I sprinted over to the cover of a wall in the centre of the palm wood, and following it came across a gun-limber on end used sometimes as an observation post. It was protected by a few sandbags in front. I found the sergeant-major carrying on, the subaltern just hit being in a dug-out near by, where he was left until the "strafe" was over. The sergeant-major asked me to take better cover as several casualties had just occurred. I am now writing the first pages of this account from the identical dug-out near the limber. For hours I could not leave the post. The telephonist lay huddled underneath the wheels and orders coming by wire from the major I shouted on by megaphone to the battery, which was dug in thirty yards in front. Later on, reporting myself to my C.O. and the colonel of the brigade, I was laughed at for coming across the open, and they were astonished at my arriving at all. "It's a miracle you weren't knocked over," was the colonel's comment. The fire slackened and fell to mere sniping. I looked around. The battery had excellent gun-pits, sandbagged in front. The dug-outs were very well built, the roofs being supported by beams and trees. Each detachment had its own dug-out, and the men had furnished them snugly with old horse-rugs and rush curtains and ammunition boxes inlaid into the walls. Our chief zone was directly up river. My own dug-out was built up rather than dug out, being constructed against a _mutti_ wall which we believed was shell proof until one day three shells plugged straight through near by. Then we dug down. The mess was a very thick-walled building and heavily sandbagged. It also formed brigade headquarters. To get to the mess from the battery or from one's dug-out, one had to run the gauntlet through the incessant sharp music of rifle bullets cracking against trees or branches. As a rule, we one and all arrived in the mess breathless from an ever-improving sprint. This, of course, and also the going from here to Kut, will be better when the communication trenches have been dug. On the same evening at dinner a native servant brought in most startling news that a bullet had gone through the last barrel of beer. But jubilation succeeded dismay when we found that a gunner, with the instinct of the British soldier for preserving anything in the "victuals" line, had turned the barrel over. The bullet had entered near the ground, so quite three-quarters was saved. I hear on good authority that the gunner will get the D.C.M. We are almost out of anything drinkable and the siege may go on several weeks.