11th
Division, has just been relieved of his command.

_19th August, 1915. Imbros._ Sat sweating here, literally and
metaphorically, from morn till dewy eve. King's Messenger left in the
evening. Altham came over from Mudros. He stays to-night and we will
work together to-morrow when the mails are off my mind.

Hankey dined and left with the King's Messenger by the _Imogene_. He has
been a real help. The Staff has never quite cottoned to the chief among
us takin' notes, but that is, I think, from a notion that it is not
loyal to Lord K. to press the P.M.'s P.S. too closely to their bosom.
From my personal standpoint, it will be worth anything to us if, amidst
the flood of false gossip pouring out by this very mail to our
Dardanelles Committee, to the Press, to Egypt and to London Drawing
Rooms, we have sticking up out of it, even one little rock in the shape
of an eye-witness.

A shocking aeroplane smash up within a few yards of us. A brilliant
young Officer (Captain Collet of the R.F.C.) killed outright and three
men badly hurt.

_20th August, 1915._ Stayed in my tent keeping an eye on to-morrow. Put
through a lot with Altham. Am pressing him to hurry up with his canteens
at Helles, Anzac and Suvla. In May I cabled the Q.M.G. begging him
either to let me run a canteen on the lines of the South African Field
Force Canteen, myself; or, to run it from home, himself; or, to put the
business into the hands of some private firm like the Mess and Canteen
Company, or Lipton's, or Harrods or anything he liked. In South Africa
we could often buy something. In France our troops can buy anything.
Here, had they each the purse of Fortunatus, they could buy nothing. A
matter this, I won't say of life and death, but of sickness and health.
Now, after three months without change of diet, the first canteen ship
is about due. A mere flea bite of L10,000 worth. I am sending the whole
of it to the Anzacs to whom it will hardly be more use than a bun is to
a she bear. Only yesterday a letter came in from Birdie telling me that
the doctors all say that the sameness of the food is making the men
sick. The rations are A.1., but his men now loathe the very look of them
after having had nothing else for three months. Birdie says, "If we
could only get this wretched canteen ship along, and if, when she comes
she contains anything like condiments to let them buy freely from her, I
believe it would make all the difference in the world. But th