"I came to withdraw you, and have had a narrow squeak half a dozen times on the way. The ground between you and our first line, where we've got two or three thousand men strung out anyhow, is frightfully exposed, and the Turks are in strength above. There are no end of snipers concealed in the scrub on each side, and the bottom of the gully is enfiladed; as I tell you, I had the narrowest squeak in getting here."
"We must hold on then?"
"Or risk being heavily cut up. I think we had better stay, though for the life of me I don't see how we can stick it if the Turks locate us. Anyway, I hope it won't be for long. The fellows have chucked away their packs, I see; that means no grub, and there's no water. I'm frightfully dry, but I don't care to take a pull at my water-bottle yet. Every drop may be needed by and by."
"Well, we couldn't have struck a better place for a stand. This gully's a better trench than we could have made in a hurry, bar sandbags. Our handful ought to be able to hold it against anything but artillery. And we can improve it: we'd better start at once before the Turks spot us: I believe they're in pretty strong force above there."
"Righto. Let's have a look round."
The sides of the gully were covered with bushes and small trees. Several of the men had retained their entrenching tools, and Frank set them to lop branches, and others to pull up shrubs by the roots, which the remainder began to weave into a sort of abattis extending across the gully. Before they had been engaged on the task more than a quarter of an hour, the whiz of bullets directly down the gully informed them that the Turks had discovered their position. One or two men were hit, and Frank told off a few to post themselves in the bushes and snipe in return. Their flanks were protected against an attack in force, on one side by a stretch of fairly open ground commanded from the position of the Australians below them, and on the other by the tangled vegetation through which to advance seemed impossible. It gave cover for innumerable snipers, it is true; but it served also as a screen to the occupants of the gully on a much lower level. As an additional defence against attack from up the gully Frank ordered some of the men to throw up a rampart behind the abattis, a task which the soft nature of the rock rendered comparatively easy.
But the traverse was only half finished when there came a warning shout from a man above--
"Here they come!"
Round a bend in the gully some distance higher up a compact mass of swarthy Turks surged down towards them. At a word from Frank the men dropped their tools and posted themselves behind the obstruction, taking all the cover its unfinished state afforded, each man looking steadily over his rifle sight.
"Wait for the word," said Frank at one end of the line.