Some 60 men had got over, and these joined up and started bombing along the bank. They were soon heavily pressed by the Turks on both flanks, and found themselves between two woods. Here they discovered a providential natural position. A break in the river bund had been repaired by a new bund built in a half-moon on the landward side. This formed a perfect lunette. The Lancashire men, surrounded on all sides but the river, held it through the night, all the next day, and the next night against repeated and determined attacks. Those attacks were delivered in the dark or at dawn. The Turks only attacked once in the daylight, as our machine guns on the other bank swept the ground in front of the position. Twenty yards west of the lunette there was a thin grove of mulberries and palms. The pontoon was most vulnerable on this side, and it was here that the Turkish counter-attacks were most frequent. Our intense intermittent artillery fire day and night on the wood afforded some protection. The whole affair was visible to our troops on the south side, who were able to make themselves heard by shouting. Attempts to get a cable across with a rocket for the passage of ammunition failed. At midnight on the 9th and 10th the Turks were on top of the parapet, but were driven back. One more determined rush would have carried the lunette, but the little garrison, now reduced to 40, kept their heads and maintained cool control of their fire. A corporal was seen searching for loose rounds and emptying the bandoliers of the dead. In the end they were reduced almost to their last clip and one bomb, but we found over 100 Turkish dead outside the redoubts when they were relieved at daylight. The crossing on the night of the 9th and 10th was entirely successful. With our cavalry and two columns of infantry working round on the right bank the Turks were in danger of being cut off, as at Sanna-i-Yat. Before midnight they had withdrawn their machine guns, leaving only riflemen to dispute the passage. The crossing upstream was a surprise. We slipped through the Turkish guard. He had pickets at both ends of the river salient where we dropped our pontoons. But he overlooked essential points in it which offered us dead ground uncovered by posts up and down stream. Consequently our passage here lost us no lives. The other ferry near the bridge was also crossed with slight loss, owing to a diversion up-stream. The Turks, perceiving that their flank was being turned, effected a general retirement of the greater part of their garrison between the two ferries. Some 250 in all, finding us bombing down on both flanks, surrendered. The upper crossing was so unexpected that one Turk was actually bayonetted as he lay covering the opposite bank with his rifle.