One great service the cavalry invasion did render us. The Australian light horseman has the bump of acquisitiveness even better developed than the Lowland infantryman, and having a horse on which he can hang his trophies he can give this penchant greater scope. But when he is going into action—or believes himself to be—he unhesitatingly sacrifices all that will incommode him in the serious business of war. In consequence the ground recently vacated appeared at dawn to our astonished eyes covered with a litter of discarded possessions. When we moved camp it was our honourable custom to pick up and burn or bury every tin, every fragment of paper and every match and cigarette end and to leave the desert swept and garnished as we found it—or better. So our first thought was one of scandalised amazement at the extreme untidiness of the business. Our next was less disinterested. We were on mobile rations, bully, biscuit, milk and jam. Vegetables and the "wee piece ham" had disappeared. Surely Australians did not live like that. Nor were we disappointed. Foraging parties returned laden with sides of bacon, cheese, bread, Maconochies, sacks of onions and dessicated vegetables, enough to make us quite certain of a full meal on Christmas Day, so long as we did not move in the interval. Nor was this all. Folding benches and tables, matting and bivouac poles, frying pans and canvas buckets, books and tobacco, a watch and even a real live horse were discovered—all the things which stand for wealth among such a primitive tribe as we then were. It is rumoured that hot and blasphemous Australian Quartermaster-Sergeants rode back that evening to retrieve some of their property. Well, they did not find it all. People who like bacon shouldn't leave it lying in deserts in front of hungry Scotchmen.
Our own orders to advance were cancelled, and we stopped on at Maadan. The evacuation of el Arish was rather an anti-climax. No one wants another war, and it would not be honest to pretend that we were all fire-eaters living for nothing but the joy of a scrap. At the same time a life of dreary monotony on a dead land becomes more endurable when there is the hope of coming excitement and the spur to effort of a definite place to be won. And when a man is keyed up to the idea of a fight, life seems dull and flat if he is suddenly told that it will not come off.
The weather, however, did its best to give us something to think about. It rained most nights, with thunder and lightning accompaniments, and the damp and dismal hours of darkness seemed endless in the exposed picquets. Save for the Australian loot it looked like a fasting Christmas. Parcel mails could not be sent up, for every camel was required to convey food and fodder on to the cavalry. The cigarette ration was behindhand and most of the men were without a smoke. The officers could torture themselves with the thought of five turkeys ordered in Port Said and unlimited mess stores lying sixty miles away at Romani. But at the last moment all was changed. A parcel mail came in—and the spectre of bully unrelieved vanished—the five turkeys, personally conducted by a versatile officer's servant, made their appearance—together with sufficient Daily Telegraph plum puddings for every one to get a piece, and last but not least, a determined Brigadier held up a ration convoy, and refused to let it through until he obtained enough cigarettes for a small issue to the Brigade. This action increased the sympathy which all felt for a tragedy which afflicted Brigade Headquarters at this time. Their live turkey shepherded up the line with extreme difficulty, suddenly, though perhaps not unjustifiably, died before any one had time to kill it. Captain Kennedy was immediately summoned to conduct a post mortem and had regretfully to decide that it was not fit for human consumption, adding however that if it were sent up to our headquarters they would make quite sure.
So there was some attempt at Christmas cheer in the holes in the sand into which the weather had driven us, for we who had once set our bivouacs to catch every breath of wind, now dug ourselves down three or four feet to avoid the sand-laden and icy blast. (We were thus also admirably protected against the bombing raids of the Turk's aeroplanes.) The three outpost companies had their vigil cheered by the distant drums and fifes of an English battalion playing "While shepherds watched their flocks by night—all seated on the ground," and felt a new and poignant sympathy with those whose watch must have been so like our own.
The great spell of Christmas seemed even to have touched the hearts of G.H.Q. for on Christmas Eve the C.O. received a wire through Brigade to ask "How many of your officers have wives in Egypt?" He was compelled to reply that no officer had managed the feat suggested. But it is nice to speculate on how the staff in Cairo, who doubtless had, felt their hearts go out to their less fortunate brethren of the fighting forces and how they hatched a plan for special private wires from wife to husband at this season of goodwill. Let no cynic obtrude other motives for that famous telegram.
BAGGAGE CAMELS ON SHORE NEAR EL ARISH.
On December 29th we moved forward again to Kilo 139, near Abu Feleifil. We left behind us Captain Wightman as Post Commandant at Kilo 128, a position which he held with true Scottish tenacity long after the whole post had melted away, and he had no one to command except his batman, another of the same bull-dog breed. He only admitted defeat when the last of the water in the canvas tanks was consumed, and the passing ration train had given up leaving anything for him to eat, and steamed past the forgotten post with a derisive whistle. At 139 we enjoyed heavy rain storms, bleak cold days, and a tearing wind; which raised a sand-storm as soon as the rain had sunk in. We were, however, free of outpost duty on the 31st and able to take off our boots at night for the first time for a fortnight, and a surprising number of us were able to celebrate the new year with a nip of something better than chlorinated water. On the 5th we took the outpost line again, but in the interval we did several route marches and saw the excellent Turkish trenches at Masaid among palm trees, growing scattered over a wide area, quite unlike the little concentrated hods with which we were familiar. We were now only a mile or two from the sea, and the roar of the surf reached us day and night, but bathing had lost much of its attraction with the change of weather and was even rather dangerous. On one day the sand-storm was so bad that it was impossible to leave camp. Anything left in the open was rapidly buried, and our food and drink, our ears and eyes and mouths were kept full of grit for twenty-four hours.
On January 8th we were off again and moving down to the coast, marched on to el Arish. The going was naturally very heavy, but we thus avoided the almost impassable jumble of high sand-dunes inland. On that day the Anzac cavalry passed us on their way to fight at Rafa, riding down the beach in long lines, and making a very impressive sight. The effect was rather spoilt by the inconsiderate attentions of some Turkish planes but no harm was done. We reached our bivouac area south of el Arish about two. It is a curious commentary on the complaints of the cold that we have just voiced, that the men of a new draft reached el Arish, running with sweat and vowing they had never been so hot in their lives, in spite of being in shirt sleeves, while the rest of us wore our tunics, and were hardly even thirsty.