Having got us to El Kubri and told us to wait for a train, the authorities apparently washed their hands of the whole affair and forgot all about us. For six weeks we waited at a siding which seemed to be ashamed to look a train in the face. Certainly we never saw one approach it, and we kept a careful look-out for fear we should miss one.
On our arrival we did not, of course, make a camp, believing that we should entrain in a day or two at most. But as day followed day and no train appeared we began to think that this was a joke in deplorable taste. Why, after working for six months like niggers are supposed to work making a comfortable camp, should we be taken therefrom, dumped down on an inhospitable siding and forgotten? It was not playing the game; and a sinister rumour spread that we were not going north after all but were to be sent down the Red Sea to the assistance of the Cherif of Mecca, who was having a little war on his own account.
We knew what that meant. The assisting forcewould be sent to some evil-smelling native town with an unpronounceable name, miles from anywhere, left there to garrison the place and impress the inhabitants with the might of British arms, while the Cherif and his wild horsemen charged about the desert firing rifles in the air and emitting extraordinary yells to frighten away the few stray, half-starved Turks in the vicinity. And the prospect of travelling in a horse-boat down the Red Sea, even in November, did not appeal to us in the least. However, tired of sleeping in culverts and disused drains we pitched our camp on the top of a plateau overlooking the Canal and prepared to await developments.
It was not unpleasant waiting, for there was the daily bathe in the Canal, and the big ships and liners passing up and down seemed to bring us once more in touch with civilisation. It used to be the kindly practice of the passengers to throw tins of cigarettes and tobacco overboard whenever the boat passed one of the numerous outposts guarding the Canal. It was quite an ordinary occurrence for a man to dive in with all his clothes on and swim after the coveted tins. Tobacco was so scarce that a mere wetting was nothing; besides, our clothes were dry in an hour.
Also, we hunted the fox—or rather, jackal.
Now the Egyptian native undoubtedly looks on the British soldier as "magnoon," afflicted of Allah, to be treated kindly, but to be relieved of asmuch of his hard-earned pay as possible. And further, if the Faithful are able to obtain something for nothing from these amiable madmen, it is to be done. So we made ourselves popular with the fellaheen by hunting jackals, which had the same predilection for other people's chickens as has brother fox in England.
We had no hounds, except a fox-terrier who was too fat to run; only our horses and our prodigious enthusiasm. The method of procedure was to assemble the hunt near a likely place and send forward a fatigue-party to dig out the jackal. When he appeared—and he usually did appear in a hurry—we gave him a couple of minutes' start and then tally-ho! and away after him over the plain. We had, of course, no fences to leap, but there were deep nullahs and irrigation dykes wide enough to give one something to think about. Moreover, the jackals were astonishingly speedy; they would twist and turn and double on their tracks for half an hour at a stretch, and they were game to the end.
Christmas came and was made endurable and even enjoyable by the kindness of the Y.M.C.A., who lent us tables, yea and cloths, in addition to other things.
But the outstanding event of this period of waiting was the visit of one of Miss Lena Ashwell's concert parties to El Kubri. It will ever remain a fragrant memory, for it was the first time we had seen Englishladies for nearly a year and it brought home very near to hear them sing.
They gave their concert in a specially constructed "hall" in the desert. Sandbags were the mainstay of the platform and a large tarpaulin, G.S., formed the drop-scene. The walls were of rough canvas, upon which it was inadvisable to lean, lest the whole structure collapsed. Primitive, no doubt, but it suited the environment; and I have never seen in the most elaborate West-end theatre anything like the enthusiasm here.
You called for a popular song or recitation and you got it, and as many more as you liked to ask for. One of these talented ladies used to give a recitation which became a permanent feature of her programme in Egypt. She would come to the front of the stage and say confidentially to the audience, "Do you know Lizzie 'Arris?" And back would come a mighty bellow, "Aiwa!" This rite was always insisted upon before the artiste could proceed, though she obviously enjoyed it almost as much as we did. She might probably be amused to know that—such is fame!—amongst the thousands of troops who heard her recite she was always known as "Lizzie 'Arris."
Early in the New Year the Mecca myth was finally dissipated, for we moved—no, the train never arrived—to the big concentration camp at Suez, and there started preparations in real earnest. It was strange to be amongst people again after somany months of comparative solitude, and stranger still to see houses and streets and civilians. Not that we had much time to look around, for with the coming of the cool weather the hours of work became appreciably longer.
Every day long columns of infantry went forth to get themselves into hard condition by strenuous route marches. Dotted about the camp were little groups of specialists and others practising their several trades. Here was a bombing-school urgently killing imaginary Turks; there a squad of bayonet-fighters engaged in the same pleasurable pursuit; while farther away an eager band of signallers with their handy little cable-waggons laid a wire at incredible speed.
Away out on the plain a string of harassed recruits trotted round a rough manege lustily encouraged to a rigid observance of the good old maxim, "'eels an' 'ands low; 'eads an' 'earts 'igh," by the astonishing profanity of their riding-master; and beyond them their more proficient comrades charged with wild yells upon a long line of stuffed sacks representing a terror-stricken foe waiting patiently to be spitted.
Hard by these perspiring cavalrymen a battery of horse-artillery struggled to master the intricacies of driving with fourteen-horse teams. These were arranged in three rows of four abreast with one pair in lead, while of the drivers three rode the near-horses and three the off-horses, with one driverriding the near-horse of the leading-pair; a complicated business requiring much skill and nicety of judgment in order to get the best out of the horses.
Occasionally an apparently wild chaos of guns and limbers and horses proclaimed that the battery had been successfully brought into action; usually, however, the work was confined to getting the vehicles along under these novel conditions. Alongside our own, French artillery with their natty little "75's" daily strove to put the finishing touches to their preparation.
It was to the confines of the camp that one went for the final signs that a "show" was surely preparing, for here were all the dumps of material which was to minister to the needs of an army in the field.
Sacks of grain and bales of tibbin stood in huge pyramidal mounds; multitudinous rows of boxes containing bully-beef, condensed milk, dried fruit, biscuits, cocoa, and tea, seemed to stretch for miles. One walked down streets of bully-beef, as it were; loitered in squares bounded by biscuit-tins; dodged up alleys flanked by tea-chests and cases of "Ideal" milk. Through the streets and squares came an endless procession of lorries and G.S. waggons, passing on their lawful occasions.
