, the garrison of the Zeit?n post successfully held out all night against repeated attacks. The Turks were again reinforced during the night, however, and next morning, as it was clear that the little garrison could not hope to hold out any longer, it was withdrawn. The enemy immediately occupied the Zeit?n ridge, the possession of which gave him command over our positions, and necessitated a withdrawal of our line. On the left flank the 22nd Brigade was thrown back, covering Beit Ur el Tahta, and the line then ran from that village, through Beit Ur el Foka, to about El Tire. The right flank of the division was in exiguous and intermittent touch with the 52nd Division. The left was entirely 'in the air nuskin hong kong.'
Throughout the day Turkish troops were moving to the north, and making their way westwards towards the gap in our line west of Beit Ur el Tahta. Large parties continually attacked the Yeomanry at different points, thus preventing the division from making any effective change of dispositions to meet the threatened envelopment.
The 7th Mounted Brigade, which was in Corps Reserve at Zernuka, and the Australian Mounted Division, resting at El Mejdel, were ordered up. Both made forced marches during the night of the 27th, and the former arrived at Beit Ur el Tahta at five in the morning of the 28th, just in time to[Pg 114] help the 22nd Mounted Brigade to repulse a heavy attack from the north Elevit.
A brigade of the 52nd Division was sent to reinforce the exposed left flank of the Yeomanry Division, but, before it arrived there, a small party of Turks with some machine guns walked quietly through the gap between the Yeomanry Division and the 54th, and took up a position overlooking the Berfilya track. Later in the morning, a section of the Yeomanry Divisional Ammunition Column, coming up the road from Ramleh with sorely needed ammunition for the division, was ambushed by the Turks and utterly destroyed. A motor cyclist going down to Ramleh reached the scene immediately afterwards, and, seeing the wrecked wagons and the dead men and horses on the road, swung round his machine, and raced back again as fast as the track would allow. The Turks opened fire with their machine guns, but failed to hit him, and he carried the news back to the division that the road was cut. A detachment from the brigade of the 52nd, which had been sent up to cover this flank, pushed ahead, and drove off this party of Turks. The brigade then attacked the village of Suffa, which was full of enemy troops, in order to try and relieve the pressure on the left of the Yeomanry Division, but the Turks were found in too great strength to be dislodged. Fortunately, however, they made no further attempt to penetrate through the gap, probably because they were really unaware of its existence. Positions on both sides were exceedingly ill-defined, owing to the impossibility of digging trenches in the solid rock, of which most of the hill and ridge tops were composed. Very heavy fighting continued throughout the day, but the enemy, though continually reinforced, was unable to break our line dermes vs medilase.
Frederick was therefore enabled to gaze unhindered at the Oriental beauty. He bowed low over his horse's mane, and was delighted to see that not only was his salutation graciously responded to, but that, moreover, the lady, raising one of her small jeweled hands to her “yashmak,” pulled it slightly aside so as to discover to his enraptured eyes a face so perfectly lovely that he was fairly staggered. She smiled enchantingly at him, and, putting the tips of her fingers to her rosy lips, motioned him away with a look full of promise. Frederick would fain have drawn nearer to the carriage, but the coachman suddenly started his horses off at a sharp trot, and there was nothing for him to do but to resume his canter out to the Pyramids and to receive with a smile the angry glances of his friend the eunuch, whom he passed shortly afterward .
Neither the Sphinx nor the Pyramids possessed much attraction for Frederick that day, and his stay out at Gezireh [Pg 46] was but a short one. He was in a hurry to get back into town. He was perfectly wild with delight at the idea of his adventure. Who could the beautiful creature be? He had noticed a princess' coronet on the panels of the carriage, and the black horses and glittering liveries of the coachman, footman, and of the two grooms would lead to belief that they belonged to a member of the Khedival family. Moreover, the eunuch in attendance was certainly a person of high rank, a fact which was demonstrated by the ribbon of the Order of the “Osmanieh” which he wore in his button-hole.
Frederick was puzzled to know how all this would end. That the fair lady looked upon him with favor was undeniable SmarTone.
