Part 7 (2/2)
Farther east, meanwhile, another party of Australians were supplying a little comic relief. Their function originally had been to prevent the escape of any Turks should the town be captured, but as the refugees failed to appear, for obvious reasons, the Australians rode forth to inquire into the matter. A mist of obscurity hangs over their doings until the moment when they saw before them an open landau--or gharry, as it is termed in Egypt--with an escort bearing all the trappings of high officialdom, proceeding at a gentle trot some distance away over the plain. This seemed to be fair game, so with a wild ”Coo-ee” the Light Horse charged down upon the totally unsuspecting party. The driver of the gharry lost his head and his seat simultaneously, the vehicle overturned and pinned the unfortunate occupant underneath, and the escort surrendered hurriedly several times over. This last was perhaps as well, for the attackers were so weak with laughter at the sight of a very dignified Turkish general in full regalia crawling from under the gharry that they were in no condition to put up a serious fight. It transpired later that the general so ignominiously and comically made prisoner was a divisional commander who, with all his staff, was apparently proceeding to his advanced headquarters with no thought of danger. It was humiliating for him and his entourage but was a highly important capture for us, in that he was one of the cleverest Turkish generals.
Another brigade of the Light Horse, under General Royston--”Galloping Jack”--operating in this area, were fighting desperately hard to drive a large force of Turks from a ridge, east of Gaza, which they had unexpectedly occupied and from which they were trying to get in touch with cavalry coming from Huj. In their successful attempt to defeat this project the Light Horse had the spirited a.s.sistance of the armoured cars whose utter disregard of danger saved the situation time after time. One group of half a dozen cars ran into half a division of Turkish reinforcements and were given up as lost by the brigade. But no! Instead of surrendering tamely the inspired madmen in the cars ran amok and played a merry game of follow-my-leader up and down and round and through the ranks of the enemy, until they had fired off most of their ammunition. Whereupon they made a final burst and got away almost unscathed--they had less than half a dozen casualties--leaving some four hundred Turkish killed and wounded on the field and the remainder probably wondering, like the n.i.g.g.e.r when the meteorite hit him, ”who frowed dat brick”!
As far as our part of the front was concerned it was a day out for the armoured cars and the Imperial Camel Corps. The latter were early engaged with some of those unsuspected reinforcements from Hereira and elsewhere and suffered terribly heavy casualties in beating off their attempts to get through. The Turks were overwhelmingly superior in numbers, yet a brigade was held up for half the day by one company of the ”Cameliers”! Another company formed up like cavalry and actually charged--and took--a position, the camels taking the hurriedly vacated trenches in their stride, as a horse leaps a ditch! I should think this charge is almost unique in the annals of war.
Yet a third company fought on until only one officer and seventy men were left and few of those were without a wound of some sort. It is not too much to say that their amazing efforts saved a large number of the mounted division from destruction, or, at least, capture.
For the greater portion of the day we ourselves had performed the role of spectators. With the exception of the contretemps already mentioned not a single shot came near us; we occupied an oasis of calm in the midst of a h.e.l.l of fire--and looked on. At certain intervals we walked or trotted, and once we galloped madly for half a mile, expecting at the end of it to hear the order: ”Halt--action front!” It was a false alarm. We halted for two hours--till about five o'clock, when, judging from the firing, Gaza was hemmed in on all sides.
We were then in a kind of shallow nullah situated about half-way down a gently sloping hill. Suddenly, over the top of the hill came a ”Signals”
waggon at the gallop laying a line at tremendous speed. The battery was galvanized into action by a sharp order, and in a few seconds the guns were unlimbered in a position facing due east, whence the rattle of musketry came in increased volume. Another battery tore down the hill, across the valley, and swung into action behind the crest opposite. Soon they were firing salvoes as fast as they could load, while our guns were yet idle.
Something seemed to have gone wrong. Anxious eyes were turned to the west, for the sun had by now nearly reached the horizon and in half an hour at most it would be too dark to fire.
How precious those three fog-spoilt hours of the early morning would have been, could we have had them now! The minutes dragged on and still no orders came. Gradually, as the sun sank, the hideous din of firing around us died down and then ceased abruptly, as if some unseen hand had descended and shut off all the guns simultaneously. We limbered up and withdrew a little way up the hill, and unhooked again for the night. I cannot hope to describe the bitter disappointment of that moment. That we had been spectators all day was bad enough, that the horses had been waterless for thirty hours and that we ourselves were hungry, thirsty, and very weary, was worse, but that the pernicious fog should have prevented us from loosing off at any rate one round was the last straw.
We found a small grain of comfort in the shape of a well at the bottom of the hill, to which, without removing their harness, we took the horses.
After the usual wearisome process of dragging up the water in canvas buckets we found it to be muddy, yellow stuff, and the horses, thirsty though they were, would have none of it. Perhaps they were wiser than we knew....
From the western end of the valley, travelling at a tremendous pace, came a small cloud of dust making straight for us.
It was a dispatch-rider, bringing word that the Turks were on the other side of the farther hill in great force and ordering us to clear out at once to avoid capture.
It never struck us till afterwards that the fact of the water being undrinkable saved us. Had it not been that we had spent something like half an hour dragging it from the well and trying to persuade the horses to drink, the harness would have been removed and we should have been in our blankets and fast asleep.
As it was, the Turks were in our position twenty minutes after our hurried departure.
CHAPTER IX
THE RETREAT
Bewildered by this sudden turn of events, we hurriedly hooked the horses in again to guns and ammunition-waggons, slung on the personal equipment recently discarded--though our water-bottles were now, alas, empty--and quickly vacated the nullah.
Where we were going to n.o.body save those in command knew; most of us were too weary to care. Our deadened senses were hardly capable of realising that the relieving Turks had somewhere broken through the cordon; we had to clear out and, in spite of what the firing had told us at sundown, we had failed to take Gaza. That much was now obvious; victorious troops do not as a rule retreat, especially at our present pace.
Hence we had no option but to keep moving as fast as we could until we were ordered to stop.
A mile or two out of the nullah we encountered the rest of the brigade, and gradually a troop from one unit or a squadron from another joined the column. By now it was pitch dark, but as far as one could judge we were taking a different route from that by which we had come. Our present direction was due west, and had we persisted in following it this route would have led us straight into the Turkish lines at Gaza.
The reason, which I give with some reserve, was learnt later. A German officer speaking perfect English and dressed in the uniform of a British staff-officer, rode up to the head of the column and announced that he had been sent by Headquarters as a guide. Thereupon the column followed this audacious gentleman's leaders.h.i.+p for some miles, until a pukka British officer, who had providentially spent some years surveying this very country, asked his commander whether he knew that we were making a bee-line for the Turkish defences. A startled e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n burst from the general, who turned to the guide to ask him if he was quite sure of the way.
But he asked in vain, for the man had disappeared!
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