on to leave
England. In September, 1914, it had sailed away, in an imposing
convoy of transports escorted by cruisers and destroyers, under
orders to garrison Egypt. There it had acted as the Army of
Occupation till that April day when the 29th Division laughed at the
prophecies of the German experts and stormed from the AEgean Sea the
beaches of Cape Helles. Scarcely had the news electrified Egypt
before the First Line received its orders to embark for Overseas.
And every man of them knew what _that_ meant.

So all we of the 2nd Tenth seemed marked down like branded sheep for
the Gallipoli front. The Colonel was full of it. With his elect mind
that saw right into the heart of things, he quickly unveiled the
poetry and romance of Britain's great enterprise at Gallipoli. He
crowded all his young officers into his private room for a lecture
on the campaign that was calling them. Having placed them on
chairs, on the carpet, on the hearth-rug, and on the fender, he
seated himself at his writing-table, like a hen in the midst of its
chickens, and began:

"For epic and dramatic interest this Dardanelles business is easily
top."

To the Colonel everything that he was enthusiastic about was epic
and dramatic and "on top." Just as he told us that our day was _the_
day and our generation _the_ generation, so now he set out to assure
us that Gallipoli was _the_ front.

"If you'll only get at the IDEAS behind what's going on at the
Helles beaches," he declared, with a rap on the table, "you'll be
thrilled, boys."

Then he reminded us that the Dardanelles Straits were the Hellespont
of the Ancient world, and the neighbouring AEgean Sea the most mystic
of the "wine-dark seas of Greece": he retold stories of Jason and
the Argonauts; of "Burning Sappho" in Lesbos; of Achilles in Scyros;
of Poseidon sitting upon Samothrace to watch the fight at Troy; and
of St. John the Divine at Patmos gazing up into the Heavenly
Jerusalem.

As he spoke, we were schoolboys again and listened with wide-open,
wistful eyes. From the fender and the hearth-rug, we saw Leander
swimming to Hero across the Dardanelles; we saw Darius, the Persian,
throwing his bridge over the same narrow passage, only to be
defeated at Marathon; and Xerxes, too, bridging the famous straits
to carry victory into Greece, till at last his navy went under at
Salamis. We saw the pathetic figure of Byron swimming where Leander
swam; and, in all, such an array of visions tha