CHAPTER III
LIFE IN EGYPT
Christmas Dayon the edge of the desert, within sight of the Pyramids of Gizeh! The very last place in which I ever thought I should celebrate the festive season. And the outlook was far from "Christmassy": A big wide stretch of yellow sand; a rough, trampled track styled a road; a straggling collection of low, flat-roofed, mud-built native houses that looked as if they had been chucked from aloft and stuck where they happened to pitch; a few vines, date palms, and fig-trees, disputing the right to live in company with some sun-baked nectarines and loquats; a foreground made up of tents, both military and native, wooden shanties, and picketed horses; abackground of camp stores, mechanics' shops, and corded firewood, closed in by a line of dusty poplars; in the distance the desert, a vast study in monochrome, the horizon line broken in places by an Arab village and cemetery, a camel train, and the forbidding walls of some Egyptian grandee's harem; overhead a scorching sun shining in a cloudless sky; underfoot the burning sand—and everywhere the subtle aroma (or "sense," if you will) of the East, at once repellent and yet attractive, calling with ever-increasing insistence to some nomadic strain that has hitherto lain dormant in our beings—calling with the call of the East....
There was general leave, of course. Most of the chaps took the Cairo trail, those who remained doing so in nearly every case not from choice, but dire necessity: a week's pay at the rate of 2s.per day (once on active service we had to allot 3s.) doesn't see one far in Egypt. Our crowd elected to stay for dinner,and I must say the cooks turned out an A1 meal. The turkey was missing, ditto the goose, but we had as much frozen mutton, followed by Christmas duff, as we could find room for. The wet canteen lay close handy, so the beer (English, too) wasn't missing. The desert didn't look so dusty when we left the tables.
They are keen on the dollars, are the Egyptians. They swarmed round our camp like a mob of steers round a water-hole in a dry spell; everywhere you ran across their matchboard stores where you could buy 'most anything, from a notebook to a glass of ice cream, made from camel's milk! They had the time of their lives, especially the orange-sellers. I have bought seven jolly good oranges for a half-piastre (1-1/4d.) more than once, but as a rule the price ranged from eight to twelve for a piastre (2-1/2d.) Barrows or baskets aren't in favour with the Gippy fruit-sellers. They wear loose shirts and wide skirts, and bymaking full use of these garments one man will carry nearly a sackful of oranges—and at the same time help complete the ripening process. It paid to wipe the fruit before eating it.
In Egypt a man's wealth and standing is usually reckoned on the basis of the number of wives he possesses: when our crowd arrived many of the fruit-sellers had only one—or one and an old one—yet inside a week or two the same johnnies were bossing up a tidy little harem of prime goods. So indirectly I guess our pay helped keep polygamy going—and increased the population.
Egypt exists by favour of the Nile. Outside the irrigation belt lies desert and nothing but desert—the Hinterland or Never-Never of Northern Africa. Except for an oasis here and there the eye searches in vain for a trace of greenery. A huge rolling plain of yellow sand mixed with limestone, and carpeted in places with round, seemingly water-wornpebbles, amongst which one finds agates in abundance; here and there broken and serrated rocks outcropping boldly in fantastic shapes from great drifts of storm-driven sand; a brooding loneliness—there you have it.
And yet in the Valley of the Nile what a contrast! The very atmosphere is redolent of fertility. Here is, indeed, a "land flowing with milk and honey"; a land which, give it the water, will bloom like a garden and smell like a huge pot-pourri. I have seen some of the best country in four continents, yet I never ran across richer soil or more exuberant growth than that of the Nile Valley. When one bears in mind that the methods of irrigation and system of tillage are those of the dim and distant past; that a metal plough is an object of mixed curiosity and distrust; that steam is not; that the fertiliser used (when itisused) once sheltered, in the form of towns and villages whose history was closed ere the Bible was written, the heads of theirown forefathers—then one is, indeed, forced to marvel at a land which yields such husbandmen seventy- and eighty-ton crops of sugarcane to the acre, and gives nine and ten cuttings of berseine—in the year, while carrying at the same time the mixed flocks and herds of the lucky proprietor. Little wonder, then, that thefellahinpray to the Nile as the Romans used to pray to Father Tiber—although hardly with the same objects.
The climate of Egypt was rather a surprise to us. True, it was winter when we arrived, but we had an idea that such a season existed in name only in the Land of the Pharaohs. The first night, however, made us sit up and think things, it was bitterly cold. Even packed nine in a tent with two blankets and a greatcoat over us we could hardly get to sleep; the tent felt like a refrigerator. Indeed, until we hit on the plan of donning our greatcoats, and pulling on a pair of woollen socks, we were anything but comfortably warm. Thedays were hot enough, it is true, even in mid-winter, but it was not till towards the end of February that the nights lost their bite. Before we left for Gallipoli, however, we found a single blanket quite all right; as for the days, they were something to remember in your prayers, the sun seemed to get right down clear to your backbone, and stew the stiffening out of your spine.
