It's cruel to be forgotten by the home folk when fighting the battles of one's country; but most of our chaps are loyal, and they always blamed the post office. One time our 6th L.H. Regiment mail had not arrived, and I stood by miserably watching other lucky devils getting their letters. Suddenly my eye caught the address on a newspaper, "To any lonely soldier in the Australian army." I immediately grabbed it. There was a protest from the postal official, who said the paper was not addressed to me, and that unclaimed papers are considered as "baksheesh" for the postal corporal. I pointed out that it was not unclaimed, since I had claimed it; and that as I at that moment was a lonely soldier it was clearly addressed to me. There was a fine row, but I won my case--and the paper. Always at the end of the sorting there are many, many letters unclaimed. And the Regimental Sergeant-Major goes through the list, and with heavy red pencil writes "killed," "wounded," or "missing" on the envelope. What a tragedy lies hidden in these little heaps of letters to dead soldiers who can never read them! It was no small loss, that barge with 250 mail bags from Australia. When I saw the barge sink I repeated the prayer of the popular English preacher, who exclaimed, "God damn the Sultan!" Why should that love-laden barge be the mark for the Turkish gunners? And why, after the hundreds of boats they have missed, should they get a bull's-eye there? It is sad to think of the thousands of soldiers who will never know the loving thoughts penned in those precious missives. Many will wonder why friends and relations have never written. And folks at home will be wondering why they got no answer. For a time we simply could not write home. There was an envelope famine on Gallipoli. Not a single envelope could be had for love or money. We readdressed our old envelopes, or turned them inside out. We made post cards out of cardboard and cigarette boxes. Some of us even wrote home on the biscuits, which were warranted not to break. We waylaid sailors on the beach and offered fabulous prices for paper and envelopes. We wrote to our friends in Ma'adi and to the stores in Alexandria. But it's a long, long way to Egypt, and it seemed a long, long time before the envelope famine was relieved. That's one reason why some of our chaps never wrote home. Another reason was that we were all so tired after our turn in the trenches and the eternal "dig on, dig ever." As for stamps, everybody in Australia knows the legend on the soldier's envelope: "No stamps available."