The Tale of a Trooper

The _Tahiti_ fell in astern of the long line whose foremost ships were almost hull down, and left the Sound empty and deserted. When all were at sea, they took station, the thir...

The Regiment, stretched in close lines on the terraces, slept soundly. For many days ahead there would be little opportunity of resting, and for many there would be but one more...

About midday a hospital-ship anchored off the shore, and some one led him along the pier to a barge, from which he was transferred to a mine-sweeper, and at last was swung upwar...

That August dawn revealed a ghastly scene on this Gallipoli hill-top, where the tired, outnumbered attackers fought desperately for the summit of the Peninsula, possession of wh...

The behaviour of Mac's stomach was not all that it might have been, besides which rheumatism began to develop, so he contemplated a short spell on the Island of Lemnos. It was a...

The sun had just risen when the train, a clattering collection of third-class cars, jangled laboriously over the low elevation on which Alexandria stands. With a series of nerve...

Of the general progress of the battle through the night and indeed until he was wounded, Mac knew little. He heard but vaguely what was going on on other portions of the front a...

Late in the same afternoon the New Zealand ships put to sea, under orders to steam individually at slow speed to meet off Alexandria at dawn. There was not a great deal of settl...

A winter storm raged across the ridges and tore in violent gusts down the gullies, carrying great squalls of fleecy snow. The wind swept the flakes horizontally through the gap...

Six weeks dragged slowly by. A few days after they came into camp, there were ten great transports ready to take overseas the Expeditionary Force of 8,500 men, horses, guns, lim...

Mac, minus most of his clothing, squatted on a heap of rubble, keenly following through his glasses naval tactics on the sea below. One favourable point about Anzac was that, if...

The Anzac troops were now entering on that long, wearisome summer wait, without action, or even prospect of it, to relieve the monotony, until such time as strong reinforcements...

Mac dragged himself regretfully out of his bunk when a mournful "reveille" had finished echoing along the decks, and went above to see what might be doing. They were off, or, at...

Fortunately for the regiment, most of the daylight hours during the short stay in the present bivouac were spent away on working-parties or in support to some section of the fro...

Mac's luck was out. He had had practically no sleep the night previous, or, for that matter, for the two nights before that again, and he was not going to get any chance to make...

Mac set off for his Regiment, which was holding the front trenches of Russell's Top. Knowing it was a hopeless business poking about trenches among sentries in the dark looking...

Mac sighed appreciatively. If Egypt was to be seen, this was undoubtedly the way to see it. On the whole it had been an exceedingly profitable little bit of diplomacy, coupled w...

The camp lay listless in the glaring heat of high noon. Long rows of tents gleamed dazzlingly in the sun. Saddlery, horse-rugs, nose-bags and gear were untidily scattered about....

In the glaring heat of the Egyptian high-noon hours a car drew up outside the large hotel in the Sharia Kamel and a more or less soiled and weather-beaten trooper alighted. He m...

Mac sat in the dust, his back against a bank, with his rifle leaning slantwise across him, and his equipment hanging awkwardly. Beside him sat Smoky, and both were melancholy. T...

Mac's first morning at Anzac was one of deep interest. He regarded his surroundings rather more after the fashion of a Cook's tourist than of a soldier; or, maybe, he more close...

Egypt blistered in the early summer heat; flies increased in myriads; clouds of locusts darkened the sky; and hot winds blew, scorching and parching everything. The infantry had...

Mac felt absolutely dejected, and looked it. His mare, too, appeared neither happy nor spirited. Except for some nebulous figures, indistinct in the yellow murk, little else was...

Mac felt fed up. The worst had come to pass. The infantry had gone away and left them, the mounted men, to sweat and swear in the desert till the war was over, and Heaven only k...

The tents sway and flap vigorously as gusts of wind tear through the camp, carrying clouds of sand across the island. Through the darkness comes the sound of the lashing of the...