[September] 7th
Buttered eggs and better tea. Tom Drake1. Tea. Sheppard2 and Rob came in to see me. They wanted to know all about it so as to be ready when their turn came. Hanging about in Mudros3. Mauritania4 being used as hospital ship. The matron bounded in with a bottle of acid & pear drops. Somebody pinched the lot.
Thurstan Holland-Hibbert
8
Fried eggs. Getting on! Scarcity of books. When you had finished one you held it up until somebody swapped it for another. I had Eleanor Glyn5s “Three week.” Any offers? “What have you got?” said Major Delmage. Told him. “Oh! Cant read that with my wound” Had been hit thro base of penis by a bullet.
Bread and cheese also allowed. Anchor up 1.30. Said to be going to Malta. Chicken or guinea fowl for dinner. Food has never tasted better. No “treatment”!
9
Went on deck till I collapsed so went back to bed feeling really ill. Food I expect. Should not have been allowed meat. One man in next bed so bad with dysentery he could not get out of bed. Yells for bed pan.
10th
A year ago since we left England. What a waste of a year. Hot bath. Arrived Malta. Very pretty harbour. Had walk round deck. Felt very shaky. All our sheets taken. Night in blankets.
11th
Sat about waiting to land. Told to go to Blue Sisters Hospital. Pouring rain. Could hardly do what I was expected to. In & out of boats etc. Ambulance to hospital. Big clean building. Doctor to meet us. Sisters in blue with white affair over head. Got a room with fine good chap. Bed at once & glad of it. Young RAF officer. Chatty been engaged to several girls “but active service knocks all that sort of rot out of a chap”
12th
Only suggestions as what to do to get better come from me.. Doctor no help.
13th
Cable from V. Should she come? Father cabled to head doctor(!) who replied that I was convalescent., about to return to Reg.
Hired cab & had a drive round island. Rhodes Godleys ADC with me. Head turned by his H.Q associations. Groaning weeping officer arrived with a 2nd go of dysentery.
14.
Well looked after & fed. Ship load left for England.
15
Cable saying “Hibbert, Viola arrive Frid or Sat” I knew they would directly I got a cable asking if they should! Ld Methuen Gov of the island called for me, took me up to beautiful Gov. House. Tea, honey and good bread. Stayed to dinner. Took me back after all blown up, wrong inside. Too much food.
16
New doctor save me Calomel, took more interest. Every three hours Calomel. Went about rooms to Imperial Hotel. Found some of our Yeo wounded in a hospital
17.
Went to a service. Felt very grateful to have survived even only three weeks at Suvla.
18.
More left for home. Wandered about the streets. Goats being driven about, milked into bottle. What people leave at their doors.
19.
6.30 up and down to harbour. Saw ship coming. Hired small boat, went out to meet it. Spotted Father & V. Thought my heart would burst. Father gave a holloa. Got off at last, to Hotel.
My Father brought me a letter from my Mother saying how proud she was of me. The reason being that my Aunt had found a wounded Herts Yeo in a hospital. He had been one of our grooms. He said I had ridden back from Chocolate Hill on a gun horse thro all the shelling with some vital message “& was to have a VC”! The curious thing was that somebody had. Ralph Barnett thought it was me at the time because of the way the chap rode!
Back to hospital by 10.
20
Wandered about. Father very active and asking everybody questions.
21.
14 thousand beds on island. Saw Boyle V.C**. & his submarine which had been up Dardanelles, E14. Went over the submarine. Cant think how the crew live in such crammed surroundings.
78 officers and 730 men went back to Dardanelles.
Found some more of our chaps in hospital.
26.
Church. Being given Bismuth now for bad insides. V. had a bathe.
28
Father got bit in teeth about me & went to see Chief RAMC.
30.
Tea at the Admiralty.
Sand flies so bad in evenings that my Father used to put ice off the table into his socks! Sand-fly fever was horrible.
Oct 1.
Doctor intends seeing me every day as I do not “get on”.
Notes:
1 Tom Drake (17th May 1885 – January 1954) Appointed 2nd Lieutenant, Hertfordshire Yeomanry 10th September 1915 after service in the ranks of 14th London Regiment.
2 Edward Byas Sheppard (25th June 1866 – January 1921) Major commanding D Squadron 25th August 1913. Sheppard took over command of 1st/1st Hertfordshire Yeomanry following his brother’s death on 21st August 1915 in the advance to Chocolate Hill. His diary is available at http://www.hertsmemories.org.uk/content/category/herts-history/diaries-and-letters/hertfordshire-voices/the_diary_of_e_b_sheppard_1914_-_1916
3 Mudros is a small port on the Greek island of Lemnos. It became significant after British decided to seize control of the Dardanelle Straits some 50 km away.
4 RMS Mauretania was an British Cunard Line ocean liner designed by Leonard Preskett and built by Swan, hunter and Wigham Richardson on the River Tyne. She was launched on the afternoon of 20 September 1906 in Liverpool. She was the world’s largest ship until the completion of RMS Olympic in 1911 as well as the fastest until Bremen’s maiden voyage in 1929. It plied its trade on the North Atlantic route from Southampton via Cobh in Ireland to New York. In May 1915 Mauretania was requisitioned by British Government to be a troop ship during the Galipolli campaign. She became a hospital ship to aid the large number of casualties resulting from that campaign. For more on the ship’s adventures see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Mauretania_%281906%29
5 Elinor Glyn was an English author born Elinor Sutherland on 17th October 1864. She bacame an authoress and her book “Three Weeks” published in 1907 was considered extemely scandelous and thus had sold 2 million copies. She died on 23rd September 1943. For more on Glyn see http://biography.yourdictionary.com/elinor-glyn
HALS Reference: D/EYO/2/131
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