The action began at 4 p.m. with the usual, as it was the last, bombardment. Sir Ian describes it as “the heaviest we could afford,” and certainly it appeared sufficient to flatten out any trenches. None the less, as was usual from first to last in this campaign, its terrors were deceptive, and the moment that the assaulting parties advanced they were met by overwhelming fire. The Australians on the right were swept back by a whole battery of machine-guns. The Connaught Rangers on the left, though much enfeebled by dysentery, charged upon the northern trenches with their accustomed enthusiasm. Torn by accurate shrapnel as they ran forward, they still fought their way into the first narrow trench, and occupied it by 6 p.m. But all that evening and night, by the light of the crescent moon, the Turks stormed down upon them in successive waves, shouting their battle-cry of “Allah! Allah!” At 10.30 p.m. they bombed and shot the Rangers out of the northern extremity, and drove them along the trench upon the centre. It was in vain that their own reserves (forty-four sick men!) came up to reinforce, and the 9th Light Horse (3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade) attempted about midnight to recapture the position. Only in the centre were the New Zealanders able to cling tight to the 150 yards they had by this time already won. [Sidenote: THE LAST BATTLE] All next day (August 28) the Turkish attacks upon that position continued with repeated violence. The shattered remnants of the Connaught Rangers were withdrawn, but still the New Zealanders held on through the long hours and the next night, until at 1 a.m. on the 29th all that remained of the 10th Light Horse, after their wild assault upon the Nek three weeks before, formed up in the trenches occupied by the New Zealanders, and stormed across the centre of the fortified hill, driving the enemy sheer off the circumference of the western semicircle. The eastern side of the hill was never taken, but our line was advanced till it ran across the summit, and there consolidated. Our loss was about 1000. The Turkish loss was roughly estimated at 5000, and we captured 46 prisoners and a considerable quantity of rifles and ammunition, besides three trench-mortars and three machine-guns. It was not a great action judged by the standard of the battles in the war elsewhere. But it was an action worthy of the persistence, courage, and endurance displayed throughout by Anzacs, Irish, and British upon the Peninsula; and it was the last.