ut onto that we clung, sometimes by the skin of our
teeth. And it was the weather, not the Turks, that made us leave in
the end.

Ever and anon we alarmed the Turk by nibbling a piece nearer to his
sacred city. Never did men live under worse conditions than in those
eight months of hell, yet never was an army so cheerful. "Bill-Jim,"
which is Australia's name for her soldier-boy, always makes the best of
things, and soon made himself at home on that inhospitable shore.

The first thing he decided needed alteration was his uniform. Breeches
and puttees were not only too hot but they closed in the leg and
afforded cover to the lively little fellow who lives indiscriminately
on the soldiers of both sides. As each soldier began to trim his
uniform to his own idea of comfort, it was soon, in very reality, a
"ragtime" army. Some felt that puttees were a nuisance--everybody
realized that the breeches were too long, but differed on the point as
to how much too long. Some would clip off six inches from the end,
others a foot, and others would have been as well covered without the
article at all. Almost everybody decided that a tunic was useless, but
some extremists threw away shirt and singlet as well. A Turkish army
order was captured which stated that the Australians were running short
of supplies, as they made one pair of trousers do for three men.
Evidently Johnny Turk could not understand the Australian disregard for
conventionality and his taking to nakedness when it meant comfort and
there were no women within hundreds of miles to make him conscious of
indecency. Clothes that couldn't be washed wouldn't keep one's body
clean and became the home of an army that had no interest in the fight
for democracy. The Australian showed his practical common sense in
discarding as much as possible--but, say, those boys would have caused
some amusement if drawn up for review!

Water was certainly the most precious thing. There never was enough to
drink, but even then there are always men who would rather wash than
drink, and to see these men having their bath in a jam-tin just showed
how habit is, in many of us, stronger than common sense, for there was
never water enough to more than spread out the dirt or liquefy it so
that it would fill up the pores. Others who must bathe adopted a more
effective but more dangerous proceeding. Of course, the sea was
there--surely plenty of water for washing! Just so, but this bath w