The moment we turned into that valley we came under fire from the Australians at the head of it. Near there I met the commander of one of the battalions that had been holding the centre of the Lone Pine front. I asked, ‘What has happened?’ But he was clearly very shocked. He kept saying, ‘We’re lost; we’re lost!’⁹

Zeki reinforced the beleaguered Turkish garrison with his battalion and along with 2/13 Regiment and 3/47 Regiment, were organised together for a counter attack. At 11.00 pm the Turks attacked and, after fierce hand-to-hand fighting, began to force the Australians back. During this fighting the Turks loss two regimental commanders: Major Ibrahim Şükrü, 15 Regiment, and later on Tevfik, both mortally wounded by bombs. Tevfik’s last recorded words, spoken just before leading a counter attack, were, ‘Well, I will take the troops myself and we’ll do something whatever it costs’. Tevfik was held in such high regard by his regiment that he was buried near where he fell and a tomb was erected. In 1919, when Charles Bean visited the battlefield, he was guided by the very same Major Zeki who came to the aid of 47 Regiment. He showed him the tomb of Tevfik, which today has been lost, but would have stood just outside the boundary of the present day Lone Pine CWGC Cemetery, close to the modern day road.

At 7.00 pm the Australian brigade reserve was sent forward into Lone Pine and for the next forty eight hours both sides dueled in one of the most severe bomb and bayonet battles ever to be witnessed. The Turks were desperate to regain their old positions but the Australians were not going to relinquish them without a fight.

Private George Talbot (12/AIF) was one of those sent to reinforce the hard pressed 1 Brigade:

... this was a rotten place. I was in charge of a section throwing bombs, and we got a pretty warm time of it. Two of them were killed, and three wounded, counting myself. This is a very large number out of eight, don’t you think? I had three in one communication trench throwing bombs. One of them was killed, so not having another man available I went in his place. A few minutes later another man was wounded in the same place, so that only left two of us in the one place, one to throw bombs and one to put a sandbag over any Turkish bombs that might fall in our trench. We got on all right until three hand grenades fell in the trench at once. We got bags over two of them, but the third was too fast for us, and exploded before we could do anything with it. One piece hit me below the knee cap, but did not do much damage. I hung on till they got another man, and then went and got a bandage on it. I hobbled about for a couple of days, and was finally sent to hospital. This is the second time I have been sent to hospital since I landed. I would like to have been there all the time with our boys, but that I cannot is not my fault. I am just going to tell you something that will make your hair stand on an end. When we reinforced the 1st Brigade on Lone Pine ridge, dead Turks were stacked four high in the sides of the captured trenches. Some of these had been there four days, so you can guess what they would be like lying in the sun. Most of our dead were lying between the old trench and the captured one. We could not get out burying them, for the enemy’s fire was too constant. In some places we had to walk over the dead. I never wish to see such a horrible sight again. Nor do I wish to smell such a horrible stench as we got from the dead bodies. We had to wear our respirators all the time we were in the trenches.10