thorn-bush.

I tried the right flank, but with the same effect. And now he began
shooting through my thorn-bush on the chance of hitting me.

Behind me was a dense undergrowth of thorn, wild-rose bramble,
thistle, willow and sage.

I turned about and crawled through this tangle, until at last I came
out, scratched and dishevelled and sweating, into the old water-
course.

The firing-line was only a few hundred yards away, and the bullets
from a Turkish maxim went wailing over my head, dropping far over by
the Engineers whom I had passed.

I wanted to find those wounded, and I wanted to get past that open
space, and I wanted above all to dodge that sniper. The old scouting
instincts of the primitive man came calling me to try my skill against
the skill of the Turk. I sat there wiping away blood from the
scratches and sweat from my forehead and trying to think of a way
through.

I looked at the mountains on my left--the lower ridge of the Kapanja
Sirt--and saw how the water-course went up and up and in and out, and
I thought if I kept low and crawled round in this ditch I should come
out at last close behind the firing-line, and then I could get in
touch with the trenches. I could hear the machine-gun of the M--'s
rattling and spitting.