KANTARA AND THE RAILWAY
At this point it would be as well to confer with the map once more. Be
pleased to imagine that we have trekked northwards from Suez, through the
beautiful little town of Ismailia, "the emerald of the desert," thence to
Ferry Post, which was a position of considerable importance when the Turks
attacked the Canal in February 1915, and finally to Kantara, where we will
pause to see if an answer can be found to the query propounded in the
preceding chapter.
If our inquiring friends had sailed down the Canal in 1915 they would have
seen at Kantara--had they noticed the place at all, which is unlikely--a
cluster of tents, a few rows of horse-lines, some camels, a white-walled
mosque, and a water-tank close to the water's edge; while their nostrils
would have been pungently assailed by the acrid smell of burning
camel-dung.
It is at least probable that the last-named would have made the most
striking impression. (It is still a powerful characteristic of Kantara.)
Certainly they would never have guessed from its appearance what Kantara
was destined to become: the terminus of the great military railway running
across the desert and through Palestine, a military port of the utmost
value, the beginning--or end--of the main road into Palestine, and the
biggest base in Egypt.
They are to be excused; no one would. Kantara did not unduly lift its head
in those days, and one did not, perhaps, at a first glance fully appreciate
its unique geographical position; for it is situated within easy reach of
Port Said and Suez, the two great termini of the Canal, and is thus
conveniently near the sea.
Moreover, the Turks were only some fourteen miles away, and the time was
not yet ripe. It is illustrative of our early limitations that our postal
designation was "Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Canal Defences." Note
that no idea was then entertained of anything beyond defending the great
waterway.
Nothing else could be done. We had simply to hold off the Turks and make
shift as best we could, meanwhile collecting materials and making
preparations for a definite offensive when the psychological moment
arrived.
Originally the troops were on the west bank, near the station, which is on
the State Railway from Port Said to Cairo and Alexandria, until some one
high in authority suggested that as we were supposed to be defending the
Canal, and not the Canal defending us, it would be as well to move over to
the other side. The fact is, this would have been done much sooner had it
not been that the Turkish attack in February caused what is called a
vertical draught in political circles in Egypt, and it needed a very great
man indeed to order the move.
We were still dependent on Port Said for rations and supplies, while all
the water was brought up from the same place by boat and stored in the big
tank. The means of communication between the east and west banks were
somewhat primitive. At Kantara a pontoon bridge and a decrepit chain ferry
of uncertain moods maintained irregular intercourse with the other side. It
used to be one of our diversions to watch the ferry bringing across the
daily ration-waggon, whereof the horses, frightened by the clank of the
chains, frequently bolted the moment the "door" of the ferry was lowered.
To the right, in the direction of the camp, was a particularly nasty
incline, so the waggon usually decided to go to the left through the lines
of the Bikanir Camel Corps; whereupon the horses, having an unconquerable
aversion to camels, at once stampeded, and our rations were in dire
jeopardy. There were, too, a few rowing-boats for passengers, but these
were either on the other side when you wanted them or were too full of
holes to use.
Patrol-duty and spy-hunting were our principal occupations, as in most of
the other Canal stations; certainly few dreamed of the greatness in store.
It was not until the spring of 1916 that Kantara dropped its mantle of
obscurity and began to take its place as our principal base of operations.
From then onwards the place hummed with ever-increasing activity, for the
danger of a further attempt on the Canal was now somewhat remote, and work
could be carried on in comparative safety.
One day, perhaps, a scribe will rise up and write of the doings of the
Royal Engineers in this war, more particularly of their deeds in such
places as Salonica, Mesopotamia, East Africa, and Egypt; where, in addition
to the usual shortage of tools and material, they had to wrestle with every
conceivable kind of geographical obstacle that a bountiful Nature could
place in their way. The present scribe can only write of what they did in
Egypt and Palestine, and not half of that can be told.
As far as Kantara is concerned they came, they saw, they conquered. What
they saw was a desert which they proceeded to transform into a city,
certainly of tents and huts, but "replete with every convenience"--as the
house-agents say. As a start they pensioned off the aged chain ferry into
decent retirement and built a goodly swing bridge, over which were brought
timber to be cut into beams and joists; nuts and bolts and screws, and an
olla podrida of materials.
When this was done a gentleman called the Assistant Director of Works came
and made a plan of the city. Here a difficulty arose. In this climate a
white man has his limitations, and one of them is that hard manual labour
when the sun is summer-high is exhausting in the extreme, and is, moreover,
explicitly forbidden between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. by the
authorities.
