With Our Army in Palestine Part 14

But the Rest Camp at Enab was strictly limited both in size and scope. It was for the use of the mounted divisions only, and men went there chiefly for a rest; amus.e.m.e.nt, such as could be had in the form of sight-seeing, was of secondary importance. A more universal camp was at Beni Saleh, on the coast near Khan Yunus, where glorious sea-bathing was to be had; it was, in fact, the only thing to do.

You started the day by a wild sprint across the short stretch of beach between the tents and the sea, finishing up with a headlong dash into the water, which was just cold enough to make the body tingle, but imparted none of the shock that comes with the morning tub at home. This gave you an appet.i.te for breakfast, if any such aid were needed. When the sun grew hot towards the middle of the morning you went in the sea again and stayed there for an hour or two, with an occasional sprawl on the warm sand by way of a sun-bath.

If you felt particularly energetic a pair of ancient drill shorts rolled up and tied with a piece of a head-rope made quite an adequate ball for water-polo, until it became water-logged and sank to the bottom; then you had to fish it out and spread it on the sands until it was dry enough to resume duty. A few units used footb.a.l.l.s for water-polo, but this was mere luxury. Ours, worse luck, always had a puncture somewhere in its internal economy.

Another camp on a similar but larger scale was the attractively named "Change of Air" Camp at El Arish, which could accommodate some thousands of men at a time. Here the tents were pitched almost at the water's edge. Men divided their day between lounging about in their pyjamas and bathing, whilst in the evening they could sit and listen to one of the numerous concert parties who came up the line from Egypt. There was also a library of sorts; it was, rather, an olla podrida of books, some left by the troops themselves, but largely cast-offs from the stately homes of England, ranging in variety from the admirable racing-stories of Mr. Nat Gould to a learned treatise on bee-keeping, the latter evidently intended by the sender as a guide to budding colonists in the Land of Canaan.

Many thousands of the troops in Palestine will, I fancy, have pleasant memories of these two camps, if only because you could, if you wished, bathe for twenty-four hours every day; and it was a wonderful sensation to feel really clean.

Those who had the misfortune to sojourn for a while at Deir Sineid, however, will remember the Rest Camp there with quite different feelings.

This was established during the rainy season of 1917-18, and most of the rain in Palestine fell on the Rest Camp. Troops returning from Kantara to rejoin the Desert Corps stopped at Deir Sineid _en route_. Sometimes, more particularly when the railway was flooded, the congestion was so great that one tent to sixteen men was considered a liberal allowance by the authorities. The men thought otherwise. Once the sixteen were safely wedged in, there they stopped for the night. There was, indeed, no encouragement to wander abroad even if you could get out without the aid of a shoe-horn.

Frequently a tent collapsed under the weight of its responsibilities, and there are few things more disconcerting to a sleeping man than suddenly to be enveloped in a ma.s.s of cold, clammy canvas. Mr. Jerome, in _Three Men in a Boat_, speaks amusingly of his efforts at putting up a tent; by the same token, his description as an onlooker of the efforts of sixteen sleepy but infuriated soldiers, indifferently protected by a ground-sheet against the cold blast and the pouring rain, struggling to erect a tent in ankle-deep mud would have been deliriously comic. One party acquired a number of wooden boxes--once the home of tins of "Ideal" milk--with which to make a floor for their tent. This answered satisfactorily for a time, until the heavens opened and the rain descended almost solidly for three days. On the third night the sleepers were awakened by the sound of rushing waters.

Their floor was afloat, a raft on a sea of mud and rain, and in a few moments the tent made an unsuccessful attempt to act as a sail.

Subsequently the use of makeshift floor-boards was strongly discouraged; it was better to sleep in the mud.

It is a relief to turn from these doubtful amus.e.m.e.nts to the more solid joy of a little horse-racing. It is safe to say that no form of relaxation was more popular amongst the troops. Considering that we made our own race-courses, with all the appurtenances thereto, the military race meetings were astonishingly successful. There was even a totalisator for those, which meant everybody who could obtain an advance on his pay-book, who liked what is called in racing circles "a flutter"; and there were always several amateur "bookies" as well. The only adjunct familiar to the race-courses at home missing from our meetings was the professional tipster, with his information "straight from the horse's nosebag." As was natural in an army largely composed of cavalry, there were several crack riders well known at home, amongst them at least one who had won the Grand National. This officer, by the way, so the story goes, was turned out of a riding-school one morning because the instructor considered that he did not know how to ride! It would be interesting to know what standard of attainment was required!

