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WhineTHE ROMANCE OF
THE LAST CRUSADE

With Allenby to Jerusalem

By
MAJOR VIVIAN GILBERT

With Preface by
OWEN WISTER

 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK.: LONDON : MCMXXVCopyricut, 1923,

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

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Corrricut, 1923, sy WILLIAM B. FEAKINS, Inc.

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Printed in the United States of AmericaProem

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CONTENTS

ONCE UPON) Ao LEME! Gc cre cccicce viel

I THE THEATRE % 5264-4 duslape oer ctes eke
Il PSRANGEY ays oles. fare oh ole oto ieeniels
III Hie) yA KANS# cy ioctereisieles clcnenenere
IV THE DESERT OF SINAI .........
V THE WELLS OF SHERIA ........
VI KISMET &., .6)% Poorer oeiec rye
Vil DAVIDVAND GOLIATH. 72 .<1-1-
VIII THROUGH BIBLE LANDS ........
IX EV MUIMAUS): @ Septic once incre
X THE FIGHT FOR THE HOLY CITY...
XI THE SURRENDER OF JERUSALEM ...
XII WHEN PROPHECIES COME TRUE ..
MT PAR TACTICS ON SAUL ae 56 seo
XIV CROSSING THE JORDAN ........
XG Se SERVICE sees el cle suclere ce ietredel
XVI THE FINAL VICTORY ..........

XVII THE CRUSADER’S TOWER ......-PREFACE

By a chance most fortunate I heard Major Vivian
Gilbert tell the story which he has written here. When
it was done, I was astonished to find that he had been
talking for an hour; time had been quite forgotten, and
I was ready to listen to him for as much longer as he
might have been willing to speak. So have I, by certain
firesides, sat enthralled while others from the Somme,
or the Argonne, or Mesopotamia, made us forget time
while they forgot themselves in narrating what they
had seen and done; but this was in privacy: none have
I heard who could hold an audience in public with a
war tale as Major Gilbert did. Such tales should be
told and should be set down. ‘They serve to remind us
of the greatness in man at a time when his littleness
seems chiefly to the fore. They will serve the future,
too, as documents.

Although printed words cannot convey the skill and
variety of Major Gilbert’s delivery—his easy modula-
tions from something very serious to something very
humorous—his lecture by no means depended upon the

manner in which it was given; the matter from start tofinish was in itself so picturesque, so unusual, so ad-
mirably selected, as to remain vividly in the memory.
No one who heard him is likely to have forgotten the
camels, the prophecy about Jerusalem falling when the
Nile should flow into Palestine, the imperishable
episode of the keys of the city, and many another inci-
dent at which the reader of the following pages will
pause and meditate, as he links this latest crusade with
its predecessors across the centuries through which
the world has passed since the days of Godfrey de
Bouillon and his armored knights. It is a story worth
telling, and well told.

OWEN WISTER.
Philadelphia,TO AMERICAN BOYS

In the belief that reading it

may increase their friendship for England,

who gave so many of her sons to fight
for the freedom of the Holy Land,
this story of a great adventure
is affectionately
dedicatedONCE UPON A TIME

“Sire, anly come hither ann 7 will show
you Jerusalem!’ Chus spake the valtant
knight, Sir Brian de Gurnay.

“Nay,” replied King Richard of Enoglano,
ann he buried his fare tn ht armour, tears
were in his eyes, and with hands uplit to
Geaven he exclaimen: “Hord Gon, ft pray
Ghee that 7 may neuer see Chy Holy Cty,
if sou be that {i may not rescue tt from the
hands of Thine enemies!” Chen mounten
Corn Richard hts horse and rone from that
place which was the Gill of Nebi Sanuutl,
unio Acre, and Sir Brian rone with hun,
but tn the heart of Sir Grian de Gurnay was
the thought of another and a Dast Crusade
that for all time should wrest the holy
laces from the intwel.

of * oS * * +

The book slipped from Brian’s hand and fell
on the mossy turf by his side. He drew a deep
breath: the air tasted faintly of cowslips and

(1)2 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

buttercups growing in luxuriant profusion in
the meadows across the moat.

He stretched himself slowly and lazily, his
straw hat tilted over his eyes. He did not
trouble to put it straight. It was rather pleas-
ant to dream away the hour that remained
before tea would be ready.

The shadow of Ivythorne Manor stole gently
across the old world garden, where the drone of
summer insects, busy amongst the flowers, could
be distinctly heard. The last words he had been
reading still lingered in his memory like the
notes of a favourite song. What wonderful
times to live in, those days of chivalry and
romance, when gallant knights of old adven-
tured forth to free the Holy Land with great
swords by their sides and great faith in their
hearts!

Brian Gurnay was just down from his first
year at Oxford, a typical product of the English
public school; keen on games and sport of all
kinds, and not by any means a fool with his
work. Certainly when he had departed from
Harrow for the last time to become a full-fledged
undergraduate at Oxford University, his house
master had inserted in his final report, “could
have done better had he tried”; but then BrianTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE o

himself would have been the first to agree with
this qualification had he been asked. He knew
he could do better, but somehow it hardly
appeared worth while; why’?—he would have
found it difficult to explain even to himself.
Perhaps it was because there was no need to
do better; an only son, scion of a wealthy county
family, his place in the world was already
mapped out for him, or so it seemed.

There were many boys like Brian in England
in 1914, drifting into manhood with no settled
purpose in life but a vague resentment at the
apparent futility of existence. There is a sec-
tion of the community which, having no profes-
sion or occupation, is forced to make a business
of pleasure, and this often entails the hardest
kind of work in the most exacting and unsatis-
fying trade in the world.

Brian imagined that the unimportant but
large body of people known as ‘“‘the masses” had
been created by an all-wise Providence for the
sole purpose of making things easy for the rich
governing classes. He was not a snob because
there was no need for him to be one; his place in
society was assured, and he was not really con-
ceited; he was too healthy-minded for that.
But he came of a long line of Englishmen who4 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

were accustomed to command, whose authority
had not been questioned for centuries, and, as
there was every reason to believe, never would
be questioned.

He recognised “business men” as necessary
evils; tradesmen kept shops which supplied his
needs; if they failed in this, he patronized others.
I'he people who served one seemed civil and law-
abiding and in most cases very efficient. That
all these people led lives that were as important
to them as his own was to him, he never stopped
to consider for a moment.

When he read stories of the Crusades, as he
had been doing that afternoon, it was the lead-
ers he thought of, and as it appeared, it was the
leaders the authors thought of, too. It was of
course necessary to have “men at arms.” Wars
cannot be fought without the rank and file, but
one noticed that the only mention of them was
when the number of casualties was given. One
read so much of King Richard and the other
kings and nobles, that it was difficult to realise
the common soldiers were Crusaders, too, and
had left their homes to fight in a great cause,
even as the king had.

Brian pictured that historical scene at Nebi
samwil. The king surrounded by his valiantTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE D

knights, bronzed by the eastern sun, scarred and
disfigured, but ennobled, too, by the wounds of
countless brave encounters with the Saracen.
The king had turned away discouraged but Sir
Brian de Gurnay had dreamt of another cru-
sade that would prove finally successful! The
years had passed, crusade after crusade had
been organised, equipped and sent out to over-
come almost unheard-of difficulties, to go
through adventures that made one’s blood race
through one’s veins only to read about—but all
these crusades had failed in their object! That
“Last Crusade” had never taken place.

Brian stretched out his arms in supplication
towards the clear blue sky, and partly in earn-
est, partly with the old words of the medieval
book he had been reading still ringing in his
head, exclaimed: ‘‘To fight in thy cause, to take
part in that Last Crusade I would willingly
leave my bones in the Holy Land! Oh, for the
chance to do as one of these knights of old, to
accomplish one thing in life really worth while!”

Hiven as he uttered the words he realised how
ridiculous it all was to think that such a prayer
could be granted in these prosaic days—July,
1914—-when all the world was at peace and
nothing could be further off than the clash of6 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

arms, the call to battle. Really exciting adven-
tures never took place nowadays; but neverthe-
less, make-believe was rather better than noth-
ing, and in spite of his twenty years, there was
much of the boy still left in him.

“Brian! Brian!”

His mother’s voice, calling him from the
house, penetrated through these day-dreams and
brought him back to the actual things of life.

“All right, mother. Is tea ready?”

Slowly he got up, shook from his clothes the
little particles of moss and grass that clung
there, and picked up his hat that had rolled
away. He was quite ready for tea. Really,
after all, life was not so bad down in this quiet
old backwater.

“Dear little mother,” thought Brian as he
sauntered across the lawn. Her voice always
struck a chord in his inmost being: however
trivial a thing she had to say it seemed impor-
tant when she said it. Sons, whose fathers are
dead, grow very close to their mothers, especially
only sons. It is Nature’s compensation, and he
was not ashamed of his love for her, notwith-
standing that, at that period of his develop-
ment, public school ethics decreed that openly
expressed affection for one’s parent was not
“sood form.”THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE q

Whenever they had been separated for any
length of time the joy he had at meeting again
was always a little clouded by sadness. She was
so frail, so small, and yet somehow so big in all
the things that mattered. At the back of his
mind there was ever the thought: “If I should
lose her?”

When his father had been stricken with ill-
ness he had been tremendously sorry. They
were great pals, and when the malady termi-
nated fatally, Brian felt the loss keenly. And
yet he could not deny that right down within
him was a secret thankfulness that his father
had been taken and not his mother; he was
almost glad for this reason that it was his
father that had died. Some sons are like that.
In mitigation of the loss of his father had been
the ever closer drawing together of his mother
and himself. She depended on him for so much
and was so helpless when he was not by her
side to advise.

This companionship was very dear to Brian
and he wished he did not feel this uneasiness
when he saw her, or heard her voice. It was
as a cloud on the horizon of his inner conscious-
ness that warned him of what some day would
come nearer.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Lady Mary held a copy of The Daily Telegraph
in her hand. She wore a simple dress of some
soft dark material and had thrown a lace scarf
around her shoulders. Framed in the old stone
doorway, the dimness of the hall beyond threw
into relief her snow-white hair, giving it the
semblance of a halo. She was short-sighted, and.
Brian noticed how the light in her eyes grew as
he approached within her vision.

“Such news in the London paper,” she said.
“Come in, Brian, you must read it at once. It
seems there is to be a great war. I can hardly
believe it.”

In a few steps Brian was by her side. “Why,
little mother, what are you talking about?” he
said as he drew nearer. “A great war! Have
you been dreaming, too?”’

He took the paper from her hand. As he
turned to the daylight to read it, she clung to his
arm. He felt her hands tremble a little, and that
awkward, choky feeling come into his throat. It
always did when any little action or look of hers
reminded him of how delicate she was.

The paper was already folded back, and Brian
read the headlines aloud: ‘Russia mobilising.
Danger of clash between France and Germany.
Will England declare war?”THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 9

He did not stop to read more. Something told
him that he had reached the shadowy crossroads
we all meet at some time in our lives. Slowly
he put his arm round his mother and led her
into the hall. In his left hand he still held the
paper, hard and crisp to the touch; with his
other hand he felt the soft, silky lace of her
scarf. How little and bent her shoulders
seemed with his strong young arm about them!

A gentle breeze that had sprung up stole into
the age-worn stone hall, and like some elfin
sprite, shook the tapestries hanging there, faint
needlework pictures of bygone wars. Brian had
prayed for a Last Crusade, to take his place in
some present-day band of warriors fighting for
a great cause.

His appeal had only been partly in earnest.
Was this news in the paper the answer? He
had wanted to break out of the cage which held
him, a cage whose bars were love and solicitude
and peaceful security. Now into this little
sleepy corner of the world the word had come
that Europe was arming—soon England, too,
perhaps.

Strange thoughts began to chase each other
through his brain: he almost fancied the blood10 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

that had come down to him from Sir Brian de
Gurnay was mounting to his head: his eyes
shone and he held his mother to him. Her hand
trembled still, but Brian felt somehow his prayer
was going to be answered, and he was glad.CHAPTER I.

THE THEATRE.

I was an actor playing in New York the sum-
mer of 1914. I stood in Times Square, wedged
in with hundreds of others, that fateful day in
August when the words, “England declares
war,” were flashed on the temporary screen
that faced Broadway. People cheered and hats
were thrown into the air, but I did not cheer
myself. I was up against a problem which for
the moment I could not solve. Here I was, over
three thousand miles from England and under
contract for the American run of the most suc-
cessful play of the season; it all required some
thinking out. One thing was certain, however,
this declaration of war by England meant my
recall and that I must get back home as quickly
as possible.

That night I sat in my dressing-room at the
theatre and smeared grease paint over my face.
I carefully placed the imitation pink carna-
tion in my buttonhole as usual before making
my first entrance on the stage as Alaric in “Peg
o’ My Heart,” but my thoughts were far away

1112 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

in England. Only a few short weeks ago I had
said good-bye to my people with lively anticipa-
tions of a successful theatrical season in Amer-
ica, and in a moment, or so it seemed, the stage,
with its glamour and applause, its rewards and
disappointments, appeared curiously small and
unimportant. I realised that for the first time
in my life, perhaps, the opportunity had come to
do real work in the world, a man’s work! I
could with safety leave the stage to the care of
women and boys and men too old to fight. My
place was back in England. At present, of
course, I was totally unfitted for the task that
fate appeared to have in store for me, but surely
I could learn to be a soldier! I had played mili-
tary parts so often on the stage that I ought
to be able to play one in real life for a change,
and after all, many of my ancestors had been
fighting men. In any case, there was no ques-
tion in what direction both duty and inclination
lay. Why, at the very moment that I was
mechanically going through my performance on
the stage, scores and scores of Englishmen
would be planning just as I was, to hurry back
from all parts of the world to answer the mother
country’s call. What is it, this deep-down love
of country, this patriotism, that makes us all,THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 13

even the least likely, burn with impatience to be
soldiers to defend our native land when it is
menaced? What matters it if wars are made
by financial profiteers and lying statesmen, if
soldiers are deluded with false battle cries to
fight for a country “fit for heroes to live in,”
only to return to it, those that are left, to die of
starvation and want, forgotten by the people
they went forth to save? Why is it that these
strange messages for help, despatched by no
human agency, unerringly reach each one of our
hearts and always will do so, please God! and
be correctly deciphered there, so that almost
before our conscious minds are apprised of the
contents, the answer is being prepared?

It is not a lust to kill that makes us into sol-
diers. I have read so-called war books that
created the impression that in the heat of battle
all men “see red;” personally I never met or
heard a single authentic case of a soldier who
ever “saw red” during the whole campaign.
My own experience has been that soldiers them-
selves are hardly so blood-thirsty as the people
who send them out to fight. No soldier in the
war could have done half the gruesome and vin-
dictive things that I overheard two dear old
ladies in Bournemouth planning to do to the14 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

German emperor if ever they were fortunate
enough to get their hands on him. The most
hair-raising story of the Great War I ever read
was contained in the letter home of my company
cook, written two days after we first arrived
in France. I was the officer responsible for cen-
soring the men’s correspondence, and I well
remember sitting enthralled in my wooden hut
in Havre reading of all the wonderful adven-
tures and narrow escapes this gallant cook of
mine had already gone through. I imagine most
of the blood-curdling books that appeared soon
after the war were penned by individuals whose
entire army careers had been passed well behind
the lines, dishing out cups of tea or packets of
cigarettes to wounded Tommies in Y. M. C. A.
huts. A regiment of men who “saw red”
directly an engagement commenced would be
practically useless in modern warfare where
clear heads and rigid discipline are essential to
success.

But, to return to my own story, eventually I
got my manager to release me from my engage-
ment in “Peg o’ My Heart” and I returned to
England. I applied to the War Office for a com-
mission, and because I had seven brothers who
were already officers in the navy and the army,THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 15

they made me an Officer, also. I imagine the
clerk, whose duty it was to appoint second
lieutenants to the new armies, was getting
accustomed to making them out of Gilberts.

I was granted two weeks’ leave, at the end of
which period I was directed to report “forth-
with” at an officers’ training camp in the south
of England.

[ spent this fortnight in getting my uniform
made, being photographed in it, and growing a
moustache. My theatrical training stood me in
good stead in helping me to cultivate the kind of
moustache suitable for a second lieutenant. I
did not make the mistake that some temporary
officers made, of growing the type of moustache
usually worn by a sergeant-major or a field
marshal.

Surprise is sometimes expressed that actors
should have turned out efficient officers. The
free Bohemian life of the stage would hardly
seem the best preparation for the strict disci-
pline of army life, and yet it was this very theat-
rical training that caused actors to obtain rapid
promotion. I think the reason for this is that
actors, on obtaining a commission, took it just as
they would have taken a fresh part to study.
They knew the “make-up” required, they were16 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

conversant, from practice in a score of parts,
with the speech and all the little tricks that go
to the composition of a typical subaltern. Then,
their experience in appearing before large bodies
of people and using their voices correctly gave
them confidence for the ordeal of the first day
on the parade ground. They were used to pro-
jecting their personalities, they commenced by
acting as officers, and very shortly their parts
became real.

As I have said, I had been directed by the War
Office to report at Fort Purbrook, Portsmouth.
It was my first acquaintance with the army term
“forthwith,” and I was duly impressed, so much
so in fact, that I caught the earliest possible
train out of London for Portsmouth—that ls,
of course, the first train with a dining car
attached. I felt that the War Office would
hardly expect me to proceed without my lunch,
however anxiously they might be looking for-
ward to my co-operation in the Great War.

As I settled myself comfortably in a corner
seat, I gave a casual glance at my moustache,
reflected in the carriage window. Really it had
come on remarkably well these last few days.
As I explained to my mother, if one looked at it
sideways in a fairly strong northern light, itTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 17

appeared quite thick in places. My mother is a
little short-sighted, and although she was full
of praise and admiration, I felt she had not
appreciated it quite as much as one with keener
sight might have done.

I picked up a magazine and started to read
but soon threw it down again. I found it diffi-
cult to concentrate on weak fiction at a time
when world history was in the making and, it is
rather a curious thing, this disinclination to
read remained with me throughout the war in
spite of the fact that in an ordinary way I am
extremely fond of books of all kinds.

I was rapidly getting used to my uniform and
Sam Browne belt, although it had only been
returned from my tailor’s the morning before.
Indeed, half an hour after I had first tried it on
I was lunching at the United Service Club in
Pall Mall with my eldest brother, a commander
in the Royal Navy. We sat at a small table in
the long dining-room and enjoyed a very excel-
lent spread—this was, of course, in the early
days of the war, for, later, things were very dif-
ferent. My attention was attracted after a
while by the entrance of a tall officer in uniform
who proceeded to seat himself at the table next
to ours. To my horror and amazement I saw18 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

it was Lord Kitchener! The great field marshal
and myself were the only army officers in the
room, and / had only been an officer for a few
minutes! What should I do? Surely I ought
to do something! A second lieutenant could
hardly continue eating salmon mayonnaise
whilst the Secretary of State for War, Earl
Kitchener of Khartoum, sat before an empty
plate within arm’s reach. I remember thinking
to myself, “This is an absurd situation; here am
I, the most junior officer in the whole world at
the present moment, seated next to the head of
the British army. I am sure I ought to stand up,
offer him my salmon, or retire from the room
with humble apologies for ever having dared to
appear there.” Thank goodness! at this moment
my brother suggested a move to the smoking-
room for coffee. As I walked down the stately
dining hall I felt the great field marshal’s eyes
were upon me, boring through my back. The
painted generals, and admirals, too, in their
gilded frames hanging on the walls, seemed to
be glaring as though to say, “‘Why the devil don’t
you do the correct thing? You are an officer, a
junior officer, a very junior officer! Don’t you
know what to do in the presence of a field mar-
shal?” A glass of port steadied my nerves some-THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 19

what, but I was not sorry when my brother sud-
denly remarked in the middle of an anecdote that
he had to be back at the Admiralty in five min-
utes. We parted on the steps of the club and I
returned to the Savoy Hotel half expecting a
telephone message from the War Office to say
that the Secretary of State for War had decided
to cancel my commission.

However, all these things had taken place yes-
terday; to-day I was still a full-blown second
lieutenant travelling on my first free army war-
rant. It was all rather thrilling!

Evening had arrived when the taxi I luekily
secured at Portsmouth Town Station deposited
me, together with an enormous pile of camp kit
and private baggage, at the gates of the great
red brick fortress on the Cosham Hills. Fort
Purbrook was erected many years ago, one of a
chain of fortresses along the southern coast of
England, built to repel the threatened invasion
of Great Britain by Napoleon and his army.
Much water had passed under London Bridge
since those days, and these same fortresses were
now being employed as training centres for
officers and men to fit them to take their places
beside the gallant poilu in his defence of France.
I soon fixed up my collapsible bed in the long20 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

army hut which it appeared I was to share with
thirteen other officers. The numerous small
articles of kit I had bought from the persuasive
salesman in London because he assured me no
officer should be without them, things such as
patent periscopes, trench shaving tackle, ciga-
rette lighters, compasses, map cases, daggers
and flasks, caused quite an appreciable amount
of amusement to the more seasoned subalterns
who watched me unpack. One bright boy
remarked that if I succeeded in hanging all the
things I had purchased for my equipment [|
should look like a Christmas tree. I turned in
between the blankets I had just arranged on
my bed. It was the first time in my life I had
ever slept without sheets and was soon bliss-
fully unconscious of the outside world; a few
moments afterwards, or so it seemed to me, I
was awakened by the ear-piercing screech of a
bugle blown by some man just outside my hut
apparently giving his own version of “reveille.”
Breakfast over, we drew rifles from the quar-
termaster’s stores, and proceeded to the parade
ground, about two hundred of us, where we were
quickly fallen in by the sergeant-major, two deep
in line.
General routine orders were read by theTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 21

adjutant. They consisted of a detailed list of all
the things one could not do. It appeared that the
only things an officer could do at Fort Purbrook
was to remain in camp, attend all parades, and
pass all examinations.

Colonel Slater, the commandant, then arrived
on the parade ground. He was a smart old fel-
low, with a fierce white moustache, a red face
and a very straight back. He was a type that
was very prevalent at the commencement of the
war—retired on half pay and completely for-
gotten by the Service in which he had once
been an active member. These ex-officers came
into prominence almost immediately war was
declared and offered themselves for re-employ-
ment. In almost every case they were given
appointments, either in command of reserve bat-
talions or as commandants of schools and rest
camps. They did good work, too, at a time
when their services were urgently needed in the
formation of new units. Later in the war they
were referred to as “Old Dug-outs’ and
scrapped in order to provide easy jobs for officers
with influence and a disinclination for the dis-
comforts and danger of the trenches in France.

Colonel Slater had been living on the retired
pay of a major for some years in a smallrvilla in22 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Cheltenham. He volunteered for active service
in Flanders, was refused on account of age, and
appointed to the command of Purbrook Training
School. The war rejuvenated him and he was
given the rank of lieutenant-colonel. After
cleaning his own boots for years, he had a whole
battalion to clean them if necessary. After
existing on a few shillings a week pocket money
allowed him by his wife, he found himself with
the full pay and allowances of a colonel. From
being second in command to Mrs. Slater, he
became commanding officer of about twelve hun-
dred officers and men. The government supplied
him with a motor car and he had two riding
horses for his personal use.

He was a man of commanding presence and
of terrifying aspect; he twirled his moustache
fiercely, and cleared his throat with a growling
sound. He cast his eyes along the front rank of
the officers and for some unknown reason they
came to rest on me! He beckoned me to
approach. My heart was in my mouth as I
advanced as smartly as possible. I had only
been in the army a few hours, my rifle shook, and
I could feel the perspiration between my palm
and the butt. I flatter myself I did know how to
salute correctly. I had had quite a lot of salutingTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 23

to do in “The Second in Command,” a play pro-
duced by Cyril Maude some years ago, and then
[ had practised with a walking stick for a rifle in
front of the looking-glass before leaving home.

At last the colonel spoke. “Look here, my
boy,” he said, “I want you to give these fellows
some drill, just move ’em about a bit!”

I was horrified! My heart sank to my boots,
a cold feeling of despair seized me. Was my
career in the army, which had started so
brightly, doomed to disaster on its very thresh-
old? Whatever I did I knew would expose my
utter ignorance of all military training. Should
I be court-martialled and dismissed from the
army in disgrace, I wondered, or just drummed
out as an imposter in the ordinary way? Beads
of moisture began to gather on my forehead and
steal under the peak of my cap, dropping with
little splashes on the gravel parade ground in
front of me. In the few seconds I stood there
portions of my past life passed in review before
me, as before a drowning man. I remembered
some lines I had spoken in a military melodrama
in the old days on tour, a play called, “Slaves of
Passion,” in which I had played the hero. I
recalled one of the scenes—it was the first act,
the stage was empty; outside could be heard the24 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

tramping of an army, the theater orchestra was
playing a stirring march while the crunch!
erunch! of the army became louder, the six
supers and two stage hands marking time most
impressively; and then had come my cue—as
Captain Philip Lestrange I shouted out some
orders to my men, and then, as the music swelled
in triumph, I dashed on to the stage. My
entrance had always gone extremely well, even
with the smallest houses.

These words of command, spoken so long ago,
came back to me in my hour of need. It was
worth trying, anything was better than stand-
ing tongue tied as I was doing now.

I drew a deep breath, I gazed at where the
officers stood, their faces blurred and far away,
and with all my voice I shouted: “Troops quick
march, shoulder arms, right about turn, dis-
MISS?’

*f “k *K * “it a *

After a certain amount of confusion the ser-
geants succeeded in getting the officers together
again and then the colonel spoke to me. I had
shot my bolt, I experienced a feeling of relief,
his voice no longer had the power to frighten me.

“You appear to have plenty of voice,” he said,
“but I don’t quite understand your words of com-THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 29

mand. ‘Shoulder arms’ is only used in rifle regi-
ments, and ‘right about turn’ was abolished
when you were still a child—how do you explain
AG:

“Well, sir,” I replied in a very small voice,
“you see, I am an actor; on the stage we always
say ‘shoulder arms,’ and ‘right about turn’ is
considered quite the correct thing by the best
stage directors.”

“An actor, are you?” queried the colonel.
‘“That’s most interesting. You must come to tea
and meet my wife. She will be delighted to make
your acquaintance. As a matter of fact she has
just written a play!”

“Thank you, sir,” I replied and I returned to
my place in the ranks; evidently my late profes-
sion was going to be more of a help than a hin.
drance to my career in the army.

Two days later I called at Colonel Slater’s
house in Southsea. Mrs. Slater, a lady of ample
proportions, received me very graciously. She
wanted to read me her play before tea, but I per-
suaded her to read it to me afterwards. Tea was
over very quickly, but the play took rather a long
time. After careful consideration, I told her
that in my opinion she had written a tragedy
that was remarkable and unusual; having fifty26 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

speaking parts might add to the expense of pro-
duction, and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in
the last act would certainly take a certain
amount of staging, but provided a manager of
sufficient wealth and understanding could be
found—and there were such—there was no
doubt in my mind that the whole thing would be
a brilliant success.

