The scene here is extraordinarily interesting. I have never seen such a motley gathering in my life. The beach is crowded with figures, all working for dear life. The sea is dotted with lighters, out of which are being poured all kinds of military stores—wood, sand-bags, wire-netting, galvanized iron, cooping, and the like; all these things are being conveyed to the piers and from there put ashore. On the shore itself parties are at work erecting tents and marquees, and other parties are hard at work making dugouts, plying picks and shovels with a will. Here they are erecting the signals station, a contraption of beams and sand-bags. Outside, wires are being laid, and so the work of the beach parties goes busily forward. Yet to my untutored gaze the scene is wonderful. The whole beach is a hopeless mix-up of French and English, with a good sprinkling of Naval men—presenting a kaleidoscopic effect, with the afternoon sun shining upon it, such as I have never seen before. It is of course quite an orderly mob really—but this is only recognized when one watches the work of one group at a time. Here is the real business of a military landing on a hostile shore, everybody knowing what to do and how to do it, and so the work goes on without a hitch. At 7 p.m. I start off with a long convoy of pack-mules with rations for Brigade H.Q. via the Sed-el-Bahr–Krithia road. At present it is impossible to use vehicles, for the first line is served by but two roads, which are nothing but farmers’ tracks. An armed escort of the Essex Regiment accompanies us. The Padre of the 88th Brigade, who is just joining, comes along with me, intending to join the Worcesters in the trenches. Just entering Sed-el-Bahr we are halted by a French officer, and almost immediately my head feels as if it is blown off by four spouts of flame stabbing the darkness just a few yards away, followed almost instantaneously by four deafening reports. A French “75” battery is in action, and that means business. Almost immediately after No. 4 gun had fired, No. 1 fired, then No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4 again, and so on, shell after shell following each other in rapid succession into the night, towards Achi Baba. The gunners, crouching like cats by their guns, were lit up fitfully by each flash, disappearing again in the pause of a fraction of a second between each round. An officer in a dugout behind, with telephone glued to his ear, shouts incessantly directions as to range, elevation, and depression to an officer who is standing nonchalantly smoking a cigarette behind the battery, who in turn shouts orders to the guns. The guns reminded me of two couple of hounds held in leash at a coursing meeting, barking with eagerness to be let loose. Our little pack-mules are greatly concerned at first, but become surprisingly docile as the firing goes on. A sharp order is given by the French officer standing behind the weapons; the gunners relax their tense attitudes and begin attending to parts of