The Turks never once tried to shell our front line, but spent all their attentions on the town and the Fort. A tremendous "hate" preceded their attack on the latter on Christmas Eve. They succeeded in blowing a breach in the mud wall of the Fort in the north-east bastion, and afterwards assaulted with great dash. Fighting was extremely fierce and the Turks lost very heavily from our machine-guns. There was much hand bombing, this being the only occasion during the siege when fighting at close quarters took place. After gaining a footing through the breach into our trenches, the Turks were dislodged, but came on again later, and at midnight, December 24th, were still in possession of the north-east bastion. However, they thought better of it, and by the morning of December 25th had all disappeared again. As a result of this fighting, we had about 400 casualties, while the Turks were said to have lost 2,000. Be that as it may, they never made another attack on our lines. Khalil Pasha, the Turkish commander, was said afterwards to have told one of the British generals that he was just preparing another tremendous attack at the end of January, meaning to smash his way into Kut at any cost, when the floods intervened, and drove him back over half a mile, while we had also to return to the "middle" line--our second line trench some 300 yards behind the first. He stated that he was prepared to lose 10,000 in the attempt. Christmas Day passed peacefully, much to our satisfaction, and from now onwards there was great speculation as to the day of relief. We knew that General Aylmer's force was to start during the first days of January, and it was predicted that by January 9th or 10th the siege would be over. By the first week in January, all fresh meat was finished, but for a time we had "bully." The Relieving Force suffered its first serious check at Shaik Saad and never arrived, as we had hoped. There was nothing to be done but to carry on and wait till next time. The weather now was cold and wet and the trenches often knee deep in mud and water. Kut itself was in a filthy state, the streets being a sea of mud after every downpour. The Tigris was steadily rising throughout January and by the 20th was near the top of the bund running along the bank. Heavy rain on this day and the next, together with the rise in the river, was responsible for flooding out the Turks' front line. They managed, however, to turn the water over towards us, with the result that we, also, were drowned out of the corresponding part of our line, the effect of this being that there was now a good distance between the new front lines. For two days we could walk about in the open, and were much interested in seeing the old Turkish trenches, and taking all possible firewood in the shape of old ammunition boxes from their loopholes. We found that one of their saps was only forty yards from our trench, and many were the bombs they had thrown which just fell short.