up to his outstretched arms. The tracks were almost impassable,
and a Lancashire pioneer battalion was called up to assist in
improving them. The men became caked with mud from steel helmet to
boots, and the field guns which had to be hauled by double teams
were so bespattered that there was no need for camouflage. In those
strenuous hours of darkness the weather continued vile, and the storm
wind flung the frequent heavy showers with cutting force against the
struggling men. The covering party which was to cross at the ford
found the bar had shifted under the pressure of flood water and that
the marks put down to direct the column had been washed away. The
commanding officer reconnoitred, getting up to his neck in water, and
found the ford considerably out of position and deeper than he had
hoped, but he brought his men together in fours and, ordering each
section to link arms to prevent the swirling waters carrying them out
to sea, led them across without a casualty. In the other places
the covering parties of brigades began to be ferried over at eight
o'clock. The first raft-loads were paddled across with muffled oars.
A line was towed behind the boats, and this being made fast on either
side of the river the rafts crossed and recrossed by haulage on the
rope, in order that no disturbance on the surface by oars on even such
a wild night should cause an alarm. As soon as the covering parties
were over, light bridges to carry infantry in file were constructed by
lashing the rafts together and placing planks on them. One of these
bridges was burst by the strength of the current, but the delay thus
caused mattered little as the surprise was complete. When the bridges
of rafts had been swung and anchored, blankets and carpets were laid
upon them to deaden the fall of marching feet, and during that silent
tramp across the rolling bridges many a keen-witted Scot found it
difficult to restrain a laugh as he trod on carpets richer by far than
any that had lain in his best parlour at home. He could not see the
patterns, but rightly guessed that they were picked out in the bright
colours of the East, and the muddy marks of war-travelled men were
left on them without regret, for the carpets had come from
German houses in Sarona. How perfectly the operation was
conducted--noiselessly, swiftly, absolutely according to
time-table--may be gathered from the fact that two officers and
sixteen Turks were awakened in their trench dug-out