direct hits on trenches. The
cemetery, hard by, possessed one or two craters also. The enemy had
left abundant live shells, shell-cases, cartridge-cases. But there were
very few dead. I saw only two; and a few places where the parapet had
been pulled in for a hasty burial. The old question was raised, Did the
Turk dig graves beforehand, against an action, to hide his losses? If
he did, one can imagine few more effective ways of putting heart into
his troops than by detailing them for such a job. I heard that the
Seaforths buried sixty Turks. But their losses were certainly far less
than ours. We took a hundred and fifty-seven prisoners. Corps claimed
that evidence collected after the battle showed that the enemy losses
for the three actions of Daur, Aujeh, Tekrit, were at least fifteen
hundred. The Infantry, who had not access to Corps' means of
information, assessed them much lower. Myself, I think eight hundred
would be nearer the mark.

There were great heaps of cartridge-cases, at intervals of fifty yards,
along the trenches, where machine-gunners had clearly been. The spaces
between showed little sign of having been held. From the Turk's point
of view, Tekrit was as satisfactory a battle almost as, from our point
of view, it was unsatisfactory. His gunners and machine-gunners fought
with very great skill and coolness, withdrawing late and rapidly; hence
the great dumps of shell-ammunition which were our only booty. We
should have got the whole force. But no sufficient barrage was kept up
on the lines of retreat during the night; the cavalry's service, though
gallant, was ineffective; the 28th Brigade were not used at the one
point where they might have done the enemy much harm; and Head Quarters
were too far back. The Turks got every gun and machine-gun away. We
captured a hundred boxes of field-gun ammunition, four hundred rifles,
five thousand wooden beams, gun-limbers, boats, bridging material,
buoys, two aeroplanes (one utterly broken up by the enemy, the other
repairable), and a box of propellers, all serviceable. The enemy blew
up three ammunition dumps before retreating.

Fowke had dragged through the campaign with a crocked knee. He now went
into hospital. There J.Y., who always anxiously haunted all
battle-purlieus, fearing for the regiment he loved so well, found him;
and, since he was not ill, obtained permission to feed him with some of
the battalion's Christmas pudding, just arrived. He refreshed him