lose to the station, that the enemy was reported in any
numbers. There the patrols described a scene of considerable
confusion. A train was shunting, and many Turks rushing about and
shouting orders. Our patrols were working half a mile ahead of the
regiment, so in spite of every effort it was half an hour later before
we filed silently past the station, formed up once again for the
attack, and charged with the bayonet. The enemy fired a few shots, one
of our men and a few Turks were killed and a few more made prisoners;
but the rest fled and disappeared into the night, leaving piles of
saddlery, ammunition, and food behind them. But the last train had
left Mushaidie, and with it vanished our hopes of captured guns and
prisoners. However, we had achieved the task allotted to us, and the
moment the necessary pickets had been posted the rest of us forgot
exhaustion, forgot victory, in the most profound sleep.

[Illustration: No. 1 Company Early Morning Parade Outside Samarra.]

[Illustration: Trenches At Samarra.]

[Illustration: Bathing In The Tigris.]

[Illustration: The Pioneers Of The Regiment In Summer Kit.]

[Illustration: Samarra.]

We had achieved our task, and, as the corps commander wrote, we had
made the 14th of March a red-letter day for all time in the history of
the Regiment. I have told the story of these thirty hours of
continuous marching and fighting from the point of view of a
regimental officer. This is in battle, some say always, very limited
in outlook. But certain things are shown clear. Waste of energy brings
waste of life and victory thrown away. A regimental leader has, with
his many other burdens, to endure the intolerable toil of taking
thought, and of transmitting thought without pause into action. And
those who work with him are not mere figures, not only items of a
unit, but are intimate friends whose lives he must devote himself to
preserve, whose lives he must be ready to sacrifice as freely as his
own. It is well that we neither know nor decide the issues of life and
death. There is, I think, a second meaning in the oft-quoted line of
Lucretius, _Nec bene promeritis capitur_, _nec tangitur ira_. Our
prayers are not attended to perhaps because of their very foolishness.
I believe when we congratulate ourselves after a battle that we and
our friends are still in the land of the living, that in some
mysterious way there may be a counterpart on the other side of the
veil--that there ma