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Driven to despair, he determined to leave Paris, and as Grand Combe seemed too near in his frenzied longing for flight, he asked and obtained an appointment as overseer on the Suez Canal at Ismailia.
The result of his inquiries that morning was that he found he could by starting the next night catch the mail which would bear him and his friends, travelling night and day, to Brindisi for southern Italy, where the mail steamer would be waiting to take them on to Ismailia.
The pilot who is on board now takes us to Ismailia, half-way down, and then another replaces him as far as Suez, where the canal ends. Every ship over one hundred tons is compelled to carry a pilot, who is responsible for her while she is in the difficult channel.
The morning of February 3, 1915, the Turks advanced on the Ismailia Ferry, then held by Sikhs, Punjabi Rifles, a battery of Indian mountain artillery and Australian engineers, digging shelter pits as they moved forward, covered by two field batteries. Their advance was stopped by the British guns when they had come within 1,000 yards of the outpost line.
Benton worked his way slowly to San Francisco through the Far East. It is not difficult to avoid newspapers between Ismaïlia and Manila, and with the dogged determination to let the day set by Cara answer all questions of his future, he had neither sought nor received tidings from Galavia. He had not permitted himself great indulgence in hope.
On its northern shore is the town of Ismaïlia, having about two thousand inhabitants, which has become a place of some importance. The railroad from Cairo is extended to it by a branch, the main line following the canal to Suez.
"She sleeps, monsieur, in the white sands of Ismailia, beside the bitter lake. I trust that madame can now go on with the respectable 'Catherine." And with an ironic reverence to Mrs. Eustace Greyne she placed her hand in Abdallah Jack's and vanished from the room. "Catherine's Repentance," published in a gigantic volume not many weeks ago, was preceded by Mr. Eustace Greyne's.
One carried away the funnel and the other burst inboard doing much damage. Two of the crew were killed and nine wounded. George Carew, the pilot, lost a leg, but continued on duty and helped to bring the injured vessel into Ismailia. The French coast guard battleship Requin came now under the Turkish fire, but her 10.8-inch guns soon silenced the enemy's batteries.
The Turks succeeded in getting their guns into action for a very short while. One of the men-of-war in the Canal was hit; several houses in Ismaïlia suffered damage; but the invaders were soon driven away in confusion, leaving perhaps two thousand prisoners in the hands of the English. If the latter had chosen to do so, they could have annihilated the Turkish forces then and there.
He was told: 'You are a disgrace to the Manchester Regiment. He replied: 'I shall never let that be said of me, rose to climb over, and was blown to bits by a shell. Whitley carried a badly wounded man a long way under fire. Creery did splendidly." It may be added that Whitley's act was afterwards recognised by an award of the Military Cross. He became Staff Captain at Ismailia.
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