By cutting deep into the steep sides of the wadi they had made several really admirable roads sloping gradually down to the bed and up the other side. The way led through fields of barley now standing almost waist-high. It seemed a monstrous pity that the harvest would never be garnered, that soon it would be crushed by gun-wheels and trodden underfoot by thousands of horses. As we drew nearer the Turkish lines we proceeded with extreme caution lest we ran into their patrols, and shortly after midnight halted, noiselessly unlimbered the guns and dug them in. We had to tie the horses' heads up to prevent them from grazing on the barley around us, and muffled their bits and other steel work on the harness with bits of rag, for the least sound carries a long way in this clear atmosphere. Then, the drivers in each team taking turns to watch their horses, we lay down in the barley and slept. "Zero" was at 0530, when it was just light enough to fire, and by dawn we were up and about, tightening girths and preparing for a quick move, if necessary--in one direction or the other. The Turkish batteries discovered us at the precise moment when we opened fire, possibly a few seconds before, for their first shells arrived and exploded in a smother of barley-stalks and dust ere we had fairly begun. They must have had some previous suspicion of our presence, for they had the range to a yard right from the opening chorus and peppered our position with extraordinary precision. Fortunately for us their guns, like our own, were light field-pieces, or casualties would have been heavy. As it was the Turkish shells destroyed most of the barley in the vicinity without doing any material damage to our guns or horses. After about an hour's steady firing, on the same lines as the strophe and anti-strophe of a Greek chorus--noise and damage about equal, that is--the excitement began in real earnest. The guns were limbered up and we advanced out of the barley fields and galloped under heavy fire across a sandy stretch to a position right in the open. We had a lively half-minute unlimbering the guns. One team advancing into line struck a patch of heavy soil which caused the pace sensibly to decrease. They were lucky, for a shell had previously burst in the exact spot where the gun was unlimbered a second or two later, which would certainly have obliterated the entire team had it not been for that providential patch of heavy ground. Another shell passed underneath an ammunition-waggon, ploughed a deep furrow in the earth and--failed to explode! There were very few "duds," however. The red flashes from the Turkish guns were distinctly visible, and every few seconds their shells exploded in a long line about ten yards in front of our position.