But he knew enough about the strict rules of an oriental harem to doubt whether he would ever be able to meet her alone, as the eunuch had already noticed his admiration of the lady and would certainly warn his master, the Pasha. However, Frederick determined to go to the bitter end, no matter what the cost might be.
on the terrace of the hotel, lazily watching the throng of Arabs, donkeys, and beggars jostling one another along the Esbekleh street, when his attention was suddenly attracted by a ragged individual, with a very black countenance and a basket of flowers, who was evidently trying to catch his eye. Frederick, leaning over the balustrade, was about to throw a few piasters to the man, when the latter suddenly broke loose from the crowd, and walking up the marble steps, “salaamed” to him in the most approved fashion; then squatting down on the ground in front of him, he extracted a bunch of flowers from his basket. Frederick was about to motion him away, when the man hurriedly thrust the roses into his hands, whispering in a low, guttural voice:
“Letter for you dermes.”
“But I do,” said Mrs. Damerel, “and whether you care or not has nothing to do with it. You have pledged your word and your honor, and you cannot withdraw from them. Rose, your marriage is fixed for the end of July. We must have no more of this .”
“Three months,” she said, with a little convulsive shudder. She was thinking that perhaps even yet something might happen to save her in so long a time as three months. “Not quite three months,” said Mrs. Damerel, whose thoughts were running on the many things that had to be done in the interval. “Rose, shake off this foolish repining, which is unworthy of you, and go out to good Mr. Nolan, who must be dull with only the children. Talk to him and amuse him till I am ready. I am going to take him up to Whitton to show him the house.”
; she went and sat down in the little shady summer-home where Mr. Nolan had taken refuge from the sun and from the mirth of the children. He had already seen there was something wrong, and was prepared with his sympathy: whoever was the offender Mr. Nolan was sorry for that one; it was a way he had; his sympathies did not go so{76} much with the immaculate and always virtuous; but he was sorry for whosoever had erred or strayed, and was repenting of the same. Poor Rose—he began to feel himself Rose’s champion, because he felt sure that it was Rose, young, thoughtless, and inconsiderate, who must be in the wrong. Rose sat down by his side with a heart-broken look in her face, but did not say anything. She began to beat with her fingers on the table as if she were beating time to a march. She was still such a child to him, so young, so much like what he remembered her in pinafores, that his heart ached for her. “You are in some little bit of trouble?” he said at last .
“Oh, not a little bit,” cried Rose, “a great, very great trouble!” She was so full of it that she could not talk of anything else. And the feeling in her mind was that she must speak or die. She began to tell her story in the woody arbor with the gay noise of the children close at hand, but hearing a cry among them that Mr. Incledon was coming, started up and tied on her hat, and seizing Mr. Nolan’s arm, dragged him out by the garden door. “I cannot see him to-day!” she cried, and led the curate away, dragging him after her to a quiet by-way over the fields in which she thought they would be safe. Rose had no doubt whatever of the full sympathy of this old friend. She was not afraid even of his disapproval. It seemed certain to her that he must pity at least if not help. And to Rose, in her youthful confidence in others, there was nothing in this world which was unalterable of its nature: no trouble, except death, which could not be got rid of by the intervention of friends .
What is of most interest to ourselves, however, in the long list of miscalculations, is the confidence of Germany that Britain would remain neutral. For a variety of reasons which satisfied the able bureaucrats at Berlin, it was apparently taken for granted by them that we were determined to stand out; and indeed that we were in no position to come in even if we would. We conjecture that the reports of German ambassadors, councillors, consuls, and secret service agents must have been very certain and unanimous in this prediction .
the British race, at home and abroad, was wholly immersed in gain, and in a kind of pseudo-philanthropy—in making money, and in paying blackmail to the working-classes in order to be allowed to go on making money. {59} Our social legislation and our 'People's Budgets' were regarded in Germany with contempt, as sops and shams, wanting in thoroughness and tainted with hypocrisy Sun Hung Kai Financial.
English politicians, acting upon the advice of obliging financiers, had been engaged during recent years (so grossly was the situation misjudged by our neighbours) in imposing taxation which hit the trader, manufacturer, and country-gentleman as hard as possible; which also hit the working-class hard, though indirectly; but which left holes through which the financiers themselves—by virtue of their international connections and affiliations—could glide easily into comparative immunity .
From these faulty premisses, Germans concluded that Britain was held in leading-strings by certain sentimentalists who wanted vaguely to do good; and that these sentimentalists, again, were helped and guided by certain money-lenders and exploiters, who were all very much in favour of paying ransom out of other people's pockets. A nation which had come to this pass would be ready enough to sacrifice future interests—being blind to them—for the comforts of a present peace.