August 16th
Having been invited to breakfast with the Hampshires, who are up the line, I ride up to the nullah in front of Pink Farm and leave my horse there, where he is given his breakfast. On arrival at the Brigade H.Q. at the end of the long trench—or the mule-track, as we now call it—I am given a guide of the Royal Scots, who, however, has difficulty in finding the battalion H.Q. We wander about awhile before we reach our destination, reminding me of an endeavour to thread a way through Hampton Court maze. Up one long winding trench my guide puzzles me somewhat by the remark, “‘B’ trench, sir, but not a bee-line.” At first I am puzzled as to what he is driving at, but gradually it dawns on me that he is cracking with difficulty an obtuse Scottish joke, occasioned by the long winding walk up the trench, which I notice is called “B” Communication Trench.
Battalion H.Q. found at last. I have an excellent breakfast of hot cocoa, sardines, bread and jam, and at the end of the meal I am taken up to do a tour of the line. First we make a visit to the battalion H.Q. of the Essex, where I see Algy Wood and Colonel Rice; then I am shown the cookhouse of the Hampshires. Owing to a curiously small and deep ravine, it has not been found necessary to dig trenches here. Instead, communication trenches lead off from the small nullah, only a hundred and fifty yards away from our front line, in five different directions, like streets leading off from a circus. We pass up that part of the communication trench leading to the line which the Hampshires are holding. On arrival here I am greeted with a wave of sickening odour, a blend of decaying bodies and chloride of lime. The scene in the first-line trench is alive with interest; there officers and men are on the alert. Every four yards men are standing on the fire-steps looking out through periscopes, held in their hands or fixed to rifles. Others are cleaning up the floors or sides of the trench, as the parlour-maid would the room of a house. Others are improving parapets, levelling the sides and floors of the trench. A few are still at breakfast—one I noticed consisting of two fried eggs, a piece of steak, bread and honey, and hot tea.
I am taken up a sap by one of the officers on duty in the front line, a cheery young man named Moore, who has recently won the V.C. At the sap-head, looking through a periscope, I see not fifty yards away in front a sap-head jutting out from a Turkish trench. Turning the periscope round from left to right, I see a sight which fills me with sorrow. I see lying in all postures—some alone, some in groups of three to six—the dead bodies of brave British Tommies, who a fortnight ago were alive and well, merry and bright, enjoying the bathing off Gully Beach. They had lost their lives in the battle of August 6th, and had never even had the satisfaction of reaching Turkish territory. After the battle our positions in the “H” trenches (as this part of the line is termed) remained unchanged from what they were before; but hundreds of brave men had gone forth from there never to return, and I am afraid few became prisoners.
The end of the sap in which I am standing is protected from enemy bombs by a roof of wire-netting. A drain pipe penetrates the earth at the end of the sap, with its mouth filled by a rolled up empty sand-bag. For my benefit this is taken out, and looking through, I see quite close to me the corpse of one of our brave fellows, blackened by exposure. Efforts will be made to recover some of these bodies as soon as opportunity allows. Looking further ahead through the pipe, I have a good view of the Turkish front line. A sentry is sitting beside the pipe, and at intervals he removes the sand-bag from the mouth, carefully looking out for any activity on the part of the Turk. I prefer to look through a periscope, and take it up once more. Not being used to them, I raise it too high, my arms appearing above the parapet. A thoughtful Tommy alongside of me gently pulls my arms down behind the cover of the sand-bags. The Turkish sniper is always on the lookout for the careless, who expose themselves even a few inches, and is often clever in getting a bull’s-eye at the first shot. However, one through the arm would be luck. What could be better than the pleasure of lunching at Ciro’s with an arm in a sling from a wound? I take a careful survey of the Turkish line, running along a gentle rise in front of me, and after a while, I notice a shovel lifted over the parapet and a spray of earth thrown over, and this happens several times. A Turk at work, probably improving his fire-step.
As I go back into the front line, I notice that at intervals we have fixed into the sand-bagged parapet iron plates, with little holes punctured in them, protected by a small shield hanging on a hinge like the shield to a keyhole. Through these holes, when necessary, our men place their rifles, firing with good protection to themselves. I am shown our catapults for throwing bombs, almost the same as the ancient weapons of Rome. Also trench mortars, funny squat cannons with short, wide, gaping mouths. Occasionally during the tour bullets come over. They “zip” over up here, and “ping” with a long ring further back over the roads behind our line. Now and again they strike our parapet, sounding like the blow of a great brick thrown with a great force. The trenches are full of flies, hot and stuffy, with ever that sickly smell of the dead and chloride of lime, but fortunately quite dry and very clean. And the men are merry and keen, and delighted to show round one who seldom enters a trench and is ignorant of the life spent there.