in getting a firm
footing on the Peninsula and that was why I had signalled d'Amade from
Gaba Tepe to bring up all the rest of his troops from Tenedos and to
disembark them at "W" (seeing we were still held up at "V") and why I
cannot now perceive any other issue. We are not strong enough to attack
on both sides of the Straits. Given one more Division we might try: as
things are, my troops won't cover the mileage. On a small scale map, in
an office, you may make mole-hills of mountains; on the ground there's
no escaping from its features.

As soon as the French Commander took his leave, we steamed back for Gaba
Tepe, passing Cape Helles at 12.20 p.m. Weather now much brighter and
warmer. Passing "Y" Beach the re-embarkation of troops was still going
on. All quiet, the _Goliath_ says: the enemy was so roughly handled in
an attack they made last night that they do not trouble our
withdrawal--too pleased to see us go, it seems! So this part of our plan
has gone clean off the rails. Keyes, Braithwaite, Aspinall, Dawnay,
Godfrey are sick--but their disappointment is nothing to mine. De Robeck
agrees that we don't know enough yet to warrant us in fault-finding or
intervention. My orders ought to have been taken before a single
unwounded Officer or man was ferried back aboard ship. Never, since
modern battles were invented by the Devil, has a Commander-in-Chief been
so accessible to a message or an appeal from any part of the force. Each
theatre has its outfit of signallers, wireless, etc., and I can either
answer within five minutes, or send help, or rush myself upon the scene
at 25 miles an hour with the _Q.E.'s_ fifteen inchers in my pocket. Here
there is no question of emergency, or enemy pressure, or of haste; so
much we see plain enough with our own eyes.

Whilst having a hurried meal, Jack Churchill rushed down from the crow's
nest to say that he thought we had carried the Fort above Sedd-el-Bahr.
He had seen through a powerful naval glass some figures standing erect
and silhouetted against the sky on the parapet. Only, he argued, British
soldiers would stand against the skyline during a general action. That
is so, and we were encouraged to be hopeful.

On to Gaba Tepe just in time to see the opening, the climax and the end
of the dreaded Turkish counter attack. The Turks have been fighting us
off and on all the time, but this is--or rather I can happily now say
"was"--an organised effort to burst in through our cent