irst class. Full of go and plans, he will, if the Lord
spares him, be a real treasure. Maude and Mahon I am going to see after
Mail-day, and then I shall hope to inspect our new captured position on
the left of Anzac.

"I do not know if they showed you the cable saying Hammersley has gone
home very ill with a clot of blood in his leg. He has to lie perfectly
prostrate and still, so I am told, as the least movement might set it
loose and it would then kill him. Evidently he was not really fit to
have been sent out on service. And this was the man, remember, on whom,
under Stopford, everything depended for making a push.

"This Suvla Bay country, a jungle ringed round by high mountains, is
essentially a country for Boers or for Indian troops. De Lisle and
others who have watched them closely in India, say that a native soldier
on the Peninsula (although there, too, he goes to pieces if he loses his
Officers and under too prolonged a strain) is worth at least two Indian
soldiers in France. The climate suits him better, but, most of all, the
type of enemy is more or less the sort of type they are accustomed to
encounter. Not _Sahibs_ and _Ghora Log_ in helmets but _Mussalman Log_
in turbans. As to the South Africans there can be no two opinions, I
think, that they would stand these conditions better than those of
Northern Europe. Indeed, we have one or two Boers serving now with the
Australians, and they have done extremely well."

Some of K.'s questions take my breath away. I wish very much indeed he
could come and spend a week with me. Otherwise I feel hopeless of making
him grasp the realities of the trenches. On the 30th of August he
cables, "If required, I could send you a fresh consignment of junior
Officers. Or have you sufficient supernumerary Officers to fill all
casualties?" I have replied to him that, in my four regular Divisions, I
am short of 900 effective Officers in the Infantry alone. To meet my
total shortage of 1,450 Officers I have twenty-five young gentlemen who
have lately been sent out here to complete their training!

De Lisle and Hardress Lloyd sailed back to Suvla in the evening.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: As will be seen further on the 47,000 actually panned out
at 29,000, of whom two battalions were at once diverted to Egypt, whilst
two other battalions turned out to be non-fighting formations.--IAN H.,
1920.]

CHAPTER XIX

THE FRENCH PLAN

_2nd September, 1915. Imbros._ An ugly