Was it a Turkish sniper's shirt? Or was it a piece of white cloth, or a sheet of paper? In the gloom of night I could not discover. However, I determined to go steady, and I crept up to a dark thorn-bush and stood still. It did not move. Still standing against the dark bush to hide the fact that I was unarmed, I shouted-- “Halt! who are you?” in as gruff and threatening a tone as I could command. Silence. It did not move. I ran forward along the trench and there found a white pack-mule all loaded up with baggage; I could make out the queerly worked trappings, with brass-coins on the fringed bridle and coloured fly-tassels over the eyes. It was stone dead and stiff. Its eyes glared at me--a glassy glare full of fear. The Turkish pack-mule had been bringing up material to the Turks in the trench when it had been killed--and now the deep sides of the trench were holding it upright. I trudged away towards the beach and lay down to sleep at last among the other men of the ambulance, who were lying scattered about behind tufts of bush or against ledges of rock. When weighed down with sleep any bed will serve. And this was the end of our first day's work on the field. CHAPTER XIV. THE SNIPER OF THE PEAR-TREE GULLY We used to start long before daylight, when the heavy gloom of early morning swept mountain, sea and sand in an indistinct haze; when the cobwebs hung thick from thorn to thorn like fairy cats'-cradles all dripping and beaded with those heavy dews. The guard would wake us up about 3.30 A.M. We were asleep anywhere, lying about under rocks and in sandy dells, sleeping on our haversacks and water-bottles, and our pith helmets near by. We got an issue of biscuit and jam, or biscuit and bully-beef, to take with us, and each one carried his iron rations in a little bag at his side. So we set off--a long, straggling, follow-my-leader line of men and stretchers. The officer first, then the stretcher-sergeant--(myself)--and the squads, two men to a stretcher, carrying the stretchers folded up, and last of all a corporal or a “lance-jack” bringing up the rear in case any one should fall out. Cold, dark, shivery mornings they were; our clothes soaked in dew and our pith helmets reeking wet, with the puggaree all beaded with dew-drops. We toiled up and up the ridges and gullies of the Kislar Dargh and the Kapanja Sirt slowly, like a little column of ants going out to bring in the ant eggs. Often we had to wait while the Indian transport came down from the hill-track before we could proceed, and we always came upon the Engineers' field-telegraph wires on the ground. I would shout “Wire!” over my shoulder, and the shout “Wire!... Wire!... Wire!” went down the line from squad to squad.