"SOMEWHERE EAST OF SUEZ..."
If you look at the map of Egypt and follow the line of the Suez Canal to
its southernmost point, then continue a little down the Eastern shores of
the Gulf of Suez, you will see--if the map be a good one--the words "Ayun
Musa," which being interpreted mean: "The Wells of Moses."
Now let your finger continue its journey due east, pausing not for
mountains nor yet rivers, and it will inevitably arrive at a spot the name
of which is variously spelt Nekhl, Nakhl or Nukul.
Concentrate on this for a moment and you will see that in enemy hands it
formed a very effective jumping-off place for an attack on the southern
terminus of the most important commercial waterway in the world and a vital
artery of the British Empire. Moreover, it was very difficult of attack,
for it was defended by a range of exceedingly unpleasant and precipitous
hills, the passes through which were held by the Turks. Hence the agitation
of the authorities and the sudden importance of Ayun Musa as a defensive
barrier to Suez.
It was to this lonely spot that we were ordered to proceed with the least
possible delay. Having collected all the stores and camp equipment we could
lay hands on, and after the usual circus in entraining the horses, we
started for Suez. Incidentally, this was the last time we boarded a train
as a complete unit for more than two years.
With Suez the last vestige of green was left behind us, and turning south
after crossing the canal we entered upon that vast desert trodden by the
Israelites thousands of years ago when they fled from the persecuting hand
of Pharaoh.
It is to be admitted that we failed to observe, till later, the undoubted
grandeur of the scene, for we were mainly concerned with getting our guns
and overloaded vehicles along. Time after time they sank almost up to the
axle-trees in the heavy sand and time after time did the sweating horses
pull them out and struggle on again. One G.S. waggon, laden till it
resembled a pantechnicon, was soon in dire straits. Originally starting
with a six-horse team it acquired on the journey first one extra pair, then
another--with a spare man mounted on each of the off-horses--and finally
arrived in camp at the gallop with twelve horses and eight drivers.
Nobody saw anything funny in it. When you are dog-tired, hungry, and, worse
still, when you arrive after dark in a new camp, nothing short of a cold
chisel can gouge humour out of anything. All you want is a large and
satisfying meal, after which your blankets.
In the morning we found that our usual fate had overtaken us: we were again
pioneers in a new land. There it was, just our allotted square on the map,
as flat and bare as a billiard-table.
Yet the country was not unimpressive. A thousand yards away to our right
were the tamarisks of Moses' Grove, the only spot of verdure in sight; far
in our rear and to our left ran range upon range of low, even-topped hills
of unimaginable barrenness, the approach to which lay over a vast plain,
broken by innumerable smaller hills, grand in its utter desolation; and in
front of us stretched a level, shimmering expanse of sand as far as the
silvery ribbon of the Gulf of Suez, beyond which, and dominating the whole
scene, the gaunt, black mass of Gebel Atakah (Mountain of Deliverance)
thrust its mighty pinnacle into the sky.
Such was the place destined to be our home for six torrid months; and we
had to transform it into a fortified camp! Small wonder that we quailed at
the prospect of work more punishing than any we had yet known, for
literally everything had to be done; we had what we managed to bring with
us, and that was all.
There followed days of unremitting toil. We turned our attention to
road-making and with bowed backs and blistered hands shovelled up half the
desert and put it down somewhere else; the other half we put into sandbags
and made gun pits of them. We dug places for the artificers, kitchens for
the cooks, walled-in places for forage, and but for the timely arrival of a
battalion of Indian infantry we should have dug the trenches round the
camp; we were mercifully spared that, however.
By way of a change we dug holes: big holes, little holes, round holes,
square holes, rectangular holes; holes for refuse; wide, deep holes for
washing-pits; every kind of hole you can think of and many you can't.
We never discovered for what purpose most of these holes were dug, but we
dug them; and as a special treat we were allowed to dig an extra big hole,
lined and roofed with sandbags, wherein to hide two hundred thousand rounds
of S.A. ammunition lest the Turks in a moment of aberration should drop a
bomb on it. All this in a temperature of over 100° in the shade at nine
o'clock in the morning!
