August 29th
Go to D.H.Q. in the morning, who have now moved back to a gully alongside Corps H.Q., nicely dug in the side of a hill near us. Their quarters, as well as those of Corps, are built amongst the green gorse, which, with paths running in and out and terraces about, makes a lovely garden. Very nice conditions under which to work. I am writing this on the heights of the shale cliffs of the northern promontory of Suvla Bay. The sea is calm and a deep, lovely blue, suddenly changing to green at the foot of the rocks. Suvla Bay, with Salt Lake and the wooded and gorsed low land and the hills and the mountains in the background, are laid out in beautiful panorama. Achi Baba can be seen in the distance south, and I have been so used to seeing it from Cape Helles that the view is quite a novelty.
Off the bay are three battleships, supply ships, and trawlers, lighters, etc. An aeroplane is humming overhead, and our guns on shore are continually barking away, while little puffs of shrapnel from the Turkish batteries burst over and about the wooded low lands, Salt Lake and Chocolate Hill, where our front line runs, denoted by the crackle of musketry.
The view is most interesting, the brownish-green gorges—leading to the sea—with their clouds of dust denoting the industry within. Behind me, purple Turkish hills, every point of which is held by the enemy. Then in between our line and the hills the scrubby low-lying country, all buff and green, the cultivated land, and the olive groves. I look at it hopelessly—for I know now, as we all do, that the conquest of the Peninsula is more than we can hope for. All that is left to us is to hang on day by day. It is anything but a cheery prospect. Death in various forms walks with us always; the sad processions of sick and wounded—chiefly the former—move down to the hospital ships every day; we see all our best friends taken, one after the other—and to what end? The golden chances have been allowed to slip by; we can never win through now—so we have to “cling on” to the bitter end.