World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula
I discover it is signals of D.H.Q. and am directed to H.Q., where I am
interviewed by a G.S. Officer, who asks me the position of troops. I
tell him French on the right, and then 88th, 86th, then 87th. I learn
that I am on Hill 138, the future name of D.H.Q. I am directed back
to “W” Beach and then endeavour to find O’Hara. After fifteen minutes
I find him and report what I had done, and am told that he had learnt
that a dump of rations, ammunition, and water is to be made at Pink
Farm. Learning that Pink Farm is the collection of buildings that I had
struck earlier in the afternoon, I point out that this farm will be
too far to the left for my Brigade, and that I found a convenient site
for the 88th dump on the right of the Sed-el-Bahr–Krithia road, but I
am told that I must have made a mistake. This disturbs me somewhat, as
I feel that I am right. He tells me to come along with him up to Pink
Farm, as pack-mules with rations, ammunition, and water had started for
this dump. We overtake some of them. Further on we meet Carver coming
back on horseback, and he reports where 87th Brigade H.Q. is. I now
see that the reason why they have decided on Pink Farm for a dump is
because Way had come back first and reported where his Brigade was, and
that through Carver and I not having turned up they decided on Pink
Farm as a Divisional dump for all the Brigades. As a matter of fact,
Pink Farm will suit 87th as well as 86th, for it lies between the two,
and rations, etc., from the one dump can be man-handled to the two
Brigades. But for the 88th, the dump is right out of it.
We meet Phillips, our 88th Transport Officer and O.C. No. 4 Company, a
good soldier; Ford, Q.M. of the Essex; and Grogan, Transport Officer of
the K.O.S.B.’s, a delightful chap; and passing them we arrive at Pink
Farm, where I tell my tale to Colonel Beadon and Major Streidinger.
It is now raining hard, and I have no coat. It is hard work getting
through the clayey mud. They apparently do not consider my statement
that this dump is of no use whatever to the 88th, for a bush that I
can just see a hundred yards away is pointed out, the moon then being
up above the clouds, and I am ordered to go two hundred yards beyond
there, where I will find Thomson and 88th Brigade H.Q., and to arrange
with him for fatigue parties to come back and carry up water. They say
they have just been talking to Thomson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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