at present, and whether those few men are still crouching behind that sand dune. Way comes up and says it is going to be a devil of a job getting those stores ashore, and that he can’t get enough men. I have a few seamen, Cooper, Whitbourn, and my servant, so put them on to it, and I myself help. Thus we struggle on over the sand and up to the grass on the slope of the cliff. Phew! it is work, and I am getting dead tired. We work till eleven o’clock and then Foley and I have a rest behind a pile of boxes on the sand. Bullets steadily “ping” overhead, and now and again a man gives a little sigh of pain and falls helplessly to the sand. The strange part is that I do not feel sick at the sight of the dead and wounded. I think it is because of the excitement, and because I am dead tired. I get a bit cold sitting still, and can’t find my coat, so I huddle against Foley behind the boxes. A philosophical Naval officer sits alongside, smoking a huge pipe. Crack-crack-crack goes the desultory fire of the rifles. The ships cease firing. It is awfully quiet and uncanny. Suddenly the musketry and rifle fire breaks out with a burst which develops into a steady roar. The beach becomes alive with people once more. All seems confusion. The Naval officer goes on steadily smoking, and we sit still, wondering how things are going to develop. The Fleet is silent. But I can just see the outline of the warships, with a few lights showing. Then I hear an officer shouting angrily, “Now then, fall in, you men! Who are you? Well, fall in. Get a rifle. Find one then, and damn quick!” Then another officer shouts, “All but R.A.M.C. fall in. Who are you? Fall in. Into file, right turn, quick march.” About a dozen or two march off into the night up the cliff—officers’ servants, A.S.C., seamen, R.N.D.—every man who was not either R.A.M.C. or working on the dozen or so lighters that had been beached. I pause a bit. I feel a worm skulking behind these boxes while these events are happening. I express my feelings to Foley, and he says he feels the same. I say, “We must do something,” and he replies, “Let’s get rifles,” and off we go searching for rifles, but can find none in the dark. I lose my temper—why, Heaven only knows. I see some men falling in, and I go up to them and say, “Fall in, you men; why aren’t you falling in?”—although I know they are, and I find an officer in charge and feel an ass. They move up to man the third-line trench just running along the edge of the cliff. All the beach parties have moved up to this trench. I have lost Foley, and so I follow up with no rifle and no revolver, and shivering with cold. But I feel much better, although I am still in a temper. Extraordinary this! I am annoyed with everybody I see. Nerves, I suppose. Then a petty officer comes along and shouts, “Now then, you men, where the —— is the —— ammunition?” and in the darkness I discern some seamen carrying boxes of S.A.A. I go to the