their emplacement, and
the like.

At most times there was work, but occasionally there were spare hours,
when Mac and Smoky, with their towels and tooth-brushes, would wander
down to the beach for a morning of sea and sun-bathing. They would
remove what few clothes they wore and take to the water. Only a
limited portion of this end of the beach was available for bathing, and
often, when he wasn't too sleepy, Abdul stirred things up too much for
comfort. Still, the practice of the snipers was not particularly good,
and Mac felt comfortably secure as long as he didn't venture out too
far. It was their habit to wash what clothes they were wearing, and to
bake in the sun while they dried. And so, bathing and splashing,
sunning and smoking, sleeping and talking, a morning on the beach
passed pleasantly enough.

Sometimes the pair wandered off to see a cobber in another part of the
lines, exchange experiences and rumours with him, partake of his
rations and water, and wander homeward through miles of dusty saps, not
forgetting on their way to replenish their water-bottles at the landing
and to acquire there any provisions which might, or might not look as
if they lacked an owner, or, at any rate, the supervision of a
policeman's eye.

Mails were now arriving occasionally, and never were letters more
warmly welcomed. There would be a buzz of excitement while a mail-bag
was being sorted, and then a strange quiet would hang over the terraces
while every one in his dug-outs eagerly explored his pages.

CHAPTER XVIII

SUMMER DRAGS ON

The Anzac troops were now entering on that long, wearisome summer wait,
without action, or even prospect of it, to relieve the monotony, until
such time as strong reinforcements would enable them to make a push for
the Narrows. The days grew hotter and the flies thicker, and disease
began to make itself felt to an undesirable extent. The same old
shelling and the same old rifle-fire went on week after week, varied
only by the constant flutterings at Quinn's, where sometimes Turk,
sometimes Anzac, got the better of the nightly bickerings. Rumours of
victories at Cape Helles came frequently, but confirmation seldom
followed. The fall of Achi Baba took place almost as often as the
assassination of Enver Pasha. And still the Turks remained unmoved on
the slopes of Sari Bair, and though the men of Anzac had the upper hand
in sniping and _moral_ there was not much prospect of gett