Two weeks later I was the proud possessor of
a certificate signed by the colonel himself stating
“Second Lieutenant V. Gilbert is capable of
commanding a platoon in the field.”CHAPTER II.
FRANCE.

I stood knee deep in the bracken on Cosham
Hills the day I received my certificate from the
colonel and looked out over the turquoise blue
waters of the Solent towards the “Isle of
Wight.” To me it was an island of happy mem-
ories. I had spent many wonderful holidays
there as a boy when I was at the Royal Naval
Academy in Southsea.

In the stillness and drowsy peace of the sum-
mer afternoon I fancied I could hear the faint
rumbling of the mighty guns in France. Did I
really hear them, or was it the blood from my
heart pounding away inside?

It was about this time that many people, when
they were alone, and especially in the silences of
the night, fancied they heard the guns; but those
that did so, I noticed, invariably had relatives
they were anxious about or men they loved, fight-
ing for them “out there.”

I registered a vow that I would yet prove
worthy of the honour Colonel Slater had
bestowed upon me, and which I could not help

Df28 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

feeling I had obtained more by diplomacy and a
certain knowledge of the fair sex than by sheer
military efficiency.

The days passed very quickly at Fort Pur-
brook. Civilians had to be made into soldiers in
less than six weeks, and it was difficult to realise,
when the officers’ training course at length
broke up, that I had been there over a month.
We were despatched to join regiments through-
out the length and breadth of the British Isles.
My unit, the 7th Battalion of the Dorsets, was
stationed at Bovington, just outside Bourne-
mouth, so I had not far to go.

I was sorry to say good-bye to the friends I had
made in Portsmouth. There is always a peculiar
sadness about the ending of an association of any
kind. I think comradeship was one of the finest
lessons taught by the Great War, and one of the
things that demobilised officers and men felt the
loss of very keenly when the new armies were
finally disbanded. It was the amalgamation of
men of all classes in a common cause, sharing the
same dangers, taking part in the same pleasures.
It brought about a levelling up and a wearing
away of the rough corners. It gave to those not
previously brought so intimately in contact with
their fellow-men, a wider understanding and aTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 29

deeper comprehension that ought to be of invalu-
able help in settling the disputes and the mis-
understandings bound to arise from time to time
between different classes of the community.

The camp of the reserve brigade, to which I
now reported for duty, was on the Dorsetshire
Downs. Quaint winding country lanes ran
down to the sea at Lulworth Cove. Week-end
leave to Bournemouth, the nearest large town,
was fairly easy to obtain. The station for the
brigade, however, was at Wool, some four miles
distant. Ramshackle old dog carts, almost fall-
ing to pieces, dragged by aged horses whose har-
ness mainly consisted of knotted pieces of string,
conveyed the officers to and from Wool Station.
The entire cost of these “‘turn-outs’” was more
than repaid each week in fares netted by the
patriotic villagers, happy in the consciousness of
“doing their bit,” and incidentally doing every-
one else as well.

Great excitement in the camp was caused one
day on news being received that the 7th Reserve
Battalion would be inspected by a general from
headquarters, but everything passed off satisfac-
torily. The general turned out to be a delightful
old gentleman of about sixty-five years of age,
who observed, on seeing a range-taking class at30 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

work registering distances with a one man
range-finder, “Ah, so that’s the Lewis gun we’ve
heard so much about, is it?”

After that it was impossible to take him really
seriously. He had an excellent tea in the officers’
mess, and everyone had grown quite fond of him
by the time he departed in a government Rolls-
Royce motorcar for Weymouth to carry out fur-
ther inspections.

After four months at Bovington camp I
applied for a transfer to the machine gun corps
then being formed in the Midlands. I was very
anxious to get out to France. Machine gunners
were urgently needed, and this seemed the best
way of achieving my object. Machine gun offi-
cers were to have horses, too, which was an
added inducement. The application was favour-
ably considered, and in November I departed for
Grantham.

The machine gun training centre, in spite of
its imposing title, consisted at this time of a large
number of tumble-down huts, with broken win-
dows, no arrangements for heating and was half
buried in a sea of mud. Thousands of officers
and men had been dumped there with very little
preparation for their comfort, or even for the
supply of the necessities of existence.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE ol

I was delighted, however, to find that a friend
of mine from Portsmouth, who had also applied
for a transfer from his regiment in the north,
was to be in the same machine gun company as
myself. Captain Oxenham, the officer in com-
mand, had already seen active service in the dis-
astrous affair at Loos.

The first parade of the company was also my
first experience of close contact with the “rank
and file,’ all my service up to this time having
been spent in officers’ classes.

Captain Oxenham gave me command of a
Section, which consisted of thirty-two non-com-
missioned officers and men, and four machine
guns.

The sub-section sergeant called the men to
attention as I advanced to carry out my inspec-
tion. I wondered if they would notice how nher-
vous I was. I knew the correct detail for an
inspection, of course, as laid down in the military
text books, but practice is very different from
theory, as one rapidly finds out in the army. I
was painfully aware that my face was flushed,
and my walk somewhat lacking in that easy
confidence I felt was required for the task
before me.

I strolled round the ranks in approved fashion,OL THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

however, closely followed by Sergeant Parsons,
looking carefully at each man. It was rather
wonderful to feel that all these fellows standing
so rigidly to attention had been placed in my
charge. For weal or woe they were my men, I
was their commanding officer, their master!
Any orders I might give they would have to obey.
I noticed the throbbing of a pulse in one boy’s
throat, poor chap, perhaps he was nervous, too.
Another had the bluest eyes I had ever seen 1n
aman; some looked rather tough characters, and
there was one youngster who had a perpetual
smile playing round the corners of his mouth. I
felt that it was hardly the correct thing to have
a smile, even a small one, when one was being
inspected by an officer, but I did not say any-
thing.

The ordeal over, I gave the necessary orders
to move off—another thrill as they marched
away to my word of command—my men! my
section! It was really rather splendid!

In those few moments taken up as the little
column disappeared across the parade ground,
I experienced, as I leisurely followed in its wake,
the fascination and pride of command. It is
something all officers eventually learn.

I never forgot that day with my section; it
Was my first real taste of power.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE a0

As the days passed I began to know my men
individually. On Friday there was a kit inspec-
tion: all the men’s clothes and belongings were
laid out in neat rows beside their huts, even to
toothbrushes and cakes of soap. Now and then
I would tell a man to hand me a shirt, an under-
vest, or an odd boot or so, to see if they needed
exchanging or repair; it seemed to bring us on
intimate terms at once. Nothing was hidden
from me. In their kit bags were their keepsakes
from home, little bundles of letters, photographs
and mascots, and these were placed separately
from the clothing and equipment, but an officer
had the right to see everything.

It struck me that a second lieutenant is rather
like the combination of father and mother to a
large family. It is a position of big responsi-
bility, but tremendously fascinating, too. Brit-
ish Tommies are very like children anyhow,
irresponsible, easily pleased, easily discouraged,
very sensitive to ridicule, very quick to repay
kindness and understanding with devotion and,
underneath it all, extremely simple and likeable.

Soon the men of the section got in the way of
coming to me with all their troubles, confident in
my wisdom, believing my advice would be inval-
uable in elucidating the little problems they set
me to solve.o4 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

 

In those early days one of the proudest
moments I experienced was when my section ser-
geant, James Parsons, a great big fellow of about
thirty years of age, who knew his drill, | must
confess, a great deal better than I did, and of
whom I was secretly rather in awe, feeling that
the sergeant must see through my inexperience
in military matters, came to me and, after ask-
ing permission to speak, said:

“T’ve had a little trouble with my wife, sir.
It’s with reference to ’er mother, a mischief-
maker if ever there was one. I’ve got a letter
here from the missus, sir, that I’d like to have
your advice on before I write back. I don’t want
to act hasty like.”

Until this moment Sergeant Parsons and
myself had seemed rather far apart, but then
the sergeant’s suggestions, although invariably
given in a respectful and correct manner, had
very often seemed to infer a lack of military
knowledge in his officer. For instance, on one
occasion I had chosen a piece of ground from
which to give illustrations of ‘Fire Orders,” and
Parsons came up, saluted smartly, and said,
“Excuse me, sir, but the hill to the right has a
very good field of view if you would care to see
it,” implying, as I felt, that the place I had care-THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE oo

fully picked out had not a good field of view and
was in fact perfectly useless for the purpose for
which I had selected it. This feeling was
accentuated after an inspection of the sergeant’s
choice which was undoubtedly superior to my
own, and from which position the “Fire Orders”
were given by me in the end.

But now the sergeant had capitulated and, by
asking my advice on a delicate matter, had
acknowledged my superiority, a point until then
somewhat in doubt.

I read Mrs. Parsons’ letter. I considered the
matter carefully from all possible angles; it
would not do to give any hurried decision on such
an important matter. I flatter myself my advice
was sound, but in any case Sergeant Parsons was
very grateful and apparently decided then and
there to do as I suggested.

After this little incident I felt that at last the
section was really and truly mine. It was very
nice, too, on meeting the sergeant in a morning
to say:

“Hello! Sergeant Parsons. Have you heard
from your wife lately? How is Mrs. Mudge
behaving?”

It gave us a common interest on which to meet,
and from that moment Parsons became the will-36 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

ing and admiring second-in-command of what I
honestly believe was the best and most efficient
section in Grantham.

A machine gun company is one of the smallest
independent commands in the army. Officers
and men are thrown together more than in any
other branch of the service. The “esprit de
corps’ and friendly rivalry of sections all make
for efficiency, and the individual initiative of
each man in a gun team is developed to a sur-
prising degree.

I threw my whole heart and soul into my work.
poldiering is a fascinating occupation in war
time, and if I was somewhat of a dreamer still,
I was also fully conscious that knowledge and
plenty of hard work are ee before most
dreams come true. As a small boy = had been
tremendously romantic, and although romance

Or} i

is difficult when you have a uaa head and a
healthy appetite, as I have always had, still it
was the romance and adventure of the stage that
attracted me to become an actor. How was I to
know what ordinary and respectable citizens
actors usually are?

It was the romance of the war that was driv-
ing me on to become efficient enough to be sent
“overseas.” I wanted to deceive myself, ITHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 37

wanted to believe that we were all knights dedi-
cating our lives to a great cause, training our-
selves to aid France, to free Belgium, to crush
Prussianism, and make the whole world a better
place to live in. What did it matter if we wore
drab khaki instead of suits of glittering armour?
The spirit of the Crusaders was in all these men
of mine who worked so cheerfully to prepare for
the great adventure! And even if they wore
ugly little peak caps instead of helmets with
waving plumes, was not their courage just as
great, their idealism just as fine, as that of the
knights of old who had set out with such daunt-
less faith under the leadership of Richard the
Lion Hearted to free the Holy Land?

Just when we had given up all hopes of ever
getting out to the front the orders for France
came. I was promoted to second-in-command of
the 180th Machine Gun Company and had to
hand over my section to Lieutenant Lamb. As I
turned away towards the orderly room after the
little ceremony had taken place, Sergeant Par-
sons called for “Three cheers for Lieutenant
Gilbert!” The men responded with a will, their
voices echoing across the parade ground. It was
the sweetest music I had ever heard, better than
the favourable applause on the first night of a38 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

new play. I felt a lump rise in my throat. It
was worth months and months of work to earn
the affection of such splendid fellows.

The few days that remained to us before
entraining for Southampton, en route to France,
passed rapidly, and one evening the company,
complete in every detail, with mules and wagons,
cook’s cart and water cart, marched away down
the country lanes to the station. It was sum-
mer again and the night air brought out the
smell of the hedges and the cut grass and clover
lying in the fields.

As second-in-command I rode in rear of the
company. The men sang as they marched
along, “It’s a long way to Tipperary.” If they
could have seen into the future then, what would
have been their song I wonder? The shell-strewn
roads of France, the mountain paths of Mace-
donia, the burning sands of Egypt, the plains of
Philistia, the rocky hills outside the city of Jeru-
salem, and the Valley of the Jordan, thirteen
hundred feet below the level of the sea! In all
these places many of us were fated to march in
the years to come.

I confess I did not feel like singing myself. I
could not help thinking: “How many of these
boys, so full of life and the joy of living, will everTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE a9

return safely to England? How many will be
disfigured and broken in health, and how many
wooden crosses in distant lands will mark the
graves of others?” |

But now their song had changed. They were
singing, “As your hair grows whiter I will love
you more.” Voices became hushed; many were
thinking of their mothers, others of their wives
and sweethearts; I was thinking of my own
mother in the dear old manor house at home, her
hair was already almost white, and I could never
love her more than I did now. Poor little mother!
and poor mothers of all those boys of mine on the
threshold of the Great Adventure !—the years to
come would be full of anxiety and sorrow for
them. It is the ones that are left behind who
suffer, not those who go out to fight.

On board the train at last, tearing through
sleeping England. Some of the men were sing-
ing still, but their voices had become drowsy and
only fragments of song were heard. The mules
and horses were kicking away in their boxes, the
engine now and then letting off a wailing shriek
like some poor wounded creature.

I was feeling just a little disillusioned; it was
the natural reaction after all the excitement and
preparations for the move. And then this travel-40 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

ling at night—always at night, as though one
were ashamed of light!

Southampton at dawn. The company looked
tired and jaded. Animals had to be watered,
rations to be drawn, nominal rolls prepared,
embarkation staff officers to be interviewed—
awkward fellows these and difficult to satisfy.

And so the day slipped by; then night again,
and the crowded troop ship steals across the
channel, silently, darkly, mysteriously.

Havre at last. France! Again the thrill of
the Great Adventure came back to everyone.
Troops crowded the deck, peering at the silent
wharfs slowly becoming distinct in the raw
morning light. A slow drizzle descended; the
piers looked damp and desolate.

“Ah, see, there’s a Tommy over there standing
on that pontoon.”

Immediately hundreds of voices shout in
chorus:

“Are we down’earted? No-o-0-0!’’

“But you damn soon will be!” shouted back the
khaki watcher on the shore.

And that was our welcome to France!

The disembarkation of troops is always a slow
process, hindered by the absence of the staff offi-
cer in charge who is invariably having a mealTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE Al

when a ship docks. He eventually turns up in a
very bad temper and immediately asks for all
sorts of impossible things, such as unbelievable
quantities of nominal rolls, the religious per-
suasion of all troops on board, etc., etc. Satisfied
at last with these, he then stumps the O. C.
troops by asking if all men are inoculated, and
if so, how many times? Should an answer be
forthcoming he then quietly inquires what is the
exact weight of all baggage and stores?

The hours drag on, but finally we are all
deposited on the quay and the officers and men
given a hot meal. One soon finds out the value
of a hot meal on active service; if stew is
not possible, tea makes quite a good substitute—
but something hot it must be. A tired soldier
will forgive almost everything but a cold meal.

You learn things very rapidly in the army;
for instance, a rest camp is about the last place
in the world where you can get arest. Parades
and inspections, and change of quarters take
place all the time, and officers and men are wor-
ried and harassed from pillar to post by petty
restrictions and red tape. An “off” day is
usually taken up with inoculations.

We spent three days in Havre rest camp, and
were all extremely glad to be on the move again
for ‘‘somewhere in France.”42 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

The night before departure, members of my
company were invited to the camp theatre, where
a performance was being given by one of those
companies organised by public-spirited mana-
gers, made up of actors and actresses “doing
their bit” and having a good time behind the
firing line. But it appeared to be more or less a
private affair for the local staff, and the intru-
sion of the machine gun officers in the good seats
was resented by the commandant of the camp
and his friends, so we did not particularly enjoy
ourselves. As a friend of mine, who was stand-
ing with me at the back of the tent, whispered
just before the curtain went up, “‘the only keen-
ness for the front these Staff Johnnies seem to
have is for the front row of the stalls.”

As our troop train crawled through France,
the men threw their tins of bully beef and bis-
cuits to little bands of child bandits, stationed at
different strategic positions along the track, call-
ing out with monotonous but shrill childish
insistence, “Tommy give bully beef—biscuits?”
It was thus that a large quantity of corned beef
and pounds of army biscuit went astray, and
many soldiers that night retired supperless to
bed.

At last our train arrived at rail head; gunsTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 43

could be heard thundering in the distance, planes
were humming overhead. The 60th (London)
Division, to which we were attached as the 180th
Machine Gun Company, was concentrating at
Acq, a small village behind the lines at Vimy
Ridge.

I rode on in advance of the company to arrange
the billets and practice some of my French on the
friendly natives.

For a whole week we remained “at rest,”
during which time all officers and section ser-
geants visited the trenches for instruction in
trench routine.

Who has not experienced or read of the
trenches in France? The mud, the flies and the
stench, and death forever waiting round the next
traverse! And, worst of all, the dreary monot-
ony of inaction, the crushing out of individual-
ism and the fatalistic anticipation of conflict!
I had come out from England prepared to fight,
eager to do my share, but somehow this did not
seem like real fighting; never to see one’s oppo-
nent; to stand for hours with liquid mud up to
one’s thighs—for the heavy shelling brought con-
stant rain; to fire machine guns at unseen tar-
gets for pre-arranged periods throughout the
night on elevations worked out with map, com-44 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

pass and clinometer; and then if one did have
any time to oneself, to spend it like a rat in a
deep, damp dugout. It was so unlike all my pre-
conceived notions of warfare. I could under-
stand at last why it was that officers returning
from the front to the machine gun training
center at Grantham had had so little to say.
There was so little one could say: it was all unut-
terably beastly—it wasn’t fighting, it wasn’t
fair play, it was just slaughter!

A few days after we had taken up our posi-
tions, the enemy sent over poisoned gas. We all
expected an attack, too, but it did not materialise.
It was probably the Hun’s experiment with a
new formula.

I was at company headquarters in Neuville St.
Vaast when some of the gassed men were
brought in. A few had been in my old section;
they were very badly gassed, and two died.
The others lived, but I think had I been in
their places, I would have wished to die, too. The
effect of this particular kind of gas was sufioca-
tion and a gradual growth of ulcers in the lungs.
I visited the injured men in the hospital before
they left for home. One of them, Private Ben-
net, had had an excellent baritone voice. It was
he who led the singing on the march from theTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE A5

 

camp at Grantham—he would never sing again.

For six months we remained in the line. We
had rather a bad time and our casualties’ were
heavy, but our losses were quickly made good by
reinforcements from England; and then, in
November, orders came for us to march south to
Abbeville for intensive training before the divi-
sion was thrown into the Somme maelstrom. I
wrote a long letter home telling my mother I was
well behind the firing line and perfectly safe—
and I made my will! I got a fellow officer and
the company sergeant-major to witness it. Ser-
geant-Major Borer was an old soldier who had
obviously not had much experience with wills.
He informed me that in his opinion he ought to
read my last testament before affixing his signa-
ture to it. I assured him that it was not neces-
sary, and he replied rather stiffly: “Well, sir, as
an officer [ll take your word for it, but I have
known of cases of men being charged for small
kit they hadn’t had, all on account of putting
their names to papers they hadn’t read.”

One thing I learned to appreciate in the army
was the English soldier’s sense of humour, and
particularly that of the cockney Tommy. I have
often had friendly arguments in America with
Americans who insisted that the English pos-46 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

sessed no sense of humour whatever. Why, I
have seen English soldiers die with jests on their
lips and brave smiles on their faces—they were
such a cheery crowd, those London boys!

There was one little incident that occurred
during an advance. We were creeping forward
from one shell hole to another through liquid
fields of mud. The enemy had put down a bar-
rage which was rapidly thinning us out. As we
crawled forward we met the remnants of a bat-
talion that had just been relieved by fresh troops.
The poor fellows had been badly cut up. Sud-
denly one of my men called out in shrill cockney
dialect, “I say, boys! you ’aven’t seen a girl on a
bicycle round ’ere, ’ave you?” Faces lit up at
once all along the line and, I am sure, that one
touch of humour gave us renewed courage to
push on to our objective.

Then there is a story told of an English officer
who was mortally wounded in the Loos affair.
His shattered body was gently placed on a
stretcher. The bearers slowly and carefully
raised it to their shoulders and were about to
move off when the officer looked over the side,
and with a twisted smile said, “Home, James!”’
Before they reached the dressing station he had
gone.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE AT

Shall we ever forget Bairnsfather’s ‘Ole Bill’
and “Bert” and “Alf,”’ whose cheery faces have
looked down from the walls of a thousand “dug-
outs’?

Certainly our English sense of humour came
out more during the war than at any other time
in our history; perhaps it was because it was
then that we needed it most!

The day we arrived in the Abbeville district
my soldier servant went sick and was evacuated
to “Blighty.” I asked the section officers to send
me suitable applicants from each gun team from
which to make a selection. They evidently
thought it a good opportunity to get rid of any
undesirable men they had, for it was a sorry col-
lection of humanity that presented itself before
me at company headquarters. I was about to
send them all back as hopeless, when I glanced
again at a little man standing at the end of the
line. Private Henry Sale’s head just about came
up to the shoulders of the man next to him; his
face was sallow and he had a natural stoop; he
had bandy legs and flat feet. His uniform was
too big for his slight frame and he did not appear
very strong, and yet there was something about
the man that appealed to me—what it was, I
could not define. Perhaps it was because his eyes48 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

were so bright and eager and that he was making
such tremendous efforts to stand smartly at
attention and look like a real soldier, and failing
so lamentably. I asked him if he was a married
man ; he told me he was. I realised he was totally
unfitted for the trenches and decided I would
give him a trial: from that moment he became
my “batman.”

Sale was typical in many ways of the citizen
soldier. Nature had intended him for a man of
peace, fate had pitchforked him into the war.
When I got to know him better he told me some-
thing of his life, of the little butcher’s shop in the
Lancashire town, of the struggle he and Mrs.
Sale had had to keep it open even before the war
came; and then when England threw in her lot
with France and Belgium, the lengthy family
discussions as to whether he should join up or
not. He was over thirty-eight and had bandy
legs and bad feet, and if he went the little busi-
ness they had spent their lives in creating would
probably be swept away. But England wanted
men pretty badly at that time; how could he stay
at home? Sometimes he gave me letters from his
wife to read—such badly spelt, illiterate letters
they were, you would have laughed at them had
you not felt the bravery and the longing for “herTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 49

man” that lay hidden between the lines. Mrs.
Sale was proud of him, although she did not tell
him so; she was satisfied that he should go. It
made me proud to think there were so many
English wives like that; for are not we men
what our women make us?

Final arrangements had been made for the
60th Division to move up into the Somme battle
area when hurried orders came for us to embark
at Marseilles forthwith for Salonika. Trouble
was brewing in the Near East. Greece had
threatened to throw in her lot with the Central
Powers. This meant danger to the small Allied
army in the Macedonian hills. It was as though
a prayer of old was being repeated: ‘‘Come over
into Macedonia, and help us!”

We were to act as a mobile force capable of
facing whichever way danger might come, either
from the Turks or Bulgars, or from the treach-
ery of the King of Greece. As our convoy of
troopships swept out of Marseilles harbour into
the sunlit waters of the Mediterranean, I
watched the coast of France recede like the
memory of abad dream. The Goddess of Chance
had taken a hand in the game of my life; we
were heading for the East. I was on my way
to those countries where romance and adventure
could still be found.CHAPTER III.

   
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

THE BALKANS.

The ancient and historical city of Salonika is
built on the side of a hill overlooking a busy
harbour crowded with small craft. Enclosed in
a fine medieval stone wall, it is picturesque and
very quaint in appearance. It is at its best,
however, when viewed some distance from the
shore from the deck of an incoming vessel. The
place swarms with people of almost every nation-
ality under the sun. Sickness and crime rub
shoulders in the teeming thoroughfares: degra-
dation and want and misery lurk in the evil-
smelling back streets. The modern part of
Salonika is about on a par, as regards cleanliness
and sanitation, with the slum area of any large
European city.

When the London division marched through
the town to the camping ground some distance
outside, we passed soldiers of every Allied
country: French, Russian, Italian, Serbian,
Greek and British troops mingled with the cut-
throat bandits of Macedonia to whom the war
had brought a thriving trade. Our arrival had

50THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 51

been prepared for, and we spent little over a
week re-fitting for mountain warfare. Wedrew
large quantities of pack mules to replace our
wheel transport that had proved so useful in
France, but which would have been more of a
hindrance than a help in the narrow defiles and
rocky passes of the Balkan hills. As soon as
each brigade had completed its equipment it
moved off.

Then commenced for the 180th Brigade a long
trek which was eventually to bring us to what
was then known as the Lake Doiran front.
With mules unused to harness of any kind and
many of the transport men at this time unac-
quainted with the peculiar sense of humour this
hardy animal possesses, marching in those early
days was very trying.

I have frequently seen one mule halt a whole
eolumn whilst he danced about first on his front,
then on his hind legs, not satisfied until he had
succeeded in depositing his load in the center of
the road or in raising that laugh to which he
considered his performance was entitled.

I rode on in advance with the brigade staff
captain. It was our job to parcel out the various
camping areas so that everything was in readi-
ness when the tired men and animals arrived52 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

in the dusk of evening; search parties would
be sent out to bring in any mules that had cast
their packs by the wayside or decamped into the
hills.

On the march we rode through bleak, desolate
country that in happier days had produced
some of the world’s finest tobacco crops. The
valleys were now barren and deserted. Villages,
many of them falling into decay, the houses
having been burnt to the ground in the recent
Balkan wars, were invariably warned of our
approach by wild mongrel dogs who rushed out
at us, barking fiercely and showing their teeth.

Sheltered by hovels clustering together, for
one could hardly describe the filthy ruins as
houses, were people so starved, diseased and
miserably clad as scarcely to appear human.
Under cover of the night these poor wretches
would creep up to our camp, nose out the deep
filled-in refuse pits, and with their hands or bits
of old iron, dig up the offal buried there; and
then, too famished to wait until they got back,
squat down in the darkness and gnaw at the
bones and bacon rind they had succeeded in
excavating. At last, gorged with this fearsome
meal, they would take away an armful of empty
meat and milk cans, so that, in the seclusion ofTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE Do

their homes, they might with their tongues and
fingers extract any substance that still clung to
the insides of the tins.

We spent five months in Macedonia and in
that time covered many, many weary miles.
France had made us realise the grimness of war,
but it was the Balkans that taught us to he sol-
diers. We marched over terrible roads in all
weather, we scrambled up precipitous mountain
tracks dragging our pack mules with us. Each
evening, worn out with fatigue, we pitched a
fresh camp; dawn found it struck and loaded
up with the head of the column winding out into
the open country. The transport personnel had
such constant practice they could saddle and load
in the dark. There is no doubt, however, that
in spite of the hard. work, or perhaps because
of it, our physique arid general health improved
all this time. I was interested in noticing the
change in my own men. They were getting
hardier, more self-reliant, cleaner cut, in fact,
they were growing used to privation.

