AN ENTR'ACTE
The enemy had now been driven into a tract of difficult mountain
country, very favourable for defensive tactics, and most unsuited for
cavalry. Reinforcements of men and guns were being hurried southwards
from Aleppo to his aid; some had already arrived. In order to drive the
eastern group of his forces through the mountains, and at the same time
hold the northern group on the plain, more infantry would be required.
The Royal Navy was reorganising the sea-borne supply line, but the
landing of stores, which had to be carried out in surf boats, depended
on a continuance of fine weather, and the 20th Corps could not,
therefore, be brought up with safety until our railway had been pushed
considerably farther north. Relays of Sappers had been working on
the line day and night since the fall of Gaza, and the railhead was
moving forward at a pace that beat all previous records for railway
construction in any part of the world. Even under the most favourable
conditions, however, it would take at least a fortnight to reach a
point from which it would be possible to supply our troops in the
mountains.
The 54th Division, 21st Corps, was already under orders to march from
Gaza, but, before it could start, its transport, which had been lent to
the 52nd and 75th Divisions, had to be returned, and this necessitated
a complete rearrangement of transport in the Corps.
Moreover, the operations had now continue seventeen days practically
without cessation, and a rest was absolutely necessary, especially
for the horses. The cavalry divisions had covered nearly 170 miles
since the 29th of October, and their horses had been watered, on an
average, only once in every thirty-six hours during that time. The
heat, too, had been intense, and the short ration, 9-1/2 lbs. of grain
per day, without any bulk food, had weakened them greatly. Indeed the
hardships endured by some of the horses were almost incredible. One of
the batteries of the Australian Mounted Division had only been able
to water its horses three times in the past nine days, the actual
intervals between waterings being 68, 72, and 76 hours respectively.
Yet this battery, on its arrival at Junction Station, had only lost
eight horses from exhaustion, not counting those killed in action or
evacuated wounded.
As an indication of the reduction in the fighting strength of the
cavalry, due to casualties and sickness among men and horses, it may
be mentioned that the G.O.C. of the 5th Mounted Brigade reported on
the 16th of November that he had, in his three regiments, only 690 men
mounted and fit for duty. It is true that this brigade had suffered
more severely than most of the others in the Corps, but all much under
strength in men and horses, and in urgent need of a rest.
The majority of the horses in the Corps were Walers, and there is no
doubt that these hardy Australian horses make the finest cavalry mounts
in the world. For many years past the Australians have been buying up
the well-bred failures on the English Turf, and buying them cheap;
not for racing purposes, but to breed saddle horses for up-country
stations. As a result of this policy, they have now got types of
compact, well built, saddle and harness horses that no other part of
the world can show. Rather on the light side, according to our ideas,
but hard as nails, and with beautifully clean legs and feet, their
record in this war places far above the cavalry horses of any other
nation. The Australians themselves can never understand our partiality
for the half-bred, weight-carrying hunter, which looks to them like
a cart horse. Their contention has always been that good blood will
carry more weight than big bone, and the experience of this war has
converted the writer, for one, entirely to their point of view. It
must be remembered that the Australian countrymen are bigger, heavier
men than their English brothers. They formed just half the Corps, and
it is probable that they averaged not far short of twelve stone each
stripped. To this weight must be added another nine and a half stone,
for saddle, ammunition, sword, rifle, clothes and accoutrements, so
that each horse carried a weight of over twenty-one stone, all day and
every day for seventeen days, on less than half the normal ration of
forage, and with only one drink in every thirty-six hours!
The weight-carrying English hunter had to be nursed back to fitness
after these operations, over a long period, while the little Australian
horses, without any special care other than good food and plenty of
water, were soon fit to go through another campaign as arduous as the
last one.
Junction Station was the first place where we found unlimited, and
accessible, water. Owing to vigorous action of the armoured cars, the
Turks had not had time to destroy the steam pumping plant there, and
our engineers soon had rows of drinking troughs erected, and a steady
stream of sweet clear water flowing into them. It was good to see the
horses burying their heads in the water, and drinking their fill at
last. The Anzac Mounted Division, about the same time, found excellent
water and a steam pump at the big Zionist wine press at Richon-le-Zion.
Everything about Junction Station spoke of the methodical German.
Solidly built, stone storehouses and locomotive sheds, well-found
machine shops, orderly stacks of priceless timber, pyramids of drums of
oil and petrol; everything in its place, and a place for everything.
Neat finger-posts and notice-boards directed the stranger where to go,
and where not to go, and a host of the inevitable 'Verboten' signs
bristled on every side. It was noticeable that these last were the only
ones that were written in Turkish as well as German, except the name
of the station, which the Germans called Wadi Surar. We found in the
station two locomotives and a number of railway wagons, which were of
great value to us during the ensuing few weeks, till our own railway
reached Ludd.
