Chapter III: Part 3

The fighting ceased for the Australians early in October, with the capture of Damascus and Amman, though No. 1 Australian Light Car Patrol (Captain James), accompanying the 5th Cavalry Division, took a prominent part in the capture of Aleppo, and in the pursuit of the Turko-German forces north of that city. The final campaign yielded prodigious results at a trifling cost in battle casualties. Of the 75,000 prisoners made by General Allenby’s Army, more than 40,000 were taken by the Australian and Anzac Mounted Divisions. The losses in killed and wounded, in the two Divisions, were nominal. Unfortunately, however, the Force then suffered the worst spell of sickness it had known since leaving Australia. The terrible ordeal of Jordan Valley during the summer took its suspended toll. Malaria ran like wildfire through the regiments, and there was also much acute influenza with pneumonia following, sandfly fever, and other more or less serious diseases peculiar to the Holy Land. Many brave men, who had survived four years of hard fighting and extremely rough living, lost their lives by sickness in the moment of victory.

The Australian Mounted Division was pushing on from Damascus towards the country north of Aleppo, and the armistice was signed as they reached Homs, which marked the northern limit attained by the Light Horsemen.

To-day, the force asks only one question: “Who goes Home—and when?”

_Palestine, December, 1918._

Anthem Bells

Heard ye the bells, the chapel bells,
Pealing in Bethlehem?
The vibrant swells, the solemn knells,
On the eve of a requiem?
Saw ye the trees
When the gentle breeze
Caressed the leaves of them?

Heard ye the guns, the distant guns,
That thundered down the vale,
When comrades strode the mountain road
To brave the battle gale?...
O, see the worn, returning men whose march no fire could stem,
And hear their song as they surge along
The road to Bethlehem!

O, hear the hoofs, the iron hoofs,
Falling in Bethlehem,
While sunlight flames on the ruddy roofs
In the hills of Jerusalem!
And if you’ve crossed the wilderness by well and palmy hod,
Pray heed the bells, the heavenly bells,
That call the folk to God.

“GERARDY.”

Palestine Poppies

From the hills to the sea, a scarlet trail of flowers in the spring, when the little grey larks are singing and all the low country is green with barley. Wild flowers everywhere, yellow and purple and butterfly-blue—but the poppy is our choice. It glows on Australian graves in the plains and down by the sea where the surf croons all day long; it makes beautiful old battle-grounds, and flakes the wady’s brown banks with scarlet. The blood-red poppy is Palestine’s flower. At the wind’s touch petals fall from the slender stems to lie softly in the grass, as if some rare and lovely bird had shed its plumage there. The red poppy is our flower of War, and in the tranquil days of Peace will be our flower of Memory.

Among the sea-dunes white lilies grow, and they, too, will have power to win us memories of Palestine, unclouded by sorrow; memories of the blue Mediterranean, serene as a summer sky, or flinging ramparts of foam alongshore. When we camped at Malala or Marakeb beach, heeding all day the call of the surf, the land wind bore to us faintly the scent of blossoms unseen. A colour, then, and a fragrance of flowers are the gifts we shall take overseas. One will bring memories tinged with sadness; the other of golden hours.

Palestine is a wild garden in spring. Many plants blossom on through the summer, fading at last in the season of mists, when dawn comes veiled like a bride and the earth is pearled with dew. In spring, when the wattles shower gold on our streams, Palestine poppies are blooming. From the white sea-dunes to the long blue hills the land is alight with flowers. And all the larks of the world and all the butterflies seem to be gathered there. Over every blossom some bird is singing or a butterfly floating on sunlit wings. A murmur of bees in convolvulus bells; grasshoppers leaping over the tall grass; wagtails gleaning in sheltered places; white vultures high in the blue; and kestrels hovering over the barley, keen-eyed for prey.

Those long rides across the plains, before the Turks were driven back to the hill country, were wonderful. Our horses breasted a green sea of barley, and it was hard to urge them on. Often we drew rein to look at leisure on the earth’s green mantle inwrought with flowers. The plains and the valleys were beautiful. We rode inland along the blue ways of Dawn, rode on till noon, then, after rest, took the sunset trail, when cloud shadows were skimming over the earth. We gazed at the purple ranges and wondered what lay beyond. Under the stars we slept well.

One ride I remember more vividly than all others. We started at sunrise from Belah, rode through a village, and came to a place of little hills whose slopes were bare of trees. Here the Bedouins had pitched their tents, some on the hills and some in the valleys, singly or in groups. When we cantered past men came from the tents to look at us, and children followed after, wailing for backsheesh. The women remained at their tasks. Dogs barked at our horses’ hoofs till their masters cursed them, when they slunk back snarling. We travelled on, with Fara on our left—a great grey bulk against the sky—coming at length to old pasture-lands that War had restored to Nature. Where dust had lain deep, and all plant life had perished under the feet of an army, Nature had won loveliness, healing earth’s wounds with grasses and flowers. It seemed an idle dream that the red tide of war had surged where poppies flamed in the sun and the little speedwell’s eyes of blue shone amid the grass.

Far as our vision ranged the land was bright with flowers—tulips, blue salvias, scarlet pimpernels, asphodels, white daisies, anemones, and lilies swaying on tall stems; hollows brimming with sunshine and pink with cyclamens; acres of red poppies set in emerald; sky-coloured lupines; a green knoll fringed with “pheasant’s eye”; and away to the west a long, brown field flaked with white convolvulus flowers.

