ack. Night was falling, and the guns already gone, when
reinforcements from the 19th Brigade came past my aid-post and asked me
the direction. Had the guns been kept, I verily believe at least one
V.C. would have come our way, for Diggins, and M.C.'s for his
lieutenants. As it was, Diggins got an M.C. and Thorpe a 'mention.'
Nothing came to McInerney, who was one of the many soldiers who went
through years of battle, always doing their duty superbly, but emerging
ribbonless at the end. Six months later, at Tekrit, these guns took a
heavy toll from our infantry. Now, after all effort, scarcely fifty men
could be got up to them.

In these exalted moments of victory glorious almost beyond belief
Sergeant-Major Whatsize fell, twenty yards from the enemy's line. In
his last minutes he was happy, as a child is happy.

The handful at the guns waited. A large barrel of water had been put
there for the Turkish gunners. This was drained to the last drop. The
guns were curiously examined. 'Besides the intricate mechanism and
beautifully finished gear, there were some German sextants and
range-finders, compasses like those on a ship's binnacle, and other
instruments on a lavish scale,' says Hasted. But this inspection was
cut short, for now came the counter-attack. The Turks began to shell
the captured gun-position. Then, from the railway-embankment, nearly a
mile to the Leicestershires' left front, several lines of Turks
emerged, in extended formation, a distance of fifty yards between each
line. At least two thousand were heading for the fifty Leicestershires
holding the guns. 'It was like a crowd at a football-match,' a
spectator told me. Diggins sent word to Lowther, commanding B Company,
a little to his left rear, 'The Turks are counter-attacking.' Lowther
replied that he was falling back. Diggins and Hasted fell back in
conformity. Hasted was asking his men how many rounds of ammunition
they had left. None had more than five rounds, so perforce we ceased
fire. The 51st Sikhs, with the exception of Subahdar Aryan Singh and
two sepoys, had not appeared. The Leicestershires damaged the guns as
they might for half a dozen fevered, not to say crowded, minutes of
glorious life. Hasted, who was one of those who enjoyed this
destruction, complains that they did not know much about what to do;
they burred the breech-block threads and smashed the sights with
pickaxes. The Mills bombs put in the bores did not explode
satisfactorily. T