s' mess right through the
campaign. When we first landed, while everything was in confusion,
each man catered for himself; but it was a lonely business, and not
conducive to health. When a man cooked his own rations he probably did
not eat much. So a dug-out was made close to the hospital tent, and we
all had our meals together. A rather pathetic incident occurred one
day. Just after we had finished lunch three of us were seated, talking
of the meals the "Australia" provided, when a fragment of shell came
through the roof on to the table and broke one of the enamel plates.
This may seem a trivial affair and not worth grousing about; but the
sorry part of it was that we only had one plate each, and this loss
entailed one man having to wait until the others had finished their
banquet.

I have elsewhere alluded to the stacks of food on the beach. Amongst
them bully beef was largely in evidence. Ford, our cook, was very good
in always endeavouring to disguise the fact that "Bully" was up again.
He used to fry it; occasionally he got curry powder from the Indians
and persuaded us that the resultant compound was curried goose; but it
was bully beef all the time. Then he made what he called
rissoles--onions entered largely into their framework, and when you
opened them you wanted to get out into the fresh air. Preserved
potatoes, too, were very handy. We had them with our meat, and what
remained over we put treacle on, and ate as pancakes. Walkley and
Betts obtained flour on several occasions, and made very presentable
pancakes. John Harris, too, was a great forager--he knew exactly where
to put his hand on decent biscuits, and the smile with which he landed
his booty made the goods toothsome in the extreme. Harris had a
gruesome experience. One day he was seated on a hill, talking to a
friend, when a shell took the friend's head off and scattered his
brains over Harris.

Before leaving the description of the officers' mess, I must not omit
to introduce our constant companions, the flies. As Australians we
rather prided ourselves on our judgment regarding these pests, and in
Gallipoli we had every opportunity of putting our faculties to the
test. There were flies, big horse flies, blue flies, green flies, and
flies. They turned up everywhere and with everything. While one was
eating one's food with the right hand, one had to keep the left going
with a wisp, and even then the flies beat us. Then we always had the
comforting