were blinded in our
attack upon an enemy who espied every boat's crew moving over the
water.

The more I revolve these matters in my mind, the more easy does it seem
to accept K.'s order not to be in too great a hurry to bring the Army to
the front. I devoutly hope indeed (and I think the fiercest of our
fellows agree) that the Navy will pull us out the chestnuts from the
fire.

At the close of the sitting I made these notes of what had happened and
drafted a first cable to Lord K., giving him an epitome of the Admiral's
opening statement about the enemy's clever use of field guns to hinder
the clearing of the minefields; his good entrenchments and the nightly
work thereon; our handicap in all these matters because the type of
seaplanes sent us "are too heavy to rise out of effective rifle
range"--(one has to put these things mildly). I add that the Admiral,
"while not making light of dangers was evidently determined to exhaust
every effort before calling upon the soldiers for their help on a large
scale"; and I wind up by telling him Lemnos seems a bad base and that I
am off to-morrow on an inspection of the coasts of the Peninsula. Having
got these matters off my chest on to the chest of K., was then taken
round the ship by the Flag Captain, G.P.W. Hope. By this time it was
nearly 7 so I stayed and dined with the Admiral--a charming host. After
dinner got back here.

_18th March, 1915._ _H.M.S. "Phaeton."_ Cleared Tenedos Harbour at 4
a.m. and reached Lemnos at 6 a.m. I never saw so many ships collected
together in my life; no, not even at Hong Kong, Bombay or New York.
Filled up with oil fuel and at 7 a.m. d'Amade and Major-General Paris,
commanding the Royal Naval Division, came on board with one or two Staff
Officers. After consulting these Officers as well as McLagan, the
Australian Brigadier, cabled Lord K. to say Alexandria _must_ be our
base as "the Naval Division transports have been loaded up as in peace
time and they must be completely discharged and every ship reloaded," in
war fashion. At Lemnos, where there are neither wharfs, piers, labour
nor water, the thing could not be done. Therefore, "the closeness of
Lemnos to the Dardanelles, as implying the rapid transport of troops, is
illusory."

The moment I got this done, namely, at 8.30 a.m., we worked our way out
of the long narrow neck of Mudros Harbour and sailed for the Gulf of
Saros. Spent the first half of the sixty mile run to the Dardanelles i