For a mile we rode along the wady, seeking vainly an easy descent for the horses. Every cleft was starred with flowers; over the ledges melon plants trailed, making caves of tiny crevices haunted by lizards and spiders. Down a steep track we rode carelessly, letting our eyes dwell on blossoms and giving the horses free rein. We won to the other side safely, then on again through flower-land, with the white tents of the Camel Corps gleaming afar at Shellal. A long, glad ride from dawn till dusk across the plains in spring.

When we carried war to the Judean hills we found wild beauty there; flowers among the terraced hills and olive trees in the valleys. Pink hollyhocks grew on the heights along the Jerusalem road. The valleys were gardens. Gehenna’s goat-tracks, winding among old tombs, were bordered with scarlet poppies.

Wild flowers are Palestine’s glory. No one has named them all. From Dan to Beersheba, among the hills of Moab and Judea, on the wide plain of Esdraelon, on Hermon and Tabor, in Gilead and Bashan; everywhere in Palestine Spring casts down her kindling buds. We have seen them all in our long campaign, and out of the shining company have chosen two for remembrance: the little red poppy (symbol of sleep), and the lily that grows by the sea.

CHARLES BARRETT.

Farming in Arcady

Up in fanatical, uncorrupted old Hebron, where, happily, the cheap tourists are afraid to venture, you see the rude but expert craftsman making the plough. Seated in his gloomy little recess, hewn out of the stone of the hillside, he works swiftly with toes and fingers. Seizing a rough bent branch of an olive tree, he stands it up and grasps the lower end firmly with his deft and supple toes. The pieces fly. Slashing and turning, he lops the smaller limbs, hacks it here and prunes it there, and, in a few minutes, flings it aside complete, except for the steel tip which plays the part of the share.

For a few shillings the plough is bought by the Bedouin. The selection of the land for cultivation is equally simple. Over most of the Palestine we covered, there is little regularity in the tenure of the small holder. The Sheik of the village has a loose control over a wide area, for which he pays tribute and taxes in grain to the Turk. The Bedouin is granted a plot the size of which is according to his capacity to cultivate and his inclination to work. He is rarely ambitious, and always lazy. If he has more than one wife, or has children of a working and a hungry age, he will extend his area. But, like the piece of glass bottle in Grimm’s fairy tale, he loves best just to lie about and glitter in the sun. That is better than any exceptional success as a farmer.

As a cultivator he has complete confidence in Allah. He has never heard of artificial manures, or of the rotation of crops; he rarely troubles to irrigate even when water is available. Here, as all over the Eastern Turkish Empire, there is fertile land for every inhabitant, and to spare. So the Bedouin roams wide with his plough. He crops here this year, and next year tries a patch a few miles away, which has been resting for a season or two under the thin native grasses. His selection made, he appears at dawn one morning, riding on his mournful ass and carrying his plough in front of him. Or perhaps he rides one of his little black oxen and leads the ass; or he may ride either the ass or the oxen and lead a horse or camel. The point is, that he always rides and carries the plough, and that his wife, if she is in attendance, always walks and carries half-a-hundred-weight of something on her head. It is a significant commentary upon his neighbours that he always brings his plough home at night.

HARVEST TIME
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PLOUGHING AS OF OLD
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NATIVE STOCK
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THE FRANCISCAN MONASTERY
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LAKE OF TIBERIAS
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In his team he seldom drives two of a kind. It is a cow and a donkey, or a scabby, bony ghost of a pony and a camel. You can yoke them as you please. Palestine is a land that knows no shame, and so the horse does not rebel at being harnessed with a cow. Lazy as he is, the Bedouin is always up at dawn. At dusk he goes to his mat to sleep; he cannot read, and the villages burn no night-lights.

Cleverly holding his simple plough upright with one hand, he pelts clods at the team or wields a long goad with the other. Up and down he scratches little gutters a few inches apart, his camel towering ludicrously above his ass. Usually, he sows his seeds in strips before the plough. He rarely harrows and never rolls, but sometimes he shows a sense of the value of fallow by ploughing twice. The rest he leaves to Allah.

Sometimes, in the spring, he will pluck the wild turnip and radish and other tares from the growing corn. As a rule he prefers to sit in his coloured rags in the pleasant sunshine. Or he may go off to Jaffa with his asses and his women, and traffic in oranges. Then you see him, with both asses and women brutally overloaded, goading the donkey, or perhaps astride behind the burden of fruit, as the little long-eared slave totters along the tracks. The women, like the asses, never protest. The man is master. It is the way of the East.

The beautiful lilies and poppies vanish as summer comes upon the rolling, treeless plain. The corn ripens and harvesting begins. Machinery plays as little part here to-day as it did among the “alien corn” near Bethlehem long ago, when pretty Ruth worked for Boaz. In Palestine the world has stood still for a thousand years or more, or when it moved it moved backward. Much of the barley and wheat is pulled up, roots and all, but some is cut with sickles. In each village there is a harvest floor—a patch of clean, hard ground, where each man builds his little stack and sees about the threshing.