The quality and quantity of the food we now
received was very different to the affluent rations
we had enjoyed in France. The worst privation
was the shortage of cigarettes.

Under all these conditions the men remained54 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

cheerful and willing, they never complained and
were always ready to see the humorous side of
things.

One particularly trying march took place on
Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. This
holiday is celebrated in almost every town in
England by the production of the annual panto-
mime, usually an old-fashioned fairy story set
tomusic. The day was hot and we had all fallen
out by the side of the road for ten minutes’ halt;
the men’s packs were off and they lay about in
all positions getting what rest they could before
the march was resumed. Suddenly round a bend
in the road came a quaint string of Balkan vil-
lagers.

First came the men of the party, mounted on
tiny donkeys and dressed in the most wonderful
eastern colours, smakinz long twisted cigars
and waving fiy whisks before their faces.

Next came women and girls, on foot, carry-
ing huge baskets and earthenware pots on their
heads. Some of the women had, in addition,
babies tied to their backs. Following the women
came more men and youths on donkeys. Chil-
dren, with the serious faces of “grown-ups” and
a complete disregard for the hundreds of sol-
diers looking on, toddled along beside theTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE DO

donkeys or clung to the women’s skirts. Two
wild-looking mountain dogs and half a dozen
old women in black, carrying bundles of fire-
wood, completed the procession. One of the
“Tommies,” aiter gazing earnestly at these
people for some time, turned to his pals and
shouted, “Ooray, boys! We shan’t be done out
of our pantermine after all. ’Ere’s Ali Baba
an’ ’is forty bloomin’ fieves!”’

On another occasion an undersized cockney
soldier went up to one of the venerable Greek
priests in Salonika, a man over six feet in height,
with a long white beard, a black robe stretching
to his feet and wearing the tall scuttle-shaped
hat that is the hall-mark of the priests of the
Orthodox Church, and looking up into his face,
exclaimed, “I say, Claude, you ’aven’t ’arf got
a saucy lid on!” The priest, who did not under-
stand English, just lifted up his hand and blessed
him and passed on.

When we eventually found ourselves on the
Doiran front we realised campaigning in the
Balkans was going to be totally different to the
trench warfare of France, and a great deal more
enjoyable.

We had successfully got through the rainy
season, trekking from one place to another, and56 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

the spring was well advanced when we took over
the outposts of a division that had been in that
part of the line ever since the disastrous retreat
through Serbia.

The Bulgarian defences were on a chain of
mountains that formed a boundary between
Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia.

In all the battles that have been fought in the
past in this cockpit of Europe, these natural
fortresses have never been assaulted with suc-
cess. The country that was fortunate enough
to hold the highest mountain ridge dominated
the situation. It was not until towards the end
of the war that British and French troops,
assisted by remnants of the gallant Serbian
army, succeeded in penetrating into the heart of
Bulgaria. But this was long after my division
had sailed from Salonika.

When we took over, our advance posts were
in the valley, our main defence line withdrawn
back into the hills but completely overlooked by
the enemy, who had taken up his position in the
highest ridge of the mountains.

“No Man’s Land” was intersected by pictur-
esque mountain streams that became rushing
torrents during the bad weather. Lake Doiran
lay glistening in the plain between the opposingTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE ol

armies separated from each other by seven miles
of flat country. Spring brought out numerous
wild flowers of every kind to carpet the slopes
of the mountains, the crests of which were often
hidden in the clouds. Partridge and hare
abounded, and excellent coarse fishing could be
had in the lake in “No Man’s Land.”
Unfortunately Bulgar mounted patrols set
out from the enemy’s lines each evening just
when the fish were biting most freely, and this
interfered somewhat with our enjoyment. This
disadvantage was overcome to a certain extent
by taking out with us two or three scouts armed
with rifles and mounted on fast horses. These
men would remain some distance from the fish-
ing party with orders to fire their rifles into the
air when they spotted the Bulgars approaching,
and gallop back themselves to the nearest out-
post. These shots were the signal that our sport
was over for the night, but I must say it was
very annoying after one had been fishing for an
hour without success, and then, just when one
got a bite, to hear these danger signals ring out.
It was rather tempting to continue for a bit with
the chance of landing a fish, even if it meant
leaving no time in which to dismantle the rod,
and having to mount, holding the rod like aTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

 

oo

lance, with the tackle and bait flying in the wind,
and race hell for leather, followed home by the
spiteful ping of Bulgar bullets.

I used to think fly fishing far more exciting
than coarse fishing. I now consider bottom fish-
ing, if indulged in under certain conditions, one
of the most thrilling sports there is.

Those early days in the line were great fun.
Our chief enemies were malaria and the German
bombing squadron that had a peculiar fondness
for our rear areas, most of the casualties occur-
ring in the transport lines. The weather was
delightful, rations were improving and, alto-
gether, we decided our luck was in. Patrol
work in the valley and raids on the enemy’s
position were stimulating and interesting inter-
ludes in a somewhat uneventful existence.

But, just as the giant buzzard, scavenger of
the East, hovered over our camp by day seem-
ingly almost stationary in the air at times but
darting down with startling suddenness when
some tempting piece of garbage met his view,
so—although we knew it not, trouble was hover-
ing over us all this time, ready to swoop and
take its toll.

We had been holding the line for three months
when orders were issued for a general advance.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 59

Questions had been asked in Parliament in
England with reference to the army in Salonika:
“What were they doing to justify the enormous
expense of maintaining a force in Macedonia?”’
—‘‘Was the Secretary of State for War aware
that no ground had been gained for some con-
siderable time?’’—‘Unless the commander-in-
chief could send more satisfactory news would
steps be taken to have him replaced?”

People without the slightest idea of conditions
on the Balkan front began to press for results.
Articles appeared in the papers. “Irate Parent’
wrote from Sydenham, saying that he had had
a son killed in France, but so far as he was
aware, no one was being killed in Salonika and
he did not think it was right. A music hall
artist sang a song in which she implored the
audience “to send her to Macedonia to escape
the war.”

The War Office was moved at last to action,
and orders were sent out to the commander-in-
chief to attack.

One wonders if the middle-aged member of
Parliament, probably the head of a family, who
had very possibly never left the sheltered seclu-
sion of his suburban London home, quite realised
that his patriotic questions—received with60 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

cheers in the House of Commons—were directly
responsible for the loss of so many gallant lives
in the spring of 1917. The generals who ordered
the advance must take some of the blame, too;
but was not the first Somme offensive, with its
enormous casualties, the result of just such a
wish to gain ground? so that the people of Eng-
land might say, on reading their papers with
their breakfasts, “Splendid. We are getting on
remarkably well; another village taken. We
must move the flags on the map.”

All those of us who were in Salonika in the
early summer of 1917 knew how costly would
be any success achieved without sufficient troops
to follow it up. But the orders went forth and,
on zero day, supported by inadequate artillery,
badly supplied with shells, with antiquated
aeroplanes and troops full of malaria, we
scrambled down the rocky sides of the hills,
advanced across the plain, waist deep through
the streams, and commenced to scale those almost
impregnable mountain fortresses where, well
dug in and out of sight, the Bulgars waited.

With all the gallantry and dash in the world,
what chances of success were ours?—mowed
down by machine guns, picked off by snipers and
bombed from the trenches that we fought so hardTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 61

to take. Even the rocks that the Bulgars threw,
coming from so great a height, caused number-
less casualties.

Some of the mountain streams had been filled
with concealed barbed wire, and many unfortu-
nates were caught and held there wounded until
they died of exhaustion or were mercifully put
out of their misery by snipers.

We captured some ground that was completely
dominated by enemy trenches, held it for a few
days at terrible cost, and then relinquished it
again, just as we knew we should be forced to
do when first we took it.

The desired object, however, had been
obtained, and the papers got the news they had
been clamouring for:

“Big advance in Macedonia. The British
attack all along the line and penetrate into
the enemy’s trenches. It is feared the cas-
ualties are heavy.”

What of that member of Parliament whose
questions started all the useless slaughter—was
he satisfied, I wonder? Itis to be hoped so. He
was lucky not to see the maimed men brought
back—those that could be brought back, or look
through powerful field glasses, as I did, at other
poor fellows badly wounded, hanging on the62 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

wires and now and then, God help them! weakly
struggling to get free. He did not hear the
eerie baying of the jackals who had scented their
prey and were waiting for the dusk; or breathe
a prayer, as many of us did, that the poor boys
entangled in the stream might be dead when
those wild creatures found them; or thank God
for the darkness that fell over the battlefield,
blotting out the terrible sight from those of us
whose duty it was to watch from the hills.

I have often wondered why we pity unsuc-
cessful generals and load them with honours; I
think we ought to show them no more considera-
tion than is shown to inefficient junior officers—
far less, in fact. When a second lieutenant fails
in his duty it seldom means the loss of more
than a few lives—when a commander-in-chief
fails it means the death of thousands!

Perhaps the reason I felt so strongly in the
matter was that I lost a brother in that disas-
trous landing at Gallipoli, whilst another was
badly wounded there and crippled for life. My
youngest brother was killed during our useless
advance in Macedonia, at an age when most
boys are still at boarding school.

One morning I was lying in my camp bed at
Corsica. My brigade (the 180th) had beenTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 63

drawn out of the line for a rest before proceeding
to the Struma Valley to relieve a division deci-
mated by malaria, rife all along the banks of
that pestilential stream. I had had a letter the
night before from my mother to say that another
of my brothers had gone. He had been pilot
of a scout machine, and his squadron leader
reported he had been shot down in flames and
had been seen to fall in the German trenches. I
was turning things over in my mind: How
beastly and useless the whole war was! I had
the same feeling about Macedonia that I had
with regard to France; it was all so futile, so
little worth while. Men were dying by the
thousands, but 1t never seemed to lead anywhere.
All the fighting invariably ended in “stalemate.”

Gradually my little company was changing.
The losses were made up by reinforcements from
England but I missed the old faces and resented
the new men, who somehow never appeared quite
so good as those whose places they took. I was
changing myself, too, I knew. I had been so
tremendously keen in those early days: war
had seemed a wonderful thing then, ennobling,
uplifting! Were all the books I had read of past
wars untrue, lies strung together to deceive the
eredulous? Surely it could not be! The spirit64 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

that was in those early Crusaders was just as
much alive today as it was centuries ago. It
was only that we had a different way of doing
things. The men were just as fine as they had
ever been; it was a great leader we lacked; or
was it that there seemed no definite goal before
us, no great prize to fight for?

The newspapers spoke of a slow, but steady,
wearing down of the enemies’ resistance. A
war of exhaustion of man-power and material.
Only hang on, they said, for sufficient time and
economic conditions will force the Central
Powers to ask for an armistice!

But was this war at all? Not to my way of
thinking, at any rate. I had no desire to be
one of an army of “wearers down” of “economic
exhausters!”’ And yet that apparently was what
I was doomed to be.

The flap of my tent was carefully raised and
the pale face of my servant looked in. Sale was
an extraordinary fellow; no matter how hot it
was he never became sunburnt.

“T beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “but the
commanding officer would like to see you directly
you areup. Shall I bring your shaving water?”

“Right-o!” I replied with a sigh, and com-
menced to get up.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 65

Sale had already prepared my bath outside the
tent, and it did not take me long to shave and
dress. On my way to the orderly room I passed
the officers’ cook house with its unpleasant odour
of grease and paraffin oil: I wondered what the
skipper could have to say to me, and before
breakfast, too.

I found Major Oxenham seated at his desk,
which consisted of two packing cases nailed
together and covered with an empty sand-bag.
He had some papers before him; evidently the
despatch rider from brigade had arrived.

“Hello, Gilbert,” said the major, “sit down.
I’ve had rather important news. General
Allenby has just been appointed to command the
Egyptian expeditionary force; he contemplates
an offensive on a large scale in Palestine, possibly
the capture of Jerusalem. What concerns us,
however, is this: Allenby has asked personally
for the London division. We shall pack up and
trek down to Salonika, hand in equipment and
probably sail for Egypt within the next three
weeks.”

I listened carefully to the details for striking
camp, points for the march, orders for the relief
of the sections in the line by the neighbouring
division, ete., ete., but, as I strode towards the66 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

mess, the one thing that stood out in all the
information I had received that morning, was
a phrase of the major’s—‘‘Possibly the capture
of Jerusalem.” It sent a thrill through my
inmost being! We were to form part of Allen-
by’s army destined to capture Jerusalem and
drive the Turk from Palestine.

What ghostly figures of dead and gone Cru-
saders should we not meet out there to encourage
and guide us to our goal?

Later, as I passed through the camp, I could
see by the bustle and suppressed excitement that
the good news had already leaked out. Soldiers
always welcome a change of any kind, and the
proposed move was thoroughly popular.

From the transport lines came the clang of
hammers upon iron—horse and mule shoes were
being fashioned for the march; but to me it
sounded like the noise of riveting armour.CHAPTER IV.

THE DESERT OF SINAI.

It was June when we arrived in Egypt. Our
convoy of troopships, escorted by destroyers and
met some miles out at sea by battle planes
from Cairo, steamed into the port of Alex-
andria without encountering a single enemy
submarine; notwithstanding that warnings of
their increased activity in the Mediterranean
had been received by the division before we left
Salonika.

Twenty-four hours after arrival we were all
entrained and on our way up the line to Ismalia,
called by the Arabs ‘“‘the emerald of the Desert”
and well deserving of the name. Its delightful
coolness is accentuated by the numerous palm
and olive trees that grow so luxuriantly there,
whilst the sun-baked sand, which almost com-
pletely encircles the town, gives it the appearance
of an oasis. As a matter of fact, however,
Ismalia is only on the fringe of the Desert.

After the shortage we had experienced in
Macedonia it seemed that every luxury the heart
of man could desire on active service could be

6768 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

obtained in Egypt. We were given fresh meat
and bread instead of canned beef and army
biscuits, whilst fruit and vegetables arrived
daily from Cairo. Each morning we bathed in
the picturesque salt-water lakes within easy
reach of the camp. In the afternoons we kept
up our British reputation for eccentricity by
playing football and cricket in the blazing sun.
Night found the officers seated at little tables
under the trees in the grounds of the delightful
French Club, drinking long iced drinks whilst
an excellent string orchestra played the latest
American ragtime from England.

We ordered smart gabardine uniforms from
the local military tailor, and it became of some
importance to carry the type of fly whisk in
fashion at the moment. Turkish and Egyptian
cigarettes, obtained in large quantities from
Cairo, replaced Virginian cigarettes which were
once more considered “bad form.”

All available tennis racquets in Ismalia were
eagerly bought up the first day or so, and one
Scottish acting major secured a complete set of
golf clubs. However, after he had driven two
dozen expensive balls into the Desert and failed
to find them, he decided to give up golf until
either his rank was confirmed, or golf balls
dropped in price.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

 

69

In the midst of all this sporting and social
activity I obtained three days’ leave to Cairo, and
set off by an early train loaded with commissions
to execute for various officers of my company.

I put up at Shepherds Hotel, and visited most
of the mosques and other places of interest. I
was photographed on a camel with the pyramids
as a background, and sent home an assorted col-
lection of guaranteed genuine antiquities bought
in the native bazaar and probably manufactured
either in Birmingham or Chicago. In fact, I
behaved like a typical Cook’s tourist.

After dinner I sat on the veranda of my hotel,
sipping strong black coffee and gazing at the
ever-changing panorama of the passing crowds
in the streets. In the distance I could see the
lighted lanterns twinkling in the trees of Ezbekia
Gardens. Carriages drawn by fast-stepping
Desert ponies with glistening silvered harness,
flashed by with a jingling of bells and a cracking
of whips. Now and then a luxurious limousine,
bearing some beauty of the hareem but faintly
seen, veiled and mysterious, would glide through
the traffic, silently. Native guides, water-sellers
and vendors of Oriental merchandise, mingled
with soldiers in smart summer khaki drill uni-
forms, their shorts exposing bare knees burnt
brown by the sun.10 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

From the Mouski came the weird chanting of
some endless Arab song. The air was heavy
with the penetrating, aromatic odour of the Hast.

I drew a deep breath of contentment and sank
back amongst the embroidered cushions in my
chair. I could fully appreciate the Arab saying:
‘He who tastes of the waters of the Nile shall
return.” There is a subtle fascination about the
place that is difficult to explain. Since those
seeming far-off days I have met many soldiers
who have returned from Egypt, some of them
broken in health and fortune, men whom one
would have thought glad to be safely home again.
We have talked together of many things, and
then I have casually mentioned Cairo, or perhaps
the Desert, and at once a haunted look of longing
has come into their eyes, and I know that once
again the Hast is calling.

There is a shrub in England, I forget what
it is named, but it has a curiously unpleasant
smell. If you take a leaf and crush it in your
hands the scent is strangely penetrating and you
wish that you had not plucked it; yet each time
you pass that bush the inclination to crush
another leaf and experience the same revulsion
of feeling is almost overpowering. Egyp* has
for me this same uncanny power of attractionTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 71
and repulsion; there were times when I loathed
the place with a bitter hatred, and yet I feel that
I shall be drawn back there once more before
I die.

When I got back to Ismalia I found the 60th
Division alive with preparations for a move.

Allenby had just returned from his visit to
the Desert with Sir Philip Chetwode who had
submitted an appreciation of the strategic sit-
uation for the commander-in-chief’s approval.
General Allenby had formed his own plan of
campaign from this report and things were
beginning to happen. Generals and brigadiers
and other senior staff officers, who had taken up
semi-permanent residence in the best hotels in
Cairo and Alexandria for, as they thought, “the
duration of the war,” were galvanized into
activity at the front, or departed “forthwith”
on early troopships for England.

When an officer was sent back as inefficient,
he was said to have received “the order of the
bowler hat.” One brigadier I knew had the
distinction of being awarded “a bar” to his
bowler hat!—his second retirement into private
life was permanent.

Our last few days in Ismalia were very
crowded ones for me, as enormous quantities of2 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

special stores had to be drawn from the ordnance
depot in preparation for our march across the
Desert. It was just at this time, too, that our
share of the 40,000 camels that accompanied the
army joined us. As soon as everything was
complete we marched to Kantara. Kantara, one
of the wonder cities of the war, is on the eastern
bank of the Suez Canal. When the campaign
started it was a tiny native village containing
a mosque and, perhaps, half a dozen mud houses.
It grew with extraordinary rapidity and became
a vast town capable of housing thousands of men
and animals. Where merely sand had been were
now first-class macadamized roads, electrically
lighted, forty miles of up-to-date railway sidings
and workshops, a huge ordnance depot, three
churches, two theatres and a moving-picture
house, clubs, shops and a golf course, with
wharves so spacious that as many as six ocean-
going steamers could be unloaded at a time.
The place is called in Arabic, “The Gateway
of the Desert.” It is at Kantara that the great
caravan route commences which stretches right
across the Desert of Sinai—the Desert of Sin of
the Old Testament—until it gets to El Arish on
the coast of the Mediterranean. From there it
goes north, past Gaza, on up the Maritime PlainTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE V3

through Palestine, branches off east to Jerusa-
lem, continues north again to Damascus and,
finally, across the Desert of Arabia to where
the ancient city of Babylon once proudly stood.
It is the oldest caravan route, or roadway, in
the whole world and has been used throughout
the ages by all who have gone from Egypt into
Palestine. It was this way Moses guided the
Israelites when they left Egypt, owing to the
persecution of Pharaoh. It was along this
almost waterless route that the Emperor
Napoleon led his army in his attempt to conquer
Palestine. As everyone knows, that attempt
was a failure, and he brought the remnants of
his army back across the Desert, leaving the
bones of many of his men to whiten in the sun.

Then, Joseph and Mary and the Infant Christ
came back this way on their journey into Egypt
to escape Herod.

When British troops first began to march
across the barren wilderness of Sinai, conditions
were almost unbearable. The chief difficulties
were the lack of water, the sun, the sand, and
the flies. The semi-tropical heat of the Plains
of Macedonia had been but a foretaste of what
the blistering sun of the Desert could accomplish
in mid-summer. The few wells one meets with44 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

across that dreary waste, whilst sufficient for
the comparatively small caravan parties of the
past, were totally inadequate for a great modern
army like Allenby’s, made up of over ninety-six
thousand fighting men, forty-six thousand
horses, forty thousand camels, fifteen thousand
mules and three thousand five hundred donkeys
—to say nothing of the vast body of the
Egyptian labour corps. It became necessary,
therefore, for fresh ideas to be worked out.

The water of the river Nile was drawn from
the sweet water canal in Egypt by the Kantara
waterworks, where it was mixed with alum,
then pumped through settling tanks into filters.
When it had successfully passed these, it was
pumped underneath the Suez Canal into
reservoirs on the eastern bank. Here it was
chlorinated and then pumped on by successive
stages through a great pipe line which eventually
stretched, in the rear of the advancing British
army, for over two hundred miles across the
Desert of Palestine. There were altogether
seventeen auxiliary pumping stations at inter-
vals along this line.

It is rather interesting to know that the pipes
used for this purpose were already in Egypt,
having been sent there before the war to beTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 15

used by the Standard Oil Company of America.
We took the oil pipes and used them for water
instead. When I was speaking on the Palestine
campaign in Philadelphia, in 1923, I met the
gentleman at whose works in Pennsylvania these
pipes were manufactured. I asked him if the
British had ever paid for them, and he assured
me we had settled up in full; which, I must say,
relieved my mind considerably!

We built a modern railway, too, across the
Desert, and this progressed at the rate of a
mile a day. London and South Western locomo-
tives, which had been sent out from England in
readiness for the advance, were used, and it
was rather curious to see these engines, with
their own drivers who had accompanied them to
Egypt, calmly shunting and backing in the sid-
ings at Kantara just as though they were in
Eastleigh or Waterloo Stations.

Sand was one of our greatest difficulties to
commence with; we sank up to our knees in
the loose sand in places, and even the invalu-
able Ford ambulances got stalled and became
immobile.

The terrible khamseen constantly visited us
to add to our troubles with its dry hot wind that
tore across the open spaces, whipping the sand76 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

up in huge blinding clouds, making progress well
nigh impossible; it took the life and spirit out
of almost every officer and man for the days
it raged.

After experiencing the khamseen on Sinai
Peninsula I visualised for myself the Biblical
expression “fa howling wilderness.”

I never heard the name of the officer responsi-
ble for the famous “chicken wire road,” but it
was one of the most wonderful, and at the same
time, simplest devices for minimising fatigue
that was ever invented. Early in the war, when
it was anticipated that trench warfare would
take place in Egypt and Palestine, as in France,
the authorities in England sent many tons of
rolls of close mesh wire netting to the East to
be used for riveting the sides of the trenches to
prevent them falling in. But most of the fight-
ing that took place in Palestine was “open war-
fare” of the old-fashioned kind—we fought on
the top of the ground in view of each other, not
underneath it in trenches—and so the wire
netting was not required, and it remained,
apparently useless, on the quays at Alexandria.

This officer’s idea was to take three rolls of
close mesh chicken wire, unroll them and bind
them side by side, flat on the surface of the looseTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 17

sand; then to take long wire staples and drive
them in, thus making a firm road on which
four men could march abreast with perfect
comfort, and motorcars and ambulances proceed
with speed and safety.

The wire road stretched for over two hundred
miles across the Desert into Palestine, and later,
when we advanced north up the Maritime Plain,
we constructed wire roads in rear of our posi-
tions so that the wounded could be brought back
from the firing line in motor ambulances more
or less in comfort.

It took a year for us to fight our way across
the Peninsula of Sinai, but in that time we drove
the Turks from over a hundred and fifty miles
of Desert, over which we brought a modern rail-
way, laid a pipe line, and made a wire road.

When I came back that way after the armis-
tice, it took me exactly one night to traverse the
ground it had taken a year to cross on foot. I
travelled in a train almost as luxurious as an
American one. We had a diner on board, and
you could get a four-course dinner served by
Egyptian waiters of the state railway—you
could even have afternoon tea if you wished. At
night, just before turning in, I pulled up the
blind of my sleeping compartment and looked78 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

out over the Desert. It was a wonderful moon-
light night; one of those perfect nights you get
in the East, just as bright as daylight; and I
could see by the side of the track many little
wooden crosses. I thought to myself, God bless
the boys that lie buried there; they helped to
make the passing of their comrades safe and
eased the burdens of thousands who went that
long, long trail to take their part in the Last
Crusade!

Eventually the 60th Division arrived in the
fringe of Palestine; my brigade, the 180th,
taking up positions along the Wadi Ghuzze. A
wadi is a river that usually has no water, and
it is this appearance of torrent—bed and banks
and clefts in the rocks for tributary streams, and
at times even rushes and shrubs fringing its
course—which gives to the whole wilderness a
doubly dry and thirsty aspect. During the rainy
season a complete transformation takes place;
great volumes of water tear madly down these
previously arid wastes and many of the wadis
become impassable.

We had arrived in Palestine to find the
Turkish army holding a very strong position
stretching from the Mediterranean Sea at Gaza
to Beersheba, a distance of about thirty miles.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 79

Gaza had already been attacked twice unsuc-
cessfully and was a strong modern fortress,
heavily entrenched and protected with barbed
wire, offering every facility for protracted
defence.

The houses of the town are mostly on a ridge,
and all around the place is a mass of gardens
fully a mile deep, each surrounded by high
cactus hedges. They afford complete cover and
are quite impossible for infantry to penetrate.
General Allenby’s plan of campaign was roughly
this,—to make a show of concentration before
Gaza so as to lead the enemy to think that an
attack was about to take place there, and all the
while to quietly push forward a large force in
the direction of Beersheba.

On zero day an intense bombardment was to
take place on our left; whilst General Chetwode’s
20th Corps, consisting of four infantry divi-
sions and the camel brigade, together with the
Desert mounted corps, attacked on the right with
the object of capturing Beersheba and rolling
up the Turkish line from thence to the sea. By
turning the enemy’s flank no actual attack on
Gaza would be necessary, as the garrison there
would have to withdraw once Beersheba fell.

My division was part of the 20th Corps and,80 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

with the 74th, was to have the honour of attack-
ing Beersheba from the Wadi Saba, the other
infantry divisions of the corps being held in
reserve.

Before the attack actually took place some
weeks were spent in active preparation. We
trained the men in “water discipline” and under-
went what was known as “the hardening
process.”

We marched for miles and miles over the
burning sands under the scorching sun with
full equipment, full packs, rifles and full water
bottles, but no man was allowed to take a drink
from his bottle without the direct orders of an
officer. It was difficult sometimes to refrain
from giving permission, the heat was so intense,
the dust kicked up by the men in front got into
their throats, their mouths became parched, and
the straps of the heavy packs cut into their
shoulders and almost dragged them down.

