World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula
Turks shell us unceasingly all morning, several shells coming near our
depot, but they are only light shells, and many of them do not explode.
A Newfoundland regiment joins our Brigade. They get shelled while on
the beach, just an hour after landing, and suffer casualties. They
appear to look upon it as a huge joke.
Way and Carver come back. 86th Brigade due from Imbros to-morrow. Hear
that Captain Koebel, who came over with me from Alexandria at the end
of July, has died of wounds. We became great friends on board the
_Anglo-Egyptian_ in July.
Go up to Brigade by night. Beautiful moonlight night again. Go up by
car. Nothing doing. Lachard joins us now in place of Phillips.
_September 21st._
Fairly quiet to-day so far. Though just as I go over to depot this
morning several shells fly overhead. Horrid feeling when you are in the
open. Very fine day, but flies terrible. All quiet on front. Exactly a
month now since last battle.
_September 22nd._
All quiet up to 3.30 p.m., when we had a very bad shelling, and there
were several casualties in the valley. Fortunately it only lasted half
an hour. Our men are busy making shrapnel-proof head cover. One gun
somewhere by Sari Bair is very fond of chucking over, to our camps
on this promontory, 5·9 shrapnel. One does not hear the boom of the
gun, which I think must be a howitzer. The first warning one has of
the thing coming is a sound like some one blowing with his lips very
softly. This gets louder and louder, until with a cat-like shriek and
bang it explodes over one’s head. Having to depend on being warned by
such a common sound is of course the cause of many false alarms. In
fact, a man blowing with his lips is sufficient to make another man
cock his ears and listen.
_September 23rd._
A quiet day, but for the usual cannonading on both sides, a few 5·9
shrapnel shells coming our way at four in the afternoon. Reinforcements
arriving daily. A cold gale blowing all day. At six we have another
bout of shelling, while we are loading up A.T. carts, one shell
pitching right in our depot, and one of our poor chaps being badly hit,
from which he is not expected to recover. (He has since died. A nice
boy, only nineteen.)
_September 24th._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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