For summer was leaping towards us with giant strides, and it was one the
like of which Egypt had not known for seventy-five years. Day by day the
sun waxed stronger until work became a torture unspeakable and hardly to be
borne. With the slightest exertion the perspiration ran in rivulets from
face and finger-tips; clothes became saturated and clung like a glove to
our dripping bodies; and if a man stood for a time in one place the sand
around was sodden with his sweat.
Then, too, we had the usual difficulty about drinking water, for there was
none in the camp. The Wells of Moses, twelve in number, were brackish and
only fit for the horses.
Consequently every drop had to be brought from the Quarantine Station,
three miles away, on the shores of the Gulf of Suez; and twice daily did
the water-cart plough a laborious way through the sand. I think it was the
very worst water we ever had, all but undrinkable, in fact. It was so
heavily chlorinated and nauseous that one drank it as medicine. It tasted
the tea, it spoilt the lime-juice, and even the onions failed to disguise
it in the daily stew.
Fortunately there was washing-water in abundance, as we quickly discovered
in our digging operations. Two or three feet down the sand was quite moist,
and if the hole was left for a time, brackish water percolated through in
sufficient quantities for a bath. It was the daily custom, after
evening-stables, to rush across to the washing-pits, peel off our saturated
clothes and stand in pairs, back to back, while a comrade poured bucket
after bucket of water over our perspiring bodies until we were cool enough
to put on a change of clothes.
And how we revelled in it! It was one of the few alleviations of those
torrid, arduous days. You who dwell in temperate climes, with water--hot
and cold--at a hand's turn, will perhaps accuse me of labouring the point.
I cannot help it; no words of mine can express what it meant to have that
clean feeling just for an hour or two. It was ineffable luxury; it helped
us to endure.
For there were other things to add to our daily burden.
You will doubtless remember the Plagues of Egypt.... At least three of
these survived at Ayun Musa to harass, thousands of years later,
unfortunate soldiers who were trying to win a war. We had lice, boils and
blains, and flies--particularly and perpetually, flies.
The first-named were not so terrible, for as wood was fairly plentiful we
soon made rough beds and thus kept our clothes and blankets off the sand.
The second and third caused the medical authorities in the East more
trouble and anxious experiment than all the other diseases put together.
The slightest scratch turned septic. It was the rule rather than the
exception for units in the desert to have 50 per cent. of their strength
under treatment for septic sores. There was no help for it; active service
is a messy business at best. It was appallingly difficult to give adequate
treatment. Sand would get into the wound; if it were cleansed and covered
up, the dry, healing air of the desert had no chance; if it were left open
the flies made a bivouac of it--and the result can be imagined!
There were men who were never without a bandage on some part of their
person for months on end, and it was a common sight to see a man going
about his daily work literally swathed in bandages. It was not until we had
advanced well into Palestine, where there was fruit in abundance, that this
plague diminished and was in some measure overcome.
But infinitely worse than any other was the plague of flies. When we
arrived at Ayun Musa there was not a fly to be seen. Within a week you
would have thought that all the flies in the universe had congregated about
us. They were everywhere. Did you leave your tea uncovered for a minute the
flies around you hastened to drown themselves in it! And as for jam!
Successfully to eat a slice of bread and jam was a feat, and one requiring
careful preparation. You had to make a tunnel of one hand, wave the
required mouthful about with the other for a few seconds in order to
disturb the flies on it, then pass it quickly through the tunnel and into
the mouth before they could settle again. One man nailed a piece of
mosquito-netting to the front of the mess table and with himself as the
pole made a kind of tent, so as to eat his food in comfort.
But meal-times were among the minor evils; it was in the tents, during the
hours when we could do no work, that we suffered most. Rest was impossible.
The mere touch of clothing was almost unbearable in the heat, but it was
better to swathe the head in a fly-net and roll a blanket round the
outlying portions of the body, than to strip to the buff and lie exposed to
the attacks of those damnable flies.
It is no light thing that sends a strong man into hysterics or drives one
sobbing from his tent, to rush about the camp in a frenzy of wild rage. Yet
the flies did this--and more; they were carriers of disease. Behind the
clouds of flies lurked always the grim spectre of dysentery; and of all our
troubles perhaps this is the best known to the people at home. The
Mesopotamian Commission ventilated it so thoroughly that there is no need
to pile on the agony here. One may say, however, that the sufferings of the
men in Egypt from this terrible disease were, certainly in somewhat less
degree, those of their comrades farther east. And we will let it go at
that.
