uckily our men, lined up ready to begin
digging, caught the eye of the enemy as a fine enfilade target (or
else they saw our first line mules) and they started shelling us from
6,500 yards (Enemy's battery, 9 on sketch). The effect on the men was
magical. They woke up and dug so well that we had fair cover within
half an hour and quite adequate trenches by 3. This bombardment was
quite exciting. The first few pairs were exactly over "D" Company's
trench, but pitched about 100 yards beyond it. The next few were
exactly right in range, but about forty yards right, _i.e._ behind us.
Just as we were wondering where the third lot would be, our faithful
howitzer battery and some heavy guns behind them, which opened all
they knew on the enemy battery as soon as they opened on us, succeeded
in attracting its fire to themselves. This happened three or four
times. Just as they were getting on to us the artillery saved us:
there would be a sharp artillery duel and then the Turks would lie
quiet for ten minutes, then begin on us again. This went on until we
were too well dug in to be a tempting target, and they devoted
themselves to our battery. The curious part of it was that though we
could see the flash of their guns every time, the mirages made it
impossible to judge their ranges or even for our battery to observe
its own fire properly. Our howitzer battery unfortunately was not in a
mirage, and they had its range to a yard and plastered it with
shrapnel. If they had had high explosives they could have smashed it.

About 4.30 the mirage cleared and our guns had a free go for the first
time that day: (in the morning mists last until the mirage begins).
I'm told the mirage had put our guns over 1,000 yards out in their
ranging, but I doubt this. Anyway it is the fact that those guns and
trenches which were sited in mirages were practically untouched in a
heavy two days' bombardment.

In that last hour, however, between 4.20 and dark, our heavy guns got
into the enemy finely with their high explosives. They blew one of our
tormentors bodily into the air at 10,500 yards, and silenced the
others, and chased every Turk out of the landscape.

All the same, we were rather gloomy that night. Our line had made no
progress that we could hear of; we had had heavy losses (none in our
battalion), and there seemed no prospect of dislodging the enemy.
Their front was so wide we could not get round them, and frontal
attacks on trenches are d