World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula
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.
_June 18th._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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