rattle of musketry. At dawn the summit had been
gained, but just how good or bad our position was Mac had not the
vaguest idea. He had not heard of, nor had he seen any progress,
except the taking of this summit, since Saturday morning, and had no
idea as to whether the battle was progressing favourably or otherwise.
What was expected of them up there to-night none knew. Each carried a
pick or a shovel and two bombs.

They passed the dressing-stations, perched on either side on the steep
slope, where hundreds of wounded lay, then over a ridge where the track
stopped and out into the pitch black open. The bullets zipped past or
thudded into the ground. The troop lay down while they got their
bearings. A fellow close by Mac gave a yell and was dead. A few
wounded men, limping or crawling back, passed them. Then in extended
order they went forward again, guided by a telephone wire, keeping
touch with difficulty in the scrub and the darkness. Frequently there
would come from the blackness in front of their feet a warning "Keep
clear o' me, cobber, I'm wounded," or groans and the gleam of a white
bandage, and sometimes they stumbled over prone still forms. Slowly
they picked their way forward, making towards the centre of the firing,
which was in a semicircle round them, and the whistling bullets came
from both sides as well as from in front, and the din grew fiercer.
They reached at length a hollow full of wounded, then went slowly up a
slope littered with equipment and dead, and, at last, topping the rise,
they came upon a scene so weird and infernal that Mac instantly stopped
and stared with awe.

Lit fantastically by flickering flames which were licking slowly
through the scrub was a small ghastly, battle-rent piece of ground, not
one hundred yards in width and rising slightly. Beyond and close on
either side, it was bounded by the starry heavens, and seemed a
strange, detached dreamland where men had gone mad. The Turks lined
the far edge, their ghostly faces appearing and vanishing in the eerie
light, as they poured a point-blank fusillade at the shattered series
of shallow holes where the remnants of the New Zealanders were fighting
gallantly. Sweeping round to the left was the flashing semicircle of
the enemy line, bombs exploded with a lurid glare, their murky pall
drifting slowly back towards Mac. Shells came whirring up from the
black depths behind, and burst beyond the further lip. Above the
ren