that time Machine Gun Officer, but afterwards most admirable of
Company Commanders; Captains H.H. Nidd and J.R. Creagh, most careful of
Company Officers; D. Norbury of the Machine Guns; Pain and Pilgrim,
invaluable Somerset officers attached to us, all left the Battalion with
jaundice. Burn and Bryan left it with dysentery; Morten with a poisoned
hand.

There was little indeed to cheer the men in the trenches. News
percolated through to us of the failure at Suvla and of the hardships
endured in that enterprise. Mails from home arrived all too slowly and
precariously. Death was always present. We regretted the loss of Captain
H.T. Cawley on the night of the 23rd September. He had given up a soft
billet as A.D.C. to a Major General in order to share the lot of his
old regiment, a battalion of the Manchesters, and was killed in a mine
crater near Border Barricade.

The spell in the trenches admitted of few variations. The journey to
them was always burdensome. It is easy to recall the trek, on the 1st
October 1915, of weary, dust-stained, overloaded men some three miles up
the nullah, inches deep in dirty dust and under a broiling sun, to
occupy narrow fire trenches, unprotected as ever by head cover, and
pestilential with smells and flies. Yet once established in the
trenches, life was tolerable enough. As a Field Officer I was fortunate
to be able to escape at times to enjoy the intense luxury of
sea-bathing. Sometimes the evenings were misty, and the fog-horns of our
destroyers and trawlers carried faintly across the AEgean Sea. More often
the sunsets were gorgeous. The day always seemed long. Firing was
frequent but targets were rare. Some men curled themselves up between
the narrow red walls of the trenches, read, dozed, smoked, talked, one
or two in each traverse observing in turns through the periscope across
the arid belt of No Man's Land, where groups of grey-clad Turks, killed
long ago, still lay bleaching and reeking under the torrid sky. Others
foraged behind for fuel, which could only be found with great
difficulty. A little later dozens of fires would be crackling in the
trenches, with dixies upon them full of stew or tea. Flies hovered in
myriads over jam-pots. The sky was cloudless. Heat brooded over all. No
one ever visited the trench except the Battalion Headquarters Staff and
fatigue parties with water-bottles. Many soldiers stripped to the waist,
and wore simply their sun helmets and shorts. Sickness a