Trooper Bluegum at the Dardanelles

RIDING TESTS-THE SOLDIER'S OATH-SIR IAN HAMILTON-MOUNTED PARADE-BUSHMEN AND CITY MEN ON TRIAL-LIGHT HORSE WAR SONG

"Trooper Bluegum, you're next."

I stepped forward. A hundred volunteers had been marched down from Victoria Barracks, Sydney, and were undergoing the riding test prior to being drafted into the Australian Light Horse.

"Mount and ride," said the sergeant.

I leaped on the bare back of a hog-maned colt. Three other candidates were already mounted waiting for the signal. One was a Sydney "bushman" and was obviously nervous. The other two were bushmen from Riverina and the Hunter River and they grinned confidently.

"Cross this flat," continued the sergeant; "leap the bog, jump the sod wall, gallop to that marker, and return."

Some fool orderly gave my mount a crack over the back with a rope and away we galloped. The flat was easy, though I had not ridden bare-backed for some time. The bog offered no resistance and we leaped the sod wall neck and neck. Then the horses wanted to bolt and they took some stopping. Anyhow, the first half of the test was safely through.

The Sydney bushman was looking more at ease. The others grinned expansively. "That's dead easy," said the man from Narrandera. "Call that a riding test?"

The return signal was given, and the quartette started off. All went well till the water jump loomed ahead. Here half a dozen yelling orderlies were posted to spur on the chargers to the leap. The three bushmen cleared the obstacle with hardly a splash, but disaster was in store for the City bushman. Right on the brink the horse stopped dead and the hapless rider was shot with catapultic force head first into the bog, amid roars of merriment from the assembled army. We three countrymen "passed," were promptly marshalled with the horsemen, and marched to the doctor's for medical examination. The City bushman was sent to "the gravel-crushers."

In a huge marquee in Rosebery Park were a score of virile young Australians stripped for the fray. Sun-tanned bushmen they were for the most part, lean and wiry, with muscles rippling over their naked shoulders. Splendid specimens-strong but not too heavy, rarely topping thirteen stone, for all the heavier men had been sent to the infantry. But these were ideal Light Horsemen.

"Bluegum forward."

I stood, and the sergeant ran the tape over me: Weight, 11 stone; height, 5 feet ten; chest, 37, expanded 41; age 34; beauty spots and identification marks, none; eyes, brown; hair, brown; religion, Presbyterian.

Then the doctor got busy; tapping here, sounding there, finally with a word of approval sending me over to the sight specialist. There was a jumble of letters of various sizes set before me, and finally, with a score of others satisfactory in wind and limb, I was sent on to the adjutant. My name, age, occupation, next-of-kin, and other essential details were recorded. Then we were lined up to swear allegiance.

On the flat the volunteers were still doing the riding test, with hundreds of onlookers keenly enjoying it. Each time some luckless aspirant for fame and glory was precipitated into the bog the crowd roared with delight, and when he emerged, mud-bespattered and crestfallen, the hilarity of the bushmen knew no bounds. Pointed advice was hurled at the failures, and they were urged to join the "gravel-crushers," which most of them did.

For a couple of hours the fun continued, and with the end of the day another hundred rough-riders were drawn up, passed and enlisted ready for anything and everything. One by one we went forward and took the oath.

The sun was just setting over the western rim of dear old Sydney town when my turn came. The clouds were all gold and rose and amethyst, and the whole scene was as peaceful as could be. The First Light Horse Regiment-in fine fettle, ready at a moment's notice to sail for Europe-cantering gaily back to camp, reminded us that the nation was in a state of war, that the empire was engaged in a life and death struggle, and that on the issue of the great conflict depended the fate of Australia. And we of the Sixth Regiment were to make good the "wastage of war."

So, solemnly, I kissed the Book and swore this oath: "I, James Bluegum, swear that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lord the King in the Australian Imperial Force from September 1914 until the end of the war, and a further period of four months thereafter, unless sooner lawfully discharged, dismissed, or removed therefrom; and that I will resist His Majesty's enemies and cause His Majesty's peace to be kept and maintained; and that I will in all matters appertaining to my service faithfully discharge my duty according to law. So help me God."

