During this period the men not in the front lines were kept busy unloading supplies at the beaches and transporting them to the dumps, road-making, trench and well digging, and performing many other fatigues. The sappers, who had landed on the 9th and 10th of May, had their hands more than full. The 1st Field Company was in bivouac near Morto Bay on the right, and the 2nd Field Company on the left flank near Pink Farm, a solitary building which became a famous landmark and rendezvous during the campaign. They directed the construction of trenches, of lines of rifle-pits in front of the trenches, of dug-outs, and trench-bridges for armoured cars, improvements of the rough country tracks, work on wells and appliances for distribution of drinking water, and the manufacture of bombs. The digging, deepening, and repairing, and, when material was available, the strengthening of trenches was a never-ending task, which had to be performed under fire from artillery, machine guns, and snipers. The soil was mainly a stiff yellow loam, which stood well unrevetted until rain came, when it was transformed into peculiarly bad mud, and the water would not drain away. Gorse and heather, outcroppings of rock, and in one or two sectors, the tough fir-roots, which interlaced and formed a network at varying depths, added considerably to the difficulties. The Field Ambulances on landing had equal difficulties to encounter, and the way in which they contrived to overcome them and to makeshift successfully afforded proof of their resource. Dressing stations had to be made in clefts in the cliffs, with tarpaulin sheets stretched from boulder to boulder for shelter. The shortage of appliances and equipment during the first weeks was a serious handicap. As soon as their equipment arrived they moved up to the rear of the bivouacs in the centre of the line. The battalion stretcher-bearers had quickly “made good.” They had had to stand the usual chaff while training, but within a week of landing they had become “heroes” in the eyes of their comrades. The Field Ambulances, lacking tackle, had not been able to provide bearers to evacuate from First-Aid Posts, and the battalion stretcher-bearers carried the wounded a distance of three miles to the beach.