had won
a victory and would soon return to Egypt and achieve another, this by
way of keeping the Syrians reassured that success was on the Moslem
side.

In January, 1915, the commander of Turkish troops at Fort Nakhl,
hearing that the Government quarantine station at Tor was undefended,
sent a body of men under two German officers to occupy the place. The
raiders found on their arrival at Tor that about 200 Egyptian soldiers
were in occupation and waited there until they received
reenforcements, which brought their force up to 400 men. For the time
they occupied a small village about five miles north of Tor,
occasionally firing a shot at long range and sending arrogant messages
to the Egyptians. On February 11 a detachment of Ghurkas embarked
secretly from Suez, and advancing over the hills in the rear of the
Turks, surprised their position on the following morning. In the
encounter that followed the Turks were annihilated. Sixty lay dead on
the field, and over a hundred, including a Turkish officer, were made
prisoners. On the British side one Ghurka was killed and another
wounded. It was a disappointment that the German officers and a few
men had left the camp some days before for Abu Zenaima on the coast,
where there was a British-owned manganese mine, which the raiders
damaged as best they could, and then stealing some camels, departed
for the fort at Nakhl.

The failure of the Turks to win any success at that canal, and their
subsequent retreat, had a discouraging influence on the Bedouin
levies, who had joined Djemal Pasha and Hilmi Bey, and they now chose
the first opportunity to vanish with the new rifles that had been
given to them.

For a month the Turks did nothing but keep the British troops occupied
by petty raids and feint attacks, which were worrisome, but better
than utter stagnation.

On March 22, 1915, a Turkish column with guns and cavalry appeared
near the canal near El Kubri, and their advance guard of about 400
encountered a patrol of nine men under Havildar Subha Singh of the
Fifty-sixth Punjab Rifles. The Havildar retired fighting courageously,
holding the enemy back until he had got his men to safety, with a loss
of two killed and three wounded. The Havildar, who was badly wounded
himself, received the Indian Order of Merit and was promoted to
Jemadar. He had inflicted on the enemy a loss of twelve men and
fifteen wounded.

On March 23, 1915, General Sir G. J. Younghusband set out to att