No one who has not lived in a hot country can
understand the important part water plays in
a man’s life; existence can be maintained on
very little food, but water must be had. Never-
theless, the quantity required can be consider-
ably reduced by practice, and eventually we were
all trained so that, if necessary, we could existTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 8 1

on a pint of water a day; this serving for all
drinking purposes as well as for shaving and
washing. After the first day or so practically
no shaving or washing took place in the ranks.
Then we cut down the animals from three water-
ings a day to two, and, finally, to one; and this
training saved the lives of countless horses and
mules that would otherwise have perished when
later on in the campaign they had to go without
water in some cases for two days at a time.

Shortly after we arrived in Palestine, Major
Oxenham was taken ill and I took over command
of the brigade machine gun company. About
this time too, General Bulfin, who had com-
manded the London division since we arrived in
France, was promoted to command the 21st
Corps, and Major-General John Shea, C.B.,
C.M.G., D.S.0., became our new divisional
commander.

General Shea was a great success with the
“Londoners” from the very start. He was
young, smart in appearance, and possessed the
confident seat of a crack cavalry officer. He
was Irish and had a keen sense of humour, he
was a soldier who had done splendidly in
France, and above all, he was a man who under-
stood the “‘Ilommy” and especially the London82 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

“Tommy”: in a word, he was human. I found
that this same “human personal touch” counted
for a great deal in the war for it was in many
respects a war of psychology; and then, too, the
men themselves were very different in character
to the professional soldiers of other wars.

The London division was a good division
before General Shea joined it but it was not by
any means a brilliant division; perhaps it lacked
a little of that esprit de corps that all really first-
class divisions have. “Jimmie” Shea, as all
ranks soon affectionately called him behind his
back, was responsible for giving to the ‘‘Lon-
doners” that fighting spirit combined with
optimism which is called “morale.” He gath-
ered us all together like a big family and taught
us to fight to the death for the honour of that
family. We became willing pupils because we
liked him and believed in him.

Whilst the training of the army went on,
ammunition and supplies were being stored up
behind the line in vast quantities. Trains loaded
with shells followed one another in an endless
chain across the Desert. The heaviest trains ran
at night, and the returning empties were hurried
back at a speed suggesting the urgency of clear-
ing the line for fully loaded trains awaiting theTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 83

sional to proceed with their valuable cargoes to
railhead. Steamers of about twelve hundred
tons burden came from Port Said to a cove north
of Belah, behind the Gaza line, to ease the rail-
way’s task. They anchored 150 yards off shore,
and a crowd of small craft passed backwards
and forwards with stores. Lower down the
coast of the Mediterranean lay the battleships,
silent and grimly waiting the signal to take their
part in the fight. Like long pale fingers the
army roads stretched out towards the Tront.
The Egyptian labour corps was working day
and night to make them capable of bearing the
heavy guns and tractors destined to follow up
the advance.

Is there any time so exciting and stimulating
as those last few days before zero? Only the
commander-in-chief knew which day the attack
was to be launched, but we felt it must be imm1-
nent. The great army machine was working
at such feverish pressure that something must
happen soon. We had all received our orders;
each branch of the service knew what was
required of it. All we were waiting to know
was, “the day.”

On the night of October 20, 1917, the air was
still and the vast luminous canopy of the sky84 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

was powdered with a thousand twinkling stars.
I stood at the opening of my tent drinking in a
last mouthful of the cool night air, when, in the
distance, I heard the galloping of horses.
Despatch riders were arriving at divisional
headquarters. It was late for despatches unless
the news was urgent. I went over to brigade
headquarters and was handed a sealed envelope,
for which I signed. The moon was up, I broke
the seal—zero day had been fixed for October
olst.CHAPTER V.

THE WELLS OF SHERIA.

The torrid daytime heat of October 30th was
followed by an entire absence of that cooling
breeze we had learned to look for each evening
after the sun went down.

The brilliant moon lit up a land that had been
stripped and starved for so many years that its
very bones seemed to protrude and its hills to
rise from sterile plains in all the nakedness of
their bald patches—a carcase of a land.

Desolate and drear, indeed, it looked to us in
the ghostly moonlight, as we marched with
dogged tiredness over the dried and cracking
mud bed of the Wadi Ghuzze, on our way to the
place of assembly at Esani. Forty thousand
troops were on the march, but a heavy pall of
dust that hung over the long lines of infantry
and artillery obscured all those save the men
immediately to one’s front. It was as though
some cockney fairy had thoughtfully provided
a portion of London’s own particular fog for us
to take into action so that we might not feel
homesick. Soon our faces became caked with

8586 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

yellow dust, our nostrils hot and burning. We
could not relieve our thirst because our water-
bottles had to be conserved until Beersheba
should be won. At times we overtook cater-
pillar tractors grunting and groaning as they
dragged their giant guns over the broken
ground. Sometimes long strings of supply
camels, which to our tired eyes seemed twice
their normal size, floated silently in a cloud of
mist, led by mysterious white-robed figures. All
that we saw seemed distorted because of our lack
of sleep.

All through the night the muffled tramp of
marching infantry went on. Away to our right
the Australian and New Zealand cavalry were
working round to the south and east of Beer-
sheba. They had to cover over thirty miles, but
the men were keen and the horses in excellent
condition for the task.

A purple flush that threw into high relief the
southern end of the Judean hills, heralding the
dawn, found every man hidden in his appointed
place, whether in wadi bed or fold in the ground.

At 6.00 A. M. our divisional artillery opened
up with a great volume of fire that put fresh
heart into all of us, and especially encouraged
those battalions which, with bayonets fixed,THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 87

awaited their orders to advance. It thrilled me
to hear the staccato rattle of my machine guns
taking their part. There is a peculiar quality
in automatic gun fire that causes the report to
penetrate the din of even an artillery barrage.

At 8.30 A. M. our aeroplanes reported the
enemy wire was cut in front, and the 181st
Brigade swept forward to the attack, their
cockney shouts ringing out as they scrambled
over uneven ground towards the hill that was
their goal. In ten minutes they had captured
it at the point of the bayonet, and a battery of
field guns was being galloped up to fire point
blank over open sights at the retreating Turks.

Soon afterwards the 74th Division advanced
and secured their objectives.

The noise of bursting shells was now terrific
as the heavy artillery on both sides put down
barrages. On our right flank the cavalry, in
a cloud of dust, could be seen galloping forward.
The Australian light horse brigade had received
orders to take Beersheba from the east. The
trenches guarding this side of the town were
well manned and strongly held, but the Aus-
tralians carried them with an _ irresistible
charge. They dismounted, cleared the first line
of all the enemy in it, ran on, and captured the88 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

second and third system of trenches; and then,
their horses having been brought up, galloped
into Beersheba to prevent, if they could, the
destruction of the wells. The first phase of the
campaign had been a brilliant success. Con-
sidering the type of fighting, the casualties had
not been excessive; everything had worked out
according to plan, and evening found us firmly
established in Beersheba, with the entire left
wing of the sultan’s army in full retreat.

Later on we heard that the Turks had been
completely deceived by General Allenby’s strat-
egy. For some time past they had been concen-
trating troops behind Gaza, where they fully
anticipated the principal attack would be
launched.

Our taking of Beersheba was a great blow
to them, as it exposed their left flank in enfilade;
consequently they were forced to do just as we
thought they would—withdraw their whole
army north up the Maritime Plain, leaving the
stronghold of Gaza to fall into our hands with-
out a struggle.

In capturing Beersheba we secured the wells
that were dug there by Abraham, the head of
the Jewish race, thirty-seven centuries ago. On
the death of the patriarch, Abraham, the Philis-THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

 

89

tines attempted to render the wells useless by
filling them up with sand. The Turks also
planned to destroy them before they evacuated
Beersheba, only they employed more modern
methods. They carefully mined each well but
were driven out by the encircling movement of
the cavalry before they could fire the fuses.
And so the ancient wells of Abraham gave forth
water to us, as they have given forth water
throughout the ages to all who have passed that
Way.

After Beersheba, commenced a running fight
that was only halted when the Turks reached
their main defence line outside the Holy City
itself.

There is a saying in the Bible “from Dan to
Beersheba’; we reversed the process and went
from Beersheba to Dan, and many miles beyond!

Having secured a valuable water supply we
hastened to fill up our camel water convoy and
trek after the enemy with as little delay as
possible.

The reserve water for the army was carried
in copper cisterns called “fanatis,” each holding
about fifteen gallons. These metal tanks were
suspended by rings from each side of the camel’s
pack saddle, 30,000 camels being employed for
this purpose alone.90 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

The pack camel is a very slow-moving crea-
ture, especially when he is fully loaded. It was
of the greatest importance that the infantry
should follow up the recent victory with all speed
to prevent the enemy re-organising. Therefore,
we soon outdistanced our camel water convoy,
lost touch with them, and marched for a whole
day without water.

The day previous we had had half a bottle of
drinking water each, the following day our
bottles hung empty at our sides. That day
turned out to be one of the hottest of the year.
We marched along a track over the Desert
strewn with dead oxen, many of these animals
having been employed by the enemy in a vain
endeavour to drag his heavy guns to safety.
Swarms of flies settled on the putrid bodies, the
stench from which made the strongest of us
vomit from nausea. We had the greatest diffi-
culty in dragging our tired limbs through the
clogging sand. The sun blazed pitilessly from
a brazen sky, whilst overhead birds of prey,
driven for a while from their unexpected feast,
waited to swoop down again directly we had
passed.

Our heads ached and our eyes became blood-
shot and dim in the blinding glare reflected fromTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 91

the sand. After a time our tongues began to
swell so that they seemed to fill the insides of
our mouths, which had gone dry. It was with
difficulty that we could speak.

Then our lips commenced to swell; they
turned a purplish black and burst; sand blew in
the open cuts and flies persistently settled on the
wounds, driving us almost mad.

Some of the men went temporarily blind from
the glare of the sun, the sand, and the lack of
water; a few fell out by the wayside, and these
we never saw again. I had previously warned
my company that it would be impossible to leave
anyone behind to look after stragglers, and so
the blinded men linked arms with others not as
badly affected as themselves, and by this means
managed to keep up with the column.

On the morning of November 6th, with no
news of our missing camel convoy, the attack on
Sheria was launched. We all knew of the wells
Sheria contained, and that, unless we captured
the place before nightfall, many of us would
die of thirst. The Turks were holding on to
Sheria like grim death, because they realised
that if they gave it up they would have to retreat
over many miles of waterless desert with a
depleted transport. We fought that day as men

fight for their lives.92 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Wave after wave of infantry went forward
only to break on the enemy’s guns, re-form again
and advance once more towards its objective. I
was observing through my field glasses when
the final and successful assault took place, but
could not see anything as my eyes suddenly
became blurred and useless. We entered Sheria
Station practically on the heels of the retreating
Turks. The first objects that met our view were
the great stone cisterns in the station yard filled
with tons of cold, clear drinking water. In the
still night air the sound of water running into
the tanks could be distinctly heard, maddening
In its tantalising nearness: yet not a man mur-
mured when orders were given for the various
battalions to be fallen in, in line, two deep facing
the stone cisterns, while the wounded and the
animals were led away to a separate place set
aside for the transport.

Then came the officers and men detailed for
outpost duty who would have to guard the camp
that night; all these were given water first.

The remainder of us fell in by companies,
officers in the ranks with their men, shoulder
to shoulder. It took four hours before the last
man had a drink of water, and in all that time
we had been standing just about seven yardsTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 93

from a low stone wall on the other side of which
were thousands of gallons of water; yet not a
single man broke from the ranks or tried to get
a drink out of his turn.

In the Bible one reads constantly of water,
and it is always spoken of as one of the most
wonderful things in life. As a boy I used to
wonder why so much importance was attached
to water, but you quickly realise the value of
water in Palestine, especially if you happen to
be fighting out there! I believe we all learned
our first real Bible lesson on that march from
Beersheba to Sheria wells.CHAPTER VI.

KISMET.

The camel is a peculiar creature; he neither
inspires nor seeks affection of any kind. He
carries himself with a studied air of conscious
superiority to all around him; yet, within, he is
a mass of nerves and as sensitive and awkward
as an English school-girl at her first party. He
bitterly resents cold and wet weather, and whilst
possessing all the outward attributes of a hardy
animal, he is in reality extremely delicate and
apt to become easily discouraged. On the other
hand, he can stand any amount of pain, hard-
ship and fatigue, and possesses more downright
stubbornness than any army mule. I ean
understand people, under certain circumstances,
growing fond of beetles, rats or spiders; I can-
not imagine anyone in the world, however lonely,
making a pet of a camel.

Thirty-five camels were attached to my
machine gun company for the purpose of carry-
ing water, rations and a reserve supply of
ammunition. They were led by natives from
Egypt and Africa known as “naffers.” The

94THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 95

bas reis, or native overseer, armed with a
large buffalo hide whip, acted as sergeant in
charge of the camel transport, and was provided
for this purpose with a special riding camel of
a smaller and faster type than the ordinary pack
camel. The bas reis also acted as interpreter
when required.

During.one of the smaller fights on our way
up to the Maritime Plain—we had scraps with
the rear-guard of the retreating Turkish army
almost every day—lI very nearly lost my entire
camel transport. It happened in this way:

I was standing on a hill watching the opera-
tions. It was during the early stages, and my
reserve sections of machine gunners, their guns
loaded on mules, were under cover waiting to
reinforce the line if necessary. ‘To my right,
also on a hill, the brigadier had established his
headquarters, easily distinguished by the red
three-cornered flag on a bamboo lance stuck in
the reverse slope.

By the way, I once heard an officer in a
musketry class at Grantham describe a briga-
dier’s flag as “‘the triangle of error;” it was not
until I had served under two or three brigadiers
that I realised how suitable the title was.

The Turks were putting up a stiff fight and96 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

my guns were going all out, tapping with very
few intervals between prolonged bursts of fire.
This was eating up my ammunition, and I
waited rather impatiently for my camels to
return. I had sent them back to refill at the
divisional ammunition column and they should
have appeared in sight before now. Meanwhile,
belt box mules were being dispatched down a
wadi with the first reserve supply of filled belts
from company headquarters. I anxiously swept
the surrounding country with my glasses and
at last spotted my camels approaching in single
file, carefully picking their way round the
reverse slope of a hill to the west of the one on
which I stood. They got within a mile or so of
my headquarters and then, instead of turning
down the wadi as they should have done, they
kept straight on, thus bringing themselves under
direct observation of the Turks. Soon they were
calmly advancing along the open space between
the enemy line and our men, whom I could see
crawling forward to the attack.

The Turks were hiding behind stone boulders
and low walls they had constructed, called
“sangars,” waiting for us to come on.

I jumped on a horse and galloped in the direc-
tion of my camels, expecting to find on arrivalTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 97

most of them dead, which would have been a
very serious loss to me, especially at that time
when they could not easily have been replaced.
The bas reis must have lost his head completely
and all sense of direction, too! The camels made
a wonderful target, standing out in bold relief
in the clear atmosphere of early morning. Just
as I got up to them the Turks found the correct
range, and machine gun and rifle bullets came
whistling through the air. Some of the wretched
animals were hit at once, luckily not in vital
places, however. I saw one that had four bullet
wounds in his legs. The blood poured from the
holes but the camel did not appear to mind in
the least; he just shook himself impatiently as
though he had been stung by some noxious insect,
and quietly went on nibbling at a patch of grass
growing in the Desert at his feet. We quickly
got him under cover and plugged up his wounds
with absorbent cotton wool soaked in iodine,
and five minutes afterwards he was really none
the worse for his baptism of fire.

A few days later one of my officers, as a joke,
burst an inflated paper bag in a camel’s face.
The creature was frightened to death, had an
attack of hysteria, and was on the sick list for
two weeks before he completely recovered!98 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Another little incident which perhaps illus-
trates even more the peculiarities of the camel,
is this: In all parts of Palestine there still exist
large caverns; some are hewn out of the solid
rock, but others are pits that have been dug in
the ground and cemented round the inside. The
walls are concave, a small opening being left at
the top which can be completely covered by a
rolling stone. They were first constructed in
Egypt over two thousand years before Christ,
after Joseph had foretold Pharaoh’s dream as
“seven years of plenty’ followed by “seven lean
years.” On Joseph’s advice they were filled
with grain harvested in the good years, so that
there was “corn in Egypt’ during the great
famine when there was little to be obtained
elsewhere.

When the Israelites migrated to Palestine
they also dug large granaries there as a pre-
cautionary measure, and to this day you will
find these caverns in all parts of the Holy Land.
Very few of them are in use now and most of
them have fallen into decay. In some cases the
sides have crumbled away, causing them to
become awkward traps for wanderers in the
dusk, especially as they are usually to be found
by the sides of the mountain tracks. One dayTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 99

on the march I was riding in rear of my trans-
port section when I noticed that one of the
naffers had led his camel out of the line of march
and was heading straight for one of these
ancient granaries. One side of it had fallen in,
and no doubt during the passage of hundreds of
years had become gradually silted up; so that
from the near side there was a gentle slope into
the cavern, whereas on the far side the wall
rose in its original concave manner, almost
closing in the top. Camel leaders had a habit
of marching along with their heads down, not
looking where they were going, possibly dream-
ing of their homes in Soudan. I decided to say
nothing but to teach the man a lesson if I could;
so I sat on my horse and waited to see what he
would do when he found himself with his camel
in this trap. It was the camel, however, and
not the man that proved of most interest in the
end. When he got up to the wall in front of
him he just looked at it; a most peculiar expres-
sion came over his face—and a camel can look
extremely peculiar at times—then he trembled
violently all over and sat down.

I shouted to the man in Arabic, directing him
to off-load the camel and get him out, but
although neither the man nor the camel was100 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE
hurt in the slightest degree, and all the camel
had to do was just to get up, turn round, and
walk out again, the ridiculous animal refused
to move. Ten minutes afterwards he was dead;
he had died entirely of fright and despair! He
had been accustomed all his life to the top of the
sround; it was a great shock to find himself in
such a hole.

I was very annoyed at losing this particular
pack camel, as he happened to carry a few com-
forts for the officers’ mess; for, whilst there was
no prohibition in Egypt, supplies were very
difficult to obtain just then. So I told the nafier
he deserved to be shot for his stupidity and rode
on to rejoin my company. That night, just
before I turned in, Sergeant-Major Parsons
came to my tent and told me the bas reis was
outside with a native who wished to see the
commanding officer. I slipped on my tunic
again and stepped out of the tent. |

The bas reis saluted gravely and said:

“Dis man, Sar, name Abdul Ahmed, ’im
come for you to shoot ’im, because ‘im lose
gammel; ’im wait for you kill ’im!”

“Tell him,” I replied, ‘‘that I think it is very
good of him to turn up like this. I will not shoot
him now, but he must never be so stupid again.
Say he can go.”THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 101

The bas reis repeated what I had said in
Arabic;; Abdul beamed all over, evidently
delighted at not being shot there and then, and
replied at some length with expressive gestures.

“What does he say now?” I enquired. The
bas reis interpreted. “’Im say, ’im tank you
very much; ’1m hope you become lord and very
big general; ’im also hope all your children
become little generals.”’

“Thank him very much for his wishes,” I
replied and returned to my tent.

I must confess that at that period of the cam-
paign the idea of becoming a general myself
was not unpleasant, but that any future off-
spring I might be blessed with should have the
exalted rank of generals, too, was rather terri-
fying! Anyone who has ever had any experi-
ence with children or generals, I am sure, will
agree with me—both are extremely difficult to
manage.

We all grew very fond of our camel leaders
as time went on; they sang their quaint Arab
songs on the march, and the “Tommies” joined
in the choruses which they very rapidly picked
up.

The Egyptian labour corps was composed of
men conscripted for a definite period of service.102 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

To them the war was of little interest, except
that it was keeping them from their wives and
families. A favourite song of theirs commenced,
“Kam Lealo, Kam yaum?” (How many days,
how many nights?)—meaning how long would
their work continue before they would be free
to return to their Desert homes. The soloist,
who was apparently the comedian of the party,
would first reply, “A hundred years!”—at
which there would be much wailing and wring-
ing of hands. The chorus then repeated, ““How
many days, how many nights?” whereupon the
soloist would reduce the period of waiting to,
say, twenty years, then ten, and so on until on
being asked for the final time, ‘How many days,
how many nights?” he replied, “One day, one
night.” The whole crowd of natives would then
clap their hands with delight, and the song was
erided.

One afternoon, as the company wound its way
among the drab Judean hills, I noticed there
seemed even more laughter and applause than
usual coming from the camel men, so I asked
the bas reis to interpret the song. The chorus
were singing, ““Here comes the British master” ;
whereupon the soloist would reply, “Bring
whisky, bring soda”—showing that these poorTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 103

ignorant heathens had a pretty good idea of the
requirements of some of their British masters.

When the bad weather came the songs of the
naffers ceased; like the animals they led, they
were unable to stand the cold and the wet. They
wore thin cotton garibeers with practically no
underclothes; they had bare heads and bare feet.
They had been perfectly wonderful on the long
march across the hot sands of the Desert but the
rocks of Palestine cut their feet to ribbons, the
cold pierced through their soaked garments like
a sword, and many of them fell out by the way-
side to die of exposure. Like all the actions of
these nomads, there was grace and beauty even
in their preparations for death.

I could always tell when one of my naffers
had got to the end of his tether. First he would
secure his camel by the leading rope to the pack
saddle of the camel immediately in front; then,
with a gentle caressing pat that passed entirely
unnoticed by the unresponsive beast he had
tended and guided over so many long and weary
miles, he would take his farewell, which, in its
way, was just as full of chivalry and romance
as the impassioned speech to his steed of some
medieval knight stricken on the field of battle.
With slow steps he would pick his way to the104 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

side of the track, carefully select a place for his
last moments on earth, squat down, pull the
skirt of his garibeer over his head, murmur a
prayer to Allah and very shortly afterwards he
would be dead. It seemed as though he had
definitely made up his mind he was unable to
continue the march, too sick and miserable to
live, and had just willed himself to die.

It was “Kismet” and nothing could be done.

It is extraordinary the will-power these men
of the East possess. I remember a native I had
up before me for some small crime he had com-
mitted—everything a soldier does wrong in the
army is called a crime if it is found out—and I
had awarded a minor punishment. However,
the naffer considered he was not guilty, and
requested me to remit the penalty. I told him
I had decided he was guilty and the punishment
would stand.

Whereupon he replied with dignity and a
certain wistful sadness, ‘““My master does not
believe me, therefore I shall die!’ Well, I
certainly did not believe that statement and I
told the sergeant-major to march him out.

Two hours later this man was found just out-
side the camp in a recumbent position under a
palm tree—dead! His garibeer had been care-THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 105

fully wrapped round his head, which had fallen
forward on his knees. He must have gone from
my presence with the fixed conviction that he
had been unjustly treated, decided that under
these conditions life was not worth living; and,
after making all preparations for the Great
Beyond, steadily willed himself to die.CHAPTER VII.

DAVID AND GOLIATH.

 

I gave one last long pull at my fast disappear-
ing cigarette before I threw it regretfully away.
It fell amongst the rocks, where it gave a tiny
firework display, and then went out.

I started to climb in the direction of my tent,
and then stopped, and half leaning, half sitting
on a large, smooth, white boulder, gazed up the
valley.

The camp of the division lay before me like
some wonderful panorama, mysterious and
strangely attractive in the half light cast by the
moon as she rose over the eucalyptus trees at the
entrance to the pass. Resembling huge glow-
worms, the camp fires were dotted about on
elther side of the wild mountain track that leads
from Latron to Enab and forms part of the
famous Jaffa-Jerusalem road. The cool evening
breeze that came now, as it did most nights,
bringing refreshment and a sense of rest after
the heat and glare of the day, fanned into life the
embers of the neglected cook-house fires.

Here and there amongst the countless lines of

106THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 10%

bivouac tents, pitched row above row on the nar-
row terraces of the Judean hills, the tiny light of
a candle, flickering in the wind, showed the posi-
tion of a guard tent or where the picquet slept.
Now and then the stillness of the night would
be broken by the neighing of a horse or the impa-
tient stamping of a mule on the transport lines in
the valley. As the animals shook their heads, the
steel head chains rattled, giving forth a silvery
sound that was very pleasant to theear. A small
mountain stream trickled over the stones by the
side of the road. Strange! how unreal and
almost ghostly the noise of running water
seemed after the many, many miles of parched
and waterless country over which we had come.
The stream apparently started in the deep
shadow of the eucalyptus trees where the well of
Latron lay, half hidden by thick green foliage.
The guns that rendered such splendid service in
the capture of Beersheba and the taking of
Sheria, barking and grunting out their messages
of death and appearing like live things in the
dust and smoke of battle, now stood in silent
lines, swathed in canvas sheets. The men they
had fought for and guarded against attack slept;
and one could almost imagine that they were
sleeping too, taking what rest they could before108 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

dawn snould find them rumbling forward over
the stony roads again. Further back along the
path, the tall forms of the camels could be seen
silhouetted against the rising moon.

The coolness of the eastern night had laid its
hand gently and softly over all these sleeping
thousands.

I rather wondered what dreams they dreamed
in their little bivouacs crowded so closely
together. Some would be sleeping peacefully,
worn out by the marching and the work of the
day, but others, with brains more active or
natures more excitable, would be living over
again experiences of the past. The war had
brought strange changes in all their lives.

It was a London division, and most of our men
were shop boys or clerks of London Town. Had
any premonition ever come to any of them, as
they sold half yards of calico or entered up col-
umns of figures in their ledgers in pre-war days,
of what the future had in store? They came
from every part of the city, and most of them
had lived in depressing little houses set in dreary
suburban streets before the call for men had
brought them in their thousands to join for the
duration of the war. Could anything be more
unromantic than the original environment ofTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 109

these soldiers of Allenby’s, whose exploits in
Palestine would be handed down as history
throughout all the ages?

When I was an actor in London, playing at
some outlying theatre, I had often glanced in at
a typical suburban home. The first things that
attracted notice were the starched lace curtains
serving as a frame for a little table set in the
window, on which some imitation fruit under a
glass shade rested on a wool mat.

Then, if one were inquisitive enough to press
one’s face close to the window and take a further
view, and I must confess I have often done this,
one discovered strange furniture in the dim
interior beyond. Early Victorian in design and
upholstered in stamped velvet or shiny black
leather, it looked thoroughly uncomfortable.

An extremely woolly skin mat lay in front of
the fireplace, which was filled with paper flowers.
The overmantel looking-glass had a bunch of
tulips painted on it, and below, a marble clock,
guarded by two severe cut-glass ornaments, gave
a last touch to a picture that was one of depress-
ing respectability. One could only suppose that
the family did not attempt to live in the front
parlour but probably inhabited the kitchen at the
back of the house, a slightly more human-looking110 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

place opening onto a long tank-like garden in
which were a clothes line, a rabbit hutch and
some withered geraniums in pots.

A very good view of these gardens, and some-
times of the kitchens, could be obtained from the
trains that ran incessantly to and from the
metropolis.

