A small poppy and a bright thistle set
their flares of crimson and gold in the green; sowthistle and myosote
freaked it with blue; a tall gladiolus, also to be found later by the
Aujeh and on Carmel, made pink clusters. Thus did flowers overlay the
fretting spikes of our road, and adorn and hide 'the coming bulk of
Death.'

Through Saturday we rested. Fritz came, of course; and there was a
little harmless sniping.

The knowledge filtered in that fighting was again at hand. It was
accepted without comment, with the soldier's well-known fatalism, the
child of faith and despair. 'Every man thinks,' said one to me, 'I
don't care who he is. But we believe it's all right till our number's
up. Take M----, for instance. When he was left out at Sannaiyat we all
envied him; we thought we were for it. But we went through Sannaiyat;
and M---- was the first of us to be killed at Mushaidiyeh, his very
first action, where we had hardly any casualties.'

In the evening the rest of the division came up to take our place.
Sunday, by old prescription, was the 7th Division's battle-day; next
Sunday being Easter, it was not to be supposed that so fair an occasion
would be passed over. Accordingly, when I put in my services, I was
told that the brigade would march before dawn, and that some scrapping
was anticipated. The Turks were holding Beled Station, half a dozen
miles away in a straight line. Their main force was at Harbe, four
miles farther. The maps were no use, and distances had to be guessed.
'The force against us,' observed the Brigade-Major, 'is somewhere
between a hundred Turks and two guns, and four thousand Turks and
thirty-two guns.' 'And if it's the four thousand and thirty-two guns?'
'Then we shall sit tight, and scream for help,' he answered
delightedly.

2. THE ACTION FOR BELED

Davies's Column were away before breakfast. In the dim light we moved
through wet fields of some kind of globe-seeded plant, abundantly
variegated with gladiolus and hyacinth. Every one was suffering from
our course of Sumaikchah waters, and progress was slow. Splashing
through the marshes, we came to undulating upland, long, steady slopes,
pebble-strewn and with pockets of grass and poppies. The morning winds
made these uplands exceedingly beautiful. Colonel Knatchbull said, the
week he died, that what he most remembered from Beled were the flowers
through which we marched to battle. As we approached them, the ruffling
wind laid its hand