June 17th
Coming back from issuing this morning to my “bivvy” on the cliff, I hear ship’s horns tooting continuously, and running to the edge of the cliff I see a supply ship, which is lying immediately opposite, hoist a red flag, being the signal that submarines are about. Destroyers, mine-sweepers, and small pinnaces from shore put out to the transport and cruise round and round her. I see distinctly a shadow glide along on the water on the side of the ship farthest from us, looking like the shadow from a cloud in the sky, and then it disappears. Men on board are all around the ship, peering over the side. Then suddenly I see bobbing about in the water, like a big fisherman’s float, the red tip of a torpedo. Some one on a trawler shouts through a megaphone to the other craft, “Look out for that torpedo!” A small row-boat from the trawler puts out, rows up to the bobbing object in the water, fastens a rope round its nose and rows away, towing it after them. On nearing No. 1 Pier, the pier nearest to us, an M.L.O. standing at the pierhead shouts, “Is the pistol head on?” A reply from the boat says “Yes,” and the M.L.O. shouts back, “Well, take the damn thing away and sink it.” The oarsmen then head their boat out to sea, and, after some arrangement which I cannot see through my glasses, sink the torpedo.
Ordnance get to hear of this and are annoyed, for they would prize such a find as one of the latest German torpedoes. It was quite 15 feet long, with a red-painted nose and a long, shining, bronze-coloured body.
Later, we hear that the submarine had fired two torpedoes, and by being too close to her quarry, missed. By being too close, also, she was missed by the destroyers, for they, at the time, were making circles around the transport at about the distance of the usual effective range of a torpedo. Shortly after, the supply ships were driven off out to sea by the Asiatic guns. Our 60-pounder guns are firing hard over to Asia. I hope they have got the range of their guns. Our bivouac, unfortunately, is in the direct line of their fire, and as each shot is fired we can’t help jumping, and our “bivvy” shakes its flimsy walls.
Three shells from Asia pitched right into our hospital on the edge of the cliff on the left of “W” Beach looking seawards, killing two orderlies and wounding six, yet the doctors calmly went on with their work of bandaging and dressing. The hospital is on a bad site, for it is only divided by a road from the little village of marquees forming the Ordnance depot.
At 8.30 p.m. I go up to Brigade H.Q. with an orderly, and leave the horses at Pink Farm, and walk across that two hundred and fifty yards with bullets whistling more than usual, for to-night the Turks appear more energetic with rifle fire. It is an eerie sensation, walking across there in the dark when many bullets are about—walking very fast, almost counting one’s steps, and getting nearer and nearer to the little light on the side of the hill. Had a chat there for twenty minutes in the dugout with General Cayley and his Staff, and had a drink. Rather a nice picture, with the candles and the cheery officers sitting round; outside, the sound of bullets whistling continuously. I say good-night and go out, and find my orderly crouching pretty well down in a dugout, and he says he thinks we had better hurry out, as it is a bit hot, and as he says so, “ping” goes a bullet between us. But the bullets do not give me the fear that those horrible high explosive shells from Asia do. A moon is getting up, and so we are able to trot back smartly. The scene on the Krithia road at night is just what I imagined, in past life, war to be. The wagons trekking up to the trenches, with, of course, no lights, and troops of all kinds moving up and down. In the distance, star shells shooting up and sailing gently down, illuminating the country as light as day, and as one gets nearer to the firing-line the crackle of musketry gets louder and louder, and during the final walk of three hundred yards from Pink Farm to H.Q., the song of bullets flying past one makes one very much alive. Overhead, a perfect sky and myriads of stars looking down on a great tragedy with a certain amount of comic relief. These days we wish for more comic relief than we are getting.