Now and then an attempt had been made to
beautify and add a touch of romance, but for the
most part the effect was sordid and uninspiring
in the extreme. One wondered what the daily
lives of people who lived in such surroundings
could be. A hurried breakfast before catching
the early train for the city, a long monotonous
day spent in office or store, a short break for
lunch, enlivened by dominoes at some cheap
restaurant in close proximity to one’s business
house, and then the crowded train back home
again. One day would follow another with dead-
ening sameness, relieved once a year during the
summer by a fortnight spent at some popular
over-crowded seaside resort such as Margate or
Southend.

These people’s lives were apparently mapped
out for them by fate and neatly entered up in
books of destiny, as dull and uninteresting as the
ledgers they kept in their dismal London offices.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE lil

And then some genie, beneficent or evil—who
could say?—had cast a spell, and “hey presto”
from Balham and Upper Tooting to the plains
of Philistia and the hills of Judea. From stuffy
little bedrooms in Kennington, where the smoke-
laden fog crept in at half-open windows, to deep
slumber in the clear night air on the mountain-
side of a pass leading from Jafia to the Holy
City, with the star-lit sky of the mysterious East
as a canopy, and a thousand memories of all the
gallant crusaders that had passed that way to
bring a touch of romance to one’s dreams and
inspire one’s waking hours. I remembered well
when these “Londoners” had first arrived in
France. Then they had been pale, delicate-look-
ing boys; now they were strong, confident, sun-
burned men with the fearless eyes of those that
had met dangers only to overcome them, had
looked upon death and been unafraid. Never
again would the form of a pompous shop walker
scare them. In the future the displeasure of a
head clerk would find them undismayed, for was
not the whole might of the Turkish sultan’s army
fleeing before them? Would not the morrow find
them marching forward to capture Jerusalem
and free Palestine from oppression for all time?
Such men would find it hard to return to the112 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

drudgery and slavery of office and shop when the
Great War should be ended; great tact, great
forbearance would be required in handling these
demobilised Londoners, but most of all great
understanding.

I glanced at my wrist watch; the light of the
moon, which now hung like some serene and
steady lantern in the sky, showed how late the
hour was. As I turned, almost unwillingly,
towards my tent again, I noticed a small group
of machine gunners seated outside a bivouac lis-
tening to an old soldier who was evidently telling
them a story. I moved a little nearer and lis-
tened too; I was rather interested to know what
this story might be that was keeping my tired
men from their blankets and the short rest they
would get before the division moved on again at
dawn.

It was a cockney version of the fight between
David and the giant Goliath; the facts were quite
correct, but the expressions used and method of
telling it were rather more picturesque and vivid
than the Bible account with which I was
familiar. Nevertheless, it stirred up old mem-
ories that had lain dormant for many years, and
I realised all at once that I had probably pitched
my camp on precisely the same spot where theTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 113

Israelites and Philistines had faced each other so
many centuries ago. I hurried to my tent and
got from my valise the Bible my mother gave me
when I left for France, and read how :—

The Philistines stood on a mountain on
the one side and Israel stood on a mountain
on the other side, and there was a valley
between them! The giant Goliath came out
and offered battle, and David chose five
smooth stones out of the brook. “I come in
the name of the God of the armies of
Israel,” said David, and he slung one of the
stones and killed Goliath.

With the words of the old story fresh in my
mind, I climbed from terrace to terrace down
the rocky sides of the pass, until I reached the
brook at the foot of it. The moonlight caused
everything to appear as clear and distinct as in
the daytime. Out of curiosity I searched in the
bed of the stream and found two round, smooth
pebbles. I put them in the pocket of my tunic
and kept them through the campaign for luck. I
have them still!

I was over three years in Palestine. During
that time I explored every river and stream in
the country—there are not many; but I think
perhaps it is rather interesting to know that the114 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

brook which runs through the valley at Latron
is the only one where it is possible to find stones
similar to those David placed in his sling to kill
the giant Goliath.CHAPTER VIII.

THROUGH BIBLE LANDS.

The sun, like a great ball of fire, was rising in
stately majesty behind the hills where Jerusalem
is, as we set out from Latron over the parched
white chalk road that rises at every step until its
highest point is reached at Kuryetel Enab. The
rumble of gun carriages and loaded limbers as
they turned into the line of march from the
shadow of the eucalyptus trees, where they had
been parked for the night, resembled distant
thunder.

Staff officers and company commanders rode
back and forth along the columns, marshalling
their men and getting the pack animals properly
inline. Ina cloud of dust the brigadier cantered
by to take his place at the head of the brigade.

Our chargers arched their necks and tossed
their heads with almost as much spirit as they
had shown in those happy days on the transport
lines before the big advance, when rations had
been plentiful and work not too arduous. Two
days’ rest at Latron, together with an excellent
supply of good water, had worked wonders for
them.

115116 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Just as we men had set out from peaceful easy-
going England to match our strength against the
wily Turk in the fastness of his mountain home,
so had these carefully reared horses been trans-
planted from cosy thatched barns and rich lush
meadows to the burning sands of the Desert and
waterless plains of Philistia. Is it to be won-
dered at if, at times, both man and beast felt
something of the inequality of the conflict? For-
tunately, just as this feeling of depression came
stealing over one, and this usually occurred
towards the end of a particularly trying march
on an empty stomach, one remembered that the
Crusaders had experienced just such privations
and hardships similar to those we were going
through now; and were we not descendants of
those same Crusaders—just as the horses we
rode were descended from the English stock that
had furnished chargers for King Richard and
his knights and warriors?

When one realised this, all the old fighting
spirit came rushing back again, “morale” was
once more re-established, and one struggled on
for the last few miles with renewed strength.
The sun blazed down just as fiercely, the flies
attacked in their myriads as before, one’s feet
became even more blistered, raw and bleeding,THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 117

but the longest day must have an ending; and oh!
the relief it was on reaching one’s destination to
throw one’s heavy pack and equipment off, to
stretch one’s tired limbs lying full length on the
ground, whilst the camp fires crackled and the
appetising aroma of cooked meat and vegetables
came forth to soothe and comfort. And later, as
night came on and a cooling breeze sprang up,
how delightful to dip one’s tin mug in the steam-
ing dixies of tea the cooks handed round; and
then, after long indrawn breaths at the indispen-
sable cigarette, to close one’s aching eyes in
peaceful oblivion, all the discomforts of the day
already forgotten!

The entire way to Enab leads uphill, the road
winding through rocky gorges on either side of
which the ground rises almost sheer; but here
and there a wadi fringed with half a dozen
almond trees, or perhaps a cluster of fig trees,
intersects the road. The shade cast by the trees
is cool and inviting, and emphasises the barren-
ness of the surrounding country. Sometimes we
would pass Bedouins with clear-cut features and
orave, incurious eyes, standing in silent contem-
plation of the British invaders.

The Arabs of Palestine are descendants of Ish-
mael, “whose hand was against every man,” and118 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

they never seem to have quite forgotten this
ancient grudge. They live in large brown-
striped tents of camel hair; their women do not
wear yashmaks and are distinguished by faint
blue tattoo marks on their bronzed chins; they
have large soft eyes, small well-shaped hands
and feet, and slender beautiful figures; their
necklaces of gold or silver coins represent the
wealth of their husbands. The men are very
fond of singing. I do not think the women sing
so frequently, at least I have seldom heard them.
Some of the Arab boys have wonderful voices
and their songs, possessing a peculiar and not
unattractive monotony, hold a delicate enchant-
ment of their own. They are full of the solemn
imagery of the Desert, they tell of great spaces,
of endless longing and disappointment.

It is curious that in a land of sunshine such
as Palestine one should find so much sadness.

Now and then, on the march, we would come
across a husbandman tilling a cleared terrace on
the mountainside; his plough, the cumbersome
wooden implement of the Old Testament, with
possibly an ox and an ass yoked together to draw
it. In spite of the heavy marching and the
intense heat, there was a feeling of exhilaration
as the higher ground was reached. So manyTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 119

months had been passed on the Desert sands or
in the plains, that the widening horizons, which
the more commanding heights presented, were
very invigorating.

During one of our halts, after packs had been
cast aside, some of us looked back along the way
we had come. In the far distance, right down
in the Maritime Plain, we could see the tiny sea-
port town of Jaffa surrounded by cool orange
groves, save on that side where the white houses
crowded closely together, seeming to hang over
the blue waters of the Mediterranean.

But between Jaffa and the hills of Judea were
many miles of sunburnt wastes, and these had
all been left behind. Before us, getting ever
nearer, was our one great goal, the Holy City of
Jerusalem.

God seemed very near to all of us in the Judean
hills. There were times during the early days
in France when war had seemed so beastly that
I longed for the smell of the theater once more in
my nostrils. It is a form of nostalgia that all
who spend the greater portion of their lives in
the playhouse suffer from. Nostalgia of the
theater is responsible for bringing back many old
favourites of the footlights after the passage of
years has robbed them of attractiveness and
dulled their artistry.120 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

This irresistible spell is made up of the scents
of canvas and size, dust and the hot paint on
electric bulbs, grease paint and powder and bare
boards. But now that I had become so much a
part of the army machine, how should I fit in
with civilian life again, I wondered?

I loosened the girths of my horse and walked
amongst my men to find out how they were get-
ting on. Everywhere I was met with smiles;
some of the poor fellows had very bad feet, I
knew, but none would own up until the end of
the march. They had no intention of being left
behind or sent back to Latron, where a “rest
camp’ and “‘casualty clearing station” had been
established, and so miss the fight for Jerusalem.
Esprit de corps was strong in all of them. The
180th Machine Gun Company had a proud boast,
“not a single man had fallen out unless he had
fallen out insensible.’” That record was kept
throughout all the fighting in Palestine.

The country we were marching through now
was a splendid incentive, too; why, every hill and
valley, road and stream was hallowed by sacred
memories. Old Bible stories I had read as a boy
at my mother’s knee and almost forgotten came
back with a new meaning. I realised the Bible
was not only a beautifully written account of theTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 121

lives and adventures of certain holy men, but a
true history of events that had actually taken
place on the very ground over which we were
marching. This influence of the country, where
almost every day one came across a confirmation
of holy writ, was affecting my men, too. I shall
never forget, on going the rounds of my little
camp one evening, coming across one of my gun-
ners, a rather tough customer who had given me
some trouble in the training camp at Grantham,
on his knees beside his bivouac offering up his
prayers under the luminous beauty of the stars.

In the peaceful years which, please God, would
follow this terrible war, should I not miss the
peculiar and indescribable allurement of troops
on the march? Would not the recollection of it
drag my heart and memory back again with
overwhelming force and longing to those bitter-
sweet days in Palestine? It was the scent of
khaki drill uniforms and leather equipment, of
rifle oil and the white dust of the roads, of trans-
port animals, and the sweat of men’s bodies, and
the hateful lingering smells of eastern villages
coming from afar. Before 1914, and even dur-
ing the early part of my service career, I would
have been both offended and disgusted with
experiences which now had a deep attraction for——— a

  

122 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

me. Was it that the outer layers of supersensi-
tive insincerity and decadent refinement were
wearing thin, allowing some of my truer nature
within to assert itself, or just a growing indiffer-
ence to the niceties of civilised life? Whatever it
was, I knew my life had become fuller and more
vital in every way. Never again would I patron-
isingly refer to those whose opportunities for
education and advancement had not been so
great as my own, as “the common people”! Why,
these same common people were winning the
war, and doing it with a smile and a contempt for
danger and privation that was the very essence
of what chivalry and gentle breeding taught.
We halted for a time at Kuryet el Enab, “the
hill of grapes,” where divisional headquarters
were established; and then my brigade branched
off in a northeasterly direction along the ancient
Roman road to Biddu: guides would be met there
to lead the various units to their allotted areas in
the line. This Roman road turned out to be noth-
ing more than a thin path, only differing from
the ground on either side in that it had been
partly cleared of loose rocks. The scenery now
became more wild and interesting than any we
had passed on the march. To our left a deep
valley wound about in majestic disorder, at theTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 123

bottom of which was a great desolate wadi with
shelving sides.

Fighting had taken place the previous day,
and on the banks of the wadi many camels and
mules, dead and rotting, together with Turkish
transport wagons and gun limbers splintered
by shells showed where the enemy in retreat
had been caught by our field guns.

A narrow neck of land connects the village of
Biddu with the hill on which the mosque of Nebi
Samwil stood. Brigade headquarters were to be
at Biddu, so I left one section of machine guns
there, taking the remaining three sections with
me to Nebi Samwil. Night now descended sud-
denly, as it does in the East. Men and mules,
fagged out by the long and tiring march, slipped
and stumbled as they advanced over the uneven
ground. Enemy snipers, alert with the rising
moon, were busy in the almond groves of El Jib.
Now and then the spiteful ping of a rifle bullet
sounded as it struck the rocks. The mosque tow-
ered before us, fantastic and silent. Prowling
along in the shelter of its numerous stone walls
were jackals in search of food. Frequently their
dark forms could be distinguished as they passed
through a patch of moonlight. The incessant
wail they set up, at times ending in an unearthly124 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

shriek, accentuated the desolate nature of the
ruins which were to be our resting place that
night.

Up narrow stony goat paths men and animals
dragged their weary limbs, until, at length, we
reached some rough rocky ledges where gun
stores could be off-loaded. We made a short halt
whilst the cooks hurriedly prepared tea ; and
then the various gun teams, manhandling their
guns and belt boxes, set off in the wake of guides
for the shallow trenches and gaps in the wall,
temporary emplacements where the guns could
be mounted for the night, to be changed to more
convenient positions the following day.

I visited all the gun teams to see that my men
were as comfortable as possible under the cir-
cumstances, and then came back to where my
servant had erected my bivouac between two
huge boulders. “Have you had your tea yet?” I
asked him. “Not yet, sir,” replied Private Sale.
“T’ve been cooking up some bully beef for you
with some onions I got at Latron. T’ll get my tea
afterwards.” He limped painfully away, and
soon returned with quite an appetising concoc-
tion in the lid of a megs tin.

After hovering about anxiously to see that the
meal he had prepared was all right, and puttingTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 125

some final touches to my bed to make it as rest-
ful as the nature of the ground permitted, he
wearily dragged his blistered feet over the sharp
rocks to the cook-house where he drew his ration
of tea, now stone cold from waiting in the open
dixie. Having drunk it, he slowly unfastened
the straps of his valise, took out his blanket, and
winding it tightly round himself, lay down in the
open to sleep.

I had ridden a horse, Sale had marched all the
way with full equipment and a rifle, handicapped
in addition by bent legs and bad feet—yet he had
found room in his overweighted pack for the
onions because he thought I should like them.
What can one do with fellows like that?CHAPTER IX.

EMMAUS.

Nebi Samwil is the highest point in all Pale-
stine. It rises in a serried mass of rocky terraces
to an elevation of nearly three thousand feet.
It is the place of the birth and death of the
Prophet Samuel, hence the name—Nebi in
Arabic signifying prophet, and Samwil, Samuel.
It is also the Mizpah of the Old Testament.

From the slopes of this hill Samuel judged
Israel for seven years, and when he died he was
buried there. Many years afterward certain
devout Moslems erected a beautiful mosque on
the crest of Nebi Samwil to commemorate his
memory.

This mosque, with its tall, graceful minaret,
was a landmark for many miles around and
would have proved an excellent observation post
for us, had we made use of it.

No one was allowed inside, however, or per-
mitted to mount the spiral stone staircase of the
minaret. In this way it was hoped to guard the
sacred edifice from destruction by the enemy. A
splendid view of the surrounding country could
be obtained from the base of the mosque.

126THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE UA

Night had obscured the landscape when we
took over on November 25th, but dawn was
breaking the following morning as I stood in the
shadow of the wall on the southeastern side and
gazed across the hills and valleys toward Jeru-
salem.

The rising sun flecked with patches of gold the
numerous spires and domes and minarets. The
Holy City looked like some fairy place imagined
in a dream. Earthbound clouds of mist, slowly
becoming more faint and ethereal with the
increasing warmth of day, cut off from view the
lower portions of the buildings and outer walls
so that they seemed suspended in the sky, requir-
ing but the slightest puff of wind to make them
vanish too, like a mirage seen in the Desert.

I leaned over the low stone parapet, and with
deep indrawn breaths filled my whole being with
the mystery and wonder of this glorious pano-
rama unfolding itself slowly before me.

I was standing where Richard the Lion-
hearted must have stood during the third cru-
sade, seven centuries before. Richard I set out
from Acre along the Jaffa-Jerusalem road with
trumpets sounding and banners waving, buoyed
up with great hopes and a firm resolve to free
the Holy City from the infidel; but fate had128 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

intervened, causing the king to turn aside and
cover his face in the bitterness of his disappoint-
ment. He dare not gaze upon a prize he knew
was not for him. In all the years since then,
Jerusalem had successfully resisted every Chris-
tian army of invasion. But where the king had
refused to look, I, humble soldier of Allenby’s,
would look my fill; I was troubled with no such
doubts as his. Something within told me that
Where those other crusades had failed, ours
should succeed. Where this strange confidence
came from I cannot say; all I know is that I felt
it with every nerve and fibre of my being.

On December Ist the Turks made three violent
attempts to recapture Nebi Samwil, “the key to
Jerusalem.” Every attempt was beaten off.
Prior to these assaults our hill was subjected to
continuous shell fire and the famous mosque
reduced to ruins, a whole company of infantry
being buried by the falling walls. Shell after
shell tore through the air with a wailing sound
as though the very projectiles deprecated the
desecration they were causing. For some con-
siderable time the minaret stood, and then it, too,
came crashing down. The dust and smoke hung
like a heavy pall, almost entirely obliterating
our field of view.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 129

Under cover of this screen large quantities of
Turks advanced right up the slopes to where
those of us who had escaped the shells crouched
in the shallow trenches or behind piles of debris,
ready to meet them with hand grenades or
bayonets.

My machine guns rapped out their continuous
messages of death, like ghastly typewriters
whose bloody Jetters all who ran might read on
the white stones of the hillside. One sergeant,
whose entire gun team had become casualties, sat
at his gun alone surrounded by the corpses of his
comrades. His ammunition was getting low, he
could not leave the gun, and had no one to send
for a fresh supply. Just as his last belt was
running through the feed block, a giant Turk
appeared over the crest of the hill, his bayonet
held out before him, his eyes staring as though
mesmerized. He had spotted the sergeant and
was making straight for the gun, advancing
slowly, deliberately, relentlessly. He got so close
the sergeant could smell the garlic in his hot
breath. He drew back his bayonet preparatory
to plunging it in the machine gunner’s body, but
the sergeant, who had kept a few cartridges for
the end, with some rapid turns of the wheel, ele-
vated his gun, aimed point blank at his adver-130 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

sary, and pressed the thumb piece. The last bul-
lets the belt contained followed one another in a
final burst. For the space of a second nothing
happened; then with a look of inquisitive sur-
prise, the Turk suddenly crumpled up, his arms
shot forward over the gun, and his rifle fell with
a clatter on the stones. The center of the cone
of fire had caught him in the throat, severing his
head from his body; the blood from the headless
trunk poured in a red stream over the sergeant’s
khaki tunic as he sat on at his gun transfixed.
In the meantime our infantry had rallied and
Were manning the line again. Reinforcements
were hurrying up from Biddu, but when they
arrived they were not required; the line had
wavered under the terrific onslaughts of the
enemy but had not broken; the key to Jerusalem
was still in British hands.

When darkness came our little garrison buried
over five hundred dead Turks on the slopes of
Nebi Samwil.

Within easy reach of Nebi Samwil is the tradi-
tional site of Emmaus. A wonderful old monas-
tery, used by us as an advanced dressing station,
marks the place; so that our men were actually
dying on the spot where Christ appeared to His
disciples after the Crucifixion!THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 131

All stretcher cases had to be carried over rocky
ground up and down the steep mountainsides
for some miles before the shelter of the monas-
tery could be reached and proper medical atten-
tion obtained. I walked over in the late after-
noon, during a lull that had followed the fighting,
to visit one of my company who had been mor-
tally wounded.

I found him in a cot in a special corner of the
monastery set aside for the more serious cases.
He lay in his grey flannel army shirt; his uni-
form had been taken away—he would never
require that again.

He tried to smile when he saw me—a pathetic
attempt. Poor boy! he was little more than a
youngster, and yet he had been with us ever
since we landed in France. I should say he was
about nineteen; he had undoubtedly put his age
up to get into the army at all. I could imagine
the enthusiasm that had caused him to add at
least three years so that he might pass the easy-
going recruiting officer.

I recalled his cheery face on a hundred
marches, his witty jokes that had so often set the
company inaroar. He was a general favourite
with the men, and all of us would miss him.
He possessed such a happy, sunny nature that132 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

somehow I never associated him with death: and
yet he was going to die, and very shortly, in a
strange, foreign land thousands of miles from
home. He was no longer capable of forming a
cog in that great military machine that was
crushing out human lives at every turn, and so
had been thrown aside.

I guessed he must be feeling pretty lonely and
badly in need of his mother, to whom he had prob-
ably gone in the past with every ache and pain,
sure of sympathy. He had been a soldier for
three years, but now he was just a little boy
again, badly hurt and frightened—and terribly
afraid to die.

His mother would have understood those
unshed tears he was too proud to let fall. Had
she been there, she would, I knew, have taken his
aching head and laid it on her breast, and stroked
his hair and comforted him, letting him sob his
overweighted heart out, and thus have given him
the relief he so sorely needed. But J was his offi-
cer, and to an enormous extent, officers and men
must always remain strangers. It is a rule of
the service, the very essence of discipline. What
a curious little cramped world it is, this pipe-clay
world of the army, the sacred traditions of which
must not be tampered with even in the presenceTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 133

of death! To the boy who lay there in pain and
such need of sympathy and understanding, |
was “his officer,” a being of another world with
wonderful unlimited powers, whose orders must
be received with respect and instantly obeyed.

It was hardly to be expected that an officer
would listen whilst a common soldier boy, in
rough unpolished language, poured out all the
doubts and half-formed fears that were perplex-
ing him.

On the other hand, how could I say, as God
knows I wanted to!—‘“Just have a good cry, old
chap; hang the world and what others may
think. I’ve got a mother at home, too, who would
break her heart if anything happened to me—so
I know, old boy, I understand!’

Instead I drew an empty ammunition box
towards the bed and sat down, and because I
thought it might interest him, I told him the
story of Emmaus: Of how Christ had appeared
to His disciples upon that very spot after the
Crucifixion, just as night was coming on, and
how, as He was about to go, one of them had
entreated Him saying, “Abide with us, for it is
toward evening, and the day is far spent”; and
how He had remained for awhile, and broken
bread and blessed it, and given it to them, and134 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

said, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world!”

Just as I finished speaking a ray from the set-
ting sun stole in at the mullioned window and fell
across the bed, lighting up the dying soldier’s
face. The strained, worried look had vanished;
a peaceful, almost happy and contented expres-
sion had taken its place. His hand crept slowly
from the side of the bed. I took it in both of
mine. He whispered, but although his voice was
very low, I heard every word he said:

“Thank you for telling me that story, sir.
‘Abide with me, fast falls the eventide’ is
mother’s favourite hymn. I shall be able to sleep
now. Good-night, sir.”” And then, lower still, he
murmured, “God bless you!”

Poor little boy, he thought it might not be cor-
rect to say “God bless you” to an officer, even on
the verge of the Great Beyond.

The setting of the sun had caused it to become
colder. I pulled up the outer covering of the bed
and tiptoed along the stone passage out onto the
open hillside. As I turned in the direction of the
track to Nebi Samwil the sky was suddenly lit
with angry bursts of flame; there was a rum-
ble of heavy guns, the spiteful sound of bullets,
the deadly rapping noise made by machine guns.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 135

I clenched my hands in impotent rage. It was
terrible, this carnage that was robbing the world
of the flower of its youth and the strength of its
manhood! What were romance and chivalry,
adventure and glory worth, that could outbalance
the young lives offered in such profusion on its
altars?

These thoughts had come to me often in
France. They came less frequently in Mace-
donia and seldom in Palestine, but always at the
back of my mind was a terrible doubt that
refused to be put aside. War was futile, unnec-
essary and indefensible; it was cruel and relent-
less—the one relic of a barbarous past that mod-
ern civilization still clung to, seeing in the clash
of arms the only solution of the great world
problems of the present day.

* f *F 6 * *

When the sun rose next morning over the
Judean hills, there was already an empty cot at
Emmaus waiting for its next occupant, whilst a
slender boyish form wrapped in an army
blanket, lay with others on a long oak table in a
room that had once been the library of the vener-
able prior but was now used as a mortuary.CHAPTER X.

THE FIGHT FOR THE HOLY CITY.

The 60th Division was relieved by the 74th in
the Nebi Samwil area on December Oth. I
marched my machine gun company along a
winding mountain path to the neighbourhood of
Beit Nakula, a small village about one mile east
of Kuryet el Enab on the Jaffa-Jerusalem road.
The weather now definitely broke up and it
began to rain incessantly. For months past we
had prayed for the sight of a cloud in the sky,
however small, to veil for a time the blistering
rays of the sun, but when the clouds came they
were so numerous and so black they covered the
sky and turned day into night.

The temperature suddenly dropped and it
became bitterly cold. An icy wind lashed into
fury the falling sheets of water, sweeping them
into our faces as we fought our way along, just
as the hot winds of the khamseen had driven the
sands of the Desert and so delayed our progress
across the peninsula of Sinai.

Roads and footpaths, previously inches deep
in chalky dust, now became endless quagmires in

136THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 157

which men and animals floundered hopelessly.
All our surplus kit, including great coats, had
been left behind on the divisional dump at Shellal
before the march to Beersheba. It was a tre-
mendous and much-appreciated relief then to
cast aside our extra clothing, the sun blazed in
the sky and hundreds of miles of desert lay
before us; indeed, it would have been well-nigh
impossible to march and fight as we had marched
and fought weighted down with full equipment.

But now, when the penetrating rain forced its
way through our thin eotton tunics and cold
blasts of wind whistled round our numbed bare
knees, turning them from sunburnt brown to
mottled blue, we were reminded of the comfort
of trousers, and great coats seemed most desir-
able adjuncts to our wardrobes.

Our boots, too, were in a deplorable condition
due to constant marching over rocky ground.
Fresh supplies were reported on the way from
rail head, but so far had failed to reach us. Some
of my men were practically barefooted. How-
ever, rough sandals, similar to those worn by the
Turks, made from odd pieces of leather picked
up in the transport lines, and bound to the feet
by strips of hide or even string, proved excellent
substitutes for the genuine article.138 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

The heavy rains, which were causing us such
discomfort in the hills, played havoc with our
lines of communication, and at a time when a
good service between the base and the firing line
was of the utmost importance.

A few hours had changed the Wadi Ghuzze
from a peaceful parched valley to a raging tem-
pestuous torrent.

Our military bridges over which supplies
came were constantly swept away by the rising
stream, and all traffic was held up until the engi-
neers could reconstruct them.

