With Our Army in Palestine Part 12

By this time the Turks had received a rude shock from another direction: east-north-east. Our cavalry, having unseen closed the northern exits from the town, suddenly swooped down and seized positions menacing the town from the east. Here some topographical details will be necessary. The only way to approach Beersheba from the desert is by crossing the steep-sided Wadi es Saba--from which the town and a small village near by take their names.

On the Beersheba side of the wadi and forming almost a semi-circle round the town is a broad, flat plain commanding which was Tel es Saba, the highest of all the surrounding hills. This had to be captured before any direct attack on the town could be made.

All day long the Australians, on foot, made desperate attempts to carry the hill by storm, but the Turks, well served by their magnificent position, held on stubbornly. Another party of the Australians scrambled across the wadi and made an attempt to cross the plain in face of the appalling fire that was poured into them. They did succeed in capturing Saba village, though the place was a death-trap after it was taken. Just before sunset Tel es Saba succ.u.mbed to the incessant hammering it had received all day, and one great obstacle was removed from the path.

But fundamentally we were "no forrader." Although the outlying positions had been taken Beersheba itself was still intact, and its immediate capture was urgently necessary; the whole adventure turned upon it. With the coming of night, the artillery had ceased fire, and of course no further support could be expected from them. The town had to be taken by direct a.s.sault with the bayonet; there was nothing else for it. First the wadi had to be crossed, no easy matter, then the plain, which was heavily trenched. The Yeomanry, who had not been needed during the day, were ordered to tackle the job--of course, dismounted. They did actually start from their reserve positions, but they were forestalled. From under the shadow of Tel es Saba a vast cloud of dust was seen sweeping over the moonlit plain. Inside it was the 4th Light Horse Brigade, who, tired of waiting and with their usual cheerful disregard of the conventions, had decided to take the town themselves. Also, having had sufficient fighting on foot during the all-day struggle for Tel es Saba, they determined that the horses should share in the excitement.

So, using as lances their rifles with bayonets fixed, the whole brigade--and any one else with a horse and rifle and bayonet--charged yelling upon the town. Over trenches, rifle-pits and obstacles of all sorts they leapt and burst into Beersheba like a tornado. The Turks were literally paralysed by the audacity of the effort and made a mere travesty of resistance, in comparison with their stubbornness during the day. It was all over in a very short time and Beersheba was ours. The Yeomanry, astonished to find so little resistance, came in at the death in time to help round up the large numbers of prisoners captured by the Australians.

Speaking without the book I should say that this mounted bayonet charge is without parallel in military history. It was at any rate worthy of the best traditions of Australian resourcefulness. Their motto seemed always to be: "If you haven't the right tools for a job, do it with anything that's handy and trust to the luck of the British army to pull you through." A very sound maxim, on the whole, if their headstrong adherence to it did sometimes land them in a tight corner.

It was difficult to realise in the midst of a jostling crowd of soldiers, with guns and all the impedimenta of war in the background, that once on a time old Father Abraham had lived at Beersheba with his family and developed the water-supply for his flocks. Impossible, too, to visualise the past splendours of Beersheba, as became the city on the southern border of Palestine, on the main caravan-route through the Land of Goshen, across the Sinai desert into Egypt, and through which on account of its wells, travellers for countless ages had pa.s.sed on their leisurely journey south.

Nowadays, it is but a collection of exaggerated mud-huts of the usual native type, with the addition of a few modern works and the railway.

Though I saw it frequently enough later on the sight of a railway-station in or near a native village always seemed strangely incongruous. Do not for a moment imagine that by railway-station I mean anything so elaborate as the merest village station at home; except at Kantara even the best and largest of ours did not rise to such heights. The platform, if there was one, was of sleepers piled almost haphazard one upon another with sand shovelled into the interstices and spread over the top. Occasionally cinders were used to form an extra hard surface; but this was a luxury.

Unless a stationary train marked its presence the station was very difficult to find at all, for one bit of the railway looks very much like another at a distance. I remember a party of us trying for a long time to find one of these elusive places. We found the railway all right but the only sign of human habitation was a tiny wooden hut, almost invisible against the background of sand, towards which we made our way. A lance-corporal in the R.E. was the sole inmate. "Where's the station, chum?" he was asked. He looked at us suspiciously for a moment.

