December 9th
Yes; the evacuation of Suvla is now a reality. I hear to-day that we have now begun the intermediate stage of the evacuation. It has been a reality for some days. The storm only delayed it. We have just completed the preliminary stage. We hear that it will be but a few days now when not a British subject will be left alive here unless as a prisoner. The shelling to-day is in fits and starts. High explosive shells are searching the beach, bursting well and with a louder explosion than in past days. But West Beach is well protected, and the steady shipment of vehicles and ordnance goes on all day. At night, empty ration carts go up to the line to bring back men’s surplus kits, blankets, surplus ammunition, and the surplus part of the usual accumulation of baggage that a regiment takes with it to the trenches and to dumps just behind.
Horne, Elphinstone, Hunt, and I are on the beach all night, taking shifts in superintending the unloading of the carts as they arrive back full. They come back in a steady stream. The carts that have taken up rations, stores, special ammunition, such as bombs, etc., earlier in the evening, all return loaded with kits. We have a few men to help us, but hardly enough, and we therefore work ourselves to keep warm. It is a monotonous job. The Drabis appear fed-up, and we have to watch them carefully to see that they do not slope off with their loaded carts to their lines. Kipling once said “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” Is this correct? I wonder. For our Tommies seem to work amicably with the Drabis. The white transport corporal, who is with us marshalling the transport, on receiving an order from me, shouts out into the darkness of the beach to the Indian jemadar, “Mahommed Hussan!” A voice answers back with a drawl, “Hullo”; my corporal shouts back, “Wait ’arf a mo, will yer?” and the voice answers “A-all ri-ight.” East—and West.
All night, lighters are being loaded up and towed out to the ships. Last A.T. carts unloaded at 5 a.m. We turn in at 5.30 a.m., ready for sleep.