Part 10 (1/2)
Camels only were used, in such numbers that from Belah to Khan Yunus the country was like a vast patch-work quilt of greys and blacks and browns. It seemed as if all the camels in the world were a.s.sembled here; st.u.r.dy little black Algerians; white long-legged beasts from the Soudan; tough grey ”belody” camels from the Delta; tall, wayward Somalis; ma.s.sive, heavy-limbed Maghrabis--magnificent creatures; a sprinkling of russet-brown Indian camels; and, lest the female element be neglected, a company of flighty ”nitties,” very full of their own importance. The native drivers were of as many shades as the camels they led, from the pale brown of the town-bred Egyptian to the coal-black Nubian or Donglawi. Twenty-five thousand camels carrying water! The first relays were filing stolidly into the nullah in the early hours of the morning after the battle, as though their business were the most ordinary thing in the world!
They entered the nullah by one of the hastily constructed roads and ”barracked” in a long row in front of the big tanks. Then the two twelve-and-a-half-or fifteen-gallon fanatis carried by each camel were unloaded and their precious contents poured into the tanks, after which the empty fanatis were reloaded on to the saddles and the camels pa.s.sed out of the nullah by another road, and returned to Belah or Khan Yunus for another supply. There was no confusion and hardly any noise but the grunting and snarling of the camels as they ”barracked” and got up again, the whole process of unloading and reloading being like a piece of well-oiled machinery. Indeed, so well was the work done that troops coming in to water their horses scarcely noticed it.
Day and night the two long columns--the one with full, the other with empty fanatis--pa.s.sed in and out of the nullah; and for twelve miles there was no break in the slow-moving chain.
By noon on the day following the battle two thousand horses at a time were able to water comfortably, without congestion and without interfering with the work of the camels. They entered the nullah by a different route, drank their fill and went out again by yet another road.
Needless to say this was not carried on without molestation by the Turks.
It was impossible to conceal our presence in the nullah, since even one battery of artillery moving along in watering order raised tremendous clouds of dust visible many miles away, and when several such clouds approaching from different directions were seen converging on the one place, it was obvious that a splendid opportunity had arisen for a little bombing practice; one, moreover, of which the Turks took full advantage.
Hardly had we left the comparative shelter of our position than the familiar hum of an enemy plane was heard, and in a few minutes a peculiar swis.h.i.+ng sound heralded the rapid approach of some of his detestable ironmongery. Sometimes he would hover overhead and follow the long line till we were almost at the lip of the nullah before releasing his bombs, and this was the very refinement of torture. During the whole of the two-mile journey we sat waiting for the swish-swish of the bombs, wis.h.i.+ng that saddles were placed on the bellies of the horses instead of on their backs. Then as we were descending into the nullah he would let fly in the hope of catching us in the narrow defile.
The extraordinary thing was that though we must have made an excellent target, no one to the best of my recollection was ever hit. Many times bombs dropped on the very edge of the road as horses were pa.s.sing, but providentially the splinters all went wide. For this immunity we had, in great measure, to thank our own aircraft, who, out-cla.s.sed though they were for speed, invariably went up to hara.s.s the Turk and put him off his aim, in which gallant attempt they nearly always succeeded. Bombs dropped in the nullah itself had no better effect, and if the object of the Turks was to stampede the horses, it failed miserably. Frequently they would transfer their attentions to the camel convoys with even worse results; it required a great deal more than mere bombs to upset the camels, who padded steadily along, eternally chewing and supremely indifferent to the agitated people overhead.
Considering our unprotected positions and the undoubted superiority of their machines over ours, the Turks were not very enterprising. Once or twice they came over the batteries, flying low and sniping--with indifferent success--at the gunners. But that was the limit of their boldness; and when our solitary ”Archie” in the valley briskly opened fire on them they turned tail and scuttled abjectly out of range.
Near the nullah a day or two after our arrival a few more anti-aircraft guns came up for the protection of watering parties, which function they performed most successfully, though if British airmen had been operating the Turkish machines I doubt if we should have escaped unscathed. Perhaps the hard-fighting qualities of the British troops led the Turks habitually to over-estimate the numbers and defences opposed to them, for they rarely attacked even a small post save in great force. As a defensive fighter, however, especially behind a machine-gun, the Turk has few equals, and, a.s.sisted no doubt by his fatalistic temperament, he will take the severest hammering for days without flinching.
Tel el Jemmi being by far the most considerable hill in the neighbourhood, an observation post was established on the summit from which the whole wide plain of Gaza lay open to the view. Northwards stretched fields turning brown under the hot sun, with here and there a flicker of white in a patch of dark green marking the presence of a native dwelling; westwards was Ali Muntar thrusting its sombre height through fringes of cactus; Gaza tucked away behind, almost hidden in foliage; and beyond, the s.h.i.+ning waters of the Mediterranean. To the south numerous black patches indicated the presence of our troops and something of the activity at Belah; but most striking of all to the eye was the endless chain of camels extending to the distant horizon.