It was then that the voice of the Egyptian Labour Corps was heard in the
land. Little is known outside the country of this admirable corps, yet it
is scarcely too much to say that they saved the situation here as
elsewhere. Recruited from almost every class of the native community, from
the towns and cities, from the Delta, from their "belods" in the far-off
Soudan, they came in thousands to dig and delve, to fetch and carry, to do
a hundred things impossible for a white man to do in that climate. It is
difficult to over-estimate their usefulness; though not as a rule big men,
they would carry for considerable distances weights that a far bigger white
man failed even to lift.
Their staple diet consisted of bread, onions, lentils, rice, dates, and
oil--with perhaps a little meat after sunset. They drank prodigious
quantities of water, and could not in fact go for long without. Firmly but
fairly treated by their British officers and non-commissioned officers,
they went anywhere and did anything; and wherever you found the sappers,
there, too, you would see the khaki galabeahs and hear the eternal chant:
"Kam leila, kam yom?" of the E.L.C. Under their hands Kantara took shape.
Supervised and directed by the Engineers, gangs of them made roads,
workmanlike affairs calculated to stand the strain shortly to be imposed on
them by the daily passage of thousands of lorries and waggons. Eastward
from the Canal what had been a mere track, fetlock deep in sand, became a
broad road macadamised for ten kilos, from which radiated similar roads in
all directions, and on which abutted presently the great camps that seemed
to spring up like mushrooms in a night.
Alongside the roads other gangs laid watermains connected directly with
Port Said, for it soon became utterly impossible to bring an adequate daily
supply of water by boat. At certain points stand-pipes were erected so that
working-parties and other troops could fill their water-bottles without
having to go far to do so; in the hot weather every extra yard tells.
This was the beginning of the pipe-line laid stage by stage as the army
advanced, across the desert and far into Palestine. We shall see more of it
later.
Then the A.D.W. collected his carpenters and bricklayers and bade them
instruct their dusky labourers in the building of gigantic mess-huts, in
size and shape not unlike a hangar, capable of providing meal accommodation
for hundreds of men at a time; ration and store-huts for the numerous
camps; brick enclosures for the kitchens; incinerators, and a thousand and
one things necessary for the troops.
It was a liberal education to watch a British N.C.O. working with the gang
of natives under his command. Usually his entire vocabulary of Arabic
consisted of about ten words, of which the following are a fair sample:--
Aiwa--Yes.
La--No.
Quais--Good.
Mush quais--No good.
Igri!--Quickly!
Imshi!--Clear out!
Ta-ala henna--Come here.
With these, comically interpolated with English expletives, he performed
marvels, from stone-breaking to bridge-building.
Presumably he gave his instruction by some process of thought-transmission,
an art that seems peculiarly suited to the genius of the British soldier.
"Quais!" he would say, when a man had done a job to his liking, and the
man's comrades crowded round carefully to examine the work, after which
they went away and copied it faithfully. If on the other hand, the man
failed to do what was required of him, there would be an aggrieved bellow
of: "La! Mush quais!" and the perspiring native would get down to it once
more, while the others charged up again to see what in future to avoid.
Moreover, whatever mistakes they made subsequently it was rarely that one.
"Igri, Johnny!" or alternatively and more forcibly, "Get a bloomin' igri
on, Johnny!" was the favourite ejaculation of an N.C.O. when he wanted to
cure that tired feeling peculiar to the Egyptian native. (All natives
answer to the name of Johnny, by the way.)
"Imshi!" was the N.C.O.'s great word, however; he used it on all occasions
implying a departure from his presence; when a man's face displeased him,
for instance, and when he dismissed them for the day. They made a weird
combination, these two, the dominant white man and the dusky native; but
they built Kantara--and a few other places.
As the camp grew and grew so also did its needs. The Army Service Corps
arrived in force and demanded for themselves a great depôt, covering many
acres, which was to be the Main Supply of the army advancing into
Palestine. Materials and stores could not now be brought in sufficient
quantities by the State railway on the other bank, and the traffic over the
Canal bridges was becoming increasingly heavy. Accordingly the engineers
found another outlet for their energies: they created a fleet!
Jetties and wharves were built on the east bank, and to them came presently
numbers of strange vessels, broad in the beam like a barge, and with
monstrous lateen sails that looked too unwieldy to be furled or set; and on
their bows they bore the painted letters "I.W.T., R.E." and a numeral.
They were native feluccas, garnered from every canal and waterway in Egypt.
They brought grain and fodder for the horses, rations for the men,
vegetables of all kinds from the fertile province of Fayoum, stores for the
roads; and at Port Said and Suez material from the outside world was
trans-shipped on to them for conveyance to Kantara. Loaded almost down to
the water's edge they came to the jetties, tied up, emptied, and went away
for more. Great wooden warehouses were built to receive the cargoes, and
almost daily the number grew until they extended for miles down the Canal
bank.
