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"If only this night passes without misadventures, I propose to attack Achi Baba to-morrow with whatever Hunter-Weston can scrape together of the 29th Division. Such an attack should force the enemy to relax their grip on Sedd-el-Bahr. I can look now to the Australians to keep any enemy reinforcements from crossing the waist of the Peninsula."
Matthews smiled sarcastically at the War Office idea that no Turks can exist South of Achi Baba! At Sedd-el-Bahr, the first houses are empty, being open to the fire of the Fleet, but the best part of the other houses are defiladed by the ground and a month ago they were held. Glad I did not lose a minute after seeing the ground in asking Maxwell and Methuen to make me some trench mortars.
The enemy lay very low somewhere underground. At times the River Clyde signalled that the worst fire came from the old Fort and Sedd-el-Bahr; at times that these bullets were pouring out from about the second highest rung of seats on the West of that amphitheatre in which we were striving to take our places.
Birdwood, on the other hand, is of one mind with me and is going to get his first boat-loads ashore before it is light enough to aim. He has no current to trouble him, it is true, but he is not landing on any surveyed beach and the opposition he will meet with is even more unknown than in the case of Helles and Sedd-el-Bahr.
There is always in the background of my mind dread lest help should reach the enemy before we have done with Sedd-el-Bahr. The enveloping attacks on both enemy flanks have come off brilliantly, but have not cut the enemy's line of retreat, or so threatened it that they have to make haste to get back.
The guns had ceased firing, there were no lights anywhere to be seen, the only sound was the monotonous slap of the ripples against the hull of the overturned boat and far in the distance the dull mutter of the guns down by Sedd-el-Bahr. Hallo! Ken felt a dull stupor creeping over him, a curious sense of unreality. His thoughts began to wander.
About this time, also, i.e., somewhere about 9 a.m., we picked up a wireless from the O.C. "Y" Beach which caused us some uneasiness. "We are holding the ridge," it said, "till the wounded are embarked." Why "till"? So I told the Admiral that as Birdwood seemed fairly comfortable, I thought we ought to lose no time getting back to Sedd-el-Bahr, taking "Y" Beach on our way.
About this time we heard from Hunter-Weston that there was no material change in the situation at Helles and Sedd-el-Bahr. I wirelessed, therefore, to d'Amade telling him he would not be able to land his men at "V" under Sedd-el-Bahr as arranged but that he should bring all the rest of the French troops up from Tenedos and disembark them at "W" by Cape Helles.
Where we waited to bombard, as at Helles and Sedd-el-Bahr, we have got it in the neck. This "V" Beach business is the blot. Sedd-el-Bahr was supposed to be the softest landing of the lot, as it was the best harbour and seemed to lie specially at the mercy of the big guns of the Fleet.
And the bay at Sedd-el-Bahr, so the last messengers have told us, had turned red. The River Clyde so far saves the situation. She was only ready two days before we plunged. At 1.30 heard that d'Amade had taken Kum Kale. On the Asiatic side, then, things are going as we had hoped. The Russian Askold and the Jeanne d'Arc are supporting our Allies in their attack.
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