Mac, minus most of his clothing, squatted on a heap of rubble, keenly following through his glasses naval tactics on the sea below. One favourable point about Anzac was that, if one was bored with everything else, there was always plenty to look at, especially with a good pair of glasses. This morning, coming out on to the little flat top behind his position, he discovered all the shipping in a turmoil. The whole fleet of twenty or more transports was going helter-skelter for Imbros harbour, the winches of a few laggards still rattled as they laboured with their anchors, cruisers patrolled uneasily up and down, fleet-sweepers moved about nowhere in particular, while destroyers dashed round in wide circles, leaving behind them trails of heavy black smoke and foaming white water. Only a couple of white hospital-ships remained undisturbed.

"Submarines—damn them!" thought Mac. This was a new and unpleasant development and not to his liking at all. He descried through the haze the anchorage at Cape Helles, and noted that the vessels there—among them a huge four-funnelled Atlantic liner—were also making off.

Towards evening all transports had disappeared, and cruisers and destroyers resumed a leisurely patrol.

That was Saturday. In the early light of next morning, while the mist-wraiths still clung to the hills and filled the dongas, Mac was disturbed in his breakfast preparations by the sound of a heavier cannonade than usual to the south. Going to an observation post he saw a battleship aground off Gaba Tepe Point. The morning mists had just revealed her, and now she was emptying her broadsides in rapid succession up the great valley below Kilid Bahr. Another battleship was right alongside attempting, apparently, to push her off. White smoke from many bursting Turkish shells mingled with the heavy black pall from the discharging broadsides. The bombardment continued for some time, and Mac at length returned to his neglected breakfast preparations, his going hastened by the fact that, carelessly exposing his head, he had attracted the attentions of a sniper. When he looked later, both men-o'-war were some distance away steaming west.

He learned afterwards that the Albion, in taking up her position on the southern flank, had grounded in the mist, and that the Canopus had come to her assistance, attempting, without success, to get her off. The Albion lightened herself by emptying her magazines through her broadsides, and was finally towed off.

* * * * *

Then came the armistice, a day of interest and amusement, and of grim, unpleasant work.

For almost a month, in no man's land, attack after attack had dwindled away to nothing and there, five days before, Turkish losses had been especially heavy. The enemy took the initiative in the matter, and white flag negotiations proceeded on several occasions. Later, a gorgeously apparelled Turkish staff officer came across and was taken blindfolded to Headquarters, where an armistice for internment purposes was agreed upon. Very considerate it was of Abdul to put the proposition, Mac thought, for the condition of the atmosphere in the neighbourhood was not conducive to his peace of mind, nor did it improve his inclination to eat to know that those flies which nothing could keep out of his food, had come from ——. And his internals would squirm at the thought.

A peculiar quietness had marked the passage of the night, and with the vanishing of the mists a strange silence filled the air. Since the landing nearly a month back, the continuous music of rifle fire, with its echoes and re-echoes among the nullahs and cliffs, had scarcely ever ceased. And now, from opposing parapets, cautious heads began to appear, Red Cross and Red Crescent flags were brought into the open. Large burying parties followed, and soon thousands of Cornstalks and Mussulmans were burying each others' dead. Thousands lined the parapets, scanning those acres of which they had had before but wily glances, or had scurried over in the wave of an attack. No one was going to miss the show. The Cove was deserted, and the Infantryman and the Service Corps man stood boldly side by side on the parapet.

Of the work itself little can be said. Mac was on duty in the first line, and was not allowed to leave it to investigate the secrets of no man's land, but he knew well enough of the huddled figures lying in clusters in that green scrub, which hid much. But in parts the scrub had been worn from the earth by the constant ripping of the bullets. There, partly shielded by withering branches lay withering bodies, mostly in strange postures, sometimes one above the other with rusting rifles, discarded equipment, and odd bits of wire. Often scraps of torn cloth clung to the jagged stems of shattered shrubs, and all was a scene of desolation unutterable.

So numerous were the dead that all day long the burying went on. Some of the workers, resting from their labours, attempted conversation with the Turkish parties, but ignorance of each others' language proved a difficulty. Still they smiled and gesticulated and exchanged cigarettes.

Towards the middle of the afternoon, parties finished their work and returned, no man's land became gradually untenanted, the curious were satisfied, and melted from the parapets, a sudden heat shower damping their ardour, and gradually the old scene came back. About four the white flags with their red emblems disappeared and every one retired discreetly into his trench. Soon a stray shot rang out, and the armistice was over. Snipers were at their old dodges, and later in the evening Mac's section received for some time the attentions of an enemy mountain gun, which was new to this part of the line.

The following day brought a tragedy which sank deep into Mac's heart.

Out on the left flank, near where the Albion had been ashore a few mornings back, a man-o'-war had always lain since the days of the landing. There had been some anxiety certainly on account of the submarine excitement the other day; but now, slow, lazy movements on the part of the destroyers and the reoccupation of old anchorages by the cruisers, indicated that naval peace of mind was once more restored. H.M.S. Triumph had anchored soon after daybreak on the southern flank.

Now, at midday, came the shout, "Triumph's been torpedoed." Mac jumped on his fire-step, and, looking down the trench, saw beyond it sure enough the poor old Triumph with a heavy list towards him. Some of the fellows had seen the torpedo strike her right amidships, and a great column of water rise high in the air and fall on her decks.