What an enormous amount of wasted effort there is during a campaign!
Herculean labour to meet the need of the moment. Troops are thrust into a forward position, and to keep them provided with the necessaries of life transport is organised to the very pitch of perfection. Often the position is occupied for a few days only, when the troops are sent elsewhere and the whole business starts again.
So it happened at Tel el Jemmi. We had thought that we were merely resting there preparatory to taking part in a third attempt on Gaza. But that time was not yet. After the first two days our guns were never fired, and though a brigade went out on a reconnaissance there were no signs of renewed activity by the Turks.
On our left the infantry were now securely entrenched on the captured ridges and were obviously settling down for the summer. There appeared to be no need for the mounted divisions _en ma.s.se_ to remain on the right flank, especially with transport strained to its utmost limits to maintain them there.
The ”heavies” were the first to leave the valley, then the anti-aircraft gun rumbled away on its lorry, and finally we were left in sole possession.
At dusk on the fifth day after our arrival we too departed; and the engineers were busy striking the canvas water-troughs in the nullah as we pa.s.sed. All through the night we travelled, and the journey was a repet.i.tion of our first retreat from Gaza, except that this was a voluntary retirement. We seemed to cross the wadi half a dozen times and might, in fact, have done so, for it wound fortuitously across the whole of our front, and we were everlastingly climbing into or out of steep-sided places. The heavy traffic of the last few days had churned up the whole countryside into a powdery dust, which rose in such heavy clouds as to make breathing difficult, and to see even the man immediately in front was next to impossible.
In the early hours of the morning we came to Sheikh Nuran, a position which had been very strongly fortified by the Turks but evacuated without a struggle, like those previously at Rafa, when we attacked Gaza the first time.
I remember little about this camp save that the Turks had left it in an unspeakably filthy condition, causing us to spend days clearing away their refuse.
CHAPTER XII
CAVE DWELLERS AND SCORPIONS
It soon became evident that we should make no more attempts on Gaza during the summer, and while both sides were preparing for the inevitable finale, a species of trench warfare began. This had little resemblance to the kind that obtained in France, where the rival trenches were frequently within a stone's throw of each other. Here, the nearest point to the Turks was on our left flank, where the trenches were perhaps eight hundred yards apart.
Then the line, which for the most part was that taken by the wadi in its meanderings, gradually swung south-eastwards till on the right flank we were at least ten miles away from the enemy; which does not mean that profound peace reigned in this region--on the contrary. The main reason for this wide divergence was the old difficulty of maintaining mounted troops--or indeed, troops of any kind--in a waterless country. Though officially we had crossed the border into Palestine, we were actually a long way from the land of milk and honey; and it may here be stated that the troops saw little milk and less honey even when they did at last reach that delectable spot.
In the coastal sector--we rose to the dignity of ”sectors” when trench warfare began--the infantry amused themselves by making a series of night-raids the c.u.mulative effect of which was considerable. They were carried out on a small scale with meticulous regard for detail, as was very necessary if only because the storming parties had rarely less than a thousand yards to cover before they reached their objectives.
Most of these operations were for possession of the sandstone cliffs on the Turkish side of the wadi and the terrain was generally the beach itself, which from Belah to beyond Gaza was rocky and dangerous and in few places more than fifty yards wide. At the mouth of the wadi, which had to be crossed, there were s.h.i.+fting sands extremely difficult to negotiate especially at high tide. After some weeks of successful nibbling, which exasperated the Turks into a vast, useless expenditure of ammunition, the infantry firmly established themselves along the coast to a point just south of Gaza, beyond which it was not expedient to go. Here they proceeded to make homes for themselves by digging holes in the face of the cliffs and lining them with sand-bags.
They became, in fact, cave-dwellers, though they certainly had army rations to eat in place of the raw bear of their troglodytic ancestors; and their caves were not dug here and there according to the indiscriminating taste of the diggers. They were cunningly conceived with a keen eye to defence as well as comfort. So elaborate was the system that it was universally known as the ”Labyrinth,” and no apter name could have been devised.
Long months afterwards, when ”the strife was o'er, the battle done,” I rode along this stretch of beach where the cliffs for upwards of a mile were honeycombed with caves of different sizes, all of them made by the hand of man. There were neat steps cut in the sandstone leading from one to the other; narrow ledges along which you crawled, clinging like a fly to the face of the cliff; and outside some of the caves was a kind of sandstone chute which presumably served the same purpose as did the banisters of irresponsible boyhood's days. I cannot imagine what else the occupants could use them for, nor when they had reached the bottom, how they climbed the steep incline again, except on hands and knees.
There were wells, too, sunk in various places about the Labyrinth and adequately protected with sand-bags. Rations were brought up by camels who made the stealthy and perilous journey across the mouth of the wadi nightly from Belah.