Stretcher and other parties fell back, and immediately firing broke out. In front of our right section masses of men advanced behind lines of unarmed men holding up their hands. Firing became general all along the line accompanied by a heavy bombardment of the whole position, so that evidently this attack must have been pre-arranged. Musketry and machine-gun fire continued without interruption till after dark, and from then up to about 4 a.m. next day.
Except for a half-hearted attack in front of Courtney's Post, no assault was made till 1.20 a.m., when the enemy left their trenches and advanced on Quinn's Post. Our guns drove the Turks back to their trenches, and beat back all other attempts to assault. By 4.30 on May 21 musketry fire had died down to normal dimensions.
As the Turks seemed anxious to bury their dead, and as human sentiment and medical science were both of one accord in favour of such a course, I sent Major-General W. P. Braithwaite, my Chief of the General Staff, on May 22, to assist Lieutenant-General Sir W. R. Birdwood, commanding the Army Corps, in coming to some suitable arrangements with the representative sent by Essad Pasha. The negotiations resulted in a suspension of arms from 7.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on May 24. The procedure laid down for this suspension of arms was, I am glad to inform your Lordships, correctly observed on both sides.
The burial of the dead was finished about 3 p.m. Some 3,000 Turkish dead were removed or buried in the area between the opposing lines. The whole of these were killed on or since May 18. Many bodies of men killed earlier were also buried.
On May 25, with the assistance of two destroyers of the Royal Navy, a raid was carried out on Nibrunesi Point. A fresh telephone line was destroyed and an observing station demolished.
On May 28, at 9 p.m., a raid was made on a Turkish post overlooking the beach 1,200 yards north of Kaba Tepe, H.M.S. _Rattlesnake_ co-operating. A party of fifty rifles rushed the post, killing or capturing the occupants. A similar raid was made against an enemy trench to the left of our line which cost the Turks 200 casualties, as was afterwards ascertained.
[Illustration: MAP 3. (_To face page 64._)]