The heavy échelons of the cavalry ammunition columns, which had last
been seen at Sharia on the 7th November, advancing boldly on the enemy,
turned up at Junction Station on the 19th. They had been completely
lost during the intervening twelve days, and had wandered about,
neglected and forlorn, in the wake of the cavalry. During all this time
they had received no rations, and had been maintained entirely by the
predatory genius of the gunner subaltern in command. As this officer
has now returned to civilian life, and is a respected, and it is to
be hoped respectable, member of society, it is, perhaps, kinder to
draw a veil over his methods. Suffice it to say that he brought his
command of 600 horses and men into the Station, all fit and well, and
no questions were asked. And if, sometimes, a battalion waited in vain
for its rations; if, now and then, a harried supply officer found that
one of his camel convoys had delivered its supplies during the night
to some unknown unit, owing to a mistake; if guards on ration dumps
are notoriously vulnerable to cigarettes and soft words, one can only
reflect that war is a sad, stern business, in which 'dog eats dog' when
opportunity arises.
On the same day another wanderer returned, whose Odyssey was even more
remarkable. When the headquarters of the Australian Mounted Division
had been at Khurbet Jeladiyeh on the 13th, the divisional interpreter,
a Greek named Theodore, had overheard certain remarks made by a man in
the village, who was dressed as a native. The man was arrested, and
proved to be a Turkish spy. Terrified at finding himself discovered,
the miserable wretch begged for his life, and promised, if he was
spared, to put us on the track of the man who, he said, was the head
of the native spy organisation of the Turkish Army. He was told to say
what he knew, and we would consider whether his information was worth
his life. He then gave particulars of the man, who, it appeared, was
_his own father_, and said that he believed him to be at Beit Jibrin.
Accordingly the A.P.M. of the division set off next day with two cars
of a light car patrol[13] and the interpreter, to try and surprise the
arch spy at Beit Jibrin. The party arrived at the village about nine
o'clock in the morning, to find the bird flown. On making inquiries,
they learnt that he had gone on--to quote the report of the A.P.M.--'to
a place called Ram Allah Rakhman, which we took to be somewhere near
Bethlehem, but subsequently discovered to be the same place!' The
enemy's right group was at this time in the neighbourhood of Hebron,
and his left group was west of Junction Station, so that Bethlehem was
a good fifteen miles behind his line. But this trifling fact did not
in any way deter the pursuers. What could the Turkish Army do against
two Ford cars _and_ two machine guns? They blithely took the track to
Bethlehem.
Shortly afterwards they came suddenly upon a patrol of six Turkish
cavalrymen. 'We opened fire at once,' so runs the A.P.M.'s report,
'and killed the men and five of the horses. The sixth horse unluckily
escaped, but we came up with it later on and destroyed it, thus leaving
no trace of the enemy patrol!' A few miles farther on, they encountered
another, and larger, body of enemy cavalry. 'This time,' says the
report, 'there were about thirty of them, but, as we came upon them
unawares, we had no difficulty in driving them off, after killing a
good few, and we then proceeded on our way.'
Late in the afternoon the cars drove into Bethlehem, where our men were
received with transports of joy by the inhabitants, nearly all of whom
are Christians. The poor people crowded round their deliverers to kiss
their hands, shouting and weeping, and pressing offerings of food on
them, much to their embarrassment.
As it was getting late, and they found that their quarry had again
moved on, the hunters consented to stay and eat with some of the
notables of the town, after which they got under way again, and drove
a short distance along the Beersheba road, to a place where they could
hide the cars for the night.
At dawn next morning they resumed their journey, and motored _right
through the enemy force_, at Hebron, without being detected.
Fortunately the Turks had no post actually on the road, and it is
probable that a couple of cars coming from behind their lines attracted
little attention. The party drove quietly on to Beersheba, where they
found a canteen, and, having loaded up with stores, returned in triumph
to Junction Station.
In the meantime Corps Headquarters had become seriously alarmed at
their long absence, and had despatched another patrol of two cars to
try and find them. These cars got to Beit Jibrin, where they found, and
captured, the spy who was the cause of all the trouble, and who had
doubled back on his tracks from Bethlehem. Then, hearing that the cars
had started off with the intention of going to Bethlehem, they gave
them up for lost, and returned to headquarters to report.
Meanwhile an aeroplane, that had also been sent to look for the first
patrol, came upon the second one returning from Beit Jibrin, and at
once flew back to Corps Headquarters and reported that the lost sheep
were found, and were on their way back. The second patrol came in a few
hours afterwards, and reported that there were no signs of the missing
cars, which must have been captured by the enemy.
By now the Corps was thoroughly puzzled, and not a little angry.
The result was that, when the blushing Ulysses did finally arrive,
instead of receiving a 'few kind words of praise' for carrying out an
exceedingly daring reconnaissance, he got an unmerciful dressing down
for giving headquarters such a fright!
On the 18th of November the populations of the enemy countries received
their first intimation that all was not well in the East. Up till
this date the Turkish papers, after chronicling each day the many
victories won in the past twenty-four hours in France and Russia, had
added gravely, 'On the Palestine front there is no change!' At last
the Germans came to the conclusion that this bluff might possibly be
carried too far, so they caused to be printed in their own papers what
purported to be an official Turkish _communiqué_, though none of the
Turkish papers received it till after it had been published in Berlin.
This precious document stated that in Palestine 'there had been a
retirement _according to plan_.' It might have been added that the plan
included leaving 12,000 prisoners and more than 100 guns in the hands
of the enemy!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 13: Unarmoured Ford vans carrying a machine gun each.]