June 2nd
After issue, go down on beach to our Train office, which is now dug in the side of the cliff. It has twice been moved, each time farther and farther round the cliff on the right of the beach looking seawards. When shelling is on, our Train office soon becomes full of passing officers, reminding me of a crowded pavilion at a cricket match when rain stops the play. Just as the pavilion empties as the rain stops, so does our Train office when the shelling stops. Then all the morning there calls a continual stream of officers—R.E., Ordnance, Supply, Artillery, and regimental—presenting their respective indents for transport, which the Adjutant has difficulty with, in mathematically fitting in the detailing of transport to satisfy their demands with available wagons. It is a job that requires tact and organization. Officers also call who come just to pass the time of day and exchange rumours, or beach gossip as we call it. The circulation of rumours is the best entertainment that we have, and though 95 per cent. of them are estranged from truth by a large margin, yet life would be doubly as dull as it is without them. They are always listened to with great interest, though, before they are heard, listeners know they are going to be miles off the target of truth. And if a man who has achieved a reputation for carrying with him the latest and most interesting “beach gossip” fails any morning in producing any, he causes really keen disappointment.
This morning we hear that the Turks are starved, have no clothes, are almost at the last gasp for ammunition, and only require one more hard knock before they retreat precipitously to lines which they have prepared well beyond the slopes on the other side of Achi Baba. The Navy then tell us that once Achi is in our hands we command the Narrows; Chanak Fort will be shelled to a pile of bricks and stones, the Fleet will make a dash up the Straits into the Marmora, and will arrive before Constantinople in three days. After a heavy bombardment of this city, the goal of our ambitions, we will attack the Turkish Army, now starved and demoralized beyond recovery. They will be beaten and will make unconditional surrender; the Peninsula will be ours, the Dardanelles will be open, Russia and the Allies will link hands, and the war will end six months after in glorious victory for our cause and confusion to our enemies.
We drink in minor rumours day by day that are given as irrefutable evidence in support of these prophecies; we are buoyed up in hope and spirits thereby, and ourselves spread the rumours to those of our friends who still remain pessimistic.
I go up to the Main Supply depot, and there, having by now been given a reputation for carrying good and juicy rumours, I cheer them up by the news that Achi will be ours by June 30th. Smart, one of the officers there, who was in the retreat from Mons, makes me a bet, and the stake is a nice ruler that he has on his desk. I promptly book the bet. I go up to Brigade and have tea, and supply them with the latest rumours.