Perhaps owing to this delay, or perhaps by plan, the main body of Otago Mounted Rifles did not follow up the Chailak Dere, but crossed it near the mouth, and turning sharply to the right a little farther on, advanced to assault the mass of low and complicated hill already known as Bauchop’s owing to his reconnaissance. Nature and military art had entrenched the position throughout, and it was intersected criss-cross by deep ravines. But the Turks did not hold it strongly. Startled by the Otago men, who worked round their right flank and attacked from the north side, they began to clear out of the bivouacs in which they had long lived in fairly comfortable leisure and were now surprised. At the first assault, Lieut.-Colonel A. Bauchop, while shouting, “Come on, boys! Charge!” fell mortally wounded by a bullet in the spine. The army thus lost one of its most capable officers, and a man of exceptionally attractive nature, who for months had commanded a position of great risk and responsibility. The occupation of the hill or system of ravines was completed just after 1 a.m. (August 7). The task set the Right Covering Force was accomplished. [Illustration: BIG TABLE TOP] [Sidenote: CLIMBING OF RHODODENDRON RIDGE] Half an hour after midnight the Right Assaulting Column was thus enabled to begin its advance up the two Deres. As above mentioned, its main force was the New Zealand Infantry Brigade (Brigadier-General F. E. Johnston). The Canterbury Battalion proceeded alone up the Sazli Beit Dere, and met with small difficulty except from the nature of the ground, which, indeed, was so intricate that half the battalion lost its way and found itself back at the starting-point.[163] In consequence, Colonel J. G. Hughes could not muster the battalion for the ascent of the main spur (Rhododendron Ridge, at first called Canterbury Ridge) till just before dawn. The other three battalions (Otago, Auckland, and Wellington, in that order) advancing up the Chailak Dere were equally hampered by the obscure and tangled country. They also encountered violent opposition, which compelled the leading battalion to deploy in the darkness. Some of the troops were told off to assist the covering force on their left in finally clearing Bauchop’s Hill and another smaller eminence known as Little Table Top.[164] But pushing steadily forward, the three battalions succeeded, though late, in joining up with the Canterbury Battalion on the lower slopes of the main Rhododendron Ridge, which ran straight up to the right or southern shoulder of Chunuk Bair, now deep purple against the rising sun.