but not one man there could have been in a more miserable cowardly funk than I was, while waiting for the next, which, however, gave us a long miss.
Later in the morning we got a few high explosive shells from Achi. One pitched clean on the roof of our signal offices, which is a timbered erection, sand-bagged, and proof against splinter only. There the clerks work, tap-tap-tap and buz-buz-buz to and from all over the Peninsula, messages being sent and received every minute, almost all the day and night, like a central telegraph office in London. Down came the shrieking thing: a deafening report; splinters of timber, torn sand-bags, dust, stones, and smoke fly into the air, and then silence. A pause, and men rush, not away, but to the ruined office. Nine men and one Signal Officer have been killed outright. Several wounded are carried up the cliff to the hospital. Operators immediately get to work connecting up the severed wires to new instruments. Improvised tables are put in position. In half an hour a wire is sent off to G.H.Q. that all is “O.K.,” and tap-tap, buz-buz is heard once more, tapping and buzzing busily away, not for a weekly wage, but—for the King. It was a near thing for old Findlay in his office, twenty yards away.
I rowed to a submarine this afternoon and went aboard. Delightful sitting on deck and chatting to the Captain. He has just heard good news from Persia, and we are all cheery. Go up to Brigade H.Q., Gully Beach, and have tea, and chat to battalions in rest on cliff-sides. While away, hear shells from Achi screeching overhead for “W” Beach, and feel therefore quite safe. The Ordnance had it this afternoon.