[Illustration: GENERAL DE LISLE’S HEADQUARTERS, SUVLA BAY.] He searches for his Staff Captain in the dark, and I go up to the bushes in front and talk to Baxter, the Quartermaster of the Munsters, and a few other officers who are sitting down on a rock. As I stand there I hear close to my ear “zi-i-ip”—an unseen hand appears to strike a bush with a big stick on my left. Baxter says, “You are standing in a place where bullets keep dropping. You should sit down. One just passed your head.” I am always sensitive as to how to behave on these occasions, with men whose lives are always passed in the trenches, and so I reply “Did it?” I heard the thing plain enough, and sat down promptly. I have learned to take my cue as to what to do from such men, and they are always right. Many a man has been hit by totally disregarding the necessity of taking cover, believing that others may think he has “cold feet,” and he wishes to prove that he is brave by bravado. He forgets he is more useful to his country alive. There are many times when he must take risk, so it is wiser for him to reserve his bravado for those times. I sit down, and a minute after, “zi-i-ip” again, and thud into the bush. Baxter tells me that it is only this corner which is dangerous, but that they are sitting there because it is a nice seat and the only one handy for waiting. If you walk about the rest of the space, the bullets are flying high and one is safe. This happens all over the Peninsula, owing to the curious formation of the land. At one area of a certain spot, bullets may hit the ground regularly on or near that part, while a few yards away they fly high. Soon one becomes familiar with this peculiarity and acts accordingly. It is because some Turks may be on a rise, others on the ground. They generally fire at nothing in particular, but straight in front of them. All night they fire away—crack, crack, crack, crack—and must waste a lot of ammunition. Carver, having finished his arrangements, calls me, and we walk back a short distance over a small rise, threading our way along a path no doubt used not long since by Turkish farmers; descending a slope, we pass to the right by a little hill not more than 30 feet high, and make towards a light, which is 86th Brigade H.Q. We are walking up to the door, and can see General Percival and Thomson sitting in the mess-room dugout. When we are four yards away from them the General says, “Good evening, Carver,” when Carver, to my astonishment, using a fearful oath, disappears into the earth. The light from H.Q. mess dazzles my eyes somewhat, and I stop dead, still looking at the place where Carver had performed his pantomimic vanishing trick, when he again appears, looking foolish. He had neatly stepped into a dugout, which, I found out after, was waiting to be filled in, and we had not noticed it on account of the light in our eyes. We go in and chat, and I tell them of the joys and beauty which they are to taste and see on Imbros.