s cold. The stars burned white-hot--a calm, fierce
glitter.

Hawk and I "kipped down" (slept) together on a sandy stretch overlooking
the bay. We could see the green-and-red electric lights of the hospital
ships waiting in the harbour--for us, perhaps...

The "graft" (work) was fearful. All day long we were at it: hauling up
our equipment from the beach where it had been dumped ashore. Medical
panniers, operating marquee, tents and tent-poles, cook-house dixies,
picks and shovels, bully and biscuit boxes and a hundred-and-one
articles necessary to the work of the Medical Corps in the field: all
this had to be man-handled through the sand up to our camp about a mile
away. And the sun blazed, and the flies pestered and stung and buzzed
and fought with each other for the drops of sweat streaming down your
face. How long should we be here? When were we going into action?... The
suspense was brain-racking. The diarrhoea increased: everyone went down
with it. Some got the ague shivers and some a touch of dysentery.

We became gloomy and bodily sick. We wanted to get into it--into
action...

Anything would be better than this God-forsaken island. Why the dickens
did they leave us moping here: working in the blazing heat, and crawling
to the latrines in the chilly nights? For goodness' sake, let's get out
of it! Let's get to work!... So the days dragged on.

The natives wore baggy trousers and coloured head-bands. They sat all
day near our camp selling melons, tomatoes, very cheap and tasteless
chocolates, raisins, figs and dates.

We used to go down to swim in the little bay-like semicircle of the
harbour. The water was always warm and very salt. Here were tiny
shoals of tiny fish. The water was clear and glassy. There were pinky
sea-urchins with spikey spines which jabbed your feet. The sandy bed of
the bay was all ribbed with ripples.

The island was humming and ticking like a watch with insect-noises:
otherwise the deadly silence held. There were red-winged grasshoppers
and great green-gray locust-looking crickets which whistled and
"cricked" all night.

We had to fetch our water from the water-tank boats, about a mile and a
half distant, and haul it up in a water-cart.

Gangs of natives were working under the military authorities. There
were Greeks and Greek-Armenians, Turks and Ethiopians, Egyptians and
half-breeds of all kinds from Malta and Gib. They were employed in
making roads and clearing the ground for h