I was a Soldier of the King!

Once more we were lined up and marched away to the quartermaster. Each man was given a waterproof sheet, a pair of blankets, a knife, fork, spoon, tin plate, and pannikin. We were to form part of the Second Light Horse Brigade, and being minus tents we were relegated to the stables. We raided the straw store, made beds, and lay upon them.

It was not ours to go with the first lot of heroes to take part in the Great War. Most of us had waited till the Germans got within cannon shot of Paris. Then we "butted in." We were selected to supply the wastage-that was all. If we could not be the first in the firing-line, it was something to know that we would take the place of the men who were killed or wounded-all of us, the man from Narrandera, in Riverina, the man from Hunter River, the men from out-back everywhere, Trooper Bluegum among them, all whistling merrily "Soldiers of the King, my Boys!"

We of the Light Horse started with many things in our favour. We reckoned we could ride as well as, if not better than, any body of men in the world, for we could ride almost as soon as we could walk. Also, we were pretty good shots. Many were Rifle Club men. All had done a bit of shooting in the bush, for dingoes and kangaroos and wallabies are not yet extinct in Australia. So half of our lesson was learned before we started. The drill and the discipline only remained. We did not mind the drill, but the discipline was irksome.

It is a recognized flaw in our military make-up, this want of discipline. Sir Ian Hamilton, when he visited Australia in 1914, found the colonial compulsory trainees much more amenable to discipline than he expected. But the militia are caught young. We of the Expeditionary Force were a little bit too old to rid ourselves readily of the habits of the bush, and adapt ourselves to the rigid routine of military life. But perhaps it would come in time.

It is a strange world, my masters! I have before me as I write a copy of a Sydney newspaper, dated May 21, 1914, giving the report and recommendations made by General Sir Ian Hamilton in Australia, and it is headed "If War Came." And there I read of the Australian Infantry: "I have now seen the greater portion of the Australian Infantry, and I wish very much I could transplant 10,000 of these young soldiers to Salisbury Plain. They would do the croakers good and make them less frightened of other nations, who have no overseas children getting ready to lend them a hand. The majority of the non-commissioned officers and men are still very young, but they are full of intelligence and grit. On at least two occasions I have seen brigades tested severely, once by heat and heavy marching, the other time by floods and mud. In each case the men made light of their trying experiences, treating them as an excellent joke."

It was of the same men that the same man was to write but a few short months afterwards: "They have created for themselves an imperishable record of military virtue."

But it is a long, long way to --. Day after day we performed the tiresome evolutions of troop and squadron drill on foot, for the horses were not yet ready. We mastered the mysteries of sections right, form troop, form squadron column; then day after day we engaged in rifle drill-"stand at ease," "attention," "slope arms," "present arms," till our arms ached. Then we fixed our bayonets, and in fancy bayoneted thousands of "kultured" Germans.

But it was not till the horses came that we really felt like Light Horsemen.

Let the sailor tell of the roaring gale,

Or the blue waves' rippling laughter;

Let the soldier sing of the sabre swing

And the laurels of glory after;

There's a melody in the changeful sea,

A charm in the battle's thunder,

But sweeter than those the bushman knows

Is the bound of a good horse under.

It was not child's play tackling those horses. Some of the kind-hearted station folk in the backblocks had sent down some wild warrigals of the West; bucking brumbies that beat the band; old outlaws off the grass that the station hands could never master. But Colonel Cox ("Fighting Charlie" we called him) had in his command some of the crack rough-riders of Australia. And it was a joy to see these men tackle the outlaws. There were Crouch of Wagga, McDonald of Barrington, Whiteley of Wellington, Bullock of Melbourne, Sievewright of Gunnedah, Kennedy of Gloucester, Rex Moffatt of Goulburn, Harry Heath of Moree, and a score of others. Nearly every man in the regiment could sit a buck, or puff nonchalantly at his pipe while his mount pigrooted merrily. So when the wild horses were led forth there were hundreds volunteering for the honour of riding the rebels. One after another the horses were saddled up, and while the regiment cheered itself hoarse, there was enacted again and again the old-time struggle for mastery. There were plunging and reefing and rooting and sidling and rearing and bucking, as the panting chargers swung this way and that in vain endeavour to dislodge the riders. But the bush boys stuck to the saddles as the Old Man of the Sea stuck to Sindbad the Sailor, and one after another the bucking brumbies were broken and led away.

