bottom, how they climbed
the steep incline again, except on hands and knees.

There were wells, too, sunk in various places about the Labyrinth and
adequately protected with sand-bags. Rations were brought up by camels who
made the stealthy and perilous journey across the mouth of the wadi nightly
from Belah.

Towards the centre the distance between the trenches was too great to allow
of much "nibbling" and the activity here was confined mainly to a regular
daily "strafe" on the part of the artillery, and listening-patrols, who
occasionally came across a party of Turks similarly engaged, whereupon
silent work with the bayonet ensued, until one or other party was wiped
out.

The Royal Air Force provided the _piece de resistance_ of this period of
comparative stagnation. By way of retaliation for a heavy Turkish bombing
raid on one of the dumps at Belah, where amongst other things a
field-hospital had suffered severely, they collected about thirty machines
and flew over to Gaza. Their objective was a large shell-dump, said to be
nearly a mile in area, situated near the big mosque. Though the night was
pitch dark and landmarks difficult to detect, the raid was a huge success.
Many bombs must have hit the dump simultaneously for the roar of the
explosion was appalling. The force of it shook the earth for miles round
and the sky in the north-west was a vast sheet of red flame. All through
the night the racket went on, as first one part of the dump and then
another exploded. Seen from our position on the right flank, the blaze of
light after each explosion was like the great blast-furnaces of Sheffield
as you see them from the night train.

Not for days after did we understand what had actually happened; at the
time it was thought to be the beginning of another attack on Gaza, and one
man was profoundly convinced that the Day of Judgment had arrived. What the
Turks thought about it is not known, but the raid taught them a terrible
lesson; and they did not, in fact, send over another bombing expedition
till long afterwards.

The mounted troops were disposed in various places along our right flank,
some in the wadi, others more or less conveniently near; and they led an
existence peculiar to themselves. For our part, after resting for a short
time at Sheikh Nuran, we moved eastwards to El Chauth, one of the positions
gallantly captured by the Imperial Camel Corps in the first battle of Gaza.
The Turkish trenches enclosed