Wherever a meeting was held everybody who could beg, borrow, or steal a horse, a mule, or a camel entered it, entirely indifferent of the feelings of the animal in the matter or whether its best distance was five furlongs or five miles.

The camel races, while not exactly regarded as a medium for speculation, were the most amusing to watch. No course was too large for a camel. He zig-zagged all over the countryside, and as often as not finished the race with a fine burst into the midst of the spectators. The mules had their moments too; and some of them were nearly as fast as a horse. There was a great deal of speculation, in the literal sense of the word, over the mules; some of them would start, others "dwelt," and others whipped round and made for their stables.

One N.C.O. entered a mule whose chance was esteemed so lightly that the owner-rider was the sole purchaser of a twenty-piastre (4s.) ticket at the totalisator. In the race, however, the mule was on his best behaviour and walked away with the prize; his courageous rider received 66 for his faith and his one ticket! This glorious uncertainty was one of the features of military racing and added not a little to the excitement. Army horses, except officers' chargers, are notoriously gregarious by reason of their training, and you could generally be sure of a close finish in any race confined to horses belonging to "other ranks" of the cavalry and artillery.

I believe the infantry on the whole were a great deal worse off in the matter of amus.e.m.e.nt than were the mounted troops; regimental sports formed the staple joys of their leisure hours, except for boxing matches when they could be arranged; and the latter ran racing very close in the matter of popularity.

When all is said, however, there was singularly little beyond what we made for ourselves which could legitimately be called amus.e.m.e.nts. The wonder is not that there was actually so little but that there was so much. Our nomadic existence hardly lent itself to the more permanent forms of relaxation. Men occupying a portion of the Jordan Valley one week and the next holding the line on the banks of the river Auja, had neither the time nor the inclination for anything but sleep; we were nearly always on short rations of both water and sleep.

So in the end it came to this: if you wanted a complete change from Palestine you had to go to Egypt for it, either _via_ hospital or on leave.

In the latter case, when you had succeeded in the superhuman task of convincing the orderly-room clerk that your name was next on the roster, there came first a long trek across country to railhead. Here you were hara.s.sed by an officious person called the R.T.O. who inspected your papers and then scrutinised your person in order to satisfy himself that you were not a criminal escaping from justice. Then you were handed over to an underling who led you to a glorified cattle-truck, whose interior was an amazing jumble of boots, bare knees, helmets, rifles, packs, faces, and drill clothing, and courteously invited you to step inside.

Regardless of the howl of protest from within the truck you thrust a tentative leg over the side, to be met immediately with a m.u.f.fled but earnest request that you removed your boot from the speaker's face. This little difficulty overcome, perseverance was necessary before you could add _your_ person and kit to the heterogeneous collection already filling the truck. This resolved itself presently into some thirty fellow-sufferers, who, by dint of shuffling and squeezing, made room for yet another on the floor. Then came the thirteen-hour journey to Kantara, followed by another four hours on the Egyptian State Railway to Cairo, or seven to Alexandria.

If you accomplished the whole journey without going into hospital you could, on your arrival, consider yourself on leave.

Now in seven days it was impossible to do more than touch the fringe of Cairo. The first three were occupied in accustoming yourself to sleeping in a real bed and to being caged within four walls at night. Then you set yourself to discover interesting places to visit. By the time you had made a selection for the day, it was too late to start for the place and you retired to Groppi's for a "melange," with which to console yourself for the disappointment. I knew quite a number of men who neither went to the pyramids, nor saw the Sphinx, nor climbed up to the Citadel to see the mosque of Mahomet Ali, nor penetrated into the bazaars, nor even visited the Zoo. They all said that it took them so long to make up their minds where to go that the day was spent ere they had decided, so they went nowhere. I fancy that a large number of men were so overcome by the unaccustomed sight of shops and streets and people that they did naught but wander round looking at them, breaking off at intervals to eat large and variegated meals. When you think about it this was not a bad way of spending a short leave, especially in a city like Cairo where there was so much to see and so little time to see it in. Moreover, by the time you had settled down to your leave it was over, and you had to face the cattle-trucks once more. All things considered, since home-leave was out of the question, it saved at least a bad attack of nostalgia if you stayed with your comrades up the line and made your own fun.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE JORDAN VALLEY

The outstanding events of the weeks following the capture of Jerusalem were a brilliant exploit by the 52nd Division on the banks of the River Auja, north of Jaffa, and the establishment of a through connection by rail from Egypt to Jerusalem. The former enterprise was carried out just before Christmas, partly to suppress the Turks who were very active in this region, but chiefly to make the position of our left flank secure. The Turks were very strongly entrenched at Muannis and elsewhere, and between them and the attacking troops, as an additional protection, they had the river, now swollen to many times its usual dimensions by the recent rains, which had also made the ground on either bank little better than a mora.s.s.

