As it was, owing to the delay of changed command, and to co-operation with a Brigadier in another Division, with whom Hill, having just come from Mitylene, was probably unacquainted, Hill’s column did not begin to leave Lala Baba for the sandy spit till noon. The march across that unprotected spit was a trying passage. The Irishmen (6th Inniskilling Fusiliers, 5th and 6th Royal Irish Fusiliers, of the 31st Brigade, and 6th and 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers of the 30th Brigade) had started closely packed together for their long sea voyage on the previous afternoon; except for a cup of tea at 3 a.m. and a snatch of their rations after landing, they were empty of food; for some hours they had stood uncertain under a blazing sun and exposed for the first time to shrapnel, often fatal and continually unnerving. The Turkish guns on Anafarta and W Hills had carefully registered the sandy spit, and now swept it with shrapnel from end to end. For sleepless, hungry, and miserably thirsty men, loose sand is the worst of trials. They crossed in batches, or “by a section at a time rushing over.”[184] [Sidenote: HILL’S ADVANCE ROUND SALT LAKE] As each battalion arrived after this ordeal, it formed up under the slight cover of the sand dunes about Hill 10, but it was 3 p.m. before all the five mustered there and Hill could organise the attack upon Chocolate Hill, which was to have been completed before dawn. Keeping only the 6th Dublin Fusiliers in reserve, he pushed the other four battalions forward across the dry bed of the Asmak on the north side of the Salt Lake, and began the difficult movement of wheeling the whole force southward through the open country round the lake shore. It was thus marching across the enemy’s front--an operation of proverbial risk. The farther it advanced, the more exposed the left flank became. Sitwell, as senior officer, was, as we have seen, in command of the 34th and 32nd Brigades, which had lain so many hours under the sand dunes. He was now, indeed, in sole command, since Haggard had been seriously wounded at noon. But he considered he was justified in sparing only two battalions in support (6th Lincolns and 6th Borders, which, however, belonged to the 33rd Brigade and must have been sent over from Lala Baba by their Brigadier-General Maxwell under General Hammersley’s order). Even these two appear to have been moved too late to protect the left flank, for Hill was compelled to defend it, as it was “in air,” by deploying the 5th Royal Irish Fusiliers (Colonel Pike, an excellent officer, who was with the regiment in Ladysmith) and advancing them so as to face half-left. An increasing gap was thus formed between left and right as the force slowly wheeled round the lake, and the 7th Dublins had to be brought up to fill it.