orderly officer. I was to report immediately. An orderly officer, I was told at once, is responsible for the health and well being of his general, and has many details to attend to. In action there are countless orders to deliver and reports to make. The Brigade Major, mistaken for General Smith, had unfortunately been knifed by an Arab while asleep one night on a boat, so the Staff Captain and I were the only Staff. We shared a dug-out, or rather hole, eighteen inches deep and of course uncovered. Reinforced with some bread, meat, and whisky, I scooped a pillow place for the General's head, and in the darkness tried to collect some little of my kit, which, however, got lost in the subsequent events of the night. I completed arrangements for the morning and then slept.

General Townshend's jugga was next ours. We were on the river bank. Behind us lay H.M.S. Firefly and other boats and barges.

Presently from out of the darkness shells began to fall around us. We were right in the line of fire. It appeared that they were shelling the Firefly. One shell pitched just short of us and wounded the syces, another burst exactly over us, but too high for the spread to reach us. Then a brisk rifle fire commenced and here and there we heard a suppressed groan. These were my first real moments under fire. The darkness and scantiness of cover made it seem worse, but I was not half so frightened as I thought I should be, and after some minutes, when it was necessary for me to deliver some messages, I gave myself up to Fate with a light heart and blundered in the darkness on my several errands. That was infinitely better than lying pinched up in the inadequate hole watching the dried grass being cut by bullets a foot above one's head. It is a great thing to be occupied in times like this. In passing through my battery I heard that two drivers of my section had been killed. On returning to the dug-out I saw the Staff Captain ferociously digging with a mess-tin. I did the same for the General's side with his own shaving mug,—which I bent, to his disgust—and then got on to my own. About midnight the rifle fire thickened. Now of all entirely horrid things under these conditions you have first and foremost the bullet. It is a thing conceived by Satan for the dispatch of his outsiders and unbeloved. Invisible it comes from anywhere. You hear it and know you are safe. Or you feel it and know you're hit. Since then I have often been under rifle fire, but that night the devilry of the bullets was strange. At 3 a.m. General Townshend said he would attack in two columns unless the fire ceased. I delivered orders connected therewith, but the fire slackened. I slept, and awoke before the dawn, and bustled around after our headquarters' transport, as we expected an immediate move. I also got breakfast ready. This was December 1st.

At 8 a.m. the transport began to move. At 8.30 it had got fairly on its way. At nine I was standing by the Headquarters transport ready to move off, when the fog cleared as suddenly as the shadows lift when the moon comes from behind a cloud. Before us, some eighteen hundred to two thousand yards off, on the higher ground, we saw a host of tents. Even as we looked the guns of the Field Brigade on the outer perimeter were limbering up. But within two minutes they were down again in action, and the first shell sang out the delight of the gunner at the prospect of so gorgeous a target. For one minute it was splendid. The spirits of the incarnated field guns ripped their music across the morning sky and over the dewy earth in quick and lightning song. The next his shells came back. I relished much less the white puffs up in the air near us, each burst a better one. But almost immediately I found myself taking a professional interest in the faulty fuses of the Turk. Our own shells were cutting great gaps in the tents and in the columns of panic stricken fleeing Turks. I saw our bursts in excellent timing, quite low. But their fire also thickened, and converged on the mass of troops not yet under way, and also on our shipping, which was caught at a wholesale disadvantage. Still, a great mass of transport stuff and ammunition was on the move.

At last it was all off, and only the perimeter of our camp remained, the four field batteries and the single line of infantry close beyond them. Standing in the centre of the shell-strewn ground was General Townshend and his Staff. I stood for a while between him and General Smith, from time to time galloping to the several batteries with orders or inquiries about ammunition. Away to our right between the Turkish advance and our own, the 14th Hussars were very busy, now covering behind the knolls and now swooping upon the enemy, who, however, gave them no chance of getting in at close quarters. S Battery, R.H.A., which worked with them, was pouring shell after shell into the teeth of the Turkish force.

One could not but feel the keenest admiration for General Townshend, so steady, collected and determined in action, so kind, quick and confident. There, totally indifferent to the shell fire, he stood watching the issue, receiving reports from the various orderly officers and giving every attention to the progress of the transport. Some shells pitched just over us, one, not fifteen yards away, killing a horse and wounding some drivers. The restlessness of the horses, some stamping their feet, others tossing their heads, betokened their objection to standing still at such a time. It really is the most difficult thing to do. One's mind was left too free to prophesy where the next shell would fall. More than once I caught a humorous smile on the General's face as some shell just missed us.

Suddenly, to the southward, a thick dust wall appeared. The Turks had got round, and our transport, uncertain about advancing, was held up. For ten minutes it seemed that the issue might become general, but our gunners, and especially S Battery, kept up such a rate of fire that the Turks were paralysed. The officer commanding this battery, acting on local knowledge, remained in action after the order to retire had reached him, and by so doing contributed greatly to the success of the day.

About nine o'clock General Melliss' Brigade, which had preceded us from Azizie by several miles and which had been sent for during the night, arrived on the scene of action, appearing from the south-eastern quarter. That effectively threw back the Turkish attack.

Then, as we gradually gave way, the tide of action moved very slowly southwards. The General motioned us to take cover in a ditch. Our horses we had sent on. It was about this time that H.M.S. Firefly was hit in her boiler and captured by the Turks. Several barges filled with wounded and stores had to be abandoned.

First one battery limbered up and fell into action half a mile to the rear, then another, and so on. Several times I took orders over the intervening ground that was now being plastered with shells bursting either too high or on graze. Don Juan behaved excellently. He shied once violently when a shell burst just behind us, and again as he took off to jump a nullah at the bottom of which a medical officer I knew, Major Walker, was attending to a wounded man. For the rest he went in his best hunting style over ditches and holes and took not the slightest notice of the noise or bursts. I often give him an extra handful of hay when I recall December 1st.

The transport was now some miles on its way and the mule-drivers were doing their utmost. Then the Staff mounted and I was sent to see the whereabouts of the ammunition barge, as the guns, especially S Battery, were running short. Luckily, I discovered where it had got stuck. In feverish haste we replenished the carts ourselves, General Smith, the Staff Captain and I, our telephonists and horseholders, all loading the first few carts at the run. In less than