Five Months at Anzac | Page 9

and of course our responsibility. One man arriving at the hospital ship was describing, with the usual picturesque invective, how the bullet had got into his shoulder. One of the officers, who apparently was unacquainted with the Australian vocabulary, said: "What was that you said, my man?" The reply came, "A blightah ovah theah put a bullet in heah."
At a later period a new gun had come into action on our left, which the men christened "Windy Annie." Beachy Bill occupied the olive grove, and was on our right. Annie was getting the range of our dressing station pretty accurately, and requisition on the Engineers evoked the information that sandbags were not available. However, the Army Service came to our rescue with some old friends, the "forty-niners." Three tiers of these in their boxes defied the shells just as they defied our teeth.
As the sickness began to be more manifest, it became necessary to enlarge the accommodation in our gully. The hill was dug out, and the soil placed in bags with which a wall was built, the intervening portion being filled up with the remainder of the hill. By this means we were able to pitch a second tent and house more of those who were slightly ill. It was in connection with this engineering scheme that I found the value of W.O. Cosgrove. He was possessed of a good deal of the suaviter in modo, and it was owing to his dextrous handling of Ordnance that we got such a fine supply of bags. This necessitated a redistribution of dug-outs, and a line of them was constructed sufficient to take a section of bearers. The men christened this "Shrapnel Avenue." They called my dug-out "The Nut," because it held the "Kernel." I offer this with every apology. It's not my joke.
The new dug-outs were not too safe. Murphy was killed there one afternoon, and Claude Grime badly wounded later on. Claude caused a good deal of amusement. He had a rooted objection to putting on clothes and wore only a hat, pants, boots and his smile. Consequently his body became quite mahogany-coloured. When he was wounded he was put under an an?sthetic so that I could search for the bullet. As the an?sthetic began to take effect, Claude talked the usual unintelligible gibberish. Now, we happened to have a Turkish prisoner at the time, and in the midst of Claude's struggles and shouts in rushed an interpreter. He looked round, and promptly came over to Claude, uttering words which I suppose were calculated to soothe a wounded Turk; and we had some difficulty in assuring him that the other man, not Claude, was the Turk he was in quest of.
[Illustration: 4th Field Ambulance in Head Quarters Gully.]
[Illustration: 4th Field Ambulance Dressing Station on the beach.]
[Illustration: My Dug-out.]
[Illustration: Major Clayton and Captain Dawson.]

AIR FIGHTING
The German aeroplanes flew over our gully pretty regularly. As first we were rather perturbed, as they had a nasty habit of dropping bombs, but as far as I know they never did any damage. Almost all the bombs dropped into the water. One of them sent some steel arrows down, about six or eight inches in length, with a metal point something like a carpenter's bit. In order to conceal our tents, we covered them with holly-bushes, cut and placed over the canvas. Our aeroplanes were constantly up, and were easily recognised by a red ring painted underneath, while the Taube was adorned with a large black cross; but after we had been there a little time we found it was not necessary to use glasses in order to ascertain whose flying machine was over us; we were able to tell by listening, as their engines had a different sound from those belonging to us.
Our aeroplanes were the source of a good deal of annoyance to the Turks. They continually fired at them, but, as far as I was able to judge, never went within cooee of one. The bursts of shrapnel away in the air made a pretty sight, puffs of white smoke like bits of cotton-wool in succession, and the aeroplane sailing unconcernedly along. It appears to be very difficult to judge distance away in the air, and even more difficult to estimate the rate at which the object is travelling. What became of the shell-cases of the shrapnel used to puzzle us. One day Walkley remarked that it was peculiar that none fell on us. I replied "surely there is plenty of room other than where we are for them to fall." Scarcely were the words uttered than down one came close by. We knew it was a case from above and not one fired direct, because the noise was so different.
The hydroplanes used by the Navy were interesting. Floating on the