e through heavy sand powerfully reminiscent of the desert.

We camped at last in a great grove of fig-trees near the sea.

CHAPTER XIII

IN THE WADI

At Fig-tree Camp we had what the army calls a "rest," which must not in any
way be confused with the word that implies repose. There is nothing of a
reposeful nature about an army "rest." It means that you come out of the
line for periods varying from two hours to two months, usually a great deal
nearer the former than the latter, and spend the time doing what the
authorities term "smartening up," after the gay and festive season through
which you have just passed. This generally takes the form of parades every
other hour, when the officers prattle amiably of matters to which you have
long been a stranger, and the Sergeant-Major takes the opportunity of
preventing his vocabulary from falling into disuse. Also, if you are in the
artillery, you clean your harness and polish up the steel-work thereon till
it twinkles like a heliograph in the sun. Then you go out and dirty
everything again.

When you come to examine the various forms of army discipline there are
usually to be found sensible and logical reasons for their existence; but
we amateur soldiers could never understand the necessity, on active
service, for polishing and burnishing steel-work, especially in a country
of strong sunlight; and there was certainly nothing in our daily duties
that we loathed half so much. For ceremonial parades, of course, you turned
out as "posh" as the next man, but in a parched land where you could with
difficulty keep your own person clean, it seemed a grievous waste of time
and energy polishing bits and chains and stirrup-irons merely for the sake
of doing it. Besides, think of the hours so spent which might have been
devoted to sleep! The afternoon we arrived at Fig-tree Camp most of us
would have liked to follow the sound example of that Lord Chesterfield who,
when he felt tired, used to say to his servant: "Bring me a dozen of sherry
and call me the day after to-morrow!"

We rested (army pattern) for five days, and, amongst all the pother of
parading and cleaning up, knew again the glorious delight of a daily dip in
the sea. Then we took the trail again and in due course took up a position
in another part of the wadi, Tel el Fara by name, the second of the great
boundary-hills built by the Crusaders. Here our position was at the edge of
the wadi, fortunately in one of th