CHAPTER XIV. The Attack on Beersheba

THE ATTACK ON BEERSHEBA

By the middle of October everything was ready. The railway had been brought forward as far as possible and the army at the gates of Gaza had been largely increased in numbers. That Irish Division which had had such a terrible time during the Serbian retreat in 1915 and the 60th (London) Division, which had fought both in France and Macedonia, had come from Salonica to help. There were now English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh troops on various parts of the front; large numbers of Indian cavalry had also been added to the mounted divisions, and our artillery was at least equal, if not superior, to that of the Turks. Every scrap of transport available had been concentrated for the tremendous task of supplying the army when it began to move forward. Some idea of the magnitude of this task may be gathered from the fact that thirty thousand camels, practically the entire strength of the Camel Transport Corps, were needed for the troops on the right flank alone since they were farthest from railhead. For these it was estimated that at least a week's supply of water would have to be carried, to say nothing of forage and rations, until Beersheba with its water-supply was captured. This was to be the first part of the enterprise, and the whole plan hinged on its success.

Two divisions, one of infantry and the other of dismounted yeomanry--which latter had done so well as infantry that they were rewarded by being further employed as such--were to make for the gap between Beersheba and Sheria and make things unpleasant for the Turks occupying the defences of the former place. The part assigned to the mounted troops was that they should disappear into the desert land south-east of Beersheba and wait there till the time appointed, whereupon they were to perform the outflanking movement which, as has been stated, was utterly unforeseen by the Turks. For the moment we will, if you please, follow the fortunes of the cavalry.

If you have persevered so far with this narrative you will have noticed throughout that the troops had little assistance from Nature in beating the Turks. Here, doubtless relenting, she had with kindly forethought provided two small oases--one about twenty miles from El Chauth, the other ten miles farther away--in the desert where the cavalry was to hide. At both places there was a moderate supply of water, sufficient for a few days at any rate, which was all that was required.

During the night of October 27th, what time the Turks were being severely trounced in an attempt on the branch railway, two columns of cavalry started for these providential hiding-places, following substantially the same route as that taken when the railway between Beersheba and El Auja was blown up. The dust was still there, in greater quantities than ever after six months of drought, and the fond illusion that we had taken most of it on our persons during the railway raid was rudely shattered. Fortunately the Turks were profoundly ignorant of the move, and the two columns reached their respective destinations without discovery. They remained unseen until the night of the 30th, when the long trek northwards began. If you can imagine a mighty column of dust well over ten miles in length, in the midst of which were many thousands of half-suffocated men and horses, you have no need of further words to picture that night's march, which lasted for ten hours.

At dawn all the troops were in their assigned positions. The infantry had marched all night and were to open the performance as soon as it was light enough for the gunners to get on to their targets. At the outset these consisted of the barbed-wire entanglements with which the defences south of Beersheba were surrounded. Unfortunately the light was not too good for accurate shooting, and although most of the wire was destroyed a few patches were left which caused considerable trouble to infantry when they went forward to the assault. Moreover the Turkish--or rather Austrian--artillery fire was very heavy and accurate; they had the range of every spot in the vicinity of their defences, which our own guns found very difficult to locate. Despite the volume of fire the storming-parties pressed on, tearing down the wire with their hands or forcing themselves through it, until at last they got to close quarters with the bayonet. After that nothing could stop them, and by the early afternoon all the defences south of Beersheba had been taken. Also, the artillery by admirable shooting had succeeded in putting the railway out of action: a great feat.

By this time the Turks had received a rude shock from another direction: east-north-east. Our cavalry, having unseen closed the northern exits from the town, suddenly swooped down and seized positions menacing the town from the east. Here some topographical details will be necessary. The only way to approach Beersheba from the desert is by crossing the steep-sided Wadi es Saba--from which the town and a small village near by take their names. On the Beersheba side of the wadi and forming almost a semi-circle round the town is a broad, flat plain commanding which was Tel es Saba, the highest of all the surrounding hills. This had to be captured before any direct attack on the town could be made.

