lost, and after nearly running over the edge of the bluff, gave up the
attempt, and slowly worked our way back.

When we started off on the advance I was reading Xenophon's _Anabasis_. On
the day when we were ordered to march on Tekrit a captain of the Royal
Flying Corps, an ex-master at Eton, was in the mess, and when I told him
that I was nearly out of reading matter, he said that next time he came
over he would drop me Plutarch's _Lives_. I asked him to drop it at corps
headquarters, and that a friend of mine there would see that I got it. The
next day in the heat of the fighting a plane came over low, signalling
that it was dropping a message. As the streamer fell close by, there was a
rush to pick it up and learn how the attack was progressing. Fortunately,
I was far away when the packet was opened and found to contain the book
that the pilot had promised to drop for me.

After we had been occupying the town for a few days, orders came through
to prepare to fall back on Samarra. The line of communication was so long
that it was impossible to maintain us, except at too great a cost to the
transportation facilities possessed by the Expeditionary Forces. Eight or
ten months later, when we had more rails in hand, a line was laid to
Tekrit, which had been abandoned by the Turks under the threat of our
advance to Kirkuk, in the Persian hills. It was difficult to explain to
the men, particularly to the Indians, the necessity for falling back. All
they could understand was that we had taken the town at no small cost, and
now we were about to give it up.

For several days I was busy helping to prepare rafts to take down the
timber and such other captured supplies as were worth removing. The river
was low, leaving a broad stretch of beach below the town, and to this we
brought down the poles. Several camels had died near the water, probably