Our camels, if painfully slow, had yet been a
thoroughly reliable means of transporting food
and ammunition whilst the fine weather lasted;
they became almost useless when the wet
weather came. In fact, they proved an added
source of danger to our advancing troops. Slip-
ping in the mud, breaking their legs and
obstructing the traffic in other ways, they some-
times caused congestion it took hours to remove.

Three infantry divisions with artillery, and
the Australian mounted troops, were being fed
along the Jaffa-Jerusalem road; consequently,
any disorganisation of the supply train at once
became a serious matter. Many camels, from
sheer misery, barracked in the mud and refusedTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 139

to rise again. They usually chose for this pur-
pose a narrow road, on one side of which was a
steep cliff, on the other a precipice. Every effort
was made to induce them to continue on their
way, but when persuasion failed the only alter-
native was to shoot them and roll their dead
bodies over into the valley below. They were
quickly seized upon by watchful natives, cut up
into convenient joints and conveyed to tiny mud
houses on the tops of cone-shaped hills. They,
no doubt, afforded excellent dinners to numer-
ous Palestinian families.

My camp at Beit Nakula consisted of a series
of terraces, each one about thirty yards in
width; the gun stores being stacked up on a level
patch of ground by the side of the road and
placed under a guard. On the first terrace were
the officers’ bivouacs, on those below the various
gun teams were encamped. Immediately aiter
arrival a working party commenced getting the
place in order, whilst the remainder erected
bivouacs and dug trenches to drain the waiter-
logged ground. We were all soaked to the skin
and welcomed the digging as a means of restor-
ing circulation. The cooks had great difficulty
in starting a fire, but willing hands rolled rocks
together as a protection from the driving rain,140 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

and soon the sight of flames and the sound of
crackling wood gave cheerful promise of hot tea
in the near future.

When everything was going smoothly I went
over to my transport lines to inspect the condi-
tion of the mules. I must confess they were
causing me considerable anxiety. Rations had
been bad for some time owing to the breakdown
of the bridges and consequent disorganisation.
Lack of water had been our principal difficulty
in the past, but now that water was plentiful—
indeed too plentiful—fodder had become scarce.
Bulk foods, such as hay and tibbin, were almost
unobtainable, and I had to make do with half
rations of corn and barley.

The work required from a machine gun pack
mule is very arduous. Our move from Nebl
Samwil indicated that fresh operations were
about to take place. Even greater efforts would
be required then and there was no doubt they had
lost weight to an alarming extent and were
hardly in a fit condition for the big struggle I
felt sure was impending.

As I turned these rather perplexing problems
over in my mind, a brigade runner came up,
saluted, and said, “The general’s compliments,
sir, and will you be on the road opposite yourTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 141

camp, mounted, in five minutes’ time? He
wishes you to accompany him to Kustul.”

Now Kustul was our most advanced post
towards Jerusalem. It looked as though a recon-
naissance was taking place. Perhaps the great
attack for which we had all been anxiously wait-
ing was about to be launched! The very thought
of it made me feel warm all over.

I ordered my horse saddled up again. Poor
old Peter! he looked very depressed when his
half-filled nose bag was removed. I mounted
and trotted to the side of the road. A few min-
utes later Brigadier-General Watson accom-
panied by the four battalion commanders of the
180th Brigade came along, and we all turned
east towards Kustul. As I passed some of my
men digging trenches I overheard one of them
say to his companions, ‘There goes the capting;
there’ll be dirty work at the crossroads to-night,
boys!”

I rode with the colonel of the 20th London
Regiment. Colonel Warde-Aldham was a
guardsman, a captain in his own regiment at
the commencement of the war, but quickly picked
out to command a territorial battalion in the new
armies. When he first joined us he was not very
popular; his guard’s training and love of disci-142 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

pline did not endear him to either officers or men.
He had a perfect mania for parades, shiny but-
tons and infantry drill, and took a peculiar and
personal interest in the training and progress of
his junior officers. However, when the fighting
came along, the tide of popular approval quickly
turned in his favour. His bravery in action and
knowledge of practical tactics caused him to
become one of the most popular, just as he was
one of the most efficient, officers in the division.

We machine gunners had a particularly warm
corner in our hearts for the little colonel of the
20th, not only because he understood machine
gun methods so thoroughly, but also because he
invariably looked after that section of ours
which happened to be attached to his battalion
for operations.

I knew he must have had a talk with the gen-
eral before leaving brigade headquarters, so I
asked him if anything particular was in the
wind. He smiled in that curious secretive way
he had, and bending over his horse towards me,
said:

“Why, yes, Gilbert, if all goes well in three
days’ time Jerusalem will be in our hands. Our
brigade, with the 179th on our right and the
181st in reserve, is to be in position on the nightTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 143

of the seventh. The 179th Brigade will then
eross the Wadi Surar and make for the high
ground south of Ain Karim.

“We attack at dawn on the eighth from the
valley before Kustul, advance up the hills and
take the Deir Yesin fortifications from the front.
The 53rd Division is advancing up the Hebron
road and will enter Jerusalem from the south.

“Meanwhile the 74th and 10th Divisions,
pivoting on Nebi Samwil, are prepared immedi-
ately the city is clear of the enemy to swing for-
ward and form a line facing north. The Turks
are expected to retreat either north on Nablus or
east to the Jordan Valley. By the way, I believe
Tam to have one of your sections with me, which
will you send?”’

‘Number four, Colonel,” I replied.

“Good, I like Lamb,” said the commanding
officer of the 20th, and we both cantered on to
rejoin the brigadier who had gone some way
ahead.

The rain had ceased for a time, and a watery
gleam of pale sunshine stole over the barren
hills and valleys through which we were now
passing. Soon we got to the neighbourhood of
Kustul. All horses were left in the dip, and we
climbed the steep hill on which the tiny village144 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

of Kustul stands like a beacon. Not more than
two officers were allowed to observe from the
rocks on the forward slope at one time as it was
under direct observation from Turkish trenches.

When my turn came I wormed my way
between two huge boulders, and with my map-
case before me, studied the ground carefully.

‘Below me the mountainside fell away in a
series of steep, narrow terraces until the valley
was reached; here a plentiful supply of almond
trees promised a certain amount of cover from
view, provided we were able to reach them before
daylightcame. The hills we were to storm after-
wards, however, stood out clearly in all the
nakedness of their barren state. The trenches
of Deir Yesin, resembling giant wounds but
partly healed, showed thin white streaks a little
below the crests of the tallest heights.

I thought to myself: It will require all our
strength and determination to scale those rugged
hills under fire from the cleverly sighted Turkish
trenches and machine gun emplacements of the
enemy. Even the minutest amount of cover will
be unobtainable during the long climb necessary,
and we shall certainly be worn out with drag-
ging ourselves and our guns up the steep ter-
races of rock before the final assault takes place.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 145

And then I began to plan the most effective way
in which I might assist the attack with my six-
teen guns. My allowance of time seemed all too
short before two blasts on the brigadier’s whistle
recalled me to the reverse slope.

A brigade conference was held in the hollow
at which the following plan of action was agreed
to: The 2nd/18th was to advance along the
Jaffa-Jerusalem road, under cover of darkness,
with the village of Lifta as its objective, whilst
the 2nd/20th, supported by the 2nd/19th, was to
assemble in the valley below Deir Yesin, reor-
ganise there, and attack the heights before dawn
on December 8th. The 2nd/17th, the remaining
battalion in the brigade, would be in reserve,
ready to follow up the 2nd/18th should the
initial operation prove successful. I attached
one section of guns to each assaulting battalion,
keeping one in reserve.

a oS aS 6 * F aS

The evening of December 7th was pitch black;
there was no moon; it was bitterly cold and rain
fell in torrents. From an early hour in the after-
noon troops commenced arriving in small parties
at the place of assembly in the wadi behind Kus-
tul. On every road and track endless lines ofree =
;

  

146 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

guns and wagons, loaded with supplies, moved
towards the front. Field ambulances were

feverishly being erected in any sheltered place
available, whilst overhead the ceaseless drone of
aeroplanes told us the eyes of the army were
watching for us.

Staff officers, covered in mud, galloped from
divisional to brigade and back to corps headquar-
ters. A camp of military police by the side of
the Jaffa road roused my curiosity. I asked the
officer in charge what they were doing there.
He replied, ‘““We are waiting to be used to police
the streets of Jerusalem after it has been cap-
tured!” |

I went back to my company headquarters,
wrote out my final operation orders, despatched
them by runners to the sections, lay down on the
wet ground and was soon fast asleep.

At 1 A. M. the first company of the 2nd/20th
went over the top and commenced to descend the
precipitous slopes leading to the valley below
Deir Yesin. They were followed by Lieutenant
Lamb’s section, complete with gun and ammuni-
tion mules. I got permission from the brigadier
to go into action with them as I very much
wished to be present at the opening of the show.
I promised I would return to brigade headquar-
ters later.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 147

I am confident no animal in the world but a
mule could have survived that awful climb down
the steep terraces, loaded as my mules were
loaded, with heavy guns and boxes filled with
ammunition.

The slipperiness caused by the rain made the
descent a thousand times more difficult. Again
and again both man and beast would slide over
the treacherous ground. Sometimes a mule
turned a complete summersault and landed on
his back. Loads were constantly cast, only to
be collected again in the inky darkness, and with
numbed fingers, repacked on the pack saddle.
Our training in the Macedonian hills stood us in
good stead now; our mules,.too, by this time were
thoroughly trained and knew what was required
of them.

It had been our intention to rush the defences
of Deir Yesin under cover of darkness, but the
difficulties in the way had been underestimated,
and when dawn broke it found us still far from
our objective. Immediately the increasing day-
light disclosed our presence in the valley, the
enemy’s heavy artillery opened up, and soon
shells were falling amongst the trees under
which our various companies were organising
for the attack.ere tf

  

148 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

The brigadier applied for artillery support, so
that guns on both sides joined in hurling shells
that crashed and exploded with deafening
reports on the rocky sides of the two hills. I
realised that, even when captured, Deir Yesin
would require a considerable amount of holding,
and decided to take my reserve section with the
attacking infantry to consolidate.

Like ants men climbed from terrace to terrace,
only stopping to fire, getting higher and higher,
and always in full view of the enemy who took
full advantage of the splendid targets offered.

In some places the terraces were so steep men
climbed on each other’s shoulders, dragging com-
panions after them. Half-way up the hill fur-
ther progress with the mules was impossible, so
I ordered the guns unloaded and manhandled for
the remainder of the way.

Iwo of my wounded mules I shot with my
revolver. Poor beasts! they had worked so hard
with so little food to sustain them, I could not
bear to think they should lie out on the hillside
to die by inches.

The last few hundred yards the infantry
rushed with the bayonet. Brave as the Turks
were, and I do not believe there are braver sol-
diers, they were unable to withstand this finalTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 149

assault, and by 7 A. M. the defences of the for-
midable ridge overhanging the Wadi Surar were
captured. My machine guns were soon mounted
in and around Deir Yesin, some being placed on
the flat roofs of the houses, others firing through
windows. Hostile machine guns were still
sweeping the steep slopes leading to the village
of Lifta, but I was lucky enough to put two of
them out of action with my searching fire.

A magnificent bayonet charge by the 2nd/17th
Londoners, who had been in support, but had
now taken the place of the 2nd/18th, completed
the Turkish defeat, and Lifta was occupied at
dusk.

A thrilling and unforgettable incident
occurred after the capture of the ridge. On
looking back over the way we had come, I saw
a completebattery of field guns dash down the
open Jaffa road, past Kulonie in the valley, and
up the steep incline leading to Lifta. Harness
and steel work rattled. The hoofs of the gallop-
ing horses rang on the road, the heavy wheels of
the gun carriages rumbled like an approaching
thunderstorm. Each gun was perfectly spaced
and covered off. The officer in command of the
battery rode in front, and the whole scene
reminded me of an exhibition at the naval and150 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

military tournament in London before the war.

The only added attraction, if one might call
it so, was the picturesqueness of the bursting
shells of the infuriated Turkish gunners; but
luckily these fell on either side of the road, the
whole stretch of which was under direct observa-
tion of the enemy.

It seemed a suicidal thing to do, to gallop a
battery over such a shell-swept area instead of
waiting until the Turks were dislodged by us
from the higher ground beyond Deir Yesin, but
the most wonderful luck accompanied the exploit
and not a man or horse was hit.

Soon the field guns were in position and firing
over open sights at the temporarily disorganised
Turkish force. All objectives had now been
gained, our hopes of success more than realised.
Picquets and sentries were posted and my guns
laid on night lines as a precautionary measure.
It was not anticipated, however, that the enemy
would attempt a counter-attack just yet—he had
been too severely handled for that.

We knew the advance on Jerusalem was to be
a kind of encircling movement to avoid injury
to the holy places. General Allenby had issued
the strictest orders that no fighting of any kind
was to take place in the Holy City itself; and itTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 151

is rather interesting to know that throughout
the whole Palestine campaign, not a shot was
fired by the British in Jerusalem, nor in any city
or village held sacred by the three greatest
religions in the world.

Allenby’s strategy forced the Turk to carry
out his defensive fighting for Jerusalem on the
hills some distance from the city, and by leaving
him a way of retreat, any damage that might
have been caused was avoided.

Before returning to brigade headquarters |
went round the outpost line accompanied by the
section officer on duty. The rain was falling
still, but not so heavily now. All was strangely
quiet after the recent din of battle.

Our tired and mud-stained army, save for
those whose duty it was to watch, was sleeping.
It took me a considerable time to visit all the gun
teams and emplacements and I was just bidding
good-night to my section commander, when
clearly borne on the night air came the sound of
a clock striking the hour of midnight.

We both stood and listened until the vibration
of the last stroke had died away, thrilled by the
fact, brought home to us so vividly, of the near-
ness of Jerusalem. I glanced at my luminous
wrist watch and noticed it was a few minutes
fast.152 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

My companion said good-bye and returned to
his guns, but I stood where I was for awhile and

tried to penetrate the sable cloak of night that
lay between me and the city of my dreams.

All around me lay the soldiers of the last
crusade, resting, waiting for tomorrow’s dawn.
Jerusalem, the sacred city of the world, was so
near that one could hear the clocks striking; and,
if one remained very still, one could almost
imagine he could feel her heart beating too. In
afew hours we should be marching forward to
free her after four centuries of Turkish misrule
and oppression. How totally Inadequate are
words to tell of such an adventure as this!

As I turned in the direction of my bivouac,
my attention was attracted by a young infantry
officer striking a match to light his cigarette.
The flame, shielded by his hands, illuminated his
whole face, throwing into bold relief his promi-
nent features framed in the surrounding dark-
ness. A strange thought came to me. It may
have been the effect of the shadows caused by
the lighted match, or some trick of my over-
excited imagination—but the peak of his khaki
helmet looked exactly like a raised visor, whilst
the face was the face of some armoured knight
of old which I could not help thinking I had seenTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 153

years before, perhaps in some painting in a gal-
lery or book in the library at home. Somewhere
in the past, that bold forehead, aquiline nose,
firm chin, and those steadfast, unfathomable
eyes, had impressed themselves on my memory.

The match went out and all was dark again.

I crept under the flap of my bivouac, turned
over on my side and waited for sleep to come—
but in vain. I heard each hour throughout the
night recorded on the clock in J erusalem.CHAPTER XI.

THE SURRENDER OF J ERUSALEM.

The second in command of one of the London
regiments in my brigade had a really brilliant
idea. It came to him about 4 A. M. on December
Ith, as he lay in his bivouac constructed from
two army blankets and three Turkish rifles.

The ground beneath him was Wet, and the
raw night air, heavy with mist and penetra-
tingly cold, crept through the openings of his
temporary shelter, chilling him to the bone. He
had tossed from side to side in his valise the
greater part of the night to avoid the mist,
which, liquefying into drops of rain on the inner
surface of the bivouac, dropped with depressing
regularity on his upturned face.

Although ravenously hungry, he was not
looking forward to breakfast. But then, for
some time past, the daily menu had consisted of
bully beef and biscuits, and whilst American
canned beef is awfully good, you get rather tired
of it if you have nothing else to eat for a year
or two. The major, unfortunately, was blessed
with a vivid imagination and could picture such

154THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 155

wonderful breakfasts; for instance—Quaker
oats and thick cream, ham and eggs, devilled
kidneys and mushrooms, grilled Dover sole, dry
toast, marmalade and coffee! One thing he had
firmly decided, he would apply for leave to Cairo
immediately after the next big show.

Going down the line would be pretty beastly,
but thank goodness, trains were now running
across the Desert, and at Kantara he could
change on to the Egyptian state railway; and
then the tremendous satisfaction of sitting at
a real table once more in the cheerful dining-
room at Shepherd’s Hotel!

In imagination he could see that table now,
with its spotless linen cloth, shining silver, and
large bowl of fragrant roses. What should he
order first? Perhaps coffee, toast, eggs and
bacon, lots of eggs and lots of curly, crisp rolls
of bacon. When these arrived he would wait
for a moment whilst the man removed the cover
of the entree dish, and then indulge in a sur-
reptitious but appreciative sniff at the contents.
(Is there anything in the world more likely to
stimulate appetite and soothe the savage beast
latent in all of us than the aroma of cooked bacon
and freshly roasted coffee? )

Then he would prop his folded newspaper156 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

against the coffee pot and read how those poor
devils in Palestine were getting on!

The major was on the point of raising a par-
ticularly choice morsel of dream bacon to his
mouth, when a large drop of dirty water fell
from the old army blanket overhead, splashed
on his nose, and caused the whole delightful
picture to fade away.

It was at this moment that the Lifta cock
crew and the great idea came!

Lifta had fallen into British hands the night
before and the inhabitants, who were quite
friendly, had not been dispossessed. A cordon
of troops was thrown around the village, how-
ever, as a precautionary measure. If there was
a cockerel in Lifta, there were probably hens,
too. If hens—why not eggs? The quarter-
master most likely possessed a secret store of
bacon; quartermasters usually do. Eggs and

bacon !—part of the major’s dream might yet be
realised.

His mouth watered in anticipation and then
another thought came, a disturbing one this
time! Hundreds of officers and thousands of
men were in the immediate vicinity of the cap-
tured village. Just suppose only a small per-
centage of these should have heard the cockTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 157

crow—and a still smaller have had the same
idea as himself? Why, in less than an hour’s
time there would not be a solitary egg, or for
the matter of that, a hen left in the place.

Not 2 moment was to be lost! Where was
his man?

“Hey, Barton!” shouted the major, now thor-
oughly alive to the urgency of the occasion.
“Barton, where are you?”’

‘Here, sir!” replied a very sleepy voice, and
an indistinct form crawled out of a bivouac a
few yards away.

“Oh, Barton, wake the officers’ cook, tell him
to get his rifle and report to me immediately.”

“Very good, sir,” said Barton, and he went in
the direction of the cook-house.

Shortly afterwards Private Murch, culinary
expert, stood before the major’s bivouac. He
hardly gave the impression of a smart British
soldier; his tunic was so covered with grease
and filth it looked black instead of khaki colour.
He had omitted to rewind his puttees, slackened
to sleep in, and they hung in forlorn loops round
his calves. The toe-cap of one boot was missing,
exposing to view a very red big toe, framed in
a ragged grey woollen sock. He probably used
his pith helmet as a pillow, for it had lost itsee

  

158 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

original shape and had a twisted and drunken
appearance; it was at least one size too small,
and was only held in position by a thick piece
of string doing duty for the leather strap it must
have once possessed.

Private Murch had not shaved recently and
a heavy stubble covered his chin, giving to his
face rather a villainous expression quite out of
keeping with the man’s naturally sunny disposi-
tion. Slung over his right shoulder was a rifle,
protruding from the muzzle of which peeped a
screwed-up piece of oily rag.

The major flashed his electric torch on this
miserable specimen of humanity, and his first
thought was, “Really, the fellow is impossible;
how do cooks get in such a state? He ought to
be well told off.”’ Then he remembered the eggs
and how little time there was to lose, so all he
said was, “Take that rag out of your rifle and
listen tome. You know the village we captured
last night?—it is called Lifta and is about a
mile east of here. I want you to go there right
away and buy some eggs, as many as possible;
get them from the villagers. Here are sixty
plastres, be as quick as possible, but don’t come
back without the eggs!”

Private Murch saluted as smartly as he knewTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 159

how—being a cook he was a little out of prac-
tice. He then turned about and was almost
immediately swallowed up in the mist.

To understand something of the character of
a typical army cook, it is necessary to know how
it is a soldier comes to be selected for this respon-
sible post on active service.

When a cook is required at battalion head-
quarters to replace another who has either
become a casualty, which is very rare, or, more
frequently, gone sick from his own cooking, the
adjutant sends a chit to all company com-
manders, worded as follows:

To O.C., A. B. C. and D. Coy’s
A cook is required for B’n H.Q. You
will detail a suitable man to report to the

Orderly Room at 09.30 hr’s, to-morrow the

Nth inst.

A. Blank, Capt. and Adj.

When the officer commanding “‘A’’ Company
gets this note he parades all his men and carries
out a careful inspection. Unfortunately, in
most infantry companies there are certain to
be two or three scalawags who invariably let
the company down when it is inspected by the
colonel or any visiting general. The captain
pays particular attention to these bad men of160 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

his company; finally he decides Private X is
the biggest handicap his company at present
possesses, so he says to Private X: “You will
report, with full equipment, at battalion head-
quarters at nine-thirty to-morrow morning!”
And this duty over, he dismisses his company.

The same procedure takes place in B, C, and
D Compa nies, so that at nine-thirty the next
morning, four of the dirtiest, most disreputable,
bad characters in the whole battalion parade
before the adjutant for the position of cook.

The adjutant comes out of his tent, has a
good look at them, finally decides Private Y is
the least objectionable and says tohim: “Have
you ever had any experience of cooking?”

“No, sir!” replies Private Y.

“How would you like to be officers’ cook?”
continues the adjutant.

“Not at all, sir,” says Private Y.

“You will report at 10 o'clock to the mess
sergeant as cook,” raps out the adjutant, who
prefers to take the man’s lack of enthusiasm as
the sign of a modest nature and a natural feeling
of unworthiness for the promotion to the staff;
and he dismisses the other three men.

From which it will be gathered staff appoint-
ments do not necessarily go to the most suitableTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 161

or efficient people; indeed many staff officers are
selected for important posts in a manner similar
to the selection of army cooks.

* e i * s * *

Private Murch grumbled gently to himself as
he set off in the direction of Lifta.

It was still quite dark, there was a heavy
ground mist, and his way lay over country cut
up by trenches and strewn with boulders. He
trudged along for some time, now and then
giving his unprotected toes nasty knocks against
the sharp filints.

In Bible times the favourite way of killing a
man was to stone him to death. Murch had
always considered this rather a clumsy method,
but out here in Palestine—why, it appeared the
most natural thing in the world. Stones lay
everywhere, ready to the hand, nasty jagged
stones. What could be easier than to pick up
some and hurl them at anyone one didn’t par-
ticularly care about? Should the exertion of
stooping be too great, there were always nice
heaps of the right size collected from cultivated
strips of land, and these were always within
reach.

It was impossible to keep in an absolutely
straight line. Some of the deserted Turkish162 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

trenches were too wide to cross, and this neces-
sitated a detour of some hundreds of yards
before he could get ahead; but he always man-
aged to pick up the same direction again, of that
he was certain.

The major said Lifta was only a mile away,
but Private Murch was not going to be taken
in by that; he knew from bitter experience what
an “officer’s mile” represented on the ground.

How many times, towards the end of a long
march, when his feet were blistered, and his
whole body aching from sheer fatigue, would
an officer ride along the ranks of dusty, discour-
aged men, and say cheerfully, ‘Keep it up! only
another mile to go.” The mile invariably
turned out to be two, or even three, so that when
he heard that old refrain again, “Only another
mile,” he smiled grimly to himself, set his teeth,
and absolutely disbelieved it. Anyhow, this was
the longest “officer’s mile” Private Murch had
yet experienced. Luckily it was getting lighter
every minute. He could not help thinking it
strange he had not passed any of the men he
knew were on duty round Lifta.

And then, just as he was beginning to get
really alarmed, he came to the crest of a hill,
and there before him lay the village he had beenTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 163

looking for. The sun was now peeping behind
the horizon, throwing into relief the houses,
temples and mosques crowded together. The
major had described it as a small village, but it
was an enormous place, and certainly the finest
he had come across since leaving Cairo. One
thing was sure, he would get all the eggs he
needed here.

In the meantime he was both hot and tired.
He sat down on a large stone and mopped his
face with the oily rag he had removed from the
muzzle of his rifle and placed in his pocket before
leaving camp; then, removing the cigarette
stump from behind his ear, he lit it and took
one or two satisfying puffs before casting it
aside and taking a further look at the surround-
ing country.

A few yards to his left ran a winding road,
broad and smooth leading right up to the village.
Just his luck! he might have walked on level
eround in comfort instead of scrambling over
jagged rocks and in and out of trenches “‘like a
bloomin’? monkey.’ Why couldn’t the major
have told him of this short cut, instead of direct-
ing him right across the hills?

“Blo! What was that?”
The end of the road, previously deserted, was164 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

now covered by a large crowd advancing from
the shelter of the houses. It was still some dis-
tance away, but a carriage drawn by a pair of
horses could be seen leading the procession. As
it got nearer two men on horseback could be
distinguished carrying white banners on long
poles and riding a little in rear of the dilapidated
vehicle.

Murch got up and strolled towards them. He
was quite mystified as to the meaning of this
strange performance. He could see that many
of the people, there were women and children
amongst them, carried white flags and handker-
chiefs, and these they continually waved before
them; perhaps it was a native funeral, thought
the army cook.

At length they espied him, and, with loud
cries and clapping of hands, crowded round,
all talking at once.

They were in a wild state of excitement, and
for a moment, Private Murch thought of flight.
Then he decided he would hold his ground; after
all, he was a British soldier, whereas these vil-
lagers were only a lot of “blawsted natives’:
there was nothing to fear.

His arms were seized and frantically pulled
up and down; he was patted all over, and almostTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 165

deafened with piercing shrieks of joy uttered by
the women. They seemed particularly pleased
with his uniform and general appearance, and
the greatest interest was shown in his brass
buttons and his rifle.

In spite of these rather embarrassing atten-
tions, he could not help feeling highly gratified
with the obvious admiration he was causing. It
was the first time since he had been a soldier
that his “turn out” had excited any marks of
approval from anyone. That this should happen
at a time when he honestly felt he was not look-
ing his best, was truly remarkable.

At the height of all this excitement, a coloured
gentleman in a white night shirt shouted loudly,
“Allah Akbar,” and seizing the cook in both
arms endeavoured to kiss him. Our hero was
luckily able to frustrate this design by wrench-
ing one arm free and assuming a threatening
attitude, but only just in time.

The noise now died down, and a little man in
a black frock coat with a tarbush on his head
and looking very much like a Turk, could be
heard speaking from the carriage.

