JUNCTION STATION AND LUDD
An interesting task fell to my lot, in the reduction to order of the
chaos existing at Junction Station. This place had been an important
rest camp on the enemy's line of communications. That the Germans
thought they had come to stay was manifested by the style in which the
station and other buildings had been erected, as well as by the plans
which they had left behind them for intended future development. Most of
the buildings, including an up-to-date flour mill fitted with modern
machinery, had been substantially built with stone. The erection of many
additional houses was clearly contemplated, while the work had already
been put in hand of planting fruit orchards.
The disgusting state in which these premises were left was
indescribable. Rotting carcases of beasts lay all about the place, while
other filth almost surpassed them in stench. The buildings were infested
with flies by day and mosquitoes by night, while other forms of vermin
carried on the good work throughout the whole twenty-four hours.
A large amount of stores had been left behind and had fallen into our
hands, consisting mainly of grain, flour, and fodder (tibbin). The enemy
had destroyed some of the buildings, smashed up the mill machinery, and
set on fire as much of the corn as possible. This fire lasted for days,
until at length it burned itself out, for it was useless attempting to
salve any portion of the grain composing the bonfire.
Before we had so much as taken possession, swarms of Bedouin came
through the premises to loot. Thieving with them is instinctive. They
could not understand why they had not a right to help themselves to what
the Turks had abandoned. However, a strong guard was posted at once;
those Bedouin who had taken up their abode on the premises were evicted;
and preparations were made to face a somewhat stormy night. All that
night through the crack of rifles resounded. Although the bag next
morning proved to be small, yet, for days afterwards, Bedouin kept
dropping in at our hospitals with bullet wounds to be dressed, as to the
cause of which they could offer no satisfactory explanation. After this
the looting fell off considerably. Nevertheless, a certain number of
looters, averaging about a dozen a day, were caught and put into the
Guard Room. We were glad of their assistance, as there was much filthy
cleaning up to be done, so, fools that came to loot, remained to
scavenge. Once we had an awkward predicament, for the sergeant of the
guard, having confined in the same lock-up some looters, whose detention
should be for twenty-four hours, and some prisoners, whose detention
should be for the duration of the war, could not subsequently tell them
apart.
The enemy left here intact an entire Turkish hospital. It was one of the
most picturesque of Eastern sights that anybody could wish to see.
Crowded together in one huge ward were men of every shade, in variegated
costumes, lying on beds with coverlets rivalling Joseph's coat of many
colours. Unfortunately, the hospital was infected, or suspected of
infection, with typhus. Therefore, as soon as the patients and staff had
been evacuated, it was set on fire, and the whole hospital, woodwork,
tents and all that they contained, ascended to heaven in a great column
of smoke. Among the contents was a nice new camp bedstead. Pending the
decision as to the competent military authority in whose custody this
should be placed, I gave orders for it to be transferred to my quarters.
But, strangely enough, each senior officer that arrived considered that
the competent military authority to take charge of this bedstead was
himself. It must have had at least a dozen owners by the time that it
ascended in smoke. This hospital also contained one case of sardines. It
was wonderful how widely spread became the fame of those sardines. Every
British officer in Palestine seems to have licked his lips and looked
forward to a meal of sardines when he should pass through Junction
Station. Unfortunately, nobody could find those sardines. But a week
later, when the rush of officers had gone, it was discovered that they
had been appropriated as medical comforts by the R.A.M.C. Now, it so
happened, that none of the patients then arriving were on a sardine
diet, so other measures had to be taken to ensure that the sardines were
not wasted.
As the army went forward, they sent back large numbers of Turkish
prisoners of war. These were collected at Junction Station, where a
compound was formed. Such as were required for labour were temporarily
detained, while the others were marched back under guard to railhead.
During this sojourn, the prisoners were usefully employed in clearing up
the messes which had been left behind, particularly in burying carcases.
At one place we found half-a-dozen dead buffaloes lying half submerged.
Before they could be got at and cleared away it was necessary to drain
off the water. A party of the prisoners were detailed for this task; a
few hours later they were found seriously trying to drain this water
away up-hill. Among the prisoners were a few officers. In default of
other suitable accommodation, one of them was allowed to live in a room
at the Commandant's house. He displayed great anxiety lest somebody
should touch the disused telephone or other wires, fire a booby trap
possibly left behind by his kind friends, and so blow him to eternity.