Then came the first mounted parade. A squadron of Scots Greys or Life Guards might have kept better line; they might probably have wheeled with more order and precision for each troop here had a few half-broken colts prancing and dancing all over the shop, but-well, somebody said that these troops would compare favourably with any body of mounted infantry in the world. Certain it is that when, one fine day, the officer commanding, Colonel Cox, accompanied by the Brigadier, Colonel Ryrie, made a careful inspection of the whole regiment, every one from the officer commanding down was satisfied. And certain it is that we sang the Australian Light Horse war song with unusual enthusiasm-

Sound the good old bugle, boys,

Let's sing another song,

Sing it with a spirit

That will send the troops along;

Sing it as we'll sing it

When we're twenty thousand strong,

When we go marching through Germany!

Hurrah! Hurrah! We're off to Germany!

Hurrah! Hurrah! the A.L.H. are we!

We're rounding up the bushmen from the

Darling to the sea

And we'll go marching through Germany!

How the bushmen shouted

When they heard the joyful sound,

"'Fighting Charlie's' going to lead,

So pass the word around;

Australia wants another batch

Of bushmen to astound

Poor old Kaiser Bill of Germany!"

* * *

CEYLON MISSED-LAND-HO-AT ADEN-BAKSHEESH-"THE TRANSPORT TRUMPETER"-A LITERARY COINCIDENCE-ON HISTORIC GROUND-THE PYRAMIDS-PAST AND PRESENT-AN EGYPTIAN HANDKERCHIEF-MA'ADI.

"Who's the Jonah?" That was mild.

"Curse our luck!" That was moderate.

But when Trooper Newman said, "To hell with the ship!" most of us felt that he showed a proper appreciation of the position.

For days and days we had ploughed our way across the Indian Ocean, and, as the long leagues in front joined their comrades behind, we felt that we were getting farther and farther from sunny New South Wales. But we were steering straight for Ceylon, and looking forward with keen anticipation to a few days of the picturesque Orient. Some of the impressionable young subalterns were singing "Cingalee, Cingalee, I have lost my heart to a Cingalee." All of us for the last day or two had been taking station on the forecastle-head, shading our eyes and gazing into the misty horizon for the first glimpse of the enchanted isle.

But alas for hopes unfulfilled! Ceylon's spicy breezes, after all, were not to fan our fevered brows, neither were Cingalese to minister to our need with "tea in the morning, tea in the evening, tea in the afternoon." Early in the morning of January 12 we got word that a special squadron of three ships was to be detached from the main fleet, and with Colonel Ryrie in command, steam straight to Aden. So we stood on deck and swore unrestrainedly.

However, there was still corn in Egypt, and we would be the first to get there. Besides, there was quite a chance that there was something doing-a Dervish expedition or an Arab raid might be on, and we would have the laugh at the other chaps if we could have first smack at the unspeakable Turk. So by the time the bugle sounded for the usual inspection, we were all in high good humour again. The three liners swung out from the convoy and, cheering a farewell, were soon steaming westward. One after another the transports dipped down under the horizon, and soon a few grey smudges on the rim of the ocean were all that remained to remind us of the fleet.

We had seen no land since leaving Australia. It seemed such a long time. So when, a couple of days later, somebody shouted "Land-ho," we rushed to the nearest post of advantage. Far away to eastward, like a green pimple on the blue face of the waters, was a tiny little island. In an hour we were abreast of it-Minikoi, surely one of the islands of the blessed; how green it looked after the everlasting blue of the Indian Ocean; from end to end it was covered with cocoa-nut palm. A long line of snow-white surf beat upon the sandy shore. Gleaming in the tropical sun was the lighthouse-a silent sentinel. And in the offing were a score of picturesque canoes, and dhows, with brown hempen sails, managed by gaudily-dressed islanders, who seemed rather annoyed that the transports did not stop and purchase their fruit-offerings.

