Part 6 (1/2)
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 pa.s.sed, 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 the desert 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 bl.u.s.ter 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 c.u.mbersome old ”shadouf.” We felt then that the G.o.ds had no more to offer us.
How many hours pa.s.sed I do not know, but the stars had come out and the storm had almost spent its 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-sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sed a very large grove of date-palms beyond which the white roofs and walls s.h.i.+mmered 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 surpa.s.sing 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, or _vice versa_. In the latter case the un.o.bservant 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 b.u.t.tons 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 m.u.f.fled 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!
CHAPTER VII
ON THE FRINGE OF THE HOLY LAND
After the decisive victory of the 9th January, Rafa had been formed into an advanced base for the next attack on the Turks, who had retreated some twenty miles to immensely strong positions, of which Gaza formed the right and Beersheba the left flank, with Sheria in the centre. During the whole of February, troops of all arms had been steadily marching eastwards across the desert. By the middle of March Rafa presented an inspiring spectacle.
Every day brigade after brigade of cavalry, artillery, and infantry poured in, dusty, thirsty, and leg-weary, but in high spirits at leaving the desert behind at last. One infantry division in particular--the 52nd Lowland--had good reason to be thankful, for, coming straight from Gallipoli to Egypt, they marched and fought every yard of the way across Sinai.
The mounted division certainly did the same, but it takes an infantryman thoroughly to appreciate the joys of tramping in full marching order over the sand. The 52nd, moreover, did most of their marching before the wire road was laid. Where all did so well, it is rather invidious to single out any one division, but I do not think any one will object to throwing a few bouquets at the Scotsmen, except possibly the Turks, who heartily disliked them, especially behind a bayonet.
By now the railway had caught us up again, and almost daily long supply trains come in from Kantara with loads of rations and forage. Also the Egyptian Labour Corps arrived in hundreds and once more made the day hideous with their mournful dirge. But if this eternal chant made one yearn to throw something large and heavy at the performers, their work compelled profound admiration. They must have beaten all previous records in laying the line from Sheikh Zowaid to Rafa and were preparing to carry it forward at the same pace. It was a characteristic of the railway now and later, to appear in all sorts of unlikely places, and it was quite a common experience to be awakened two or three days after our arrival in some remote spot, by the shrill whistle of a locomotive.