e moment. We wondered what it
meant and whether it was preliminary to a wild assault all along our
lines, which was to drive us into the sea; one would have expected
something extraordinary to follow, but in less than fifteen minutes it
was all over. No doubt they caught many of our men in the open,
sitting smoking on their parapets and such like, and 100 or 200 may
have been knocked out. We are continually being caught napping, and
one shell often lands in the middle of an unsuspecting group and plays
terrible havoc.

I see in G.R.O. (General Routine Orders) that General Sir C.C. Munro
takes over command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force from
yesterday's date.

_November 2nd._--The weather on the whole gets colder and more
bracing, sometimes too much so, but by day it is occasionally
uncomfortably warm. The Turks and ourselves keep shelling each other
as of old.

I am now feeling so very much off colour that I know I ought to go
home, but I am unable to tear myself away from Suvla in case I should
miss the chance of going to the Balkans. Still, I am afraid I will be
left behind if our Ambulance was to go. During the summer I had two
months of dysentery. Since then I have never felt quite fit although I
have carried on the whole time, and for the last three weeks I have
had an attack of jaundice, of which there has been a very widespread
epidemic. (This epidemic was afterwards proved to be Paratyphoid.)

_November 7th._--For some days the weather has been perfect, bright
and warm as midsummer, and the nights cool without being cold, but
with dews heavy enough to drench the tents.

To-day we had the most deliberate shelling the Turks ever gave the Red
Cross. So far they have shown us more or less respect, in fact no one
could find fault hitherto; when shells came among us, there was always
some excuse for it. To-day I think they must have been retaliating for
some mischief our guns had unintentionally done to their Crescent. The
88th F.A. is encamped alongside us, and six big high explosive shells
fell among the two of us, costing each of us a tent, but strange to
say no other casualty occurred. All, including about sixty sick, made
for our two big trenches which we made some time ago in case anything
of this sort should happen.

_November 8th._--A Medical Board was summoned for this morning for the
examination of a well-known rascal, and being one of its members I had
an opportunity of a talk with t