There were great heaps of cartridge-cases, at intervals of fifty yards, along the trenches, where machine-gunners had clearly been. The spaces between showed little sign of having been held. From the Turk's point of view, Tekrit was as satisfactory a battle almost as, from our point of view, it was unsatisfactory. His gunners and machine-gunners fought with very great skill and coolness, withdrawing late and rapidly; hence the great dumps of shell-ammunition which were our only booty. We should have got the whole force. But no sufficient barrage was kept up on the lines of retreat during the night; the cavalry's service, though gallant, was ineffective; the 28th Brigade were not used at the one point where they might have done the enemy much harm; and Head Quarters were too far back. The Turks got every gun and machine-gun away. We captured a hundred boxes of field-gun ammunition, four hundred rifles, five thousand wooden beams, gun-limbers, boats, bridging material, buoys, two aeroplanes (one utterly broken up by the enemy, the other repairable), and a box of propellers, all serviceable. The enemy blew up three ammunition dumps before retreating. Fowke had dragged through the campaign with a crocked knee. He now went into hospital. There J.Y., who always anxiously haunted all battle-purlieus, fearing for the regiment he loved so well, found him; and, since he was not ill, obtained permission to feed him with some of the battalion's Christmas pudding, just arrived. He refreshed him, too, with Kirin beer. Thus J.Y.'s last glimpse of him--for Fowke did not return to the battalion--was a happy one. These days were very wretched. Turkish camps are unbelievably filthy; and flies swarmed on the battlefield. We salvaged some miles up beyond Tekrit, with the results already stated. One of the two captured planes was a recovered one of our own, with the enemy black painted over our sign. We had a lot of very enjoyable destruction, including that of the musketry school and barracks, four miles away. Tekrit's chief fame is that Saladin was born just outside it. But it was also an early Christian centre; the town wall is said to be partly the old monastery wall. The town is built on cliffs, which tower very steeply above the Tigris. The inhabitants were keen on trade, taking anything 'not too hot or too heavy'; but were unpleasant and exorbitant beyond any Arabs, even of Mesopotamia. We now held both the Tigris and the Euphrates ends of the caravan route to Hit. G.A. opined that we should drive the enemy in from both ends, till both British forces were shelling each other. However, the Turk ran some seventy miles farther; and our planes did great bombing raids on their camp in the Jebel Hamrin, having the joy of using some of the enemy's own bombs.