sluj. Some of the Australian and New Zealand
troops engaged on this work had previously been at these places.

In the early summer it was thought desirable to destroy the Turkish
railway which ran from Beersheba to Asluj and on to Kossaima, in order
to prevent an enemy raid on our communications between El Arish and
Rafa, and the mounted troops with the Imperial Camel Corps had had
a most successful day in destroying many miles of line and several
bridges. The Turks were badly in need of rails for the line they were
then constructing down to Deir Sineid, and they had lifted some of the
rails between Asluj and Kossaima, but during our raid we broke every
rail over some fifteen miles of track. Khalasa and Asluj being water
centres became the points of concentration for two mounted divisions,
and the splendid Colonials in the engineer sections worked at the
wells as if the success of the whole enterprise depended upon their
efforts, as, indeed, to a very large extent it did. Theirs was not an
eight hours day. They worked under many difficulties, often thigh deep
in water and mud, cleaning out and deepening wells and installing
power pumps, putting up large canvas tanks for storage, and
making water troughs. The results exceeded anticipations, and the
Commander-in-Chief, on a day when the calls on his time were many and
urgent, made a long journey to thank the officers and men for the work
they had done and to express his high appreciation of their skill and
energy.

The principal work carried out by the XXth Corps during the period of
concentration consisted in laying the standard gauge line to Imara
and opening the station at that place on October 28; prolonging the
railway line to a point three-quarters of a mile north-north-east
of Karm, where the station was opened on November 3; completing by
October 30 the light railway from the east bank of the wadi Ghuzze at
Gamli _via_ Karm to Khasif; and developing water at Esani, Malaga, and
Abu Ghalyun for the use first by cavalry detachments and then by the
60th Division. Cisterns in the Khasif and Imsiri area were stocked
with 60,000 gallons of water to be used by the 53rd and 74th
Divisions, and this supply was to be supplemented by camel convoys.
Apparently the enemy knew very little about the concentration until
about October 26, and even then he could have had only slight
knowledge of the extent of our movements, and probably knew nothing at
all of where the first blow