Can you wonder that the Light Horse wanted to get a move on and make a start for the front? Can you wonder that when we heard of the terrible list of casualties which were the price of victory, and when we saw our men coming back, many of them old friends, with their battle-scars upon them, we fretted and fumed impatiently? We had a church parade, and the chaplain, Captain Keith Miller, preached from the text, "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us," and it only made us angry. There was only one text that appealed to us, and that was "How long, O Lord, how long?" We could stand it no longer. Our boys needed reinforcements, and that was all we cared about. They must have reinforcements. It would be some days before men could arrive from England and France. Sir Ian Hamilton wanted men to push home the attack and ensure the victory. We knew that no cavalry could go for a couple of weeks, and our fellows were just "spoiling for a fight." They were sick and tired of the endless waiting, with wild rumours of moving every second day. Men from all the troops and squadrons went to their officers and volunteered to go as infantry, if only they could go at once. B Squadron, 6th Regiment, volunteered _en masse_. Colonel Ryrie, accurately gauging the temper of the men, summoned the regimental commanders, Lieutenant-Colonel Cox, Lieutenant-Colonel Harris and Lieutenant-Colonel Arnott. What happened at this little Council of War we don't know. But we guess. Word was sent on to the general that the whole brigade would leave for the front within an hour, on foot if necessary. A similar offer had just been made by the 1st Light Horse Brigade (Colonel Chauvel) and the 1st Brigade of New Zealand Mounted Rifles. What it cost these gallant horsemen to volunteer and leave their horses behind only horsemen can guess. Colonel Ryrie's brigade was said to be the best-horsed brigade in Egypt. Scores of men had brought their own horses. After eight months of soldiering we were deeply attached to our chargers. Fighting on foot was not our forte. We were far more at home in the saddle. But Colonel Ryrie expressed the dominant thought of the men when he said: "My brigade are mostly bushmen, and they never expected to go gravel-crushing, but if necessary the whole brigade will start to-morrow on foot, even if we have to tramp the whole way from Constantinople to Berlin." There was cheering all along the line when the news filtered through. Men who had of late been swearing at the heat and dust and the flies and the desert suddenly became jovial again. At dinner they passed the joke along, sang songs, and cheered everybody, from Kitchener to Andy Fisher, and the brigadier down to the cooks and the trumpeters. So we are off at last, after weary months of waiting--on foot. Blistered heels and trenches ahead; but it's better than sticking here in the desert doing nothing. CHAPTER VII AT THE DARDANELLES