surprisingly large number of men one sees wounded in
the head.

At daylight every morning came "Stand to arms" again. Then day duties
began. In the daytime, by using a periscope, an arrangement of double
mirrors, a sentry can keep his head below the parapet while he watches
the ground in front. Sometimes a bullet struck one of the mirrors, and
the splintered glass blinded the sentry. It was a common thing to see a
man go to hospital with his face badly lacerated by periscope glass.

[Sidenote: When a shell comes.]

Ordinarily a man is much safer on the firing-line than in the rest
dug-outs. Trenches are so constructed that even if a shell drops right
in the traverse where men are, only half a dozen or so suffer. In open
or slightly protected ground where the dug-outs are the burst of a
shrapnel-shell covers an area twenty-five by two hundred yards in
extent.

[Sidenote: Shrapnel and bullets.]

A shell can be heard coming. Experts claim to identify the caliber of a
gun by the sound the shell makes. Few live long enough to become such
experts. In Gallipoli the average length of life was three weeks. In
dug-outs we always ate our meals, such as they were, to the
accompaniment of "Turkish Delight," the Newfoundlanders' name for
shrapnel. We had become accustomed to rifle-bullets. When you hear the
_zing_ of a spent bullet or the sharp crack of an explosive you know it
has passed you. The one that hits you you never hear. At first we dodged
at the sound of a passing bullet, but soon we came actually to believe
the superstition that a bullet would not hit a man unless it had on it
his regimental number and his name. Then, too, a bullet leaves a clean
wound, and a man hit by it drops out quietly. The shrapnel makes nasty,
jagged, hideous wounds, the horrible recollection of which lingers for
days. It is little wonder that we preferred the firing-line.

[Sidenote: The mode of intrenching.]

Most of our work was done at night. When we wished to advance our line,
we sent forward a platoon of men the desired distance. Every man carried
with him three empty sand-bags and his intrenching-tool. Temporary
protection is secured at short notice by having every man dig a hole in
the ground that is large and deep enough to allow him to lie flat in it.
The intrenching-tool is a miniature pickax, one end of which resembles a
large-bladed hoe with a sharpened and tempered edge. The pick end is
used to loosen hard material and to bre