ur trench, littered with Turkish rags. The signallers made a fire
inside, and two stray Sikhs had rolled themselves up in a corner. It
was not an inviting spot, but it was a choice between dirt and cold,
and I had no hesitation in choosing dirt. So after a chill dinner, at
which I drank neat lime-juice and neat brandy alternately (to save my
water-bottle intact), I turned into the hut. The other officers
(except North) at first disdained it with disgust, but as the night
wore on they dropped in one by one, till by midnight we were lying in
layers like sardines. The Colonel was the last to surrender. I have a
great admiration for him. He is too old for this kind of game, and
feels the cold and fatigue very much: but he not only never
complains, but is always quietly making the best of things for
everyone and taking less than his share of anything good that is
going. Nothing would induce him, on this occasion, to lie near the
fire.

_14th, Friday._ The night having passed more pleasantly than could
have been expected, we stood to arms in the trenches at 5.30 a.m. This
is a singularly unpleasing process, especially when all you have to
look forward to is the prospect of attacking 9,000 Turks in trenches
behind a Canal! But one's attention is fully occupied in trying to
keep warm.

As soon as it was light we got orders to advance and marched in
artillery formation to within 1,200 yards of the Canal, where we found
some hastily begun trenches of the day before, and proceeded to deepen
them. As there was no sign of the enemy, the conviction grew on us
that he must have gone in the night; and presently the order came to
stop entrenching and form a line to clear up the battlefield, _i.e._
the space between us and the Canal. This included burying the dead and
picking up wounded, as the stretcher parties which had tried to bring
the wounded in during the night had been heavily fired on and unable
to get further than where we were.

I had never seen a dead man and rather dreaded the effect on my queasy
stomach; but when it came to finding, searching and burying them one
by one, all sense of horror--though they were not pleasant to look
upon--was forgotten in an overmastering feeling of pity, such as one
feels at the tragic ending of a moving story, only so oppressive as to
make the whole scene like a sad and impersonal dream, on which and as
in a dream my mind kept recurring to a tableau which I must have seen
over fifteen yea