bout a hundred yards apart. Behind these towered the
hill that was our objective. From the nearest ridge, about seven hundred
yards in front of us, the Turks had all that day constantly issued in
mass formation. During that attack we were repaid for the havoc wrought
by Beachy Bill. As soon as the Turk topped the crest they were subjected
to a demoralizing rain of shell from the navy and the artillery. Against
the hazy blue of the sky-line we could see the dark mass clearly
silhouetted. Every few seconds, when a shell landed in the middle of the
approaching columns, the sides of the column would bulge outward for an
instant, then close in again. Meanwhile every man in our trenches stood
on the firing-platform, head and shoulders above the parapet, with fixed
bayonet and loaded rifle, waiting for the order to begin firing. Still
the Turks came on, big, black, bewhiskered six-footers, reforming ranks
and filling up their gaps with fresh men. Now they were only six hundred
yards away, but still there was no order to open fire. It was uncanny.
At five hundred yards our fire was still withheld. When the order came,
"At four hundred yards, rapid fire," everybody was tingling with
excitement. Still the Turks came on, magnificently determined. But it
was too desperate a venture. The chances against them were too great,
our artillery and machine-gun fire too destructively accurate. Some few
Turks reached almost to our trenches, only to be stopped by
rifle-bullets. "Allah! Allah!" yelled the Turks as they came on. A
sweating, grimly happy machine-gun sergeant between orders was shouting
to the Turkish army in general, "'Tis not a damn' bit of good to yell to
Allah now." Our artillery opened huge gaps in their lines; our
machine-guns piled them dead in the ranks where they stood. Our own
casualties were very slight, but of the waves of Turks that surged over
the crest all that day only a mere shattered remnant ever straggled back
to their own lines.

[Sidenote: The armies in a state of siege.]

That was the last big attack the Turks made. From that time on it was
virtually two armies in a state of siege. Every night at dark we stood
to arms for an hour. Every man fixed his bayonet and prepared to repulse
any attack of the enemy. After that sentry groups were formed, three
reliefs of two men each. Two men stood with their heads over the parapet
watching for any movement in the no-man's-land between the lines. That
accounts for the