We moved our camp from "A" Beach farther along towards the Salt Lake.
We moved several times. Always Hawk and I "hung together." Once he was
very ill in the old dried-up water-course which wriggled down from the
Kislar Dargh. He ate nothing for three days. I never saw anything like
it before. He was as weak as a rat, and I know he came very near
"pegging out." He felt it himself. I was sitting on the ground near
by.

"I may not pull through this, old fellow," says Hawk, with just a
tear-glint under one eyelid. He lay under a shelf of rock, safe from
shrapnel.

"Come now, Fred," says I, "you're not going to snuff it yet."

"Weak as a rat--can't eat nothink, PRACtically . . . nothink; but see
here, John,"--he seldom called me John--"if I do slip off the map, an'
I feel PRACtically done for this time--if I SHOULD--you see that
ration-bag"--he pointed to a little white bag bulging and tied up and
knotted.

"Yes?"

"It's got some little things in it--for the kiddies at home--a little
teapot I found up by the Turkish bivouac over there, and one or two
more relics--I want 'em to have 'em--will you take care of it and send
it home for me if you get out of this alive?"

Of course I promised to do this, but tried to cheer him up, and
assured him he would soon pull round.