the resolve to be studiously callous about funerals etc otherwise it was obvious I would not last another week.
The regiment was in & out of Popes Hill & Quinns Post – but mostly in from them until the end of August. Perhaps the best method is to attempt a rough sketch of the general life in the Gully & then give diary extracts of particular events.
First it was beautiful weather although very hot with a Mediterranean sea & sky at its best and long twilights. Indeed, but for the war it was a beautiful spot – ideal for a picnic. We resembled nothing so much as ants on a hill. Fatique, rations, ammunition water parties filling down the gully passing & repassing in sap or trench & here & there crawling into some small hole in the cliff. Sometimes the men were burdened with loads as disproportionate as that of ants. "Struth! Bill we only want blinking tails to be blinky horses" was the remark of one overloaded trooper to another struggling along the track.
