rain of shell fell
upon the penned-in populace from de Robeck's terrific batteries. Given a
good wind that nest of iniquity would go up like Sodom and Gomorrah in a
winding sheet of flame.

But once the Admiral said his battleships could not fight through
without help, there was no foothold left for the views of a landsman.

So there was no discussion. At once we turned our faces to the land
scheme. Very sketchy; how could it be otherwise? On the German system
plans for a landing on Gallipoli would have been in my pocket,
up-to-date and worked out to a ball cartridge and a pail of water. By
the British system (?) I have been obliged to concoct my own plans in a
brace of shakes almost under fire. Strategically and tactically our
method may have its merits, for though it piles everything on to one
man, the Commander, yet he is the chap who has got to see it through.
But, in matters of supply, transport, organisation and administration
our way is the way of Colney Hatch.

Here am I still minus my Adjutant-General; my Quartermaster-General and
my Medical Chief, charged with settling the basic question of whether
the Army should push off from Lemnos or from Alexandria. Nothing in the
world to guide me beyond my own experience and that of my Chief of the
General Staff, whose sphere of work and experience lies quite outside
these administrative matters. I can see that Lemnos is practically
impossible; I fix on Alexandria in the light of Braithwaite's advice and
my own hasty study of the map. Almost incredible really, we should have
to decide so tremendous an administrative problem off the reel and
without any Administrative Staff. But time presses, the responsibility
cannot be shirked, and so I have cabled K. that Lemnos must be a
wash-out and that I am sending my troops to get ship-shape at Alexandria
although, thereby, I upset every previous arrangement. Then I have had
to cable for Engineers, trench mortars, bombs, hand grenades,
periscopes. Then again, seeing things are going less swimmingly than K.
had thought they would, I have had to harden my heart against his horror
of being asked for more men and have decided to cable for leave to bring
over from Egypt a Brigade of Gurkhas to complete Birdwood's New Zealand
Division. Last, and worst, I have had to risk the fury of the Q.M.G. to
the Forces by telling the War Office that their transports are so loaded
(water carts in one ship; water cart horses in another; guns in on