The authorities soon found us a job or two to occupy our leisure. The Egyptian Labour Corps had not yet arrived on the scenes and the digging of the Kantara defences consequently devolved upon the white troops. This meant six hours' digging almost every day for almost every man, divided into a morning and an afternoon shift. Now sand is admittedly nice easy stuff to dig in, you do not need a pick, and can fill your shovel without exertion. But no trench in sand is the faintest use unless it is revetted. Our revetting material was matting on wooden frames, and these had to be anchored back to stakes driven in deep down, six feet clear of the parapet or parados, so that to produce a trench you had to take out six feet of sand extra on either side, hammer in your stakes and attach your anchoring wires to the matting and then fill in the whole again. Traverses had to be dug right out and then filled in again when the wall of matting was in position and secure. Progress was therefore not rapid, and especially on windy days when most of the sand was blown off your shovel before you had time to throw it and the wind silted it up in your excavation rather quicker than you could take it out. Still all this work, together with the wiring, was done thoroughly if slowly, and it was depressing to see next year that now that the war had been carried into the enemies' country, all our redoubts had been carefully filled in.
Other diversions provided for us took the form of unloading barges or loading trucks, and for some of these jobs it was necessary to cross to the western side of the Canal. On the outward journey there was never any difficulty about this, but on the homeward some such scene as the following was almost certain to occur. As the fatigue party—thirty men under an officer—reach the end of the pontoon bridge, after a hot afternoon in the ordnance depot, a cloud of natives hurl themselves upon it from either end and proceed to haul it in two halves under the whip-cracking of their own headman and the fatherly advice of an R.E. corporal. Looking up the Canal the fatigue party, already late for their dinners, perceive a P. & O. liner about four miles away majestically crawling south. Their only hope is now the horse-ferry, an aged flat-bottomed contrivance wound across by a squad of natives and a chain. With the assistance of a friendly military policeman, the headman of this gang is discovered some hundred of yards away lying asleep with his feet in the Sweet-Water Canal, Bilharziosis doubtless entering at every pore. When aroused he breaks into a voluble flood of Arabic—the M.P., an Argyle in disguise, addresses him in Scotch at a similar rate, while the O.C. fatigue party speaks very slowly in English, French, and what he believes to be modern Greek, successively. At this game the gippy always wins, and it is only when, confessing their defeat, the opposition resorts to personal violence that he goes off weeping to beat up his team, having been fully aware from the first that that was what was required. The officer in premature triumph embarks his party in the ferry, into which enter also some horses, two camels and a motor bike. The horses are naturally very frightened. The fatigue climbing to precarious footholds on the rails at the side, leave them the bottom of the boat to be frightened in. Then, screaming like a flock of sea gulls, the children of Pharaoh arrive, and their chief, looking wisely across the river, perceives a barge which he feels sure will be in our way. He therefore shouts to it, the officer—adding the voice of authority, shouts too—the men shout, the natives shout, everybody shouts. The barge crew shout back, but are finally out-shouted and haul clear. The foreman, seeing that he will now lose the game and have thus prematurely to take the party over, suddenly perceives the advancing P. & O., now not much more than a mile away. He draws the distracted officer's attention to the phenomenon and leads him to understand that to start now would lead to an inevitable collision and a watery grave. The polyglot argument waxes furious, the men taking it up in their turn, when their leader falls out exhausted, and the Arab is still keeping up his end triumphantly when the great ship reaches us and slowly steams by, while curious passengers eye us from her decks, their minds doubtless running enviously on flesh pots. After this, resort is again had to violence and the ill-assorted load slowly leaves the shore and commences its perilous journey, the horses still in paroxysms of terror and the camels supercilious and bored. Long before the other bank is reached all concerned have handsomely apologised to the headman for having doubted his statement that they could not have got across before the liner arrived. But at last they reach ground and so to their dinners, tired but cheerful still. The only time, by the way, that this accomplished Egyptian condescended to speak English was when a party of men returning at night from leave in Port Said, exasperated by his delays, had taken the matter into their own hands, and were working the ferry across themselves. He lifted up his voice and wept,—no one heeded him. Then again and again he cried the mystic words, "he drink water—he drink water." He was sternly adjured to be silent, until suddenly another voice was heard—"the —— thing's sinking." "Aiwa, aiwa," said the disregarded prophet—"he drink water"—and all hands pulled madly to get the boat back to the nearest side—of course the side from which it had started. Those who have studied the diplomatic wiles of our hero, are convinced that he had himself opened the sea-cocks—or taken what other steps were necessary to scuttle his craft and save his honour.