After all, the final word rests with the A.S.C. All your preparation, all your study of new methods, all your concentrations of guns and men and horsesare futile—and how futile!—if the Army Service Corps says: "Sorry, gentlemen, but we can't feed you; and if we could, there's nothing to carry the food in." In the beginning this was especially true of Egypt; for there was a lamentable shortage of nearly everything that goes to the successful waging of war. It took nearly two years of patient endeavour before an advance could really be considered, and by far the greater part of that time was devoted to amassing supplies and organising means of transport. It was a colossal task, the magnitude of which was never even imagined by the people at home.
There was practically nothing in the country. We wanted sleepers, rails, and locomotives for the railway; pipes, pumps, and other materials for the water-supply; waggons, motor-lorries and light-cars for transport purposes; sand-carts, cacolets, and ambulances for the R.A.M.C.; and, with the exception of most kinds of vegetables, food.
All this had to be brought overseas.
There may not at first sight seem to be any striking connection between an enemy submarine and the date of an offensive. When, however, that submarine torpedoes and sinks a vessel containing two million pounds' worth of absolutely essential material, such as locomotives or motor-lorries, the connection becomes less, as the date of an offensive becomes more, remote. In fact, as neither a locomotive nor a motor-lorry, nor a boat wherein tocarry them can be built in five minutes, the offensive temporarily recedes from view, until the next boatload of material is safely landed.
Add to this the facts that a hundred and fifty miles of desert had to be cleared of an enemy who fought with the most bitter determination all the way, that a railway had to be constructed, and an adequate water-supply had to be maintained over the same desert, before an offensive on a large scale could even be dreamt about, and the connection mentioned above becomes strikingly obvious.
Those people at home who, from time to time, asked querulously, "What are we doing in Egypt?" should have seen Kantara in 1915, and then again towards the end of 1916. Failing that I would ask them, and also those kindly but myopic souls who said: "What a picnic you are having in Egypt!" to journey awhile with us through Kantara and across the desert of Northern Sinai. For the former there will be a convincing answer to their query; the latter will have an opportunity of revising their notions as to what really constitutes a picnic.
And we will start now, while the scent is hot, for already the infantry have begun their march and guns and waggons are rumbling along the roads from Suez to Kantara, the gate of the desert.
At this point it would be as well to confer with the map once more. Be pleased to imagine that we have trekked northwards from Suez, through the beautiful little town of Ismailia, "the emerald of the desert," thence to Ferry Post, which was a position of considerable importance when the Turks attacked the Canal in February 1915, and finally to Kantara, where we will pause to see if an answer can be found to the query propounded in the preceding chapter.
If our inquiring friends had sailed down the Canal in 1915 they would have seen at Kantara—had they noticed the place at all, which is unlikely—a cluster of tents, a few rows of horse-lines, some camels, a white-walled mosque, and a water-tank close to the water's edge; while their nostrils would have been pungently assailed by the acrid smell of burning camel-dung.
It is at least probable that the last-named would have made the most striking impression. (It is still a powerful characteristic of Kantara.) Certainly they would never have guessed from itsappearance what Kantara was destined to become: the terminus of the great military railway running across the desert and through Palestine, a military port of the utmost value, the beginning—or end—of the main road into Palestine, and the biggest base in Egypt.
They are to be excused; no one would. Kantara did not unduly lift its head in those days, and one did not, perhaps, at a first glance fully appreciate its unique geographical position; for it is situated within easy reach of Port Said and Suez, the two great termini of the Canal, and is thus conveniently near the sea.
Moreover, the Turks were only some fourteen miles away, and the time was not yet ripe. It is illustrative of our early limitations that our postal designation was "Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Canal Defences." Note that no idea was then entertained of anything beyond defending the great waterway.
Nothing else could be done. We had simply to hold off the Turks and make shift as best we could, meanwhile collecting materials and making preparations for a definite offensive when the psychological moment arrived.
Originally the troops were on the west bank, near the station, which is on the State Railway from Port Said to Cairo and Alexandria, until some one high in authority suggested that as we were supposed to be defending the Canal, and not the Canaldefending us, it would be as well to move over to the other side. The fact is, this would have been done much sooner had it not been that the Turkish attack in February caused what is called a vertical draught in political circles in Egypt, and it needed a very great man indeed to order the move.
We were still dependent on Port Said for rations and supplies, while all the water was brought up from the same place by boat and stored in the big tank. The means of communication between the east and west banks were somewhat primitive. At Kantara a pontoon bridge and a decrepit chain ferry of uncertain moods maintained irregular intercourse with the other side. It used to be one of our diversions to watch the ferry bringing across the daily ration-waggon, whereof the horses, frightened by the clank of the chains, frequently bolted the moment the "door" of the ferry was lowered. To the right, in the direction of the camp, was a particularly nasty incline, so the waggon usually decided to go to the left through the lines of the Bikanir Camel Corps; whereupon the horses, having an unconquerable aversion to camels, at once stampeded, and our rations were in dire jeopardy. There were, too, a few rowing-boats for passengers, but these were either on the other side when you wanted them or were too full of holes to use.
Patrol-duty and spy-hunting were our principal occupations, as in most of the other Canal stations; certainly few dreamed of the greatness in store.
It was not until the spring of 1916 that Kantara dropped its mantle of obscurity and began to take its place as our principal base of operations. From then onwards the place hummed with ever-increasing activity, for the danger of a further attempt on the Canal was now somewhat remote, and work could be carried on in comparative safety.
One day, perhaps, a scribe will rise up and write of the doings of the Royal Engineers in this war, more particularly of their deeds in such places as Salonica, Mesopotamia, East Africa, and Egypt; where, in addition to the usual shortage of tools and material, they had to wrestle with every conceivable kind of geographical obstacle that a bountiful Nature could place in their way. The present scribe can only write of what they did in Egypt and Palestine, and not half of that can be told.
As far as Kantara is concerned they came, they saw, they conquered. What they saw was a desert which they proceeded to transform into a city, certainly of tents and huts, but "replete with every convenience"—as the house-agents say. As a start they pensioned off the aged chain ferry into decent retirement and built a goodly swing bridge, over which were brought timber to be cut into beams and joists; nuts and bolts and screws, and an olla podrida of materials.
When this was done a gentleman called the Assistant Director of Works came and made a plan of the city. Here a difficulty arose. In thisclimate a white man has his limitations, and one of them is that hard manual labour when the sun is summer-high is exhausting in the extreme, and is, moreover, explicitly forbidden between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. by the authorities.
It was then that the voice of the Egyptian Labour Corps was heard in the land. Little is known outside the country of this admirable corps, yet it is scarcely too much to say that they saved the situation here as elsewhere. Recruited from almost every class of the native community, from the towns and cities, from the Delta, from their "belods" in the far-off Soudan, they came in thousands to dig and delve, to fetch and carry, to do a hundred things impossible for a white man to do in that climate. It is difficult to over-estimate their usefulness; though not as a rule big men, they would carry for considerable distances weights that a far bigger white man failed even to lift.
