ding of the bombs, the rattle and burr of the rifles and
machine-guns and the crash of shells, sometimes sounded faintly men's
voices--the weird "Allah, Allah, Allah" of the enemy in a chanted
cadence, and the fierce half-humorous taunts of the attackers.

Everywhere lay dead and dying men--mostly the former, Turkish and
British. Equipment and rifles were strewn in the greatest confusion
over the torn earth, and all the time the creeping flames cast weird
lights upon the passing drama.

"Say, old boy," came a voice from his feet, "you'd better not stand
there too long--it's pretty thick."

Mac leaned down to the wounded man, and found him one of the Aucklands.
"It's been simply blanky hell up here all day and now I'm just waiting
for them to give me a hand out. You boys have come up none too soon.
Mind you give the devils hell!"

"You there with the pick," Mac found himself addressed, "get over to
those holes up front there and dig in for all you're blanky well worth."

"Good luck, matey, Kia Ora," came the parting blessing from the wounded
Aucklander in the scrub.

So brimming over with good fellowship were the tones, so short, yet so
deeply affectionate that Mac instinctively felt much more lighthearted
as he stumbled across the shattered battlefield to the thin line of
toiling, hard-pressed fighters, close to the rim where the cliff fell
away on the Dardanelles side. He found a line of shallow holes, some a
foot deep, some eighteen inches, aided a little by a few almost useless
sandbags. The cliff brink was six or eight yards away, and under it
lay the enemy--whose spectral figures, popping up and disappearing
rapidly, blazed point blank into the exposed line. A few yards on the
left the Turks poured across from the cliff to a small knob which
protruded into the attackers' line, and upon which they bore down
constantly and bombed furiously. From the ravine below the enemy, came
the constant "Allah, Allah, Allah," of many Turks encouraging
themselves for the attack, and occasional yells when shells or bombs
fell among them.

Mac knelt on the ground and endeavoured to deepen the hold by steady
picking, while two other men kept a steady fire on the agile heads of
the enemy. But try his best, he was now beginning to feel severely his
decreasing strength and could make but little impression on the trench
on this parched, sun-baked hill-top. Another trooper offered to take
his place, and he went to the less