Occasionally you see the flail at work, but it is not popular. To wield the flail is hard work. So the Bedouin employs his cattle, his wives and his children. He spreads the loose crop in a little circle about two feet deep. Donkeys and oxen and ponies are then tied together, from two to four abreast, and goaded round and round upon the straw. Sometimes the threshing is done by their hoofs alone; but often a rude wooden sledge is drawn after them. Time is of no concern. The cattle barely move; the owner sits with his friends under the shade of an olive tree, smoking many cigarettes and occasionally dreaming luxuriously over his hubble-bubble; pleasant breezes blow across from the gleaming Mediterranean. The season has been generous: Allah is good. Why hurry?

The threshing finished, rough wooden forks are used to remove the coarsest straw, and then the winnowing begins. Day after day the harvest is thrown high into the air, and, slowly but surely, the chaff and dross are separated from the grain by the Mediterranean breezes.

Then the Turk comes—or he did before the war—and takes from thirty to sixty bushels out of every hundred! That is why the Bedouin is so fond of glinting in the sunshine, like the piece of glass bottle in the old fairy tale.

H. S. G.

“Standing to.”

While the sleep-drunk world behind lies still abed,
And the dawn breath chills the smoking mists before,
Down the lines between in commune of the Dead,
There are eyes, that world of slumber watching o’er;
There are trenches darkly sheening readied steel,
There are orbs aglint, the darkness peering through;
And the shades of Night, the shades of Death scarce veil,
For the millions, to the Day, who’re “Standing to”

“Standing to”—in grim attesting to a Thought,
By the scars that weal Earth’s Face from sea to sea
In the pride to set the need of Life at naught
For the will to live a fancied Destiny;
Waiting, watching, till the hour of dree be gone,
Or muezzin-guns roar forth their hate anew—
O! Well may the world of Slumber slumber on,
For those watchers of the Dawn, who’re “Standing to.”

BRENTOMMAN.

OUTPOSTS
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JORDAN VALLEY DUST
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A WALER’S STORY

Of my early life I remember but little. I have a dim recollection of golden sunlight, of wide-sweeping plains, of a huge dam down by a homestead, of tall trees like some I have seen around Jaffa, and others with golden blossom, and of a long trip in a railway truck to Homebush—ah! you know the place?—where I was sold.

Since I have been in the Army my comrades have often taunted me with not knowing on what station I was born, and have called me a town-bred scrub; but I cannot help that. I will not bore you with details of my early career at Surry Hills as a “week-end” horse (I was then owned by a prosperous butcher), nor will I inflict upon you my first impressions of Army life at Moore Park; but I must say that I was at Broadmeadows, learning “Sections right,” “Form troop,” and “Walk march,” before they would put me in a unit.

On the 20th November, 1914, our troop was taken down to a big dock and put on board what our masters called a transport. (I have heard them call it a ship, a tub—and other names as occasion demanded). We horses had a rough time all the way across; and judging by the manner in which our masters cursed when they came to feed us and perform their stable duties, or to lead us about the decks for exercise, I think they had a rough time, too. I remember a remarkable incident on our deck when we were somewhere in the tropics. (If you know anything about the tropics and about ships, you will know how we and our masters existed). Ginger, who never wore anything to speak of except a pair of shorts, shoes, and a grin, looked after the horses on my off side; he also used to hitch baskets on to a long rope, which disappeared through the deck above. “Haul away!” was all he ever said, and the basket disappeared. Later, a voice would echo from above: “Under below!” and Ginger would stand well back until it landed again. One day when the rope slipped, the chap up above forgot to say “Under below,” and the big basket fell down on Ginger and extinguished him. When he got clear, his conversation with the chap on top was so unrestrained and vivid that three horses broke out of their stalls and tried to climb up on deck. I did not mind—I had often heard the expressions Ginger used.

We reached Alexandria at last and were taken ashore. At first I thought that a peculiarity existed in the ground of Egypt, for it kept rocking and swaying under my feet like the movement of the ship; but this feeling went away in two or three days. We were taken to Gabbari, put into trucks, and rattled to Ma’adi, a pretty little suburb of Cairo. At Ma’adi we had plenty of feed, good stables which kept the sun off us during the day, and very little work while the boys were away at the Peninsula. Sometimes we went out on route marches and dummy stunts, and always on Sundays our masters used to take us out on to the desert behind the camp, to gallop us until we were tired. Those gallops were great sport. There would be horses all over the desert, some of them with riders clinging affectionately to their necks, others without riders, and all of them thoroughly enjoying the fun, and kicking their heels playfully into the air. We were at Ma’adi right up till February, 1916, and then we were pushed off to Serapeum and dumped in a camp close to the Canal. After the delights of Ma’adi, Serapeum came as a shock to me; and in a few days I was feeling very ill on account of the sand I had swallowed with my food. I could not stand, so I rolled about in agony. Up till then I had never had a day’s sickness, so this experience was quite a new one. The farrier-sergeant visited me on the evening of my collapse, administered a “ball” to me, and told Bill (my boss) that I would be all right in the morning. A lot he knew about horses! He ought never to have left that boot factory. He also told Bill to give me a bit more _berseem_. Bill stopped with me for a while, talking; then a whistle blew and he cleared out. “Good-night, Baldy” (that is the name I always got) he said as he departed, “you’ll be O.K. at reveille.” In the morning I was almost better, and by lunch time, when Bill gave me a big feed of _berseem_ that he had pinched from somewhere, I was as good as ever again.

