November 27th
We wake up to find a drizzly rain falling, blown by a strong north wind. Mud is everywhere, and the whole of the beaches a quagmire. What were once dugouts are now large puddles full of water. The system of trenches for winter quarters across the various gullies and nullahs has ceased to exist. Many of these are full to the brim with water; all have water and mud covering their floors. Twelve men taking shelter in their trench, which was roofed by corrugated iron, and which is situated in the gully in which we lived up to a week ago, have been drowned by the roof collapsing. We have orders to send up medical comforts. We send them up by A.T. carts. For the first time a convoy of A.T. carts is seen on the Gibraltar road in broad daylight.
A gale develops in the afternoon. Elphinstone and I go up to Hill 10. The road is in many parts under water, and the whole a bog of wet, tenacious clay that clings to one’s boots and almost pulls their heels off as one raises each foot. What before was a pleasant country walk is now a hard, exhausting “slow treadmill” made in a gale that one has to determinedly bend one’s back to, to make any headway at all. Last night the pack-mules had the greatest difficulty in getting the rations up, and one or two that fell into ravines were drowned. We call at the West Riding R.E., and in Major Bailey’s dugout I find the floor a foot deep in water and Major Bailey perched up on a table, his feet resting on a ledge of the dugout, endeavouring to get warm from an oil-drum fire. He appears as cheery as ever; in fact, every time I see him he is always merry and bright, evidently a habit, and a habit worth cultivating. We arrange the position of the new ration dump, though it is difficult to find cover for it. A line of bushes is the only protection we can find. We go over to the Dublin camp in the reserve trenches by Hill 10, and, of course, it is flooded, and the men in a wretched condition. We see the officer in charge about fatigues for the unloading of rations. As we come away we meet Colonel Fuller, our G.S.O.1, who asks as to the conditions of the roads on our left, and we cannot give him anything but a bad report. We continue our way past the barbed wire and second-line trenches to the 86th and 88th Brigade H.Q. Turkish artillery is dead quiet, and hardly a rifleshot is to be heard. Both Brigade H.Q. have withstood the storm well, protected as they are by the small hills on the side of which they have been constructed, the ground sloping away in front.
At the 86th Brigade we hear that our trenches on the low land have been flooded to the brim, and in some parts are now completely under water. Sentries are lying flat in the mud and water outside, behind the trenches, watching the enemy and in full view of him. There they lie, keeping guard under such conditions as have hardly been known before, sniped at now and again, and occasionally becoming casualties. The 86th, being in the lowest trenches, suffered the worst, for suddenly, as their trenches became kneedeep in water, a torrent burst into a saphead, and in a few minutes had swallowed up the first-line, the dugouts and communication trenches. Men floundered about, swarmed here and there, and clambered out on to the open. A few less fortunate were drowned. Could it ever have been imagined that men would drown in a trench? This has now happened, and their bodies lie half floating, half resting on the bottom of the trench, waiting to be dragged out when nightfall comes.
In this terribly cold northerly wind, gradually beginning to freeze, those waiting sentries, with their clothes soaking wet through, watch for the enemy, who probably is worse off than we are. As often as possible they are relieved, the relief creeping up in the broad open, chancing the sniper’s easy shot. As we talk, a man comes past, leaning on the arms of two R.A.M.C. men, who are taking him to the advanced dressing station, a little way back. His face is blue and swollen, and his teeth chattering as if with fever. We go round to the H.Q. of the 88th Brigade and ask for instructions as to what to send up in the way of food and medical comforts. In talking to General Cayley, we make the remark that we are glad that his dugout has not been washed away, but immediately feel reproved for having said this by his replying that “it is not his dugout, but the poor chaps in the trenches that he worries about, because he can do nothing for them.”
It takes us about a quarter of the time to get back, for the wind literally blows us along, and it is difficult for us to keep our feet in the sticky mud. Once I slip while negotiating the side of a deep puddle, and fall backwards into it, much to the amusement of some passing gunners. At night it steadily becomes colder and colder, and the driving, misty rain turns to snow, a northerly cold blizzard setting in. I am up late arranging about the carting of the rations and blankets to the sea of mud that was once our trenches. It is freezing cold, but we shiver the more when we think of those men lying out in the open behind our front line.