Another fatigue, which was highly unpopular, took place in relays from 6 p.m. to 10, or from 10 to 2 a.m. The scene was the goods yard of the railway where trucks had to be loaded with great bales of forage, sacks of grain, or cases of bully and biscuit for the personnel at railhead. Snatched from the tender care of their officers, the men were delivered over to N.C.O.'s of an unknown breed, probably a cross between R.E. and A.S.C. and Ordnance Corps, with a highly technical jargon picked up in happier days in the goods yards of English railways. Great naphtha flares cast a blinding light, dispelling the friendly gloom on which every right-minded private relies, if unlucky enough to have to work at night. The still air is solid with dust, increased every moment as G.S. waggons, each drawn by a team of maddened mules, enter the yard at a hand gallop, scattering all in their path. The atmosphere is one of strenuous profanity, most uncongenial to the unhappy infantry. At last the officer in charge—ironic phrase—determines that time is up and raises a feeble outcry amid the din. Fortunately the sheep know their shepherd, and will hear his voice. The men fall in and he listens to complaints and soothes the indignant. One man laid his tunic down and a mule ate a great bit out of it. Another cannot get his arm straight "after lifting thae bales." A still, small voice asserts that a man has as much chance of doing what the R.E. wants, as a gnat has of fighting a —— aeroplane. The sergeant numbers them off. There is of course one missing; but the officer, being certain that he is either a mangled corpse among the mules, or far more probably triumphantly asleep on a stack of tibbin, declines to search for him, and the party steps out for home, are challenged by a pessimistic sentry, dismissed, and, stumbling over their recumbent comrades, find an unoccupied corner of their tents, and sleep the sleep of the just till réveillé—and after, if possible.
Such was life, broken by an occasional Sunday's rest with the Divisional Band, or at any rate two men with cornets to help with the singing at Church Parade. Services were often held under difficulties, but one has heard of no sadder case than that of the Padre who went off to hold a parade for some transport men stationed near the railway line. He had no hymn books but, being an optimist, chose well-known hymns and one of the officers present sang them with him. During the second hymn a train load of natives came up, and, the signal being against it, came to a halt in close proximity. The Egyptian is a kindly soul, and judging that the white men were making a very poor effort in their rejoicings, the whole lot of them broke into one of their insane chants, stamping their feet and clapping their hands in time to the music and smiling encouragement on the indignant Padre the while. Hastily breaking off the hymn, the latter commenced an eloquent address, but the engine driver, a godless man, whose small mind was fixed on getting home to his tent, suddenly opened out his whistle and kept it going as a hint to the forgetful signal-man who was holding him up, and the sorely tried Padre, losing his nerve at this final outrage, "washed out" the Parade, and retired defeated.
Only too often Sunday was chosen for some form of frightfulness, which could not logically be called a fatigue, but which was really far worse. It was on a Sunday that the whole Battalion, bearing on their backs every stitch of their kit, repaired to the E.S.R. station, and surrendered their belongings to be placed in waggons and subjected to superheated steam. Not only were successive volunteers almost boiled alive in premature efforts to enter the waggons after the doors were reopened; not only was everyone's kit mixed up with everyone else's and the garments, when recovered, found to be creased and mangled in incredible ways; not only was the whole Battalion left standing at ease, dressed solely in boots and sun helmets, while the Port Said express moved slowly past them; but, when all was over, it was found that our little friends had considered the steriliser merely as a new form of incubator to help their offspring to hatch out.