Also, what fords there were had been rendered impa.s.sable by the floods, and it was only after prolonged and searching examination, which had always to be undertaken at night and by swimming the river many times, that fairly suitable places were marked out as crossings. One thing only favoured the Scotsmen on the night of the attack: the weather was as tempestuous as could be desired, and the roar of the wind effectually drowned any unavoidable noise and prevented the Turks from receiving intimation of impending trouble. Most of the troops crossed by means of rafts which, after the first one had safely reached the other side, were hauled across by ropes and eventually formed into a rough bridge. Some men, however, actually waded through the raging torrent in water up to the arm-pits, and had the utmost difficulty in getting across safely.

When the division was in position on the other side the attack began at once, in absolute silence, and everywhere the Turks were taken completely by surprise. Practically all the enemy positions were taken at the point of the bayonet, which weapon in the hands of the Scotsmen the enemy disliked exceedingly, and not until shortly after dawn did the firing begin upon those who had not already been killed or captured.

By this excellently stage-managed operation the British line on this part of the front was secured against attack and the important work in connection with the transport could be carried out in safety. The railway was first continued from Gaza to Ludd, after which it swung eastwards to Artuf, where the old Turkish line was utilised as far as Jerusalem; and early in 1918 it was possible to leave Cairo at 6.15 p.m. and be in the Holy City by a quarter to twelve the next morning, the whole journey, with the exception of the ninety-eight miles between Cairo and Kantara, being made on the military railway.

By this fine feat and by their incessant labours on the roads round about Jerusalem the engineers made it possible for an attempt to be made to improve our position on the right. The operations here were of a curiously similar character to those on the left just described, for in each case a swollen and turbulent river loomed large amongst the obstacles to be overcome, and the object--to secure strong flank positions--was in each case the same. But in the second attempt the geographical difficulties alone were enormous. Eastwards from Jerusalem ran what was euphemistically called a road, surely the worst in all Palestine, which led to Jericho and the Jordan valley. From a height of two thousand feet above sea level it descended in a series of jerks, sometimes abruptly, sometimes across a short plateau; it wound round innumerable and execrable corners, it was crossed by wadis and streams from all directions, through nearly twenty miles of unimaginable desolation, and finally, after pa.s.sing the awful travesty that once was Jericho, it reached the river. This road was the main artery in our communications on the right flank.

El Ghor, which comprises the whole of the Jordan Valley, lies thirteen hundred feet below the level of the sea and is without parallel in the universe.

Even in March the atmosphere is like that of a Turkish bath and between the river and the mountains of Moab stretches a vast expanse of mud and slippery rocks; a country less suitable for military operations could scarcely be imagined. Thirty miles east of Jericho was the Turkish stronghold Amman, a town on the Hedjaz railway and the objective of the attack, which was undertaken mainly by the 60th (London) Division, the Anzacs, and the "Cameliers."

Difficult as had been the crossing of the Auja, that of the Jordan was infinitely worse, for the Turks had destroyed the Ghoraniyeh Bridge; the river was unfordable there by reason of the floods and it was very nearly impossible to cross by swimming elsewhere. Eventually, after many attempts, some men of the 60th Division did succeed in performing the feat, after which rafts were towed across filled with troops who hid in the dense undergrowth lining the banks of the river. It was nearly two days before all the raiding force was safely transported to the other side, for the men as they landed had to beat off the attacks made by the Turks to prevent the crossing and they were under heavy fire all the time. On March 24th, when the enemy had been cleared out of the high ground near the Jordan, the London division started off through the mud to attack the pa.s.s of Shunet Nimrin, which commanded the road to Es Salt, a town in the mountains of Moab and the first objective in the a.s.sault on Amman, a dozen miles beyond. The cavalry struck across country farther to the south, making for an important section of the Hedjaz railway which they hoped to blow up before the Turks could rally in its defence. It was fortunate that the delay in crossing the Jordan had been no greater; as it was, the 60th Division had incalculable trouble in storming Shunet Nimrin, though their difficulties came not so much from the opposition, desperately as the Turks fought, as from the nature of the country leading to the pa.s.s, which virtually precluded the use of artillery in support and forced the infantry to bear the whole burden of the attack.

