uld have a great champion in him. He
and Smith-Dorrien were my best Brigadiers in South Africa. They stood on
my right hand and on my left all the way between Bloemfontein and
Pretoria, and I never quite made up my mind as to which was the better.
Bruce is a fighting man with an iron frame, and, in Gallipoli, his
chief crab, his deafness, will be rather a gain to him.

(2) Bailloud, with his own War Minister in the background, is doing all
he knows to get 20,000 of my new troops allotted to a side show, not for
strategy's sake, but for the tactical relief of his troops from the
shelling. I quite sympathize with his reason as, after all, he is
responsible for his own troops and not for the larger issue. But, to
take one objection only, the Navy could not land a force at Besika Bay
and at the same time carry out landings at Suvla and Anzac. Again, since
Bailloud urged these views, the guns fixed up at de Tott's Battery have
already begun to gain mastery over the fire from the site of Troy. When
we have one of the new 14-inch gunned monitors moored off Rabbit Island
we shall get cross fire observations and give the Turkish Asiatic guns
the clean knock out. Amphibious operations are ticklish things: allied
operations are ticklish things: but the two together are like skating on
thin ice arm in arm with two friends who each want to cut a figure of
his own.

(3) Slovenly bills of lading. Bertie Lawrence, who was sent to Mudros in
June when things were growing desperate, was here yesterday and has made
a report on the present business situation which, though less chaotic,
is still serious. There are not launches enough to enable people to get
about. There are not lighters enough to work the daily transhipment of
300 tons. But the worst trouble lies in the bills of lading. Sometimes
they arrive a week after their ships. Usually cargo shipped at Malta or
Alexandria is omitted. Half the time we can't lay hands on vital plant,
tackle, supplies, munitions, because we have no means of knowing what
is, or is not, on board some ship in the harbour. The trouble is of old
date but has reached its climax owing to our shortage of rounds for our
18-pounders.

We were notified a new fuse key would be required for the new shells on
the 12th June. The shells arrived but the keys were not despatched till
the 15th July! The vouchers are all wrong, and there, in idleness, lies
the stuff that spells success. A soldier is not a conjurer that he