"Don't come it over me," he said then; "yer standin' on it." And he was right; you could even see the platform if you peered about carefully.

At Beersheba the Turkish station was rather a pretentious affair, all things considered. There were quite a number of adequate buildings, most of them connected with the water-works just outside. The Turks, thanks in the first place to the fine shooting of our artillery, had had no chance of getting their rolling-stock away; and secondly, the spirited dash of the Australians had overwhelmed them before they could destroy any of it. In fact there was a train in the station, fully laden with stores and ready to start for Sheria had it been possible, when the Light Horse burst into the town.

Beersheba that night presented an indescribable spectacle. It is literally impossible to describe it, for every detail was obscured by the immense clouds of dust that hung over the place like a pall, clinging and opaque.

The water-works and wells were fortunately intact, but until everything had been carefully tested and examined, the horses, who had drunk nothing since the previous day, had to remain thirsty.

In the morning the town was systematically searched.

There were mines and bombs and infernal-machines everywhere, all obviously made in Germany. The Turk usually limited his nefarious practices to poisoning the wells when he retreated--a sufficiently d.a.m.nable thing to do, _bien entendu_. But the Germans despised crude methods of this kind. They were not content with poisoning the water but must needs fix their devilish contraptions so that a man blew himself to pieces in the act of drawing his drink. Many of the wells were mined, but the Germans had slightly overreached themselves either through haste or clumsiness, and all the mines were removed without mishap.

Elsewhere we were not so fortunate. Some of our native camel-drivers saw tins of preserved meat conspicuously lying about without owners. Following the invariable native principle of obtaining something for nothing whenever possible, one or two seized them. It is a melancholy fact that the act was their last in this world, for the tins were simply--potted death. After this men gave a wide berth even to the most innocent-looking objects, though in truth the more innocent a thing looked the more devilish was the contrivance hidden under it. Now observe further the workings of the German mind. In one dug-out there was--of all books--a copy of Ruskin's _Sesame and Lilies_, tattered and dog's-eared by constant use, and a torn piece of--the _Sporting Times_! Also, hanging on a nail in one of the beams was a German tunic, stretched neatly on a coat-hanger. The dug-out looked very innocent and had quite a domesticated atmosphere; and the unwary, lulled into security by it, might have been tempted casually to reach for the tunic as a trophy. Providentially no one pulled it down until the engineers had inspected the dug-out, and then only from the end of a very long rope.

There was little left of the dug-out after the explosion.

What can you make of a mind that can appreciate and enjoy the incomparable beauty of _Sesame and Lilies_, and yet can conceive so hidden and treacherous a means of destruction? Of course the book might have come fortuitously into the possession of the occupant of the dug-out, might even have been left there and forgotten by some pa.s.sing British soldier when the place was captured; but the latter at least is unlikely. When inquisitiveness had such dire results no one did much prying until everything had been examined and p.r.o.nounced safe. But that the wells were safe was the great thing and their importance could hardly be over-estimated.

They must be amongst the oldest in the world. For thirty-seven centuries there has been water at Beersheba, since, in fact, Abraham sank the wells in the neighbourhood, and these have known many vicissitudes. When he died the Philistines came and rendered them all useless by filling them up with sand: a precedent, you will have noticed, much favoured by the Turks, though their methods were more modern. Years after came Isaac and excavated the wells again; whereupon he had to fight with the men of Gerar for the possession of them. Tiring of strife he dug the well at Beersheba which gives the town its name, and this he retained, having made peace with the Philistines. Finally, history repeating itself nearly four thousand years later, British soldiers fought for, and won, these self-same wells, which were substantially in as good condition as when they were first made.

But what had been an ample supply for the flocks of the patriarchs and pa.s.sing caravans proved inadequate for the needs of the thousands of men and horses and camels thronging into Beersheba. A hundred thousand gallons is a big tax on the capacity of any well, and this is a very moderate estimate of the amount required daily by the troops. From the moment they were p.r.o.nounced fit for use the watering-places by the station were crowded with thirsty men and animals, and the supply soon decreased alarmingly. To add to the trouble most of the stored water, acc.u.mulated previously with such care and labour, was delayed somewhere _en route_ to Beersheba and ultimately had considerable difficulty in reaching the place at all.

