WE WIN OUR FIRST HONOURS.
On the 28th August a patrol of six privates, under the command of a
sergeant, crept up to the Turkish trenches near the Umm esh Shert Ford.
It was a dark and windy night, so they got quite close to the enemy
without being seen. When about thirty yards short of the Turks they lay
down and then observed a sentry standing a little way off. One of the
patrol, Private Sapieshvili, a Jew from the Caucasus, began to crawl
forward and cautiously stalk the unwary sentinel. When eventually he
succeeded in getting behind him, he stood up and advanced boldly,
pretending to be a Turk, for he was able to speak a few words of
Turkish. All at once he pounced on the sentry, seized him by the throat
and bore him to the ground.
The enemy in the trenches heard the scuffle and opened fire and one man
of our patrol was badly hit. Sapieshvili, however, stuck to his
prisoner, disarmed him and took him triumphantly off to our camp. The
Turks in the trenches numbered about a score, and kept up a heavy fire,
so the rest of the patrol withdrew. Before doing so, Private Gordon
lifted his wounded comrade (Private Marks) and carried him back to our
lines under a rain of bullets from the Turks.
I recommended these men to General Chaytor for their gallantry and
coolness under fire.
It was unfortunate that Private Marks' wound proved to be a mortal one.
He had only joined the battalion some three days previously, and this
was his first encounter with the Turks. He had served in France and
other war centres, and had passed through many a fierce fight scathless.
We gave him a very impressive burial the following morning, under the
lea of a little hillock, with his face turned towards Jerusalem; the
spires of the buildings on the Mount of Olives could actually be seen
from the spot where we were standing around his grave.
One of the ten men who, at Helmieh, had wished to join a Labour
battalion, but who, on reconsideration, had seen that it was his duty to
remain as a fighting soldier, was Private Greyman. He was a man who
disapproved of all forms of violence. He hated war and all the
brutalities pertaining thereto, yet he carried out his military duties
most conscientiously. He happened to be one of a party on duty in the
forward trenches on the Day of Atonement, and while repelling some
snipers who were attempting to make it unpleasant for us in our camp,
poor Greyman met with an instantaneous death, an enemy bullet passing
through his head. I heard afterwards that when his widow received the
usual War Office notification that he was killed in action, she refused
to believe it, for she saw that the date given was the Day of Atonement,
a day on which she said no Jew could possibly be fighting; but alas, we
had to man the trenches continuously, no matter how sacred or in what
reverence any particular day was held by Jew or Gentile.
We were sometimes attached to the 1st and sometimes to the 2nd
Australian Light Horse Brigades under Generals Cox and Ryrie; when they
moved we were placed under General Meldrum, the Commander of the New
Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade. All were keen soldiers and good and
gallant comrades.
While we were under General Ryrie I remember he said to me one day that
he would like to come out and inspect my posts.
"Very good, General," I said. "Come out with me any morning you wish."
"When do you start?" he asked.
"Generally at 3 a.m.," I replied.
"That's a d--d good time to sleep," said the General.
Another night some of our patrols scared the Turks badly, and they
started a tremendous fusillade with every rifle and gun that could be
brought into action. The noise of the battle reverberated down the
Mellahah and reached the Auja, where General Ryrie was encamped.
Thinking that a serious attack had begun, the General sprang hastily out
of bed and planted his naked foot right on to the tail of a huge black
scorpion. For a full half-hour afterwards Australia was heard at her
best.
When I saw him a couple of days later he philosophically remarked that
there was virtue even in a scorpion sting, for it had completely cured
him of ever attempting to get out of bed again in the dark, even if all
the Turks in the Ottoman Empire were at his door.
General Ryrie, afterwards promoted to Major-General, was appointed to
the command of the Australian Mounted Division, and had the K.C.M.G.
conferred on him.
Towards the end of August General Allenby reviewed the Anzacs at their
Headquarters, some four miles to the north of Jericho. The Mounted
Division was formed into three sides of a square, and into this General
Allenby galloped, followed by his Staff. It was well for the
Commander-in-Chief that he was a good horseman, for the spirited animal
which he rode gave one or two very hearty bucks, quite enough to have
unseated the majority of our Generals.
Later, the Chief decorated a number of the officers and men who had
gallantly won distinctions, and at the end of the ceremony made a good
soldierly speech to the Division.
I was invited to be present at the review, and on being presented by
General Chaytor to the Commander-in-Chief the latter remarked, "Oh, by
the way, Patterson, I fear I cannot form your Jewish Brigade, for I have
been notified by the War Office that there are no more Jewish troops
coming out." I replied that I thought this information must be
inaccurate, for I had just had a letter from the officer commanding the
40th Battalion at Plymouth, informing me that he was about to embark
with his battalion for service in Palestine. The Commander-in-Chief
seemed somewhat surprised on hearing this, but remarked that he
considered his information later and better than mine, so of course
there was nothing more to be said.
A few days afterwards, on 30th August, General Chaytor had a conference
with all his Brigade and Infantry Commanders, and as he had heard
General Allenby saying to me that he considered his information with
regard to Jewish reinforcements better than mine, he remarked: "Well,
Patterson, your information about the coming of the other Jewish
Battalions was better than the Chief's after all, for one of my officers
has just come from England, and he tells me that a strong Jewish
Battalion came out with him in the same ship and landed in Egypt a
couple of days ago."
As I considered it only right to let the Commander-in-Chief know that
the information he had received was not accurate, I wrote and told him
that I understood that another Jewish Battalion, some 1,400 strong, had
already arrived in Egypt.
In reply to this I got a memorandum from the Chief of Staff,
Major-General Louis Jean Bols, intimating that in future I was only to
address the Commander-in-Chief through the ordinary channels of
communication.
It was evident from this that the Chief of Staff was not pleased that
the Commander-in-Chief should have any sidelight from me on Jewish
affairs. Of course this had long been apparent, for anything I had
previously written through the ordinary channels--no matter how
important to the welfare of the battalion--had invariably been returned
to me with the remark that it was not considered necessary to refer the
matter further.
Some months after my interview with the Commander-in-Chief yet another
thousand men arrived from England, and altogether there were over five
thousand Jewish soldiers serving in the Jewish units in Palestine. The
formation of a Jewish Brigade had been the definite policy of the War
Office, and an intimation to this effect had been sent to General
Allenby. The Commander-in-Chief of the E.E.F. had himself written to me
to say that a Jewish Brigade would be formed, yet this promise, which
meant so much to the comfort and efficiency of the men and to the
prestige of Jews the world over, was never fulfilled; instead, we were
pushed about from Brigade to Brigade and from Division to Division in
the most heart-breaking manner, with the result that we got all the
kicks and none of the traditional halfpence!
In the space of three months we were shunted about like so many cattle
trucks and found ourselves, in that brief period, attached to no less
than twelve different formations of the British Army!
General Chaytor gave a great lift to the spirit of the battalion when he
conferred the Military Medal on Privates Sapieshvili and Gordon for
their gallant conduct on the night patrol already mentioned. We had a
special parade in "Salt" post redoubt, after Divine Service on the first
day of the Jewish New Year (7th September, 1918). Before all their
comrades the General recounted their gallant deeds, pinned the coveted
ribbons on their breasts, and then ordered the battalion to march past
and salute--not himself, but the two men whom he had just decorated.
From this moment General Chaytor had with him the heartfelt devotion of
every man in the unit. A small thing can win the respect, goodwill, and
devotion of a Regiment, but it is not every General who has the knack of
gaining it.