Their staple diet consisted of bread, onions, lentils, rice, dates, and oil—with perhaps a little meat after sunset. They drank prodigious quantities of water, and could not in fact go for long without. Firmly but fairly treated by their British officers and non-commissioned officers, they went anywhere and did anything; and wherever you found the sappers, there, too, you would see the khaki galabeahs and hear the eternal chant: "Kam leila, kam yom?" of the E.L.C. Under their hands Kantara took shape.
Supervised and directed by the Engineers, gangs of them made roads, workmanlike affairs calculated to stand the strain shortly to be imposed on them by the daily passage of thousands of lorries and waggons. Eastward from the Canal what had been a mere track, fetlock deep in sand, became a broad road macadamised for ten kilos, from which radiated similar roads in all directions, and on which abutted presently the great camps that seemed to spring up like mushrooms in a night.
Alongside the roads other gangs laid watermains connected directly with Port Said, for it soon became utterly impossible to bring an adequate daily supply of water by boat. At certain points stand-pipes were erected so that working-parties and other troops could fill their water-bottles without having to go far to do so; in the hot weather every extra yard tells.
This was the beginning of the pipe-line laid stage by stage as the army advanced, across the desert and far into Palestine. We shall see more of it later.
Then the A.D.W. collected his carpenters and bricklayers and bade them instruct their dusky labourers in the building of gigantic mess-huts, in size and shape not unlike a hangar, capable of providing meal accommodation for hundreds of men at a time; ration and store-huts for the numerous camps; brick enclosures for the kitchens; incinerators, and a thousand and one things necessary for the troops.
It was a liberal education to watch a British N.C.O. working with the gang of natives under his command. Usually his entire vocabulary of Arabic consisted of about ten words, of which the following are a fair sample:—
With these, comically interpolated with English expletives, he performed marvels, from stone-breaking to bridge-building.
Presumably he gave his instruction by some process of thought-transmission, an art that seems peculiarly suited to the genius of the British soldier. "Quais!" he would say, when a man had done a job to his liking, and the man's comrades crowded round carefully to examine the work, after which they went away and copied it faithfully. If on the other hand, the man failed to do what was required of him, there would be an aggrieved bellow of: "La! Mush quais!" and the perspiring native would get down to it once more, while the others charged up again to see what in future to avoid. Moreover, whatever mistakes they made subsequently it was rarely that one.
"Igri, Johnny!" or alternatively and moreforcibly, "Get a bloomin' igri on, Johnny!" was the favourite ejaculation of an N.C.O. when he wanted to cure that tired feeling peculiar to the Egyptian native. (All natives answer to the name of Johnny, by the way.)
"Imshi!" was the N.C.O.'s great word, however; he used it on all occasions implying a departure from his presence; when a man's face displeased him, for instance, and when he dismissed them for the day. They made a weird combination, these two, the dominant white man and the dusky native; but they built Kantara—and a few other places.
As the camp grew and grew so also did its needs. The Army Service Corps arrived in force and demanded for themselves a great depôt, covering many acres, which was to be the Main Supply of the army advancing into Palestine. Materials and stores could not now be brought in sufficient quantities by the State railway on the other bank, and the traffic over the Canal bridges was becoming increasingly heavy. Accordingly the engineers found another outlet for their energies: they created a fleet!
Jetties and wharves were built on the east bank, and to them came presently numbers of strange vessels, broad in the beam like a barge, and with monstrous lateen sails that looked too unwieldy to be furled or set; and on their bows they bore the painted letters "I.W.T., R.E." and a numeral.They were native feluccas, garnered from every canal and waterway in Egypt. They brought grain and fodder for the horses, rations for the men, vegetables of all kinds from the fertile province of Fayoum, stores for the roads; and at Port Said and Suez material from the outside world was trans-shipped on to them for conveyance to Kantara. Loaded almost down to the water's edge they came to the jetties, tied up, emptied, and went away for more. Great wooden warehouses were built to receive the cargoes, and almost daily the number grew until they extended for miles down the Canal bank.
It would appear that the zenith of construction had now been reached, but as it became increasingly evident that the Turks would never again reach the Canal, so it was obvious that something more ambitious must be attempted, if the great advance was to be carried out successfully. For the feluccas were limited by their size to carrying articles of small compass, capable of being unloaded by hand; the larger implements of war were beyond them.
Thus the engineers had to tackle the enormously difficult problem of widening and deepening the Canal sufficiently to allow ocean-going steamers to come close in to the bank and discharge their cargoes directly on to the shore; this would serve the double purpose of time-saving in the transport of material, and lightening the strain on the ports of Alexandria and Port Said, which had borne a heavy burden since the war began.
It was no mean undertaking to make fundamental alterations in a great artery like the Suez Canal. No diminution in the traffic was permissible, since not only ourselves but the larger needs of the troops in France had to be considered. Supplies were being brought from Australia and India in large quantities, and most of the vessels had to pass through the Canal. Thus the alterations had to be carried out while, as it were, the day's work was going on, and it took months of patient toil before the end was in sight. Indeed, I am not sure that the troops were not already in Palestine before the first ocean-going steamer drew up to its berth in the newly-made docks.
What made the business more difficult still was the incredible shortage of skilled labour. Owing to our deplorable predilection in the army for putting square pegs into round holes, there were trained engineers sweeping out mess-huts or carrying stretchers; capable mechanics digging holes or grooming horses; and skilled draughtsmen addressing envelopes and writing: "Passed to you, please, for information and necessary action," on documents referring to the momentous question as to whether No. 54321 Dr. Jones, R.H.A., should have a pair of new breeches at the public expense or pay for them out of his beer-money. All were very necessary tasks, no doubt, but requiring the right men to do them; and the engineers very urgently wanted the right men, too, not merely for makingthe docks, but for their multifarious activities in the field. In their search for them they went through the army like a scourge.
A trade-testing centre was established at Kantara to which from every unit in the field or at the base came butchers, bakers, miners, moulders, brass-founders, electrical, mechanical, and civil engineers, draughtsmen, men accustomed to all kinds of steel and iron work, and railwaymen. All were tested practically in their respective trades by an expert in that trade, after which they were graded according to their proficiency and knowledge, transferred to the engineers, and sent about their proper business. By this system the cream of the skilled trades was obtained; and there was the double satisfaction that the men were not only working at the jobs for which they were best suited, but were helping materially to win the war.
