The afternoon was wearing out, and I began to think of home and tea. I stopped working, straightened my back, ran moist fingers through my hair, and sat down on the log. The axe went tumbling to the ground. “Watch-and-pray” and “Wait-and-see” got up from the fallen gum suckers, and trotted forward with waving tails and glistening, slippery tongues. I made haste to get rid of them. They began to play, biting ears and growling, but went back at last, laid keen black heads on narrow paws and watche

Nearly a month afterwards Ted was driving me to the camp. The wind had worked up into half a gale, and much of the way clouds of dust swept into our faces. The ponies faced the weather unwillingly, and Ted did not spare the whip. I crouched back in the buggy, with hat hard over my eyes, and for minutes together neither of us said a word, unless it was to curse our luck. Sometimes the gale dropped, the dust lay down, the sun shone again; and then we found ourselves in grassy country, hilly and al

At the camp gate I said goodbye to Ted, and he promised to look me up in a day or two, or as soon as he could. We made no heart-breaking affair of the ceremony, and before I was inside the gate the ponies moved in an opposite direction. I saw Ted touch them with the whip to get them into their collars, then the buggy hood hid him and I saw him no more. I picked my bag up, pulled out my pass, and walked towards the guard at the entrance. Rain had fallen on the previous day. No sooner was I inside

Our boat, the Blankshire , put out of Albany Harbour one of a fleet of transports fifty or more strong, convoyed by cruisers. We began a weary journey to an unknown destination, fair winds and fair skies companioning us. The fleet steamed in three lines, travelling at the fastest rate of the slowest vessel, and the convoy moved abeam, to starboard and to port. The Blankshire had steamed through Port Phillip Bay a fortnight before, carrying a sober ship’s company. We had left camp at the eleventh

Eaves put his hairy hands upon my shoulder, and dragged me out of sleep. “’Ere, Lake, wake up, you’re on picket with me!” I opened my eyes and looked at him. “My God,” said I. Eaves grinned and moved away. He wore his overcoat, and a helmet of wool over head and neck. The big black moustache hid the rest of his face. “Show a leg this way!” he called back, plunging hands into pockets and hunching his shoulders. Away he went. I lay nearly atop of Tank, one blanket serving both of us. I got up quie

The camp grew apace. A great area, reaching nearly to the shadow of the Pyramids, became covered over with tents; and many thousand men and horses arrived down the long road from Cairo. The infantry quartered themselves at the upper end, where the floor of the desert narrowed to a valley climbing into the hills; light horse took the desert’s inner edge; and army service and we artillery formed the triangle’s base, nearest the palm grove. Steamrollers and gangs of native workmen drove roads acros

Winter passed and spring followed, bearing in its arms fierce suns and weary scorching winds. The desert camp remained until we learned to hate the country that once had amused us. By day, and more rarely by night, we manœuvred in the desert, making ready for the task which was so tardy in arriving. The life was hard; but I did not find it barren of pleasure. Many a long gallop had I over the shining sands, when the sun was scarce awake. I have spent mornings perched on some observing station wh

It seemed at last we were drawing into port. The land was more defined, and rolled up from the sea in peaceful grassy slopes, chequered with squares of cultivation, and marked with lonely dots which later might grow into hamlet or farm. Nearer—always nearer—the ship steered, until the waterway had narrowed to a ribbon, and the island discovered itself entirely, presenting cliffs which swept into the water, and beaches shelving smoothly down. Caressing breezes came over to us, like breaths from a

I ended by waking up quite late in the morning—not only ended by waking up late, in fact, but even by forgetting the undertaking ahead of us. I discovered myself on my back, looking through the open hatchway at the sky, where a pleasant breeze found a way down, and drove off the musty odours of manure and pressed lucerne. For half a minute maybe I lay thus, thinking of nothing much, and hearing in a far-off way the shuffling of the horses. Then of a sudden the business before us came into my bra

