Mention the word “Blighty” or “Tickler's plum-and-apple,” “Kangaroo Beach” or “Jhill-o! Johnnie!” or “Up yer go—an' the best o' luck!” to any man of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force and in each case you will have touched upon a vividly imprinted impresssion of the Dardanelles.
There was adventure wild and queer enough in the Dardanelles campaign to fill a volume of Turkish Nights' Entertainments, but the people at home know nothing of it.
This is the very type of adventure and incident which would have aroused a war-sickened people; which would have rekindled war-weary enthusiasm and patriotism in the land. Maybe most of these accounts of marvellous escapes and 'cute encounters, secret scoutings and extraordinary expeditions will lie now for ever with the silent dead and the thousands of rounds of ammunition in the silver sand of Suvla Bay.
The stars still burn above the Salt Lake bed; the white breakers roll in each morning along the blue sea-shore, sometimes washing up the bodies of the slain—just as they did when we camped near Lala Baba.
But the guns are gone and there the heavy silence of the waste places reigns supreme.