In the middle of the afternoon they received orders to prepare to move, with the exception of one Squadron which was to garrison the positions. They moved off almost immediately, passing down the steep northern slope of the plateau and forcing their way through the dense thicket until they reached the bottom of the hollow. They turned to the right and jostled their way up through the struggling traffic along the narrow, suffocating bed of the ravine. There were places where many fine fellows had been laid low by snipers, places where they hurried, if possible. There were times when they were jammed between mules and the banks, and others when they had to wait many minutes for opportunities of pushing on. After an hour of this sort of thing, they came practically to the head of the ravine, and pushed into the scrub on one side to make temporary bivouacs.
Here all slacked and rested their weary bodies, stretched out full length under the stunted bushes. Weak, most of them, with dysentery when the battle started, they had now had two days of it, and with the heat, the short commons of water, and little sleep, they felt a wee bit tired, and they made the most of the short hours.
The cool of evening came again, and with it orders to prepare for further movements, this time to the firing line in support of their own men on the summit of the hills above. They made the best possible meal from the dry rations, dry enough when there was unlimited water, but quite impossible to more than nibble in these almost waterless days. Mac did not feel very hungry; but he had room inside his thin frame for a tankful of water. He had started on Friday evening with a liberally rum-tinctured bottleful, which had since been restocked with water as strongly tainted with petrol. For the purpose of the advance, sealed petrol tins of water had been brought from Alexandria, but the fillers of the tins seemed to have paid no particular attention as to whether they had first been emptied of petrol. His bottle was almost half-empty, and he did not care for the prospect of going up to those struggling lines without a fresh supply; but, just in time, a mule train came up with full fantassas, and he got a half-bottle.
When dusk had almost deepened to darkness they joined the surging traffic of mules, men and stretchers on the dusty track, and filed laboriously up the steep hill. The din of battle heightened with the deepening night. Indian mountain batteries barked furiously behind them, and the heavier artillery sent shells shrieking up from far below, to burst somewhere up there where the crest stood silhouetted against the stars. From above came the incessant roar of bursting bombs and shells and rattle of musketry. At dawn the summit had been gained, but just how good or bad our position was Mac had not the vaguest idea. He had not heard of, nor had he seen any progress, except the taking of this summit, since Saturday morning, and had no idea as to whether the battle was progressing favourably or otherwise. What was expected of them up there to-night none knew. Each carried a pick or a shovel and two bombs.
They passed the dressing-stations, perched on either side on the steep slope, where hundreds of wounded lay, then over a ridge where the track stopped and out into the pitch black open. The bullets zipped past or thudded into the ground. The troop lay down while they got their bearings. A fellow close by Mac gave a yell and was dead. A few wounded men, limping or crawling back, passed them. Then in extended order they went forward again, guided by a telephone wire, keeping touch with difficulty in the scrub and the darkness. Frequently there would come from the blackness in front of their feet a warning "Keep clear o' me, cobber, I'm wounded," or groans and the gleam of a white bandage, and sometimes they stumbled over prone still forms. Slowly they picked their way forward, making towards the centre of the firing, which was in a semicircle round them, and the whistling bullets came from both sides as well as from in front, and the din grew fiercer. They reached at length a hollow full of wounded, then went slowly up a slope littered with equipment and dead, and, at last, topping the rise, they came upon a scene so weird and infernal that Mac instantly stopped and stared with awe.
Lit fantastically by flickering flames which were licking slowly through the scrub was a small ghastly, battle-rent piece of ground, not one hundred yards in width and rising slightly. Beyond and close on either side, it was bounded by the starry heavens, and seemed a strange, detached dreamland where men had gone mad. The Turks lined the far edge, their ghostly faces appearing and vanishing in the eerie light, as they poured a point-blank fusillade at the shattered series of shallow holes where the remnants of the New Zealanders were fighting gallantly. Sweeping round to the left was the flashing semicircle of the enemy line, bombs exploded with a lurid glare, their murky pall drifting slowly back towards Mac. Shells came whirring up from the black depths behind, and burst beyond the further lip. Above the rending of the bombs, the rattle and burr of the rifles and machine-guns and the crash of shells, sometimes sounded faintly men's voices—the weird "Allah, Allah, Allah" of the enemy in a chanted cadence, and the fierce half-humorous taunts of the attackers.
Everywhere lay dead and dying men—mostly the former, Turkish and British. Equipment and rifles were strewn in the greatest confusion over the torn earth, and all the time the creeping flames cast weird lights upon the passing drama.
"Say, old boy," came a voice from his feet, "you'd better not stand there too long—it's pretty thick."
Mac leaned down to the wounded man, and found him one of the Aucklands.
"It's been simply blanky hell up here all day and now I'm just waiting
for them to give me a hand out. You boys have come up none too soon.
Mind you give the devils hell!"
"You there with the pick," Mac found himself addressed, "get over to those holes up front there and dig in for all you're blanky well worth."