“You are British soldier, are not you?” he
asked in a high falsetto voice.

“T should say so,” replied Private Murch.166 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

“Where is General Allah Nebi?” now enquired
the man in the red fez.

‘“’Anged if I know, mister,” answered the
private.

“I want to surrender the city please. ’Ere
are ze keys; it is yours!” went on the stranger,
producing a large bunch of keys and waving
them before the bewildered Britisher, who now
began to think he had fallen amongst lunatics.

“I don’t want yer city. I want some heggs
for my hofficers!” yelled the disgusted cook.

K 4 * *k *% oF *K

Whilst all these things were happening the
major was awaiting anxiously the return of the
cook with his breakfast. The other officers also
were beginning to feel hungry; as for the colonel,
he made a few caustic remarks with reference
to brilliant ideas in general and sent for his own
servant to take the cook’s place.

I happened to be at battalion headquarters
when Private Murch, hot and out of breath,
arrived.

‘Where have you been for the last four
hours?” demanded the colonel in a freezing tone.

The perspiring private proceeded to relate his
amazing adventures in a rich cockney dialect.
In spite of his rambling and at times inco-THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 167

herent recitation, it dawned on us at last that
one of the greatest events in the history of the
world, for which thousands had given their lives
and for which millions of pounds of English
money had been poured out, had just taken place.

When the man came to the end of his story,
the colonel turned to us and said quietly, ““Gen-
tlemen, Jerusalem has fallen!”

Then he seized a field telephone, rang up the
brigadier, and acquainted him with the startling
news:

Brigadier-General Watson was wildly excited
—he was the nearest general to the Holy City
and to him would fall the honour of accepting
the surrender: his name would be flashed to
every corner of the globe.

‘“Where’s my horse?” he shouted. “Saddle
him up immediately and tell the groom to follow
me,” and he hurried to his tent for his best red
cap and fly whisk.

In a few minutes he was galloping madly up
the Jaffa-Jerusalem road followed by an orderly
on a mule.

He met the mayor in his carriage outside the
Jaffa Gate. The road was now black with peo-
ple, for everyone in the city was at last aware

the Turks had left for good.168 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Together the mayor of Jerusalem and the
English brigadier rode through the streets of
Jerusalem until they came to the El Kala citadel.
On the steps at the base of the Tower of David
the mayor surrendered the Holy City and
handed over the keys. General Watson accepted
in the name of the Allies, and was loudly
cheered by the inhabitants as he rode back to
brigade headquarters.

In the meantime, however, directly the briga-
dier had left the British lines, the brigade major
rang up the divisional commander and informed
him of what was taking place. Major-General
Shea got on the field telephone and said, “Stop
the brigadier, I will myself take the surrender
of Jerusalem!”

It was, of course, too late to stop the brigadier
then: he was already in Jerusalem. So when he
got back, flushed with success, the brigade major
told him what the divisional general had said.
Brigadier-General Watson decided the only
thing to do was to ride back to the city and hand
the keys back to the mayor, who was informed
that Major-General Shea was now on his way
to see him.

Fresh cheering in the streets announced the
ceremonial arrival of the divisional commanderTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 169

in his car, accompanied by a glittering staff.
The mayor came out, made another little speech,
surrendered Jerusalem again, and handed over
the keys which had been handed back to him a
short time before by the brigadier. Major-
General Shea made a tactful speech that was
loudly cheered by the crowds in the streets; and
then, amidst the clapping of hands and welcom-
ing cries of the populace motored back to his
headquarters on the Mount of Grapes.

His first duty on returning was to send a tele-
gram to the commander-in-chief, through the
20th Corps, worded as follows: |

“T have the honor to report that I have
this day accepted the surrender of Jerusa-
lem.”

By return came the message:

“General Allenby will himself accept
the surrender of Jerusalem on the 11th
inst.; make all arrangements.”

On December 11th General Allenby, followed
by representatives of the Allies, made his forma!
entry into Jerusalem.

The historic Jaffa Gate was opened after
years of disuse-enabling him to pass into the
Holy City without making use of the gap in the
wall through which the kaiser entered in 1898.170 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Allenby entered on foot and left on foot, and
throughout the ceremony no Allied flag was
flown, whilst naturally no enemy flags were
visible. The mayor came out on to the steps of
the Tower of David, surrendered the city and
handed over to the commander-in-chief the keys
which had been returned to him by the divisional
general the previous afternoon.

General Allenby issued a proclamation, read
in English, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek,
Russian and Italian, in which he said that order
would be maintained in all the hallowed sites
of the three great religions, which were to be
guarded and preserved for the free use of
worshippers.

The chief notables who had remained in
Jerusalem, were then presented to the general
who returned on foot to the Jafia Gate, franti-
cally cheered by the multitude, where his car
was waiting to take him back to army head-
quarters at Ramleh.

Two weeks afterwards the mayor of Jerusa-
lem died of pneumonia. I could not help think-
ing he must have caught cold standing exposed
to the inclement weather whilst he handed over
Jerusalem, first to the cook, then to the briga-
dier, then to the major-general and finally to the
ecommander-in-chief.CHAPTER XII.

WHEN PROPHECIES COME TRUE.

At last Jerusalem was in our hands!

In all the ten crusades organised and equipped
to free the Holy City, only two were really suc-
cessful,—the first led by Godfrey de Bouillon,
and the last under Edmund Allenby.

I received orders at 11 o’clock December 9th
to march my company through the city and take
up positions with the infantry at Shafat and
Tel el Ful astride the Nablus road. It was
unlikely so rich a prize as Jerusalem would be
given up without a further effort by the enemy.
The Turks were still holding much of the high
ground both north and east of the city; conse-
quently we had to reorganise rapidly and be
prepared for a determined counter-attack.

I assembled my company on the Jaffa road
facing the hills we had recently fought over.
The sergeant-major called the roll; when he
came to a name and there was no response, he
drew his pencil through it. We had suffered
heavy casualties, but that was only to be
expected with the kind of fighting we had expe-
rienced.

171172 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

My company was growing pathetically small.
Reinforcements had not reported for some time,
owing to a breakdown of the railway bridge
across the Wadi Ghuzze.

As each familiar face disappeared it was like
the personal loss of a relative. These men had
become so much a part of my life that I felt
their loss keenly; and then, too, it was always
the ones I could least afford who were taken,
or so it seemed. But that was probably only
my fancy—they were all such splendid fellows!
I longed to tell them what I thought of them
but it would not have done; and yet, I sometimes
wondered if it would really impair the efficiency
of our armies to infuse a little more humanity
into the relationship of officer and man. We
were dealing with a very different type to the
“oressed man” or “mercenary” of olden days,
and surely different men need different methods!

Because I feel this need of reform I am sure
I should not prove a success as a regular officer
in peace time; but as I have no intention of
soldiering without a war to make it interesting,
it really does not matter very much.

As I gave the order to march off, I could not
help being struck by the difference in the appear-
ance of my men now, and when they wereTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 173

inspected by the divisional general before the
attack on Beersheba.

Then, they were the last word in smartness,
with their new drill tunics, shining brass but-
tons, pith helmets and shorts. Now, their
uniforms were tattered, dirty and blood-stained ;
most of them had beards and had not enjoyed
a real wash for weeks; many were wounded, and
practically all had bandages round their bare
knees where the rocks had cut them and pro-
duced septic sores. The torrential rains had
reduced their smart pith helmets to shapeless
pulp. Tramps would have thrown away as
useless the boots my men were glad to wear.
They were terribly thin and wretched looking ;
their cheek-bones stood out prominently; dark
rings under their eyes were the legacies left by
sleepless nights and countless privations.

As my column moved off, every man’s head
was down. They marched as men do who
anticipate a tiring journey, with nothing to look
forward to with pleasure, and nothing to look
back on with regret. The wonderful fire of
enthusiasm that had burned so brightly in each
one of us, was now merely flickering, if it had
not entirely burnt itself out.

The men seldom sang on the march these days,174 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

and I missed their cheery choruses. I noticed
they had given up the practice of passing harm-
less jests down the ranks as they marched at
ease, and I was sorry for the omission.

I rode in advance of my company, and for
a while the road was very uninteresting. Lifta,
captured the previous evening, was a typical
Palestinian village, all the houses huddled
together on rising ground, some with dome-
shaped roofs, others flat, but all white with the
peculiar lime-mixed mud wash used both as a
protection against the summer sun and winter
rains.

soon we reached the outskirts of the city and
began passing the more modern Jewish build-
ings that lie outside the Jaffa Gate, and then at
last we found ourselves inside the walls them-
selves—the first British troops to march through
the Holy City!

The narrow streets were packed with towns-
people, old men and women and children, all
wild with delight and dressed in their best to
greet the victorious army. They had no flags, so
they hung bright coloured carpets and Eastern
embroideries from the balconies of their little
white houses.

The women had arms full of flowers whichTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 175

they showered amongst the troops; whilst the
children, calling out English words of welcome,
ran forward and seized the soldiers’ hands.
Some of the older people kissed the guns and gun
carriages, as covered with dust and mud they
clattered over the cobblestones; for a battery
of artillery, followed by two battalions of
infantry, was close behind us.

Venerable Jewish rabbis, with long grey
beards, knelt in the mud by the wayside and
with tears coursing down their furrowed cheeks,
blessed us.

Arabs in bright colours, mingled with Chris-
tians and Jews, and lent a vivid barbaric touch
to the picture.

The indescribable smell of Jerusalem rose to
meet us; a mixture of spices and sweet herbs,
strange eastern cooking and dried fruits, camels
and native garments, and open drains! I shall
never forget it, for it is a very part and parcel

of the place.

I recalled a quaint hymn I read many years
ago. It was written by Saint Augustine, or
founded on words of his, and was passed from
mouth to mouth in the middle ages to encourage
recruiting for the Crusades—176 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Thy walls are made of precious stones
Thy bulwarks diamonds square,
Thy gates are of bright Orient pearl
Exceeding rich and rare,

Thy turrets and thy pinnacles
With carbuncles do shine,

Thy very streets are paved with gold
Surpassing clear and fine,

Thy houses are of ivory
Thy windows crystal clear.

Thy tiles are made of beaten gold
Oh God, that I were there!

As I rode through Jerusalem the words were
on my lips. I was there, in this wonderful city
of which Saint Augustine had sung, sacred to
the three religions which hate each other more
undyingly than any other religions in the world!

Strange irony which has wrought such a
beautiful city out of the love and hate of three
creeds! Mosque, church, long-roofed convent,
Synagogue dome, jostling each other: all white
and glistening with a show of peace in the clear
light of mid-day.

I looked back along the line of my company,
and now every man’s head was up, their eyes
were shining, their arms swung by their sides.
They were marching as men march on parade
for an inspection by the king!THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE we

People tell me soldiers have no souls. I refuse
to believe it for I know what was in our thoughts
that day. Certainly we experienced the thrill
of those that make history. We were proud that
Jerusalem after languishing for over four
hundred years under the Turkish yoke should
be free at last, that the prize for which we had
undergone so many weary months of fighting
should be ours. But, above all, we had a great
and abiding faith in God, Whose mercy had
granted us the victory; and we felt that, some-
how, it was worth the privations, the heat, the
thirst and the flies, the loss of comrades who
had been more than brothers, the sad memory
of lonely graves in Judean hills, the wounds and
the weariness—to free the Holy Land forever,
to bring peace and happiness to a people who had
been oppressed too long!

There is a very interesting prophecy with
regard to the capture of Jerusalem. It is an
Arab saying and is over two hundred years old.
It reads, “‘When the Nile flows into Palestine,
then shall the prophet from the west drive the
Turk from Jerusalem.”

When this prophecy was made it must have
seemed an utter impossibility that the waters of
the River Nile should ever flow over two hundred
miles of arid desert into Palestine.178 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

But the pipe line we laid across the peninsula
of Sinai brought the Nile water from Kantara;
and just before the capture of Jerusalem, this
water from Egypt was being pumped into
Palestine, north of Gaza, at the rate of thou-
sands of gallonsaday. Fanatis were filled with
it, placed on the backs of camels and taken up
to the troops in the line fighting for Jerusalem.

Then, “the prophet,” in Arabic is Al Nebi,
and General Allenby was known as Al Nebi by
practically the entire native population. So
that this ancient prophecy was fulfilled to the
letter; the waters of the Nile flowed into Pale-
stine, and the prophet, Al Nebi, came from the
west and drove the Turk from Jerusalem.

Chapter XII of the Book of Daniel says:
‘Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the
thousand three hundred and five and thirty
days.”

The year 1335 of the Hegira is the year 1917
of the Christian era, the year in which Jerusalem
was freed.

Nothing I think gave a clearer indication of
Eingland’s intentions in Palestine than the order
of the commander-in-chief that no British flag
should fly over the conquered city, and no flagTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 179

was flown save the Red Cross flag, emblem of
succour to the distressed, and this proud pennon
flew from the American Hospital in Jerusalem.CHAPTER XIII.

TACTICS OF SAUL.

The first things we bought after the capture
of Jerusalem were Bibles and matches. We had
recently received a welcome issue of army
cigarettes from the base, but the army service
corps forgot to send up matches.

We used the Bibles as guide books to Pale-
stine, and remarkably fine ones they turned out
to be! It was wonderfully interesting to read
the history of all the places we were visiting
daily, and men in the ranks were as keen as the
officers. It was no uncommon sight to come
across cockney soldiers out under the stars
when they should have been sleeping, arguing
about some incident in the Bible because of a
place or event in the day’s march that made the
Biblical pages live again.

British soldiers on guard paced where the
Israelite soldiers paced; we drank from Abra-
ham’s wells; we walked where the Saviour
walked.

I remember an amusing incident that occurred
which illustrates the interest some of our men

180THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 181

took in those far-off Bible times. It was at the
conclusion of a particularly tiring march when
I came across a little group of men resting
beside the dusty road. Just as I got up one of
them took a Bible from his pack and commenced
turning over its pages. I overheard his pal say,
“What was that plice we marched by ter-day,
Tom; wasn’t that where Joshuar went after
them there fellers?” And the other, with wither-
ing scorn, replied, “Naah; that was where
Absalom caught ’is ’ead in the bloomin’ trees.”

Our medical officer told me how, after he had
explained to a dying soldier in his field ambu-
lance at Bethlehem how sorry he was that he
had no special comforts available to ease his
last moments, the man, with a cheery grin,
remarked: “Oh, that’s all right, sir. Yer reads
in the Bible as ’ow this ’ere ’Oly Land is flowin’
with milk an’ ’oney; but I ’aven’t seen any ’oney
myself, and in our battery there’s fifteen men
to a can o’ milk!’

A battalion of the Royal Fusiliers came up on
Christmas Eve to guard the plains below
Jerusalem. This battalion was made up entirely
of Jews, recruited in England, America and
Palestine. It was nicknamed by our men the
“Royal Jewsiliers.” It was also known as “The182 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Jordan Highlanders.” Their battle-cry was
said to be, “No advance without security.” As
a matter of fact they did remarkably fine work
and possessed an extremely nice lot of officers.

I was in my tent on the Mount of Olives the
afternoon of December 24th, and overheard a
sergeant of mine say to a corporal: “I ’ear as
how these ’ere Royal Jewsiliers are going to
guard the plain, Corporal.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” replied the corporal.

“Tl bet the shepherds’ll watch their flocks
ter-night!” said the sergeant.

Before dawn on December 26th the Turks
launched the expected counter-attack with the
object of recapturing Jerusalem.

Eight times they hurled themselves against
the 60th Division holding the Nablus road. We
were forewarned, however, and massed in depth
on a narrow front, our flanks lightly held by
the 10th and 53rd Divisions; and so the big
effort failed. Indeed, it but added to the defeat
of the enemy, for after they had spent them-
selves in vain assaults at great cost of men and
materials, we opened up with every gun in the
corps area, advanced in force, and drove them
well beyond Ram Allah to the north and out
of artillery range of Jerusalem to the east, thus
destroying their last chance of success.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 183

February 13th we took over the Deir Ibu
Obeid-Ras es Suffa-Hizmeh line from the 58rd
Division, and on the fourteenth of the same
month operation orders were issued for an
attack on Jericho with the object of driving the
enemy across the River Jordan.

Before the main attack could take place it
was necessary to strengthen the line by the
capture of a small village, directly to our front,
known as Mukhmas or Mickmash.

Mickmash was on a high rocky hill. The
brigade outpost line was on a chain of hills,
too, and between us and the enemy ran a deep
valley.

A frontal attack was decided upon; that is,
supported by artillery and machine guns, the
brigade was to advance down into the valley
just before dawn, and take Mickmash from the
front.

All orders were given out and the troops were
getting what rest was possible before zero hour.

In his bivouac, by the light of a candle, the
brigade major was reading his Bible. When
the raid was first discussed the name Mickmash
had seemed vaguely familiar, although he could
not quite place it. Just as he was about to turn
in for the night, however, he recollected and184 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

  

thought he would look it up. He found what
he was searching for in Samuel I, Chapters 18

and 14:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

And Saul and Jonathan his son, and the
people that were present with them, abode
in Gibeah of Benjamin: but the Philistines
encamped in Mickmash.

Now it came to pass upon a day that
Jonathan, the son of Saul, said unto the
young man that bare his armour, “Come
and let us go over to the Philistines’ garri-
son, that is on the other side,” but he told
not his father . . . And the people
knew not that Jonathan was gone.

And between the passages, by which
Jonathan sought to go over into the Philis-
tine garrison, there was a sharp rock on
the one side, and a sharp rock on the other
side: and the name of the one was Bozez,
and the name of the other Seneh.

The forefront of the one was situate
northward over against Mickmash, and the
other southward against Gibeah.

And Jonathan said to the young man
that bare his armour, “Come, and let us go

over unto the garrison.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 185

“It may be that the Lord will work for
us: for there is no restraint to the Lord to
save by many or by few.”

And the major read on how Jonathan went
through the pass, or passage, of Mickmash,
between Bozez and Seneh, and climbed the hill
dragging his armour-bearer with him until they
came to a place high up, about “a half an acre of
land, which a yoke of oxen might plow” ; and the
Philistines who were sleeping awoke, thought
they were surrounded by the armies of Saul,
and fled in disorder, and “the multitude melted
away.” Saul then attacked with his whole
army. It was a great victory for him; his first
against the Philistines, and “so the Lord saved
Israel that day, and the battle passed over unto
Beth Aven.”

The brigade major thought to himself:
“This pass, these two rocky headlands and flat
piece of ground are probably still here; very
little has changed in Palestine throughout the
centuries,” and he woke the brigadier. Together
they read the story over again. Then the
general sent out scouts, who came back and
reported finding the pass, thinly held by Turks,
with rocky crags on either side, obviously Bozez
and Seneh; whilst in the distance, high up in186 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Mickmash the moonlight was shining on a flat
piece of ground just about big enough for a
team to plough.

The general decided then and there to change
the plan of attack, and instead of the whole
brigade, one infantry company alone advanced
at dead of night along the pass of Mickmash. A
few Turks met were silently dealt with. We
passed between bozez and Seneh, climbed the
hillside, and just before dawn, found ourselves
on the flat piece of ground. The Turks who were
sleeping awoke, thought they were surrounded
by the armies of Allenby and fled in disorder.

We killed or captured every Turk that night
in Mickmash; so that, after thousands of years,
the tactics of Saul and Jonathan were repeated
with success by a British force.CHAPTER XIV.

CROSSING THE JORDAN.

It took Joshua, commander-in-chief of the
army of the Israelites, a week to capture Jericho.
He marched his warriors round the city once a
day for six days, his trumpeters blowing a con-
tinuous series of blasts on their rams’ horns,
whilst the remainder shouted with all their
might. On the seventh day, when the wretched
inhabitants imagined they were going to enjoy
a day’s rest, Joshua encircled the place seven
times amidst the sounding of trumpets and
shouts of the multitude, and the walls fell—or,
as I believe, were pushed down by the infuriated
people themselves, forced to listen for a whole
week to such an appalling row.

It may be that they had some plan of burying
in the falling masonry the leader Joshua and
his “orchestra,” but at any rate the Israelites
triumphed.

It only took us a few hours to capture J ericho,
but this was because the Turks were afraid of
remaining there with the British army in the
foothills and the River Jordan in their rear.

187188 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

So they crossed the river and blew up and
burned their bridges behind them. The Aus-
tralian cavalry were the first British troops to
enter Jericho. I stood on the Mount of Tempta-
tion and watched them defile down through the
wilderness, out onto the plain where they
reformed into squadrons and galloped in the
direction of the village, for present-day Jericho
is little more than that. Soon they were lost to
view in a cloud of dust.

Jericho was at one time one of the most
renowned cities of Palestine. The capital of the
Valley of the Jordan, it was the only place of
any real importance on that river’s course.

After toiling for five hours or more down the
long descent from Jerusalem over the dreary
limestone hills and through almost total deso-
lation, the eye is suddenly caught by the sight
of a thread of cultivation at the bottom of a deep
glen, the most romantic in the whole of Palestine.
This thin green streak denotes the course of a
mountain torrent, now called the Wadi Kelt, but
undoubtedly the ancient Cherith of Bible times.

The wadi brings with it a narrow patch of
vegetation extending onto the desert plain of
the Jordan, and forming an oasis which
embraces the collection of miserable hovelsTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 189

known as the modern village of Jericho. The
site of the ancient and wealthy city, accursed by
Joshua, is actually about a quarter of a mile
away, but all that remains now of that once
prosperous palm-girt town is a small hill called
Tel es Sultan and some interesting ruins.
Although no fighting actually took place in
Jericho itself, the previous day witnessed fierce
battles in the foothills and through the passes
To my brigade was given the task of storming
Talaat ed Dumm, the rocky hill above the Good
Samaritan’s Inn; and this was successfully
accomplished by 7.15 A. M. on February 20th,
but not without serious casualties on both sides.
After the fall of Jericho and consequent with-
drawal of the Turks, it was decided we should
carry out a big raid in the mountains of Moab,
across the Jordan, in order to assist the Arab
army of Prince Feisal then advancing north up
the eastern side of the Dead Sea; and, at the

same time, cripple the enemy’s lines of com-
munication.

For this purpose a special composite force
was formed, known from the name of its com-
mander as ‘“‘Shea’s Group.” It consisted of the
60th Division, Australian and New Zealand
mounted troops, the camel corps, a battery of190 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

heavy artillery, a brigade of mountain guns and
two bridging trains, as well as certain light-
armoured cars for patrol work in the valley.

We attempted a surprise crossing of the
Jordan, and chose for this purpose a very dark
night.

We called for volunteers to swim the river,
so that we could get a rope over and commence
the construction of a temporary pontoon bridge.

In normal times swimming the Jordan is
quite a simple matter, for at no point is it very
wide—indeed there are many places which are
fordable, as Joshua quickly discovered. There
is only one period in the whole year when
crossing the Jordan is really difficult; namely,
during the rainy season; and that, unfortu-
nately, was precisely the time we had to carry
it out. During and immediately after the
rains the river becomes flooded and swollen to
twice its normal size: a great brown torrent
choked with trunks of trees and other refuse
from above, swirling and tearing madly down
towards the silent waters of the Dead Sea.

We got an enormous number of volunteers
from which eight of the strongest and best
swimmers were finally selected; these men,
stripped to the skin, and with ropes tied aroundTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 191

their waists, entered the flooded stream, and
attempted to fight their way over.

The Turks, either anticipating our plans, or
becoming alarmed at the prolonged silence, lit
huge fires of reeds and brushwood along the
eastern bank, and commenced firing wildly with
rifles and machine guns.

I was concealed in the scrub by the banks of
the Jordan with two sections of my company,
waiting for the first bridge to be thrown across,
so that I could get my guns over to keep down
the fire of the enemy and assist the subsequent
crossing of the 180th Brigade. Swarms of
noxious insects, disturbed by the fires, rose
from the rushes and, settling on our bare legs,
hands and faces, bit and stung us with the
utmost ferocity.

The Turkish watch fires rose and fell, at
times casting a lurid glare over the valley, at
others lighting up the obscurity of the river and
causing the naked bodies of the swimmers to
stand out pale and golden as they hesitated for
2 moment to adjust the ropes before plunging
into the dark, mud-laden waters that swirled
with an eerie sighing towards the Dead Sea.

I could follow our swimmers on their peril-
ous journey, for the small white patches their192 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

shoulders made in contrast to the brown col-
oured river stood out clearly. I knew when a
man was hit by a bullet or got into difficulties,
because the small patch became a big one as
the whole body came to the surface, was buffeted
about in the current for a time, and then dis-
appeared out of sight.

Now and then a white form would be dragged
from the surf, insensible; but always another
stood ready to take his place.

The sound of the torrent successfully drowned
all noise save the spiteful ping of the bullets
that cut into the river like a venomous hailstorm.

When all the eight had tried and failed, a
young officer of the 2nd/19th London Regiment,
a lieutenant named Jones, volunteered for the
job. He was quite a youngster, but a splendid
swimmer, and lucky, too. He managed to get
across and fix his rope to the stunted trunk of
a tree under the shelving bank of the Jordan.
By this means the first flat-bottomed raft was
ferried over. It contained thirty-two officers
and men but unfortunately the Turks got direct
fire on them and they all became casualties.

We were able to get the raft back again,
however, and we filled it up once more.

After it had been across three times, we suc-THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 193

ceeded in getting one officer and a corporal over
to the eastern bank. These, together with Jones,
were sufficient to fix up the steel chains on to
various trees, and so the first temporary bridge
was built.

I quickly got my sections over and was busy
selecting positions for my guns when I heard a
voice that was familiar; although, as a matter
of fact, at that time I had only heard it once
before. But then it was a voice one does not
easily forget—I think there are voices like that.
I looked up and saw General Allenby standing
with the Duke of Connaught, to whom he was
explaining the plan of operations.

That the old duke, the king’s uncle, should
have been one of the first to cross the Jordan,
had a tremendous effect in raising our spirits,
for we had been experiencing rather a rough
time these last few days.

The Valley of the Jordan is not one of the
most desirable places at the best of times. It
is 1800 feet below the level of the sea, and the
lowest spot in the world in more senses than
one; a cool day there corresponds to the hot
room in a Turkish bath.

All day long we were tormented by millions
of flies, and at night snakes and scorpions came194 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

out from beneath the stones and got in between
our blankets. A considerable number of men
were bitten badly and some died.

One had to be very careful in dealing with
a scorpion in one’s bivouac at night. I found
out it did not pay to annoy them, for any sud-
den movement or hasty action caused them to
throw over their tails and bite. The best thing
to do was to coax them to leave you, in as nice
a manner as possible; but even this method did
not always answer because the scorpion thought
you had taken a fancy to him and came back
again later, probably biting you in the end—so
that it was really awfully difficult to know what
to do for the best.

