’Which same will not be a long one if ye don’t kape that big body o’yours under cover,’ said O’Brien dryly, as a bullet, striking the parapet, spattered earth all over them.

‘Have ye revolvers?’ he asked of Ken.

None of them had, but these were at once provided, together with plenty of ammunition.

‘Ye’d best lave your rifles,’ said O’Brien. ’’Tis a creeping, crawling job before ye, and the lighter ye go, the better.  At close quarters the pistols will do the job better than anything else ye can carry.  Now get along wid ye.  The sky’s lightening over Asia yonder, and ’tis small chance ye’ll have if the dawn catches ye.’

‘Lucky beggars!’ growled a big Tasmanian, as they passed him on their way to the north end of the trench.  All their comrades were consumed with envy, but like the good fellows they were, they only wished them luck.

A few moments later they had all four crawled out of the trench, and bending double were making steadily uphill towards the spot from which the enfilading fire proceeded.

‘We’ll go straight,’ whispered Ken.  ’Less risk, really, for they’ll be shooting over our heads.’

There was plenty of cover, for the whole of the steep hill-side was dotted with thick bunches of dense scrub.  Barring a chance shot from up above, there was not much risk for the present.  That would come later, when they reached the nest of snipers.  For the present the great thing was to keep their heads down and escape observation.

Nearer and nearer they came to the spot whence the flashes darted thickest, and all the time the bullets whirred over their heads.  At last Ken was able to see through the gloom a low parapet of earth which was evidently the front of a regular rifle pit.

He stopped and beckoned to the others to do the same.

‘There must be at least half a dozen of them,’ he whispered, ’and very likely more.  You chaps wait here under this bush while I go forward.  No, you needn’t grouse, Dave.  I’m not going to do you out of your share.  All I want is to make out which side it will be best to make our attack.  I’ll be back in a minute.’

He crept forward, and as he did so there was a sudden lull in the firing.  For a moment he feared that the men in the pit had spotted him or his companions, and he flattened himself breathlessly on the ground.

Next moment he heard a voice.  Some one in the rifle pit was speaking.

‘I would that they would hasten with that ammunition,’ said the man speaking in the Anatolian dialect, which Ken could understand fairly well.  ’Allah, but these infidels take lead as though it were no more than water!’

‘They are brave men, Achmet,’ answered another, ’but even so they will not stand when Mahmoud brings up the guns.  Then, as the German says, we shall sweep them back into the sea from which they came.’

‘Guns!’ muttered Ken.  ‘This is news.’  He lay still and listened eagerly.