Meanwhile, what of the Turks? During the six weeks we spent putting the
camp into a state of defence they kindly refrained from annoying us, and
beyond an occasional encounter with our patrols and a false alarm or two,
nothing occurred to disturb the even tenor of our digging. When we had
finished this strenuous pursuit, every ten days or so flying columns were
organised to look for them and, if possible, drive them out of their rocky
fastnesses thirty miles away.
One of the few vulnerable points in these hills was the Raha Pass and
incredibly difficult it was even to approach. The joys of trekking over
the sandy desert we knew, the desert in the rainy season we knew, but they
were as nothing compared with the rocky desert of Sinai. Not only was there
the deep sand to contend with but one had to climb hills and descend
valleys covered with huge boulders. It was a creditable feat merely to get
over the ground at all; manoeuvring was out of the question.
An eight-horse team could with difficulty pull a gun and its limber over
fairly level ground; frequently twelve horses were required and sometimes
as many as sixteen! And it was really wonderful to see them intelligently
thrusting all their weight on the breast-collars, heaving and straining to
get their load over a nasty place. These were the days, too, when the heat
whipped off the rocks in waves and the sun's rays beat upon the back like
strokes from a flail; when it was impossible to march during the noontide
hours and one crawled under the limbers for shelter; and when a man looked
longingly at his water-bottle, even though the water therein was almost
boiling.
For the most part these flying columns drew blank. Rarely did the Turks and
their Bedouin allies come out and fight, but confined themselves to sniping
and harassing our cavalry-patrols at night. Every day these would return to
camp bearing the body of a comrade, killed without seeing the hand that
killed him; and once, saddest of all, two riderless horses, famished and
almost mad with thirst, dashed up to the watering-troughs in camp. Their
riders were never found.
We had to wait long weeks before our chance came. (Even then it came only
just in time, for we left Ayun Musa for good the following day.)
It was rather a curious affair. The solution to the whole question lay in
our being able to get the guns to the top of a certain hill commanding the
Raha Pass. If this could be accomplished things would be very warm indeed
for the people in the Pass.
It took twenty-six horses to pull the gun to the top of that hill! The rest
was easy; almost too easy. The Turks had no heavy artillery, so we sat
about in the open smoking and watching our guns shell them out of their
holes into the arms of the Indian infantry, who went forward with a pleased
smile to receive them.
But the urgent need in those days of the army in the East was aircraft;
fast, modern machines, that is. There was a lamentable lack of anything
that could go near the Fokker or Taube; the men were willing, but the
machines were woefully weak. Almost with impunity the Turks came over and
bombed the camps in the area; the one at El Shatt always received
particular attention, possibly on account of its proximity to Suez, more
probably because it was the largest and most strongly-fortified camp in the
vicinity. Suez itself was attacked many times, as might have been expected,
both on account of its immense oil-tanks and its position as the southern
entrance to the Canal. Curiously enough, Turkish aircraft never troubled us
much at Ayun Musa, though of course there was the usual "wind-up."
As a start we were ordered to convert our eighteen pounders into
anti-aircraft guns. This meant digging pits with a weird kind of platform
in the middle; this was for the reception of the gun-wheels alone. The
trail was thus left free, which enabled the gun to be tilted sufficiently
for high-angle fire. We never did fire at any aircraft from these pits;
they looked very nice, however.
Nor did this finish the business. About this time the word "camouflage"
appeared in the East and curiously enough, synchronising with its arrival,
the mandate went forth that our tents were to be camouflaged. Now the army
is a very wonderful place for teaching one to make bricks without straw,
but if the other materials are lacking----?
Matters were at a deadlock till a bright lad suggested that there might be
a little desert-scrub about if we looked for it. He was quite right; there
was a little, a very little. About one bush to the half-mile was the
average, and usually under a boulder at that. Every morning we rode forth
and scoured the desert for that elusive scrub. As we had, by the process
known in the army as "wangling," acquired sufficient tents and marquees for
a battalion, there was a large quantity to find. Ultimately, after weeks
of searching, we obtained enough, and to stimulate keenness, a prize was
then offered for the best camouflaged tent. The winners' was really a very
beautiful affair, but apparently the honour--or the scrub--was too much for
the tent, for it collapsed during the night.