5th LIGHT HORSE BRIGADE ENTERING NABLUS
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WATERING HORSES, ES SALT
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HORSES THIRSTY
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LIGHT HORSEMEN IN JUDEAN HILLS, JAN., 1918
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We had been at Serapeum only a few weeks when I was taken up to Salhia, where I was promoted on the strength (I think that is the term) of a new Squadron. Bill came with me, so I had no complaints to make—not even about the _tibbin_. Bill always was a good master, and he was never tired of looking after me. In heat, in dust, in mud; across the desert, over the plains, amongst the hills—anywhere at all—Bill always groomed me and saw that I got my full issue of tucker. We used to have long talks together; and I really think he understood what I had to say to him. He was always considerate in the way he loaded my saddle, and rather than sacrifice my bag of grain, he would dump his own gear. He could not do enough for me; and, believe me, I could not do enough for him. Unfortunately, all masters are not like Bill, or (pardon my vanity) all horses like Baldy.

My first real stunt was from Salhia to Kantara across the desert; and I think that it will live as long in my memory as that Amman show. We travelled all night by short stages—Bill would ride for ten minutes, then walk beside me during the next ten, and then we rested for ten minutes. I had a fair load on the saddle, but this was Bill’s first desert stunt, too, and he had not realized exactly how severe desert stunts can be. After that he always let someone else have the heavy gear, while he looked after the light stuff. That was in April, 1916. The long months from then until March, 1917, were one nightmare of bombs and sand, out of which our stunts—Romani, Bir el Abd, Mazar, Magdhaba, Rafa, and many minor ones—stood like the milestones I have seen along the roads at home. At the commencement of things in Sinai tucker was plentiful, and we waxed fat in the land and thrived on brackish water; now we no longer get the same amount—or so it seems—but the water is good. I did not notice the change until yesterday, when I had recourse to chew through my headrope so that I could visit the feed-heap while the piquet slept. Yet the change has been very gradual, and it has not been severe on me. I am still pretty sound in wind and limb, although I have seen old Bill look sorrowfully at me, and say, “Baldy, ten pounds of grain without fixings isn’t much to offer a man’s best cobber, is it? Never mind, old chap, we’re coping very well—very well, you and I.”

Once Bill was away for seven days; and when he came back I noticed that he was stable-guard for a whole fortnight. I thought it rather good of Bill to look after the horses for such a long time without a break. I heard all about it afterwards. Bill and the sergeant—a big, ugly bloke like a Gyppo—were talking near me, and I overheard Bill’s final remark. “Yes,” he said, “I’d be a stableman for a month if I could get those three days in Cairo again.” Ah, Bill! what were you doing? While he was away in Cairo we had a little stunt to blow up a railway line; and because I was a good worker, the big Gyppo bloke passed me on for the occasion. The chap who rode me was a dopey kind of individual, and, although the stunt was only to occupy thirty hours, he loaded me up with all sorts of gear, and forgot my lunch-bag. We came home in the night time in a fog, tried to find Tel el Fara, and circled about all over the place until I got tired of it, and wanted to make for home and a feed; but my dopey rider kept with the column, refusing to be guided by me. On another stunt, I just side-stepped the “Killed in Action” return by a hair. Jacko sent across a few shells in our direction, and one of them landed right underneath a horse next to me and sent him West. Two others were as full of holes as a colander, but we got them home. Strangely, the horses on my side of the burst were untouched, and merely suffered from slight shock.

The summer of 1917 was what Bill called a “snifter”—he also called it other things. Day after day, on those wind-swept, dust-covered plains of Southern Palestine, we stood in the heat and sweated from sunrise to sunset; during the night we shivered with the cold, and were wet with the dew and mist. Then there came rumours of a big stunt. It was good to hear that a big stunt was at last spoken about, not only because we got more attention prior to it, but because we would be leaving these sun-baked plains behind, and doing something towards earning our _tibbin_. It was on 28th October that Bill loaded my saddle, and rode me away towards Beersheba with the Squadron. From there onwards to Jaffa we dodged shells and planes, and existed on a very scanty ration. (Even Bill complained now and again.) We went without water on more than one occasion for sixty hours on end; and we had many weary night marches. Just after we left Beersheba I lost a good pal. She was following the General’s car, and had a despatch-rider in the saddle; and while doing a stiff gallop she stumbled, fell, and rolled over—dead. I think her death was due to lack of water, since she had had none for three days. She was a dear old thing, and I have yarned away many an hour with her. She died as I would like to die—a soldier.

Winter caught us at Jaffa, and the rain came down unceasingly day and night. Here I had a lot of trouble with our labour corps—the mules. They were a hungry lot of cannibals, and, not being satisfied with a ration of grain, they used to break away from their lines at night and eat our rugs. Some of them even gnawed the hair and tail off a sick pal of mine—he did look a wreck in the morning! Another inconvenience was that I shivered so much that I always shook the rug off, no matter how careful Bill was about putting it on. The early part of 1918 was a time of wind, cold, rain, rocks and mud, and stunts amongst tremendous hills. We had a most exciting time then, and I often wonder how it was I kept out of hospital. Later on, when we stopped in the Valley, I tried to “swing it” a bit, and succeeded in bluffing the sergeant; but the vet knew too much for me, and so I remained. Fortunately, we moved back to Bethlehem, where the bracing hill air, and the sight of the olive trees, made a new horse of me.

