December 3rd
We now hear a rumour that we are not evacuating at all, and that only the 29th are going, but I do not believe this. We learn this rumour from Sergeant Jones, of Jones’s water dump. Every day rumours are circulated from Sergeant Jones’s dugout on “A” Beach. All day officers and men who pass call in here and say, “Good-morning [or good-evening], Jones; what is the latest rumour?” They are invited to sit down while Jones tells the latest and best that he had heard from all sources—trenches, Navy, and beaches. I have seen at one time in Jones’s dugout a Brigadier, Major, and two Captains and a corporal all sitting round the oil-stove fire while Sergeant Jones, at his table, is eating his supper. As an officer comes in, Jones stands up, saying, “Good-evening, sir; what can I do for you?” If it is water required, then that worry has to be settled; if it is an ordinary call at this half-way house, then the officer is invited to sit down by the fire, Jones adding, if he should be at supper, “You will excuse me going on with my supper, won’t you, sir?” One night he said to me, “May I press you to a plate of porridge, sir?” We do not look upon him as a soldier or an N.C.O. It is difficult to describe how we regard him.
He is popular with everybody, and all officers, after a while, fall into the same manner of dealing and talking with him. Personally, I feel my relations with him are as they would be to the landlord of a familiar roadside inn. “A” Beach now being deserted, all and sundry, with the exception of Jones, being shelled out, Jones has to remain there, for this beach is the only possible place for a water dump. Dugout and dump remind me of a lonely roadside inn where I call on my journeys between the beaches and the line. He gets shelled now and again, and has had some remarkably lucky escapes. Men have been killed right and left of him. But most of the drawing of the water is done under the cover of the night. Happily, for our Division the water question has been nearly solved by our Engineers finding wells behind our part of the line, although we still have to draw water by cart from Jones to augment the supply from the forward wells. Other Divisions, however, are not so fortunate. They continue to nightly draw water from Jones for the troops in the line and reserve nullahs by all kinds of receptacles, and cart it up on A.T. carts.
Scotch mist and drizzly rain all day. Hardly any shelling on our front or on part of Turks. More drafts for 29th Division arrive. We are now making a rest camp in one of the nullahs, where men can change their clothes in case the weather gets bad again.