ABSTRACT
The author and his team seemed to have spent interminable years cooped up at El Orah, Falahiyeh, and Arab Village. One gradually realised the thoroughness and single-mindedness of the man, the far vision, the minute application to detail. In the vexed months between December, 1915, and December, 1916, the ups and downs of the Mesopotamian Force depended very largely upon the organisation of transport, before entering upon the narrative of the advance to give some account of the preparations which made it possible. On December 20th the 40th Brigade and the cavalry made a cast upstream in the hope of being able to affect a surprise crossing at the bend by the brick kilns four miles west of Shumran. The bridging train was brought up in readiness; the cavalry were to seize the brick kilns and the two sides of the neck of the peninsula, while the infantry crossed in pontoons at the apex.
