work to discover what reserves remained in the hands of G.H.Q. and
what the daily expenditure had been since the landing. The greatest
difficulty was experienced in obtaining figures of expenditure from the
units, so constant had been the fighting, which still continued, and so
great the casualties, and consequent confusion in reckoning expenditure.
Yet, after some delay, sufficient information was obtained to enable me
to demonstrate with certainty that, if such severe fighting continued,
the Force would soon be in danger of losing their artillery support.

On the 4th May a cable was sent, I believe, to Lord Kitchener saying
that ammunition was becoming a very serious matter owing to the
ceaseless fighting; pointing out that 18 pr. shell were a vital
necessity and that a supply promised by a certain ship (I believe the
S.S. _Funia_) had not turned up. A day or two later, a cable was
received by G.H.Q. saying munitions were never calculated on a basis of
prolonged occupation of the Peninsula, and that the War Office would
have to reconsider the whole position, if more was wanted. If I remember
aright, the cable finished by saying, "It is important to push on." A
few days later a cable was received saying the War Office would not give
us more ammunition until we submitted a return of what was in hand. The
compilation of that cut-and-dried return in the midst of a desperate
battle was a distracting and never-to-be-forgotten effort, but there was
no help for it: no return, no shells; that was the War Office order. The
ammunition still in hand lay mostly in the holds of the ships at Mudros,
60 miles away, and did not lend themselves to easy counting; while the
actual expenditure was, for reasons already given, an intricate problem
indeed.

Continuous cables on the subject of ammunition passed during the next
few days between G.H.Q. and the War Office, all of which passed through
my hands and some of which I drafted for superior authority. I cannot
remember their sequence and not always their purport, but I distinctly
remember about the 10th or 11th May a cable being received from Lord
Kitchener saying ammunition for Field Artillery was being pushed out
_via_ Marseilles. I think the figures given were about ten or twenty
thousand rounds of 18-pr. and some one thousand rounds of 4.5 howitzer
H.E., but I am not sure.

The fact that does remain indelibly impressed on my mind is that I am
convinced from the cables that passed