ernoon. How the guns still thunder!
The "Queen Elizabeth" with her 15-inch guns thundering over our heads
as we rushed in past her at close quarters seemed to make our boat of
6600 tons sink some way in the water at every broadside. I was
surprised to find that the heavy gunfire gave me no trouble, although
like most of the others I began with cotton wool in my ears, but half
an hour of this was enough, it interfered with sounds it was necessary
to hear.

Here I am writing in the midst of one of the greatest battles in
history. Any bombardment this world has ever known was a mere
bagatelle to this.

To-day we had a naval funeral of General Napier and Colonel
Smith-Carrington. The former was killed on a barge attached to us, and
the other on the bridge. No one is to be present but the Catholic
padre. A number of men are to be buried at the same time. The orders I
received stated that all bodies had to be got rid of before we
advanced. A pinnace from a warship was signalled for and all were
taken out to sea.

Our advance from the shore began to-day about noon, our men lining out
along the sands and the banks above, and gradually getting forward by
short rushes. Barbed wire had also to be cut. But the advance through
the village was the most difficult, as the remains of houses and
garden walls contained snipers. I almost shiver to look back on a mad
thing I did to-day--mad because it was done out of mere curiosity. I
was asked to go to "Old Fort" beyond the village, near the outermost
capture for to-day to see Colonel Doughty-Wylie and Major Grimshaw who
were reported badly wounded. Both were dead, and as I was about to
return I was next asked if I would go to a garden at the top of the
village to see some wounded men. Afterwards I went right through the
village alone, with only my revolver in my hand, and from the houses
sniping was still going on. I had been assured that it was supposed to
be safe. I peered into a number of wrecked houses--every house had
been blown to bits--and I had not long returned when sniping commenced
from a prominent corner house I had just passed. The only living
things I saw in the village were two cats and a dog. I was very sorry
for a cat that had cuddled close to the face of a dead Turk in the
street, one leg embracing the top of his head. I went up to stroke and
sympathise with it for the loss of what I took to be its master, when
I found that the upper part of the man's head had been b