With our army in Palestine

by Antony Bluett

The pillow universally used was a nosebag filled with the next day's feed, and very comfortable it was, especially now that there were no ravenous mules to break loose and poke an inquisitive muzzle under our ears. Then with our cap-comforters on, and perhaps the spare shirt wrapped round the head, we were snug for the night.

In the mornings there was little temptation to linger between the blankets, for we were usually awakened by the remarkable change in the temperature of that hour just before dawn; it was precisely as if a stream of cold air had suddenly been turned on. Besides, the horses had to be fed, our belongings had to be made into the neat roll which is strapped on the front of the saddle, the daily Maconachie had to be devoured, after which came the saddling-up ready for an early start.

For the first hour or two the journey in the fresh morning air was pleasant enough; pipes and cigarettes were lit and chaff bandied about. But the very monotony of the country soon banished any attempt at conversation, and hour after hour we jogged along in silence. With the exception of ourselves there was no living thing in sight, no sign of human habitation; even the wire road was deserted. As the nearest line of low hillocks loomed up and was passed, you knew the next would be precisely the same, and the next, as far as the remote horizon. In places the route was strewn with bones of horses and camels, while here and there a human arm or leg protruded from the sand, for the Turks did not dig very deeply, and the desert soon gives up its dead. At Romani especially the ground was littered with bones, great ravens hung over the putrifying bodies of animals, and a horrid, fetid smell pervaded the atmosphere. We were glad to get away from this Golgotha of the desert.

Another rather curious feature was the appearance in the midst of the dunes of a broad, flat expanse of sand covered with glittering white particles, damp and salty to the taste, and exactly like the bed of a shallow lake. Curious, because these "subkuts," as they are called, were seldom found near a well, and it was difficult to see whence came the water with which obviously at some time of the year they were covered.

We welcomed them for strictly utilitarian reasons; it was a great relief to the horses to pull the guns and waggons over the firm sand for an hour or two. Sometimes, indeed, it took half a day to cross a subkut.

At one point we came across one of the strangest things I have ever seen in the desert. This was a small hill literally blazing with poppies! Whether some migrating birds had dropped the seeds here or whether there was some botanical reason for their appearance, I do not know, but it was a beautiful and wonderful sight; a riot of scarlet in a barren land. It was worth a bad quarter of an hour from nostalgia to get a glimpse of home, after the horror we had just left.

Occasionally the dreary monotony of the days was broken by the visits of Turkish scouting aeroplanes which hovered about us for a quarter of an hour or so, until they had found out all they wanted to know, while the long line of guns and waggons broke up and scattered itself over the desert, lest the Turks should also feel inclined to drop a little present. This kindness was always denied to us, however.

Apart from these visits mile followed mile almost without incident. But there came a day, to be marked prominently as one of these days when nothing seems to go right.

We awoke to a bluster of blinding sand so that the morning was darkened with it. Breakfast in consequence was a fiasco, and very empty, very angry, we faced the trail head-on to the sandstorm. Hour after hour it continued with no sign of abatement, and with caps pulled down to shield the eyes and handkerchiefs tied over nose and mouth we struggled on. The day seemed a thousand years long; and when at last we did come to a halt, it was found that we had overshot the watering-place by some miles! Back we trailed wearily to the right place and there made the pleasing discovery that the water had to be pumped up by hand, with the aid of the cumbersome old "shadouf." We felt then that the gods had no more to offer us.

How many hours passed I do not know, but the stars had come out and the storm had almost spent its violence, when we rode back sleepily to the camping-ground. I may add that this was the only time I was really and earnestly grateful for an army-biscuit; it was the sole article of food untouched by the sand!