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So hot did it become that once the horses were called up to bring the battery out of action; it was impossible to approach within a hundred yards, however indeed, as soon as the teams appeared out of the nullah in which the waggon-line had been placed the Turks instantly turned their guns on to them and shelled them out of sight again.
The next morning we were in marching order betimes, and started with the determination of joining our regiment as early in the day as possible. We overtook them about nine o'clock, just as they had crossed a nullah, and had halted on the opposite bank.
The beast of prey skulking back to his lair, the stag quenching his thirst ere retiring to the depths of the forest, the wedge of wild fowl flying with trumpet notes to some distant lake, the vulture hastening in heavy flight to the carrion that night has provided, the crane flapping to the shallows, and the jackal shuffling along to his shelter in the nullah, have each and all their portent to the initiated eye.
After a long search, beating the same ground over and over again, an elephant trod on the dead body lying under the trampled canes, and the mahout got down and discovered her lying quite dead. She was a large animal and full grown. On another occasion George was after a fine male tiger. He was following up fast, but coming to a broad nullah, full of water, he suddenly lost sight of his game.
After tracking the wounded bear for about 200 yards through the high grass and jungle, we came to a tolerably deep nullah, where we expected to find the animal lying down. Instead of this, we discovered another large piece of fractured thigh bone, which proved that the hollow Express bullet, although '577, had broken up upon striking the bone, instead of penetrating throughout the body.
It took the fresh troops the best part of an hour to climb up; and when the five regiments of infantry, the Highlanders, English, Sikhs, and Ghoorkhas, stood massed in the nullah, General Kempster helioed to the guns, asking three minutes' concentrated fire on the summit. There were two ways to reach the cover where the company of Ghoorkhas had been lying, for three hours.
Waddell, the N.C.O. of the party, doing splendid work, had the barricade completed by 4 o'clock, which rendered the passage across the nullah from the exit of the tunnel to the trench quite secure. Another small party whose work was to establish a dump for stores and ammunition went forward under the charge of Lieut. Turner and C.Q.M.S. Stewart. Lieut.
This was a difficult sector for the Quartermaster and his men. Setting out from rest camp each evening with the rations and mails when there were any loaded on mules, they ran the gauntlet across the open to a point where they entered the Mule trench, which ran up the side of the Achi Baba nullah. This trench was not wide enough for pack-animals to pass in it.
To the eye it was as if a large slice had been cut out of the earth's crust, leaving a tapering cavity not unlike the shape of a battleship; fortunately, however, the floor was fairly flat and even. The engineers immediately seized upon the nullah and proceeded to transform it into a gigantic reservoir.
It will be remembered that this company had been sent to support the 6th H.L.I. That battalion's task was to seize the Turkish trenches on the west bank of the Achi Baba nullah trenches officially designated F11, F12 and F12A. Our capture of these would protect the left flank of the E trenches the objective of the remainder of the attack which would otherwise be left very open to counter-attack from the west of the nullah.
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