ly out of
pure cussedness the hospitals stayed where they were; and inevitably they
were bombed. Then they moved. As a case in point: there was a large field
ambulance alongside the main shell-dump at Belah upon which several bombs
were dropped with disastrous results. One marquee full of sick and wounded
men was completely destroyed. Several others were badly damaged, and the
occupants, many of whom were desperately ill with dysentery, while helping
their weaker comrades out of the debris were bespattered with bullets from
the low-flying machines above. Little imagination is needed to picture what
would have happened to the hospital _in toto_ had a bomb hit the fringe of
the dump.

Apart from this it was uncanny how the Turks spotted the places where our
heavy guns were concealed ready for the coming show. In broad daylight they
came over and dropped bombs with amazing precision. Under cover of darkness
the guns would be moved and profane gunners laboured half the night to make
them invisible--and in one case their work was so well done that twenty
yards away it was impossible to see any signs of a battery. Yet the Turks
found them the very next morning and made the position very hot indeed.
Obviously this was not the result of direct spotting; somewhere there was a
leakage; and presently it was found--and stopped.

At Belah there was a native village of sorts, a mere hotch-potch of
mud-huts, whose inhabitants scratched a precarious living by tending sheep
belonging to other people. Ancient and withered Bedouins--or Turks
disguised as such--used to come into the camps and supply dumps and pester
the troops for empty kerosene or biscuit tins, to be used ostensibly for
carrying water. As these are the native receptacles all over the East they
were readily handed over without question.

One morning, however, a gunner, casually looking round, observed the
remarkable phenomenon of a kerosene tin perched on the top of one of
several trees near which his battery was placed, and glinting in the bright
sunlight. Continuing the movement he noticed another tree similarly
crowned, and yet another. Some queer accident might have accounted for the
presence of one tin, but three...! He reported the phenomenon to his
commanding officer, who, pausing not to reason why, immediately moved his
battery from what he thought was likely to be an extremely unhealthy spot.
He was right; he had barely got the guns under cover elsewhere when the