1915 we neared Cape Helles and
heard the thunder of the guns. We landed laboriously about midnight, and
were led by guides to a rendezvous of the 29th Division at a point some
three miles along the coast on the northern side of the Peninsula.
Brilliant moonlight shone upon a sleeping French force close to the
landing-place on "V" Beach. The country looked unspeakably dry and bare.

At six o'clock the following morning we were divided into details for
our various units, and sleepless, unshaven and hungry, I was again
guided to where the 42nd Division had its headquarters--a spot to the
south of the 29th, and, roughly, in the left centre of the short line of
the Allies. The narrowness and shallowness of the area of our occupation
struck all observers at once. The great ridge of Achi Baba, some six
hundred feet above sea-level, barring our advance upon Turkey,
confronted us the very moment that we climbed to the top of the cliffs
that enclosed every landing-place. We were shelled as we struck across
the moorland, and then I found myself once more in East Lancashire.

A long wait at Divisional Headquarters was followed by a delightful
welcome at the Quartermaster's dump of the Battalion, where, in blazing
sunshine, I enjoyed my first food and shave on enemy soil, and abundant
news of the unit. A friendly sergeant then led me up to the fire
trenches some two miles forward, where the Manchesters held both sides
of Krithia nullah, a ravine running up into a sloping heath, where the
Turks had lain dug in for the last two months. Our way, after passing
"Clapham Junction," was fringed with the graves of the fallen. I noticed
Staveacre's.

It was pleasant to reach the cool burrow, which served as our Battalion
Headquarters. Here I found Colonel Canning, P.H. Creagh and Fawcus
sitting on the yellow, dusty ground beneath a tarpaulin. It was
thrilling once again to walk among our Manchester men, now very thin and
sunburnt, in shirt-sleeves and shorts, making the best of life in narrow
trenches, and watching day after day the serried Turkish lines and
broad, brown mass of Achi Baba. Next day (1st August), in mid-afternoon,
we moved into the most advanced fire trenches, and I became O.C. of our
Battalion's firing line, with a small dug-out of my own in the centre of
our sector. This sector was within forty or fifty yards of the Turkish
position, and in the early morning, as the sun rose over Asia, we heard
the _muezzin_ calling the