our hymn books flutter. While writing a
Jack Johnson fell very near me (so close that in my original diary my
pen made a big dash across the page). How helpless one feels! Now
comes another in the very middle of W. Beach--a very big fellow
too--and still another. We are to have a day of it. Eight of these
brutes now in a few minutes.

The C.O. has gone to a meeting at H.Q.; all the other officers are
wisely at the edge of the sea under cliffs, while I am in my dugout
too lazy to join them--but I may be forced to go yet, it is folly to
sit here in the line of fire.

Major Ward of the 88th Field Ambulance, which is alongside us, has
just taken a photograph of a bursting-shell at 70 yards, which he
joyfully declares is "absolutely it". He got well battered with flying
dirt.... The shelling got too hot for my continuing my notes and I was
forced to close for a short time.

Here we are shut up in the very point of Gallipoli, 100,000 of us,
and nearly as many horses and mules, every inch within easy range of
the enemy's guns, and for three days now he has peppered us more
furiously than at first. For three weeks and a day we have had an
almost continuous roar of cannon, sometimes many hundred shots per
minute, at other times with a lull of a few minutes. To-day and last
night the howitzers have been unusually busy, and I believe an attempt
is to be made this coming night to straighten our lines. The horns of
the line, especially the left, which is held by the Gurkhas, is too
far forward for the centre. This centre is directly opposite Achi
Baba, and is exposed to the whole opposing line, and has less help
from the fleet than the flanks. It is held by the flower of our
troops, and these will make any sacrifice to do what is expected of
them. May we soon have a little more breathing space than this fouled
little piece of the peninsula affords us.

_May 17th._--Three different spells of Black Marias to-day. One killed
three men and wounded nine. We have several others wounded and a
number of horses and mules killed. Altogether not a very pleasant day.

In the afternoon Thomson and I went to Sedd-el-Bahr and photographed
the "River Clyde," Major Frankland's grave, the whole of V. Beach,
etc., and brought back shell cases of the French 75's and 65's. Before
this, while helping Pirie to build his dugout, Kellas shouted to me to
look up, and I beheld what I at first took to be a huge flock of enemy
aeroplanes, and expected