Part 12 (1/2)

On receipt of this news I sent another party under Lieutenant Bullock to give burial according to Jewish rites to the gallant man who had fallen, and to make a thorough search of the locality for Lieutenant Cross's body, but no trace of the missing officer could be found. Telegrams were dispatched to the hospitals at Amman, Deraa, and to Damascus after we had captured that city, but nothing was known of him at any of these places, and in the end we all came to the sad conclusion that we had seen the last of poor Cross and that the Turks must have thrown his body into the Jordan after he had died from his wounds. His loss cast a gloom over the battalion.

I was also exceedingly sorry to be deprived of Captain Julian's services with the transport, just at the moment when we were ordered to start off in pursuit of the enemy, for he was an ideal Transport Officer, and never once let the battalion down while he served in that capacity, and he had held this important position from the day he joined us.

It was not long until we had a sharp reminder of his loss, for that same evening our transport trekked off and could not be found anywhere.

Someone (I never could discover who) gave the Transport Sergeant orders to leave his lines on the Auja and report, with all wagons, etc., to Major Ripley in the Mellahah. In the darkness he failed to find the Major, and on the morning of the 23rd not a single soul in the battalion knew anything about where the Transport had gone, or how it could be found. They had completely vanished from the ken of everybody, taking with them our food, forage, cooking pots, and spare ammunition. The new Transport Officer, Captain Cunningham, who had been detailed to take Captain Julian's place, was unable to find any trace of them when he went to take over charge. They had mysteriously disappeared from their bivouac and gone off into the blue.

This was a very disturbing factor in the situation, for we had orders to start off in pursuit of the enemy at 2 o'clock a.m. next morning.

Cunningham, Quartermaster Smythe, and all available men who could be pressed into the service, were sent in every direction to run the Transport to earth.

Eventually Smythe came back to say that he had been tracking wagon wheels for at least five miles, but they could not be ours, for the tracks led steadily in a northerly direction towards the Turkish lines.

After duly strafing Major Ripley for having, this early in his command, lost his transport, I set off in quest of the rovers.

Luckily my charger Betty was in splendid condition, and I certainly put her on her mettle that morning. I took up the trail that Smythe had abandoned, followed it for seven or eight miles at a steady canter, and then lost all trace on hard ground. I had to cast round in a big circle before I found it once more, then I went on again for another three or four miles when I met some Australians. On asking them if they had seen a column of wagons going northward they said, ”No, we have been along here for a couple of miles, but we have seen nothing.”

This was very disheartening news, and I almost felt inclined to give up the quest in this direction and turn back; but having come so far, I made up my mind to go on, even to the Turkish lines themselves, before I gave up the hunt.

I was then about eight miles short of the Turkish position, or what had been the Turkish position at the foot of the hills towards which the tracks still led.

When I had covered another few miles, to my inexpressible relief, I at last caught sight of the Transport, steadily pursuing its way northward!

I made Betty put on an extra spurt and soon caught them up. It is lucky that there was no gra.s.s about, or the prairie itself would have caught fire when I at last overtook the Transport Sergeant. The language addressed to the jackdaw by the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims was angel talk compared to mine.

When I ordered him sharply to get back at once to where he came from, he was so confused that he promptly turned his horse round and began to ride off towards camp--leaving his baggage wagons still calmly proceeding in the opposite direction.

I called the dazed sergeant back and told him very forcibly to halt the column and take the wagons back as quickly as possible to his original camp. I was never able to get any satisfactory information from the sergeant (who by the way was a Welshman and a Christian) as to what induced him to trek off into the unknown in such a mad fas.h.i.+on. I can only imagine that the devil, who lives in the Jordan Valley, had impersonated Major Ripley and had ordered the sergeant to push for all he was worth for the Turkish lines, leaving us without food, water, cooking pots, or ammunition--in fact leaving us ”beggars by the wayside.”

My chase of the transport wasted some precious hours, but I was back in camp soon after 10 a.m., where I found the battalion full of bustle and activity, preparing for concentration on the Auja bridgehead.

On my return to Headquarters I found that Major Ripley was ill and only fit for hospital. He had had a most nerve-shattering time while commanding his section; for his posts were very much exposed and there was always the dread and anxiety of an attack in overwhelming numbers.

Sleep rarely comes to soothe a man's nerves in such trying circ.u.mstances, especially in the awful heat we endured in the Mellahah; in fact, Major Ripley's features had wasted away so much owing to the worry and anxiety of all he had undergone that he reminded me of nothing so much as one of the mummified birds I had once seen in a cave of Upper Egypt. I never saw Major Ripley again in the battalion, but I am glad to say he made an excellent recovery, and was eventually given a good staff job in Alexandria.

I gave the command of the battalion to Major Neill, and from that moment I had no further anxieties, outside my own province, with which to contend.

CHAPTER XVII.

WE GO UP TO RAMOTH GILEAD.

When I took command of the Column I chose Captain Douglas Leadley as my Staff Officer, and a better man it would be almost impossible to find. I never knew Leadley to forget anything, and it was a great relief to feel that when once I had given him any instructions, I need have no further anxiety about them, for he was absolutely reliable and competent in every way.

When Leadley came to me, Major Neill selected Captain T. B. Brown to replace him as Adjutant of the 38th Battalion, and an excellent staff officer he made, as far as I could judge.

The concentration on the Auja bridgehead proceeded as rapidly as possible, for the Column had to move soon after midnight.

I found that the 38th Battalion could not possibly concentrate in time, for Captain H.H. Harris's Company was many miles to the north, where it had been sent in pursuit of the enemy. I therefore ordered Major Neill to follow me as quickly as possible to Shunat Nimrin, a position on the Moab foothills, some ten miles to the eastward of the Auja.

At 2 a.m. on the 24th, Column Headquarters and the 39th Battalion crossed the Jordan at the Auja bridgehead, scrambled up the steep Jordan cliffs, and marched on towards Nimrin.