f he could: in
truth, I am torn in two about this; but I still feel it is wiser and
better so; not only from the K. point of view but also from de Robeck's.
He (de Robeck) might be quite glad I should write once to Winston on one
subject but he would never be sure afterwards I was not writing on
others. On the way back I spoke to the Admiral, but I don't know whether
he will write himself or not. Ventured also a little bit out of my own
element in another direction, and begged him not to put off sending the
submarine through the Straits until the day of our landing, but to let
her go directly she was ready. He does not agree. He has an idea (I hope
a premonition) that the submarine will catch Enver hurrying down to the
scene of action if we wait till the day of the attack.

Even more than in the Fleet I find in the Air Service the profound
conviction that, if they could only get into direct touch with Winston
Churchill, all would be well. Their faith in the First Lord is, in every
sense, _touching_. But they can't get the contact and they are
thoroughly imbued with the idea that the Sea Lords are at the best
half-hearted; at the worst, actively antagonistic to us and to the whole
of our enterprise. The photographs, etc., I have studied make it only
too clear that the Turks have not let the grass grow under their feet
since the first bombardment; the Peninsula, in fact, is better defended
than it was. _Per contra_ the momentum, precision, swiftness and staying
power of our actual attack will be at least twice as great now as it
would have been at the end of March.

Returned to Lemnos about 7.30 p.m.

While we were away my Staff got aboard the destroyer _Colne_ and steamed
in her to the mouth of the Dardanelles. There the whole precious load of
red tabs transshipped to H.M.S. _Triumph_ (Captain Fitzmaurice), who
forthwith took up her station opposite Morto Bay and began firing salvos
with her 6-inch guns at the trenches on the face of the hill. At first
the Staff watched the show with much enjoyment from the bridge, but
when howitzers from the Asiatic side began to lob shell over the ship,
the Captain hustled them all into the conning tower. The Turks seem to
have shot pretty straight. The first three fell fifty yards short of the
ship; the fourth shell about twenty yards over her. The next three got
home. One cut plumb through the bridge (where all my brains had been
playing about two minutes previously) and burst on t