Trooper Bluegum at the Dardanelles

ULSED-THE UBIQUITOUS GERMAN SPY-SPREADING DISAFFECTION-ATTACKS ON K

erest to what they have to say, but I would rather be a living dog of an Egyptian than the dead lion of an Egyptian king-I would rather be a moving, ta

in them-a light that never was on sea or land. It is then that I think of the things these people have seen in the forty centuries of which Napoleon spoke. I

deadly powers. Nothing can harm the owner so long as he has it in his possession, and the owner can shrivel up an enemy by merely pointing at him and muttering incantations-just as the Northern Territory natives in Australia can will an enemy to die by pointing a bone at him. Major Lynch lost no time in putting t

ted to sell me

ke fine

said I, "all g

Scarab-go

O

scarab. Ver

A

r; beautiful scarab. Now he go

y ch

Sell now, lose p

w m

e po

ally worth fi

h! No, no, no

ounds a

pounds for one b

a

ree thousand years ol

ot any nice

ld-very valuable-th

Show me

y old, very valuable, o

more

re-all

ghtn't to take

. I sell you f

t m

u. Four

aga

pound

e mo

nds ten.

iness;

en genuine-even if it was three thousand years old-I would have thought it a shame for him to take the money. But the reputation these "gyppies" have for faking antiquities and cur

wanted me to think it genuine, and, I suppose, stolen. (Even honest people don't mind being "receivers" when they can get a genuine relic of antiquity cheap.) I examined it with the concentrated

alanders had been in a fight. That was before we came. Egypt had been "invaded"; there had been a fight at El Kantara, some prisoners had been taken, and then the invaders turned their h

ich some of the Australians helped to stamp out. It was almost inconceivable that the "thorough-going, methodical" Germans could have

the British and facilitate the entry of the Turks. It was confidently anticipated by the German wire-pullers that the moment the invaders appeared on the Canal the Egyptians and Arabs would rise en masse and drive the British into the sea. Drastic measures were taken months ahead for dealing with

Australia

but there is not the slightest doubt that the presence of 50,000 Colonial troops had a wonderfully steadying effect on the disaffect

years before. It spoke not only of the wonderful growth in population of Britain's Dominions of the South, but it was a living proof that the years had only served to cement the bonds of love and loyalty that bind the grand old Mother land to her Oversea Dominions. The r

arrangements by the German officers were excellent. Everything had been foreseen and provided for-or nearly everything. Water was available at each stage of the journey across the desert. Many boats and pontoons were dragged by oxen and camels along the ca

only one officer and one soldier killed and five Gurkhas wounded. Further south, near Suez, a nocturnal demonstration by the Turks merely served to prove the alertness of the defenders, though

ere silently hurried to the front. A small force attacked Kantara, but after losing twenty-one killed, twenty-five wounded and thirty-six prisoners, they decamped. Later on t

s made to cross the Canal by means of boats, rafts, and pontoons. A shrapnel shell smashed the first boat and killed several Turks. Other boats followed and met with a similar fate-most of their occupant

up and down the Canal, responding to the enemy's artillery. Two Turkish shells landed on our warships, and ten men were wounded. For a coupl

f Turkish infantry (entrenched overnight) opened fire. But they did little damage. They

the British and French cruisers and the shore artillery harried the enemy in their retreat and added considerably to their losses. Our casualties were only about twenty

and think of all that has happened since. But it was the first figh

ks away on the rim of the desert horizon; but the en