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[Page 22]
Gallipoli
11:11:15 – As a result of this fatal bombardment, the work of tunnelling continues with unabated vigour day and night: shafts from 20 to 25 feet being sunk, from which branch tunnels are being spread out. These are considered to be the only safe precaution against howitzers. They can search every nook and cranny of this gully. They appear to fire into the heavens and come down as if at right angles. Gad! this is war. Give me bullets with a chance to smack back any day in preference to this "rat-in-the-trap" destruction and murder. Crouch where you may above ground you are not safe from these monsters. You hear their weird song which sings them on their way, intensifying as they approach, but you don't know where they are going to land. It is impossible to locate them until they have struck, and then up goes everything within their reach. The concussion is frightfully and powerfully intense and you are lifted about as if you were a mere straw. What puny mites we are and how helpless one feels against these mighty engines of war. "Dig" is Kitchener's advice, and that is the only advice – to hide yourself in the bowels of the earth.
Captain C.W. Melvill, New Zealand Staff Corps, has arrived and taken the place of Captain Mair (G.S.O. 3). He tells many interesting and amusing tales of his experiences in France – in the battle of the Aisne and other stupendous struggles in the early stages of the war. He had his arms and legs lacerated by high explosives and had four months in hospital in England. His recitals of instances of the brutal callousness of German methods of warfare were to a degree more repulsive than I have read of, despite the horribleness of some of the latter. He tells us of German Officers entering quiet houses of the villagers and country folk and stabling their horses in the drawing and dining rooms and fastening them up to pianos, bedsteads, etc., and generally converting the homes into dung-pits for their filthy excreta – being blackguardly plunder and desecration of beautiful homes.
13:11:15 – Lord Kitchener paid a short visit to Anzac where he was introduced to various Divisional and Brigade Commanders. He was given a great cheer on his arrival. It was a peremptory official visit and he was gone again after an inspection of the various posts.
17:11:15 – A frightful and devastating storm at night – thunder, lightning and rain. Hellish weather all day, which developed into a veritable inferno of storm and tempest as night approached. Rain fell in torrents, the wind howled along in terrific gusts and there was great damage to piers and beach works. The saps and roads in the several "deres" also suffered severely. Some of the saps have been converted into raging torrents and are practically impassable.
27:11:15 – Heavy rain, cold wind, and very damp. The whole countryside is a heap of mud.
28:11:15 – Visited with snow-storm during the early hours of the morning and it was still falling when I awoke. The country is under a mantle of white. The fall is judged to be about 4 inches. With the continual traffic there was soon mud everywhere and it was hardly possible to get through it – slide, slip and slither all over the place, if you were lucky enough not to get stuck in it ankle deep.
1:12:15/2:12:15 – Evacuated "sick" with lumbago and jaundice, and taken aboard hospital ship "Oxfordshire", which is excellently fitted.
3:12:15 – Spent a comfortable night and had my first sleep for a week. Enjoyed the luxury of a hot sea bath and had my clothes thoroughly disinfected.