d pegged down on
to the sand, it is wide enough for infantry comfortably to march four
abreast. Simple though it sounds, it is astonishingly effective, and,
indeed, the sensation is almost that of walking on a hard, macadamised
road.

The cavalry may not use the road, nor the transport, nor the artillery; it
is exclusively for the infantry, and deservedly so, for only they, who,
carrying a rifle and pack, have trudged along ankle-deep over that
blistering desert, know what a relief it is to march for an hour or two on
a good road. And further, it is the infantry who bear the heat and burden
of the day. All through the summer of 1916--and I have said elsewhere what
manner of summer it was--they fought and died that the way might be made
clear for those to follow them, and that the engineers could lay the road
some of them would never use.

People at home generally are under the impression that there was no
fighting in Egypt at all for two years; that the troops there had no
difficulties to encounter nor hardships to endure; and that life, in fact,
was one grand, sweet song.

Ask the men from Lancashire, or the Scottish Territorial division who came
from the horrors of Gallipoli, or the Yeomanry, or the Australian Light
Horse, what they think of the song of the Sinai desert, as they heard it in
1916!

I fear that in this matter I am somewhat like Mr. Dick with King Charles'
head; yet it is maddening, and indeed most monstrously unfair, that the
work of these splendid men should pass unnoticed and unsung. It need hardly
be said that I am not complaining on my own behalf. Heaven forbid! At the
time the wire road was being made, we were away out East of Suez, digging
holes and making other roads, with merely the discomforts peculiar to the
place to endure.

But to the pioneers the glory, who conquered both the desert and the Turks.
There was none of the pomp and circumstance of war about their work, no
great concentration of men and horses and guns, no barrage nor heavy
gunfire for days in preparation for an attack, no aircraft--though the
ancient buses in use did wonderful work, considering their
limitations--nothing but a few thousand men in their shirt sleeves; and it
was out of their sweat and blood that the way was made clear for them that
followed.

Everywhere and in every respect, save courage and endurance, the enemy held
the advantage. During his slow retreat the choice of ground almost
invariably lay with h