The scheme went further. As the supply of really skilled men was necessarily somewhat small, and the need great, the apprentices and semi-qualified men were eliminated from other units by the same process of selection, sent to Kantara and given the opportunity of learning more of their trade, being tested from time to time to learn the measure of their progress, until they could take their places amongst the qualified men. Thus a constant supply was more or less assured, and the O.C. of a Field Company of Engineers requiring, say, a fitter or a wheelwright or a moulder, merely askedfor them in much the same way as one orders a ton of coal; if the goods, so to speak, were to be had, he got them.
So sedulously were the records of trades kept that the authorities never lost touch of the men, especially of those engaged in intricate or delicate trades. On one occasion a skilled instrument-maker journeyed 1200 miles to Kantara in order to do a job for which he happened to be the only man at the moment available! And similar cases might be multiplied almost indefinitely.
While provision was laboriously being made to fit Kantara for its mission as a great base, means had to be prepared to send forward supplies and material to the army in the desert, now feeling its way towards Romani. One of the delights of the Egyptian campaign was that no sooner was one obstacle overcome than another rose up to bar the way. It was a useful aid to the development of character, no doubt, and at any rate a powerful incentive to the acquirement of a comprehensive vocabulary.
There was this ever-recurring question of transport. Hitherto the bulk of the carrying-work had been done by the much-abused camel, the ideal animal for the job, for he thrives where a horse will starve, and he need not be watered more than once every three days, or even less often, if necessary. His only drawback is his comparative slowness of gait. He can do his steady two and a half milesan hour for ever and ever, but if an army suddenly takes it into its head to advance twenty miles the camel must somehow go with it, and some quicker form of transport must be organised behind to supplement his work.
Thus, born of urgent need, the Railway Operating Division came into being, and set about the construction of a railway. The difficulties at the outset were enormous. Not only was the line required quickly to follow in the wake of the now steadily advancing army, but transport had to be arranged to bring material from the docks to the railway in embryo. Again the camels stepped into the breach, and daily long convoys carrying stones and sleepers and rails went forward into the desert and dropped their loads at places appointed along the proposed route.
Another and more serious trouble was the lack of men; for if the engineers had to scour the army for men to make and organise the water-transport, they had to use a fine comb to get the railwaymen, since only a small percentage had been allowed to enlist in the first place. However, by the aid of the system aforementioned, they got together sufficient to meet the needs of the moment. The bulk of the men had originally been recruited from two of the great English railways, and either by accident or design, probably the latter, the authorities kept the men from each railway in separate companies.
The keenness was terrific. Right from themoment when the railway first thrust its shining tentacles across the desert, there was a competition between the two as to which could lay the longer stretch of line in a day's work. Aided and abetted by the "Camels" and the E.L.C., they progressed at an astonishing pace, and in spite of all drawbacks from sand and the terrible heat, an average rate of one mile of line a day was maintained.
To the uninitiated it may seem that railway-making in the desert is a mere matter of dropping sleepers on to the sand as far as you want to go, bolting the rails on to them, and running non-stop expresses at once. On the contrary, except that no rivers had to be bridged nor tunnels made, laying a line over the desert requires at least as much care and preparation as elsewhere. For if there is one thing certain about this unchanging land, it is that the contours of the desert are eternally changing. The sand is continually silting, and a khamseen may alter the whole surface of the land, yet to the eye it remains substantially the same. It is only when you come to study the desert in terms of the theodolite, so to speak, that you discover its mutability; that which is a hill to-day may be a plain to-morrow.
All this had to be considered in making the railway-bed, which must have a firm foundation of stones and a suitable embankment. To put a mile of line down in a day and maintain that rate is, then, a fairly creditable feat. Each company workedalternate days; sometimes one company would beat the record by a few yards, sometimes the other; there was little to choose between them from the point of view of efficiency.
Here is a story, which I like to think is true, of their intense rivalry and its results.
As the railway was approaching Romani—this was just before the battle—one company laid down a stretch of line beating the previous best by some distance, after which they mentioned the matter casually to their rivals, and retired to rest in the fond belief that they had effectually "put it acrost 'em." Life is full of surprises, however. In the chill hour before dawn the next day a band of soldiers, breathing profanity and determination, crept across the desert to the line, and made an attack on that record. All through the day they toiled, pausing seldom for rest or refreshment, and oblivious to everything but their work. Towards sunset a triumphant shout proclaimed that victory had been won. At about the same moment from the rear came another shout, which had in it nothing of triumph, the shout of a man anxious to do some one grievous bodily hurt.
It was a heated staff-officer who had been sent by the general to know what the dickens they meant by getting in advance of the troops, whether they knew that they were pushing the railway right into the Turkish lines, and whether it was intended for our use or the Turks', etc. etc.
It had apparently taken the staff most of the day to see what was going on, but the facts were none the less correct; for the railwaymen in their enthusiasm had failed to notice anything but their general direction, which was, of course, perfectly accurate; the fact that they had indeed advanced beyond our lines had utterly escaped them! Later, the general is reported to have written praising the keenness of the two companies, but recommending that in future zeal should be tempered with discretion.
Whether the story be true or not is really immaterial, because the incident could quite easily have happened with these railwaymen; it took much to stop them.
Not only here but at Kantara a like activity prevailed. A line was laid running alongside the Canal bank, so that the wharves, and later the docks, were in direct connection with the main line: thus ships and feluccas could be unloaded direct on to a train. From this line also branch lines were made running through the main supply and ordnance depôts, again to preserve continuity and save time. A network of sidings was constructed, and soon covered many acres of ground; sheds were built for the locomotives; repairing plant was installed and signalling apparatus erected; handsome stone buildings sprang up as station offices; and, in short, one morning Kantara woke up to find itself the possessor of a railway terminus completein every essential detail, even down to a buffet for the troops.
Up to the end the engineers were incessantly extending and improving Kantara. In time substantial churches were built alongside Dueidar Road; playing areas were laid out and cinemas erected for the troops; and the Y.M.C.A. built lounges, concert-halls, and tea-rooms. Of these it is not necessary to speak, for they were but the trimmings of the place.
The principal attempt has been to present Kantara as it looked to us when we crossed the bridge that moonlight night in the early spring of 1917: a cluster of feluccas with their great masts bared to the sky; long lines of neat huts fringing the Canal; behind them a vast white city; away to the north the twinkling lights of the railway station; then, when the last gun and the last waggon had rumbled over the bridge, the broad highroad leading eastward to the desert and thence into Palestine.
It seemed a very miracle to us, who had lived there little more than a year before, that so much had been done. Possibly our inquiring friends, had they been riding with us that night, through thosefive milesof sleeping tents, would have believed the evidence of their own eyes.