Passing by the rugged Socotra, we soon sighted the mountainous southern coast of Arabia, and by midday on January 20 we were focussing our binoculars on the picturesque gate of the Indian Ocean, Aden. Curious it is how Britain has secured all the great strategical points of the world-Gibraltar, Suez, Aden, Singapore, Thursday Island, the Cape of Good Hope, and the rest. And one has only to see Aden, with its rocky peaks piercing the skyline, to realize how strong it is, and how futile would be any effort to capture it. For all the defences of Aden seem to be hewn out of solid granite.

No sooner had we got anchored in the harbour than the Suevic was surrounded by swarms of boats, in which were crowded Asiatics of all descriptions yelling like demons in wild anxiety to sell their wares. Then the colliers came alongside and proceeded to coal. Scores of thin, undersized, but wiry Arabs did the work, and as they loaded the bunkers they kept up a perpetual yelling and singing, and the weird cacophony lasted all through the night.

Aden is a curious mixture of the Orient and the Occident. In the streets silent Arabs stalk along with camels, and Europeans buzz around in automobiles. One section of the port belongs to the Asiatics; the other is all Western. Arab dhows float across the harbour and steam tugs scurry hither and yon. One section of the town has thatched roofs; the other is all galvanized iron. And one of the natives sang us "Songs of Araby." They yelled harshly for baksheesh all the while. Clad in their own coloured loin cloths, or in discarded khaki tunics from the Force, they were a motley tatterdemalion crowd. Here East and West met-but did not mingle.

We had had no word of news for weeks. So we eagerly searched for the newspapers, and demanded news of the outer world. The war was still on. The Allies were more than holding their own. Here was news indeed!-news such as The Transport Trumpeter (published aboard the Suevic) had never heard of. Yet we loved that little paper of ours on the transport-"a little thing, but our own." If it lacked news it did not lack reporters whose imagination made up for the deficiency. We were all reporters for The Transport Trumpeter. Even I. And I am wondering to this day about a certain curious coincidence connected with one of my painstaking efforts. I wrote on December 28, 1914, a skit on Lissauer's "Hymn of Hate," and Arthur Adam's reply to it-"My Friend, Remember." A month later I got the Sydney Bulletin, and there I saw almost exactly the same article with the same excerpts from each poem. They were probably written on the same day, a thousand miles or so apart. You who delve into the mysterious, will you explain?

* * *

Egypt! What memories! What life here! What a quest we have set out upon! What Alexanders are we!

I feel the blood coursing through my veins as I have never felt it before. I live in the present, but the past stands up before me. Dead kings and emperors pass in endless succession. Libyans and Ethiopians pass by, Assyrians and Macedonians, Babylonians and Persians, Romans, Arabs, Turks and Mamelukes-and French and British. Great names are sprinkled over the pages of Egypt, from Menes, the first king, and Rameses the Second, down to the present day. Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great, Constantine, Saladin and Napoleon, Mohammed Ali and Kitchener have all left their mark on the Nile Delta. What history! and here are we-soldiers of King George V, from Australia-treading this historic ground, making new history. Nebuchadnezzar knew us not. Constantine never dreamed-and they used to dream dreams in those days-that from a land he knew not of would one day come armed men marching on the wonderful city he built.

Nor did I, nor did any of us, know it-well, not yet.

I know what it means to see the blush clouds beating the night shades back in the van of a golden morning, but there is a quality of richness about the sunrises of Egypt that Australia lacks. Egypt has the glint of gold, the cloud ridges of rosy red, the blaze of amethyst and opal. So also has the Australian sky. But Australia has no pyramids. The first beams of the sun in this land tip the cones of the age-old pyramids, and soon these drab giants shine like molten copper. Then the sky turns all gold, and the scene is duplicated in the placid bosom of the ancient Nile, which skirts our camp. In the murky distance the desert is shrouded in a misty haze which has the same blue that one sees in the distance on the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, but once the sun is fairly above the horizon, the brilliant transformation scene dissolves itself into a glaring white light that lasts till sunset. Then the morning's glory is reenacted with softer tones and a riot of colour that I can never describe.

