on!

Hi jaculis illi certant defendere saxis.

To whomsoever of my ancestors bequeathed me my power of detachment deep salaams! How many much better men than myself would not close their eyes to-night with a battle on the balance and 5,000 rounds wherewith to fight it? But I shall sleep—D.V.; I can't create shell by taking thought any more than Gouraud could retake the Haricot by not drinking his coffee.

16th July, 1915. Imbros. Forcing myself to work though I feel unspeakably slack; wrangling with the War Office about doctors, nurses, orderlies and ships for our August battles. A few days ago I sent the following cable and they want to cut us down:—

"It seems likely that during the first week of August we may have 80,000 rifles in the firing line striving for a decisive result, and therefore certain that we shall then need more medical assistance. Quite impossible to foresee casualties, but suppose, for example, we suffered a loss of 20,000 men; though the figure seems alarming when put down in cold blood, it is not an extravagant proportion when calculated on basis of Dardanelles fighting up to date. If this figure is translated into terms of requirements such a battle would involve conversion of, say, 30 transports into temporary hospital ships, and necessitate something like 200 extra medical officers, with Royal Army Medical Corps rank and file and nurses in proportion. If my prognosis is concurred in, these should reach Mudros on or about 1st August. Some would D.V., prove superfluous, and could be sent back at once, and in any case they could return as soon as possible after operations, say, 1st September. Medical and surgical equipment, drugs, mattresses in due proportion. In a separate message I will deal with the deficiencies in ordinary establishment, but I think it best to keep this cable as to specified and exceptional demands distinct."

17th July, 1915. Imbros. After lunch felt so sick of scribble, scribble, scribble whilst adventure sat seductive upon my doorstep that I fluttered forth. At 2 o'clock boarded H.M.S. Savage (Lieutenant-Commander Homer) and, with Aspinall and Freddie, steered for Gully Beach. We didn't cast anchor but got into a cockleshell of a small dinghy and rowed ashore under the cliffs, where we were met by de Lisle. Along the beach men were either bathing or basking mother-naked on the hot sand—enjoying themselves thoroughly. I walked on the edge of the sea, as far as the point which hides the gully's mouth from the Turkish gunners, and was specially struck by the physique and class of the 6th East Lancashires under Colonel Cole Hamilton. Then mounted and rode to the Headquarters of General Shaw, commanding the 13th (new) Division. Shaw was feeling his wounds; he had already been once round his lines; so I would not let him come again. But Colonel Gillivan, G.S.O.1, Major Hillyard, G.S.O.2, Captain Jackson, G.S.O.3, Colonel Burton, A.A. and Q.M.G., joined us. First we went to the Headquarters of the 39th Brigade commanded by Brigadier-General Cayley (the Brigade Major is Captain Simpson). Then I went and looked at the trenches J.11-12-13, where I met Colonel Palmer of the 9th Warwicks, Colonel Jordan, D.S.O., of the 7th Gloucesters, Colonel Nunn of the 9th Worcesters, Colonel Andrews of the 7th North Staffordshires. We tramped through miles of trenches. The men were very fit and cheery. It was the day when they were relieving one another by companies from the reserve and there was a big crowd in the Ravine. De Lisle told me that one week had made the most astonishing difference to the savvy of these first arrivals of the New Army. At first there was confusion, loss of energy and time; by the end of the week they had picked up the wrinkles of the veterans. There was a good lot of shelling from the Turks but, humanly speaking, we were all quite snug and safe in the big gully or moving down the deep communication trenches. No one, not even the new 13th Division, paid the smallest deference to the projectiles.

Now began one of these semi-comic, semi-serious adventures which seem to dog my footsteps. Just as I got into the little dinghy, two bluejackets pulling and a Petty Officer steering, the Turks began to shell H.M.S. Savage as she lay about a hundred yards out. She did not like it, and, instead of waiting to let us get aboard, Commander Homer thought it wiser to sheer off about half a mile. When she quitted the Turks turned their guns on to our cockleshell, and although none of the shot came near us they still came quite near enough to interest the whole gallery of some thousands of bathing Tommies who, themselves safe in the dead ground under the cliff, were hugely amused to see their C.-in-C. having a hot time of it. After ten minutes hard rowing we got close to the destroyer and she, making a big circle at fairly high speed, came along fast as if she was going to run us down, with the idea of baffling the aim of the enemy. Not a bad notion as far as the destroyer was concerned but one demanding acrobatic qualities of a very high order on the part of the Commander-in-Chief. Anyway just as she was drawing abreast and I was standing up to make my spring a shell hit her plump and burst in one of her coal bunkers, sending up a big cloud of mixed smoke and black coal dust. The Commander was beside himself. He waved us off furiously; cracked on full steam and again left us in the lurch. We laughed till the tears ran down our cheeks. Soon, we had reason to be more serious, not to say pensive. The Savage showed a pair of clean heels this time and ran right away to Helles. So there we were, marooned, half a mile out to sea, in a tiny dinghy on which the Turks again switched their blarsted guns. The two bluejackets pulled themselves purple. They were both of them fat reservists and the mingling of anxiety and exertion, emotion and motion, made the sweat pour in torrents down their cheeks. Each time a shell plunked into the water we brightened up; then, gradually, until the next one splashed, our faces grew longer and longer. At last we got so far away that the Turks gave us up in disgust. How much I should like to see that battery commander's diary. Altogether, by the time we had boarded the Savage, we had been in that cursed little dinghy for just exactly one hour, of which I should think we were being gently shelled for three quarters of an hour. On board the destroyer no harm to speak of: only one man wounded.

Cast anchor at Imbros at 9 p.m. General Legge and Captain H. Lloyd came over to stay the night. Mail from England.

Have cabled again to stir them up about the hospital ships.

18th July, 1915. Church Parade. Inspected troops. Wrote in camp all the afternoon. Walked out to the lighthouse in the evening and watched the shells bursting over Gully Beach where we were yesterday. How often have I felt anxious seeing these shrapnel through the telescope. On the spot, as I know from yesterday's experience, their bark is worse than their bite. Colonel Ward of the Intelligence came to dinner and Captain Doughtie, commanding H.M.S. Abercrombie, paid me a visit.

19th July, 1915. Too much office work. Mr. Schuler, an Australian journalist and war correspondent, turned up. Seems a highly intelligent young fellow. He had met me on tour in Australia. Gave him leave to go anywhere and see everything. The Staff shake their heads, but the future is locked away in our heads, and the more the past is known the better for us.

Braithwaite has heard from the War Office that the Brigade of Russians which had started from Vladivostock to join us here has been counter-ordered. The War Office seem rather pleased than otherwise that this