As he alighted, the Jelus rushed up to finish him off, for they were not noted for being over-merciful to Turks falling into their hands. But seeing that he was English, they embraced him as a preliminary, and then carried him shoulder-high into the city. He was the hero of the hour. The people were delirious with joy, and women crowded round and insisted on kissing the much-embarrassed aviator. As the weather was very hot, Pennington was wearing the regulation khaki shorts. One Nestorian woman, after gazing compassionately at the airman's bare, sunburnt legs, and noting the brevity of his nether garment, shook her head sadly and said she had not realized till then that the British, too, were feeling the effects of the War and were suffering from a {168} shortage of clothing material. There was a whispered consultation with some sister-Nestorians, and a committee was formed to remedy the shortcomings of Pennington's kit. The women ripped loose their own skirts and, arming themselves with needles and cotton, pleaded to be allowed to fashion complete trousers for the aviator, or at least to be permitted to elongate by a yard or so the pair of unmentionables he was wearing. The youth blushed furiously, and was at great pains to explain that there was still khaki in England, and that it was convenience, and not any scarcity of material, that had caused the ends of his trousers to shrink well above his knees. Pennington flew back from Urumia, and it was arranged that the Jelus with their women and children were to march south by way of Ushnu and Sain Kaleh to meet a British relieving force moving up from Hamadan and Bijar. Early in August Osborne had several brushes with the Turks on the Tabriz road. The enemy flooded our lines with spies, chiefly Persians from Tabriz, and pushed reconnoitring patrols as far south as Haji Agha, forty miles from Tabriz. In these road skirmishes our Persian levies behaved with their characteristic unsteadiness. Once they were fired upon by hidden infantry at seven hundred yards, they forgot their promised display of valour, their courage oozed out at their boots, and they promptly bolted. An aerial reconnaissance revealed detachments of cavalry, artillery, and infantry marching {169} south along the Tabriz road, but Headquarters in Bagdad refused to attach any importance to this concentration, and for the moment were deaf to Wagstaff's reiterated demand for reinforcements, and especially for a mountain gun or two. Captain Osborne and his party now dug themselves in at Tikmadash, about fifty miles from Mianeh and a corresponding distance from Tabriz, and fixed his headquarters in a serai close to the village which commanded the Tabriz road. There was a supporting British post at Karachaman not far from the main Tabriz road and fourteen miles to the south-east.