dly.
Even now, except for a few small "pockets" of water not unlike the hill
tarns in the North of England, the bed was for all practical purposes dry.
Eventually sufficient wells were sunk to provide a fairly ample supply of
water, which not only relieved the Army Service Corps of some of its heavy
burden, but released a large quantity of transport for other duties. By far
the most pressing of these was to supply the mounted divisions on the right
flank with food and water; and of all the amazing feats performed by the
engineers and the transport service, either combined or separately, this
effort was surely one of the most wonderful.

Our position was near Tel el Jemmi, one of the three high hills, each
artificially built in the form of a double cross, that once marked the
southern boundary of the land conquered by the early Crusaders. It was too
far away from the wadi for us to draw our water there; nor in point of fact
was there sufficient for our needs had we been conveniently near. There
were at least six thousand horses to be watered daily, in addition to which
their forage and the men's rations and drinking water had somehow to be
brought, and quickly. About two miles from our position and under the
shadow of Tel el Jemmi was a nullah, probably an off-shoot of the wadi,
perhaps half a mile long by a couple of hundred yards broad.

To the eye it was as if a large slice had been cut out of the earth's
crust, leaving a tapering cavity not unlike the shape of a battleship;
fortunately, however, the floor was fairly flat and even. The engineers
immediately seized upon the nullah and proceeded to transform it into a
gigantic reservoir. Along one side of the nullah was dug a series of large
shallow tanks shaped like a swimming-bath, the counterpart, in fact, of the
one used for the same purpose at Khan Yunus. These were lined with
tarpaulins. Next to the tanks was a long row of canvas water-troughs, handy
affairs which can be erected in a few minutes; and finally the two were
connected by means of hand-pumps, each tank supplying a certain number of
troughs. Other parties of engineers were busy making the nullah easy of
access and exit, for, except in one place, the sides were too precipitous
to allow one even to climb down with safety.

There were, I think, six approaches to the nullah, all of which had to be
blasted and cut out of the sides, as sandstone was encountered after the
top layer of soil had been removed; a