; they all came back--with
the firewood.

I saw two of our men on one occasion bringing in a prisoner. They
halted on the hill opposite us, and one of them went to headquarters
to ascertain how the prisoner was to be disposed of. In a very short
time he was surrounded by fourteen or fifteen of our soldiers, trying
to carry on a conversation, and giving him cigarettes and in fact
anything he would accept. An hour before they had been trying their
best to shoot one another. In one of the attacks on our left the Turks
were badly beaten off and left a lot of their dead close up to our
trenches. As it was not safe to get over and remove the bodies, a
number of boat-hooks were obtained, and with them the bodies were
pulled in to our trenches. One of the "bodies" proved to be a live
Turk who had been unable to get back to his line for fear of being
shot by our men. He was blindfolded and sent down to the compound with
the other prisoners.

The difficulty of obtaining sufficient exercise was very great at
times. We only held a piece of territory under a square mile in
extent, and none of it was free from shell or rifle-fire, so that our
perambulations were carried on under difficulty. Major Meikle and I
had our regular walk before breakfast. At first we went down the beach
towards Gaba Tepe, and then sat for a while talking and trying to see
what we could see; but a sniper apparently used to watch for us, for
we were invariably saluted by the ping of a rifle in the distance and
the dust of the bullet in close proximity to our feet. We concluded
that, if we continued to walk in this direction someone would be
getting hurt, so our walks were altered to the road round "Pluggey's
Plateau." We were seated there one morning when our howitzer in the
gully was fired, and we felt that the shell was not far from where we
sat. We went down to the Battery, and I interrogated some of the
gunners. "How far off the top of that hill does that shell go?" said
I. "About a yard, sir," replied the man; "one time we hit it." I asked
him if it would be convenient for the battery to elevate a bit if we
were sitting there again.

POST OFFICE

The postal arrangements on the whole were good, considering the
circumstances under which the mails were handled. It was always a
matter of interest for all of us when we saw mail-bags in the barges,
whether or no we were to participate in the good luck of receiving
letters. And here I might make th