] Highland Light Infantry.

VI

HUWESLET; OR, 'THE BATTLE OF JUBER ISLAND'

Night's blackness touched with red;
A cock's shrill clarion ringing;
Clamours for 'ruddy' buckets, Diamond's[25] bray;
Grousing of Johnson[26] tumbled out of bed;
And Fowke's falsetto, singing
'Is it nothing to you?'
So the battalion wakes, to march away
Heaven knows how far into the blue,
Heaven knows how many weary miles to do,
Till stars within some nulla watch us lie,
Worshipping sleep, while the icy hours drag by.

October 22 was the date when Johnny developed unheard-of cheek. His
patrols appeared by the river, one fellow riding along our wire and
slashing it with his sword. Then from 1 p.m. onwards he shelled both
banks of the river, having pushed down from his advanced post at Daur,
a dozen miles away, with a couple of hundred cavalry, several
machine-guns, and light field-guns. The Guides and our cavalry were
reported to have lost men and horses; and G.A., on picket, sent word
that the Turks were digging themselves in. A and C Companies of the
Leicestershires were out all day.

On the 23rd shelling continued, and that evening the division moved
out. At the officers' meeting we were told that a force, estimated at
four thousand Turks and several guns, was digging in. We were to do
twelve thousand two hundred yards north, and then seven thousand five
hundred yards half-right, to get behind them. This was the 28th
Brigade. The 8th and 19th Brigades, starting later, were to make a
frontal attack at 4 a.m.; our brigade were to enfilade the Turk when
bolted; and these united efforts were to drive him into the dead ground
by the river, and there, as the scheme wittily put it, our artillery
and machine-guns would 'deal with him.' Whoever drew up the plan was
not only bloody-minded but oblivious of long experience, assuming thus
that John was such a very simple person.

We moved off just before dark, raising a white dust. Through all our
wide detour there were strict injunctions against smoking, enforced
among the Leicestershires, ignored among machine-gunners and Indian
drivers. Never can night-march have been noisier. At every halt the
mules sang down the whole length of the line; signallers and gunners
clattered past. About midnight a stranger was seen talking to some
_drabis_.[27] A Leicestershire sergeant, coming up, said, 'Hullo, it's
a bloody Turk.' Hearing himself identified,