“Every hole and corner is turned into a beautiful garden, with lovely flowers and ‘penetrating scents,’ fountains, and shady palms and trees.
“How you would revel in the churches! They are more numerous than in Rome, and quite beautiful. The people, too, are intensely religious.
“There are many French shops here, and the French women look tawdry beside the Maltese, with their wonderful black cloaks and reserved aristocratic air.
“I am sending you a weird map full of quaint spelling, given to me by a wounded Worcestershire (4th Batt.) sergeant, at the hospital at Malta, and a rough idea of the difficulties of the landing. Early on one Monday morning, about 1 a.m., the ships got into position round the promontory, with the troop lighters behind. About 4 a.m. the latter were towed off during a bombardment such as never has been heard or seen before in the history of the world.
“The Turks did not reply till the boats got quite close to shore and the ships’ guns could not fire on the located maxims (which were sunk in deep, narrow slips close to the shore). As far as I gathered, the Lancashire Fusiliers were the first actually to get on shore on the extreme left at Tekki Barna, where they charged with the bayonet and the Turks retired. They were able to enfilade a good portion of the ground, and enabled the Essex and 4th Worcesters, both of whom had suffered very heavily from Maxim fire, to land and drive the Turks back. Three boatloads of Dublin Fusiliers were wiped out by gun and Maxim fire near Ish Messarer point. The Lancashire Fusiliers suffered rather badly from the fire of some of our ships’ guns, which, of course, could not be helped.
“The Worcesters were sent up to help the Essex, and advanced against some barbed wire, which a young subaltern called Wyse volunteered to cut. He rolled over sideways till he got under the wire and cut it from strand to strand upwards. As he got to the last strand a sniper shot off two fingers in successive shots.
“The snipers had their faces painted green to harmonize with the surroundings, and were calmly surrendering as we advanced, having picked off numbers of men. They were all shot, however, _pour encourager les autres_.
“My sergeant was shot in the hip that evening, but he told me that by Wednesday the troops had secured Envedos, a most important position, and the safe landing of stores and guns was thus secured.