James Baillie diary, 11 February 1915 - 18 February 1916 - Page 22

[Page 17]

(Thursday 29th)
No shrapnel to day things pretty quiet all round We unloaded some more lighters The Shrapnel started later to day than before. There a lot of
Troopships achored here Some more troops landed this evening. Very cold to night
(Friday 30th)
We are still holding the position this is the 5th day here and I don't think the Turks will ever root us out. Went on duty for 3 hours to wait for orders. Got orders to proceed to firing line to night Our O.C. pretty nervous Started to move off at 8 pm and had to camp on the side of the hill till morning
May
(Saturday 1st)
Woke up very early with the noise of bursting shrapnel. Got to the firing line at 7 am and have to stand by till we are wanted. Its not to safe out side of dugouts here as there are a lot of snipers behind us. I am attached to A company No 4 platoon The officers name is MacLeod. I go into the trenches at 6 am Rene is in same coy but different Platoon We have our new dugouts and are settled down.
(Sunday and Monday 2nd and 3rd May)
Went into firing line at 6 AM first time in the firing line. Had a few shots at Turks creeping along the ridge We do 12 hours in firing line and 12 hours in supports. The place where we are is called Pope's hill and are entrenched about a hundred yards from Turks. We are going to advance to next ridge to night at 7 o.clock. We were relieved at 6 pm and got Iron rations for 24 hours. The 15th Battalion relieved us. The 16th Battalion charged the ridge under our covering fire. They lost a lot of men we could see them dropping down They charged well. We followed at 7 pm and advanced up gully under heavy fire. We turned to the left and 16th to the right We had to cross the skyline for 50 yards before we got to the position we had to take up Well the rifle fire and machine gun fire was something terrible I believe Rene was wounded there I did not see anything of him around the place where we got to. We started to entrench and waited for the New Zealand Otago battalion to join up with us but they failed to link up so had to look after our own position. We got dug in [indecipherable]. During the night the Turks [indecipherable].