was in progress it gave me an
opportunity of watching it. We have had no heavy shells at W. Beach
(now known as Lancashire Landing in honour of the brilliant work by
that battalion on April 25) so far, but we must not brag, they may
give us a visit to-day yet. Shrapnel we have had--but we do not care
twopence for shrapnel.

6.40.--We have had no shells since I wrote the above, for which we are
thankful. When examining the situation before breakfast I felt that
the whole valley up to Achi Baba was to be ours before night. Advances
all along the line have been made, some units having gained about 700
yards, the French also taking a trench which they afterwards lost.
This is the usual way with the French, they have repeatedly broken our
line across the peninsula.

The Turks have to-day used their heavy guns much more freely than on
any previous day, and doubtless have inflicted considerable damage on
our troops, but the range they have been firing at pointed to their
having removed their guns further back, which points to their
expecting to lose Achi Baba, which they have certainly held with the
utmost fortitude. I am attributing the peace we have had to-day at
Lancashire Landing to this fortunate event, if my conjecture is right.

I visited the "River Clyde" to-day to find she has a number of new
holes punched through her, those on the water line having completely
flooded her. Her stern now rests on the bottom, and the lowest hold is
full of water. All this time only one shell has actually burst inside
the ship, and it entered a cabin on the starboard side, blew all the
fittings to pieces, chunks flying through everything, some entering
the engine room where they perforated and carried away pipes, and blew
the roof of the cabin off. An officer showed me the effects of the
rifle and machine-gun bombardment on the night on which I spent four
hours in a boat and watched the thousands of bullets striking fire
over my head. Many had actually perforated the steel plates,
9/16th-inch thick, and there were deep dints innumerable. We had
twelve machine-guns on board that memorable day, the one in the bow
being managed by the son of the Earl of Leicester. This gun was said
to have done brilliant work. A large pile of empty cartridges still
lies where the gun was posted, and I carried away a few of these as
the only memento I possess of April 25, barring the memory of a
hellish day and night.

To-day we felt that we were proba