bullet-pierced French warplane stranded on the other side of Lala
Baba--lying over at an angle like a wounded white seabird; the rush
for the little figure bringing in "the mails" in a sack over his
shoulder; the smell of iodine and iodoform round the hospital-tents;
the long wobbling moan of the Turkish long- distance shells, and the
harmless "Z-z-z-eee-e- e-o-ooop!" of their "dud" shells which buried
themselves so often in the sand without exploding; the tattered,
begrimed and sunken-eyed appearance of men who had been in the
trenches for three weeks at a stretch; the bristling unshaven chins,
and the craving desire for "woodbines"; the ingrained stale blood on
my hands and arms from those fearful gaping wounds, and the red-brown
blood-stain patches on my khaki drill clothes; the pestering curse of
those damnable Suvla Bay flies and the lice with which every officer
and man swarmed.

The awful--cut-off, Robinson Crusoe feeling--no letters from home, no
newspapers, no books . . . sand, biscuits and flies; flies, bully and
sand . . .

Stay-at-home critics and prophets of war cannot strike just that tiny
spark of reality which makes the whole thing "live."

However many diagrams and wonderful ideas these remarkable amateur
experts publish they won't "go down" with the man who has humped his
pack and has "been out."

Mention the word "Blighty " or "Tickler's plum-and-apple," "Kangaroo
Beach" or "Jhill-o! Johnnie!" or "Up yer go--an' the best o' luck!" to
any man of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force and in each case you
will have touched upon a vividly imprinted impresssion of the