luding Turks, who had no other treatment than such
as Dobson and I knew how to give. I had never bandaged a man before,
but my hands grew red to the elbow. Dobson worked grandly. As far as
possible I left our own men to him, and dressed wounded Turks, of whom
seventy were sent in late in the afternoon. This was on the _fiat
experimentum in corpore vili_ principle, as my fingers were unskilled,
and yet the work was very great.

About noon a gun was heard on the left bank of the river. Shrapnel
burst 'unpleasantly close,' says Hasted, 'to our front line. More
followed, and, after bracketing, seemed to centre about two hundred and
fifty yards in front of us. We then realized that General Marshall's
Column had joined in, supporting us with enfilade gunfire; we were
unable to see their target, and could see nothing of the enemy
trenches. We could make out single occasional shivering figures moving
laterally in the mirage. One Turk was seen throwing up earth, standing
up now and then to put up his hands to us. We tried him at ranges of
three hundred to twelve hundred yards, but did not even frighten him;
observation was absurdly difficult. Firing slackened down, but on the
left, out of sight in a depression, we could hear the 56th engaged.'

As Hasted remarks, it seems incredible that our men lay from 11 a.m.
till 3.30 p.m. within three hundred yards of the enemy's trenches. Yet
such is the fact.

At 4 p.m. we put down a concentrated bombardment of twenty minutes.
The Leicestershires, a forlorn and depleted hope, moved swiftly up to
within assaulting distance, C Company in reserve behind the right. The
51st Sikhs supported the attack. The 56th Rifles put down the heaviest
fire they could, of rifles and all the efficient machine-guns with the
Brigade. At 4.20 the guns lifted one hundred yards, and the
Leicestershires rushed in. Hasted, watchful behind with C Company,
pushed up rapidly to assist the front line. A long line of Turks rose
from the ground. All these, and the enemy's second line also, were
taken prisoners. Dug-outs were cleared, and many officers were taken,
where lofty cliffs overhang the Tigris. These prisoners were sent back
with ridiculously weak escorts. They were dazed, their spirits broken.
G.A., wounded and falling back in search of the aid-post, came on a
large body, wandering sheep without a shepherd. These he annexed, and
his orderly led them; he himself, using the famous stick as a crook,
coaxed them