sult that morale was low, discomfort rife, and desertions frequent. On
one occasion, when the enemy were making a raid upon our trenches, a
couple of Turks got into an empty bag where one of our men had left his
pack. The manner in which they pursued their advantage was by helping
themselves to his tin of bully beef and getting away with all speed. A
Turkish officer, who was subsequently taken prisoner, said, "If the
Turkish rations had been as good as yours, you would never have captured
Gaza."

The health of our troops, on the whole, was good. In so far as there was
sickness it consisted of a certain amount of dysentery, almost
unavoidable in an army in the Field, septic sores, which are unusually
rife, and a slight epidemic of sandfly fever. Foremost among the
inconveniences to be tolerated were the flies, which made it difficult
for the men to sleep by day, the time when they most need rest after
manning the trenches all night. Next to the flies came the dust. The
country, in which for the time we were making our home, consisted of
arable ground devoid of crops, and thoroughly cut up by the passing of
transport. A breeze, that blew daily without fail, served to raise a
fine impalpable dust that permeated everything. This powder dust made
marching difficult, but wise forethought caused galvanized iron netting
to be laid along all the principal routes, forming "wire roads" for the
use of light motor-cars and "foot-sloggers." If we grumbled at the dust,
we had, at this time at least, no cause to complain, like our brethren
in Flanders, of the mud. Taken all together, the morale was good and the
men distinctly happy.

Life in these days was not without its diversions and touches of humour.
A nice Roman tessellated pavement was unearthed near the Wadi Ghuzzeh,
at the place called Umm Jerar, which is associated with Abraham. Going
one day to look for it, I found a military policeman on duty within half
a mile of the spot. I said to him, "Can you tell me the way to the
tessellated pavement?" He looked at me vacantly for a minute and then
replied: "Is it the wire road that you happen to mean, sir?" On one
occasion, the General was going round the front line accompanied by the
Intelligence Officer (who is the Officer that selects the pass-word
which is changed daily) and by the C.O. of the unit in this sector.
Staying out rather later than they had intended, it was dusk or dark
when they approached one of the posts. The sen