was gangrenous, and mortification was rapidly spreading. My
fingers were soaked in blood and iodine.

I cut away a piece of muscle which stunk like bad meat.

"Can you feel that?" I asked.

"Feel what?" he murmured.

"I thought that might hurt. I was cutting your sleeve away, that's all."

I cut out all the bad flesh, almost to the broken bones. I filled up
the jagged hole with another iodine ampoule. I plugged the opening with
double-cyanide gauze, and put on an antiseptic pad.

"Splints?" I asked.

"Haven't any."

So I used the helve of an entrenching-tool and the stalks of the willow
undergrowth.

I set his arm straight and bandaged it tightly and fixed it absolutely
immovably. Then we got him on a stretcher, and they carried him three
and a half miles to our ambulance tents. But I'm afraid that arm had to
come off. I never heard of him again.

The other fellow was cheerful enough, and only set his teeth and
drew his breath when I cut off his boot with a jack-knife. Wonderful
endurance some of these young fellows have. There's hope for England
yet.

CHAPTER XV. KANGAROO BEACH

"COMMUNICATIONS"

The native only needs a drum,
On which to thump his dusky thumb--

But WE--the Royal Engineers,
Must needs have carts and pontoon-piers;
Hundreds of miles of copper-wire,
Fitted on poles to make it higher.
Hundreds of sappers lay it down,
And stick the poles up like a town.
By a wonderful system of dashes and dots,
Safe from the Turkish sniper's shots--
We have, as you see, a marvellous trick,
Of sending messages double-quick.
You can't deny it's a great erection,
Done by the 3rd Field Telegraph Section;
But somewhere--
THERE'S A DISCONNECTION!

The native merely thumps his drum,
He thumps it boldly, thus--"Tum! Tum!"

J. H.
(Sailing for Salonika.)

Kangaroo Beach was where the Australian bridge-building section had
their stores and dug-outs.

It was one muddle and confusion of water-tanks, pier-planks, pontoons,
huge piles of bully-beef, biscuit and jam boxes. Here we came each
evening with the water-cart to get our supply of water, and here the
water-carts of every unit came down each evening and stood in a row and
waited their turn. The water was pumped from the water-tank boats to the
tank on shore.

The water-tank boats brought it from Alexan