Читать книгу Australia in Palestine - Various - Страница 15

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The mounted troops, moving faster, galloped first through the scattered groves of olives and then pressed forward, still on their horses, amidst the maze of cactus hedges. For our men it was a wonderful day of detached, individual fighting. Exact conformity was impossible. Regiments and squadrons, and even troops, fought wild little hole-and-corner combats of their own. There was much excited steeplechasing over the cactus. At times, our men and the Turks fought each other from either side of a hedge a few paces in width, the enemy on foot and our troops firing from their horses. Then the Light Horse, dismounting, hacked their way through the cactus with their bayonets, and did effective work with the steel. Our machine gunners, advancing in rushes in front and to a flank of the 2nd Brigade, maintained a clever and deadly covering barrage.

The fighting was marked by countless fine incidents. One Light Horse squadron gallantly rushed an important Turkish observation post. The New Zealanders, assisted by a Light Horse troop, took a number of enemy guns. Swinging one of these round, and sighting through the open barrel at point blank range, they demolished with a single shot a stone house containing a number of troublesome Turkish riflemen. By nightfall, both the infantry and mounted troops had won into the outskirts of the town, and captured large numbers of prisoners. But the garrison was still strong, and heavy Turkish reinforcements were closing in rapidly from three directions. We had missed by a hairsbreadth. The fight was broken off and our men, suffering a sense of disappointment scarcely less than that felt at the evacuation of Gallipoli, were withdrawn.