Our last big stunt was rather pleasant, as well as most profitable. (Bill agreed with me in that.) We again went to Amman, and this time captured all the Jackos in that part of the world; it was quite a different affair from that first Amman stunt, when I slipped on the muddy track and almost went overboard into a wady some hundreds of feet below. After we had collected all the gear which Jacko had left behind, we turned our heads west, came through Jericho, and passed up into the hills. We stopped for a day at Jerusalem, and then travelled down to the coastal plains near Jaffa. We returned to Richon to recuperate, and to await further developments.

Now our masters are talking of going home, and I hear them whisper in the lines—“Yes, they’ll remain behind”—“Ah! They’ve done their work bravely and well”—“I wonder what will happen to them?” Bill is going home; to-day he came to me and told me so. “Good-bye, Baldy, old comrade. You’ve been a good pal to me,” he said; and then he was gone. Here at Richon I would like to stay with Bill, and end my days. Richon, with its trees, its vines, its orchards, recalls my early life in some strange way; its fertile fields and pleasant surroundings make the desert days seem but a bad dream of long ago; and in its shady lanes, the toilsome hills and the rain, and the dust of the Valley, are forgotten. But Bill is gone! I must stay behind! Let them shoot me—and quickly—for I would go to that land of eternal sunlight, there to wait until Bill calls to me.... Then together we shall gallop for ever over the plains.

E. L. D. HUSBAND.

THE HORSES STAY BEHIND

In days to come we’ll wander west and cross the range again;
We’ll hear the bush birds singing in the green trees after rain;
We’ll canter through the Mitchell grass and breast the bracing wind:
But we’ll have other horses. Our chargers stay behind.

Around the fire at night we’ll yarn about old Sinai;
We’ll fight our battles o’er again; and as the days go by
There’ll be old mates to greet us. The bush girls will be kind
Still our thoughts will often wander to the horses left behind.

I don’t think I could stand the thought of my old fancy hack
Just crawling round old Cairo with a ’Gyppo on his back.
Perhaps some English tourist out in Palestine may find
My broken-hearted waler with a wooden plough behind.

No; I think I’d better shoot him and tell a little lie:—
“He floundered in a wombat hole and then lay down to die.”
May be I’ll get court-martialled; but I’m damned if I’m inclined
To go back to Australia and leave my horse behind.

_Trooper Bluegum._

EVENING AMONGST THE JUDEAN HILLS
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A CAMP IN THE DESERT

_Photos, in colour by Capt. Frank Hurley_
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One Too Many

It was a hell of a night. Thunder enough to wake the “Jacko” dead, and raining fit to swamp old Solomon’s Pool. I was a good ten miles from camp, and it was with a dinkum bullocky’s curse that I swung into the saddle again and turned the pony’s nose for home. For about an hour we battled along, and then the supply dump at S—— hove in sight. Glad of a brief respite, I guided him toward it, and for a few minutes we rested in the shelter of a huge stack of _tibbin_.

The rain had eased off, and for a brief second a sickly-looking moon gazed down on things earthly. That was what started the trouble.

An Algerian guard was on duty, and, to the initiated, there is no need to say more than that. You might trick a Tommy or induce a Billjim to look the other way, but the man who beats an Algerian is going some.

But, as I was saying, it was the moon that caused the trouble. When she took that peep from behind her cloud bank she gazed fair on to four shadowy figures, each surmounted by a bag of barley and a felt hat.

Chuckling a little, she dodged behind the clouds again; but it was too late. The mischief had been done, and in a trice the “shadowy figures” found themselves surrounded by about a dozen sons of the Sahara and a like number of business-like bayonets.

The result was a confused babble of voices for ten minutes, and then a procession to the Supply Officer’s tent. From where I was standing I could see and hear everything that passed, and everybody seemed to be trying to talk at once. As the “shadowy figures” could not speak a word of Arabic, and the Algerians vice versa, the result was laughable. But with the advent of the Supply Officer things took a different turn. He had been wakened from a sound sleep, and was arrayed in the pink pyjamas the girl had sent him, and a desire to be “firm in the matter.” He had no knowledge of Arabic, and was placing the “shadowy figures” under guard pending the arrival of an interpreter in the morning.

That would have been serious for the said “shadowy figures,” so I decided to see whether I could help them at all. I had borrowed a cobber’s flash civvy raincoat in the morning, and that and the Jacko pony I rode must have made the S.O. think I was an officer. Anyhow, he greeted me very decently; and when I told him I could yabber Arabic pretty fluently, he was more than delighted at my arrival.

Well, for a good ten minutes I did the interpreter stunt, and then I got him to dismiss the guard.

Then I opened the case for the defence. I pictured to him the love of the Colonial for his horse, the long night rides, and a dozen other pitiful things, and altogether put up such a beautiful tale that even old Judge Jeffreys would have had to declare the accused “Not guilty.” So the S.O. decided to give the “shadowy figures” a stern lecture, take their names and numbers, and refer the matter to their O.C. next morning. Forth came the note-book and down went the particulars. I am pretty hard in the dial, but I was glad he was not looking my way then. For every one of the four had a number with six figures in it and belonged to the 19th Light Horse Regiment, 9th Light Horse Brigade.

Luckily, he was a new man out, or the bluff wouldn’t have worked. But it did, and that was all that mattered then. He gave them the lecture, and in it repeated often, “I’ve been one too many for you fellows this time, what!”. Then he let them go, and as they left the tent the last one winked at me, and in that wink there was a world of mystery.