There was not much time to spare for contemplation. Nevertheless, in
this, the Vale of Sorek, I often thought of Samson and Delilah, and
"Mon coeur s'ouvre à ton voix"; or, pictured the Ark of the Covenant
wend its way past my very door, on a cart drawn by two milch kine, on
that wonderful journey from Ekron to Beth-Shemesh.
There was plenty of work to be done, in reducing chaos to order, in
protecting much valuable property, in meeting the requirements of
thousands of passing troops, and in spreading, as it were, the spawn for
this mushroom town. It had been an important place under Turkish
administration. It promised, under the British régime, to become the
most important railway centre in Palestine. Consequently, schemes of
water supply, sanitation, and town planning had to be evolved and
installed immediately, hospitals opened in the most appropriate
buildings, spaces set apart for camping grounds for all classes of
troops and animals, huge dumps and supply dumps respectively, railway
sidings laid down and cemeteries opened both for Christians and for
Mahomedans, while roads had to be improved and sign-boards set up in all
directions.
Many and diverse were the arrivals and departures in the course of one
busy week. Foremost came the fighting troops of the 21st Corps, the 75th
and 54th Divisions, followed later by those of the 20th Corps, the 60th
and 74th Divisions. With them arrived field ambulances, which took
possession of the best of the buildings and converted them into
hospitals. Companies of Royal Engineers arrived, and travelling
workshops staffs of the Ordnance Department, and both of these lost no
time in opening their workshops. Enormous supply dumps were formed and
camel convoys, miles long, arrived with supplies. The camels were
specially inconsiderate, and would select awkward spots, like
cross-roads, at which to lie down and die. They were welcome to die, if
only they could and would have first made adequate arrangements for
their own obsequies. A battalion of British West Indians that arrived,
aroused both sympathy and amusement. They had marched through
torrential rain and arrived soaked to the skin. In spite of a warning as
to what they might expect, they rushed for shelter into some of the
buildings which had not yet been disinfected; but their exit was even
faster than their entrance, and they preferred the wet and cheerless
exterior to being eaten alive within. Scarcely a day's march behind the
fighting troops, arrived a thousand or more of the Egyptian Labour
Corps. These were immediately set to work on the roads, and such good
work did they do that the roads were soon in an excellent condition for
mechanical transport. Full of irony was the arrival of several guards
and a staff of military police _en route_ for Jerusalem. It was
believed, at this time, that the fall of Jerusalem was imminent. That
Britain's fair name might not be sullied by any foolish misbehaviour, or
any still more foolish collection of souvenirs, it was decided that
guards should at once be mounted upon the Holy Places in Jerusalem.
These guards, Christian and Moslem, collected at Junction Station, ready
to march straight into the city; but, when its fall was postponed _sine
die_, they had sadly but surely to return to their own regiments. The
intention had been to surround Jerusalem with a cordon of British
sentries; an order, accordingly, was published that any British soldier
found within 5 miles of Jerusalem would be liable to be shot. Our
unfortunate British soldiers fighting on Neby Samwil, which was within
the prescribed distance, readily endorsed that sentiment, though
scarcely in the sense implied by the authorities.
Of all activities at this time of industry, none were greater than those
of the railway development companies of the Royal Engineers. The Turkish
line had been destroyed in several places and the rolling stock much
damaged. Nevertheless, repairs were put in hand immediately, leaky
engines were made water-tight, damaged trucks and coaches were made fit
to travel, and, within a very short space of time, there was a train
running each way between Junction Station and Deir Sineid. As being the
services of primary importance, the first trains were confined to the
bringing up of ammunition and the taking down of wounded. The captured
rolling stock was limited, and so the number of trains was painfully
restricted. Fortunately, this narrow gauge line was of similar gauge to
certain light railways in Egypt, and rolling stock from those lines was
brought up with all convenient speed. Moreover, two quite new engines,
said to have been originally destined for this line but captured at sea
during the early days of the war, were hurried up and put into
commission. New constructional work was also put in hand at once,
including an embankment for continuing the line northwards across the
bed of the Wadi Surar (Sorek), the original steel girder bridge having
unfortunately been destroyed. The fate of the bridges here was similarly
unfortunate. The railway bridge, which should have been blown up before,
so as to prevent the escape of the Turkish trains, was only destroyed
after they had got away; and so the destruction of this bridge proved of
great hindrance to us, but caused no inconvenience whatever to the
enemy. The other bridge across the wadi was a timber bridge, which
carried the road. As this bridge was insecure and required
strengthening, a party of military police were posted upon it to stop
all traffic from crossing it through the night. Seized with a brain
wave, they lit a fire upon the centre of the bridge. This expedient
proved so successful, that it not only stopped the traffic for that
night, but for all time. When morning came, it was discovered that they
had burnt away the bridge itself, and a new bridge had to be
constructed.
