l all round, and
both windows were smashed of every inch of glass, I could not quite
share this confidence that the hut was splinter-proof. But I required
that tea. It was very good tea. Had it been shaving water, it would
have gone cold at once. But being tea which I wished to drink quickly,
it remained at boiling-point and declined to be mollified with milk.
However, no more H.E.[3] came our way, only shrapnel.

McLeod said we had had at least two thousand Turks against us and at
least twelve guns. During the action the enemy reinforced the position
from his main one at Harbe. He must have had other casualties in
addition to our prisoners. Our left wing, when they occupied the hills,
saw four or five hundred Turks 'skirr away' in one body, and the
machine-gunners found a target. Raiding-parties of Arabs hung on our
flanks throughout the day, and increased the force against us, at any
rate numerically.

The day had been cloudy and comparatively cool, and an exquisite
evening crowned it. With dusk I left the station, where wounded Turks
were groaning and shells bursting, and sought the hills. The shrapnel
was dying down, and, once off the plain, all was quiet. The scene here
was one of great loveliness. The Dujail, a narrow canal from the
Tigris, ran swiftly with water of delightful coldness and sweetness.
The canal was fringed with flowers, poppies, marguerites, and campions;
the innumerable folds and hollows were emerald-green. C Company were
holding the extreme left of our picket-line. Here I found Hasted, Hall,
Fisher, and Charles Copeman. We held a dry, very deep irrigation-canal,
running at right angles to the Dujail. There were no shells, and we
could listen composedly to the last of the shrapnel away on the right.
The full moon presently flooded the hills with enchantment. But our
night was broken by Arab raids. Twice these robbers of the dead and
wounded tried to rush us. The first party probably escaped in the
bushes, but the second suffered casualties. In the evening Arabs had
raided our aid-post, wounding the attendant, who escaped with
difficulty. Fortunately there was none but dead there; these they
stripped, cutting off one man's finger for the ring on it. All night
long they prowled the battlefield and dug up our buried dead. For
which, retribution came next day.

Fisher and I scraped a hole in our canal, and tried to sleep. But a
cold wind sneaked about the nulla, and the hours dragged past with
ext