The _Portugal_ was the second hospital ship that I had set foot on since the beginning of the war, and, like the _East Anglia_ mentioned on p. 228, she had gone to the bottom within twenty-four hours of my visit. I determined to give hospital ships a wide berth in future if possible--I did not bring them luck. With her Red Cross markings she was perfectly unmistakable; she had been attacked in broad daylight on an almost glassy sea, and the U-boat commander must have been perfectly well aware of her identity when he sank her. The tragic occurrence naturally cast a gloom over Off, where we landed on the open beach and were met by General Liakoff, commanding the Field Force, with a numerous staff. There had been a sharp combat by night some thirty-six hours before, when the Turks had delivered a most determined onset upon a portion of the Russian position; it had, indeed, been touch-and-go for a time. General Liakoff proposed to take us up to the scene of the fight; so the whole party mounted on wiry Cossack horses and cobs, and the cavalcade after crossing the little river near Off proceeded to breast the heights, our animals scrambling up the rugged hill-tracks like cats, till we reached the summit of a detached spur where the affray had been the most violent. The enemy had almost surrounded this spur, and the numerous bodies of dead Turks lying about on the slopes and in the gullies testified to the severity of the fight; Wigram, whose experiences of the battlefield had hitherto been limited to a visit to the Western Front on a special job, was as delighted with these grim relics as a dog is who has found some abomination in the road. Quantities of used and unused cartridges, Turkish and Russian, were strewed about, and it was evident that the defenders had only managed to hold on by the skin of their teeth. General Liakoff told me that his troops were especially pleased at their success, as it had transpired that the assailants were Turks belonging to picked corps recently arrived from the Gallipoli Peninsula. The Russian outposts were now on the next ridge, beyond a narrow valley, and all was quiet at the moment. The views from the spur were very fine, commanding the coast-line in both directions. Trebizond, some fifteen miles off but looking to be nearer, glistened white in the midday sunshine; each patch of level was bright green with growing corn, the higher hills were still crowned with snow, and the littoral as a whole in its colouring and its features was the Riviera faced about and looking north. The general gave me to understand that he would be unable to advance for some days, as he had to make up his reserves of supplies; but the Grand Duke had let me know that considerable reinforcements were to be brought across the Black Sea before the final attack upon Trebizond took place.