ON THE SUEZ CANAL
During February of this year the Battalion was engaged upon an inner
line of works within easy walking distance of the Canal. A semicircular
outpost line, which covered these works and the Brigade camp, was
occupied nightly, but there was no real danger of attack. Beyond the
outpost line a distant screen of posts, whose names recalled Lancashire,
were in course of construction.
Life under such conditions gave no scope for ideas. The men did set
tasks as fatigue work. There was no tactical training. Gangs drew a
chain ferry to and fro across the Canal, while Lieutenant A.N. Kay acted
as wharfmaster. Several days were given to moving camp a few hundred
yards north or south within a small area. Two detached posts were held
at this period. One far out among the rolling sandhills, skilfully laid
out by Captain A.H. Tinker, was known for a week or two as Ardwick, and
then abandoned. Another, very ably commanded by Captain C. Norbury, was
the far more fascinating blockhouse known as Gurkha Post, noted for its
bathing, fishing and agreeable remoteness from staff officers. It was
delightful to ride out from Shallufa camp along a track called "the
pilgrims' way" to so charming a spot for a swim in the Canal and
pleasures impossible on the dust-swept desert. A few hundred yards to
the north, a little white tower called Lonesome Post long flaunted in
red paint the Battalion's name and motto for the edification of passing
liners. What have become of like devices that were once deep cut on the
scarped cliff of Bruce's Ravine on Gallipoli?
One amusing experience of this period was to bathe in the Canal while
the transports were passing with newly trained drafts for Mesopotamia or
India. "Who are you?" was the invariable cry from the banks. Our
war-worn men received usually the answering taunt: "Garrison duty only!
When are you going to do your bit?" To the call: "Who are you?" from a
transport, a witty diver replied: "A submarine."
The whole Canal zone from Port Said to Suez was in reality a hive of
workers. A visit to the School and Headquarters of the Royal Flying
Corps threw a flood of light on that brilliant service. Its observers
commanded every track and camping ground of the Sinai desert.
While the Canal was being girdled by defence works the Manchester
Territorial Brigade was regaining the physical vitality lost in Turkey.
Apart from sandstorms, the climate was good. Sports, football, concerts,
buried-treasure hunts, competitions "for the singing championship of
Asia" and other sounding honours, and much bathing helped us to recover
health and joy. Our numbers remained much below strength. Perhaps 130 of
the original unit remained, with some 250 who had come to Turkey in
drafts. To these hardly 100 were added at this period.
Such officers and men, however, as did reach us from the two reserve
units at home were of the best. They lost temporary rank on re-posting,
and knew that weaker vessels had succeeded to their place on English
camping grounds. Those who came from another battalion had been
specially fortunate in their training, and in having the inspiring
influence in their midst of Captain J.H. Thorpe, but all alike were
keen. Their anxiety to learn was palpable whenever we went the round of
the chilly desert outposts under the starry sky.
Battalion patriotism was kindled anew by the adoption as a flash of the
old Lincoln green fleur-de-lis of the Manchesters, a cap badge worn by
us since 1889, and a relic of the conquest of Guadaloupe by the 63rd
Regiment in 1759. No less inspiring was the revival of the _Sentry_ on
the 1st March 1917. Of its staff of fifteen when published at Khartum,
nine had died on Gallipoli. Their places were filled by new enthusiasts,
and one genuine poet was discovered in T.G. King.
Our one lasting loss while at Shallufa was the departure of nearly all
the time-expired Territorials to England. Those under forty-one years of
age were retaken later by the Government under its new powers of
conscription, but the Battalion saw few of them more. These men--W.
Jones, Mort, Woods, Stanton, Fielding, Lyth, Bracken, Houghton, Dermody,
Parkinson, Barber--were the salt of the Regiment. During the long years
when Territorial service had been irksome and unfashionable, they made
it succeed. With a few old hands like Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant
Ogden, who elected to remain with the unit, they had borne the burden of
the trenches manfully, and never grumbled as to their status while
commissions were showered on men at home whose claims, compared with
theirs, were modest.
[Illustration: _Back Row_--Lieut. T.F. Brown, Lieut. N.H.P. Whitley,
Lieut. J.H. Thorpe, Lieut. G.S. Lockwood.
_Front Row_--Capt. R.V. Rylands, Capt. H. Smedley.]
On the 24th March 1916 the Brigade left Shallufa, and on the morning of
the 25th marched into Suez New Camp to undergo training. The move was
welcome, as it was imagined to lead to a departure for a more active
theatre of war.
The type of training adopted at Suez derived its inspiration from the
French Army, whose text-books of 1916 taught that close order drill and
punctilious discipline, tempered by games and sports, were ideal means
of reviving the all-important offensive spirit in units.
The four and a half weeks spent by the Battalion at Suez were therefore
crowded with field days and ceremonial drill. On the 21th May there was
a striking review of the whole Division, followed by a march past in
blinding dust. Days of this type, however, even if they mean rising at
four in the morning and include Brigade bathes in the warm, blue Gulf of
Suez, followed by breakfast on a sun-baked shore, are the same all the
world over. They are not worth discussing in writing of the fateful time
which witnessed the great German attack upon Verdun and Fort Douaumont.
At all events, Suez saw the reconstruction of the Manchester Territorial
units completed. The sense of vitality, without which no army can take
the offensive, was fully restored. We had spirited sham fights with
another battalion of the Manchesters for the possession of "Tower 16," a
solitary landmark on the caravan track to Cairo, after the manner of the
pre-War era. The _Sentry_ blossomed as the first English paper of the
country. Two thousand copies used to be sold at Suez alone. Our men
competed for Colonel Canning's football cup and played a great match
with the crew of the _Ben-my-Chree_, the famous seaplane carrier, sunk
by gunfire, alas, some eight months later in Kastelorizo Harbour. The
"Flashes" gave notable concerts.
From the 21st April I again enjoyed the command of the Battalion.
Colonel Canning went on leave to England, and his distinguished services
were recognised soon afterwards by a C.M.G.
Towards the end of May, 1916, the Division was unexpectedly ordered to
move from Suez, and broken up in order to supply battalions for digging
work at various spots on the eastern side of the Canal--mainly on the
then most advanced screen of detached infantry posts--where the existing
defence scheme had not progressed with sufficient speed. A more
combative strategy was obviously contemplated, no doubt provoked by the
recent action at Katia. In the late afternoon of the 25th May the
Battalion started on their march into the Sinai Peninsula. The transport
was left at Suez under Lieutenant M. Norbury and Sergeant A.B. Wells,
and with Captain A.T. Ward Jones as Brigade Transport Officer.
Among the posts thrown out into the Peninsula, none at that time was
more desolate or remote than the sandy ridge called Ashton-in-Sinai,
apparently in honour of Ashton-under-Lyne. It lies many miles to the
east of the Little Bitter Lake. The trek to this spot by way of Kubri
and Shallufa was an ordeal even for our seasoned troops in the blazing
heat of an African summer. At 3 A.M. on the 27th May the Battalion set
out from their chilly bivouac by the Y.M.C.A. hut at Shallufa along a
road made by the Egyptian Labour Corps to a site called Railhead, about
ten miles off, where we rested during the broiling day. At four in the
afternoon we started on the worst lap of the trek, a final two hours'
ascent across the softest and heaviest sand imaginable to the high
rolling dunes of Ashton.