Then, as the Pyramids of Gizeh were due west from Ma'adi, we always saw these giant triangles sharply silhouetted against the red horizon. They looked like little toy tents, yet when alongside them their magnitude staggered us.

The day was so hot that helmets were necessary. Some "went down" under the fierce rays of the sun, but there were some with us who said it was not hot at all. They spoke of the sun-baked Western Plains. They spoke of Bourke. They spoke of Northern Queensland. But they wore helmets, nevertheless.

Yet was Ma'adi, for all its heat, a joy to the senses. If we had the everlasting desert wilderness on one side, we also had the oasis of Ma'adi on the other. The irrigationist has caused the desert hereabout to blossom as the rose, and Ma'adi is like an English village, with gracious gardens and green, luscious fields and rippling canals.

I have spoken of the blue of the desert haze that is like that of the Blue Mountains. And here and there one finds other touches of old Australia. I went out one day to Sir Alexander Baird's beautiful mansion near Zeitoun, and there I saw some fine old gums and wattles; and it just felt like home.

And the people, how kind they all were! Even the shopkeepers did all they could to make us feel at home. "Special Australian Shop," "Australian Soldiers' Rendezvous"-signs like these met us at every turn. Especially grateful did we feel for the warning one Cairo shopkeeper gave us: "Don't go elsewhere to be cheated, Australians. Come here!" Nor shall we ever forget the laborious days and nights which that shopkeeper who put out the sign must have spent in mastering our language-"English and French spoken; Australian understood."

Truth to tell, the Australian soldiers were as a shower of gold to the thirsty Cairo traders. They all loved the Australians. We scattered money far and wide-till we had none left. We threw piastres to the winds-thinking nothing of them, they were such little coins-till we had none left. From morning till night we distributed largess. It was baksheesh everywhere and all the time. Whichever way we turned we found somebody dangling something in front of our eyes-ready to sacrifice it for our sake. Even Trooper Newman, who previously had expressed his best wishes to the ship, comes up to me with a gaudy handkerchief he has just bought for ten piastres. It has King George in one corner, Kitchener in another, French in another, Jellicoe in another, and generals and admirals and dukes and earls all round it. "It may be the only chance I'll get," says he, "of poking my nose into high society."

* * *

ACROSS FORTY CENTURIES-EGYPTIAN MAGIC-A SCARAB SELLER-THE ENEMY REPULSED-THE UBIQUITOUS GERMAN SPY-SPREADING DISAFFECTION-ATTACKS ON KANTARA, TOUSSOUM, ISMAILIA AND SERAPEUM-FIRST BRUSH WITH THE ENEMY.

I am living Egypt, living.... Your pyramids and your mosques and your old Nile can talk to me of things long past and gone, and I shall listen with interest to what they have to say, but I would rather be a living dog of an Egyptian than the dead lion of an Egyptian king-I would rather be a moving, talking native dressed in garish clothes than a Prince of the House of Rameses, sans eyes, sans ears, sans tongue, in the shrivelled brown form of a mummy.

For there is something about these living ones that brings the dead to life. Sometimes when I look into their eyes I seem to see a strange, mysterious light in them-a light that never was on sea or land. It is then that I think of the things these people have seen in the forty centuries of which Napoleon spoke. I don't believe in magic, but I have seen strange things-things that make me remember that the magicians of Pharaoh were able to turn their rods into serpents!

There came one day a very wise Egyptian-one whom I know as a Freemason-and he gave a valuable scarab, mounted in a gold ring, to Major Lynch. There was no doubt that the wise man valued it, and there is no doubt that he left an impression on Major Lynch. It is a talisman and a protection to the owner, but it has deadly powers. Nothing can harm the owner so long as he has it in his possession, and the owner can shrivel up an enemy by merely pointing at him and muttering incantations-just as the Northern Territory natives in Australia can will an enemy to die by pointing a bone at him. Major Lynch lost no time in putting the scarab to the test. There was a very troublesome native who used to bother him several times a day about things that don't matter, and the day after the wise Egyptian had made his presentation the major pointed at the native and muttered a powerful Australian incantation. Since then the native has not been seen.

