By now the front-line trenches were secure and the units settled down to the routine of trench warfare. Troops holding the line have a good deal of time in which to talk and think. One of the most dreadful phases of soldiering is the monotony. It is then that the soldier becomes “fed up.” Men at these times will growl and argue about anything. Three debatable subjects never lost their attractiveness — oysters, medals, and the horizon. The oyster question raged furiously. Perhaps the Turkish shells suggested it; perhaps the soldier was thinking of what he would eat when he got home again; but, with an Aucklander present, it was never safe to say that Stewart Island oysters were the finest in the sea. The medal question was a perennial one. What medals would be struck for the war? Would there be a different one page 183 page 184 for the different campaigns—France, West Africa, Gallipoli, and all other theatres? Would the clasps be names of actions or only dates? It was persistently rumoured that the new Sultan of Egypt would give a medal to each of the troops who lined the Cairo streets on his coronation day. The Sultan supplied the answer to this by dying before his alleged promise could be fulfilled. The great line of transports and warships stretching from Cape Suvla down to Tenedos suggested the horizon. What was the horizon? There seemed to be no end of definitions, all of which could be traversed by learned persons present. Some ships would be hull down and some with only the masts and smoke showing. This raised the question as to whether one could see past the horizon, a suggestion scouted by the majority of the debating society, but warmly applauded by an enthusiastic minority.

Late in the afternoon, when the little groups assembled behind the firing line to prepare the evening meal, men would talk of their favourite foods, and speculate as to where the first big meal would be eaten when the great work was comp-

Sunset from Ari Burnu.

lete. Smoking the ration cigarette after tea, the New Zealander would watch the sun set behind the rose-tinted peaks of Samothrace and would picture again the sunset in his own beloved country, would hear the water tumbling and splashing in the creek, would see the sheep and horses cropping the sweet green grass of Maoriland—when “Whizz! crash!” would come the Turkish gunners' evening hate. Back with page 185 a start would the soldier come to the shells, the heat, the stench of chloride of lime, and the steadily increasing rows of little crosses on the hillside.