The officer to whom I had delivered the ammunition sent word that it had been checked and that we could return to our company. We were only a short distance down the communication trench when a party of officers came along. We drew a little to one side, and stopped to let them pass. Not one of them was under the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and one of them was a general. He was a rather tall, spare man, with a drooping brown mustache. He was most unlike the usual type of gruff, surly general officers in charge. His eyes had a kindly, friend-of-the-family sort of twinkle. His type was more like a superintendent of construction, or a kindly old family physician. "Look at the ribbons on the old boy's chest," said the man near me. "He's got enough medals to make a keel for a battleship." In the British army, those who have seen previous service wear on the breast of their tunics the ribbons for each campaign. The general halted his red-tabbed staff where we stood. "Are you Newfoundlanders, Corporal?" he said to me. "Yes, sir," I answered. "They've made it pretty warm for you since you've been here," he added, with a smile. "Your men are most efficient trench diggers. If I had an army like them, we'd dig our way to Constantinople." With that he passed on with a smile. A pompous-looking sergeant brought up the rear of the general's escort. [Illustration: Landing British troops from the transports at the Dardanelles under the protection of the battleships] "Who was that, that just spoke to us, Sergeant?" I asked. The sergeant surveyed me contemptuously. "Is it possible that you don't know 'im. 'E's General Sir Ian Hamilton, General Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Force, 'e is." General Sir Ian Hamilton has won the unquestioned devotion of the First Newfoundland Regiment. Many times after that, he visited the front line trenches and stopped to exchange a few words with men here and there. It is a curious thing that while the young subaltern lieutenants held themselves very much aloof, the senior officers chatted amiably with our men. The Newfoundlanders, democratic to the core, hated anything that in the least savored of "side," and they admired the courage of a general officer who took his chances in the firing line.