December 17th
Early this morning we have showers of rain, which are followed by a southerly breeze, quickly blowing them away. Brilliant sunshine makes the day quite hot. During the night I receive orders to issue two days’ rations to-night to the 88th Brigade and the rest of the Division, and afterwards to embark with all A.S.C. details along with D.H.Q. I am down on the beach in the afternoon getting our kits shipped off. At five o’clock the Turks open fire with two guns on to the beaches and beach roads, and the first few cause casualties. The shells are first-class, and burst with a deafening crash. One gun is on Sari Bair and the other is on the hills on the left of Anafarta. They continue until shortly after dusk—about 6.20 p.m. Five minutes after, the beaches are alive with men once more, and the work of evacuation proceeds energetically. This bout of shelling makes us anxious, as it would appear that our plot has been discovered. I go up to C.R.E. dump and issue two days’ rations to the 88th Brigade and the few remaining odd units. We leave the balance of the reserve supplies. They are too near the line to be burnt on the last night, and we leave them as a present of thanksgiving to our enemy, the Turk, who has “played the game” throughout the campaign. I say good-bye to the Brigade and express the hope that I shall see them all safe and well in Egypt, where I believe we are going for a good rest and refitment. Nobody can deny that the 29th deserve it.
I go back and have a last meal with Horne. Our camp will be deserted to-morrow, yet if an enemy aeroplane sails over, no change will be noted. Our dugouts are left standing intact. I, with the details, go down to “Y” forming-up post, and there meet, as on previous nights, parties and companies of men arriving. I call the roll of my men, and am instructed by the Adjutant of the C.R.E. to fall my men in behind the D.H.Q. party when the order is telephoned up from West Beach. A wait of three-quarters of an hour. We hope no shells will arrive. Horne comes up to say good-bye to me. I wish him good luck, not envying him his wait of forty-eight hours.
To-night is “X” night. The order from the beach arrives. All are called to attention. We march off, through the Main Supply depot, down into the trench, over the open space of West Beach, along the pier. A short pause here, of ten minutes, and then in single file we pass up the gangway over the sunken ships which act as a breakwater to the little harbour, and so on board a paddle-steamer. In half an hour she is full. It is a lovely moonlight night. We steam out into the bay, come alongside a small steamer, and file on board her. I go up on deck and view the scene of Suvla Bay by moonlight. I can hear the crack of the rifles from inland—and also voices from the beaches; now and again a torch is flashed as a lighter crunches upon the beach. With a soft swishing sound, a lighter glides past us to some other ship. The whole bay and foreshore is bathed in moonlight, and as I look, all those eight months of hardships, gloom, and danger pass in review before me. A feeling as of a great burden being lifted off my mind comes over me, and a sense of extreme gladness that at last the long-drawn horror is past—and what horror! “Never again!” I think to myself. “Never again!”
I look towards Anzac and notice that the whole sky is aflame—the stores are alight. Probably a stack of supplies which has caught fire by mistake. And then, as I look, a curious mist arises, low at first, off the sea—as if with an invisible hand, a cloudy cloak is slowly draped over the whole Peninsula. First Suvla, then Anzac and the coast line become blotted out, and I see now nothing but a grey mist. Suvla Bay and its horrors, its hopes, and disappointments are lost to my sight for ever—for by the time the mist has dispersed the ship has moved away.