Shortly after this we had a further insight into the infinite possibilities
of the desert. For a fortnight it had been intolerably hot, and rarely was
the noon temperature below 120° in the shade. No work was done between the
hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., except at midday when the horses were watered
and fed; and we loathed the whistle that summoned us from our tents into
the blinding sunlight to perform this duty, necessary though we knew it to
be. We literally prayed for the night and the cool breeze from the sea. The
Mountain of Deliverance was in truth a symbol to us; for as we watched the
sun sink slowly behind its sheltering bulk we knew that another day was
done. We wondered wearily what this devastating heat could mean; it was
like nothing in our experience.
One evening the whole sky was aflame with lurid light and we missed the
revivifying breeze. In its place came a hot wind from the south-east, and
although the sun was setting we could feel the sickly heat increasing
momentarily. Presently, far over the eastern desert could be seen a gauzy
cloud of immense size travelling towards us at a tremendous pace. In a few
moments we were in the midst of an inferno of swirling sand and
suffocating heat. It was the dreaded khamseen.
Men rushed blindly for their tents and swathed their heads in shirts or
blankets in order to keep out as well as might be the flying particles of
sand. Fortunately for us the high embankment in our rear protected the camp
to some extent and we never got the full force of the sandstorm.
For three days it raged. Little work was possible beyond watering and
feeding the horses. The short walk from the horse-lines to the
watering-troughs was sheer torment, for the hot wind came down the slope
like blasts from a furnace. It did literally turn the stomach. Many a man
staggering blindly along with his three or four horses would pause, vomit
violently and carry on. The horses neither drank nor ate much, poor brutes,
but all day long stood dejectedly with drooping heads, their backs turned
to the scorching wind. It was a scarifying experience. When, on the evening
of the third day, the familiar wind came up from the sea we had the feeling
one has on coming out of a Turkish bath into the cooling-chamber.
Another welcome tonic was the news that the brigade was ordered to
Salonica. We felt that any change would be for the better; in any case it
could not well be worse. And so we fell to making our preparations with
light hearts, confident that in a few days we should be on the move again,
perhaps--who could say?--towards a real war.
At the last moment a wire came cancelling the move. The disappointment was
so bitter that it knocked all the life out of us for days. We felt like a
boxer who, after a knock-down blow, rises at the count of nine, say, and is
at once sent down again for good. The knock-out blow was that in our case
the rest of the brigade did actually leave the camp, in addition to which
the Indian infantry who had lain alongside us also went elsewhere. We felt
thoroughly aggrieved.
I suppose every unit at some time or other during a period of enforced
stagnation has had this grievance. Nobody loves you. You feel that some one
in the high places has a grudge against you. You can hear him saying to his
underlings: "Let me see. So-and-so is a pretty rotten camp, isn't it? I'll
keep this battalion or that squadron or the other battery there. Do 'em
good. Mustn't coddle 'em." And you are kept "there" for weary months.
Most of us knew that the conditions in Salonica were as bad as, if not
worse than, those obtaining in Egypt, so why on earth were we pining to go
there? There is no prize for the answer, but I suspect it was the eternal
desire for a change, of whatever nature. Besides, except for the heat,
flies, septic sores, the khamseen, bad water, dysentery, vaccination,
inoculations many and various, digging holes, and a depressing sameness
about the scenery, we had, according to some, little to grumble at.
[Illustration: SUNDAY MORNING IN THE GULF OF SUEZ. [_To face p.32_.]
We were not unduly harassed by the Turks; indeed, it was our function to
harass them. We slept peacefully in our beds o' nights except for a
pernicious system of false alarms. We had now a metre-gauge line on which
our forage was brought into camp, thus saving us a fatigue. Moreover, on
this line we could take an occasional joy-ride in a tram like an Irish
jaunting-car, drawn by two mules probably also of Irish descent, who
invariably ran away with the tram, and, desiring later to rest awhile, were
as invariably thrust forward again by the violent impact from behind of the
oncoming vehicle.
We had a very passable canteen with sometimes real beer in it. And above
and beyond all these joys we had recently made an ice-chest. True, we were
dependent upon a somewhat fortuitous supply of ice, brought by boat across
the Gulf from Suez to the Quarantine Station, thence by special
fatigue-party, armed to the teeth, into camp; and it usually suffered
considerably _en route_. But think of a long, really cold drink waiting for
you at the end of a three-days' stunt into those iniquitous hills, when you
came in covered with sand and with a throat like a dust-bin! Half of it
went at a gulp to wash the sand down; the rest one drank slowly and with
infinite content. That ice-chest had the prestige of a joss.
