CHAPTER VIII AN ENTR'ACTE

The enemy had now been driven into a tract of difficult mountain country, very favourable for defensive tactics, and most unsuited for cavalry. Reinforcements of men and guns were being hurried southwards from Aleppo to his aid; some had already arrived. In order to drive the eastern group of his forces through the mountains, and at the same time hold the northern group on the plain, more infantry would be required.

The Royal Navy was reorganising the sea-borne supply line, but the landing of stores, which had to be carried out in surf boats, depended on a continuance of fine weather, and the 20th Corps could not, therefore, be brought up with safety until our railway had been pushed considerably farther north. Relays of Sappers had been working on the line day and night since the fall of Gaza, and the railhead was moving forward at a pace that beat all previous records for railway construction in any part of the world. Even under the most favourable conditions, however, it would take at least a fortnight to reach a point from which it would be possible to supply our troops in the mountains.

The 54th Division, 21st Corps, was already under orders to march from Gaza, but, before it could start, its transport, which had been lent to the 52nd and 75th Divisions, had to be returned, and this necessitated a complete rearrangement of transport in the Corps.

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Moreover, the operations had now continue seventeen days practically without cessation, and a rest was absolutely necessary, especially for the horses. The cavalry divisions had covered nearly 170 miles since the 29th of October, and their horses had been watered, on an average, only once in every thirty-six hours during that time. The heat, too, had been intense, and the short ration, 9? lbs. of grain per day, without any bulk food, had weakened them greatly. Indeed the hardships endured by some of the horses were almost incredible. One of the batteries of the Australian Mounted Division had only been able to water its horses three times in the past nine days, the actual intervals between waterings being 68, 72, and 76 hours respectively. Yet this battery, on its arrival at Junction Station, had only lost eight horses from exhaustion, not counting those killed in action or evacuated wounded.

As an indication of the reduction in the fighting strength of the cavalry, due to casualties and sickness among men and horses, it may be mentioned that the G.O.C. of the 5th Mounted Brigade reported on the 16th of November that he had, in his three regiments, only 690 men mounted and fit for duty. It is true that this brigade had suffered more severely than most of the others in the Corps, but all much under strength in men and horses, and in urgent need of a rest.

The majority of the horses in the Corps were Walers, and there is no doubt that these hardy Australian horses make the finest cavalry mounts in the world. For many years past the Australians have been buying up the well-bred failures on the English Turf, and buying them cheap; not for racing purposes, but to breed saddle horses for up-[Pg 95]country stations. As a result of this policy, they have now got types of compact, well built, saddle and harness horses that no other part of the world can show. Rather on the light side, according to our ideas, but hard as nails, and with beautifully clean legs and feet, their record in this war places far above the cavalry horses of any other nation. The Australians themselves can never understand our partiality for the half-bred, weight-carrying hunter, which looks to them like a cart horse. Their contention has always been that good blood will carry more weight than big bone, and the experience of this war has converted the writer, for one, entirely to their point of view. It must be remembered that the Australian countrymen are bigger, heavier men than their English brothers. They formed just half the Corps, and it is probable that they averaged not far short of twelve stone each stripped. To this weight must be added another nine and a half stone, for saddle, ammunition, sword, rifle, clothes and accoutrements, so that each horse carried a weight of over twenty-one stone, all day and every day for seventeen days, on less than half the normal ration of forage, and with only one drink in every thirty-six hours!

The weight-carrying English hunter had to be nursed back to fitness after these operations, over a long period, while the little Australian horses, without any special care other than good food and plenty of water, were soon fit to go through another campaign as arduous as the last one.

Junction Station was the first place where we found unlimited, and accessible, water. Owing to vigorous action of the armoured cars, the Turks had not had time to destroy the steam pumping plant there, and our engineers soon had rows of[Pg 96] drinking troughs erected, and a steady stream of sweet clear water flowing into them. It was good to see the horses burying their heads in the water, and drinking their fill at last. The Anzac Mounted Division, about the same time, found excellent water and a steam pump at the big Zionist wine press at Richon-le-Zion.

Everything about Junction Station spoke of the methodical German. Solidly built, stone storehouses and locomotive sheds, well-found machine shops, orderly stacks of priceless timber, pyramids of drums of oil and petrol; everything in its place, and a place for everything. Neat finger-posts and notice-boards directed the stranger where to go, and where not to go, and a host of the inevitable 'Verboten' signs bristled on every side. It was noticeable that these last were the only ones that were written in Turkish as well as German, except the name of the station, which the Germans called Wadi Surar. We found in the station two locomotives and a number of railway wagons, which were of great value to us during the ensuing few weeks, till our own railway reached Ludd.

