stormed the heights of the Kapanja Sirt on the one side, and took Lala
Baba on the other. Puffs of smoke hung on the hills, and the shore was
all wreathed in the smoke of rifle and machine-gun fire. A deadly
conflict this--for one Turk on the hills was worth ten British down
below on the Salt Lake.

There was no glory. Here was Death, sure enough--Mechanical Death run
amok--but where was the glory?

Here was organised murder--but it was steel-cold! There was no hand-
to-hand glory. A mine dispersed you before you had set foot on dry
land; or a high explosive removed your stomach, and left you a mangled
heap of human flesh, instead of a medically certified, healthy human
being.

Mechanical Death wavered and fluctuated--but it kept going. If it
slackened its murderous fire at one side of the bay, it was only to
burst forth afresh upon the other.

We wondered how it was that we were still alive, when so many lay
dead. Some were killed on the decks of the transports by shrapnel.

Our monitors crept close to the sandy shore, and poured out a deadly
brood of Death.

The crack and crash was deafening, and it literally shook the
air . . . it quivered like a jelly after each shot.

The fighting got more and more inland, and the rattle and crackle
fainter and farther away. But we still watched, fascinated.