Written on Mudros Beach: Oct. 7, 1915.


July the twenty-seventh.

The deadly silence . . .

The tenderfoot on an expedition of this sort naturally expects to find
himself plunged into a whirl of noise and tumult.

The crags were colourless and shimmering in the heat. The harbour was
calm and greeny- blue. One by one, with our haversacks and water-
bottles, belts and rolled overcoats, we went down the companion-way
into the waiting surf-boats. Again and again these boats, roped
together and tugged by a little launch, went back and forth from the
S.S. Canada to the "Turk's Head Pier"-a tiny wooden jetty built by
the Engineers.

I asked one of the straw-hatted men of the Naval Division, who was
casting off the painter, what the place was like--

"Sand an' flies, and flies an' sand--nothinkelse!" he replied.

No sooner ashore than the green and black flies came pestering and
tormenting like a host of wicked jinn. The glare of sunlight on the
yellow sand hurt the eyes. The deadly silence of the place was
oppressive--especially when you had strung yourself up to concert
pitch to face the crash and turmoil of a fearful battle.

The quiet isolation and khaki desolation of jagged peaks and sandy