THE LOST TRANSPORT WAGONS.
Meanwhile I was ordered to clear away the enemy believed to be still
holding the ground to the north of our trenches round Red Hill. I
detailed Captain H. H. Harris and his Company for this duty, the
remainder of the battalion taking up position in the vacated Turkish
trenches overlooking the Jordan. Lieutenant Jabotinsky, with his
platoon, took possession of Umm esh Shert and put the captured ford in a
state of defence, making machine-gun emplacements, etc., to cover the
crossing.
I myself with Captain Julian, Lieutenant Cross, and a platoon
reconnoitred up the river, for I had heard that there was a bridge in
existence, which had been thrown across by the Turks in the
neighbourhood of the ford, and I was anxious to find it if possible.
After going some little way I found it was nearly 8 o'clock a.m., and
time to be getting back to my Battalion Headquarters, so I left Julian,
Cross, and the patrol to push on and make what discoveries they could
along the river. When I got back to my tent I found a telegram awaiting
me from General Chaytor which informed me that I had been given command
of a body of troops to be known officially as "Patterson's Column." It
was composed of the 38th and 39th Battalions Royal Fusiliers, and was
ordered to concentrate on the Auja bridgehead.
I handed over command of the 38th to Major Ripley, who was the next
Senior Officer, and issued the necessary concentration orders.
Later on I rode out to view the position which we had wrested from the
Turks on the Jordan and, on the way, I was surprised to meet Captain
Julian being brought in wounded on a camel. He was in considerable pain,
but quite cheery and able to give me a full account of what had
happened. It seems that soon after I had left them the party was
ambushed by the Turks, who caught them, in the neighbourhood of Red
Hill, with machine-gun and rifle fire. Julian, Cross, and Private
Mildemer fell; the remainder of the patrol melted into a fold of the
ground and made their escape. Julian, although severely wounded in the
foot, also managed to get away, aided by Corporal Elfman, who gallantly
helped him to safety, although under heavy fire from the enemy.
Reinforcements had been sent out as quickly as possible to the scene of
the fight by the nearest Company, but by the time they arrived the Turks
had gone. No trace could be found of Lieutenant Cross's body, but
Private Mildemer was found lying dead where he fell.
On receipt of this news I sent another party under Lieutenant Bullock to
give burial according to Jewish rites to the gallant man who had fallen,
and to make a thorough search of the locality for Lieutenant Cross's
body, but no trace of the missing officer could be found. Telegrams were
dispatched to the hospitals at Amman, Deraa, and to Damascus after we
had captured that city, but nothing was known of him at any of these
places, and in the end we all came to the sad conclusion that we had
seen the last of poor Cross and that the Turks must have thrown his body
into the Jordan after he had died from his wounds. His loss cast a gloom
over the battalion.
I was also exceedingly sorry to be deprived of Captain Julian's services
with the transport, just at the moment when we were ordered to start off
in pursuit of the enemy, for he was an ideal Transport Officer, and
never once let the battalion down while he served in that capacity, and
he had held this important position from the day he joined us.
It was not long until we had a sharp reminder of his loss, for that same
evening our transport trekked off and could not be found anywhere.
Someone (I never could discover who) gave the Transport Sergeant orders
to leave his lines on the Auja and report, with all wagons, etc., to
Major Ripley in the Mellahah. In the darkness he failed to find the
Major, and on the morning of the 23rd not a single soul in the battalion
knew anything about where the Transport had gone, or how it could be
found. They had completely vanished from the ken of everybody, taking
with them our food, forage, cooking pots, and spare ammunition. The new
Transport Officer, Captain Cunningham, who had been detailed to take
Captain Julian's place, was unable to find any trace of them when he
went to take over charge. They had mysteriously disappeared from their
bivouac and gone off into the blue.
This was a very disturbing factor in the situation, for we had orders to
start off in pursuit of the enemy at 2 o'clock a.m. next morning.
Cunningham, Quartermaster Smythe, and all available men who could be
pressed into the service, were sent in every direction to run the
Transport to earth.
Eventually Smythe came back to say that he had been tracking wagon
wheels for at least five miles, but they could not be ours, for the
tracks led steadily in a northerly direction towards the Turkish lines.
After duly strafing Major Ripley for having, this early in his command,
lost his transport, I set off in quest of the rovers.
Luckily my charger Betty was in splendid condition, and I certainly put
her on her mettle that morning. I took up the trail that Smythe had
abandoned, followed it for seven or eight miles at a steady canter, and
then lost all trace on hard ground. I had to cast round in a big circle
before I found it once more, then I went on again for another three or
four miles when I met some Australians. On asking them if they had seen
a column of wagons going northward they said, "No, we have been along
here for a couple of miles, but we have seen nothing."
This was very disheartening news, and I almost felt inclined to give up
the quest in this direction and turn back; but having come so far, I
made up my mind to go on, even to the Turkish lines themselves, before I
gave up the hunt.
I was then about eight miles short of the Turkish position, or what had
been the Turkish position at the foot of the hills towards which the
tracks still led.
When I had covered another few miles, to my inexpressible relief, I at
last caught sight of the Transport, steadily pursuing its way northward!
I made Betty put on an extra spurt and soon caught them up. It is lucky
that there was no grass about, or the prairie itself would have caught
fire when I at last overtook the Transport Sergeant. The language
addressed to the jackdaw by the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims was
angel talk compared to mine.
When I ordered him sharply to get back at once to where he came from, he
was so confused that he promptly turned his horse round and began to
ride off towards camp--leaving his baggage wagons still calmly
proceeding in the opposite direction.
I called the dazed sergeant back and told him very forcibly to halt the
column and take the wagons back as quickly as possible to his original
camp. I was never able to get any satisfactory information from the
sergeant (who by the way was a Welshman and a Christian) as to what
induced him to trek off into the unknown in such a mad fashion. I can
only imagine that the devil, who lives in the Jordan Valley, had
impersonated Major Ripley and had ordered the sergeant to push for all
he was worth for the Turkish lines, leaving us without food, water,
cooking pots, or ammunition--in fact leaving us "beggars by the
wayside."
My chase of the transport wasted some precious hours, but I was back in
camp soon after 10 a.m., where I found the battalion full of bustle and
activity, preparing for concentration on the Auja bridgehead.
On my return to Headquarters I found that Major Ripley was ill and only
fit for hospital. He had had a most nerve-shattering time while
commanding his section; for his posts were very much exposed and there
was always the dread and anxiety of an attack in overwhelming numbers.
Sleep rarely comes to soothe a man's nerves in such trying
circumstances, especially in the awful heat we endured in the Mellahah;
in fact, Major Ripley's features had wasted away so much owing to the
worry and anxiety of all he had undergone that he reminded me of nothing
so much as one of the mummified birds I had once seen in a cave of Upper
Egypt. I never saw Major Ripley again in the battalion, but I am glad to
say he made an excellent recovery, and was eventually given a good staff
job in Alexandria.
I gave the command of the battalion to Major Neill, and from that moment
I had no further anxieties, outside my own province, with which to
contend.