World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula
It is wonderful how the country in our possession to date has changed.
Roads are being made everywhere. Pipes lead from wells to troughs.
Piers run out from beaches. Sides of cliffs have little dugouts and
little houses and terraces, with names given them, such as “Sea View”
and “Lancaster Terrace,” such names being officially recognized. Also
camps and horse lines are everywhere. Big gun has been shelling “V”
Beach to-day; “Y” Beach is now known as Gurkha Beach.
_May 24th._
Perfect day after ten; very heavy rain earlier. My job to draw supplies
from Main Supply depot for Division. Rotten job, which starts at six.
Brigade not moved.
Hear that Italy has definitely come in. This closes a channel of
supplies into Austria and Germany, and is bound to tell in a few months.
Japanese bomb shells experimented with in Australian trenches at Gaba
Tepe. They are fired by a trench mortar and have a range of four
hundred yards. They have a small propeller to keep them straight, and
explode with great violence, blowing trench to bits.
The first one tried fell beautifully in a Turkish trench at two hundred
yards’ range, and exploded with great violence. Turks started kicking
up a fearful row, and about fifty rushed out like a lot of hornets.
Machine gun turned on them and scotched the lot. Great request now on
our part for Japanese bomb shells.
News now arrives that two submarines from Germany have got into the
Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar, and that they are
making for this part of the world as hard as they can go. Most of
the Fleet and transports in consequence move off at nightfall for
Lemnos Harbour, off the village of Mudros, where our transports
concentrated before the landing. Looking out to sea from the beach,
the feeling of loneliness engendered by the departure of the shipping
is curious—yesterday I looked seawards and the ocean was dotted with
warships, transports, etc., pinnaces darted to and fro, all was hurry
and bustle, during which one had a comfortable feeling that at our
backs were our Naval comrades, ready to help at a moment’s notice; now,
less than half the shipping lies off the coast than did a week ago, and
a feeling of loneliness, almost of fear, comes over me.
Hindu as well as Sudanese labourers now working on the beach. All the
time that they are carrying anything on a cart, with six pushing,
one of them, evidently in authority, walks alongside laughing and
gesticulating, singing something in a Gregorian chant, to which the
others answer by singing three words in a monotone. This goes on all
the time and causes much amusement to the Tommies, who of course
imitate, whereupon the coolies laugh and sing all the louder.
We have now built a bivouac of boxes on the cliff edge, the right side
of the beach looking towards the sea, and from there we obtain a fine
view of the scenes on the beach and the road below at the foot of the
cliff, which is gradually being widened, built up, and extended round
to “X” Beach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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