It would appear that the zenith of construction had now been reached, but
as it became increasingly evident that the Turks would never again reach
the Canal, so it was obvious that something more ambitious must be
attempted, if the great advance was to be carried out successfully. For the
feluccas were limited by their size to carrying articles of small compass,
capable of being unloaded by hand; the larger implements of war were beyond
them.
Thus the engineers had to tackle the enormously difficult problem of
widening and deepening the Canal sufficiently to allow ocean-going steamers
to come close in to the bank and discharge their cargoes directly on to the
shore; this would serve the double purpose of time-saving in the transport
of material, and lightening the strain on the ports of Alexandria and Port
Said, which had borne a heavy burden since the war began.
It was no mean undertaking to make fundamental alterations in a great
artery like the Suez Canal. No diminution in the traffic was permissible,
since not only ourselves but the larger needs of the troops in France had
to be considered. Supplies were being brought from Australia and India in
large quantities, and most of the vessels had to pass through the Canal.
Thus the alterations had to be carried out while, as it were, the day's
work was going on, and it took months of patient toil before the end was in
sight. Indeed, I am not sure that the troops were not already in Palestine
before the first ocean-going steamer drew up to its berth in the newly-made
docks.
What made the business more difficult still was the incredible shortage of
skilled labour. Owing to our deplorable predilection in the army for
putting square pegs into round holes, there were trained engineers sweeping
out mess-huts or carrying stretchers; capable mechanics digging holes or
grooming horses; and skilled draughtsmen addressing envelopes and writing:
"Passed to you, please, for information and necessary action," on documents
referring to the momentous question as to whether No. 54321 Dr. Jones,
R.H.A., should have a pair of new breeches at the public expense or pay for
them out of his beer-money. All were very necessary tasks, no doubt, but
requiring the right men to do them; and the engineers very urgently wanted
the right men, too, not merely for making the docks, but for their
multifarious activities in the field. In their search for them they went
through the army like a scourge.
A trade-testing centre was established at Kantara to which from every unit
in the field or at the base came butchers, bakers, miners, moulders,
brass-founders, electrical, mechanical, and civil engineers, draughtsmen,
men accustomed to all kinds of steel and iron work, and railwaymen. All
were tested practically in their respective trades by an expert in that
trade, after which they were graded according to their proficiency and
knowledge, transferred to the engineers, and sent about their proper
business. By this system the cream of the skilled trades was obtained; and
there was the double satisfaction that the men were not only working at the
jobs for which they were best suited, but were helping materially to win
the war.
The scheme went further. As the supply of really skilled men was
necessarily somewhat small, and the need great, the apprentices and
semi-qualified men were eliminated from other units by the same process of
selection, sent to Kantara and given the opportunity of learning more of
their trade, being tested from time to time to learn the measure of their
progress, until they could take their places amongst the qualified men.
Thus a constant supply was more or less assured, and the O.C. of a Field
Company of Engineers requiring, say, a fitter or a wheelwright or a
moulder, merely asked for them in much the same way as one orders a ton of
coal; if the goods, so to speak, were to be had, he got them.
So sedulously were the records of trades kept that the authorities never
lost touch of the men, especially of those engaged in intricate or delicate
trades. On one occasion a skilled instrument-maker journeyed 1200 miles to
Kantara in order to do a job for which he happened to be the only man at
the moment available! And similar cases might be multiplied almost
indefinitely.
While provision was laboriously being made to fit Kantara for its mission
as a great base, means had to be prepared to send forward supplies and
material to the army in the desert, now feeling its way towards Romani. One
of the delights of the Egyptian campaign was that no sooner was one
obstacle overcome than another rose up to bar the way. It was a useful aid
to the development of character, no doubt, and at any rate a powerful
incentive to the acquirement of a comprehensive vocabulary.
There was this ever-recurring question of transport. Hitherto the bulk of
the carrying-work had been done by the much-abused camel, the ideal animal
for the job, for he thrives where a horse will starve, and he need not be
watered more than once every three days, or even less often, if necessary.
His only drawback is his comparative slowness of gait. He can do his steady
two and a half miles an hour for ever and ever, but if an army suddenly
takes it into its head to advance twenty miles the camel must somehow go
with it, and some quicker form of transport must be organised behind to
supplement his work.
Thus, born of urgent need, the Railway Operating Division came into being,
and set about the construction of a railway. The difficulties at the outset
were enormous. Not only was the line required quickly to follow in the wake
of the now steadily advancing army, but transport had to be arranged to
bring material from the docks to the railway in embryo. Again the camels
stepped into the breach, and daily long convoys carrying stones and
sleepers and rails went forward into the desert and dropped their loads at
places appointed along the proposed route.
