which we had just accomplished, and the C.O. remarked he would keep an eye on the trench he had found lest it should attempt to disappear again, and a party was sent off to find Major Downie.

And, after all, Major Downie found himself for us. His arrival was almost dramatic. He, too, fell into the trench. He had heard the search party calling for him and had come out to meet them. Missing them in the dark he had chanced upon the trench from the front and tripped over the parapet. With his assistance it did not take long to retrieve the missing half-company.

Instalments of "B" Company began to arrive. Casting about to the front, rear and flanks of our original discovery, traces of other less finished trenches were found, and parties were set to work to complete and extend them with the object of having some apology for cover ready for the whole Battalion, before daylight could reveal our presence to the enemy.

As the night wore on additional parties joined up from the beach.

The Whitby Abbey had now arrived and was disembarking the left half-Battalion. The first party of "C" Company reached the trenches about 5 a.m. The enemy must have spotted us soon after daylight, for they saluted us with a few rounds of shrapnel at irregular intervals. These did little damage, but served to stimulate the flagging energies of the digging parties, encouraging them to special effort to get the trenches completed.

It was 8.30 a.m. before Major Jowitt appeared with the last party landed. By this time sufficient trenches of sorts to accommodate the Battalion had been completed.

While getting "D" Company into our most advanced trench, Capt. Findlay was slightly wounded by shrapnel. He was sent back to Mudros on the Whitby Abbey which had brought him across a few hours before. His first visit to Gallipoli had not been a prolonged one.

Throughout the day the enemy sprayed our trenches with occasional bursts of shrapnel. By this time we had discovered that they were officially described as "rest" trenches, and were some considerable distance behind the firing-line. So we "rested" as best we could, each man effecting such improvements to his own personal bit of cover as could be carried out unostentatiously behind the shelter of the parapet.

That afternoon Colonel Morrison and Major Jowitt, with other senior officers of the Brigade, were shown round some of the forward communication and support trenches, and had the general situation explained to them.

The night was devoted by all ranks to the improvement of our trenches and to sleep when we were satisfied with our handiwork. More rain fell, and we got very wet and smeared with that remarkably tenacious mud which only Gallipoli can produce.

The following day (4th June) parties of officers were sent forward to be shown the Eski Lines, others going up to spend an instructive night in the firing line in the Centre Sector held by the 42nd Division.

We could not but be surprised at the smallness of this cockpit in which three nations battled. From the cliff at Cape Helles to the top of the impregnable Achi Baba was only 5-1/2 miles. The distance straight across the Peninsula at the firing line was not more than 3-1/2 miles. On our flanks we were shut in by cliffs along the Aegean Sea on the left, and along the Dardanelles on our right. Every acre of ground we held was dominated by the hill in front, about 720 feet high. Our right flank and the vitally important landing places, "V" Beach and "W" Beach (Lancashire Landing), were under observation from Asia, less than three miles away at its nearest point. Somewhere across there on the Plains of Troy the Turks had at least one big gun to harass us, "Asiatic Ann" we called her, probably a gun dismantled from the Goeben. Their 6 in. guns on Achi Baba could reach any part of the Peninsula they choose.

The ground we stood on sloped gently up to the hill, pleasant arable land with here the remains of a farm and the trampled crops around it, there an olive grove and fig-trees or battered vineyard. Elsewhere was scrub and, in those early months, sweet-smelling and aromatic plants and flowers round which bees hummed and butterflies hovered in the heat.

The Peninsula was rent by three great ravines; the Gully with its precipitous banks on our left, and the Krithia and Achi Baba nullahs in the centre. In the dry season only a gentle flow of water trickled down these courses, leaving enough room for a path or even a roadway to be beaten out by which men and rations and stores could be got forward unobserved by the Turk. Their banks were honeycombed with crude dug-outs (mere scrapings in the ground with a waterproof sheet or blanket for covering) in which men sought protection from shell-fire and relief from the pitiless sun.

Monday, 5th July, was a Turkish Holy Day. Under the personal direction of Enver Pasha, or rather Enver Bey as he then was, the enemy marked the occasion by making a most determined attack. The brunt of it fell upon the 29th Division.

We who were in support were awakened before daybreak by continuous artillery and rifle fire which ominously increased in volume. At 4.30 a.m. the Battalion was ordered to hold itself in readiness to proceed in support of the 29th Division. Breakfasts were hurried on and an extra 50 rounds of ammunition was issued to each man.

Our position came under the enemy's shell-fire, and we were heartened by the very spirited reply put up by our artillery, particularly "L" Battery R.H.A., of Mons and Le Cateau fame, firing from our immediate left front.

Walking wounded from the firing-line began to pass through our trenches. From these we learned that the attack was being well held, and that the Turkish infantry coming on with fanatical shouts of "Allah, Allah!" was being mowed down by rifle and machine-gun fire.

The enemy realised his defeat, and about 9 a.m. the firing died away.

During the morning two of our men were wounded, one by a spent bullet, the other by shrapnel. Later on in the day the Battalion was ordered forward for an instructional spell in the front trenches.

Guides from the 29th Division arrived before dusk and at nightfall we set off, moving in column of route as far as Fig Tree Farm. From thence we passed in file up the Eastern Mule Track and through a labyrinth of trenches to a ruined cottage near Twelve Tree Copse. This was the Headquarters of the 87th Brigade, and here the Battalion was split up, "A" Company going to the trenches of the 1st Battalion Dublin Fusiliers, "B" to the 2nd Royal Fusiliers, and "C" to the 1st Munsters.

Battalion Headquarters and "D" Company were stowed away in the reserve trenches. All these battalions had suffered very severely since the historic landing on April 25th. The Munsters, for instance, had not more than a hundred of their original men left.

About this time the Turks were evidently apprehensive of an attack, and made the night hideous by prolonged bursts of rapid musketry fire. Our introduction to the front trenches was therefore a fairly lively one.

Here we first encountered some of the gruesome spectacles incidental to this style of warfare. Such sights as the withered hand of a Turk sticking out from the parapet of a communication trench, or the boots of a hastily buried soldier projecting from his shallow grave, produce on one's first experience of them an emotion of inexpressible horror. It was still more trying to look on the unburied dead lying in groups in front of the parapet; and further away, near the Turkish lines, the bodies of so many of the Scottish Rifles who had been swept down by concealed machine-guns only a week before in their gallant attempt to advance without artillery support.

It is well that this acuteness of feeling soon becomes blunted. One quickly learns to regard such things as an inevitable aspect of one's everyday environment. Thank God for this; life in the trenches would otherwise be unbearable.

Major Fisher, commanding the 2nd Royal Fusiliers, was good