09 September 1915

Second Lieutenant Ivone Kirkpatrick, 5th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 31st Brigade, 10th Division - Kirkpatrick had been very badly wounded in the attack along Kiretch Tepe on 15 August. His evacuation was prolonged and dogged with many delays and sidesteps before he eventually got back to England on 9 September. Here he was placed in comfortable hospital and all of his ordeals soon seemed faintly unreal.

"I dozed off to sleep with a comfortable feeling of well being and lively hopes of a large hot bath next day when I could dispose of the blood and mud with which I had been encrusted for almost a month. I had a delightful time in hospital, no painful operations, nothing to do but lie quiet and get better. Every afternoon we were carried into the garden where visitors came to see us. We were heroes: by that perverted form of reasoning which makes a man struck, by a bullet more heroic than the man who is still fighting because he has been missed. When I was allowed up I was taken to the theatre and made much of. Soon I began to forget our tribulations, the loss of our comrades and everything connected with our ill-fated expedition."

"

SOURCE:
IWM DOCS: I. Fitzpatrick, Typescript account, pp.38-39