Part 16 (1/2)

It must have been close on midnight when I lay down, and, as I was unable to sleep, I was reading by the dim light of a candle when suddenly I saw a white ghostly face appear in the tent door, and only that I knew Cross was dead I would have thought it was the face of Cross. Then a sepulchral voice said, ”Are you awake, Sir?” and I began to wonder if it were all a dream. When the figure approached the light, I saw that it really _was_ Cross, so I bounded up to give him a welcome--such a welcome as one would give to a friend who had risen from the dead.

It appeared that when the patrol had been ambushed, Cross got wounded and lay under a sandbank where he was discovered by the Turks; they carried him off, and, as they were then retiring as fast as they could, took him with them, pushed him on to Amman, and from there by rail to Damascus. He was about to be sent further north when the British entered the city. In the confusion Cross made good his escape and eventually worked his way back to me. Thus it was that n.o.body knew anything of his whereabouts, for he had never reported to any of the Hospitals en route.

Mrs. Cross had already been informed by the War Office that he was missing and reported killed. I told Cross that I had just posted a letter to his wife to say that I feared that he must have been killed: he, of course, at once sent a private cable to tell her that he was alive and well, while I sent an official one to the War Office giving the same account. At all events, my letter of condolence to Mrs. Cross will always be a good souvenir of the part her husband took in the Great War.

CHAPTER XXII.

AT RAFA.

The Armistice with Turkey was announced on the 31st October, 1918, amid the firing of guns and rockets and joy stunts by the Air Force above our camp at Ludd.

On the 6th November the battalion was ordered to proceed to Rafa to recuperate, refit and reorganise, and on the 7th, in the early morning, we arrived at this frontier station bordering on ”the desert and the town.”

Rafa is actually in Egypt, just over the borders of Palestine, on the Palestine-Egyptian Railway line some five miles from the Mediterranean, and here the tents of Israel were pitched.

Along the whole coast in this neighbourhood there runs a belt, about four miles deep, of sand dunes and sand hills. These are very irregular in outline, running in some places to peaks nearly 100 feet in height, and in others forming miniature precipices, valleys and gullies. It is, in fact, a mountainous country on a lilliputian scale.

The sand is so firm that a horse can be ridden all over it, thereby giving great joy to the hunters of the jackals and hyenas which roam on its barren surface. The air on this stretch of sandy dunes is wonderfully fresh and exhilarating, and we drank it in with delight after our trying experience in the Jordan Valley. The seash.o.r.e itself abounds with millions of curious sh.e.l.ls.

The sand belt ends abruptly landwards and, at the very edge of it, the Bedouin scratches up the soil with an antiquated plough which dates from the time of Abraham. Green waving crops, pleasant to the eye, may be seen almost under the shadow of a sand cliff. The country inland consists of a somewhat sandy soil and gently undulating plains which are, for the greater part, cultivated by Arabs who live in scattered villages, and by Bedouins who come and go as the spirit moves them. The whole place is honeycombed with holes burrowed by the little conies, which makes riding at a fast pace somewhat hazardous.

Such was the quiet little spot in which we found ourselves after our strenuous and exciting days in the Jordan Valley and the Land of Gilead.

Day by day our men gradually came back from Hospital and, owing to drafts from the 40th Battalion, our strength was soon over 30 officers and 1,500 other ranks.

After a brief time for rest, we took over ”Line of Communication”

duties, and found ourselves with many miles of railway and country to safeguard. Our life now became one constant round of guards, escorts, fatigues, and drills whenever a few men could be spared from other duties for the latter purpose. There were thousands of prisoners of war in our custody, as well as a huge captured Turkish ammunition depot, supply stores, engineer park, and all kinds of workshops, etc., etc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”HERE THE TENTS OF ISRAEL WERE PITCHED”

(_See page 173_)]

Soon after we got to Rafa I lost the services of Captain Leadley, M.C., who was demobilized at his own request and returned to England. I selected to succeed him Captain Duncan Sandison--as stubborn a Scot as ever wore a kilt, a first-rate officer, loyal to the core, and a great favourite with everybody except the evil-doers.

Early in December I received another large draft of raw Jewish recruits from the 40th Battalion Royal Fusiliers--all American citizens.

I strongly objected to these untrained men being sent to me under the circ.u.mstances in which I was placed, for it was impossible to give them any training owing to the excessive duties we were called upon to perform day and night. I knew that the result of putting raw recruits to fulfil duties which should have been carried out only by seasoned soldiers, must, before very long, end in disaster. I foresaw endless breaches of discipline, not because the men were evilly disposed, but because they were untrained and knew nothing of military discipline.

I accordingly urged the Staff to remove all these recruits, of whom I had about 800, to a training centre, and repeatedly warned the authorities of what the result must be if this were not done, but not the slightest notice was taken of my appeal.

It was a thousand pities that these enthusiastic American volunteers did not get a fair chance to show their mettle. I well remember how favourably I was impressed with their physique and general appearance when I inspected them on their arrival at Rafa. They were miles ahead, physically, of the men who joined the battalion in England--in fact I do not believe that there was a unit in the whole of the E.E.F. that held such a fine-looking body of men. Because they were untrained and had no idea of discipline, these hefty youths were constantly in trouble for committing breaches of military rules and regulations. They simply did not understand soldiering or what it meant. In this way I got to know the majority of them fairly well. We had many interesting meetings at ”office hour.” Of course, in dealing with these volunteers, I never forgot that the faults they were guilty of were, in great measure, due to lack of training, and I dealt with them accordingly. Their military offences were not grave, just the delinquencies that must be expected of recruits, because they are recruits.

Nevertheless, it is always a danger to have a battalion, supposed to be at any moment ready to take the field, swamped with some 800 raw untrained men.

I felt so strongly on this question, and so clearly foresaw the inevitable end, that having failed to move the authorities myself, I cast about me to see where I could look for help and sympathy in the difficult situation in which I was placed; the only possible man who might be able to do something was the Acting-Chairman of the Zionist Commission then in Palestine. It will be remembered that, soon after the famous Balfour Declaration, Dr. Weizmann, the President of the Zionist Organisation, was sent out at the head of a Commission to investigate conditions and safeguard Jewish interests in Palestine. Dr. Weizmann was received by H.M. the King before his departure from England, and came out armed with strong letters from the Prime Minister and Mr. Balfour to General Allenby. Dr. Weizmann spent some time doing useful work in Palestine, and was then recalled to England in connection with the Zionist policy then before our Government. The mantle of Dr. Weizmann eventually fell on Dr. Eder, and to him I now applied myself, as it was a matter of the greatest importance that no undeserved slur should fall upon the Jewish Battalion.

Like myself, however, Dr. Eder was unable to effect anything.