the gallant lads is
amazing--superhuman!
Went on to see Hunter-Weston at his Headquarters,--a queer Headquarters
it would seem to our brethren in France! Braithwaite, Street,
Hunter-Weston and myself.
Some of our units are shaken, no doubt, by loss of Officers (complete);
by heavy losses of men (not replaced, or replaceable, under a month) and
by sheer physical exertion. Small wonder then that one weak spot in our
barrier gave way before the solid mass of the attacking Turks, who came
on with the bayonet like true Ghazis. The first part of the rifle fire
last night was entirely from our own men. The break by one battalion
gave a grand chance to the only Territorial unit in the 29th Division,
the 5th Royal Scots, who have a first-class commanding Officer and are
inspired not only by the indomitable spirit of their regular comrades,
but by the special fighting traditions of Auld Reekie. They formed to a
flank as if on a peace parade and fell on to the triumphant Turkish
stormers with the cold steel, completely restoring the fortunes of the
night. It would have melted a heart of stone, Hunter-Weston said, to see
how tired our men looked in the grey of morning when my order came to
hand urging them to counter-attack and pursue. Not the spirit but the
flesh failed them. With a fresh Division on the ground nothing would
have prevented us from making several thousand prisoners; whether they
would have been able to rush the machine guns and so gain a great
victory was more problematical. Anyway, our advance at dawn was half
heroic, half lamentable. The men were so beat that if they tripped and
fell, they lay like dead things. The enemy were almost in worse plight
and so we took prisoners, but as soon as we came up against nerveless,
tireless machine guns we had to stagger back to our trenches.
As I write dead quiet reigns on the Peninsula, literally dead quiet. Not
a shot from gun or rifle and the enemy are out in swarms over the plain!
but they carry no arms; only stretchers and red crescent flags, for they
are bearing away their wounded and are burying their piles of dead. It
is by my order that the Turks are being left a free hand to carry out
this pious duty.
The stretcher-bearers carry their burdens over a carpet of flowers. Life
is here around us in its most exquisite forms. Those flowers! Poppies,
cornflowers, lilies, tulips whose colours are those of the rainbow. The
coast line curving down and far away to meet
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