I saw rain only twice during the three months and a half we put in in Egypt; it wasn't more than an anæmic Scotch mist on both occasions. I reckon the average annual rainfall for those parts would figure out at about point ten noughts and a one. We were told, however, that once in every three years or so, the rain came down good-oh, and washed half the houses away, at the same time cleaning things up generally. But the natives take such things as a matter of course; being highly religious, they observe that Allah wills it so, and set about rebuilding theirhappy homes. I expect it's really a blessing in disguise, and the overflow from these villages of theirs should certainly fertilise the soil that receives it.
We were told by the local residenters that February was the month noted for sandstorms. Well, we ran across two—or, rather, they ran across us. We didn't like them a little bit. There was only one thing to do—get under cover straight away and stay there till the beggars blew themselves out. You would see them coming, for all the world like a big yellow smoke-cloud stretched right across the desert. Then it was a case of hop into your tent, fasten up the flap, and pray that some one else had driven the pegs home. If even a single one should draw—ugh! it gives me the shivers even now! Once I saw a pole go clean through the top of a tent, the canvas, of course, sliding down like a parachute and "bonneting" the inmates: I reckon it says something for the power oftheir language when we heard it rising high above the storm.
I have mentioned that we came out from England as an infantry company. Well, naturally we hoped to be attached to some battalion of the N.Z.R.'s (which stands for New Zealand Rifles). Failing that we reckoned on being split up and spread over the various infantry battalions. So it came rather as a bit of a facer, when we were paraded, told that a Field Company of Engineers and an Army Service Corps Company was required straight away, and given our choice as to which crowd we should care to take on. At first we were inclined to think it was a bit of a bluff; but no, there was no get out about it. Boiled down, it meant service with the Engineers, the A.S.C.—or our discharge and passage back to New Zealand. We didn't like this stunt at all, and at first some of the boys felt like shaking things up some; but, of course, no one held for going home, sothey made the best of a bad deal and took their choice. I plumped for the Engineers; I had no hankering after the A.S.C.—or "'Aunty' Sprocket's Cavalry," as it was promptly dubbed, from the name of one of our officers who took on with it. ("Sprocket," I may say here, is not what he calls himself.)
We had already been through the mill as infantrymen: we had now to start in to train as engineers. It meant hustling some, for the time at our disposal, we were told, didn't amount to much. Well, we had made our choice, and although we felt a bit sore over being rushed, we knew it was up to us to see the thing through to rights. So we got into the collar straight away, consigned the war, the Army, and the New Zealand Government to an even warmer location than Egypt—and put in overtime imbibing engineering knowledge.
We had our work cut out, for we had to learn in the space of a few weeks a coursethat, in the ordinary run, would have been spread over more than the same number of months. But most of our fellows had done work of a similar kind, so it was fairly well into their hands. I reckon we had just about every trade and occupation that ever was in our crowd, from civil engineers, miners, surveyors, marine and electrical engineers, master mariners and mates, right down to shearers, boundary riders, roustabouts and bushmen generally. Even a few "cockies" were not missing. ("Cockie," by the way, is short for "cockatoo," meaning, in the language of Australasia, a small farmer.) Hence we made progress like a house on fire, and the officers congratulated themselves on the kind of chaps the Lord had sent them. Indeed, some of the sappers could have turned the commissioned officers down had they chosen when it came to getting about a ticklish job—and I guess the officers knew it. So we simply took the course on the run, as it were,building bridges and blowing up same, digging trenches, fixing up and fortifying positions, and so on.
I think, taking all in all, the lectures were the most popular items on the list. Sometimes we had one every day, generally after dinner—which is about the sleepiest time of the day in a hot country. Snorers weren't liked; they disturbed both lecturer and audience. Apart from the value of the lecture itself one was always sure of a quiet, after-dinner smoke. Yes, I fancy those pow-wows ranked first in popularity.
Then there was bomb making and throwing. There is a lot of excitement to be got out of that racket—especially when you go in for experimental work. Some of our home-made bombs were fearsome contraptions. Most of us had quite a number of narrow shaves, and even the niggers, keen as they were to sell their oranges, wouldn't come within coo-ee of our mob when engaged in bomb-throwingoperations. They knew a thing or two, did those niggers.
I almost forgot to mention field geometry. I fancy it about divided favour with bomb-work as an occupation. For one thing, it was more restful and distinctly quieter; for another, it was a jolly sight safer. You could sit down on the sand, when it wasn't too hot, and get right into field geometry without having to keep your ears open for a constantly recurring yell of: "Look out, boys! Here she goes!" or—"Duck, damn you! I've got a whole slab in her!"
