There was, however, a good deal to be done first. On March 29th we rested, and a welcome shift in the direction of the wind helped us to get even with our thirst. The next day a supply of gas masks arrived, of the old appalling flannel kind, which went all over the head, and their mysteries were explained to us by Lieut. Gray, assisted by private instruction from those who had served in France. On the 31st the Battalion moved to a new bivouac area closer to the wadi, screened from prying eyes at Gaza by a gentle rise in the ground. Rations were a bit thin at this time, with the railhead so far behind us and so large a force to be fed, but the situation was greatly eased by the fact that we could now employ wheeled transport with little difficulty. The men were kept well employed. We had to supply parties of 300, 500 and finally 600 for work in the wadi under R.E. direction, or to act as covering parties for such work. The former consisted either in cutting ramps to enable traffic to get down the precipitous banks or in digging wells in the wadi bottom. The work was hard and progress slow, especially with the wells. A large square hole had to be dug to a depth of some four feet, when a shelf would be left, and another four feet taken out, and so on, till the bottom man was working in the bowels of the earth, and every shovelful he took out had to be passed up from step to step, so that four or five other men had been employed before it reached the top. Damp patches were sometimes found quite early but the hopes they raised were usually delusive and water was only struck at a considerable depth, and then not in any abundance. Fortunately wells sunk in other parts of the wadi proved more successful, but it was a little trying to read in Mr. Belloc's few paragraphs on our campaign—"of the Wadi Guzzeh, that considerable body of water, just now in full depth, which runs down ... to the Mediterranean which it enters by a small elevation called the calf's hill." One sympathises with the difficulties of a man who sets out to write of the topography of any part of the world in which there may be fighting as if he was personally familiar with it—and the calf's hill (of which we, who were on the spot, had never heard) was a fine touch. But surely it might have struck Mr. Belloc that if the wadi—in point of fact bone dry—had contained a considerable depth of water, the first battle of Gaza would not have failed through drought.
Covering party work was more attractive, for the Turks kept well to their own side of the valley, where they were doubtless equally fully occupied with pick and shovel, and there was nothing to do except lie in the grass and admire the really beautiful flowers. But as under such circumstances very few men protect very many, it was the digging that most often came our way. The work went on without intermission from six in the morning to ten at night, each man doing a five or six hours' shift, and so hard pressed were we to find the numbers required that some men had sometimes to be put into two shifts on the same day, which, with the marches to and from camp, made as hard a day's work as one could wish to avoid.
On Sunday, April the 3rd, a heavy battery on our side made an unprovoked assault on the Turkish lines, to which they were not slow to respond and several shells fell within the confines of our camp. Most of the men were away however on fatigue, and no one was hurt. On the 7th the Battalion took over a section of the outpost line and the fatigues slackened off, but most men were still employed for a shift by day in addition to their outpost duties. The covering parties were now pushed further out to protect reconnaissances by senior officers, while in the darkness long camel convoys went out to fill with water the old cisterns which dotted the hills beyond the wadi. The enemy outposts moved forwards at night, and going out at dawn one often saw them withdrawing or watched the distant figures of Turkish cavalry on the sky line towards Mansura. There is a romance about the fighting Turk that one could never feel about the Bosche. One knew all about the latter, the names of the towns in which he lived, and what he did and thought and how he was educated. There was no mystery about him. But the Turk was different. He hailed from strange provinces about whose positions and whose very names we were more than hazy. He spoke a strange language, lived in strange ways on impossible food and uttered strange cries or sudden invocations to Allah in the silence of the night. He was unknown and mysterious and when we went patrolling against him in the dark there was a creepy feeling which was quite distinct from one's natural misgivings about his bayonet or bullet. But as yet we more than kept our distance. Sometimes a patrol working its way along the rough ridges towards Gaza would be met with a shower of long range bullets, but for the most part we did our work undisturbed—and so did he. In fact the real problem of an O.C. covering party was to find out who else on our side was covering too and where they were. On one occasion an officer of the 5th, having posted his own men in the valley, went up the southern ridge, where he discovered some compatriots lying out in the dew with a keen eye on Burjaliye and Apsley House, which they believed to be full of Turkish snipers. On his way back he was nearly shot by some indignant Londoners cautiously feeling their way out on a similar mission, and had the pleasure of informing them that their beautiful patrol work was rather a waste of labour.
On the 9th the 7th H.L.I, began the practice of turning the Turks out of Burjaliye, a little cactus walled orchard perched on the top of the southern ridge that bounded Kurd Valley. The Turks probably never had more than a small post in the enclosure, but they were able to keep up a good fire from their positions behind it and its daily capture caused an enormous amount of noise, if little else. On the 12th "A" Company took their turn in sending in the patrol amid a tremendous waste of ammunition on both sides, our casualty being Lieut. J.S. Agnew, who was hit in the arm and whose services we thus lost for several months. It must be confessed that this daily repeated manoeuvre was generally considered to be a sign that the Staff had finally and definitely lost their wits, but it was really a scheme of deep cunning, as we afterwards discovered. The Burjaliye ridge and the El Sire-Kurd Hill ridge on its left, together with Happy Valley in between was the tract of country with which we were most familiar. At the bottom of the valley ran a large wadi, broadening out till it reached the Wadi Ghuzzeh a mile south of the Red House. On its way it was joined by innumerable tributary nullahs running down the sides of the two ridges and cutting them into a range of minor peaks. The sides of these nullahs were sheer cliffs often fifteen feet or more in depth so that they became really formidable obstacles to progress, though excellent places for shelter from artillery fire. They were the result, we supposed, of the sudden heavy winter rainstorms rushing down the hill sides, but for 350 days out of the 365 they were completely dry. During this time the Staff were not idle. Pamphlets on the attack, written for trench warfare in France, were liberally issued, and preliminary instructions to lessen the contents of the final orders kept arriving daily. One's brain became confused.
