to an hospital ship. The report was that his wounds were not serious, although he was naturally in considerable pain after lying so long in the sun and after his trying passage down from the front through narrow and winding trenches.

At a conference of C.O.'s held at Brigade Headquarters at 3.40, we were informed that a battalion of the Royal Naval Division was arriving to deliver an attack on the right of the 155th Brigade with the object of securing some gaps in the line between that Brigade and the French. This was preceded, at 4.30, by the usual bombardment. There would appear to have been some ghastly blundering in connection with the arrangements for this attack. We heard afterwards that the battalion was quite ignorant of the ground; that it only arrived a few minutes before the attack was timed to commence; and that it had difficulty in finding the trench from which it was to move on its objective. There must have been similar uncertainty about the objective itself, for the troops advanced across the open, suffering severely from shell-fire, into a trench already held by the 155th Brigade, a trench which—had they known it was so held—they might have walked into by a communication sap with little if any loss. Afterwards they pushed on some distance beyond this trench but found no other to take, and when they fell back on the existing front line the position remained exactly as it had been before the attack, except for the terrible casualties they had so unnecessarily sustained. In his published despatch, Sir Ian Hamilton, referring to this attack, explains its necessity by stating that "about 7.30 a.m. the right of the 157th Brigade gave way before a party of bombers, and our grip upon the enemy began to weaken." He must have been entirely misinformed as to the position, unless the "giving way" to which he refers was the mistaken retirement from the trench which Captain John MacDonald had occupied, as previously narrated. If this is so, the officer who issued the orders to the Naval Battalion cannot have been informed that the "giving way" was only temporary and that the 157th Brigade had almost immediately reoccupied its trenches and was actually holding them when this unfortunate attack was launched.

About four o'clock we received the bad news that Captain John MacDonald had been killed—shot through the head by a sniper's bullet—in the front trench which his company was still assisting to hold. This brought the total of our officers' casualties in the two days' fighting to seven; three killed (Captain MacDonald and Lieutenants Malcolm and May) one missing (Captain Morton), and three wounded (Majors Jowitt and Downie and Lieutenant J.G. Milne).

For two days after the battle all units were kept busy gathering up the arms, equipment and loose ammunition with which the terrain was littered, as well as maintaining the defence of the captured positions.

On the afternoon of July 15th, "C" and "D" Companies took over the trenches on the west of the Achi Baba nullah from the Plymouth Battalion, while "A" Company relieved part of the Drake Battalion and the 6th H.L.I. on the east of the nullah. This relief had to be carried out after nightfall, as the position was as yet unsafe from Turkish marksmen who sniped the approaches by day. The sector included the famous Horse Shoe Trench which was then a death trap, although, after much labour had been expended upon it, it was latterly known as the safest position on the Peninsula.

That first night was an eerie one for "A" Company, and for our Signalling Officer, Captain R.H. Morrison, who had to link up Battalion Headquarters in Wigan Road with the isolated company. Selecting a quiet interval about 11 p.m. he slipped out from F12 with a couple of his Headquarters signallers to run the line across. Working over almost unknown ground, with only a general idea of the direction and position of the enemy, their worst anxiety was lest in the dark they should lead their wire into a Turkish trench instead of the Horse Shoe. A few bullets were sweeping down the nullah as they crossed, but fortunately none of the little party was hit. Breasting the slope on the further side they eventually landed safely in the Horse Shoe, much to the surprise of the sentries there. It did not take long to instal the instrument, and, leaving one of the signallers in charge of the new station, the party retraced its steps and got back to Headquarters shortly before midnight to report communication established.

On the 16th we took over from the Manchester a small stretch of trenches on our left, and "C" Company salved fifteen asphyxiating bombs from a pent-house in one of the nullah trenches. A captured Turkish officer, evidently disapproving of these innovations by his German masters, had given information as to where they would be found. Packed in two cases marked RAKATEN, they were long, slender, uncanny-looking projectiles evidently intended for discharge from a trench-mortar.

For the next two days and nights we laboured almost unceasingly, dog-tired and hardly able to keep awake, improving our defences.

The R.E. wired our front across the nullah, and we ourselves extended F12A and F12 down to the bed of the stream as a first step towards joining up with the Horse Shoe.

Over forty Turks were buried at this time between F11 and F12. F11 itself was so densely packed with corpses that it had to be filled in.

After dark on the 17th, "B" Company, now commanded by Lieut. N.R. Campbell, relieved "A" in the Horse Shoe. "A" had several casualties during its tour of duty there, some men having been hit in the trench itself, others while going back for water.

On the west side of the nullah Pte. A. Heron was killed, and the bombers holding the barricade which had been thrown up on the 12th had casualties also. Our snipers gave a good account of themselves, one having seven observed hits to his credit and another five on the same day. There was a well about 400 yards off, round which occasional parties of Turks could be easily observed until they realised that the recent advance had exposed the place to our view.

On July 18th, "A," "C," and "D" Companies were relieved by the 6th East Lancs, and painfully dragged their weary way back to rest. The journey of less than three miles took us fully four hours, for we were all pretty well played out after nine such days and nights as we had just come through, and the scorching heat necessitated many a halt by the way. How we revelled in that drink as we paused at Romano's Well!—the only spot on the Peninsula where we could get a draught of real, cold, unchlorinated water!

About 6 p.m. we reached our destination, a series of holes in the ground lying between the Pink Farm Road and "X" Beach, and about a mile behind the Farm itself. The Quarter-Master, Lieut. T. Clark, and his satellites had a good meal of hot stew and potatoes ready for us, and lots of tea, after which we stretched our blankets on the ground, lay down and fell asleep.

It was not till 5.30 next morning that "B" Company rolled up, absolutely "cooked." They had not been relieved until 2.30 a.m., the Lancashires not having considered it safe to move up their company until a communication trench, on which we had been working for some days, had been completed.