Once or twice during our training we had a written examination covering the work, both practical and theoretical, we had done; and the examining officer smiled on us like a tabby with new kittens when he came to read our papers. Joking apart, he was more than pleased, and he didn't forget to tell us so. This sort of thing may strike the reader as a bit far-fetched—sort of blowing one'sown trumpet; but if the said reader will pause to consider the class of men that composed our company he will be bound in common fairness to admit that I am not straining things too much. Colonial training, I reckon, isn't the worst preparation for most branches of the service; it turns outmenanyway. And you don't run across illiterates in the colonies—even way back in the Never-Never.
Once or twice we took part in field manœuvres—or Divisional Training, to use the proper term. For our little lot such things usually meant hard graft with the pick and shovel plus a lot of tough marching. The fun seemed to go to the infantry and mounted men—if there was any fun in the game. Sometimes we were out for only a single day, but it mostly worked out at a night and a day. Once we were away from camp for five days and nights. In all cases actual war conditions were observed.
I shan't forget the last Divisional Trainingwe took part in. The idea was that the enemy, an infantry column, was strongly entrenched at some point unknown out in the desert. The attacking party, a division of Australian and New Zealand infantry, was to march out of camp at sunset, duly discover the enemy's position, and deliver a night attack with its full strength. The "enemy," to which my company was attached, left early the same morning, being given a day in which to select the position and fortify it.
Our luck was out when it came to dig. My word that subsoil was hard! In some places, graft as we might, three feet was all we could sink the trenches; we seemed to have struck the bedrock of Egypt. After messing up our tools badly and losing a lot of sweat we gave it best, contenting ourselves with raising the parapet where necessary, so as to afford the requisite cover and shelter to the defenders.
Our own O.C. was naturally anxious tomake an A1 show in his particular line, so we prepared a boncer defensive position. We had stacks of wire, and we didn't spare it, shoving up entanglements that called for some getting through all along the line. It was understood that the wire would be plain stuff; but on the quiet, and to make matters more realistic, we shoved in a couple of strands of barbed—and smiled expectantly. We also rigged up a real good outfit in the way of coloured flares, and fixed dummy mines here and there in front of the entanglements; the latter were harmless, of course, but they sounded pretty bad when sprung.
The trenches were manned at the appointed time, the flares set, the mines connected up to the exploders, and everything made ready against the advance of the attacking division. Our chaps (the engineers) were spread along the position and placed in charge of the mines, flares, etc. It was slow work waiting; lights were forbidden, so we couldn't even smoke. Itwasn't to say warm, either, and I reckon every man of us would a dashed sight sooner have been snug in camp.
Presently our patrols sent in word of the approach of the enemy's scouts, the main body having halted under cover of a dip in the ground about 1000 yards back. We had arranged a big collection of jam tins and similar alarms along the front of the entanglements, and it wasn't long until they began to play a lively tune in one or two places. We guessed what had happened: some of the aforesaid scouts had run foul of the wire, and owing to the barbed stuff we had mixed through it, couldn't get clear for love or money. We sent out a party to make them prisoners, and they were ignominiously herded in, protesting the while in lurid language against what they styled "a crook trick."
The first attack was delivered fairly early in the night, and resulted in a decided repulse for the enemy. Hardly a man reached theentanglements, for our flares lit up the heavens with a wealth of illuminating colours never before seen in the desert ("just like a —— picture show," as one of the officers remarked), and the explosion of a mine or two caused them to beat a hasty retreat. They didn't seem to fancy those mines a little bit, and had evidently some doubts as to their harmlessness. The whole thing was fairly realistic, what with the heavy rifle fire and the language, and both sides soon warmed up to their work. In fact, things got so warm that several lively bouts with Nature's own weapons took place between our patrols and some of the enemy who had crawled up with the intention of cutting the wire.
The next attack in force came off in the early hours of the morning, and after a long and fierce scrap the position was carried. In spite of the fact that they were under a deadly Maxim and rifle fire at point-blank range, those heroic infantrymen set to workin grim earnest, pulling down our entanglements and stamping out our flares. Time after time we notified them that they were all dead men over and over again, but they couldn't see it, and were disposed to argue the matter. Rifle fire, we soon saw, had no effect; however, there were plenty of handy-sized flints and agates lying around, and a judicious application of the same caused a considerable amount of delay and some loss to the enemy. I wonder what the umpires thought? They didn't show up during this phase of the operations—perhaps because of the reception that had been accorded them some little time previous, when both sides mistook them for an enemy patrol!
On being cleared out of our trenches, we retired to a new position on some rising ground, beat off the pursuing foe, and, operations ceasing, went into bivouac. Afterwards, the umpires gave out their report, and we felt good when it was announced that theattacking column had taken almost thrice the number of hours allotted to them in which to storm our position. But the infantry never quite forgave us for that barbed wire. The mines were also a sore point. And when we pointed out that it was simply realism we were after, their comment was brief and caustic: "Realism be damned!—look at our clothes!"