NATIVE GIRLS, BELAH.
On April 16th all was ready and we left our outpost line and moved forward for the ill-fated second battle. The ball was opened by "A" Company, which in the afternoon of that day sent the usual daily patrol into Burjaliye, covering it with Lewis guns and flank patrols and suffering no casualties, but getting the recognised rise out of the Turks, whose enthusiastic rifle-fire gave life to the proceedings. On withdrawing from the enclosure, however, the company, instead of returning to camp, halted as soon as they were out of sight of the Turks, and lay up in a convenient hollow till dusk. The true cunning of this daily manoeuvre was now revealed. Had Burjaliye been visited for the first time on the 16th, the Turks would certainly have had their suspicions roused and would have been specially on their guard, probably patrolling the place during the night. But the daily repetition of the little comedy had led them to suppose that it was a mere instance of the madness sent by Allah upon all unbelievers, and in consequence, when the same patrol issued from cover at nightfall and cautiously reoccupied the enclosure, they found it untenanted, and after sticking their bayonets into the tiny hut and nearly falling down the well, sent back a cheerful message that all was clear. They subsequently confessed to certain qualms when, themselves about 100 yards from the hedge, they perceived, through a gap, the glowing end of a cigarette, slowly waxing and waning as an undisciplined Turk, disobeying all the rules of war, solaced his vigil with tobacco. The escape of a single infidel from the garden, or even his noisy decease, would have given away the whole business, and they were much relieved when some careful stalking revealed nothing more alarming than an inconsiderate fire-fly slowly moving its wings across its luminous body.
As soon as the all clear came through the rest of the company moved up and placed a series of sentry groups along the far side of Burjaliye and down the valley to the west of it. There followed a dreary vigil in momentary expectation of the arrival of a Turkish patrol, which would have to be "sunk without a trace"—as the German diplomat said of the shipping. It was bitterly cold for bare knees and drill shorts. Several times the curious high-pitched cries with which the Turkish outpost keeps up his courage or reports his whereabouts issued from the darkness in front, but there were no developments, and about 11.30 p.m. unmistakable sounds from the rear announced the fact that the Brigade had arrived. How it was that the Turk did not also hear the inevitable disturbance caused by the arrival of some thousands of men, tool limbers, mules and camels, in utter darkness over unfamiliar and very rough country, will always be a mystery. But the fact remains that they appear to have been in complete ignorance of our proximity until made painfully aware of it the next morning. The Battalion had left camp at 8 p.m. on the 16th, and passed the Wadi Ghuzzeh by crossing 23. It then found the rest of the Brigade and formed up in two columns of companies and thirty-two camels (fourteen with S.A.A., sixteen with water and one each with medical and signalling stores), together with the limbers with tools in rear. About nine the Brigade moved off. After a mile, battalions were instructed to proceed independently. The assembly at the Brigade rendezvous and the advance to Burjaliye was an exceedingly difficult manoeuvre. Each battalion had to form up on a given frontage marked with stakes in a field of standing barley, and as the stakes were not visible in the darkness to locate them was not easy. The forward movement was directed by the Brigade Major marching on a compass bearing in front of the left flank of the left battalion and direction was maintained by frequent halts and accurate dressing. To add to the difficulties of darkness and unknown ground, the line of advance ran diagonally across a ridge running from the Turkish position to the Wadi Ghuzzeh. That the Brigade arrived at its destination without a hitch reflects great credit on the Staff work and is evidence of the benefit we had obtained from night training at el Arish. Soon after ten there was a halt, during which the men were given a drink from the water the camels carried, in order to ensure that their bottles should be full on the morrow. On arrival behind Burjaliye, companies changed their formation so as to be ready to move forward at dawn, "B" and "D" Companies taking the front line, and the men lay down to try and get a few hours' sleep—no easy task considering the cold and the heavy dew. The 6th H.L.I. prolonged the outpost line to the right of "A" Company, who were now pleasantly conscious of the near presence of their friends, but considered them a very noisy crowd. In point of fact the whole operation was carried out with surprising quietness considering its difficulties, but ears strained to catch the faintest sound from the front naturally magnified the disturbance from the rear.
Stand-to was at 3.45 a.m., and there followed one of those "dreary, doubtful, waiting hours"—which to some temperaments seem more unbearable than anything that follows zero hour. There was no rum and of course no possibility of making tea, while even the nerve soothing cigarette was out of the question.