But we had not long to saunter and wonder. Our brigade was sent straightway into the firing-line. We were initiated into the mysteries of trench warfare, sapping and mining, bombs and grenades, observing and sniping, posies and dug-outs, patrolling and listening, periscopes and peepholes, demonstrations and reconnaissance, supports and reserves, bully-beef and biscuits, mud and blood and slaughter, and all the humours and rumours, the hardships and horrors of war. And all the time we were doing our little bit George went on with his cooking. He may have been thinking of Napoleon, or Marlborough, or Cromwell, but he did not seem to be thinking much about this war of ours--except that he had to do some cooking for it. The Turks were shooting many of our officers down, and many of our dear old pals, but George remained--and we hoped that they would spare him. Good cooks--real, good cooks like George--are scarce. CHAPTER XIII "ROBBO" A GREAT TRANSPORT OFFICER--HOW HE HANDLED HORSES--AND HOW HE DIED--LIEUTENANT HENRY ROBSON--A NORTH COAST HERO George and Bill, Tom and Dick and Harry--all a happy family, having a wonderful time. You never knew what was going to happen next. At any moment your turn might come. You could not tell. But you saw old pals in the morning, and you didn't see them in the evening. Sometimes the mate who had shared your tent and fought alongside you in the trench--the mate who was with you at Holdsworthy, who was with you in Egypt, and laughed and joked with you at Anzac--was suddenly snatched away from you, and then you realized what a thin line it is that separates life from death. Have you ever dreamed that you were standing on the edge of a precipice and that an enemy was racing along behind you to push you over? That was how we felt during these days on Gallipoli. A moment, and then you too might be falling headlong down the precipice. But we found it best not to let our minds dwell upon it. So we went on burrowing into the side of the hill. We banked up the sides of our dug-outs with sandbags and tins and earth. Most of the fighting was being done in the trenches. In some places they were now 1,500 yards apart, in some only twenty-one feet apart; and in the latter case life was all excitement. It was sap and mine and bomb and fusillade all the time. My brigade had now been here for some time, and despite the "accidents" which were always occurring we all had, somehow or other, a feeling of absolute security. We laughed at the Turks, and we smiled at what Liman von Sanders said--that he would drive us into the sea. We were just waiting, content and confident, for the big move that was going to lead to Constantinople! And as I have said, we were a fairly well-fed army. We had none of the luxuries that the British Expeditionary Force had in France and Flanders. But on the whole we did not do too badly. The brigadier ate the same "tucker" as his batman.