Now struggling through the heavy mud, now scrambling over the rocks, in places so steep that the men had to climb on to each other's shoulders in order to proceed, the Londoners rushed the Turkish positions, and following up their success hustled the enemy to such purpose that Es Salt was captured practically without opposition. But the advance did not stop here, for every moment was of value, and though they had now been marching and fighting for four days in unspeakable conditions, the infantry began their twenty-mile march to Amman. The road was utterly impossible for wheeled traffic, and, in the pitiless downpour, next to impossible for the infantry, bowed down by the weight of saturated packs and clothing, whose boots were clogged with mud and hampered the already dragging feet.

It was _three days_ before the Amman plain was reached! The cavalry and the "Cameliers," advancing from the south, were obliged to travel over tracks which would have given a mountain goat the horrors, across wadis and nullahs so steep that the horses had to be let down by ropes and hauled up the other side, while the "Cameliers" had to build their roads as they went along, a camel being rather an inconvenient beast on which to scale the slippery sides of a cliff. So, slithering, scrambling, and fighting all the way, they came at last to Amman, like the infantry, almost too spent for further exertions. With never a pause for rest, however, the combined forces on March 28th made an attack on the Turkish positions, having little artillery support--two batteries of R.H.A. had, I think, succeeded in getting their guns through the mud--and already weakened by their terrible privations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE JORDAN VALLEY--WADI AUJA. [_To face p. 240._]

For three days the battle raged, wave after wave of infantry staggering forward undaunted, hardly knowing their direction except that it was towards the enemy, while the cavalry made repeated efforts to storm the great hill defending the town and the "Cameliers" operated in the centre.

But the odds were too great: not only did the Turks possess all the advantage of ground, for their positions could only be approached across a plain swept from end to end by rifle, machine-gun and artillery fire, but from the Judaean hills reinforcements poured into Amman to aid in its defence and to cut off if possible the whole of the raiding force.

It was this latter contingency as well as the utter futility of persevering in the a.s.sault, that made a retirement imperative, and on the third night of the battle the exhausted men began their march back to the Jordan, picking up on their way the garrisons left at Shunet Nimrin and Es Salt, together with some hundreds of prisoners. A large proportion of the Christian inhabitants of the latter place who feared, with good reason, ill-treatment by the Turks, also joined the column with such meagre belongings as they could hurriedly s.n.a.t.c.h together. This influx of extra mouths to feed strained the already overburdened resources to the utmost, but the refugees were well looked after both on the retreat and afterwards in Jerusalem, and most of the children were brought along by the mounted troops so that they should not suffer undue fatigue.

It is but piling on the agony to dwell upon the details of the retreat to the Jordan; it is sufficient to say that it seemed to be the concentrated essence of all that had gone before, and that on the eleventh day after the commencement of the raid the crossing was again safely accomplished.

Although it was unsuccessful, I suggest that as a triumph over privation and fatigue, and for extreme gallantry under most trying conditions of battle, the venture is without parallel in British military history, especially in regard to the infantry, who had marched and fought almost continuously for ten days. The mounted troops would, I think, be the first to grant them pride of place, for, as I have tried to show elsewhere, whatever happened, we counted ourselves fortunate who had a horse or a camel to ride in Palestine. Poor brutes! Those who returned from the raid on Amman were in a pitiable plight. Some of the camels had not had their heavy saddles off for eight days, and when at last they were removed the flesh of the flanks and back came away with them.

The net result of this affair was the formation of a bridgehead at Ghoraniyeh, which during the first fortnight in April the Turks made strong attempts to retake, without success; and they finally contented themselves with fortifying the pa.s.s of Shunet Nimrin and placing a powerful garrison there in order to frustrate any further raids on Amman.

With the end of the rains and the rapid approach of summer came a period of sheer torment for our troops in the Jordan Valley. The mud changed to a fine, powdery dust, which rose in clouds at the slightest movement, myriads of flies awoke from their long winter sleep, and clouds of mosquitoes arrived for their annual feast. Drill shorts, which formerly had been the general summer wear, were now strictly forbidden to the mounted troops, who were forced to endure the sticky agony of riding-breeches every hour of the twenty-four in order to expose as little as possible of their persons to the unremitting attacks of these pestilential insects. Also, the bivouac areas were infested with small but poisonous snakes who had, like scorpions, a fondness for army blankets; and it is no exaggeration to say that a man went to sleep every night with the full consciousness that he might never wake again. Finally, as if these inflictions were not enough, droves of Turkish aeroplanes came over daily and scientifically bombed all the camps in the valley. The camels in particular made an excellent mark and suffered severely, though apart from this, they were the only living creatures appertaining to the army who flourished and waxed fat in that blistering lime-kiln.

