A Pumping Fatigue on the Water Barge.
The men in the front line had great difficulty in getting water as the carrying fatigue was often shot as it dodged up Monash Gully or the track to Walker's Ridge. Whatever the men on the beach got, those in the trenches were always desperately short.
From a hygienic point of view, the sea was the salvation of the men. Everyone near the beach bathed twice a day even at the risk of "stopping one," while the men from the hills came down whenever the reliefs took over.
Bully Beef and Biscuits.
Food was always plentiful (except just after the Great Blizzard in November when stocks ran very low). Tinned meat, jam and hard biscuits and a mug of tea provided 99 per cent. of the meals. Thoreau once suggested that we could make ourselves rich by making our wants few. On Gallipoli this did not mean a very great effort on the part of the will, but sore gums and rebellious stomachs were the price of getting wealthy. The army biscuits can never be forgotten—their hardness was beyond belief. When made for long journeys on sailing ships, it probably was necessary to make them so that they would keep, but surely in war time the soldier could get a softer one? The white ones brought from New Zealand were quite easy and pleasant to eat, while the oatmeal ones, grated on a piece of kerosene tin, made a tolerable porridge for the mornings! But the ordinary white biscuit as supplied by the A.S.C., while it may have been full of nourishment, was so hard that it was nibbled round the edges and then tossed into No Man's Land. After a month or two, a little bread arrived periodically, and many a penitent soldier vowed he would never waste a crust again.
But the perversity of the man who packed the jam! Why the cases did not come assorted no one knew. As it was, each area seemed to get its one particular variety right through a campaign. The familiar plum and apple, and the fruit of the golden apricot should never be placed before the Anzac soldier.
[Photo by the Author
"Bread and Jam."
Two Signallers outside the Divisional Signal Office.