... The Guns! Thick-lipped and cold, cruel and menacing, were the Guns of Anzac. Death-dealing monsters were they, heartless and vindictive, but, oh, how we soldiers loved them! For they were our very best friends; field guns, mountain guns and howitzers. We knew when the German and Turkish artillerymen started their snarling hymn of hate that our gunners would soon be barking defiance. Enemy shells might roar and thunder, and shrapnel claim its victims; high explosives might wreck parapets and trenches, but we knew our guns and our gunners, and that was enough. We lay low while the artillery duel raged overhead and the echoing hills reverberated with the thunderous roar of battle. So cunningly concealed were our guns, with such acumen were our emplacements selected and built that Tommy Turk had continually to be guessing. His shells searched the hills and the valleys in vain. His gunners too were skilful and brave. They took position in gullies, behind hills and in villages, and blazed away at our lines. But our aeroplanes circled overhead to spot them. Then our guns got busy and fired like fury till the Hun cried "Hold!" Then when our spell in the trenches was over, and we sought the seclusion of our dug-outs, there came visions that are not vignettes of war. I saw the old homestead in the Hunter Valley. Hard by Erringhi it stands, where the Williams River meanders through the encircling hills and flows on towards Coalopolis. There are roses 'neath the old-fashioned windows, and in the fields the scent of lucerne ripe for the scythe. Magpies yodel in the big trees, and the wattle-gold is showing down the river. I wonder will I ever see dear old Erringhi again? CHAPTER XII "GEORGE" A RECAPITULATION--INTO THE FIRING-LINE--IN SIGHT OF HISTORIC TROY--A WELL-FED ARMY--A REAL GOOD COOK George was the cook. He blew into the Light Horse Camp at Holdsworthy when we were training. The staff captain gave him the job because he was a sea cook. Any man who can cook at sea ought to be able to cook on dry land. And all through the weary weeks of waiting and working, George kept on cooking. George was small, not to say puny. His height was five feet, and his chest measurement nothing to cable home about. Had he gone to Victoria Barracks in the ordinary way to enlist he wouldn't have passed even the sentry at the gate, let alone the doctor. But George knew the ropes. He had "soldiered" before. That's why he took the short cut direct to camp.