If visual testimony were insufficient, let the simple fact be recorded that we had to stop and ask the way!
I suppose there is on each of our many battle-fronts at least one familiar road; by which I mean a road traversed regularly of necessity by the many, and remembered afterwards with feelings either of anger, of respect, or of loathing, almost as one regards a human being.
I have heard men who fought in France speak of a certain road between Bapaume and Peronne with a metaphorical lift of the cap; a famous Irish division who came to Egypt from Salonica, utter winged words when they refer to a heart-breaking road in that malaria-stricken hole; and presumably it is the same elsewhere.
We, too, have our road—perhaps the most famous, as it is the oldest, of them all. It is famous not merely in its present aspect, but chiefly for its history, extending almost as far back into antiquity as Time itself, and for its hallowed memories; it has, moreover, seen many, many wars.
It is the great caravan route from Egypt into Palestine. Eastwards from Kantara it runs, across the desert of Northern Sinai to El Arish, thenceonwards to Jerusalem and Damascus. Phœnicians, Romans, Moslems, and Jews have traded and fought over it. Napoleon came this way in his hurried dash into Egypt, and here, too, most of his army left their scattered bones. It is hallowed by the journey of Joseph and Mary with the infant Christ, fleeing into Egypt from the wrath of Herod.
Nineteen hundred odd years later the British soldier fought his way eastwards and northwards over the same route on his mission to free the Holy Land from the ambitions of a modern Herod. Almost the sole reason for its existence is the wells. The original road, considered as such, is singularly unimpressive; it is, in fact, little more than a mere track in the desert, when it is visible at all, for the ever-shifting sand obliterates as fast as they are made the imprints of marching feet.
The wells regulate the general direction, as on all the great caravan routes, and also the distance of a day's march. One may be quite certain that the ancients did no unnecessary wandering in the desert, but took the shortest cut from one well to another. Hence, the track follows its milestones, as it were, and notvice versa.
We did the same, and until the laying of the pipe-line rendered the army more or less independent of them, all the marching and fighting in this desert were for the possession of the wells that marked the old-time halting-places. Nowadays, the military road runs alongside the older one.
Feluccas bringing Supplies to Kantara
Feluccas bringing Supplies to Kantara(see p.54).
[To face page 64.
It is no ponderous affair of logs, or stones, or asphalt; a very simple, homely thing went to its making: just wire-netting, with a two-inch mesh, the kind one uses for the fowl-run! Laid in three rows, and pegged down on to the sand, it is wide enough for infantry comfortably to march four abreast. Simple though it sounds, it is astonishingly effective, and, indeed, the sensation is almost that of walking on a hard, macadamised road.
The cavalry may not use the road, nor the transport, nor the artillery; it is exclusively for the infantry, and deservedly so, for only they, who, carrying a rifle and pack, have trudged along ankle-deep over that blistering desert, know what a relief it is to march for an hour or two on a good road. And further, it is the infantry who bear the heat and burden of the day. All through the summer of 1916—and I have said elsewhere what manner of summer it was—they fought and died that the way might be made clear for those to follow them, and that the engineers could lay the road some of them would never use.
People at home generally are under the impression that there was no fighting in Egypt at all for two years; that the troops there had no difficulties to encounter nor hardships to endure; and that life, in fact, was one grand, sweet song.
Ask the men from Lancashire, or the Scottish Territorial division who came from the horrors of Gallipoli, or the Yeomanry, or the AustralianLight Horse, what they think of the song of the Sinai desert, as they heard it in 1916!
I fear that in this matter I am somewhat like Mr. Dick with King Charles' head; yet it is maddening, and indeed most monstrously unfair, that the work of these splendid men should pass unnoticed and unsung. It need hardly be said that I am not complaining on my own behalf. Heaven forbid! At the time the wire road was being made, we were away out East of Suez, digging holes and making other roads, with merely the discomforts peculiar to the place to endure.
But to the pioneers the glory, who conquered both the desert and the Turks. There was none of the pomp and circumstance of war about their work, no great concentration of men and horses and guns, no barrage nor heavy gunfire for days in preparation for an attack, no aircraft—though the ancient buses in use did wonderful work, considering their limitations—nothing but a few thousand men in their shirt sleeves; and it was out of their sweat and blood that the way was made clear for them that followed.
Everywhere and in every respect, save courage and endurance, the enemy held the advantage. During his slow retreat the choice of ground almost invariably lay with him; and the Turk has a nice eye for position, as we found on many occasions bitterly to our cost. Nor did he miss any opportunity of making a surprise attack, as on that blackEaster Sunday of 1916, when he crept up and fell upon the Yeomanry at Katia and Oghratina, two cavalry posts east of Kantara. Under cover of a desert mist the Turks crawled past the outposts and fell upon the sleeping men in overwhelming numbers.
Yet even these odds were not too great. Taken completely by surprise as they were, the Yeomanry fought with everything they could lay their hands on: sabres, rifles, bayonets, mallets, pegs, even with bare fists, asking no quarter and with no thought of surrender. They knew that no help could possibly arrive in time, for the Turks attacked simultaneously at both places; yet they fought on with desperate courage until the Turks at length retired, unable to break the gallant little band.
And who now remembers the names of these places, except the relatives of those who fell there, and the few who, fighting, came safely through? They were little affairs of outposts, mere skirmishes, perhaps, but they paved the way for the larger task. And who now speaks of Romani? Yet it was one of the decisive battles of the war. Here the Turks made a magnificently organised attempt to break through our defences and reach the Canal. It was indeed a wonderful feat to bring an army of nearly 30,000 men across a sparsely watered desert, with their nearest railhead a hundred and fifty miles away. We found it difficult enough later with the helpof the railway. Not only did they bring an army, but dragged, on sledges, heavy guns up to 8 inches in calibre with them—a very rude shock to our experts, who pronounced it impossible until they saw our observation posts on the summit of Kattigannit literally plastered with heavy shells.
For nearly a fortnight the Turks struggled to get through. First they tried to break down our defences between Romani and the sea. Foiled in this they swung across to the other flank and fought for possession of the chain of hills dominating this region. Mount Royston, Mount Meredith, and the long, whale-backed Wellington Ridge all changed hands at least once, and the last-named became the principal Turkish position, around which a terrible struggle raged for nearly two days.
The infantry and dismounted cavalry advancing to the attack had first to cross a broad stretch of uneven country as bare as the back of the hand, and swept from end to end by machine-guns. They sank over the boot-tops into the sand at every step, they were hampered by their equipment, and the blazing August sun made their rifles almost too hot to hold.
