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[Page 30]
whiskey (looted). No mistake it makes a big difference & helps one along to a large extent. The enemy got one of our trawlers today, owing to unexploded shrapnel, but no lives. The vessel was beached & is no danger. Today is very quiet (5 day) & things generally are on the recede. We removed into another set of dugouts to make room for reinforcements. All news is good too: French on one wing & Tommy on the other. We occupy the centre position for which the Turks are struggling hard to regain (more notes, general position & why it was vacated) (trenches & barbed entanglements on beach front). Had a swim today & changed over sox (first 3 weeks), the old Mediterranean is the same here as elsewhere – shingle beach, etc., which we found very hard to walk on.
Dugouts & daily menus occupy a good amount of attention. The chief form & most enjoyable food is a stew prepared of "Bully" (tinned meat) hard biscuits, & oxo, a kind of beef tea extract. Splendid result. Fried bully & cheese & the old favourite jam. Today is May 1st 1915 & the seventh day of conflict. I woke to glorious sound of gun fire & cannon roar which showed the day was going to be a fast one, nor were we mistaken, for it proved a strenuous one indeed. Old Lizzie steamed up opposite a dismantled fort & after plomping a couple of shells (1 ton each) across to the narrows from her 15 inch guns dropped quietly down stream & away. I think the Goebin [Goeben] is supposed to be sheltering behind Fort Maidos, & our guns are trying to do her some damage there. I must add her guns are very distracting to us on the beach as they