ng a bit
overland. I disliked leaving the sea a second time, but it had to
be done."

Captain Muecke explained that Lith is nothing but desert, and therefore
it was very difficult to get up a caravan at once. They marched away
on March 28, 1915, with only a vague suspicion that the English
might have agents here also. They could travel only at night, and
when they slept or camped around a spring, there was only a tent for
the sick men. Two days' march from Jeddah, the Turkish Government
having received word about the crew, sent sixteen good camels.

"Suddenly, on the night of April 1, 1915, things became uneasy,"
said Captain Muecke. "I was riding at the head of the column. All
our shooting implements were cleared for action, because there was
danger of an attack from Bedouins, whom the English had bribed.
When it began to grow a bit light I thought: 'We're through for
to-day'; for we were tired--had been riding eighteen hours. Suddenly
I saw a line flash up before me, and shots whizzed over our heads.
Down from the camels! We formed a fighting line. You know how quickly
it becomes daylight there. The whole space around the desert hillock
was occupied. Now we had to take up our guns. We rushed at the enemy.
They fled, but returned again, this time from all sides. Several of
the gendarmes that had been given to us as an escort were wounded;
the machine-gun operator fell, killed by a shot through the heart;
another was wounded. Lieutenant Schmidt was mortally wounded. He
received a bullet in the chest and another in the abdomen.

"Suddenly, they waved white cloths. The sheik, to whom a part of
our camels belonged, went over to them to negotiate, then Sami
Bey and his wife. In the interim we quickly built a sort of wagon
barricade, a circular camp of camel saddles, of rice and coffee
sacks, all of which we filled with sand. We had no shovels, and had
to dig with our bayonets, plates, and hands. The whole barricade
had a diameter of fifty meters. Behind it were dug trenches, which
we deepened even during the skirmish. The camels inside had to
lie down, and thus served very well as cover for the rear of the
trenches. Then an inner wall was constructed, behind which we carried
the sick men. In the very center we buried two jars of water, to
guard us against thirst. In addition we had ten petroleum cans full
of water; all told, a supply for four days. Late in the evening
Sami's wife came back from the futile negotiations,