Major Temperley wrote in the Reveille journal of April 1938:

We had tempted fate too long. As dawn was breaking, I heard the brigade machine-guns in action at The Apex and, as I went to them, I saw the whole of the slopes of Chunuk Bair alive with Turks. At the same time a few fugitives arrived to say that we had lost the hill. The execution done by the enfilade fire of the machine guns was immense. A few minutes later the naval guns joined in the chorus, shooting directly over their sights. The Turks pressed on with superb gallantry right up to the Farm and along Rhododendron Spur to The Apex. Few of those who came over the crest can have returned. The situation at The Apex was critical, and it seemed to me we had reached the end. I collected a few signallers and odd men and, with fixed bayonets, we awaited what I expected to be the full weight of the counter-attack, but for some reason it never came. A certain number charged right up to us and were dealt with by rifle & revolver. I remember Major Wallingford, the champion shot³², rushing out and accounting for one or two with his pistol.

The surviving Wiltshires, with a few other men from the Loyals, were cut off. Some tried to rush past the machine gun fire in Sazli Beit, but virtually all were killed or wounded in attempting that path. Others tried to climb up the sides of the gully, but few succeeded. This drove most to stay still and hide in the gully until nightfall, after which small groups eventually found their way to safety. In one account it is probable that a group of Wiltshires who were trying to make a run for it were actually shot by men from 8/LHR, who witnessed a body of Turks in the valley approaching the British lines. They fired and the ‘Turks’ ran back. It was noted that these men had no weapons, so were almost certainly survivors trying to make their way back. In another account it was noted that several men were rescued from the gully having hidden out there for sixteen days, gathering water from a small spring and food from the haversacks of the dead. These men reported that there were originally many more wounded with them, but that they died of their wounds or simply of exhaustion and lack of water.