Painfully the long line struggled on, halted a little while and lay down, for human endurance has its limits, then went forward again. So, alternately forcing themselves through the sand, and lying down for very want of breath, the sweating men came to the foot of the ridge, sadly decimated innumbers, but unconquerable in their determination to get to the top.
Now they made a last great effort, and, swearing, sliding, sometimes sinking up to the knees, sometimes crawling, and all the time swept by a murderous fire, these wonderful men reached the redoubt and at length got to grips, only to be thrust back again by the no less determined Turks.
Again they came, a mere handful, and again they were driven back. Now a second wave reached the slope, and with the shattered remnant of the first made a great rush, obtained a footing and kept it. It was sheer hand-to-hand fighting of the fiercest kind; every man marked his man and went for him with the bayonet.
The Turks gave back thrust for thrust; they yielded no ground, but died where they stood. Quarter was neither asked nor given. Men fought in little groups until one or the other was wiped out, when the survivors rushed away and gave a hand elsewhere. And at last victory was to the strong, and Wellington Ridge was won—at a price.
Yet although the capture of the ridge turned their position, the Turks elsewhere retired but slowly, contesting every attempt at an advance with most bitter determination.
All through these scorching days the battle raged, and even the fine work of the cavalry failed to break them, for they knew that with every yard they retreated, their cherished dream of crossing the Canalreceded farther and farther. It was not a question of "reculer pour mieux sauter"; the Turks knew that if they were driven out of a position they left it for good; wherefore they fought with the courage of despair. They had to go, however, for nothing human could stand against the inexorable advance of our men.
But the fighting, bloody and desperate though it was, was not the worst of the hardships endured by both victor and vanquished; many things pass unnoticed in the heat of battle. It is afterwards, when the pursuit is spent, and a man thinks of a meal and a drink, that he counts up his hurts. In the fight he has perhaps thrown away his haversack to give himself more freedom of movement, or a chance bullet has pierced his water-bottle; and there he is, miles from anywhere, with neither rations to eat nor water wherewith to slake the thirst that seems to be gnawing his throat away. Nor has he the chance of obtaining more, except from a comrade.
There were small parties of men concerned in the remoter fighting who advanced too far, and when night fell, lost touch with the main body. For forty-eight hours some of them were lost in the desert; water and rations were soon all gone, and they suffered intolerably with the heat. Hunger they could endure, but they were driven to dreadful and unnameable expedients to quench the thirst that consumed them.
When at last they did find their comrades, their tongues and lips were so blackened and swollen that the first drinks had to be given through a straw.
Imagine the plight of the wounded, lying on the slopes of Wellington Ridge and elsewhere, racked with pain, and tortured almost to madness by flies and thirst, exposed for hours to the merciless rays of the sun, until the stretcher-bearers, working though they were like men inspired, had the opportunity to carry them away to the rear.
And then, what? Here were no swift, easy-running cars, no comfortable hospital-trains to whirl them down to a Base where there were baths, clean linen, and kindly sisters to make them forget what had passed. Instead, two or three bell-tents wherein doctors and orderlies, worked almost to a standstill and rocking on their legs with fatigue, strove to dress the wounds of the maimed and shattered men.
Nor was this the worst. After the wounds had been cleansed and bound up as well as might be, came the journey down to Kantara. The lucky few were carried in sand-carts, but the large majority went on camel-back, lying in a cacolet. A cacolet is a kind of stretcher-bed with a rail round it, and a hood over the top to protect the occupant from the sun. Each camel carried two cacolets, one clamped to each side of a specially constructed saddle. To a wounded man the motion was the very refinement of torture, especially if the othercacolet were occupied by a heavier man. At one moment the cacolet swung high in the air, and the sufferer was banged against the lower rail; the next, it was at the other extreme, and he was almost thrown out—there was no rest from the maddening motion until a merciful unconsciousness brought relief to the tortured body.
By means of cunningly placed blankets the medical authorities did all that was humanly possible to mitigate the terrible jolting, but with all their care and ingenuity even the shortest journey in a cacolet was a nightmare.
The miracle was that even the uninjured men could endure so much. One could—and did—live on bully-beef and biscuits for weeks at a time and take no harm, provided one could get water. But the Turks had a habit of poisoning the wells as they retreated, and the most stringent orders had therefore to be issued, forbidding men to drink of water unexamined by a medical officer. It was pitiful to see the horses, too, after two or three days' hard riding, watered perhaps once in all that time; for the lightest driver or cavalryman, with his equipment, rides at least eleven stone, a heavy burden to carry over the sand in the heat.
Out of such troubles was the victory of Romani won. It meant that a few more miles of railway could be built; that the wire road could go forward once more; that the pipe-line could carry onward its precious freight; and that the Canal was safe.
Of like nature, too, were the victories at Bir El Abd, where the Turks held on to their positions with such extraordinary tenacity that it was literally touch-and-go which side retreated; but those dour Scotchmen could take a deal of hammering, and the Turks had to go in the end; at Mazar, at Maghdaba, and at Rafa, on the border, where the Turkish dream of an Ottoman Egypt was shattered for ever. So they retreated into Palestine, with the shadow of yet a greater cataclysm upon them.
This, then, was the work accomplished by those early pioneers, and scarcely the half of it has been told. Let those who sat in their arm-chairs in England demanding querulously what we were doing in Egypt judge of their achievement.
They marched and toiled and fought—a few scattered, solitary graves mark the places where some of them lie buried. If they fought only in their thousands and not in their tens of thousands, the reason is simple: in all the peninsula between Kantara and El Arish the wells may be numbered on the fingers, and before an army can be used, its means of procuring food and drink must be assured. Water did not exist in sufficient quantities for a big army, nor was there any transport available for food. Dysentery, heat, flies, bad water, no water—they took them as a matter of course, and went forward nor stayed for any man.
In the course of twelve months they cleared the enemy out of a hundred and fifty miles of desertover which they built the railway, laid the pipe-line, and made the wire road, that their comrades who followed later might come safely and quickly to the Great Adventure over the border.
And these are their memorials, for they did a great work.
The British soldier on the march is really rather a wonderful person; he is so entirely self-contained. This, by the way, refers not so much to his manners as to his methods.
To begin with, he has to carry all his goods and chattels on his person. The infantryman has his pack and equipment, a wonderful assortment of articles that bristle out from him like the quills on a porcupine, and which he generally describes as "The Christmas Tree"; with which, too, he can do most things, from preparing a meal for himself to digging a trench.
