I shan't forget the last Divisional Training we took part in. The idea was that the enemy, an infantry column, was strongly entrenched at some point unknown out in the desert. The attacking party, a division of Australian and New Zealand infantry, was to march out of camp at sunset, duly discover the enemy's position, and deliver a night attack with its full strength. The "enemy," to which my company was attached, left early the same morning, being given a day in which to select the position and fortify it. Our luck was out when it came to dig. My word that subsoil was hard! In some places, graft as we might, three feet was all we could sink the trenches; we seemed to have struck the bedrock of Egypt. After messing up our tools badly and losing a lot of sweat we gave it best, contenting ourselves with raising the parapet where necessary, so as to afford the requisite cover and shelter to the defenders. Our own O.C. was naturally anxious to make an A1 show in his particular line, so we prepared a boncer defensive position. We had stacks of wire, and we didn't spare it, shoving up entanglements that called for some getting through all along the line. It was understood that the wire would be plain stuff; but on the quiet, and to make matters more realistic, we shoved in a couple of strands of barbed—and smiled expectantly. We also rigged up a real good outfit in the way of coloured flares, and fixed dummy mines here and there in front of the entanglements; the latter were harmless, of course, but they sounded pretty bad when sprung. The trenches were manned at the appointed time, the flares set, the mines connected up to the exploders, and everything made ready against the advance of the attacking division. Our chaps (the engineers) were spread along the position and placed in charge of the mines, flares, etc. It was slow work waiting; lights were forbidden, so we couldn't even smoke. It wasn't to say warm, either, and I reckon every man of us would a dashed sight sooner have been snug in camp. Presently our patrols sent in word of the approach of the enemy's scouts, the main body having halted under cover of a dip in the ground about 1000 yards back. We had arranged a big collection of jam tins and similar alarms along the front of the entanglements, and it wasn't long until they began to play a lively tune in one or two places. We guessed what had happened: some of the aforesaid scouts had run foul of the wire, and owing to the barbed stuff we had mixed through it, couldn't get clear for love or money. We sent out a party to make them prisoners, and they were ignominiously herded in, protesting the while in lurid language against what they styled "a crook trick."