Towards the end of April a heavy concentration of cavalry round Jericho made it evident that another attempt was to be made east of the Jordan, and on the night of the 28th-29th the 1st Australian Mounted Division crossed the river and advanced due north, between the east bank and the foothills, towards the Turkish road from Nablus to Es Salt and the ford known as Jisr ed Damieh, whence they were to march east for the purpose of cutting off the retreat of the garrison at Shunet Nimrin should the attack of the 60th Division on that place prevail. Soon after dawn the cavalry came under very heavy fire, but pushed forward and attained their objectives, where two brigades, without artillery, went off to help the Londoners. The latter marched all night, and, taking the Turks by surprise in the early hours, stormed part of the pa.s.s, but despite all their efforts could make no further headway.

Meanwhile the 4th Light Horse and a brigade of horse-artillery were heavily engaged till dusk in holding off reinforcements from Nablus who were attempting to cross by the Jisr ed Damieh ford. After nightfall this brigade and the batteries retired a short distance and took up a position commanding the road, in a deep wadi where the guns had to be man-handled into place, after which the waggons and limbers were let down the sides of the wadi by means of drag-ropes, and the horses scrambled down as best they could. Dawn brought the news that the Turks had successfully crossed the Jordan during the night, and had followed the river southwards in the direction of our second bridgehead at El Auja, intending to come at the left flank of the Light Horse, which was absolutely in the air.

At seven o'clock they attacked, and plastered the batteries in the wadi with sh.e.l.ls till, at the end of two hours, the position became untenable, and an attempt was made to shift the guns. It was incomparably more difficult to get out of the wadi than it had been to get in, and moving was but out of the frying-pan into the fire, for one wadi led into another, and the sides were so precipitous that the horses were almost useless for dragging out the guns. Four teams were hooked into a gun, but the ground made it impossible for more than half a dozen horses at a time to be in draught, and when at last the position was cleared the horses slithered down the sides of the wadis, and guns and waggons overturned at the bottom in hopeless and inextricable confusion.

Frantically the gunners strove to get them out, some harnessing themselves to the drag-ropes and others shoving on the wheels; but every effort was to no purpose, and meanwhile horses and men were being shot down on all hands by the advancing Turks, whose cries of "Allah! Allah!" could now be plainly heard. At last the inevitable order was given to clear out with such horses as remained, for it was impossible to move, much less save the guns, and after these had been rendered useless to the enemy, the gallant gunners reluctantly withdrew.

The moment they were clear of the foothills they galloped into an inferno of machine-gun fire at close quarters from the Germans and Turks occupying wadis and sh.e.l.l-holes all over the plain. Horses were shot down right and left, and a team of eight which had not been unhooked were all hit, together with two of the drivers, who fortunately managed to get safely away. Finally the shattered remnants of the artillery brigade a.s.sembled at Ghoraniyeh bridgehead, while the Light Horse fell back towards Es Salt, which the other two brigades had succeeded in occupying. By their clever manoeuvring, however, the Turks had rendered the position both of the Australians in Es Salt and the 60th Division in front of Nimrin so precarious that another withdrawal was urgently necessary, and after the Londoners had made a last desperate attempt to storm the pa.s.s, the retirement was carried out successfully and without loss, though in bitter disappointment at a second failure; that it was the only time in the whole campaign when British guns were captured by the Turks was remarkably poor consolation.

CHAPTER XIX

THE VALLEY OF CHAOS

During the summer of 1918 great changes took place in the personnel of the army in Palestine. The early success of the great German offensive in France had caused the "S.O.S." to be sent out for other and more men to stem the tide of advance, and all the other British fronts were denuded of white troops, in whose place, so far as Palestine was concerned, came Indians, many of whom had only a few months' service to their credit. The infantry of the 52nd Lowland Division, who apparently had not done sufficient fighting for one War, left to give a hand to their comrades in France, as did the 74th, still acting as infantry, and all the remaining divisions sent at least one brigade; large numbers of cavalry and artillery also went overseas. Practically all the summer, therefore, was devoted to re-organising the forces and training the levies from India. The principle adopted in the infantry was to brigade one British battalion to every three Indian battalions right through the divisions; and this acted very well indeed, for the white troops provided just that leaven of steadiness lacking in the young Indians. In the cavalry much the same principle was adopted, but the artillery first tried the experiment of employing Egyptians as drivers in the ammunition-waggon teams, retaining the British drivers for the guns.

For a time all went well with the training of these Egyptians, until, as a test of their efficiency, night operations were ordered, which included a dash into a wadi and out the other side. This effort produced what can only be described as a "shemozzle": horses, waggons, and men piled themselves up in a hopeless tangle at the bottom of the wadi, and the night operations came to an abrupt end. In the searching inquiry which followed it was discovered by the medical authorities that less than twenty-five per cent.