hiefs over their mouths in their
endeavour to escape it. I counted two thousand dead Turks. One I
judged to be an officer of rank, for the bearers carried him
shoulder-high down a gully to the rear. The ground was absolutely
covered with rifles and equipment of all kinds, shell-cases and caps,
and ammunition clips. The rifles were all collected and the bolts
removed to prevent their being used again. Some of the Turks were
lying right on our trenches, almost in some of them. The Turkish
sentries were peaceable-looking men, stolid in type and of the peasant
class mostly. We fraternised with them and gave them cigarettes and
tobacco. Some Germans were there, but they viewed us with malignant
eyes. When I talked to Colonel Pope about it afterwards he said the
Germans were a mean lot of beggars: "Why," said he most indignantly,
"they came and had a look into my trenches." I asked "What did you do?"
He replied, "Well, I had a look at theirs."
TORPEDOING OF THE _TRIUMPH_
The day after the armistice, at fifteen minutes after noon, I was in
my dug-out when one of the men exclaimed that something was wrong with
the _Triumph_. I ran out and was in time to see the fall of the water
sent up by the explosive. It was a beautifully calm day, and the ship
was about a mile and a quarter from us; she had a decided list towards
us, and it was evident that something was radically wrong. With
glasses one could see the men lined up in two ranks as if on parade,
without the least confusion. Then two destroyers went over and put
their noses on each side of the big ship's bows; all hands from the
_Triumph_ marched aboard the destroyers. She was gradually heeling
over, and all movables were slipping into the sea. One of the
destroyers barked three or four shots at something which we took to be
the submarine. In fifteen minutes the _Triumph_ was keel up, the water
spurting from her different vent pipes as it was expelled by the
imprisoned air. She lay thus for seventeen minutes, gradually getting
lower and lower in the water, when quietly her stern rose and she
slipped underneath, not a ripple remaining to show where she had sunk.
I have often read of the vortex caused by a ship sinking, but as far
as I could see there was in this case not the slightest disturbance.
It was pathetic to see this beautiful ship torpedoed and in thirty-two
minutes at the bottom of the sea. I believe the only lives lost were
those of men injured by the exp
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