The "gunners" and the cavalry, while fortunately for them not obliged to carry a pack, may take only what they can cram into their haversacks or pack on to their saddles, and that is necessarily somewhat limited in quantity. Kit bags and tents are of course left behind. In fact, when we struck the caravan road leading into Palestine we were destined for many months to a nomadic, gipsy-like existence, sleeping under the stars, and scratching for our meals with what means our ingenuity could devise.
I remember seeing, the morning we left Kantara, a steam-roller puffing stolidly along the road—a ludicrous sight, too, there in the desert—and it seemed when we left it behind that we were snapping the last link which bound us to civilisation. As it transpired later, this particular trek was considerably more civilised than any we had hitherto taken; we had, in fact, most of the ha'pence and few of the kicks experienced by our predecessors. Indeed, we had ample opportunity of seeing how much they had accomplished, and how extraordinarily well it had been done.
As I have said, the railway for the most part ran parallel with the road, and at no time was it more than a mile away. Every third day the train brought a load of forage and rations to the appointed stations on the line, to which each unit sent its representatives to bring back supplies for three days.
We had, if I remember rightly, fresh meat and bread for one day, and the remaining two bully-beef and biscuits; in any case we certainly did not starve. Watering was rather more difficult, particularly just now, for the Bedouins, who somehow manage to exist in this barren land, were very fond of tampering with the pipe-line and then fading quietly away, with the result that exasperated engineers were dashing up and down with white lead and repairing tools, so that water was generally unobtainable from this source.
The trouble was that although the main was covered up, the continual movement of the sand left it exposed to the tender mercies of these Bedouins. Later, the engineers gathered scrub from the surrounding desert and replanted it in the embankment covering the pipe, thus binding the sand, and forming a firm and permanent barrier to future depredations. To obviate the present difficulty, large cisterns were erected at most of the stations on the line, and were fed from two-thousand gallon tanks brought up from Kantara on the train. Always our first business at the end of a day's trek was to ride away and look for the railway station, with its one solitary hut and the half-dozen tents occupied by the water-guard.
I have ventured to mention these details in order to show how very carefully the move across the desert of even one small unit, especially a mounted unit, had to be planned out from beginning to end, if it was to have rations and water in the right place at the right time; the least hitch and men had to go foodless for a day or even longer.
At Pelusium we had an exciting moment: the country hereabouts consists of a series of hillocks from behind one of which, without the slightest warning, reared up a monster of grotesque shape emitting unseemly noises. Simultaneously the horses reared up and made a spirited attempt to return to home and friends, and it was not until the turmoil had subsided a little that we realised what this uncouth beast was.
It was a Tank.
We had been mightily intrigued by hearing of the appearance in France of these monstrous engines of war, but as a cloud of secrecy hung over all their movements, had never up to that moment seen one. Those used on this front were much smaller than their French relations, and were as a matter of fact a comparative failure in Palestine. Whether the sand was too much for them, or the rough country over which they had to operate, I do not know, but after the third attempt on Gaza I believe they were never used. One could easily understand their striking terror into anybody, however, especially if their appearance on the scene were the least bit unexpected, for they were uncanny objects.
Another shock, but one we were able to bear with equanimity, was when we came across those desirable residences occupied (freehold) by the gentlemen of the Expeditionary Force Canteens. Even the most confirmed pessimist brightened up when we sighted one. Then there would be a searching in wallets for the very needful "feloos," and a careful scrutiny of nosebags to see if there were any holes large enough to allow one precious tin to escape. You would see a man staggering along with a nosebag slung across his shoulder and a wild look in his eye, while his lips mumbled incessantly. "One tin OxfordanCambridge sausages; one tin chickenanhampaste; one tin pears...."
Then he would butt into some one similarlyengaged, and in the exchange of pleasantries that ensued both would forget what they wanted. And the pandemonium once you did get inside the marquee! How anybody was ever served was a wonder, for the air was thick with the names of all the dainties and comestibles under the sun; but the people behind the counter were lightning calculators, jugglers, and equilibrists combined.
One of them, balanced perilously on the top of a couple of packing-cases, was hurling tins of fruit in all directions; and another performed incredible feats with an armful of bottles; while a third, standing over an immense crate, shied packets of biscuits across the counter to the clamorous throng on the other side. A weary-looking youth who had been for some time chanting dolefully: "Two packets of biscuits, please—two packets of biscuits, please...." stopped one packet with his eye. In the confusion the next man to him, on the same errand, helpfully removed the packet, placed two piastres on the counter, and departed swiftly to his own place, leaving the weary one ruminating, possibly, on, "Where did that one go to, 'Erbert?"
At another place, I remember, besides the packets on which were the magic names of Cadbury or Fry, the veal patties, the tins of paste, and bottles of sauce, there were large bottles of sustenance brewed by one Bass—at half a crown the bottle—and others with black, red, or white labels on them, containing a more potent but very nourishing liquid.
At such times as these, it was the custom, when the day's trek was done, to "win" as much wood as possible from the nearest station—a sleeper was extremely useful—build a huge fire, and sit round it in the approved manner, singing songs and drinking wassail, which latter occasionally worked out to as much as one tot per man, if you got there early. These were special occasions, however. As a general thing we were too tired to do more than roll into the blankets very soon after the evening meal.
It was so cold at nights, too, that some nicety of judgment was necessary in order to get the best out of our blankets, of which we had two, together with a greatcoat, cardigan-waistcoat, and cap-comforter or balaclava helmet, this last a very stout bulwark against the cold blast. The first business was to dig a shallow, coffin-shaped trench large enough to contain two; it was much better for two men to bivouac together, since by putting one blanket only to sleep on, we had three with which to cover ourselves, besides our greatcoats. Nobody took any clothes off, with the exception of boots and putties. One man who did so, protesting he was unable to sleep in his clothes, found in the morning a couple of large beetles preparing to set up house in his riding-breeches, which materially and permanently altered his views.
The Long, Long Trail
"The Long, Long Trail."
[To face p. 80.
The pillow universally used was a nosebag filled with the next day's feed, and very comfortable it was, especially now that there were no ravenousmules to break loose and poke an inquisitive muzzle under our ears. Then with our cap-comforters on, and perhaps the spare shirt wrapped round the head, we were snug for the night.
In the mornings there was little temptation to linger between the blankets, for we were usually awakened by the remarkable change in the temperature of that hour just before dawn; it was precisely as if a stream of cold air had suddenly been turned on. Besides, the horses had to be fed, our belongings had to be made into the neat roll which is strapped on the front of the saddle, the daily Maconachie had to be devoured, after which came the saddling-up ready for an early start.
