Though skirmishing had taken place between the enemy’s reconnoitring parties and our outposts during the latter part of January, the main attack was not developed until Feb. 2, when the enemy began to move toward the Ismailia Ferry.  They met a reconnoitring party of Indian troops of all arms, and a desultory engagement ensued, to which a violent sand storm put a sudden end about 3 o’clock in the afternoon.  The main attacking force pushed forward toward its destination after nightfall.  From twenty-five to thirty galvanized iron pontoon boats, seven and a half meters in length, which had been dragged in carts across the desert, were hauled by hand toward the water, with one or two rafts made of kerosene tins in a wooden frame.  All was ready for the attack.

The first warning of the enemy’s approach was given by a sentry of a mountain battery, who heard, to him, an unknown tongue across the water.  The noise soon increased.  It would seem that Mudjah Ideen ("Holy Warriors")—­said to be mostly old Tripoli fighters—­accompanied the pontoon section and regulars of the Seventy-fifth Regiment, for loud exhortations often in Arabic of “Brothers die for the faith; we can die but once,” betrayed the enthusiastic irregular.

The Egyptians waited till the Turks were pushing their boats into the water; then the Maxims attached to the battery suddenly spoke and the guns opened with case at point-blank range at the men and boats crowded under the steep bank opposite them.

Immediately, a violent fire broke out on both sides of the canal, the enemy replying to the rifles and machine gun fire and the battery on our bank.  Around the guns it was impossible to stand up, but the gunners stuck to the work, inflicting terrible punishment.

A little torpedo boat with a crew of thirteen patrolling the canal dashed up and landed a party of four officers and men to the south of Tussum, who climbed up the eastern bank and found themselves in a Turkish trench, and escaped by a miracle with the news.  Promptly the midget dashed in between the fires and enfiladed the eastern bank amid a hail of bullets, and destroyed several pontoon boats lying unlaunched on the bank.  It continued to harass the enemy, though two officers and two men were wounded.

As the dark, cloudy night lightened toward dawn fresh forces came into action.  The Turks, who occupied the outer, or day, line of the Tussum post, advanced, covered by artillery, against the Indian troops holding the inner, or night, position, while an Arab regiment advanced against the Indian troops at the Serapeum post.

The warships on the canal and lake joined in the fray.  The enemy brought some six batteries of field guns into action from the slopes west of Kataib-el-Kheil.  Shells admirably fused made fine practice at all the visible targets, but failed to find the battery above mentioned, which, with some help from a detachment of infantry, beat down the fire of the riflemen on the opposite bank and inflicted heavy losses on the hostile supports advancing toward the canal.  A chance salvo wounded four men of the battery, but it ran more risk from a party of about twenty of the enemy who had crossed the canal in the dark and sniped the gunners from the rear till they were finally rounded up by the Indian cavalry and compelled to surrender.