“We were now on the right bank of the river Diala, and I kept no notes of daily events, but we had many severe engagements with the enemy. It was on Easter Sunday or Monday that we met the Turkish army coming out of the Jebel Hamrin Range. We were then at Deli Abbas. It was the 1st and 3rd troops of ‘D’ Squadron which bore the first shock of the Turkish attack, but we were greatly outnumbered, and retired only in the nick of time under a hail of bullets. A few horses came down; one man was killed and two wounded. My riding-horse got away, so I jumped on top of the pack-horse, but the gun-case had not been properly strapped up and the Hotchkiss gun fell out; but No. 5 on the gun, a man named Cartwright, who was riding behind, dismounted and picked it up, and I halted and it was put in the case again. We continued to retreat for several days, but it was part of a clever scheme; the Infantry meant to get in between them and the hills from which they came. The Infantry, however, came up too close, and the Turks retired again, before our Infantry could get behind them, but they suffered heavy losses in the retreat back to the hills. It was during these twenty-five days on the Diala that our horses suffered more than in the whole fighting up from Kut. We could only water once a day, and many a time I have felt faint from thirst and chewed grass for moisture, as well as wild oats and barley.” A few days later the writer was sent on leave to India, and his diary comes to an end. _Letter from 2nd Lieutenant F. Norman Payne--March 25, 1917._--“After the Regiment getting nicely settled down to their garrison work they were suddenly ordered away, and are now seventy miles beyond Baghdad. “Poor chaps may be out weeks and weeks, and already have been five weeks without any kit, it all still being at Bassouia Camp.[55] The boats coming up river are fully laden and won’t stop to pick up anything like that.” [Illustration: DEPARTURE FROM BAGHDAD] [Illustration: DEAD TURKS] [Illustration: CAPTURED ARABS AWAITING EXECUTION THE DIALA AND KHALIS CANAL CAMPAIGN] * * * * * _From Private Hugh H. Mortimer to his Mother, April 3, 1917._ ON THE TREK, 3. 4. 17.