"My turn at cooking comes round every third day," wrote a gunner of the 6th Battery, Victorian Division of Artillery, Anzac, at a time when victuals were not too plentiful. "I give them bully-beef and biscuits one day, and biscuits and bully-beef the next for a change. How I think with envy of the wonderful messes of pottage the mater used to make for the hens at Sandringham!... It is a most peculiar sensation at first to have 'Weary Willies' bursting over you and to see the pellets dropping on the dusty road like rain after a dry spell."

And another wrote: "The trenches are certainly the safest place to be in. One 8-inch shell took the roof (blankets) off our officers' heads, just missing Major Hunt, O.C., Lieutenant Smith and Lieutenant Perry, of our Company, by inches—not the whole shell, but a piece of it. The shell killed a couple of our men when it burst.... We were continuously at it for five solid weeks, and then we were taken to Rest Gully for a rest, which consisted of fatigues, sapping, trenching under fire and working parties on the famous beach, where 'Beachy Bill' and 'Lonely Liz' used to scatter men by the score, with also an 11-inch shell dropping now and then from the Straits. Splendid rest, this!"

Change! What change could one have there? Rest! What rest? "The Angel of Death is abroad throughout the land," said John Bright in one of his most memorable orations. "You can almost hear the beating of his wings!" But on Gallipoli you could hear the beating of his wings day and night, knowing not what the next moment might bring forth.

There were three mates in Junee, a western town of New South Wales, who used to play cricket and football together. When their country asked for soldiers they answered the call. The three enlisted together, shared the same tent in camp, and fought side by side in each successive engagement, from the landing to the fight for Lonesome Pine. One of them—Reg. Humphreys—fell with a bullet in his brain, and died in the arms of his comrade, Joe Charlton. Later in the day, Charlton fell, and the third man, Paul White, carried him back to the ship, where he died of his wounds. Out of 120 men of A Company only White and one other man remained. The rest were all killed or wounded or sick.

Such is War. And yet our boys went cheerfully on with their work. Hard work—hot work, so hot that we followed the example of the Indian Army and cut our trousers short. Very comfortable were these "shorts" when climbing about the hills. We looked like Boy Scouts. You should have seen the gunners on a hot day, stripped to the waist, and stripped from the knee to the feet—wearing their "shorts" and nothing but their "shorts"! Infantry and Light Horsemen, you could scarce tell one from the other. "Shorts" put us all on the same level. And we were all as jolly as sandboys, having our fun and cracking our jokes, reading the official Peninsula Press and enjoying the unofficial humour of our own trench organs, such as the Dinkum Oil News and The Dardanelles Driveller. We knew that Death was near, but we laughed in his face.

One day a bread ration was issued, instead of the inevitable biscuit ration. "Well, they might have given us butter with it!" exclaimed one trooper, with a smile. "Butter!" cried his mate—"you'll be wanting flowers on your grave next!"

They had many names for the Australians on Gallipoli, and one of them was "The Linguists." Some of the British Tommies used to stand in awe when they heard an Australian bullock driver giving vent to his feelings. I have even heard it said that a reputable Australian curate who went to the front in the ranks used the most disreputable language in charging a Turkish trench. One morning a German aeroplane dropped two huge bombs behind our lines. They exploded with a terrific blast, but did no damage. As the glistening bombs shot earthward, one of the men exclaimed, "'Ere comes 'er 'ymn of 'ate from 'ell!"

Another day we thought we would see an aerial duel. Already we had seen about everything else that twentieth-century war could show us. But the duel never came off. One of our 'planes took wing and flew north from Helles, over Anzac, towards Enos. Shortly afterwards, a German aeroplane took the air, and hovered over our lines. Evidently our airman could not see the Taube, for he circled aimlessly about over the Ægean Sea. Meanwhile, the German got quite venturesome. He sailed low—barely 2,000 feet above us—and though we blazed away with rifles and guns, he managed to have a good look at our position. Also, he dropped a couple of bombs at the right of our line before he bolted. But they fell harmlessly into the sea.

We got several good laughs every day. It made life worth living to note the wonderful good humour of our soldiers. Sometimes we laughed at the Turks, sometimes at each other. We had one great laugh at a German airman. He went up with a big bomb, evidently intent on some frightfulness. A British aeroplane immediately sighted him, and started in pursuit. Then a couple of French airmen took the air, and joined in the chase. With three of them hot on his trail, the German fled over the Turkish lines. The Allies gained on him, so to lighten his load he dropped his bomb overboard. But it landed on the Turkish trenches. They thought he must have been an enemy, for they at once opened fire with rifles, machine-guns, and anti-aircraft artillery, and the poor Taube had a very sultry time.

The Germans erected a new aerodrome, "somewhere on Gallipoli." The French airmen sighted it, dropped a few bombs, set fire to the petrol store, and did considerable damage. We had an aerial night attack on the Turkish camps at the Soghan Dere. Our aeroplanes first fired with their machine-guns at the flashes of the enemy's rifles. Then they dropped a couple of 20-lb. bombs, which burst in the centre of the Turkish camp. Finally they dropped 300 arrows amongst the bewildered enemy.

After watching the airmen operating over the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, and in Gallipoli, we came to the conclusion that flying is easily the safest job in war time. We used to think otherwise. To the onlooker it appeared so hazardous, that the marvel was that those dare-devils were not all blown to smithereens. But for about three months, we watched them at work, and not a hair of one of their heads was harmed. Time and again the airman sailed across the enemy's lines, while their anti-aircraft guns worked overtime. The blue of the sky was flecked with white puffs of smoke where the shells burst, yet the aeroplane flew on serenely. I counted forty-one shells one day, which burst all round one of our airmen on reconnaissance. Many seemed to go very close indeed; others flew wide of the mark. The Turkish trenches would spring to life as our 'planes passed over, and thousands of rounds would be poured into the atmosphere. Their machine-guns would sound the rataplan as the belts were emptied. But the wild fusillade never disconcerted the airmen. All of which proves what an exceedingly difficult target the aeroplane must be.

We did not have any Zeppelins buzzing round the Dardanelles. Perhaps they were too busily engaged on their baby-killing enterprises on the east coast of old England. The nearest thing we had was an observation balloon, looking for all the world like a huge German sausage suspended in mid-air. But it was very helpful to our warships for observation purposes.