For the first hour or two the journey in the fresh morning air was pleasant enough; pipes and cigarettes were lit and chaff bandied about. But the very monotony of the country soon banished any attempt at conversation, and hour after hour we jogged along in silence. With the exception of ourselves there was no living thing in sight, no sign of human habitation; even the wire road was deserted. As the nearest line of low hillocks loomed up and was passed, you knew the next would be precisely the same, and the next, as far as the remote horizon. In places the route was strewn with bones of horses and camels, while here and there a human arm or leg protruded from the sand, for the Turks did not dig very deeply, and thedesert soon gives up its dead. At Romani especially the ground was littered with bones, great ravens hung over the putrifying bodies of animals, and a horrid, fetid smell pervaded the atmosphere. We were glad to get away from this Golgotha of the desert.
Another rather curious feature was the appearance in the midst of the dunes of a broad, flat expanse of sand covered with glittering white particles, damp and salty to the taste, and exactly like the bed of a shallow lake. Curious, because these "subkuts," as they are called, were seldom found near a well, and it was difficult to see whence came the water with which obviously at some time of the year they were covered.
We welcomed them for strictly utilitarian reasons; it was a great relief to the horses to pull the guns and waggons over the firm sand for an hour or two. Sometimes, indeed, it took half a day to cross a subkut.
At one point we came across one of the strangest things I have ever seen in the desert. This was a small hill literally blazing with poppies! Whether some migrating birds had dropped the seeds here or whether there was some botanical reason for their appearance, I do not know, but it was a beautiful and wonderful sight; a riot of scarlet in a barren land. It was worth a bad quarter of an hour from nostalgia to get a glimpse of home, after the horror we had just left.
Occasionally the dreary monotony of the days was broken by the visits of Turkish scouting aeroplanes which hovered about us for a quarter of an hour or so, until they had found out all they wanted to know, while the long line of guns and waggons broke up and scattered itself over the desert, lest the Turks should also feel inclined to drop a little present. This kindness was always denied to us, however.
Apart from these visits mile followed mile almost without incident. But there came a day, to be marked prominently as one of these days when nothing seems to go right.
We awoke to a bluster of blinding sand so that the morning was darkened with it. Breakfast in consequence was a fiasco, and very empty, very angry, we faced the trail head-on to the sandstorm. Hour after hour it continued with no sign of abatement, and with caps pulled down to shield the eyes and handkerchiefs tied over nose and mouth we struggled on. The day seemed a thousand years long; and when at last we did come to a halt, it was found that we had overshot the watering-place by some miles! Back we trailed wearily to the right place and there made the pleasing discovery that the water had to be pumped up by hand, with the aid of the cumbersome old "shadouf." We felt then that the gods had no more to offer us.
How many hours passed I do not know, but the stars had come out and the storm had almost spentits violence, when we rode back sleepily to the camping-ground. I may add that this was the only time I was really and earnestly grateful for an army-biscuit; it was the sole article of food untouched by the sand!
A day or two later our route took us on to the sea-shore and we knew then that we were approaching the end of the journey; moreover, if further indication were necessary, every halting-place now was populous with men, all, like ourselves, marching towards El Arish, which is the only native town in the whole desert. It was here that the ancient River of Egypt once flowed until some violent upheaval of the earth's surface caused it completely to disappear. Arab tradition has it that the river now flows underground, which probably accounts for the fertility of the wadi, or valley, and ultimately for the existence of the town.
Approaching the place we passed a very large grove of date-palms beyond which the white roofs and walls shimmered in the setting sun. The Turks were expected to make a great stand here, not only because of its strategic position but also for its value as a port. When our aircraft reconnoitred the ground about the middle of December, they discovered that for some unknown reason the enemy had departed bag and baggage in the night, and the cavalry, after a terrible march of nearly thirty miles, had nothing to do but walk in and take possession. This was something of an anti-climax,considering the preparations the Turks had made for putting up a stern fight.
But as usual they retired with a sting in their tails. At Maghdaba, some twenty miles down the wadi, they left a garrison in immensely strong positions, with orders, apparently, to delay our advance at all costs.
Our horses and men were deadly tired after their long march, and the watering problem was acute. There was literally no water between El Arish and Maghdaba, and the wells at the latter place were in the hands of the Turks. However, the Imperial Camel Corps, the Anzacs, and the Royal Horse Artillery, entirely oblivious to everything but their objective, captured the whole series of redoubts and the survivors of the garrison, who fought on till they were completely surrounded.
El Arish was chiefly remembered by us because we were able to take all our clothes off for the first time in ten days, and indulge in the unwonted luxury of sea-bathing. Throughout all our subsequent wanderings in Palestine no joy ever approached that of a complete bath; indeed, it is ludicrous to note the number of places about which everything was obliterated from the memory save the fact that one had a bath there.
From El Arish onwards the track was now thick with marching men, and at Sheikh Zowaid, another spot of green in the desert, we came to a great camp, where it was easy to read the signs of a coming"show." The bivouac areas were crowded with troops of all arms, and as fast as one brigade left another marched in to take its place.
There is a subtle difference between a concentration camp near the front line and one down at a base; something more purposeful, perhaps, in the former than in the latter. There is, withal, considerable less ceremony. Here there were canteens—observe the plural—of surpassing magnificence. In the mere attempt to get near them we experienced something of what our people were going through at home. The queues were prodigious! As two canteens were rather close together we had carefully to note which queue we were in lest we should inadvertently find ourselves at the end of one when we ought to have been at the head of the other, orvice versa. In the latter case the unobservant one would have his correct and ultimate destination described with a wealth of epithet and in a variety of dialects.
The ever-enterprising Y.M.C.A. had a marquee, too, where we could sit in comparative comfort, where we met men from other units with whom we exchanged views on how the campaign should be run, on the appalling iniquity of those A.S.C. people at the base, who lived on the fat of the land while the fighting men starved—a slight but very popular exaggeration with the troops—on the possibility of a mail within the next year or two, and on similar great matters.
After this we gave each other cap-badges or buttons as a sign of mutual goodwill and returned to our palatial burrows in the sand, a perilous journey in the dark across an area literally honeycombed with similar burrows, into which we fell with monotonous regularity. Our progress was punctuated by a series of muffled but pungent remarks from people whose faces we had stepped on, or who had been suddenly interrupted in a snore of powerful dimensions by the violent impact of a hard head against the diaphragm. By the time we had reached our own place the remarks had swelled to a chorus with a deplorable motif.
Next day we started for Rafa, the last stage of the march, which brought us to the southern border of Palestine. And, let me record the fact with due solemnity, we celebrated our arrival by cleaning harness!