armies, each one larger than its own. Remember, too, that the Turks
were always better equipped and supplied--it was so easy with their
chief city of Constantinople just within "coo-ee." Our little army had
to be supplied with every single thing over thousands of miles of
water. General Hamilton said the navy was father and mother to us, and
when it is remembered that every cartridge, every ounce of food, every
drop of water, every splinter of firewood had to be brought by the
ships, it will be seen that we could not have existed a single day
without their aid. The Turks said often enough that they would push us
into the sea--they continually called on Allah to aid them--we were
only a handful after all; we only held a few hundred acres of their
filthy soil, but 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