ven out of their position on the Wadi, the
2nd Battalion playing a small but successful part in this action and
losing 34 men. The Turks then fell back on to a more strongly
entrenched position at Hannah.

The rainy season was now in full swing. It rained day after day and
the whole country became sodden, making it very difficult to move
troops and almost impossible to move artillery. The discomfort the men
suffered is almost indescribable, with no tents and everyone
chronically wet to the skin and unable to have properly cooked food,
made a seemingly hopeless position; but it is wonderful how hardship
and discomforts are forgotten at the thought of beleaguered comrades
in need of help and, as the country dried up and the sun shone forth,
the men's spirits rose. On the eighteenth the 2nd Battalion had
orders again to move forward. They did so and occupied a line of
trenches about two thousand yards off the enemy, who were strongly
entrenched in what is now known as the Hannah position. The whole
country here, it must be understood, is absolutely flat, only in the
distance twenty or thirty miles away one could see the snow-clad
Pusht-i-kuh Mountains. Each night short advances were made and fresh
trenches dug, till the night of the 20th. In this manner an advance
was made up to within two hundred and fifty yards of the enemy's
position. There, under cover of darkness the last line of trenches
were dug and the companies deployed into two lines, and there they
faced the enemy and awaited dawn. The Battalion and our old friends,
the Jats, had been lent to another Brigade detailed to make the
decisive assault on the morning of the 21st. Major Hamilton Johnston
had made every possible arrangement for a successful assault and the
leading lines were well within striking distance of the enemy. But
however brilliantly carried out an assault may be, however gallant and
determined the men, to ensure a lasting success against a determined
foe there must be weight as well as depth in the attack. Now on the
night of the 20th, owing to the movement among the troops, lack of
reconnaissance and the mud, the troops in rear of the two leading
battalions were deployed so far back, that though they moved forward
in the morning simultaneously with the Jats and Highlanders, they
suffered such losses on their way that none were able to reach the
enemy trenches. And dire was our need there for support.

At a given signal our artillery opened a