Meanwhile the "Cameliers," whose mounts could last in fair comfort for a week without water, went off into the parched hills north of Beersheba to perform their usual function of protecting our flank. Then all the mounted troops took the road towards Sheria, so as to be in readiness for the main blow when the transport difficulty had been solved.

CHAPTER XV

GAZA AT LAST

During the days immediately following the capture of Beersheba the mounted troops were kept exceedingly busy, for our position was yet by no means secure. Every day the Turks in the hills made an attempt to drive us eastwards into the desert and every day we strove to push them back on to their defences at Sheria. It was a series of battles for the wells, in effect, for here the eternal problems of transport and water were acute.

The former was more or less solved in time for the big operations; the latter was the difficulty it had always been for the past two years, but in a different way. In the desert, whilst the wells were few and far between they were seldom more than fifty or sixty feet deep; in the district around Beersheba there were, to exaggerate a little, almost as many wells as in the whole of the Sinai Desert, but you could not get at the water! Scarcely a well was less than a hundred feet deep and most of them were anything over that up to a hundred and eighty; of course there were no pumps. The old shadouf of the desert, unwieldy though it was, would have been a veritable G.o.dsend to the troops here.

A cavalryman could not pack a two-hundred foot coil of the lightest rope on to his saddle; it was as much as he could do to climb into it over the conglomeration of picketing-pegs and ropes, rifle-bucket, and sword which const.i.tuted his full marching order, and it was more or less the same in the artillery.

Those patriarchs of old who built the wells would doubtless have been vastly diverted to see a trooper sit down and solemnly remove his putties with which to lengthen a "rope" already consisting of reins, belts, and any odds and ends of rope he had acquired, and when even these additions proved insufficient--! It was a joke which matured but slowly.

Imagine half a brigade of cavalry cl.u.s.tered round a well frantically devising means to reach the cavernous depths, while the other half were fighting like tigers to keep off the Turks a few miles away! It was nothing out of the ordinary for a squadron or battery to take five hours to water their horses; and it added a piquancy to the situation that you were never quite sure when a marauding party of Turks would appear over the top of a neighbouring hill. Ultimately the extraordinary exertions of the engineers saved the situation; with incredible labour and ingenuity they fixed pumping-appliances to the wells.

They must have used most of the kinds known to science, and a.s.suredly a great many not in the textbooks. In the course of their work they performed the functions of a hundred trades--including divers: in fact a large part of their time was of necessity spent in the water, and a singularly unpleasant business it must have been, dangling for hours at the end of a rope in the dank atmosphere of a well. Practically everything had to be done in the first two days after the capture of Beersheba in order to secure our precarious hold on that place; and with the lack of quick transport--for the country was too rough for motors, and camels are very slow--the shortage of rope and appliances, with, in fine, everything against them, the engineers in successfully accomplis.h.i.+ng the feat added one more to their already imposing list of miracles.

Let there be no mistake about it; it _was_ a miracle and one performed only by the most complete abnegation of self. Men who doubtless would have groused at home had they been asked to work for a couple of hours overtime at bank or office or works, here slaved for twenty-four hours at a stretch without bite or sup, and then after a short rest went on for another twenty-four. It is astonis.h.i.+ng what the human frame can be made to do, when it is driven by that indescribable thing variously called _morale_ or _esprit de corps_ or duty.

The same feeling of superb confidence in the outcome animated the whole army, from the men clinging tenaciously to Beersheba to those straining impatiently at the leash in front of Gaza. The turn of the latter came on November 1st, and the account of their exploits must be taken from official sources, since by some inexplicable oversight on the part of Nature, a man cannot be in two places at once.

According to General Allenby's dispatches, it was decided to make a strong attack on some of the ridges defending Gaza, for the purpose chiefly of preventing the enemy from sending reinforcements or reserves across to the other flank. Also, any gains would be of material a.s.sistance when the time came for striking the big blow in the centre. The first part of the attack was made by the Scotch division on Umbrella Hill, previously mentioned in this narrative as being the scene of a raid by the same troops in the middle of June. Just before sunset the artillery put up a tremendous bombardment which lasted until dusk, and shortly before midnight the Scotsmen attacked the hill. To many of them it must have been reminiscent of their desperate a.s.sault on Wellington Ridge, during one phase of the battle of Romani, for Umbrella Hill was somewhat similarly shaped and the approach to it was over a wide expanse of heavy, yielding sand. But here the Turks were partially taken by surprise, and the Jocks were amongst them and had bundled them out of their trenches almost before they knew, though as usual they fought desperately hard once they were alive to the situation.