That first night on land was a restless night and a never-ending one, though everybody was up by the first streak of dawn. I woke and slept, woke up and slept. Twice the rain pattered in my face, forcing me to cover my head, then the men guarding a pool of water somewhere at hand relieved guard, and trod on me in the process. The colonel went away once, giving me his glasses and map case and other things to look after. Yet again I was wakened by two fellows close beside me. I came out of a doze,

Faintest dawn climbed over the bay as I woke up in the morning. I opened one eye and then the other, and took courage and propped myself on an elbow. It was nearly dark; but already the beach showed life and movement, and vague battleships were taking up new stations out at sea. Nobody near by seemed awake, the bushes looked empty and rather mysterious; but far off the everlasting musketry went on—dying, growing, and dying away again. I took a long look round until courage failed me, when back I

A couple of mornings later, I was pulled out of bed by the telephonist on duty. As usual he had my heartfelt curses, and as usual I bowed to circumstances and sat up. The night was fine and clear and sharp; and quite silent if one forgot the roll of musketry. No shells passed over to the sea. Standing in the dark and pulling on my clothes, and lastly picking up the overcoat which had been a blanket, I rubbed my eyes wider open and greeted again my old friend the night. There was the bay with man

Soon after this Sands singled me out as the victim to attend him on a telephone-laying expedition. He warned me overnight, and I felt then a strange unwillingness for the honour; and when the hour arrived, I had not changed my mind. Somewhere about half-past three I was shaken from sleep; and I jumped straight up and pulled on my clothes. On the way from the dug-out I met Sands wandering round the cook-house like an uneasy ghost. He seemed to be looking for something, and quite ignored my existe

We had yarned outside the cookhouse since the midday meal. Oxbridge was there, and Stone, and Prince; and one or two others, I think. We sat in the open on biscuit tins or stones, or whatever was handy; for the day was sunny and quite mild. There was nothing to do, and we talked on and on. The tireless musketry fire rolled from the valley head, and enemy shells still burst haphazard along the beach and over the sea. But for an hour or more headquarters had been free from such attention, and that

Day and night, night and day; they came and went again like the pendulum of an eternal clock. They brought us varying fortunes such as a soldier learns to receive in meekness: they grew into weeks and brought the first awful breaths of summer. Much had happened since the first wonderful rush. Our footing was secure, trenches were deep and safe and numerous, and communicated with support galleries where reinforcements rested. Our guns were in position, every man boasted his own funk-hole. The arm

Every afternoon, at four o’clock sometimes, sometimes at five o’clock, sometimes later even, we had our evening battle. The morning rounds completed, the colonel returned to Headquarters, where I saw no more of him for an hour or two. That time was my own, when I crawled under the wretched awning of my funk-hole, and settled down to grill through the heat of the day. By three or four o’clock invariably the colonel came to life again, arriving in the open to stretch and collect periscope and glas

The weeks marched by, one upon the heels of the next; and summer came down upon that cruel land. All day long the suns stared at the baked ground, and the flies multiplied beyond imagination. The enemy, sitting in the opposite trenches, was less terrible than this pitiless season. There was no savour in the food; the water ration could not quench the thirst; there was no new scene on which to feed the eye; there was no change of duty. We were no step nearer the end of affairs. And typhus and dys

I had finished breakfast half an hour, and now loafed by my funk-hole while the colonel shaved. The corporal came over to me, dirty and very tired. He looked at me, head on one side, until I wondered what he wanted. At last he said: “Have you heard about Lewis?” “What about Lewis?” I answered. “Had his head blown off this morning.” “My God!” I said. We looked at each other a little while. “How did it happen?” “He was Sands’s telephonist first shift. When Sands got to the other end there was no s

The Column had dug themselves in on the ruins of our old headquarters. They were handy to the beach, and boasted an uninterrupted view of the sea. The place had much to recommend it; but it suffered from the attentions of Beachy Bill and his comrade of Anafarta. As a newcomer, I had poor choice of funk-holes; but I picked one in a hollow, screened from Beachy Bill and moderately protected from the Anafarta gun. Here I laid my kit and waited what might be in store. I was growing ill. I had suffer