y by day those
sullen lines were strengthening. We had barely six thousand men to
throw at them. So one night talk became discontented, and some one
wished some reinforcement could be with us from the immense armies
which our papers bragged were being trained at home. Then another--G.A.
or Fowke--replied:

Oh that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

Swiftly that immortal scene, of the English spirit facing great odds
invincibly, followed, passage racing after passage.

God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more!

It was an electric spark. I never heard poetry, or literature at all,
mentioned save this once. But all were eager and speaking, for all had
read _Henry V._ When the lines were reached,

Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart,

laughter cleansed every spirit present of fear, and the shadow of fear,
misgiving. Nothing less grimly humorous than the notion of such an
offer being made now, or of the alleged consequences of such an offer,
in the instant streaming away of all His Majesty's Forces in
Mesopotamia, could have made so complete a purgation. Comedy took upon
herself the office of Tragedy. When voices could rise above the
laughter, they went on:

His passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.

'Movement-orders down the line and ration-indents,' was the emendation.

We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

And Fowke's voice towered to an ecstasy of sarcasm as he assured his
unbelieving hearers that

Gentlemen in England, now abed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here.

As a Turkish attack was considered possible, every morning we stood-to
for that 'witching hour,' immediately before dawn, which is usually
selected for 'hopping the parapet.' The brigades reconnoitred, and
exchanged shots with enemy pickets. Fritz came, of course. Then the
19th Brigade went on, and took up a position two miles in front behind
the Median Wall, of which more hereafter. The battle preparations went
busily forward.

Our camp was strewn with pebbles, an old shingle-beach, for we were on
the ancient edges of the sea, before the river had built up Iraq.[6]
The stones at Beled had been the first signs that we were off the
alluv