Thus the first part of the enterprise was safely accomplished with comparatively little loss; the second and more difficult attempt began before daylight the next morning. The main objective was Sheikh Ha.s.san, a ridge sloping gently down to the Mediterranean north-west of Gaza. This was nearly two miles from the nearest British trenches, and the ground to be covered by the attacking infantry was of the rough and difficult nature characteristic of this part of the coast. The artillery, including the heavy guns of the battles.h.i.+ps off the coast, kept up an intense barrage while the troops were in the open, and, in addition to knocking the trenches on Sheikh Ha.s.san out of shape, completely destroyed some works nearer Gaza. With these as a foothold the infantry stormed the main position with the bayonet, though the Turkish machine-gun fire was deadly and their resistance stubborn in the extreme. But this was the opportunity of "getting a little of their own back" for which our men, especially the 52nd and 54th Divisions, had been waiting for six months, and it was more than the Turks could do to keep them out.

Besides, Sheikh Ha.s.san was no more than the _hors d'oeuvre_ to the feast, so to speak, and it was swallowed with gusto. In this action, for the first time, I believe, the French and Italians a.s.sisted the British on land as well as from the sea. It was also the last occasion on which the Baby Tanks were used, for in the subsequent fighting amongst the Judaean hills the country was too rough even for the larger specimens successfully to have negotiated.

Of the important defences in the immediate neighbourhood of Gaza, only grim old Ali Muntar now remained unconquered, and still reared a defiant head above his humbler satellites. As was fitting, and indeed very necessary, its capture was left till the last. Meanwhile, the preliminaries being completed more or less successfully, the main blow at the centre had to be struck. During the night of November 5th the great move toward Sheria was begun, and by the morning all the troops were in the positions a.s.signed to them. The princ.i.p.al Turkish position was on Kauwukah Ridge, as usual very difficult to approach and positively crawling with machine-guns and wire.

As was a customary feature with the Turkish defences, if one position was captured it could immediately be enfiladed from another portion; and very little was left to chance to make the place secure.

The 74th Division attacked the eastern and more vulnerable end first, and with such amazing elan did they fight--and it was all the more remarkable in that these troops were dismounted Yeomanry--that by the early afternoon they had swept the Turks out of their trenches in this part of Kauwukah, and were firmly established in what remained of the position. At the other end of the ridge two more divisions were fighting towards a maze of wire, which was rapidly being uprooted by the accurate and devastating fire of our artillery. This was the heaviest bombardment of the battle; some of the Turkish trenches were simply swept out of existence, and the defenders irretrievably buried in the debris. One of the attacking divisions was Irish, who as a pleasing change from road-making in that malarial hole, Salonica, gave of their best with the bayonet, in which bright pastime they were capably aided and abetted by the 60th Division. It is the fas.h.i.+on to speak of successful military operations as being carried out "like clockwork." If extreme dash and gallantry in the face of every obstacle that brain of man could devise const.i.tute the "clockwork," then the attack that led to the capture of Kauwukah Ridge merits the above description.

I cannot write of the attack as an eye-witness but, months afterwards, I saw the Turkish system of defences, and little imagination was needed to picture the terrible struggle it must have been to take them by storm.

Late in the afternoon the two divisions had captured all their objectives as far as, and including, Sheria railway-station. On the right flank, too, where success was no less important, the troops had done their share; and here in the hills north of Beersheba the fighting was terribly severe. It is one thing to attack with numbers at least equal, if not superior, to those of the enemy; it is quite another when the advantage of numbers lies heavily with the enemy, and the attack has still to be made. This was the predicament in which the Welshmen found themselves; they had not only to prevent themselves from being cut off, but had to drive a vastly superior force out of commanding positions they had taken, and not all the hammering of the Turks could oust them permanently. It was attack and counter-attack from one hill to another all day long, but the advantage at the end of the day lay with the Welshmen, who simply refused to be beaten and fought the Turks to a standstill. Like the Scotsmen they had to wipe off a few old scores, in addition to which there was the acc.u.mulated interest of six months of waiting.

