ine brains
with physique is in the spirit of Cecil Rhodes. Government of blacks by
whites is a commonplace; of blacks by blues, a stroke of genius.

Looking back after years of soldiering and disillusion, the first
months of the War no doubt seem brighter than they really were. It is
easy to forget the illnesses that sent the writer as an invalid to Luxor
and Cairo, and finally to England; to ignore the heat and dust and
isolation, the long glare of the African day. We think more readily of
Gordon's rose-tree blooming in the Palace garden; of the long camel
treks across the desert; of the wail of the yellow-ribboned Sudanese
bagpipes; of our visit with Colonel Smyth, V.C., to the stony, sun-baked
battle-field of Omdurman; of the lusty strains of _Tipperary_ in the
cool barrack rooms. It is right that this should be so. The men to whom
these memories would appeal were men who enjoyed life to the full. They
played the first lacrosse ever seen in the Sudan, engaged in keen boxing
competitions, rallied to football on the roughest of barrack squares,
listened cheerfully to weekly concerts and the first of our long series
of history and military lectures. They hunted for curios in the dusty
alleys of Omdurman, enjoyed recreation in the library and billiard-room,
and ran with great spirit the early numbers of the _Manchester Sentry_,
first published of all active service periodicals. To this paper the
Sirdar and Lady Wingate contributed welcome and inspiring letters, and
the Battalion owed its motto: "We never sleep."

In April, 1915, the Battalion left the Sudan for Cairo, where it again
came in contact with the other units of the East Lancashire Territorial
Division, thenceforward called the 42nd Division On the 3rd May it
embarked in company with another battalion of the Manchesters on the
_Ionian_, and at seven in the evening, on the 7th May, it landed at "V"
Beach, Cape Helles.

CHAPTER III

GALLIPOLI

The 42nd Division was soon in the midst of hard fighting, stormy weather
and much privation. Casualties began early, though the first Battalion
exploit under fire was happily bloodless. On the 9th May, 80 men were
told off to fill water-bottles and carry them under fire over
half-a-mile of broken ground to an Australian unit. They tracked
cleverly across the moor, and were met by an eager Australian with the
question: "Have you brought the water, cobbers?" On the 11th, the
Battalion had a long, weary march to