Gallipoli Diary, Volume II | Page 9

them, but I need not
have said them. I hope he will do very well out here."
Now since that letter was written (yesterday) in comes a cable from K.
saying Winston can't leave England but that Hankey starts in his place.
K. says he is sure I will give him every facility.
A pretty stuffy cable in from the War Office on the Hospital ships and
medical personnel and material wrangle which is still going on. I,
personally, have checked every item of my estimate with closest
personal attention, although it took me hours in the midst of other very
pressing duties. This is not Braithwaite's pidgin but Woodward's and
there was no help for it. Our first landing found out a number of chinks
in our arrangements, and now, my Director of Medical Services is
(quite naturally) inclined to open his mouth as wide as if ships were
drugs in the market. So I have tried very hard, without too much help,
to hit the mean between extravagance and sufficiency. Now the War
Office, who would be the first to round on me if anything went wrong
with my wounded, query my demands as if we had just splashed off a
cable asking for the first things that came into our heads!
I am all for thrift in ships, but thrift in the lives of my wounded comes
first; my conscience is clear and I have answered sticking to my
point,--firmly! They say the thing is impossible; I have retaliated by
saying it is imperative.

CHAPTER XIV
THE FORCE--REAL AND IMAGINARY
22nd July, 1915. Imbros. Had a jolly outing to-day. Left for Cape
Helles by trawler just before 10 o'clock. Aspinall, Bertier and young
Brodrick came with me. Lunched at 8th Army Corps Headquarters with
Stopford and handed him a first outline scheme of the impending
operations. We read it through together and he seems to take all the
points and to be in general agreement. Left Aspinall behind to explain
any questions of detail which might not seem clear, whilst I went a tour
of inspection through the Eski Lines of trenches held by the 6th and 7th
Manchesters of the 42nd Division. These Eski Lines were first held
about the 7th or 8th May and have since been worked up, mainly by the
energy of de Lisle, into fortifications, humanly speaking, impregnable.
General Douglas, Commander of the Division, came round with me.
He reminds me greatly of his brother, the late Chief of the Imperial
General Staff; excellent at detail; a conscientious, very hard worker.
When I had seen my Manchester friends I passed on into the Royal
Naval Division Lines. There General Paris convoyed me through his
section as far as Zimmerman's Farm, where I was joined by Bailloud
with his Chief of Staff and Chief of Operations. Together we made our
way round the whole of the French trenches winding up at de Tott's
Battery.
After this whopping walk, we left by pinnace from below de Tott's
wondering whether the Asiatic Batteries would think us game worth
their powder and shot. They did not and so we safely boarded our
trawler at Cape Helles. Didn't get back to Imbros Harbour till 9 p.m.
Being so late, boarded the ever hospitable Triad on chance and struck,
as usual--hospitality. Hunter-Weston is really quite ill with fever. He
did not want to see anyone. As we were sitting at dinner I saw him
through the half open door staggering along on his way to get into a
launch to go aboard a Hospital ship. He is suffering very much from his
head. The doctors prophesy that he will pull round in about a week. I
hope so indeed, but I have my doubts. Aspinall reports that Stopford is
entirely in accord with our project and keen.

23rd July, 1915. Imbros. Spent day in camp trying to straighten things
out: (1) the personal, (2) the strategical and (3) the administrative
arrangements.
(1) Hunter-Weston has to go home and I have begged for Bruce
Hamilton in his place, and have told them I would have a great
champion in him. He and Smith-Dorrien were my best Brigadiers in
South Africa. They stood on my right hand and on my left all the way
between Bloemfontein and Pretoria, and I never quite made up my
mind as to which was the better. Bruce is a fighting man with an iron
frame, and, in Gallipoli, his chief crab, his deafness, will be rather a
gain to him.
(2) Bailloud, with his own War Minister in the background, is doing all
he knows to get 20,000 of my new troops allotted to a side show, not
for strategy's sake, but for the tactical relief of his troops from the
shelling. I quite sympathize with