Five minutes later I was in the saddle again and thinking hard. I was wondering where the “shadowy figures” had left their horses, and whether they would bump further trouble on the way home. Then I remembered a young wady that runs by the side of the dump and turned the pony’s head toward it. Half-way to it, I met them coming back. But where there had been four “shadowy figures” there were SIX, and where there should have been four horses there were ten. And the spare nags were loaded heavily, too. The chap who gave me the wink told me the rest of the yarn, and here it is.

Two of them had acted as horse-holders while the other four had carried out the raiding part of the business. Three times they had returned without mishap, and it was on the fourth trip that the moon peeped out and made a mess of things.

It started to rain again then, so we parted; they to their bivvies and I to a sharp trot home.

Two hours after the sun came up, the chap who was “one too many” rolled out of bed and prepared his report for the O.C. 19th Light Horse Regiment, 9th Light Horse Brigade.

“ANON”

WADY NIMRIN
Along whose banks the A.L.H. had many sharp fights

ARAB AGENTS ARRIVING FROM A TRIP ACROSS THE DEAD SEA

GERMAN PRISONERS IN JERICHO
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MEAL TIME
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“SHE’S BOILING”
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“The Light that Failed”

(And some that didn’t)

Among the many examples of ingenuity displayed by Billjim on service, the manufacture of illuminants, if you will pardon the prolixity, shines out the most brilliantly. The Sun itself is considered to be a pretty perfect and economical source of light, but it is not infallible. The annoying habit it has of dodging off about sundown excludes it from the category of the perfectly perfect, and Billjim is forced to procure a substitute to enable him to relieve the tedium of his evenings with the exhilarating influence of two-up, poker, swapping yarns and other harmless pursuits.

The issue candle is, of course, the recognized form of illuminant; but by the time the Greatest, the Sub-Greatest, the Q-Emmer, the Orderly-Room Ogre and the Sigs get their cut, the stock is usually depleted to a mere skeleton of its former fat self, and the insignificant stump that is left to shed its radiance around the humble bivvies of the rank and file, is, as often as not, irretrievably lost to sight owing to the shortage of telescopes in the unit’s equipment. Hence the exercise of Billjim’s ingenuity.

Some devices were truly efficient, others resembled the seeds that fell on stony ground; while one I know of was positively dangerous. The one in question was disapproved of from its very inception. The wise ones shook their heads dubiously, and opined that it was sheer flying in the face of Providence to use one’s issue of rum for the sacrilegious purpose of making air-gas for a blooming light. After the explosion occurred, and the blasphemous one was struck off the strength, they said, “I told him so,” and everybody was satisfied.

The most popular form is the slush-light, which is simply composed of any old thing that will hold grease, and any kind of grease that will fit into it; first, a layer of sand or clay is dumped into the jam, milk, cigarette or other tin; then a wick made of “3 x 2,” or issue flannelette, wrapped around a thin pine stick, is stuck upright in the middle of the sand or clay; and finally the grease is introduced, the quantity being governed by the amount one has been able to acquire. It is on record that some chaps have had the effrontery to use dubbin, yes, “dubbin!” but, of course, this is not official, just common furphy.

Next to the slushie comes the bottle-o; but to employ this it is necessary to have the above-mentioned rarity, candle. For candle one is not wholly dependent on the “issue” brand, for it has been known to be purchaseable at the canteen—when those institutions are in the vicinity. Supposing the possession of candle to be an established and material fact, the next necessity is a clear-glass bottle; old lime-juice bottles are excellent, and they can be found outside any officers’ mess, or the messes of troopers who “did a trot.” The bottom of the bottle is knocked out by insistent but vigorous tapping with the marlin-spike of a jack-knife till a hole is broken through, and then the rest is chipped off in small instalments till the end is quite out. The candle is then pared at the bottom end to fit the slope of the bottle neck, and a deep groove gouged in it, the candle, to admit air. Apply a match to the candle, drop it into the inverted bottle, and there is your light. If it is not very windy, of course, all that is necessary is to drop some melted grease on someone else’s tin hat, and stick the candle in it; simple, isn’t it?

There are a few of the lesser Edisons who eliminate disturbance by wind by curling a legging around the candle; but only a very narrow chink of light exudes from its gaping edges, and the odour of singeing leather is not pleasant.

One of the finest ideas was a combination of the slushie and the bottle-o. A squat chutney-bottle that fitted snugly into a toffee tin, was found, and the quality and steadiness of the light generated made drawn filament look painfully experimental. Some wire _tibbin_ bands secure the “globe” to the body, at the same time forming a handle.

The designs, elaborations and embellishments of the original idea are practically numberless; they range from the primitive cremation of a religious aunt’s epistles and incriminating love effusions up to the princely slushie-cum-bottle-o; and they radiate in all classes of bivvies, and shed their glory on the tangle of the newly erected as brightly as on the white-stoned splendour of the resident.

With these remarks, and any necessary apologies to the Dinkum Military Scribe, I shall leave them to shine on the just and the unjust, like their mighty lord, the Sun.

“SARG.”

DEFENCES IN THE GHORANIYEH BRIDGEHEAD
]

THE BRICKMAKER
]

A TYPICAL ARAB VILLAGE
]

4th LIGHT HORSE BRIGADE WATERING HORSES AT THE JORDAN
]

A Night March

At twilight, when the air is cool, we prepare for our second consecutive night march. Overcoats and mufflers are put on, saddles are inspected to see that all is secure. Later it will be too dark, and we too tired to attend to such matters.

