Part 10 (1/2)

Water could only be obtained in very limited quant.i.ties; every drop had to be carried from the Auja four or five miles away. The whole place was constantly enveloped in stagnant dust, so it can be imagined with what appet.i.te a man could tackle food under such appalling conditions, every mouthful of which was necessarily full of sand and grit.

An Australian summed up life in the Jordan Valley very well, when he remarked one sweltering day, ”G.o.d need not have troubled to make h.e.l.l when He had the Jordan Valley.”

This part of the Jordan Valley is not supposed to be habitable during the months of August and September. Even the wild Bedouins, who linger in these parts to feed their flocks of goats, flee from the accursed place in these two dreaded months.

No British soldier had yet been called upon to endure the horrors of the Mellahah even for a week; nevertheless the Jewish Battalion was kept there for over seven weeks at the most deadly period of the year.

Looking back upon it all I can only say that the Jewish people may well be proud of their Battalion for the admirable way it ”carried on” in this abomination of desolation. It was about the hottest, most unhealthy, and most G.o.d-forsaken place in the universe--in fact some of my men a.s.sured me that they saw the Devil himself there, horns, tail and all!

Such was the position allotted to the 38th Battalion to defend and hold, and it can be imagined that the change from the hill tops of Ephraim to this inferno was appalling.

Knowing that our enemies had already tried to abolish the Jewish Battalion, I was strongly reminded of the story of Uriah the Hitt.i.te!

How terribly we suffered owing to our tour of duty in this pestilential region will be described in a later chapter.

CHAPTER XIII.

LIFE IN MELLAHAH.

Although the climatic change from the cool hill-tops of Samaria to the inferno of the Jordan Valley differed as does Heaven from h.e.l.l, still we had compensations in the fair, just, and kindly treatment meted out to us by General Chaytor and every officer, non-commissioned officer, and man of the Anzac Mounted Division.

The battalion stood entirely on its merits, and that it found favour in the sight of these famous fighters is the proudest feather in its cap.

Their minds were as broad as the wide s.p.a.ces from whence they had come, and in their strong souls there was no room for petty spite or discrimination. If we quitted ourselves like men and performed our duties like good soldiers, then it did not matter, even if we were Jews.

The Anzac Mounted Division Headquarters were about eight miles from my own, and it frequently fell to my lot to ride there through the devouring heat of the day for a conference with the General. Never shall I forget the delicious cool draught of shandy that always welcomed me, straight from the ice-box, mixed by the cunning hand of Colonel Bruxner, the A.A. and Q.M.G. of the Division. Bruxner would spy me from afar off, and, being a man of understanding, had the nectar all ready by the time I reached his tent, and oh, how good it was! No place in the world can raise a thirst like the Jordan Valley, but it was almost worth enduring when it could be quenched by a long draught of Bruxner's elixir.

The princ.i.p.al objective on our special piece of front was the Umm esh Shert Ford over the Jordan. It was some two miles to the East of our most northerly posts on the Mellahah, and it was well protected by a series of trenches, by barbed wire entanglements, and by the fortified Jordan cliffs. If we could, by any chance, get possession of this crossing, it would mean that the Turkish communications would be thrown considerably out of gear, and all their local arrangements East and West of the Jordan completely upset.

Furthermore, in the case of an advance on our part, by pus.h.i.+ng mounted troops across this Ford, the whole of the Turkish position, ten miles to the East-South-East of us at Nimrin, would be turned, for the road by the Umm esh Shert Ford was the short cut to Es Salt (the old Ramoth Gilead) and Amman (the ancient Rabbath Ammon, where that splendid Hitt.i.te soldier Uriah was treacherously sent to his death).

Our constant endeavour, therefore, in patrol and reconnaissance, was to gather all possible information as to the ways and means of getting at this spot and making it our own. No stone was left unturned and no risk avoided which would lead to this important result, and in due course we had our reward.

In such an isolated position as ours, the only thing to be done was to adopt an aggressive att.i.tude towards our enemies and so induce them to think that we were a great deal stronger than was actually the case.

This policy succeeded admirably, and we put up such a good bluff, and harried the Turks so vigorously, that they were in constant dread of attack, and immediately began to erect barbed wire fences right along their entire front, with every appearance of haste and nervousness.

Considering the nature and extent of the position which we held, we lost very few men in killed, wounded, and missing during the seven odd weeks we grilled in the Jordan Valley. We were daily and nightly sh.e.l.led, but the Turkish gunners rarely had any luck. On the other hand we hara.s.sed them continuously, with the result that deserters began to come in freely, sometimes singly, and often in twos and threes. It is strange, but true, that until we came into the valley, prisoners and deserters were very scarce.

On one occasion a prisoner was brought before me trembling violently. On asking him what was the matter, he replied that he feared his throat was about to be cut! His officer, he said, had told him that we finished off all our prisoners in this way. I laughed, and (wis.h.i.+ng to prove him) told him that after he had had some food I proposed to send him back to his camp so that he might tell all his comrades how well we treated those who fell into our hands. On hearing this he cried bitterly that he did not want to return to his camp at any price, and begged to be kept by the British, a request to which I of course readily acceded.

A Turkish sergeant who was captured one day made us all laugh heartily.

Before he was marched off to the prisoners' compound somebody wanted to take a photo of him. The little sergeant (for he was quite diminutive) preened himself like a peac.o.c.k, gave a rakish tilt to his headgear, a fierce twist to his moustache, and struck a dramatic pose before he would allow himself to be snapped. He was a regular Turkish Charley Chaplin!

Most of our prisoners told us quite frankly that they were tired of the war, their ill usage, and bad food, and were glad to be in our hands, more especially as they never got any rest in front of our lines.

On the 26th August thirteen Turks of the 1st Infantry Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the 24th Division surrendered. These men deserted _en bloc_ while they were holding a post which guarded the flank of their battalion. I found out from them that their relief party was due to arrive before I could possibly get a half platoon from my battalion to occupy the deserted post. If time had allowed me to lay a little trap, I should like to have seen the faces of the incoming Turks when they found themselves looking down our rifle barrels as they marched into their post. They must have been sufficiently astonished as it was to find the place empty.

I watched an exciting little adventure one morning as I stood in one of the fire bays of our most advanced redoubt, just as dawn was breaking, peering through my field gla.s.ses to the northward, along the jagged course of the Mellahah where it spread out into many channels and ravines near the Turkish lines.