Looking back, however, on the summer of 1916 and taking count, as it were,
of the things that amused us and helped us to carry on, I find that we
were for the most part self-supporting. To the best of my recollection,
except for visits of inspection by the Great Ones, which of course do not
count, there were only two occasions when we had strangers within our
gates.
The first was when the navy, some forty strong, in high spirits and a G.S.
waggon, came to cheer us up.
And here I should like to ask why it is that the moment the sailorman is
ashore he goes forth and looks for a horse, quite regardless as to whether
he has ever put a leg across one before or no. For them, too, a horse has
but one pace: a full-stretch gallop. It took hours to catch all the
riderless horses after the navy had started for their gentle exercise, but
we got heaps of fun out of it and it was very good to see somebody from the
outside world.
The other time was when we had a concert in Moses' Grove and a regimental
band came from El Shatt to entertain us. It was fine to sit there under the
tamarisks around an immense camp-fire and listen to a really good band
playing the old favourites again and giving us a few new ones, to be
whistled or sung about the camp for weeks.
The mail, of course, kept us happy where nothing else could, for not only
was it the single link with home and all that it meant, but it brought us
newspapers which, while carefully avoiding all reference to the armies in
the East, did tell us of the war as they waged it in France. Also, it
introduced Bairnsfather to us. "The Better 'Ole" became almost an
institution; we could speak with authority on "'oles." And "When the 'ell's
it goin' to be strawberry?" was the unfailing jest at meal-times, as we
scraped the layer of flies from the top of the inevitable Tickler.
No doubt these things will strike you as trivial. Quite so. But when you
remember our complete isolation, that for six months we saw no one but
ourselves, so to speak, you will understand that if one did not laugh at
trivial things one simply did not laugh at all--and in the desert that way
madness lies.
For there were days when one hated the sight of one's best friend, when the
mere sameness of everything drove one almost to distraction, and when the
heat and the little exasperations of our daily work kept the temper
constantly on edge. One had to laugh at something; it was the only way to
keep sane. So, if there should occasionally creep into these pages a
somewhat frivolous tone, I crave your indulgence, for it was truly the
atmosphere in which we, in common with other lonely outposts, lived and
worked. It was fatal to take life too seriously; wherefore, as we had
little else to laugh at, we laughed at ourselves.
But to all things an end. The weary time of waiting and preparation was
almost over. Sparse news filtered through that the northward advance
towards Palestine had already begun; that there had been heavy fighting at
Katia, where the Turks, under cover of a desert mist, surprised and cut
up--but failed to defeat--our cavalry; and that we had at Romani inflicted
the most summary defeat on the enemy since he made his abortive attack on
the Canal in 1915.
All of which, said the wiseacres, seemed to point in one direction; that
all the available troops would very soon be required for the more
considerable business at the northern end of the desert; in other words,
that we should shortly be on the move again. And for once the prophets were
right, for suddenly there was a great to-do in the camp; such a polishing
of guns and a burnishing of stirrup-irons and bits and chains, such a
cleaning of harness and saddlery as had never been known.
When it was done one of the elect came down and inspected us, after which
we went out into the desert beyond and fired at targets the ranges of which
had been carefully taken days before, so as not to disappoint the great man
by bad shooting. Whereupon, when he had expressed himself satisfied with
the accuracy of our fire and the smartness of our drill, he went away; and
presently came others, still more elect, for whom there was more cleaning
and burnishing, and who further declared their entire approval. Finally the
Commander-in-Chief himself came and inspected all the troops in the area;
and the work was as before, only more so. Now, when he too was pleased, we
knew that a move was what the Americans call a "cinch." And so it proved.
To wind up with a flourish, as it were, we went out to the hills again for
a last--and, as it happened, most successful--attempt on the Raha Pass,
when we climbed the hill mentioned earlier in this chapter.
Marching orders were awaiting us on our return. We were to trek to El
Kubri, a post on the Canal near Suez, there to await train accommodation.
This time the orders were not cancelled.