A dragoman wanted to sell me some scarabs.

"You like fine scarab?"

"No scab here," said I, "all good Unionists."

"Not scab. Scarab-good scarab."

"Oh!"

"Beautiful scarab. Very precious."

"Ah!"

"I buy them for English officer; beautiful scarab. Now he go to Suez Canal. I sell cheap."

"Very cheap?"

"Yes, very cheap. Sell now, lose plenty money, sir."

"How much?"

"Five pounds."

"Ah! Is it really worth five piastres?"

"Piastres! Ach! No, no, no! Five pounds!"

"Five pounds a dozen!"

"No, no, no! Five pounds for one beautiful scarab."

"Ha ha!"

"Not ha! ha! It is three thousand years old! Time of Rameses II."

"Too old. Got any nice new ones?"

"No, no. Not new. Old-very valuable-three thousand years!"

"Too old. Show me a new one."

"You no understand. Very old, very valuable, out of tombs in pyramid."

"Any more there?"

"No more-all gone."

"Oh, well I oughtn't to take them from you."

"Yes, you take. I sell you for five pounds."

"Not me."

"Yes, you. Four pounds!"

"Try again."

"Three pounds ten."

"Once more."

"Two pounds ten. Finish."

"No business; Imshi."

Then the old man went away, muttering angrily in his beard because I would not pay three golden sovereigns for a little stone that looked like a petrified beetle. Even if it had been genuine-even if it was three thousand years old-I would have thought it a shame for him to take the money. But the reputation these "gyppies" have for faking antiquities and curios made me sceptical. In the Cairo Museum are genuine thousand-year-old relics from the tombs and pyramids, and the natives copy them and sell the replicas as the genuine article.

When I was leaving the Museum one afternoon a dragoman shuffled up to me in a mysterious kind of way and thrust an antiquated statuette into my hand. "Five shillings," he whispered hoarsely. He wanted me to think it genuine, and, I suppose, stolen. (Even honest people don't mind being "receivers" when they can get a genuine relic of antiquity cheap.) I examined it with the concentrated gaze of a connoisseur in Egyptology, scratched it with my knife, and then exclaimed, "Bah, rubbish! One piastre." And the old sinner cried, "Yes, yes," and put his hand out eagerly for the money.

And all this time we were "training for the front." We did not know when we were likely to leave for the front, nor what front it would be, but already some of the Australians and New Zealanders had been in a fight. That was before we came. Egypt had been "invaded"; there had been a fight at El Kantara, some prisoners had been taken, and then the invaders turned their heads north and eastward, folding their tents, like the Arabs they are, and silently stealing away. The Great Invasion of which Kaiser Wilhelm had dreamed for months had simply petered out.

I am no historian-I write only of the little things I care about-but I would be no Australian if I failed to mention this invasion which some of the Australians helped to stamp out. It was almost inconceivable that the "thorough-going, methodical" Germans could have started an army of 75,000 men across the desert, sent only 25,000 of them into action, and then decamped. But that is what happened.

Although the Australians and New Zealanders saw but little of the actual fighting, they played no unimportant part in the scheme of things. The seeds of disloyalty and discord had been assiduously sown by German spies and agents all over Egypt. The so-called Nationalist party was intriguing to oust the British and facilitate the entry of the Turks. It was confidently anticipated by the German wire-pullers that the moment the invaders appeared on the Canal the Egyptians and Arabs would rise en masse and drive the British into the sea. Drastic measures were taken months ahead for dealing with the English residents in Cairo and elsewhere. Everything seemed to be going nicely for the plotters. Obvious signs of disaffection were noticed all over Lower Egypt. The British were so few; the German-Arab-Turkish combination was so strong. It only wanted a favourable opportunity to fire the train.

Then the Australians arrived.

There may be a tendency on our part to exaggerate the influence of the Australian and New Zealand troops on the Egyptian situation; but there is not the slightest doubt that the presence of 50,000 Colonial troops had a wonderfully steadying effect on the disaffected natives. They suddenly became loyal again. All talk of sedition ceased. The best-laid schemes of the German plotters went "agley."

