air and made it difficult to clearly distinguish things.) Of course a Regiment in this order covers a lot of ground and takes a certain amount of time to get its formation, and even before the formation was complete a shell bursting on our left warned me that we were seen, and that the enemy had at least one gun, and made me wonder whether the convoy was just a convoy, or whether it was not a gun or two with their ammunition-carts. At this time too, rifle-fire was opened on us from apparently a trench, for no Infantry were then visible, a few hundred yards to the front of the leading squadron; at the same time I heard rifle-fire well away to our left, showing that the advance-guard was coming into touch with the enemy. All this convinced me that we were up against a much bigger thing than the scattered bands of Turks reported by the aeroplanes and armoured cars, but already the leading squadron was on top of the first line of Turks, and the latter, about forty or fifty in number, were already running for all they were worth, or standing with their hands up. Some of these latter, I am told, picked up their rifles after we had passed and fired into our backs, but very few of that first lot reached their friends; they were either “stuck” or taken prisoners. In the meantime our impetus had carried us on two or three hundred yards, and into a very heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, from what I took to be a big nullah or water-cut some eight hundred yards to our front. Men and horses were dropping right and left, so I tried to wheel them right-handed and backwards until we had crossed the trench, or as it proved, small water-cut, from which the Turks had first opened fire on us. Having crossed that, I halted the remnants of the three squadrons (‘C’ Squadron was still operating by itself out on the right) some three or four hundred yards farther on, dismounted them, sent the horses back out of rifle-range, and advanced on foot until we had reached this trench originally held by the Turks, and which was still full of their equipment and rifles. I may say here that the test to which I put these squadrons--viz., of halting and dismounting under fire, and when the squadrons were all mixed up and actually retiring at a gallop, albeit a slow one--was a very high one, and the way in which they responded was beyond all praise. It was only when we reached the Turkish trench that we were able to take a breather and take stock, and then only did I fully realise the cost of our ride. Major Twist, I heard, was hit, though slightly; Captain Eve was missing, and it was feared killed; Captain Dawson missing, Lieutenants Rolfe, Pinnington, and Lynch Staunton missing, and Welstead hit; my trumpet-major killed, and my orderly badly wounded, and a number of sergeants and men missing. It was patent to me that the men who were missing must be lying, if hit, between us and the big nullah in which the Turks were, and that our only chance of getting to them