tired to continue. The new arrivals, who had been working hard for
three nights in succession, were righteously indignant, and also
considered themselves too tired to carry on. Only two or three
enthusiasts showed any inclination to work, and these were speedily
discouraged by a further increase of activity on the part of the enemy
artillery. Seventy-five m.m. whizz-bangs shrieked low over the
surface, or burst with shattering crashes which shook down avalanches
of earth on the heads of the troopers as they sat, half-asleep, against
the dug-out walls. Then the machine-guns joined in the din, and
rattled and roared in spiteful bursts, now rising into a furious storm,
now lulling slightly. The bullets whipped and whizzed past, or plopped
into the heaps of debris above. Now that there was sufficient military
reason for laziness on his part, Mac, recognizing, of course, that he
would have worked had it been at all possible, sank with an easy
conscience into somnolence.

When he awoke it was broad daylight, and the tornado of his last sleepy
moments of consciousness had diminished to the usual spasmodic rifle
reports. He stood up, ruefully rubbed the spots where ammunition
pouches had made dents in his person, stepped over his still sleeping
cobbers and crawled through the rabbit-hole entrance into the
fire-trench. There he blinked like a sleepy owl, more with surprise
than anything else. There were dead Turks all over the show, and in a
sap opposite were dozens of them. This was a sap which had kept Mac
occupied for many nights recently. It was a secret sap, or supposed to
be so as far as the enemy was concerned; and had been constructed with
every care and precaution to that end. Running parallel with the
Turkish front firing-line, thirty yards away, it connected a corner of
the Anzac firing-line with the edge of a cliff a couple of chains to
the left, and thus cut off a big bend in its front line.

With much satisfaction a Light Horseman gave Mac particulars of the
occurrence:

"My bloomin' oath, we got 'em fine. We sorter guessed from the blanky
rough-house they were making they was up ter something and got ready to
make 'em welcome. Then with a lot of their blooming Allahin' and
raising a hell of a howl generally, they come over like a blooming mob
of sheep. A big bunch got into that secret sap there. Then we landed
'em a dirty one, and bombed their blanky souls to hell. They didn't
half squeal. Not