October 11th
Very cloudy. Mule Corps at end of promontory get shelled at ten o’clock for half an hour. Starts to rain at 11.30, and looks as if it is going to set in in earnest. Salt Lake already under water in some parts, and if we have a season of rain, it will be a lake in the full sense of the word, and it will be difficult getting supplies, etc., to the lines immediately in front of Chocolate Hill. Walked up with Way again to Brigade H.Q. Beautiful cool, sunny afternoon after the rain. Had tea with the General at 88th, meeting there our friend of last night, Colonel Ekin. Morris, Machine Gun Officer, also there in great form, telling us all about his indirect gun-fire stunts. Hides his little batteries in a very clever way with gorse, the men wearing green masks. Colonel Fuller, going round the trenches the other day, could not make out where the sound of a machine gun popping off quite close to him was coming from. He was ten yards away only; it was one of Morris’s efforts. After the bit of a bombardment the other day on the Pimple, during which the Turks were driven out of a redoubt, Morris’s men bagged fifty Turks by indirect fire. He makes your flesh creep by the cold-blooded way in which he describes his stunts, but if one thinks of Turks as partridges it is not so bad. However, we can do with dozens more Morrises.
After, go on to see 86th and have a rag with little Reid, Signal Officer to 86th, aged nineteen, but looks only sixteen.
Trenches dug through most beautiful country—olive groves, fig-trees, and vineyards. Grape season over now, but often Tommy climbed out of his trench and helped himself, risking Turkish bullets fired at only a hundred yards away. The blackberry season is now on, and they are so tempting that venturesome spirits—little Reid himself proving guilty—climb out after these also.
Looking back from the 86th Brigade H.Q., one can see the gorse-covered hills, the beautiful, thickly wooded valleys, while through the trees are peeps of Suvla Bay with the grey warships at anchor there. Further out, beautiful Imbros stands out sharp against the setting sun, backed by a sky of golden-bronze, with feathery purple clouds trailing across the firmament; the new moon—a delicate crystal crescent—swings above, dimly reflected in the dimpling waters.
A battleship flashes out, followed by a loud report, and looking towards Anafarta, just over the hills, one sees a monster flash of fire followed by a muffled report.