ton, and the only
public meeting I witnessed during three years of warfare--a recruiting
rally in the Manchester Hippodrome--was a poor outlet for one's
activity. An offer of the command of the new 3rd line reserve unit at
Southport naturally failed to quench my keenness to rejoin the
Battalion, and after vexatious delays I at last sailed from Devonport
for the East, on the _Simla_, on the 13th July 1915.

We reached Alexandria on the 25th, and the crowded harbour of Mudros
early on the 29th. The boat was full of drafts for the 29th
Division--Essex and Hampshire men, Inniskillings, Munsters, Royal and
Lancashire Fusiliers, Worcesters--and rumours of the intended Suvla
expedition were in the air. Our optimism was, however, chastened by the
opinions of one experienced soldier on board, who insisted that we ought
never to have landed at Cape Helles, but on the Gulf of Saros behind the
lines of Bulair, and made straight for Constantinople with a large army,
without trying to force the Dardanelles. He believed that the Germans
would still take Warsaw, and thought Holland's co-operation essential to
any plan of early success. The War was still at a stage when men did not
mind talking about it, and the general assumption was that it could not
last long. One sailor told me a story typical of the German's ignorance
of sportsmanship. A captured naval officer was courteously allowed the
use of the British captain's cabin. A few moments later a crash
announced that he had requited chivalry by breaking everything he could
lay his hands on. Other passengers on the _Simla_ were nursing sisters
in dainty scarlet and grey, naval airmen who disembarked at Valetta, and
the whole staff of an Australian General Hospital bound for
Mudros--expert specialist officers and splendid men, with songs cheery
and robust:

"When the beer's on the table, we'll be there."

Perhaps my most vivid memories, however, are of the keen young officers
conducting drafts, who were so soon to fall in the great attempt at
Suvla.

The fate of one of these, J.R. Lingard, then in charge of some
Lancashire Fusiliers, was one of the unsolved mysteries of the
Dardanelles campaign. A brave and popular officer, he was severely
wounded on the 21st August. He was carried out of action and placed on a
stretcher for conveyance across Suvla Beach to a hospital ship. At this
point all trace of him disappeared. His fate is unknown.

In the late afternoon of the 30th July