All day long the Australians, on foot, made desperate attempts to carry the hill by storm, but the Turks, well served by their magnificent position, held on stubbornly. Another party of the Australians scrambled across the wadi and made an attempt to cross the plain in face of the appalling fire that was poured into them. They did succeed in capturing Saba village, though the place was a death-trap after it was taken. Just before sunset Tel es Saba succumbed to the incessant hammering it had received all day, and one great obstacle was removed from the path.

But fundamentally we were "no forrader." Although the outlying positions had been taken Beersheba itself was still intact, and its immediate capture was urgently necessary; the whole adventure turned upon it. With the coming of night, the artillery had ceased fire, and of course no further support could be expected from them. The town had to be taken by direct assault with the bayonet; there was nothing else for it. First the wadi had to be crossed, no easy matter, then the plain, which was heavily trenched. The Yeomanry, who had not been needed during the day, were ordered to tackle the job--of course, dismounted. They did actually start from their reserve positions, but they were forestalled. From under the shadow of Tel es Saba a vast cloud of dust was seen sweeping over the moonlit plain. Inside it was the 4th Light Horse Brigade, who, tired of waiting and with their usual cheerful disregard of the conventions, had decided to take the town themselves. Also, having had sufficient fighting on foot during the all-day struggle for Tel es Saba, they determined that the horses should share in the excitement.

So, using as lances their rifles with bayonets fixed, the whole brigade--and any one else with a horse and rifle and bayonet--charged yelling upon the town. Over trenches, rifle-pits and obstacles of all sorts they leapt and burst into Beersheba like a tornado. The Turks were literally paralysed by the audacity of the effort and made a mere travesty of resistance, in comparison with their stubbornness during the day. It was all over in a very short time and Beersheba was ours. The Yeomanry, astonished to find so little resistance, came in at the death in time to help round up the large numbers of prisoners captured by the Australians.

Speaking without the book I should say that this mounted bayonet charge is without parallel in military history. It was at any rate worthy of the best traditions of Australian resourcefulness. Their motto seemed always to be: "If you haven't the right tools for a job, do it with anything that's handy and trust to the luck of the British army to pull you through." A very sound maxim, on the whole, if their headstrong adherence to it did sometimes land them in a tight corner.

It was difficult to realise in the midst of a jostling crowd of soldiers, with guns and all the impedimenta of war in the background, that once on a time old Father Abraham had lived at Beersheba with his family and developed the water-supply for his flocks. Impossible, too, to visualise the past splendours of Beersheba, as became the city on the southern border of Palestine, on the main caravan-route through the Land of Goshen, across the Sinai desert into Egypt, and through which on account of its wells, travellers for countless ages had passed on their leisurely journey south. Nowadays, it is but a collection of exaggerated mud-huts of the usual native type, with the addition of a few modern works and the railway.

Though I saw it frequently enough later on the sight of a railway-station in or near a native village always seemed strangely incongruous. Do not for a moment imagine that by railway-station I mean anything so elaborate as the merest village station at home; except at Kantara even the best and largest of ours did not rise to such heights. The platform, if there was one, was of sleepers piled almost haphazard one upon another with sand shovelled into the interstices and spread over the top. Occasionally cinders were used to form an extra hard surface; but this was a luxury. Unless a stationary train marked its presence the station was very difficult to find at all, for one bit of the railway looks very much like another at a distance. I remember a party of us trying for a long time to find one of these elusive places. We found the railway all right but the only sign of human habitation was a tiny wooden hut, almost invisible against the background of sand, towards which we made our way. A lance-corporal in the R.E. was the sole inmate. "Where's the station, chum?" he was asked. He looked at us suspiciously for a moment.

"Don't come it over me," he said then; "yer standin' on it." And he was right; you could even see the platform if you peered about carefully.

At Beersheba the Turkish station was rather a pretentious affair, all things considered. There were quite a number of adequate buildings, most of them connected with the water-works just outside. The Turks, thanks in the first place to the fine shooting of our artillery, had had no chance of getting their rolling-stock away; and secondly, the spirited dash of the Australians had overwhelmed them before they could destroy any of it. In fact there was a train in the station, fully laden with stores and ready to start for Sheria had it been possible, when the Light Horse burst into the town.