The weather on the whole was passable. In March there were days of strong west wind which were really chilly. In April it began to warm up, and the thermometer in the tents—and a tent with flaps gave us the best shade temperature we could find—reached 100° before the end of the month. The "khamseen," a south wind, hot as the blast of a furnace, bringing with it clouds of dust and flying sand darkening the sun, and making a fog in which we could not see half across the parade ground, smote us at irregular intervals in April and May. No words are bad enough for the "khamseen." People who live in Cairo in good stone houses with blinds and lots of ice regard it with horror. In the desert it was infinitely worse. One day early in May an officer's tent was at 118°, while the crowded homes of the men must have been far hotter.
About this time H.R.H. The Prince of Wales paid a visit to the E.E.F. and was present as a member of the Staff of General Murray when the latter inspected the troops stationed at Kantara. Each battalion was drawn up by half-battalions in close columns of platoons in front of the camp, and although the inspection occupied a very short time, the delay was almost sufficient to cause three senior officers, the first of the battalion to be granted local leave, to miss the one o'clock luncheon express to Cairo. They caught it with difficulty and great effort, and it is reported that their lunch consisted largely of iced beer.
On April 23rd, Easter Sunday, the Turks raided the Katia oasis, twenty-five miles to the east of us, and cut up the Yeomanry who held it. Another body advanced to Dueidar, some ten miles nearer us, and were gallantly held off by a company of R.S.F. That evening the Brigade was moved out at short notice and marched to Hill 40 in the dark. Here we bivouacked, and spent a chilly night, while Anzac cavalry passed through us and moved on the threatened spot, which was far out of reach of infantry. The next day the rumours that reached us left little doubt that it was no more than a clever raid by the Turks, but we spent the day, and a very hot one it was, without shelter in the sand, disturbed firstly by the information that we should be fighting hard by dawn the next day, and again by the message that the Turks were seen advancing in large numbers. This proved to be the Egyptian Labour Corps in hasty retreat from the neighbourhood of Katia. On the 25th we returned to our camp, which we did not quit again until May 17th.
The post at Dueidar was an isolated detachment garrisoning an oasis in which the Bedouin were in the habit of holding a weekly market. These gentry were rounded up after the Easter day disaster, but the oasis still needed a guard, because in the desert an area where drinkable water can be found is more valuable than Alsace Lorraine and the Saar Valley put together. The true infantry line of defence however was still further back. About eight miles from the Canal a line of redoubts had been built, spanning the gap between protective inundations and barring the way to Kantara. Half a mile further out lay a marvellous trench, the work of forgotten heroes, since transferred to France, a straight line of carefully sand-bagged fire bays and traverses which it would have taken a small army to hold, running as if laid down with a ruler across the desert without either support line or communication trenches. The redoubt system was far more economical in men and each separate redoubt formed a strong point well supplied with ammunition and water, which could give a very good account of itself.
To this line the Battalion moved on May 17th, taking over at dawn next morning from the K.O.S.B. The two main redoubts were at Hill 70 itself, where Battalion Headquarters lived with "A" Company and half of "C," and at Turk Top garrisoned by "B" Company. Three smaller redoubts were held by "D" and the other half of "C," and there were intermediate posts occupied by small detachments only at night. Life was more pleasant out here. We still had tents outside the wire in which we lived by day, manning the trenches at night. There was a good deal of work to be done on the redoubts, but it was work with an obvious purpose, and we were glad to be on our own and free from the clutches of those obscure magnates who detail divisional fatigues. Our digging we got through between stand down and breakfasts in the cool of the morning, or else in the late afternoon. At night we posted sentries and went on long adventurous patrols from post to post. There was no enemy; but the desert itself still had a certain amount of mystery and romance about it. It was less flat than round Kantara and dotted here and there with coarse, green scrub, while a mile to the south of Hill 70 stood a little group of seven palms. Away to the east rose great hills of golden sand, very beautiful when the rays of the setting sun struck upon them. To show our unsophisticated attitude at this time, it may be admitted that when a credulous machine gunner informed us—doubtless on Australian authority—that the trails of two "Arabian" lions had been found not a mile away, we more than half believed him.