[Illustration: Captured Turkish camel corps]

That night we marched out on Tekrit, and as dawn was breaking were ready
to attack. As the mist cleared, an alarming but ludicrous sight met our
eyes. On the extreme right some caterpillar tractors hauling our "heavies"
were advancing straight on Tekrit, as if they had taken themselves for
tanks. They were not long in discovering their mistake, and amid a mixed
salvo they clumsily turned and made off at their best pace, which was not
more than three miles an hour. Luckily, they soon got under some
excellent defilade, but not until they had suffered heavily.

Our artillery did some good work, but while we were waiting to attack we
suffered rather heavily. We had to advance over a wide stretch of open
country to reach the Turkish first lines. By nightfall the second line of
trenches was practically all in our hands. Meanwhile the cavalry had
circled way around the flank up-stream of Tekrit to cut the enemy off if
he attempted to retreat. The town is on the right bank of the Tigris, and
we had a small force that had come up from Samarra on the left bank, for
we had no means of ferrying troops across. Our casualties during the day
had amounted to about two thousand. The Seaforths had suffered heavily,
but no more so than some of the native regiments. In Mesopotamia there
were many changes in the standing of the Indian battalions. The
Maharattas, for instance, had never previously been regarded as anything
at all unusual, but they have now a very distinguished record to take
pride in. The general feeling was that the Gurkhas did not quite live up
to their reputation. But the Indian troops as a whole did so exceedingly
well that there is little purpose in making comparisons amongst them. At
this time, so I was informed, the Expeditionary Force, counting all
branches, totalled about a million, and a very large percentage of this