If we had been informed, Fourgues would have put in at Malta to learn what to do with the ammunition, as it was of a special kind and couldn’t be used by the other English ships that were there. Well, so we kept the ammunition and left the jam and preserves! There was no difficulty about them--everybody wanted them; they were unloaded before you could say “Jack Robinson.” As for the field-guns, no one was willing to take them off because it seems that they were done at the front and the written instructions were not sufficiently clear. We lost two days waiting for orders from Egypt, from English Headquarters. Finally they told us to go to Alexandria where the guns would be assigned to a brigade that was forming. During this time the troops in Gallipoli were crying with all their might and main for guns and we had only to carry them over--we were so very near! But our order was imperative and we went to Alexandria. When we got there they said that the English brigade had already started and that we must catch up with it immediately at Gallipoli, without which it would have ammunition and no guns. We set out again at once and arrived on that part of the coast where the troops they call the Anzacs are stationed. They unloaded the guns as quickly as they could. Since its arrival the brigade has been shelled a good deal without being able to reply, having no artillery, and they went for us a little about it, but it was no fault of ours. We stayed there five days, as the lighters were few and the coast pretty difficult. The Turks fired some big shells at the _Pamir_--they fell all around but never touched her. Fourgues was as happy as a god. He stood, leaning against the taffrail with his field-glass, watching the shots: “There, my boy, that one’s too short! That’s too far! They’ll never get the old _Pamir_!” Alongside there was the steamer _Terre-de-Feu_, which was carrying fodder and near which we stayed for two days. Old Man Plantat, a friend of Fourgues, commands her and came on board the _Pamir_ for a meal. Plantat has been up and down the Ægean Sea ever since the beginning of the Dardanelles show and he told us all there is to know. I believe you’ve met him; he said he remembered you. He is just the same devil-may-care sort as ever. He said that the whole business in the East is foredoomed, and that we shall never get to Constantinople because we didn’t do what we should have done at the very beginning, and now it’s too late; the Turks won’t let themselves be taken unawares and are sending out mines and submarines all the time.