After a short wait we move off. Two to three hours steady plodding through the darkness, with the effects of fatigue scarcely noticeable. Then, suddenly, an utter weariness assails us, numbing limbs, distorting vision, and rendering minds a prey to tantalizing and disturbing thoughts—thoughts that mock and taunt; thoughts of feather beds and roaring fires; thoughts that accentuate our weariness and awake us to the realization of the cold.

We ride, with drooping eyelids, a swaying body, and a precarious seat, surrendered to the inevitable.

The column halts, and simultaneously we fall forward on our horses’ necks, hoping to ease our aching limbs. Hoping against hope to hear the order to dismount. A jerk, our horses move forward again, and disappointedly we resign ourselves to the further delusions of minds tortured from want of sleep.

Visions become distorted, we visualize the objects of our thoughts. A thought of water, and the road becomes a flowing stream. Thoughts of horses and trees, and in the darkness arises a village—a village that remains ever in the distance, and endures only so long as our thoughts are of villages. The horse ahead moves strangely; it appears to be dancing, and has taken unto itself the shape of a beast of prehistoric ages. By an effort of will we shake off this state of semi-somnolence, and, for a time, see things in their normal shapes again.

At last, the order to dismount. Tumbling off we throw ourselves down at our horses’ feet, indifferent to our position and its possibilities. With heads pillowed on arms, water-bottles or haversacks, we endeavour to win a few minutes respite. Follows sleep and blissful unconsciousness, until friendly hands awake us, and wearily we rise to a repetition of the last hour. On moving off some walk and lead their horses, stepping out briskly in an endeavour to dispel the ever-increasing drowsiness. It succeeds whilst walking, but a reaction sets in on regaining the saddle, leaving the walker in worse plight than ever.

With nerves on edge, we curse the numerous and apparently purposeless halts, become uncomplimentary about our leaders, revile horses for jogging and stumbling, warn companions of the damage they are likely to do if they persist in being careless with their rifles. Cheerful and good-tempered soldiers are few at 03.00.

And so on until we hail with relief the approach of dawn, which dispels the hallucinations of darkness.

“ARAM.”

ROMAN FORT, JERICHO
]

HORSES UNDER COVER

A. L. HORSE IN CAMP

2nd A. L. H. MARCHING THROUGH KHAN YUNIS
]

A Gloomy Outlook

Amidst the universal joy—booming of guns, ringing of church bells, cheering, and the screeching of ships’ sirens—I am gloomy and ill at ease. I cannot share in the thanksgiving and tumultuous welcome of Peace; my mind is dark with foreboding, oppressed by thoughts of three things that have made so many happy lives miserable during the Great War.

With the knowledge that huge stocks of dubbin, bully and biscuits are on hand, how can a chap be joyful? They must be disposed of—not cast into the incinerator—and thoughts of the woe that they will cause make me sorrowful.

The war has ended, and with it the need for dubbin. Stacks of the beastly stuff must be disposed of before we are demobilized. There is no market for it, and nobody would take it as a gift. Offer it to a Light Horseman or a driver, and you would see stars not of the firmament. But I’m sure that The Heads won’t let it be wasted. It’ll be read out in orders soon, that all saddlery and harness must be anointed with dubbin once daily and twice on Sundays. There’s a good time coming!

Bully and biscuits are even dearer than dubbin to the granite hearts of Q.M.’s, but they’ll have to issue them now by the ton. Rapid consumption is the only way to get rid of the pyramids of B and B left on hand through Fritz throwing in the towel sooner than the Supply Office anticipated.

Army biscuits are beyond the capacity of Gyppos and Bedouin; if we strewed them broadcast over Palestine, they would lie there untouched, and ruin all agricultural prospects: even a stump-proof plough would crumple up if it struck an army biscuit. We can’t dump our stocks in the sea: think what would happen in a collision between a liner and an A. B.! No; we’ve got to eat the lot, empty every tin of bully and biscuits, and take the consequences like heroes.

“ARAM.”

_FROM GENERAL CHAYTORS HDQTS._

_After the Battle of BIR EL ABD_
]

_THE FIELD OF BATTLE
FOR
RICHON LE ZION_

_Morning 15th Nov_
]

_THE BATTLE of BEERSHEBA_

_Drawn for Anzac M^{td} Div Hd Qts KHASHIM ZANA_
]

Reconciliation

Full many a time we’ve known the call to arms,
The sudden storm ... the aching aftermath,
When spent companions slumbered ’neath the palms,
And wooden crosses marked the wake of wrath.

Full often have we saddled up and sped
Over the sand, sweeping along at large,
Braving the fitful hurricanes of lead,
Galloping down resistance in the charge.

Mute sorrow and great hardship have been ours,
Long journeyings and escapades in force—
But have we not beheld the poppy-flowers
Nodding in red confusion on our course?

Yea, we have crossed the woeful waste of sand,
Left sorrow far behind; and we have heard
The skylarks carolling in the Holy Land,
Where flower and tree commune with bee and bird.

“GERARDY.”

Mail Day

“The mail’s in!” The glad tidings are tossed from lip to lip and shouted down the lines, outstripping, and for the time suppressing, the current furphies, “Furlough to Australia,” “Peace Negotiations,” “A big Stunt,” and similar creations of the idle imaginative mind.