Another and more serious trouble was the lack of men; for if the engineers
had to scour the army for men to make and organise the water-transport,
they had to use a fine comb to get the railwaymen, since only a small
percentage had been allowed to enlist in the first place. However, by the
aid of the system aforementioned, they got together sufficient to meet the
needs of the moment. The bulk of the men had originally been recruited from
two of the great English railways, and either by accident or design,
probably the latter, the authorities kept the men from each railway in
separate companies.
The keenness was terrific. Right from the moment when the railway first
thrust its shining tentacles across the desert, there was a competition
between the two as to which could lay the longer stretch of line in a day's
work. Aided and abetted by the "Camels" and the E.L.C., they progressed at
an astonishing pace, and in spite of all drawbacks from sand and the
terrible heat, an average rate of one mile of line a day was maintained.
To the uninitiated it may seem that railway-making in the desert is a mere
matter of dropping sleepers on to the sand as far as you want to go,
bolting the rails on to them, and running non-stop expresses at once. On
the contrary, except that no rivers had to be bridged nor tunnels made,
laying a line over the desert requires at least as much care and
preparation as elsewhere. For if there is one thing certain about this
unchanging land, it is that the contours of the desert are eternally
changing. The sand is continually silting, and a khamseen may alter the
whole surface of the land, yet to the eye it remains substantially the
same. It is only when you come to study the desert in terms of the
theodolite, so to speak, that you discover its mutability; that which is a
hill to-day may be a plain to-morrow.
All this had to be considered in making the railway-bed, which must have a
firm foundation of stones and a suitable embankment. To put a mile of line
down in a day and maintain that rate is, then, a fairly creditable feat.
Each company worked alternate days; sometimes one company would beat the
record by a few yards, sometimes the other; there was little to choose
between them from the point of view of efficiency.
Here is a story, which I like to think is true, of their intense rivalry
and its results.
As the railway was approaching Romani--this was just before the battle--one
company laid down a stretch of line beating the previous best by some
distance, after which they mentioned the matter casually to their rivals,
and retired to rest in the fond belief that they had effectually "put it
acrost 'em." Life is full of surprises, however. In the chill hour before
dawn the next day a band of soldiers, breathing profanity and
determination, crept across the desert to the line, and made an attack on
that record. All through the day they toiled, pausing seldom for rest or
refreshment, and oblivious to everything but their work. Towards sunset a
triumphant shout proclaimed that victory had been won. At about the same
moment from the rear came another shout, which had in it nothing of
triumph, the shout of a man anxious to do some one grievous bodily hurt.
It was a heated staff-officer who had been sent by the general to know what
the dickens they meant by getting in advance of the troops, whether they
knew that they were pushing the railway right into the Turkish lines, and
whether it was intended for our use or the Turks', etc. etc.
It had apparently taken the staff most of the day to see what was going on,
but the facts were none the less correct; for the railwaymen in their
enthusiasm had failed to notice anything but their general direction, which
was, of course, perfectly accurate; the fact that they had indeed advanced
beyond our lines had utterly escaped them! Later, the general is reported
to have written praising the keenness of the two companies, but
recommending that in future zeal should be tempered with discretion.
Whether the story be true or not is really immaterial, because the incident
could quite easily have happened with these railwaymen; it took much to
stop them.
Not only here but at Kantara a like activity prevailed. A line was laid
running alongside the Canal bank, so that the wharves, and later the docks,
were in direct connection with the main line: thus ships and feluccas could
be unloaded direct on to a train. From this line also branch lines were
made running through the main supply and ordnance depôts, again to preserve
continuity and save time. A network of sidings was constructed, and soon
covered many acres of ground; sheds were built for the locomotives;
repairing plant was installed and signalling apparatus erected; handsome
stone buildings sprang up as station offices; and, in short, one morning
Kantara woke up to find itself the possessor of a railway terminus
complete in every essential detail, even down to a buffet for the troops.
Up to the end the engineers were incessantly extending and improving
Kantara. In time substantial churches were built alongside Dueidar Road;
playing areas were laid out and cinemas erected for the troops; and the
Y.M.C.A. built lounges, concert-halls, and tea-rooms. Of these it is not
necessary to speak, for they were but the trimmings of the place.
The principal attempt has been to present Kantara as it looked to us when
we crossed the bridge that moonlight night in the early spring of 1917: a
cluster of feluccas with their great masts bared to the sky; long lines of
neat huts fringing the Canal; behind them a vast white city; away to the
north the twinkling lights of the railway station; then, when the last gun
and the last waggon had rumbled over the bridge, the broad highroad leading
eastward to the desert and thence into Palestine.
It seemed a very miracle to us, who had lived there little more than a year
before, that so much had been done. Possibly our inquiring friends, had
they been riding with us that night, through those _five miles_ of sleeping
tents, would have believed the evidence of their own eyes.
If visual testimony were insufficient, let the simple fact be recorded that
we had to stop and ask the way!