Beersheba that night presented an indescribable spectacle. It is literally impossible to describe it, for every detail was obscured by the immense clouds of dust that hung over the place like a pall, clinging and opaque. The water-works and wells were fortunately intact, but until everything had been carefully tested and examined, the horses, who had drunk nothing since the previous day, had to remain thirsty.

In the morning the town was systematically searched.

There were mines and bombs and infernal-machines everywhere, all obviously made in Germany. The Turk usually limited his nefarious practices to poisoning the wells when he retreated--a sufficiently damnable thing to do, bien entendu. But the Germans despised crude methods of this kind. They were not content with poisoning the water but must needs fix their devilish contraptions so that a man blew himself to pieces in the act of drawing his drink. Many of the wells were mined, but the Germans had slightly overreached themselves either through haste or clumsiness, and all the mines were removed without mishap.

Elsewhere we were not so fortunate. Some of our native camel-drivers saw tins of preserved meat conspicuously lying about without owners. Following the invariable native principle of obtaining something for nothing whenever possible, one or two seized them. It is a melancholy fact that the act was their last in this world, for the tins were simply--potted death. After this men gave a wide berth even to the most innocent-looking objects, though in truth the more innocent a thing looked the more devilish was the contrivance hidden under it. Now observe further the workings of the German mind. In one dug-out there was--of all books--a copy of Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, tattered and dog's-eared by constant use, and a torn piece of--the Sporting Times! Also, hanging on a nail in one of the beams was a German tunic, stretched neatly on a coat-hanger. The dug-out looked very innocent and had quite a domesticated atmosphere; and the unwary, lulled into security by it, might have been tempted casually to reach for the tunic as a trophy. Providentially no one pulled it down until the engineers had inspected the dug-out, and then only from the end of a very long rope. There was little left of the dug-out after the explosion.

What can you make of a mind that can appreciate and enjoy the incomparable beauty of Sesame and Lilies, and yet can conceive so hidden and treacherous a means of destruction? Of course the book might have come fortuitously into the possession of the occupant of the dug-out, might even have been left there and forgotten by some passing British soldier when the place was captured; but the latter at least is unlikely. When inquisitiveness had such dire results no one did much prying until everything had been examined and pronounced safe. But that the wells were safe was the great thing and their importance could hardly be over-estimated.

They must be amongst the oldest in the world. For thirty-seven centuries there has been water at Beersheba, since, in fact, Abraham sank the wells in the neighbourhood, and these have known many vicissitudes. When he died the Philistines came and rendered them all useless by filling them up with sand: a precedent, you will have noticed, much favoured by the Turks, though their methods were more modern. Years after came Isaac and excavated the wells again; whereupon he had to fight with the men of Gerar for the possession of them. Tiring of strife he dug the well at Beersheba which gives the town its name, and this he retained, having made peace with the Philistines. Finally, history repeating itself nearly four thousand years later, British soldiers fought for, and won, these self-same wells, which were substantially in as good condition as when they were first made.

But what had been an ample supply for the flocks of the patriarchs and passing caravans proved inadequate for the needs of the thousands of men and horses and camels thronging into Beersheba. A hundred thousand gallons is a big tax on the capacity of any well, and this is a very moderate estimate of the amount required daily by the troops. From the moment they were pronounced fit for use the watering-places by the station were crowded with thirsty men and animals, and the supply soon decreased alarmingly. To add to the trouble most of the stored water, accumulated previously with such care and labour, was delayed somewhere en route to Beersheba and ultimately had considerable difficulty in reaching the place at all. Meanwhile the "Cameliers," whose mounts could last in fair comfort for a week without water, went off into the parched hills north of Beersheba to perform their usual function of protecting our flank. Then all the mounted troops took the road towards Sheria, so as to be in readiness for the main blow when the transport difficulty had been solved.