“There’s a mail in!”—A magic wand has been waved above the troops by an unseen hand and weariness and even sleep are banished from the war-worn soldiers. Even the sick are interested, and their eyes light up with an eager look of expectancy.

“There’s a mail in!” The chronic grouser forgets to grouse, the lead swinger lays aside the lead and, for the time, his petty pains, and they join the eager throng around the perspiring orderlies who are struggling with the jumbled mass of letters, papers and parcels, bringing chaos to order, sorting mail into squadrons and then into troops, ere it can be distributed.

What a study are the faces of that watching throng; what a joyous gleam leaps into the sleep-laden eyes of a tired youngster who has caught a glimpse of a letter addressed in the well-known hand of the mother who waits at home.

There is a youth just from school, who has not yet tasted the mad joy of battle, of a ding-dong mix up, when death shrieks through the air missing one by inches, by hairbreadths. Here, too, is the war-hardened warrior, who knew Anzac before the Suvla advance, who has met, fought and beaten the Turk from Romani to Jericho, the hero of a hundred fights, of scraps fought out on lonely patrol, that the world knows naught of, though to the individual they are more fraught with peril than a big battle.

To soldiers mail day is a day of bliss. Recruit or warrior, their faces portray the emotions that are surging through their breasts. Their eyes grow bright with eagerness as they watch the pile of mail assume shape and order under the deft hands of the postal orderlies.

Men moving out on outpost or patrol shout to their mates, “Get my mail, Jack,” “Get mine,” and ride off casting longing eyes at that waiting crowd; with joyful hearts they move out into the night, to outwit the enemy or return no more. But what care they—for it is mail day!

Before dawn, outpost and patrol return, weary and with sleep-laden eyes. They off-saddle and picket their horses, and dash into the bivvies for their mail. Matches are struck surreptitiously, candles are lighted and hidden by blankets, for lights are forbidden when in touch with the enemy; and thus are the letters eagerly read. Often Billjim falls asleep from sheer exhaustion, the last letter still clutched in his hand, and dreams of his Australian home; the fragrance of gum and wattle blossom are wafted to him from overseas on the cool night breeze.

Mail day, the most joyous and most tragic in a soldier’s life, brings messages of love and trust from dear ones, messages of faith and praise from friends; and at times news that is sorrow-laden.

“WIL COX.”

A Day Over the Lines

In the language of the Corps, “there was something doing,” for from dawn till dark machines had been coming and going on the aerodrome almost without a break; in fact, it was “some day.”

Just as the first grey streaks of dawn crept over the horizon the roar of a couple of hostile aircraft patrol machines taking off woke an otherwise peaceful camp. An hour later the orderly officer was bustling round two more machines, which were to leave on the early morning reconnaissance of the country behind the actual scene of operations and along the Turkish lines of communication, to search for any signs of fresh concentrations or reinforcements being hurried up.

At two hour intervals machines left in couples to patrol above our lines and prevent any possibility of Boche machines sneaking over, either to watch the movements of our troops or to bomb them; for, during a stunt, it was just as important for us to keep the Hun blind as to keep our own eyes well skinned.

To me fell the first patrol, and a call from the Orderly Officer at 3.30 a.m. was not received with the utmost courtesy. After hot tea and toast by candle light, we scrambled into warm leather coats, woollen-lined boots, gloves and helmets, and climbed aboard. By the time I had inspected my guns and the usual contents of the cockpit, the engine was ticking over and we were ready to start. It was still dark enough, as we took off, for the pilot to need all his lamps alight to see the various instruments, and, as we climbed, the crisp morning air set our blood tingling with the joy of living. When above the clouds at about 8000 feet the first rays of the rising sun shot across the sky, and very shortly the clouds, which until then had been snowy white, were bathed in a crimson glow that held us spell-bound with its beauty. Primarily, the crests of those billowy mists were tipped as with a wand of fire whilst, as we ascended into space and the sun gradually rose above the horizon, the colour spread over that sea of cloud until it appeared like a stupendous stream of lava belched forth from some volcano which, after years of quiescence, had suddenly burst into activity.

GOT HIM COLD

_By Lieut. O. H. Coulson_
]

I have seen many sunrises under varying conditions, sunrises at whose beauty I marvelled, but never before had I witnessed anything that could come within coo-ee of the riotous blaze of colour that lay spread beneath us, covering the Holy Land, as it were, with a cloth of gold. It disappeared from view, however, all too soon, for, as the sun gained in strength and we in height, the colour slowly faded from fiery brilliance to a delicate pink until, finally, the clouds once again showed up in all their glistening purity.

It seemed impossible to realize, whilst nature was all aglow beneath us, that war was being waged with all its relentless cruelty, that guns were sending forth their messengers of death and pain, and, above all, that we, who had been privileged to witness the glory of God’s handiwork, were scanning the heavens for something in the way of Hun airmen to kill. To me it seemed a sacrilege that, on such a glorious day, hate should be animating the hearts of men, and that I should be a willing agent, eager for an opportunity of sending a fellow-mortal crashing to earth and death. The Hun, however, evidently deeming discretion the better part of valour, did not put in an appearance, and when, after three hours’ cruising up and down the lines, we returned to the aerodrome, I believe I was pleased that I had not been, by force of circumstances, compelled to share in sending some creature to meet his Maker.

So, throughout the day, the work went on, and, as a Hun “bus” was reported to have bombed our troops in the early morning, every one of our machines thereafter carried four bombs to drop on any suitable target that offered itself.