By these operations Gaza was isolated except from the north but, as the Turks had no more reserves immediately available, little danger was to be feared from that direction. During the night the Turkish commander, seeing that the game was up, skilfully evacuated all the defences of Gaza, with the exception of those at Atawina Ridge, from which, as will be seen by a glance at the map, the defenders could best protect his rear from the onslaught of the victorious troops advancing from the east. There was no necessity, therefore, for an a.s.sault on Ali Muntar; its deserted slopes were occupied without opposition the next day. It thus remained unconquered to the end, and no one begrudged the barren victory, for many thousands of British lives were saved in consequence.

By the time Gaza was occupied by our troops, the remaining Turkish defences except Atawina had fallen into our hands. This, too, was evacuated when the garrison had done their work of delaying our advance and protecting the main retreating body. It was due to their dogged defence that a larger number of prisoners were not taken by the British, and the two almost bloodless retirements were admittedly very ably carried out.

Thus, in six days the patient labours of six months had on the one hand been brought to nought, and on the other had been crowned by complete success. The fall of Gaza gave us the key to the whole of the Maritime plain of Palestine. It was one of the five great cities of the Philistines, and the only one that had retained even a degree of its former greatness; with the others the cry is "Ichabod!"

Of the town itself it is unnecessary to say more than that while there are several fine modern buildings, amongst them a German school, and a mosque which had suffered from our sh.e.l.ls on account of the Turkish persistence in using it as an observation post, the greater part of the town is like every other Eastern town in its utter disregard of the elementary laws of sanitation. The white roofs in a ring of cactus and amid the scarlet blossoms of the pomegranate make a delightful picture seen from the top of a neighbouring hill, but there is the usual complete disillusionment when you have pa.s.sed the outskirts of the town. Not all the dirt and squalor, however, could minimise the intense feeling of satisfaction amongst the troops at having at last conquered the bogy that had for so long prevented the advance into the Holy Land.

As usual the Turks did as much damage as they could before leaving. The more pretentious houses had scarcely anything of value left in them; their owners and, in fact, all the chiefs of the native population of Gaza had long since been deported. Most of these were grossly ill-treated, and some had been hanged, for what crime other than a desire to live at peace with their neighbours only the criminals who executed them knew.

It took many weeks of labour before the engineers could repair the damage done to the water-supply, which, in and around Gaza, was fairly ample. But now, the Turks having been driven out of their strongholds, it was necessary to keep them on the move northwards, to fight them whenever they could be brought to the sticking-point and to hara.s.s them night and day.

After six months of comparative stagnation the troops were ready, and more than willing for operations of this nature. They wanted a little moving warfare for a change, and General Allenby supplied the need.

When the capture of the Turkish Lines was complete, the whole Army was ordered to advance, and for the next fortnight the pursuit never slackened.

The story would fill a volume could you collect but half of the incidents of those stirring days. It was an epic of endurance and utter indifference to hards.h.i.+p. Few men, however, could tell a connected tale of what happened, for, obedient to the command, the enemy was attacked whenever he was encountered, which was every day.

The Turks were beaten, but they were by no means demoralised. On all parts of the front our advance was stubbornly resisted. On our left flank they fought with most bitter determination to save their railhead for long enough to get their guns and stores away, and having succeeded in doing this retired farther up the coast and prepared to fight again. On our right flank the mounted divisions, who had started from Beersheba on the night Gaza was evacuated to perform their usual function of cutting off the enemy's retreat, were a.s.saulted vigorously by a strong rearguard of Turks who fought in anything but a beaten manner. It was here that the Yeomanry made a charge reminiscent of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava.

There was no blunder about this charge, however, which was made in face of point-blank fire from "5.9's" and other guns, all of which were captured.

It is no more than bare justice to say that the Austrian gunners gallantly stuck to their guns till the Yeomanry swept through them and cut them down where they stood.

Later, the Yeomanry had further opportunities of which they availed themselves to the full; they, too, had a few painful memories to wipe out.

After the occupation of Huj, where the Turks had an enormous depot, the pursuit quickened, as could be seen by the increasing litter of stores the enemy left behind. Some idea of the amount of material used in a modern battle may be gathered from the fact that one of our cable-sections salved forty thousand pounds' worth of copper wire alone, all of which had been employed on the battlefield.