he had continued in his first vocation and become a padre.

Behind D Company moved Charles Copeman, O.C. bombers, and a section of
machine-gunners under Lieutenant Service. The rest of the
machine-gunners followed up along the railway.

We who remained crossed the ridge and advanced in artillery formation
up the right side of the railway. The Sikhs slipped away into the hills
to our right.

Readers of _Quentin Durward_ will remember the two hangmen of Louis XI,
the one tall, lean, and solemn; the other short, fat, and jolly.
Wilson, the Leicestershires' doctor, had two most excellent assistants
who occupied much the same positions. But Sergeant Whitehead, who was
short, went his sombre way with a gravity that never weakened into a
smile; while Dobson, an ex-miner, aged forty-seven, who had deceived
the recruiting people most shamelessly and enlisted as under thirty,
took life jovially and generally humorously. He was never without his
pipe. He enjoyed a large medical practice in the regiment, unofficial
and unpaid, and he held strong opinions, observing frequently that he
'didn't hold with' a thing. I remember well the annoyance of Wilson's
successor on hearing that Dobson 'didn't hold with' inoculation, which
just then was occupying most of the medical officer's time. Another
thing that Dobson 'didn't hold with' was the modern notion that some
diseases were infectious. Because of his years and medical knowledge,
this kindly, never-wearied old hero was always known by the regiment as
'Mester Dobson.' I shall follow their example, and so call him
henceforth.

I also was of Wilson's entourage, and went with him accordingly. Before
we crossed the first ridge we picked up a man prostrate with
heat-stroke; we left him under a culvert, in charge of John, Wilson's
Indian orderly.

Meanwhile D Company found the hills on our left strongly held. Every
slope was sown with shallow trenches, earth-scars which held six or
seven Turks, and snipers caused us casualties. Lieutenant-Colonel
Knatchbull, learning this, on his own initiative swung round B and C
Companies across the railway to support D. Wilson now came upon his
first casualty, a signaller hit in the spine. We bandaged him, and left
him in a shallow nulla, sheltered from the bullets flying over. He died
next day.

B and C Companies, crossing the railway, pushed up a long narrow nulla
to the hills where D were engaged. Service's machine-guns put up a
covering fire.