An armoured train was improvised from such trucks as were available, the
sides being sandbagged and a Lewis gun mounted in front. With this, the
railway line was patrolled towards Jerusalem for some miles, until
destroyed bridges made further progress impossible. The result of this
reconnaissance showed that trains could run for some distance along
this line, and ammunition trains were pushed forward accordingly.
When I left Junction Station to rejoin the fighting troops, it was well
on the high road to importance and fame. This, however, never matured.
It was to the policy of railway construction that this place owed its
primary existence; it was to an extension of that policy that it looked
for its future development; it was through a change in that policy that
its glory soon afterwards departed.
The original intention had been to adapt to our use the Turkish railway
system, merely broadening the gauge. In that case, our own broad gauge
line from Kantara, which, immediately on the fall of Gaza, had been
brought through to Deir Sineid, would have been continued along the
route of the Turkish line from Deir Sineid to Junction Station. The
first months of working this Turkish line, still in its narrow gauge
condition as captured, did not afford a promising outlook. These were
months of torrential and persistent rain. The country became a quagmire.
Landslips along the permanent way, and the washing away of culverts,
became of such frequent occurrence, that it was decided to abandon this
portion of this line altogether. Committed, therefore, to no
predetermined route, the engineers were left with the whole country open
to them to choose a course for their new trunk railway to the north.
They chose a line much nearer the coast, and approximately followed the
border line between the fertile plain and the sand dunes from Deir
Sineid as far north as Yebna, thence bearing north-east towards Ramleh
and Ludd. This had the effect of making the future railhead at Ludd.
Situate at the cross-roads where the Valley of Ajalon debouches upon the
Plain, and the ancient route from Jerusalem to Jaffa crosses the yet
more ancient route from Egypt and Gaza to Acre and Damascus, the
neighbourhood of Ramleh and Ludd has for many centuries been the site of
an important town. In Biblical days it was Ludd; in Crusading days it
was Ramleh. The towns are but a couple of miles apart. And so it came
about that now, once again, this spot became the great traffic junction
of Palestine.
As time passed on, and as, through the spring and summer of 1918, we
held a line across Palestine to the north of and covering Jerusalem and
Jaffa, railway development proceeded apace, being focussed on Ludd. In
spite of the difficulties of railway engineering in the mountains, the
broad gauge line was carried from Ludd through Junction Station right up
to Jerusalem. Well-constructed narrow gauge lines were laid down between
Ludd and Jaffa, and between railhead and various distributing centres
close behind the front line. The line from Junction Station to Beersheba
was changed from narrow to broad gauge and extended to Rafa. Thereafter
the line was double from Kantara to Rafa. From Rafa, one single line
went forward, by Belah, Gaza and Yebna, to Ludd, while another single
line went forward to Ludd by way of Beersheba and Junction Station. The
advantages of a double line system north of Rafa were thus secured at
times of pressure by working the full freight trains forward to Ludd viâ
Gaza and Yebna, and working the trains of returned empties back again by
way of Beersheba.
Ludd developed apace. Soon were seen all the evidences and activities of
a great advanced base and distributing centre. Huge ordnance and supply
dumps arose, workshops and depots were to be seen on all sides, a great
bakery was installed and even a mineral-water factory. The importance of
Ludd far eclipsed the quondam glory of Belah, and came nearer to
rivalling that of Kantara.
To an Englishman, the chief interest of Ludd lies in its being the place
of martyrdom and burial of St. George. Was it not appropriate that the
victorious British armies in Palestine should have been provided and fed
from beside the very tomb of their own Patron Saint?