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[Page 106]
2/12/15
On reaching Helles we saw the Tenedos boat already under way but our old skipper like a sport hoisted a signal blew his whistle and as she lay to he ran alongside and let us on board. The new ship was a smaller trawler K39 with a Scotch skipper named Sandy, as big a wag as the other one. We passed the entrance to the Dardanelles and saw where the forts had been bashed to pieces and proceeded south along the coast of AsiaMinor. The country flat near the shore, the few scattered villas and forts lay in ruins and the mountains behind in Asiaall snow covered and very pretty.
Passed a barren island called Rabbit Island and went alongside a monitor and left her mail. She was in a strait surrounded by nets as a protection against submarines and looked a most extraordinary craft with her single mast and her 10" guns. An aeroplane passed overhead very high and suddenly banked steeply and almost touched the water. On Rabbit island was a hangar. The monitor had a little seaplane aboard. Proceeding on our voyage we made Tenedos at noon.
A single peak rising out of the water at the foot of which was a snug little village of the usual type. Among the cluster of houses rose a single tower surmounted by a cross – a Greek church. Built right into the rock and right down to the water is a citadel evidently a stronghold in ancient times now French headquarters for their forces and a row of the usual windmills on the skyline. Came round a small breakwater into a snug little harbour full of small craft. Went off in a bumboat and on landing were assailed by the usual crowd of children and guides. The village similar to Panaghia but larger and cleaner. Went to café to had an excellent lunch of fish boiled in olive oil, stew cooked in oil, butter beans, small cakes, bread butter, cheese the colour of chalk and absinthe & ale