We allow the balloon to rise until at last the ropes leave our hands and hang rippling in the air above us. With a sudden hiss of steam and clatter of machinery the winch in the corner begins to work, and slowly the shining cable unwinds from the drum as the quaint orange shape rises up, up, up, into the pale Wedgwood blue of the sky. At last the whine of the winch ceases, and far above us the yellow balloon hangs like a strange fruit, faintly swinging from side to side. We fall in once more on parade, and I am detailed to the "Spud party," and "carry on peeling potatoes." Outside the little galley I sit on an upturned bucket, peeling rather clumsily the great potatoes, which, Argus-like, have a thousand eyes. As at ease I carry on this domestic operation, I see in front of me, like a theatrical panorama, war in full blast. Rising from the deep indigo-blue of the sparkling Ægean Sea lies a long line of brown and yellow hills, dappled with the dull green of scrub. The height of Achi Baba is a darker mass, with a flat top reminiscent of Table Mountain. To the right the country slopes down to Cape Helles, which is a biscuit-coloured point of land covered with a crowded huddle of camps and hospitals, of white rows of tents, of horses moving in long black lines, of transport waggons rolling up paths leaving clouds of dust, of batteries of guns which every now and then flash faintly in the hot sunlight, and from whose muzzles leap little clouds of yellow smoke. Over this packed scene of activity occasionally appear the white puffs of shrapnel smoke, which dissipate and vanish, while here and there a great spurt of yellow smoke and black earth shoots up as some high explosive shell bursts among the crowded depots and stores. The air is full of noise--the buzz of aeroplanes; the clatter of rifle fire; the staccato hammering of machine-guns; the heavy boom of guns firing; the dull crash of bursting shells; the buzz of flies on deck; the plop of peeled potatoes falling in a bucket.... So, sitting at ease in the shade of the deck, we watch War casually, as though it were a side-show arranged for our benefit, and indeed we are entirely aloof. It seems incredible that there, a few miles away, on the sun-baked hills, men are dying--that the leaping upward of that smoke over on that hill records the scene of tragedy to perhaps a score of people....