With our army in Palestine

by Antony Bluett

As usual the Turks did as much damage as they could before leaving. The more pretentious houses had scarcely anything of value left in them; their owners and, in fact, all the chiefs of the native population of Gaza had long since been deported. Most of these were grossly ill-treated, and some had been hanged, for what crime other than a desire to live at peace with their neighbours only the criminals who executed them knew.

It took many weeks of labour before the engineers could repair the damage done to the water-supply, which, in and around Gaza, was fairly ample. But now, the Turks having been driven out of their strongholds, it was necessary to keep them on the move northwards, to fight them whenever they could be brought to the sticking-point and to harass them night and day. After six months of comparative stagnation the troops were ready, and more than willing for operations of this nature. They wanted a little moving warfare for a change, and General Allenby supplied the need.

When the capture of the Turkish Lines was complete, the whole Army was ordered to advance, and for the next fortnight the pursuit never slackened. The story would fill a volume could you collect but half of the incidents of those stirring days. It was an epic of endurance and utter indifference to hardship. Few men, however, could tell a connected tale of what happened, for, obedient to the command, the enemy was attacked whenever he was encountered, which was every day.

The Turks were beaten, but they were by no means demoralised. On all parts of the front our advance was stubbornly resisted. On our left flank they fought with most bitter determination to save their railhead for long enough to get their guns and stores away, and having succeeded in doing this retired farther up the coast and prepared to fight again. On our right flank the mounted divisions, who had started from Beersheba on the night Gaza was evacuated to perform their usual function of cutting off the enemy's retreat, were assaulted vigorously by a strong rearguard of Turks who fought in anything but a beaten manner. It was here that the Yeomanry made a charge reminiscent of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava.

There was no blunder about this charge, however, which was made in face of point-blank fire from "5.9's" and other guns, all of which were captured. It is no more than bare justice to say that the Austrian gunners gallantly stuck to their guns till the Yeomanry swept through them and cut them down where they stood.

Later, the Yeomanry had further opportunities of which they availed themselves to the full; they, too, had a few painful memories to wipe out. After the occupation of Huj, where the Turks had an enormous depôt, the pursuit quickened, as could be seen by the increasing litter of stores the enemy left behind. Some idea of the amount of material used in a modern battle may be gathered from the fact that one of our cable-sections salved forty thousand pounds' worth of copper wire alone, all of which had been employed on the battlefield.

Infantry and mounted troops marched and fought to their utmost capacity, ignoring their hardships. Rations arrived—when they arrived, and some days they came not at all. If there were but four men to share in one tin of bully-beef or one pound of biscuits they counted themselves fortunate. Almost every man carried a "billy" slung on to the hook at the back of his tunic, a habit learnt from the Australians. This was generally made out of an empty fruit tin, with a piece of wire for a handle. Perhaps the drivers of one team would have one billy-can, the genuine article, between them, and this is large enough to hold about four mugs of tea.

The scarcity of wood was a great difficulty. Every man in the team was strictly enjoined to "scrounge" any scrap of wood he could find en route, and it was a common sight to see a driver suddenly hop off his horse, dart across the road triumphantly to seize a stick he had spotted, after which he rushed after his team and scrambled into the saddle again, the horses meanwhile plodding patiently along. Then, the moment word of a halt for a quarter of an hour came down the long line, every man in the team quickly dismounted and a toll of sticks was collected from each by the "cook." Then the billy was placed precariously on the heap and in a few minutes you would see the tiny fires all along the column.

What wonderful tea that was! In hot countries there is no drink to equal it, either taken scalding hot to prevent heat apoplexy or as cold as you can get it, without milk or sugar, to be carried in your water-bottle. Many a man was saved from collapse by a timely mug of hot tea, and if there was a rum ration to go with it, so much the better.

But, alas, one of the essentials for making tea was often lacking; the farther we advanced the scarcer did water become, and now there were no pumps to draw it from the wells. Horses went three days and more without drinking, and hundreds died from thirst and exhaustion. Infantry, starting with empty water-bottles, marched thirty miles across country, with a bayonet-charge thrown in, and found perhaps a pint of water per man at the end of the day.