The heavy échelons of the cavalry ammunition columns, which had last been seen at Sharia on the 7th November, advancing boldly on the enemy, turned up at Junction Station on the 19th. They had been completely lost during the intervening twelve days, and had wandered about, neglected and forlorn, in the wake of the cavalry. During all this time they had received no rations, and had been maintained entirely by the predatory genius of the gunner subaltern in command. As this officer has now returned to civilian life, and is a respected, and it is to be hoped respectable, member of society, it is, perhaps, kinder to draw a veil over his methods.[Pg 97] Suffice it to say that he brought his command of 600 horses and men into the Station, all fit and well, and no questions were asked. And if, sometimes, a battalion waited in vain for its rations; if, now and then, a harried supply officer found that one of his camel convoys had delivered its supplies during the night to some unknown unit, owing to a mistake; if guards on ration dumps are notoriously vulnerable to cigarettes and soft words, one can only reflect that war is a sad, stern business, in which 'dog eats dog' when opportunity arises.

On the same day another wanderer returned, whose Odyssey was even more remarkable. When the headquarters of the Australian Mounted Division had been at Khurbet Jeladiyeh on the 13th, the divisional interpreter, a Greek named Theodore, had overheard certain remarks made by a man in the village, who was dressed as a native. The man was arrested, and proved to be a Turkish spy. Terrified at finding himself discovered, the miserable wretch begged for his life, and promised, if he was spared, to put us on the track of the man who, he said, was the head of the native spy organisation of the Turkish Army. He was told to say what he knew, and we would consider whether his information was worth his life. He then gave particulars of the man, who, it appeared, was his own father, and said that he believed him to be at Beit Jibrin.

Accordingly the A.P.M. of the division set off next day with two cars of a light car patrol[13] and the interpreter, to try and surprise the arch spy at Beit Jibrin. The party arrived at the village about nine o'clock in the morning, to find the bird flown. On making inquiries, they learnt that he had gone on—to quote the report of the A.P.M.—'to a place[Pg 98] called Ram Allah Rakhman, which we took to be somewhere near Bethlehem, but subsequently discovered to be the same place!' The enemy's right group was at this time in the neighbourhood of Hebron, and his left group was west of Junction Station, so that Bethlehem was a good fifteen miles behind his line. But this trifling fact did not in any way deter the pursuers. What could the Turkish Army do against two Ford cars and two machine guns? They blithely took the track to Bethlehem.

Shortly afterwards they came suddenly upon a patrol of six Turkish cavalrymen. 'We opened fire at once,' so runs the A.P.M.'s report, 'and killed the men and five of the horses. The sixth horse unluckily escaped, but we came up with it later on and destroyed it, thus leaving no trace of the enemy patrol!' A few miles farther on, they encountered another, and larger, body of enemy cavalry. 'This time,' says the report, 'there were about thirty of them, but, as we came upon them unawares, we had no difficulty in driving them off, after killing a good few, and we then proceeded on our way.'

Late in the afternoon the cars drove into Bethlehem, where our men were received with transports of joy by the inhabitants, nearly all of whom are Christians. The poor people crowded round their deliverers to kiss their hands, shouting and weeping, and pressing offerings of food on them, much to their embarrassment.

As it was getting late, and they found that their quarry had again moved on, the hunters consented to stay and eat with some of the notables of the town, after which they got under way again, and drove a short distance along the Beersheba road, to a place where they could hide the cars for the night.

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At dawn next morning they resumed their journey, and motored right through the enemy force, at Hebron, without being detected. Fortunately the Turks had no post actually on the road, and it is probable that a couple of cars coming from behind their lines attracted little attention. The party drove quietly on to Beersheba, where they found a canteen, and, having loaded up with stores, returned in triumph to Junction Station.

In the meantime Corps Headquarters had become seriously alarmed at their long absence, and had despatched another patrol of two cars to try and find them. These cars got to Beit Jibrin, where they found, and captured, the spy who was the cause of all the trouble, and who had doubled back on his tracks from Bethlehem. Then, hearing that the cars had started off with the intention of going to Bethlehem, they gave them up for lost, and returned to headquarters to report.

Meanwhile an aeroplane, that had also been sent to look for the first patrol, came upon the second one returning from Beit Jibrin, and at once flew back to Corps Headquarters and reported that the lost sheep were found, and were on their way back. The second patrol came in a few hours afterwards, and reported that there were no signs of the missing cars, which must have been captured by the enemy.

By now the Corps was thoroughly puzzled, and not a little angry. The result was that, when the blushing Ulysses did finally arrive, instead of receiving a 'few kind words of praise' for carrying out an exceedingly daring reconnaissance, he got an unmerciful dressing down for giving headquarters such a fright!

On the 18th of November the populations of the enemy countries received their first intimation that[Pg 100] all was not well in the East. Up till this date the Turkish papers, after chronicling each day the many victories won in the past twenty-four hours in France and Russia, had added gravely, 'On the Palestine front there is no change!' At last the Germans came to the conclusion that this bluff might possibly be carried too far, so they caused to be printed in their own papers what purported to be an official Turkish communiqué, though none of the Turkish papers received it till after it had been published in Berlin. This precious document stated that in Palestine 'there had been a retirement according to plan.' It might have been added that the plan included leaving 12,000 prisoners and more than 100 guns in the hands of the enemy!
FOOTNOTES:

[13] Unarmoured Ford vans carrying a machine gun each.