[Illustration:  Getting Wounded off after a Fight.]

[Illustration:  Water Carts protected by Sand Bags.]

[Illustration:  Burial Parties during the Armistice.]

[Illustration:  Simpson and his Donkey.]

In three-quarters of an hour we put through fifty-four cases.  Many bearers were hit, and McGowen and Threlfall of the 1st Light Horse Field Ambulance were killed.  Seven of our tent division were wounded.  One man reported to me that he had been sent as a reinforcement, had been through Samoa, and had just arrived in Gallipoli.  While he was speaking, he sank quietly down without a sound.  A bullet had come over my shoulder into his heart.  That was another instance of the fortune of war.  Many men were hit, either before they landed or soon after, while others could go months with never a scratch.  From 2 till 7 p.m. we dealt with 142 cases.

This shelling lasted for an hour or more, and when it subsided a party of men arrived with a message from Divisional Headquarters.  They had been instructed to remove as many of the Ambulance as were alive.  Headquarters, it appears, had been watching the firing.  We lost very little time in leaving, and for the night we dossed down in the scrub a mile further along the beach, where we were only exposed to the fire of spent bullets coming over the hills.  Our fervent prayer was that we had said good-bye to shells.

The new position was very nice; it had been a farm—­in fact the plough was still there, made of wood, no iron being used in its construction.  Blackberries, olives, and wild thyme grew on the place, and also a kind of small melon.  We did not eat any; we thought we were running enough risks already; but the cooks used the thyme to flavour the bovril, and it was a nice addition.

Not far from us something happened that was for all the world like an incident described by Zola in his “Debacle,” when during the bombardment before Sedan a man went on ploughing in a valley with a white horse, while an artillery duel continued over his head.  Precisely the same thing occurred here—­the only difference being that here a man persisted in looking after his cattle, while the guns were firing over his head.

Walkley and Betts proved ingenious craftsmen.  They secured two wheels left by the Signalling Corps, and on these fastened a stretcher; out of a lot of the web equipment lying about they made a set of harness; two donkeys eventuated from somewhere, and with this conveyance quite a lot of transport was done.  Water and rations were carried as well, and the saving to our men was great.  Goodness knows the bearers were already sufficiently worked carrying wounded.

The Bacchante did some splendid firing, right into the trenches every time.  With one shot, amongst the dust and earth, a Turk went up about thirty feet:  arms and legs extended, his body revolving like a catherine wheel.  One saw plenty of limbs go up at different times, but this was the only time when I saw a man go aloft in extenso.