ient, these veterans of Gallipoli, tramping
steadily along in their shirt sleeves--best of all fighting kit--and there
were two divisions of them. Alongside them came another long column of
ambulance-carts drawn by mules, beyond which, again, marched the auxiliary
branch of the medical service, the camels, soft-footed and supercilious,
with the white hoods of the cacolets swaying unevenly as they marched. Then
came the light armoured-car batteries and in the centre the
horse-artillery. Out on the flank the plain was black with the horses of
the mounted divisions, disposed in brigades, and on the right the Imperial
Camel Corps had a roving commission. So the army marched steadily forward
to the assault, a wonderful spectacle. There was this to be said for the
fighting in Palestine: you fought in the open most of the time; with
certain limitations you could see your enemy and he could see you. The
personal element, therefore, played a more important part than when there
was an overwhelming concentration of artillery on one side or the other,
and as a rule battles were won because the victors were both collectively
and individually the better men.

Soon the infantry diverged to the left, and the columns, moving toward the
sea, were presently lost to view beyond the low western hills. We continued
our flanking movement eastward, with cavalry screens thrown forward and the
remainder advancing in beautiful order over the undulating plain. Within a
couple of hours or so we had reached our appointed place, whereupon some of
the cavalry galloped forward to keep in touch with the other mounted
division operating toward the north, the armoured cars disappeared swiftly
on their lawful occasions, and the Imperial Camel Corps went off to attend
to the needs of such Turkish reinforcements as were to be found. We had not
long to wait before an enemy aeroplane arrived and, locating us at once,
dropped a smoke bomb. Hardly had the little puff dispersed when the first
shell arrived with a hideous, screaming whine, and exploded with a
shattering roar on the hillside some hundred and fifty yards in our rear.
It was followed instantly by another which burst a similar distance in
front--a perfect bracket, and we were in the middle of it. It looked any
reasonable odds that the third shell would arrive in the middle of _us_,
for we offered a splendid target: thousands of horses and men in a shallow
saucer-shaped depression the range of which the