my trenches. At night
several counter-attacks were delivered, in every case repulsed with
heavy loss.

We are now on our last legs. The beautiful Battalions of the 25th April
are wasted skeletons now; shadows of what they had been. The thought of
the river of blood, against which I painfully made my way when I met
these multitudes of wounded coming down to the shore, was unnerving. But
every soldier has to fight down these pitiful sensations: the enemy may
be harder hit than he: if we do not push them further back the beaches
will become untenable. To overdrive the willingest troops any General
ever had under his command is a sin--but we must go on fighting
to-morrow!

On Saturday, the 8th, I went ashore and by 9.30 had taken up my quarters
in a little gully between "W" and "X" Beaches within 60 yards of the
Headquarters of the Royal Naval Division. There I was in direct
telephonic touch with both Hunter-Weston and d'Amade. The storm had
abated and the day was fine. Our troops had now been fighting for two
days and two nights but there were messages in from the front telling us
they were keen as ever to get something solid for their efforts. The
Lancashire Fusiliers Brigade had been withdrawn into reserve, and under
my orders the New Zealand Brigade was to advance through the line taken
up during the night by the 88th Brigade and attack Krithia. The 87th
Brigade were to try and gain ground over that wicked piece of moorland
to the West of the great ravine which--since the days when it was in the
hands of the troops who landed at "Y"--has hopelessly held up our left.
Every gun-shot fired gives me a pain in my heart and adds to the deadly
anxiety I feel about our ammunition. We have only one thousand rounds of
4.5 H.E. left and we dare not use any more. The 18 pr shrapnel is
running down, down, down to its terminus, for we _must_ try and keep
10,000 rounds in hand for defence. The French have still got enough to
cover their own attacks. The ships began to fire at 10.15 and after a
quarter of an hour the flower of New Zealand advanced in open order to
the attack. After the most desperate hand to hand fighting, often by
sections or sometimes by groups of half a dozen men, we gained slowly,
very slowly, perhaps a couple of hundred yards. There was an opinion in
some quarters that we had done all we could, but I resolved firmly to
make one more attempt. At 4 o'clock I issued orders that the whole line,
reinforced by the Aus