l shells somewhere along the shore; but all these circumstances
had become so much part of the scene that the troopers were seldom
perturbed. Sometimes a Turkish machine-gunner or sniper became a
little too accurate or shrapnel fell a trifle too thickly on the beach
to be comfortable, and were roundly cursed for their attentions.

On the night of their seventh day ashore, Smoky and Mac communed, and
agreed that campaigning so far had not been particularly trying; that
bully, biscuits, dirty water, and the same trenches were becoming
over-monotonous, and that the time had already come when something
ought to be done.

Their lust for more excitement was partly appeased that night. Old
Abdul supplied the initiative, and later must have regretted it sorely.

Shortly after midnight, the usual nocturnal battle-sounds rose in a
swift crescendo of bursting shells and rattling staccato of machine-gun
fire, which echoed in weird music from cliff to cliff and across the
ravines.

Mac--he was in a support trench--woke with a thrill to this grand din
of battle, speedily assumed his bandolier, water-bottle and revolver,
grasped his rifle, and trundled away up the sap after his disappearing
cobbers.

They bundled up into the support of the main position, which was being
attacked frontally by wave after wave of the enemy, who came on
bravely, but were being mowed down in hundreds by machine and rifle
fire. The defenders, in their eagerness, went out into the open to get
a better field of fire, and to meet Abdul with the bayonet. Mac had
rotten luck. His troop reinforced a flank position, where, no matter
how strongly they used their wills, no Turk would venture. He waited
and watched. In the gathering light of the dawn he could look more
deeply into the scrub that shrouded vision beyond twenty-five yards,
but nothing of interest revealed itself. He passed up ammunition and
absorbed eagerly all tidings brought from the front line by the
returning wounded. As the sun rose, and the firing, instead of coming
in the wild bursts, the lulls, and the wilder squalls of the earlier
morning, decreased to a steady interchange of shots, Mac realized that
the force of the attack was spent. With a deep sadness in his heart he
emptied the breach of his rifle--the rifle which he had tended with
great care and solicitude in anticipation of such an occasion as this.
He cursed gently and sadly as his troop filed sorrowfully back to their
s