[Page 26]
1915
May 7 – Turkish Officer rode in with White Flag & gave himself up (6-5-15). Usual Artillery duels. Turks shelled our trench in afternoon. Fort Guns again troublesome. Much Artillery firing, expected night attack, but did not come off. Cold night.
8 – Service P.C's issued, sent 1 to Mother & 1 Aunt Jess Carrie N.Y. According to the Turkish Officer who gave himself up Thurs., the Turks call us cannibals & think it better to be shot than be eaten alive. The Tommies say we Australians are mad, they have christened us "The White Ghurkas". Rcd. aluminium Jar of Tobacco from Arthur W. Pashley, 629 McDonough St., Brooklyn, N.Y. Bless his heart. Hood & I Corporals in trench tonight, fairly quiet. Turks sapping on our R & L front. to We made new traverses & did some sapping to prevent enfilade fire. Rum slightly improved.
Sun. 9 – Landed 2 wks. to-day, reinforcements continue to arrive. Turks must be observing our Sunday as things are so quiet, deepened trenches 6" to 20" & engineers put in traverses, two cooks appointed to cook for 47 of us. Played six games of 500, me & Jim, Dave Russell & MacIntyre, we won 4-6 played for 3 matches a game. Jack Bruce strikes daylight 30 odd feet out. Jack is our anarchist, he throws the hand grenades with deadly accuracy. Sgt. Patterson Q.M.S.
Mon. 10 – Fairly quiet – getting our 9.2 in position – Col. Dobbin visits us. Lusitania rep. sunk 2000 lost. Snipers still give a lot of trouble with their automatic pistol & tripod well concealed. Not getting so much rations as at first. Q.M.S. Blunden told me I have been recd. for promotion. Fire trench tonight, nothing exciting usual firing all night. Much artillery on right flank – Turks guns still sweep beach. We have a canary which hops along the top of our trench every morning. I think he has a nest above me as the sand-bags are full of bullets.