From all directions destroyers, mine-sweepers and pinnaces were concentrating on the doomed vessel. Two destroyers had run their bows alongside her hull, and her crew was swarming off. Her decks grew steeper, but some of the crew seemed to be sticking to their guns to the last in the after turrets. Mac could not discover whether these shots were directed against the submarine or whether they were but the last farewell of the old battleship. Fifteen minutes from the moment she was struck, her decks lay almost at right angles to the water, then the movement quickening, she turned bottom upward, only her red keel, propellers and rudder showing to the troubled troopers who sadly watched the demise of the famous old ship. A quarter of an hour longer she floated, sinking lower and lower, then, with an easy motion, she slid away from sight. For a few minutes a maelstrom of white, surging water foamed and spurted, then, sadly and slowly, the host of small craft which had rushed to the rescue made again for their stations. Destroyers manoeuvred in vain search of the submarine, while battleships and cruisers in a haze of smoke disappeared beyond the horizon. Only a few bright tins, some boards, and a patch of oil marked the spot on the peaceful, azure sea, where, an hour before, a fine old ship, and fifty of her crew, had gone to their doom.

The troopers ate their lunch in stony silence. It seemed they had lost an old friend.

Still, in going about the afternoon's work, they soon forgot their sadness. They had been a fortnight in these trenches, and now they were to be relieved by the Light Horse. It was good getting out after a fortnight there, but it was a darned nuisance moving. When Mac had all his gear up, there was not much of himself left in view. Valise, bandolier, rifle, revolver, glasses, water-bottle, extra ammunition, cooking utensils, haversack, a stove, the day's rations, a bundle of fire-wood, and half a dozen odds and ends had to find space about his person; the Q.M.S., too, usually had something to add to this load. A heavy summer shower did not improve matters, and made the descent of the steep clay paths one of speed rather than elegance. Once started with so heavy a load, it was impossible to pull up. So the descent of his regiment that afternoon from the plateau above was a weird and wonderful sight, and resembled nothing more than a mixed avalanche of perspiring troopers, mud and gear.

They took up their new abode on a steep northerly slope above the sea. Instructions were that all habitations were to be made shrapnel proof, but this was a matter of difficulty on so steep a face. Nightfall found Mac and his section with an awninged platform, six feet square and three feet high and partially walled, but far from shrapnel proof and never likely to be. They were not inclined to meet trouble half-way, so each disposed his equipment in its rightful spot. The four partook heartily of a most sociable evening meal, and then wandered off for a good long bathe in the pleasantly cool water of the AEgean.

* * * * *

The bivouac on the steep slope north of Anzac Cove was hardly the safest, and domestic life there was not the most unruffled. Just when five more seconds would have seen the bacon done to a T, the whistle of the look-out up above would go. That meant that the Turkish battery on the W Hills had delivered itself of a missile, which might, or might not, be directed at this bivouac. Then Mac would find himself in a dilemma. Would he trust to luck that the shell was not for him, and save the bacon, or would he crouch for safety under the protection wall? More often the bacon had the benefit of the decision for meal-time was Abdul's favourite hour for action, and, if Mac took heed of every warning, the section would never get through its meals. He knew that the warning whistle gave him seventeen seconds before the arrival of the shell, and, if he waited for the sound of the discharge, he had about four seconds left. Still they didn't worry much until, after a few opening rounds, Abdul's practice got too good and there was no mistaking his malevolent attentions. Mac, if he were not near his own bivouac, would dive into the nearest one, irrespective of owner, and seek its leeward corners. A few seconds of quiet waiting while he exchanged the time of day with his host; then the burst, the singing whistle of the fragments, the whirr of the nose-cap, and the fut—fut—fut as the pieces came to earth. Then, if another whistle had not sounded, he would thank his host and proceed on his way.

Often would come the cry of "Stretcher-bearer," and the M.O. would hurry up the steep slope to some one who had been hit.

Mac lost his sergeant, a real fine fellow, one morning, while he was serving out rations. The whole regiment was grieved. For the rest of the day his body, shrouded in his grey blanket, lay on a stretcher in his bivouac with as much calm and holy dignity as any royal monarch lying in state.

Soon after dusk, for the little cemetery was under direct machine-gun fire during the day, the regiment gathered, bareheaded and silent, to bury its comrade. Six of the dead soldier's friends lifted the bier, and bore it tenderly down the steep slope and over the bridge across the sap. The regiment followed and gathered round the open grave.

It was given to few on the Peninsula to be buried thus. Many still lie where they fell on those Gallipoli hills; some are graced with shallow graves, scratched hastily under fire, among the torn and tattered scrub, while others, with fire-bars and blanket and with a few parting words, have been plunged into the blue AEgean.

On the little sandy point on the north of Anzac Cove is one small graveyard, where, when Mac knew it, were fifty or sixty graves. In the daytime it was shell swept and subject to direct rifle fire, but at night came shadowy figures which passed to and fro from the beach bringing neat stones and round boulders for picturesque and permanent adornment of a cobber's grave. Or maybe there would be some diggers at work, or a burying-party.

To-night, in the peaceful calm of that summer evening, when not a ripple lapped on the stony beach, when the only indication of war was the music of the firing high above and the occasional whistle of a spent bullet overhead, the good old padre, in clear, low tones, went through the sergeant's burial service. The rites were finished, and the silent troopers moved away into the darkness as quietly as they had come, while the padre started the service anew among another group of silent, waiting figures. And so the summer passed over that little burial-ground. In the daytime, the scorching sun blazed over the crude crosses and whitened stones, and the shells shrieked by, while in the dark coolness of the night shadowy figures brought the day's toll silently and reverently to its resting place.