r. A stream of Fords ran
night and day between the troops and Samarra.

My brigade had a day of inaction, being moved up from time to time, and
momentarily expecting to be sent in. The 21st Brigade had moved up the
left bank, meeting with no opposition. Their part was enfilade gunfire.
Our old colleagues, the 8th Brigade (from the 3rd Lahore Division), and
the 19th Brigade attacked. The battle was largely one of gunfire. For
such an exhibition Guy Fawkes' Day had been fitly chosen.

Tekrit was one of the Turk's best battles in the class of which he is
such a master, the rearguard action. Our airmen reported that, from our
arrival, his troops and transport were flowing away steadily. His lines
were held by artillery and machine-guns, fearlessly worked to the last
minute of safety. Our cavalry operated on the left. It was here the
action broke down. At this point there was only one line of trenches
against us, and many think the 28th Brigade should have been sent in.
Had this been done, the enemy right would have been forced back, and
his troops pinned to the river, with large captures of men and guns as
result. But the 28th Brigade were kept out, because of a cavalry
mistake. The latter's orders were to drop one brigade on the flank, and
then push through to the river, behind the enemy. Then the 28th Brigade
were to go in, and, when they had cleared the Turks out of their
entrenchments, the cavalry were to collect the prisoners. But, instead,
the cavalry, after dropping a brigade to watch the flank, waited, and
finally did a very gallant but useless charge.

The terrain was extremely difficult. Almost the first thing the
assaulting forces had to do was to cross a nulla sixty feet deep and a
quarter of a mile wide, commanded by machine-guns, and searched with
shrapnel. Later, when my own brigade moved up in support, we crossed
this nulla. The toilsome going over slipping shingle was like Satan's
painful steps on the burning marl,

not like those steps
On Heaven's azure, and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.

The story of this day belongs to the 8th and 19th Brigades. My own were
spectators only; deeply interested, and our own fate might at any
moment become involved, but harassed with heat and flies and the
unspeakable boredom born of long warfare, which even a battle can
disperse only in part. Stories filtered through of the heroic work of
the Seaforths and Manch