CHAPTER XXVII
BEELZEBUB
I found, on my return in September, that life on the Peninsula was much less strenuous than when I had left for Egypt at the end of July. The Turks must have been very short of ammunition, for few shells were fired for the first five or six weeks after our arrival. I was able to have drills and parades in the open, exposed to the full view of Achi Baba and Krithia—a thing which would have been out of the question in the early days. It was quite a pleasure to be able to ride about all over the Peninsula even to within a few hundred yards of the Turkish trenches without being shelled. Of course, in the days when the Turks had plenty of ammunition, they thought nothing of wasting half a dozen rounds on a solitary horseman, and many a time have I had to gallop at breakneck speed to avoid the shrapnel which they peppered me with on many occasions. I was very glad indeed that shells were rather scarce, as it gave my recruits time to get into shape and get used to the conditions of warfare.
The new Cairo men took to the life very kindly, and soon burrowed themselves well into the ground and adapted themselves to cave dwelling as to the manner born.
In the evenings, when our day's toil was ended, we had concerts round our camp fires and enjoyed ourselves as much as it was possible to do under the circumstances; in fact, at times we used to forget that we were at war.
The camp-fire sing-songs were rather weird affairs—songs in English (Tipperary, for choice), French, Russian, Hebrew and Arabic—the two latter made rather melancholy by the plaintive wail of the East. Some of the men were first-rate Russian dancers and expert wrestlers, so we had many excellent little side-shows.
The concerts were always ended by singing "God Save the King," the Marseillaise (for many French soldiers would be present), the Russian Anthem, and last of all the Maccabæan March.
We had many visitors to our quaint polyglot lines; a strenuous lieutenant all the way from Canada often called on us, and I was indebted to him for an invitation to come and try my hand at tent-pegging on a beautiful tan track which he had made and at which various officers used to meet to run a course.
Now I used to be rather good at the game, and I think I rather surprised my Canadian friend, Maurice, when, in answer to his bantering challenge: "Now, Colonel, show us how it's done!" I took every peg for which I tried. It was good to find that one could still ride straight and depend on eye, hand and arm, and that the spear-point could be made to strike the peg as squarely and as surely as of old.
There was not a great deal of work to be done in these days, as there was now any amount of other Transport which took much of the weight off our shoulders.