With our army in Palestine

by Antony Bluett

All this is not entirely a digression. There were times—and just after the battle of Gaza was one of those times—when the utter futility of war in general, and this one in particular, pressed heavily upon us. For the most part we worked by the day alone nor took thought for the morrow; but sometimes the desire to see well-loved faces and familiar scenes again took hold and bit deeply. If you were wise you strangled the desire at birth, for if you nursed it the result was very much more than a bad quarter of an hour. By the same token let us continue.

On the night of the battle, after withdrawing about five miles, we took up a position alongside some batteries of sixty pounders, in a saucer-shaped valley, dug the guns in and prepared to hold on till further orders. The following day the Turks counter-attacked unsuccessfully in various places, and without pressing their attacks too closely presently left us in possession of the three ridges we had captured at so great a cost.

The problem now was to maintain the troops in these positions. For obvious reasons the railway could not be brought too near the wadi; indeed, it was at this stage, I believe, that the branch line running eastward to our right flank was begun, and despite the constant attentions of enemy aircraft this work was carried on steadily and without pause.

Belah had now usurped the position of Rafa as railhead and the station had been greatly enlarged by the addition of numerous sidings for the reception of the heavy trains daily arriving from Kantara. The few wells in the place had been medically tested and numbered and were now in use, supplemented by those of Khan Yunus and the supply of water sent up by rail. In the wadi itself the engineers had been labouring incessantly since its capture to bore wells for the troops holding it. This was no light task, for with the summer drought drawing nearer every day the wadi was drying up rapidly. Even now, except for a few small "pockets" of water not unlike the hill tarns in the North of England, the bed was for all practical purposes dry. Eventually sufficient wells were sunk to provide a fairly ample supply of water, which not only relieved the Army Service Corps of some of its heavy burden, but released a large quantity of transport for other duties. By far the most pressing of these was to supply the mounted divisions on the right flank with food and water; and of all the amazing feats performed by the engineers and the transport service, either combined or separately, this effort was surely one of the most wonderful.

Our position was near Tel el Jemmi, one of the three high hills, each artificially built in the form of a double cross, that once marked the southern boundary of the land conquered by the early Crusaders. It was too far away from the wadi for us to draw our water there; nor in point of fact was there sufficient for our needs had we been conveniently near. There were at least six thousand horses to be watered daily, in addition to which their forage and the men's rations and drinking water had somehow to be brought, and quickly. About two miles from our position and under the shadow of Tel el Jemmi was a nullah, probably an off-shoot of the wadi, perhaps half a mile long by a couple of hundred yards broad.

To the eye it was as if a large slice had been cut out of the earth's crust, leaving a tapering cavity not unlike the shape of a battleship; fortunately, however, the floor was fairly flat and even. The engineers immediately seized upon the nullah and proceeded to transform it into a gigantic reservoir. Along one side of the nullah was dug a series of large shallow tanks shaped like a swimming-bath, the counterpart, in fact, of the one used for the same purpose at Khan Yunus. These were lined with tarpaulins. Next to the tanks was a long row of canvas water-troughs, handy affairs which can be erected in a few minutes; and finally the two were connected by means of hand-pumps, each tank supplying a certain number of troughs. Other parties of engineers were busy making the nullah easy of access and exit, for, except in one place, the sides were too precipitous to allow one even to climb down with safety.

There were, I think, six approaches to the nullah, all of which had to be blasted and cut out of the sides, as sandstone was encountered after the top layer of soil had been removed; and not the least difficult part of the business was to make the inclines safe and convenient for all traffic.

All this, it should be stated, was not the leisurely work of weeks or even days; the main part of it had to be completed in twenty-four hours, to supply the thousands of thirsty horses waiting to be watered.

Meanwhile at railhead transport was rapidly arranged to carry the water, most of which had already been brought a hundred and thirty miles on the train, to the nullah.

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 assembled here; sturdy little black Algerians; white long-legged beasts from the Soudan; tough grey "belody" camels from the Delta; tall, wayward Somalis; massive, 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!