e left us shortly after, returning
to his own regiment, the Durham Light Infantry, in India. In Rawal
Pindi he delivered a lecture on the action in which he had played so
brilliant a part.

It would be interesting to know if Hasted has ever had an enemy. His
personal charm is almost greater than any man has a right to have,
especially when the Gods have already made that man an able soldier and
administrator. But it is an unfair world.

These awards were announced in a _Gazette_ nearly a year later. To
Sowter, had he lived, would have fallen a third M.C. Fowke, as well as
Thorpe, got a 'mention,' of which he was utterly unaware, being away
sick, till I ran into him in Kantara[18] in 1918, about eleven o'clock
at night. I roused him from sleep for a chat. When I told him of his
'mention,' he considered that I was making a very successful attempt to
be humorous, and laughed himself to sleep again. At intervals till dawn
I heard him still laughing in his dreams at a notion so ridiculous.

I hope that some other will tell of the deeds of the Indian regiments.
Even more I hope that some one will tell, as I cannot, of the gallant
and costly charge which our cavalry made on the Turkish trenches to our
left, a charge which staggered the enemy as he swung round to cut off
the Leicestershires. The 32nd Lancers lost, among others, their
Colonel (Griffiths) and their Adjutant (Captain Hunter), killed.

These two days' fighting at Istabulat and for Samarra cost us about two
thousand four hundred casualties. The 28th Brigade, on the 22nd, lost
four hundred and forty-six men. The enemy's losses, including
prisoners, must have been at least three thousand.

My one note for April 24 is 'Flies.' It was high summer, and in the
terrible and waxing heats we lay for over a month longer, with no
tents, and with no shelter save our blanket-bivvies. We were the more
wretched in that we occupied an old enemy camp, and were entered into
full possession of its legacy of filth and flies. On the first Sunday
my morning service was swathed in dust, one swirling misery, and I was
sore tempted to preach, foreseeing the days to come, on 'These are but
the beginning of sorrows.'

FOOTNOTES:

[12] A lecture delivered by him at Rawal Pindi, India. See Preface.

[13] Action of January 13, 1916.

[14] Hasted.

[15] Hasted.

[16] _AEneid_, Book IX, Conington's translation.

[17] Indian hospital orderlies and bearers.

[18] On the Suez Canal.