British Thirteenth Division were speeding toward the pass; one from the plains between the Jebel Hamrin and the Persian frontier, the other across the desert from the railhead at Abu Saida. British and Turkish planes had plotted the hills, engaged in battle, returned to their commands to report. The British outpost had arrived first in the pass, been surprised, wiped out with the exception of the men on the rock. And in their hands, an unbelieving, ignorant cockney, and a deeply religious, taciturn clerk, was the fate of two armies. So are the destinies of nations decided.
The climbing askari, like his luckless precursor, gained the seemingly inaccessible peak, uncoiled the rope wrapped about him, fastened it to a pinnacle of the rock. Half-screened by the shoulder of the cliff, clinging to the rope as they climbed, a dozen Turks swarmed up, to find ample footing. The machine gun was hoisted, assembled, trained on the unconscious figures on the lower ledge.
Twing was about to resume his monody of unbelief when the valley once more resounded with the tattoo of machine-gun fire, and the steel struck the rock about the two signalers, whirring down the stony corridor like a flight of insane bumblebees. The tall man gave a sudden, sharp cry, half-starting from his recumbent posi-
