"It was now 3 p.m., so we went back down the canal to finish off some boats which the Turks had abandoned inshore on the east bank. As the 3-pounder could not get on to these, we landed and blew up two. To get at the third boat it was necessary to go up a gully some fifty yards inland, where we could see the bow sticking up. The enemy held this bank, so, of course, we were under fire the whole time. I called for volunteers, and a sub-lieutenant and a petty officer landed with me in a dinghy. We left an A.B. in her, and darted up with our gun-cotton charge. I went ahead and got up to the boat, when I saw five Turkish soldiers on the other side about ten yards away. I stepped round the boat to have a shot at them, and fell into a trench full of Turks. You never saw any one so surprised in your life as they were, and I myself confess to a certain astonishment. "I was too close to them to allow them to get their rifles on me, and, realizing that every second was of value, I gave one whoop and dived out of the trench. The sub-lieutenant shot a fellow who stuck his head over to pot me, and all three of us trekked back to the dinghy under a heavy fire at about thirty yards range. The Australian and Indian troops holding the west bank opened fire to cover our retreat, as did also the torpedo boat. It really seemed as if the air was full of lead--one long, continuous whistle overhead, and the sand all round flying up in spurts. I was still laughing from the comic expressions I had seen on the faces of the Turks in the trench; nevertheless, I got over the ground like a two-year-old. We had thirty yards to row to the torpedo boat, and, would you believe it? we all got aboard untouched. I did not blow up that boat, as I saw it had already been riddled with bullets from the other bank." [Footnote 5: Plural of _fellah_, an Egyptian or Syrian peasant.] [Illustration: Men of "Princess Pat's" Canadian Light Infantry on the March. _Photo, Central Press._] CHAPTER V. WINTER WARFARE ON THE WESTERN FRONT.--I. Now we must return to the battle front in the West, and see how the Allies fared during the months of January and February. You will remember that when the year 1914 closed the rival armies were facing each other in trenches which extended over well-nigh 500 miles--from the North Sea across the flats of Flanders, through the coalfield of North France, along the ups and downs of the Oise Valley and the heights of the Aisne, through the Forest of Argonne into Lorraine, along every high valley of the Vosges, right through Alsace to within sight of Alpine snows. The cold and storms of winter had put an end to operations on a large scale, but scarcely a day passed without artillery duels and local attacks.