January 2nd
The sea was very rough last night, and in consequence the evacuation was very much delayed. We are now being subjected to very severe shelling. From three o’clock yesterday to nine o’clock this morning three howitzers, two from behind Krithia and one on the right shoulder of Achi, have been throwing big high explosive shells over to us on the beaches steadily. This is the severest spell on record, and it is evident that they are expecting us to go soon and are making it as hard as possible. Afterwards we were shelled in jerks to midday. At seven o’clock to-night Horne and I go up to Krithia Nullah or Clapham Junction. It is very dark, and the road is pockmarked with shell-holes. I miss the familiar landmark of the white pillars. I remember now that they told me while I was at Suvla that they had been demolished by our Engineers. We have a forward reserve dump at Clapham Junction, which we start eating into to-morrow. 88th Brigade H.Q. is just near by, dug-in in trenches, and on calling there we are invited to dinner. We have a Christmas pudding, which is brought in alight with brandy. It seems strange following this old custom in a dugout, with bullets zipping over outside and within eight hundred yards of the Turks.
Coming out of the dugout on to the road, I notice bullets flying about much freer than usual, the Turks being more energetic over their practice of firing their rifles at night than they ever were before. All the time, as we walk back, we hear the Turkish howitzers sending over their consignment of high explosives to “W” Beach. After ten minutes’ walk we hear a shell coming bang at us, firing at a battery close by; but it is a small dud, and it goes “fut” into the ground. As we approach nearer and nearer to “W” Beach we hear their “hows” whining away overhead. They sound so harmless, and seem to take quite a time sailing through the air, but the sound of them crashing on the beach rather inclines us to slacken our pace. On approaching the Main Supply depot, however, we quicken our pace, and passing through it, arrive at the wood-stacks, when we hear one of their whiners sailing over. Quickly we duck behind the wood as it bursts short of the Supply depot. We get up and walk briskly to our dugout, and just as we descend the steps on the cliff-side we hear another. We dive into Hyslop’s dugout precipitously as it bursts with a crash forty yards behind us. Afterwards a pinnace alongside No. 1 Pier is afire, set ablaze by a direct hit from a shell. Bed, and we go to sleep hearing the shells explode in various parts of the beach at short intervals. Fortunately these shells do not reach the water’s edge and cannot impede the final stage of the evacuation. It is only Asia that upsets this.