Alexandria
Egypt
February 15th, 1916

Dear Jessie,

Your letter came as a delightful surprise yesterday morning. I was so pleased to have it, also to know you are both well. The Zeppelins certainly went very near Liscard during their last visit, and I had no idea they reached so far. Papers and telegrams published in Egypt merely said “over the Midlands.” These wretched raids always worry me much until I hear from Alice after one, but if the Government would only state the localities, we out here would be spared a lot of unnecessary anxiety. I am afraid there will be very big, disastrous raids yet if we do not retaliate — that, in my opinion, is the only way to stop them. Every time bombs are dropped on an English town, we should immediately after (as soon as conditions permit) send a flock of aeroplanes from some frontier base in France to drop exactly twice the number of bombs on a German town of the same size — not bother with railway lines! As we are fighting for our existence with intellectual barbarians and not Red Cross Knights, it seems so fatuous still clinging to the code of chivalry which Science has banished from the world forever.

Probably Alice has told you all our interesting and sometimes exciting adventures at the Front, so I will not repeat them. My experiences and incidents that have occurred this voyage would sell a half-guinea book, could I only write. You no doubt know the poor old ship is at present little more than a battered, waterlogged wreck as a result of being “in action” with a Turkish battery for nearly two hours during one pleasant afternoon at Suvla Bay. We were in that inferno — a continuous nightmare — for exactly six weeks and shelled on average five days out of seven. This rather got on one’s nerves eventually. I said we were six weeks there, but that is not strictly correct; we were five days and nights outside, wandering up and down without any anchors, thanks to the Turks, and they tried hard to get us with shells and a submarine even there.

Then again, I made a couple of trips across to Kephalos Bay (Imbros Island), once for shelter and once for cabbages! Just imagine, Jessie, sending H.M.T. on such an errand. Really, of all the absurd things I have had to do, ridiculous orders to carry out, and occasions on which I have had to beg for food this voyage, that sentimental journey appeared to me the very limit — and to add insult to injury, you know that I have always disliked cabbage. Well, after that, nothing seemed to matter much — not even having to eat Christmas pudding issued to us (like charity) by the “Daily News” Fund, a paper I loathe. During the “Evacuation” I was sent in close under precipitous cliffs, so that the Turks would not observe us, to save some of the British guns — but they did from quite an unexpected quarter, and we left hurriedly.

At the end, when this wreck of a ship was filled with every conceivable old thing from dead men’s clothes and empty cartridge cases to heavy field guns and motor ambulances, we sailed away with 400 troops on board, brought down at night straight from the firing line. By the way, all we had left in the way of life-saving appliances was one good boat and just 55 lifebelts. The ship was in a sinking condition and the sea infested with submarines. All kinds of people were aboard that trip. Viscount Barrington’s son and heir (of the Scottish Horse) was in charge of our troops, and Baron de Roebeck’s slept under the cabin table. We had no accommodation for so many officers — twenty of them slept in a canvas wigwam on the Lower Bridge for a week. Lord Howard de Walden was there, but did not notice who brought him away. Probably people in England did not hear what appointment he graced at Suvla — Inspector of Latrines.

We are still waiting, week after week, for our turn to go into the only dry dock and have done absolutely nothing yet in the way of repairs. What’s it matter though? Time and expense are, of course, immaterial to this Government; besides, they only pay £109 per day for this ship and supply the coal! Really, were it not for the tragedy, the awful pity of it all, and the knowledge we have got to bear the cost, it would be highly amusing to see how England goes to war. The senseless waste is simply appalling, and I could give you a hundred costly examples seen with my own eyes, not one of which you would hardly credit.

I was so glad you were able to spend Christmas at “Camelot” and would have given much to have been there also. As I sometimes dreamed of being home then, I looked forward to insisting upon you both being with us and told Alice that long before Christmas. Never imagine you are not always just as welcome when we are together as you are when she is alone, for May and yourself are the only two persons on this earth we can behave naturally before, and whom I am never shy of seeing how dearly I love her.

You have greatly aroused my curiosity by your reference to Whatmores and the remark that Joey is improving. What has happened to them? I am quite in ignorance, for Alice has evidently forgotten to say anything about the matter. Yes, I should like to see the cuttings you have saved. What appears noteworthy to you generally has the same interest for myself.

One of the many things I have learned on this voyage is not to credit anything newspapers now publish except an indisputable, proven fact. Even then it is invariably misleading through the absence of qualifying lesser facts — important complements to the first. For instance, that old jellyfish Asquith complacently informed Parliament we had withdrawn from Helles with no further sacrifice beyond six or seven worn-out guns. But he never mentioned the 500 valuable artillery horses, or the 1,000 mules our troops had to shoot before finally leaving the beach. The food and stores we destroyed and abandoned on the Peninsula must have cost millions of pounds.

From present signs, I am afraid that there is no possibility of us arriving back in England before the end of March. Well, I am here relieved of the worry of how to feed my crew, and there are worse places than Egypt in which to pass the winter, so were it not for the irrecoverable wasted days lived apart from Alice I could not complain. It is doubtless necessary I soon return, if only to bully her into getting some clothes, for I imagine she is going about in rags and wearing strangely “converted” garments by this time. I also regret we are not in readiness to leave because the Mediterranean is now comparatively quiet; we are armed with a gun and have two gunners, but I fear would stand little chance in a fight.

Please give my kindest regards to Tom and Polly, also Nellie Symington. I believe I met the Captain of the “Benvue” a few weeks ago, but of course had no idea then Willie Ritchie was aboard, or I might have introduced myself. Hoping to see you both on my return home, and thanking you for your kindness in writing, with much love to May and yourself,

From,
Harold