One could not help contrasting this large force from Australia and New Zealand-a force that was to be doubled and trebled ere long-with the little force of 500 men which William Bede Dalley, Australian Orator and Patriot, sent from New South Wales to the Sudan just thirty years before. It spoke not only of the wonderful growth in population of Britain's Dominions of the South, but it was a living proof that the years had only served to cement the bonds of love and loyalty that bind the grand old Mother land to her Oversea Dominions. The rising in India, the intention of the Australians to proclaim their independence the moment when Britain found herself in peril-where were they? Where now was the "disintegration" of the British Empire which the German Emperor and his War Lords had so confidently predicted?

With Cairo and the Nile safe, General Wilson was able to deal effectively with the invaders. Towards the latter end of January, Northern Sinai was overrun with them. From a couple of captured Shawishes of the 75th Turkish Regiment I learned that the staff arrangements by the German officers were excellent. Everything had been foreseen and provided for-or nearly everything. Water was available at each stage of the journey across the desert. Many boats and pontoons were dragged by oxen and camels along the caravan route from Kosseima, El Arish, and Nekl. A few six-inch guns were also transported to the Canal. To supplement the Turkish force on its south-westerly march all the pilgrims and Bedouins met with were pressed into service and rifles were given to them.

It was on the morning of January 28 that the initial conflict took place at Kantara. A reconnoitring party from Bir El Dueidar attacked the British outposts but was repulsed, our losses being only one officer and one soldier killed and five Gurkhas wounded. Further south, near Suez, a nocturnal demonstration by the Turks merely served to prove the alertness of the defenders, though unfortunately two of our air scouts met with disaster. Their aeroplane came down outside our lines, and on returning on foot they were both shot dead by our own Indian patrols. The pity of it.

The main attack developed on the night of February 2-3, and a determined effort was made to cross the Canal at several points. A number of boats, each carried by forty men, were silently hurried to the front. A small force attacked Kantara, but after losing twenty-one killed, twenty-five wounded and thirty-six prisoners, they decamped. Later on they renewed the attack from the south, with no more success, for they lost eight men killed, whilst a number were wounded. Our losses were four killed and twenty-four wounded.

Meantime a more vigorous assault was made at Toussoum to pierce the line just before daybreak. An infantry attack was followed by artillery fire, and under cover of the maxims a more determined effort was made to cross the Canal by means of boats, rafts, and pontoons. A shrapnel shell smashed the first boat and killed several Turks. Other boats followed and met with a similar fate-most of their occupants were killed or drowned. Not a single boat crossed. About twenty-five men swam across, however. Four penetrated the lines and escaped to Cairo, where they subsequently surrendered. The rest were captured.

Serapeum was attacked about the same time, and at dawn the battle raged along the Canal for about two and a half miles. H.M.S. Hardinge moved up and down the Canal, responding to the enemy's artillery. Two Turkish shells landed on our warships, and ten men were wounded. For a couple of hours the battle raged, and although the Turks outnumbered the defenders at Toussoum by ten to one, they were repulsed all along the line.

Further north, at Ismailia Ferry, the enemy entrenched 800 yards away, and a battalion of Turkish infantry (entrenched overnight) opened fire. But they did little damage. They blazed away all day, and our casualties were only six men wounded. Then we drove them off.

So the great Germano-Turkish attack resolved itself into simultaneous onslaughts at Kantara, Ismailia, Toussoum and Serapeum; and when all attacks had failed the guns of the British and French cruisers and the shore artillery harried the enemy in their retreat and added considerably to their losses. Our casualties were only about twenty killed and 100 wounded. The invaders lost more than 420 men killed and over 700 prisoners. Their total casualties-killed, wounded, and prisoners-were computed at 3,000.

Yet it was a small thing, after all-a small thing when I look back and think of all that has happened since. But it was the first fight in the Great War that Australians and New Zealanders had a hand in.

We of the Light Horse were not in it. We saw the Turks away on the rim of the desert horizon; but the enemy attacked where we were not. We never fired a shot.

* * *