happened with these railwaymen; it took much to
stop them.

Not only here but at Kantara a like activity prevailed. A line was laid
running alongside the Canal bank, so that the wharves, and later the docks,
were in direct connection with the main line: thus ships and feluccas could
be unloaded direct on to a train. From this line also branch lines were
made running through the main supply and ordnance depots, again to preserve
continuity and save time. A network of sidings was constructed, and soon
covered many acres of ground; sheds were built for the locomotives;
repairing plant was installed and signalling apparatus erected; handsome
stone buildings sprang up as station offices; and, in short, one morning
Kantara woke up to find itself the possessor of a railway terminus
complete in every essential detail, even down to a buffet for the troops.

Up to the end the engineers were incessantly extending and improving
Kantara. In time substantial churches were built alongside Dueidar Road;
playing areas were laid out and cinemas erected for the troops; and the
Y.M.C.A. built lounges, concert-halls, and tea-rooms. Of these it is not
necessary to speak, for they were but the trimmings of the place.

The principal attempt has been to present Kantara as it looked to us when
we crossed the bridge that moonlight night in the early spring of 1917: a
cluster of feluccas with their great masts bared to the sky; long lines of
neat huts fringing the Canal; behind them a vast white city; away to the
north the twinkling lights of the railway station; then, when the last gun
and the last waggon had rumbled over the bridge, the broad highroad leading
eastward to the desert and thence into Palestine.

It seemed a very miracle to us, who had lived there little more than a year
before, that so much had been done. Possibly our inquiring friends, had
they been riding with us that night, through those _five miles_ of sleeping
tents, would have believed the evidence of their own eyes.

If visual testimony were insufficient, let the simple fact be recorded that
we had to stop and ask the way!

CHAPTER V

THE WIRE ROAD

I suppose there is on each of our many battle-fronts at least one familiar
road; by which I mean a road traversed regularly of necessity by the many,
and remembered afterwards with feelings either of anger, of respect, or of
loathing, almost as one regards a human being.

I have heard men who fought in France spe