During the night of the 12th December the last preparations were completed. General Marshall concentrated his troops in the forward area from which he was to march on the Hai stream, and General Cobbe got ready to bombard the Turkish trenches on the north of the Tigris, so as to give the impression that the British intended once more to attack Sannaiyat. On the 13th the bombardment opened, and the new campaign had begun. General Maude himself moved his Headquarters some miles forward, and after dark General Marshall’s force, with the Cavalry on their left, struck out across country for the Hai. The night march was carried out without mishap. At 6 A.M. on the morning of the 14th the column had reached its objective unobserved; and the enemy, taken by surprise, made no stand in defence of the stream. It was crossed by General Marshall at Atab, and by the Cavalry a little farther south at Basrujiyeh. The first move of the campaign had been a complete success. The Thirteenth had borne their part in the night march, and owing to the completeness of the surprise had sustained no casualties. They got over the stream unopposed, and without any difficulty, for in their Colonel’s words it was “almost a dry bed,” and after an hour’s rest for watering and feeding the horses they marched northwards up the right bank of the stream with the Cavalry Division, while General Marshall’s Infantry marched up the left bank, the Turks retiring upon their intrenched position covering Kut. The force was, according to Private Massey, shelled by the gunboat _Firefly_, which the Turks had taken during Townshend’s retreat on Kut, but without result. [Illustration: ON THE TIGRIS--JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 1917] But if the enemy had permitted thus easily the seizure by the British of a point on the Hai, they were none the less determined to cling tenaciously to the several strong positions which they still held on the south bank of the Tigris, and two months of severe fighting were yet to take place before they could be dislodged from the last of these. During that time the main fighting had, of course, to be done by the Infantry and guns, but the Cavalry was constantly engaged in covering their flanks, “in reconnaissances, in harassing the enemy’s communications west of the Hai, and in raids, capturing stock and grain.” The letters and diaries of the Thirteenth will be quoted as before to show the work of the mounted arm, and their share in it.