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It would be better for me to relieve his anxiety this very night. That is impossible, for the train will soon stop at Gheok Tepe, and then at Askhabad which it will leave in the first hour of daylight. I can no longer trust to Popof's going to sleep. I am absorbed in these reflections, when the locomotive stops in Gheok Tepe station at one o'clock in the morning.
Relief about Gaba Tepe is almost swallowed up by the "Y" Beach fiasco as we must, I suppose, take it to be. No word yet from Hunter-Weston. At Helles things are much the same as last night; only, the South Wales Borderers are now well dug in on a spur above Morto Bay and are confident. At 1.45 d'Amade came aboard in a torpedo boat to see me.
Two mornings after this I take a spin out on the Doshan Tepe road, and, upon wheeling through the city gate, I find myself in the immediate presence of another grand review, again under the personal inspection of the Naibi-Sultan.
He also lays stress on the point that the enemy are expecting us "Surprise is now impossible .... The difficulties are now increased a hundredfold.... To land would be difficult enough if surprise was possible but hazardous in the extreme under present conditions." He discusses Gaba Tepe as a landing place; also Smyrna, and Bulair.
Some little delay is occasioned by a difficulty in meeting the fastidious tastes of some of the party as regards saddle-horses; but there is no particular hurry, and ten o'clock finds me bowling briskly through the suburbs toward the Doshan Tepe gate, with four Englishmen, an Irishman, and a Welshman cantering merrily along on horseback behind. "Khuda rail pak Kumad!"
Going to an observation post he saw a battleship aground off Gaba Tepe Point. The morning mists had just revealed her, and now she was emptying her broadsides in rapid succession up the great valley below Kilid Bahr. Another battleship was right alongside attempting, apparently, to push her off.
On coming up to the fortress of Denghil Tepe, near the town of Geok Tepe, he led only 1400 men, or less than half of his force, to bombard and storm a stronghold held by some 15,000 Turkomans, and fortified on the plan suggested by a British officer, Lieutenant Butler . Preluding his attack by a murderous cannonade, he sent round his cavalry to check the flight of the faint-hearted among the garrison; and, before his guns had fully done their work, he ordered the whole line to advance and carry the walls by storm.
'We are right out in the open here. That chap will be all right. Let's get into that wood as sharp as we can. 'One moment, said Roy, and turned to the Turk. 'If you care to do us a good turn, tell us the nearest way back to Gaba Tepe. The Turk pointed up the road. 'That is the nearest way, but, I need not tell you, the most dangerous. Our lines lie between here and the British.
In the Sheria-Hareira locality, the Hareira Tepe Redoubt was captured at dawn. Tel el Sheria was captured at 4.0 a.m. and the line was pushed forward about a mile to the north of Tel el Sheria. That night the enemy withdrew. Meanwhile, on our extreme left, the bombardment of Gaza had continued. Another attack was ordered to take place on the night of the 6th/7th.
First, the flight of grape shot from the light guns, then the bayonet, and lastly the Cossack lance, strewed the plain with corpses of men, women, and children; darkness alone put an end to the butchery, and then the desert for eleven miles eastwards of Denghil Tepe bore witness to the thoroughness of Muscovite methods of warfare. All the men within the fortress were put to the sword.
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