General Cayley (the Brigade Major is Captain
Simpson). Then I went and looked at the trenches J.11-12-13, where I met
Colonel Palmer of the 9th Warwicks, Colonel Jordan, D.S.O., of the 7th
Gloucesters, Colonel Nunn of the 9th Worcesters, Colonel Andrews of the
7th North Staffordshires. We tramped through miles of trenches. The men
were very fit and cheery. It was the day when they were relieving one
another by companies from the reserve and there was a big crowd in the
Ravine. De Lisle told me that one week had made the most astonishing
difference to the savvy of these first arrivals of the New Army. At
first there was confusion, loss of energy and time; by the end of the
week they had picked up the wrinkles of the veterans. There was a good
lot of shelling from the Turks but, humanly speaking, we were all quite
snug and safe in the big gully or moving down the deep communication
trenches. No one, not even the new 13th Division, paid the smallest
deference to the projectiles.

Now began one of these semi-comic, semi-serious adventures which seem to
dog my footsteps. Just as I got into the little dinghy, two bluejackets
pulling and a Petty Officer steering, the Turks began to shell H.M.S.
_Savage_ as she lay about a hundred yards out. She did not like it, and,
instead of waiting to let us get aboard, Commander Homer thought it
wiser to sheer off about half a mile. When she quitted the Turks turned
their guns on to our cockleshell, and although none of the shot came
near us they still came quite near enough to interest the whole gallery
of some thousands of bathing Tommies who, themselves safe in the dead
ground under the cliff, were hugely amused to see their C.-in-C. having
a hot time of it. After ten minutes hard rowing we got close to the
destroyer and she, making a big circle at fairly high speed, came along
fast as if she was going to run us down, with the idea of baffling the
aim of the enemy. Not a bad notion as far as the destroyer was concerned
but one demanding acrobatic qualities of a very high order on the part
of the Commander-in-Chief. Anyway just as she was drawing abreast and I
was standing up to make my spring a shell hit her plump and burst in one
of her coal bunkers, sending up a big cloud of mixed smoke and black
coal dust. The Commander was beside himself. He waved us off furiously;
cracked on full steam and again left us in the lurch. We laughed till
the tears ran down our cheeks. Soon, we had reason