a scale which would not yield a return on capital expenditure for many
years, and the water tower and engine sheds were built to last longer
than merely military necessities demanded. They were fashioned by
European craftsmen, and the solidity of the structures offered strange
contrast to the rough-and-ready native houses. The primary object of
the Hun scheme was, doubtless, to make Beersheba a suitable base for
an attack on the Suez Canal, and the manner of improving the Hebron
road, of setting road engineers to construct zigzags up hills so that
lorries could move over the road, was part of the plan of men whose
vision was centred on cutting the Suez Canal artery of the British
Empire's body. The best laid schemes....

When I entered Beersheba our troops held a line of outposts
sufficiently far north of the town to prevent the Turks shelling it,
and the place was secure except from aircraft bombs, of which a number
fell into the town without damaging anything of much consequence. Some
of the troops fell victims to booby traps. Apparently harmless whisky
bottles exploded when attempts were made to draw the corks, and
several small mines went up. Besides the mines in the Mosque there
was a good deal of wiring about the railway station, and some rolling
stock was made ready for destruction the instant a door was opened.
The ruse was expected; some Australian engineers drew the charges,
and the coaches were afterwards of considerable service to the supply
branch.

CHAPTER VIII

GAZA DEFENCES

Meanwhile there were important happenings at the other end of the
line. Gaza was about to submit to the biggest of all her ordeals. She
had been a bone of contention for thousands of years. The Pharaohs
coveted her and more than 3500 years ago made bloody strife within the
environs of the town. Alexander the Great besieged her, and Persians
and Arabians opposed that mighty general. The Ptolemies and the
Antiochi for centuries fought for Gaza, whose inhabitants had a
greater taste for the mart than for the sword, and when the Maccabees
were carrying a victorious war through Philistia, the people of Gaza
bought off Jonathan, but the Jews occupied the city itself about a
century before the Christian era. Later on the place was captured
after a year's siege and destroyed, and for long it remained a mass
of mouldering ruins. Pompey revived it, making it a free city, and
Gabinius extended it close to the harbour, whilst under C