All over the Peninsula disease had become epidemic until the clearing stations and the beaches were choked with sick. The time we should have been sleeping was spent in digging, but still the men worked uncomplainingly. Some, too game to quit, would not report to the doctor, working on courageously until they dropped, although down in the bay beckoned the Red Cross of the hospital ship, with its assurance of cleanliness, rest, and safety. By sickness and snipers' bullets we were losing thirty men a day. Nobody in the front line trenches or on the shell-swept area behind ever expected to leave the Peninsula alive. Their one hope was to get off wounded. Every night men leaving the trenches to bring up rations from the beach shook hands with their comrades. From every ration party of twenty men we always counted on losing two. Those who were wounded were looked on as lucky. The best thing we could wish a man was a "cushy wound," one that would not prove fatal, or a "Blighty one." But no one wanted to quit. Men hung on till the last minute. Often it was not till a man dropped exhausted that we learned from his comrades that he had not eaten for days. The only men in my platoon who seemed to be nearly fit were Art Pratt, and a young chap named Hayes. Art seemed to be enjoying the life thoroughly. He went about the trench, cheerfully, grinning and whistling, putting heart into the others. Whenever there was any specially dangerous work to be done, Art always volunteered. He spent more time out between the lines than in the trench. Whenever a specially reliable, cool man was needed, Art was selected. Young Hayes was a small chap who had been in my platoon at Stob's Camp in Scotland. He had made a record for being absent from parade, and was always in trouble for minor offenses. I took him in hand and did my best to keep him out of trouble. Out in the trenches he remembered it, and followed me around like a shadow. Whenever I was sent in charge of a fatigue party he always volunteered. The men all did their best to make the work of the noncoms easy. As a study in the effects of colonial discipline it would have been enlightening for some of the English officers. The men called their corporals and sergeants, Jack, or Bill, or Mac, but there never was the slightest question about obeying an order. Everybody knew that everybody else was overworked and underfed, and every man tried to give as little trouble as possible. Such conduct from the Newfoundlanders was astonishing, as in training they simply loved to make trouble for the noncoms, and the most unenviable job in the regiment was that of corporal or sergeant.