The Duke of Connaught, who came to Pale-
stine to present a decoration to General Allenby
after the capture of Jerusalem, was a sick man
at the time, suffering from rheumatism and
other complaints. He could have watched the
fighting in perfect comfort and safety, with a
strong pair of field glasses, from the kaiser’s
palace on the Mount of Olives which overlooks
the Jordan Valley. That he should prefer to
be with us and share our discomfort and dan-
gers—for the Turk was sweeping the plain
with rifle and machine gun fire, whilst everyTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 195

now and then a shell exploded scattering shrap-
nel—was of course only to be expected from an
old soldier like the duke.

The reason I mention it at all is that it is
these little things that make us proud of the
members of our royal family, who hold their
places in our esteem not merely by virtue of
tradition, but of true affection.

A commander-in-chief’s work takes place
before the attack; he makes his plans which are
carried out by the corps and divisional com-
manders, and he really has very little to do dur-
ing the actual fighting—providing, of course,
that everything goes well. Allenby’s plans were
usually entirely successful, so that he was free
to be up in the firing line to encourage us dur-
ing any particularly trying operation. His
nickname in the army is “the bull.” He is a
tremendous fellow, over six feet tall, with a
voice that corresponds.

When he shakes hands his grip causes you to
stretch your fingers for some little time after-
wards. When he smiles his approval it makes
you feel rather proud. I do not imagine people
often attempt to deceive him. He has a com-
bination of those qualities men admire most in
a leader: personal bravery, knowledge of his196 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

job and a consideration for the man in the
ranks.

After a time we succeeded in enlarging our
bridge-head, and the cavalry, now all safely
across, galloped down a number of Turkish
detachments, capturing a large quantity of
prisoners and machine guns.

Not even when Joshua made his camp at
Gilgal did the Jordan Plain hold such a mighty
host. There were more than twenty thousand
British and Australian troops on the plain, with
almost as many horses and camels.

On the morning of March 24th a general
advance took place; at first across the plain to
the foothills at Shunet Nimrin, where we forced
the pass, and then on up the steep mountain
road to the picturesque Armenian village of Es
Salt, some twenty miles from the River Jordan.
Practically all enemy positions were taken at the
point of the bayonet and we gained considerable
first-hand knowledge of the personal bravery of
the Turk as a fighting man.

Our cavalry were all this time striking across
country further to the south, making for a point
on the Hejaz railway which they hoped to blow
up before the enemy could bring up sufficient
forces to prevent them.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 197

Owing to the nature of the country, only the
lightest forms of artillery support could be
counted on; so that to the infantry fell the major
burden of the attack.

In places the rising ground was so steep men
had to climb on each others’ shoulders, just as
we had done at Deir Yesin. Soon the going
became so bad all wheel transport was with-
drawn to Shunet Nimrin, where General Shea
established his headquarters; the ammunition
and supplies being transferred to camels.

Every moment was of value, and although we
had now been marching and fighting continu-
ously for four days, we pushed on beyond ks
Salt, where the friendly villagers in their delight
at being freed from the Turk welcomed us
effusively.

Amman, a stronghold of the enemy, lay nine
miles from Es Salt in a southeasterly direction.

The weather now changed, and it became
bitterly cold. We felt it all the more severely
after the enervating and oppressive warmth of
the Jordan Valley. In a pitiless downpour men
struggled on up the winding mountain passes
of Moab, bowed down by the weight of satu-
rated packs and with clothing and boots clogged

with mud.198 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

In places the wadis and nullahs were so steep
the horses and mules had to be let down by ropes
and hauled up the other side; whilst the camel
leaders built roads as they went along, for the
camel finds scaling the slippery sides of cliffs an
utter impossibility.

Dispirited, worn out with fighting and
scrambling all the way, the infantry at length
arrived at Amman, 3500 feet above the Jordan
Valley.

Without a pause for rest we attacked on
March 28th.

Practically no artillery support was _avail-
able; only two batteries of horse artillery having
succeeded in getting their guns through the mud.

The battle went on for three days; wave after
wave of infantry staggered forward in sodden
clothes, worn out and weakened by lack of food,
against an enemy that had had months to pre-
pare impregnable positions, and was, of course,
within easy reach of his supplies.

The weather changed from bad to worse. Our
casualties became alarming; which was not to be
wondered at considering we had to advance to
the attack across a plain swept by rifle, machine
gun and artillery fire, whilst the Turks, who had
the advantage of position, were well dug in.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 199

A great number of our men died from expos-
ure. Our camels, too, were decreasing rapidly ;
a serious matter when it is remembered that not
only were all supplies carried by camel, but sick
and wounded men evacuated to the field hospital
on the western side of the Jordan.

Finally it was decided to abandon the attempt
to capture Amman, and orders were issued for a
withdrawal of the whole force to the bridgehead.

On the third night of the battle our exhausted
men began their long trek back to the Jordan,
picking up on their way the garrisons at Es Salt
and Shunet Nimrin together with hundreds of
prisoners.

All bridges over the Jordan, save one, had been
swept away by the river which, during our
operations, had risen a further nine feet.

By 10 A. M., March 31st, all wounded had
been evacuated; we left our dead in the hills, but
vowed we would come back for them another
time.

My brigade acted as rearguard and remained
behind at Shunet Nimrin until all other units
were safely across the Jordan. Brigadier-Gen-
eral Watson and myself were the last two in the
foothills. As we galloped away the scouts of the
enemy appeared over the crest of El Haud.200 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Our withdrawal from Amman brought home
to me something of what refugees have to go
through under war conditions. When the
decision to evacuate the mountains of Moab was
made known, it became necessary to notify our
friends at Es Salt, who, had they remained,
would undoubtedly have been massacred by the
returning Turks for the help they gave us in our
capture of the place.

Brigade headquarters were on the side of the
Es Salt-Shunet Nimrin road.

From early dawn until late in the day one
constant stream of miserable humanity passed
on its way to the Jordan crossing. Throughout
the war these people were kept short of the
necessities of existence owing to demands for the
Turkish army. Their young men were taken
away to work behind the lines; those that
remained—old men, women and children, half
starved and loaded up like pack animals with
the wretched sticks of furniture which were
their only possessions in the world—set out to
tramp the thirty odd miles that lay between the
homes they were leaving, and safely within the
British lines.

Donkeys and carts and other means of trans-
port had been stolen from them months before,THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 201

so they were forced to carry all their belongings
on their backs.

I saw one woman with a complete bed on her
shoulders, tied on with ropes, the mattresses
piled above; whilst on the very top of this colos-
sal load a tiny child swayed backwards and for-
wards with every step the mother took.

Others carried chairs and even chests of
drawers, and quite small boys staggered under
sacks of corn and charcoal. Children little more
than babies, toddled along barefoot, clinging to
the women’s skirts.

For the first ten miles or so they managed
fairly well. Afterwards their feet were cut to
ribbons on the sharp stones. They bound them
hastily with strips of rag, torn from their gar-
ments; but the blood soaked through and as they
dragged themselves along they printed crimson
footmarks on the white mountain road.

Descending into the valley the heat increased,
the rain had ceased and the sun blazed down,
adding to their other hardships a raging thirst.
Many of the children and some of the oldest peo-
ple died. I saw one woman with a dead baby,
herself weak from exhaustion, stagger to the
side of the road, scratch with her bare hands a
shallow grave, place the little body in, and after-el

  

202 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

w- ‘B roll some heavy rocks over the place to
) up the jackals away.

Long before the refugees arrived at Shunet
.imrin all their household treasures had been
cast away, the problem now was how to last out
themselves until safely across the Jordan. Fear
of the Turk lent them a fictitious strength and
they stumbled on.

Our kind-hearted men, themselves worn out,
yet managed to help the children of these poor
refugees. I noticed one young soldier coming
down the pass. His feet were evidently giving
him pain, for he supported himself along with a
bivouac pole, his rifle slung over his left shoul-
der. His tunic was open right down the front,
exposing his throat and chest. Ten days without
shaving had allowed his beard to grow. His hel-
met was gone, in place of it he wore a blood-
stained bandage round his forehead, his fair,
curly hair showing above it like a golden halo.

He gazed straight before him, the sweat trick-
ling from his face and running down his chest:
his breath came in short low gasps.

Seated on his pack was a tiny child of perhaps
three years of age, its bare legs hanging down
elther side of the valise whilst its arms were
tightly clasped round the soldier’s neck, theTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 203

hands meeting just under his chin like the ~ot
ofascarf. Tired out, the child had fallen ash 9.
its delicate flower-like face resting against »

man’s sunburnt shoulder. {

There is a parable in the Bible of the Good
Shepherd and the lost sheep, which tells how
“When he hath found it, he layeth it on his
shoulders, rejoicing.”

On the eleventh day after the commencement
of our expedition into the mountains of Moab
all survivors were safely west of the Jordan
again.

History may record this raid on Amman as
Allenby’s one failure, and there is no doubt that,
owing to unforeseen difficulties, we failed in
carrying out all that was anticipated ; neverthe-
less, as will be seen later, our crossing of the
Jordan was largely instrumental in bringing the
Palestine campaign to a successful conclusion.CHAPTER XV.

SERVICE.

   
  
   
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
  
 
 

“This month flies die; next month men die,”
was the warning dropped by a Turkish aero-
plane flying over Jericho.

It was quite true. As the summer advanced
the terrible heat in the Jordan Valley killed off
the flies. I only wish it might have destroyed
the scorpions, tarantulas, centipedes and snakes
as well, for there were far too many of these
pests to suit me.

In spite of the fact that we lost a large num-
ber of men from malignant malaria and other
tropical diseases, we kept our grip on the cross-
ings of the Jordan until we were prepared to go
forward on the final advance that was destined
to drive the Turks once and for all time from
Palestine.

One afternoon, it was early in May before the
really hot weather came, I lay in my bivouac
feeling thoroughly limp and washed out. My
boots and tunic were off, and my head was
swathed in mosquito netting; which, whilst act-
ing as a protection against insect bites, only suc-
ceeded in adding to the already insufferable heat.

204TT

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  

THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 205

Sweat gathered in large drops and trickled down
the sides of my face. Occasionally a miniature
whirlwind, rising suddenly without apparent
cause, would fill the bivouac with sand and dust
and hot air, and then just as quickly blow itself
out again, leaving a stillness that could be felt.

A little hostile shelling had taken place during
the morning; by four in the afternoon this had
all died away. The sun shone incessantly, whilst
waves of sticky humidity, rising from the jungle,
formed a ground mist through which the stunted
and grotesque shaped trees fringing the river
banks showed vague and indistinct.

Thousands of flies, as if aware their days were
numbered, clung to the inner surface of my
bivouac, inert and lifeless.

A little after four o’clock Sale put his head
under the flap to see if I required anything
before he set out to fetch fresh water from the
Jordan for my tea. He declined to make it from
water that had stood in fanatis in the sun all day
and was practically at boiling point already.

I lay with half-closed lids, too exhausted to
rise, too hot to sleep, and idly listened to the
sound of my servant’s footsteps as he tramped
away on his self-imposed task. They echoed on
the sun-baked ground for awhile and then died206 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

away in the distance. With his bandy legs and
bad feet, it was rather like the uneven thumping
of a tomtom heard far off. When all sound had
really ceased, I imagined I heard them still, beat-
ing time in my brain just as the peculiar motion
of a train or boat is sometimes felt long after the
journey is over. There was individuality in
everything Sale did. I felt positive I should be
able to recognise the quaint sound of his foot-
steps even in a crowd, for they would bring back
experiences that were indelibly photographed
and docketed in my private storehouse of mem-
ories. I had heard him coming and going so
many times, always it seemed on some errand
connected with my comfort.

Henry Sale would never have made a sol-
dier in the accepted sense of the term because he
could not even look like a soldier, which in the
army is half the battle. Neither was he of the
type from which efficient servants come. He was
too independent and possessed too much person-
ality; yet, in spite of his unsuitability for the
dual role for which fate had cast him, or
strangely enough—possibly because of it, he suc-
ceeded in being the ideal soldier-servant.

Unconsciously I was growing very attached to
him, although I dare say this feeling consisted toTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 207

a large extent in protective affection, such as a
master feels for his favourite sporting dog, his
companion in a hundred exciting adventures
whose ears have been torn in badger fights and
rat hunts at which both have been present.

Crump!!!

By Jove, that was a near one! I sprang from
my bed; for, mingled with the noise of the burst-
ing shell, I fancied I detected a call for help.

I pulled on my boots, not troubling to lace
them. As I crawled from under my bivouac I
instinctively looked in the direction from which
the sound had come. A shell must have landed
within 400 yards of my camp, a small cloud of
smoke still hung in the stagnant air.

Tran rapidly over the ground, a nameless fear
enveloping me. The cry for help was repeated,
but more faintly this time; it gave a sharp tug
at my heart, for it sounded very much like Sale’s
voice.

Soon I arrived at where the explosion had
taken place; the smell of gases and hot metal,
together with the unmistakable scent of blood,
filled the air.

My poor servant lay on his back. Both legs
had been blown off, and there were terrible208 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

wounds in other parts of his body. One shat-
tered leg, still encased in remnants of a puttee,
was near the body; the other must have been
blown to pieces, for I could not see it anywhere.
A splintered rifle lay by his side, also a canvas
water bucket, torn by fragments of shell and
spattered with blood.

There was a look of pathetic surprise on his
face. He was evidently quite conscious. The
shell had cauterised the wound and destroyed a
nerve center, so that at present he was not feel-
ing the full agony—that would come later.

For the fraction of a second I stood stock still,
and it passed through my mind that the scene I
Was gazing upon was unreal, fantastic! I could
not believe it was true. I had seen many men
die in action and I ought to have been thoroughly
hardened, but somehow this seemed different.

After the first shock of explosion everything
had become abnormally quiet again, no sign of
life apparent anywhere; seemingly the whole
camp was resting still. It was difficult to realise
that a messenger of death had so recently
arrived in this silent valley. Could it be possible
that this mutilated being—whose eyes, with
pupils like pin pricks, gazed into mine in such
a startled questioning kind of way—was my bat-THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 209

man; or was fate playing some terrible trick
with my imagination?

Sale, the dependable, commonplace Sale, who
never did unusual things, transformed into a
legless horror!

Two of my signallers came running up. I
sent one for an ambulance and told the other to
take off his coat and hold it over the dying man’s
face to keep the burning sun off.

I knelt down and gripped my servant’s hand in
mine, and with my other hand I tried to keep the
flies away. I could feel the clammy death sweat
between his palm and mine, but had a curious
belief my clasp would keep him alive, at least for
a time.

I gave him some water from my waterbottle,
but it was so hot from the rays of the sun that
he could not drink it and spat it out again.

There seemed nothing I could do for the man
who had done so much for me!

When he spoke his voice was full and strong.

“T’m going to die, sir,” he said. “TI hope it
won’t put you out very much! Private ’Ughes
knows how you like your tea made, I think he
would make you a good servant when I’m gone
—all your things are washed and in your bag.”
And then he tried to twist his poor maimed body210 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

over to get at my keys, which he always kept in
his hip pocket.

“Don’t worry about that,” I said.

“All right, sir,” he answered. “You can get
‘em when I’ve gone West.” Then, with a little
catch in his voice: “I’d like you to write to my
wife, sir, and give her my love—if you will?
The poor lass’ll be lonely like, and I don’t know
what she’ll do with the shop—she was trying to
keep it open till I came home again.”

I pressed his hand; I could not speak, but he
understood; I could see it in his eyes; he knew
that I would write.

Then Captain Leslie, the medical officer,
arrived with the ambulance. As he was unfas-
tening the strap round a small leather satchel
containing “first aid” he glanced at Sale, then
shook his head to me, as though to say: “This
case is quite hopeless, I can do nothing!”

“For God’s sake do something,” I whispered.
“He’s my batman; can’t you give him morphia
to make him unconscious before the pain
comes?”

Captain Leslie dressed his terrible wounds as
best he could; then we all helped to lift him, first
onto the canvas stretcher, then on the stretcher
into the motor ambulance.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 211

I stood with clenched fists as the final adjust-
ments were made and prayed the morphia might
take effect soon.

Before the tailboard was closed down I bent
over Sale and said:

“Good-by, Harry; thank you for all you ve
done for me. God bless you!”

It was the first time I had ever called him by
his Christian name, yet it seemed the most
natural thing in the world to do.

Then noticing there was a second wounded
man in the car, and hardly knowing what else to
say, I added:

“There’s another fellow going down with
you.”

“That’s nice; itv’ll be company. Good-night,
sir!’ said Private Sale, cheerful to the last.

I watched the ambulance disappear completely
out of sight; it bumped and swayed from side to
side over the uneven ground.

Leslie shook my hand, murmured something
about being awfully sorry and hurried off. The
sionaller saluted stiffly and went away without
speaking. They both looked curiously blurred
and shadowy. I put my hand to my eyes and
found they were wet.

I returned to camp. As I passed the cook-Ze, THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

house the earthenware teapot Sale bought for
me in Jerusalem because I disliked tea made in a
dixie, caught my eye. Later on I was handed a
message received by ’phone to say that Private
Sale had died on his way to the dressing station.
I sat on my bed, the flimsy message form crum-
pled in my hand. To-morrow I would have to
write to Mrs. Sale and break the news. My let-
ter would travel the selfsame way the dead man
and myself had come, filled with hope and
enthusiasm for the Great Adventure, so long
avo.

Back to Jerusalem, along the winding Jaffa
road to Ludd, then across the Desert of Sinai to
Kantara where the state railway would receive it
and bring it through Egypt to the port of Alex-
andria. Here a returning troopship would pick
it up, and so over the sun-lit Mediterranean, past
ancient Salonika, to Italy, on to France, via Mar-
seilles and Cherbourg, and across the channel to
Southampton, then through the center of Eng-
land to the little butcher’s shop in Lancashire.

It seemed a long way to go just to break a
woman’s heart, but other letters to other wives
would keep it company, travelling on similar
errands.

I threw myself on my bed fully dressed, andTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 2138

lay there with my eyes open but seeing nothing.
My head ached, I felt dead tired, but could not
sleep. Life seemed very hard and cruel—why
could not this one man have been spared?

The hours passed and the moon rose, stealing
in through the opening of my bivouac. Sale
always came round last thing and fastened down
the flap.

Jackals, in search of food, commenced their
hideous howling. I put both hands over my ears
to shut out the sound. Surely they were making
more row than usual to-night—why?

Then I understood. I recalled the mother
beside the Es Salt road, digging a grave for her
dead baby, and it came to me in a flash why the
jackals bayed to-night—they had scented fresh
blood.

I dragged myself from my bed and went out
into the moonlight. It was as clear as daylight.
I searched for a short time amongst the piles of
equipment lying outside headquarter’s bivouacs,
finally selecting an entrenching tool—then I
hurried on. I had no difficulty in finding the
exact spot. I knelt down and began hacking
away with my pick at the hard ground.

Sparks flew as I came across stones, but I
drove in the steel head all the harder. I worked214 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

like a madman, with feverish eagerness; the
sweat ran from my face—sometimes it got in my
eyes and nearly blinded me. As I loosened stones
I tore them up with my hands, breaking the nails.
I welcomed the pain, for at last I had found some
task I could carry out that would repay a little
of the debt I owed.

Soon I succeeded in excavating a hole suffi-
ciently deep for my purpose. The jackals howled
incessantly ; let them howl!—I would baulk them
of their hellish meal to-night.

I picked up my old servant’s mutilated foot;
the moonlight fell on the sole of the army boot,
turning it to silver. The leather was thin,
almost as thin as paper. Only two months avo
Sale had been fitted out with new boots at the
quartermaster’s store; I remembered it well, for
a consignment of new boots was a rare occur-
rence. Now those thick soles were practically
worn through. The cause?—a thousand errands
for me willingly executed, and how many miles
marched under a burning sun with never a com-
plaint?

“Fair wear and tear” is an expression we use
in the army when exchanging worn-out articles
of kit. Had I always given my man fair wear
and tear, I wondered?THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 215

Gently I placed the remains in my little grave,
carefully filling in the loose earth and stones;
then, kneeling beside the mound, I prayed for
strength and comfort for the widow of my sol-
dier servant.

I poured out all that was in my heart to God
that night, in the desolate Jordan Valley, and I
believe He heard me; for the weight that had
clamped my brain was lifted and when I got
back and removed my clothes, bathed my hands
and face in the bucket of water beside my bed
and crept in between the coarse army blankets,
sleep and peace came almost as soon as my head
touched the pillow.

of * * f x *

Private Sale is buried on the Mount of Olives;
his simple soldier grave looks down on the Holy
Sepulchre.

When I took the letters and keepsakes from
his pockets to send home to his widow, I found
my old identity disc that I had given him to
throw away, two years before, when I got my
promotion. I suppose he kept it for luck, or per-
haps in memory of “his officer.”

He never won a medal for bravery or got a
“mention in despatches’”—he was just one of the216 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

many, many thousands who gave their lives for
their country in the war that was fought to end
all wars.CHAPTER XVI.

THE FINAL VICTORY.

General Allenby’s plan of operations for the
final advance, timed to commence in September,
1918, was roughly as follows.

It was known our raids into the mountains of
Moab had led the enemy to anticipate our big
effort would come from the Jordan Valley, where
he retained a large force to oppose us, conse-
quently it was decided to secretly move the
ereater part of our army from east to west
across Palestine, leaving but the skeleton of a
line to guard our right flank. Colonel Lawrence,
organiser of the Arab troops of Hussein, King of
the Hejaz, reported good progress made across
the eastern Desert, so that any eventuality
should find our right flank well secured.

Divisions were to be concentrated on the Mari-
time Plain with the whole might of our cavalry
massed in rear; then, on a day to be decided upon
later, the infantry, under cover of a short artil-
lery bombardment, would rush forward and
force a gap in the Turkish front, sufficiently
large for the cavalry to get through.

217218 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

The mounted troops had orders that, once
through, they were to ride with all speed so as
to encircle, if possible, the entire Turkish army
west of the Jordan. In the meantime the infan-
try would right wheel on a sixteen-mile front,
from Rafat to the sea, driving the enemy into
the hills of Samaria, where he would find all ave-
nues of retreat cut off by the cavalry.

General Allenby was strongly of opinion that
a decisive victory on the eastern front would
greatly assist in smashing the resistance of the
Central Powers in France. That this reasoning
was sound was fully borne out by after events,
for the collapse of Turkey quickly brought Bul-
garia to her knees, followed by Austria who sued
for peace, thus leaving Germany to face certain
defeat alone.

Had we been able to retain our force in Pale-
stine intact there is no question but that the
operations we carried out in September would
have taken place six months earlier, possibly
shortening the duration of the war by that
period. By the early part of the spring of 1918,
however, events in France had reached an acute
crisis; Haig’s army literally had its back to the
wall, and reinforcements from all other British
fronts were urgently needed to stem the German
tide.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 219

Some of our best divisions were hurriedly
shipped to France. In place of these veteran sol-
diers we were given untrained Indian troops
with no knowledge of modern fighting methods.
It meant practically the re-making of our army
before we could take the field again with any
hope of success.

Luckily we were left with sufficient seasoned
men to leaven the whole, but it was gruelling
work carrying out intensive training all through
the torrid summer months of 1918.

The 60th Division was reduced to one white
battalion to a brigade, the remaining nine bat-
talions consisting of young Indian recruits.

I must say our new comrades turned out keen
soldiers, quick and eager to learn; but we natu-
rally missed the old cheery battalions who had
fought side by side with us for over three years.
The Indians suffered from homesickness just at
first; later on they settled down and were quite
content to be in Palestine.

Very quaint and curious were the petitions for
leave they put in. These documents, often of
great length, were written in Hindustani and
translated by Babus into English. I remember
one I had submitted to me which read as follows:220 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Honoured and highly esteemed lord and
master, friend of the lowly.
I wish to journey to India for the follow-
ing satisfying and splendid reasons:—
Undesirable neighbours have burnt my
crops, and my children are very sick.
Elephants have pulled down my house
and I desire to visit the forest to obtain
fresh trees with which to rebuild it.
A bad man has stolen my wife and killed
my venerable father.
Otherwise, everything is all right. |
In spite of this harrowing tale I did not see
my way clear to grant the leave asked for; I was
to some extent reassured by the underlying
optimism of the last paragraph, however.
Before we commenced the great move from
the Jericho front to the Maritime Plain we con-
structed camouflage camps to deceive the Turk-
ish airmen. We put up dummy tents, horse lines
and ration dumps. We even made dummy
horses from brown army blankets and bivouac
poles. We left behind convalescent soldiers and
men unable to march, with orders to light camp
fires and now and then fire off salvos from the
Turkish guns we had captured in the earlier part
of the campaign. For some days before theTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 221

exodus we marched small bodies of men towards
Jericho, trailing boughs of trees and thus raising
clouds of dust. Empty lorries constantly ran
back and forth between Jerusalem and Jericho.

That the enemy was thoroughly deceived by
all this we found out later from captured army
documents, which reported heavy concentrations
of British troops in the Valley of the Jordan and
the arrival of reinforcements, at the very time
we were moving the greater part of the army in
the opposite direction. Although complete divi-
sions of infantry and thousands of mounted
troops, together with guns, transport and sup-
plies, passed right across the country—the
enemy never knew, for we always marched by
night and rested during the day hidden in olive
and almond groves.

By September 18th all troops were in position
waiting for zero day. The 60th Division was
on the extreme left of the line next the Mediter-
ranean.

It was our task to make the gap for the
cavalry, and we had been specially lent to the
21st Corps for this purpose. We felt highly
honoured at this fresh indication of the com-
mander-in-chief’s approval; for had we not been
selected to storm Beersheba, to take the fortifica-222 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

tions of Jerusalem, capture Jericho, and cross
the Jordan? And now we were to be given the
place of honour in what all felt instinctively
would be the last phase of the war in the Holy
Land.

Latest type aeroplanes had recently arrived in
Egypt from England, and our airmen were look-
ing forward with the greatest eagerness to the
approaching conflict; but none were keener than
the cavalry, for Allenby’s plans would give them
the opportunity for which they had been wait-
ing—of proving to the world that they were as
much needed in modern warfare to-day as they
had been in wars of the past.

The September advance in Palestine saved the
cavalry from utter extinction, placing them
securely back in their rightful position as indis-
pensable in open fighting and a war of move-
ment.

All preparations for the great day were car-
ried on at night. We took what rest was pos-
sible during the hours of daylight and were not
allowed to stir from our quarters. Directly
night fell, and we were free from enemy observa-
tion, the whole army sprang into life, and that
great world that exists behind the firing line
seethed with strenuous activity.©

THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 2293

Road makers and railway workers were busy
in their thousands. A constant stream of supply
wagons and lorries ran all night piling up huge
stores of shells and small arms ammunition
behind the front. Special officers were stationed
at all crossroads, and we worked strictly to time;
the clock was our taskmaster. The traffic scheme
was splendidly worked out and never a hitch
occurred.

During this time our water supply was devel-
oped to an almost unbelievable extent. Wells
were dug wherever there was any sion of a yield;
along the beach alone forty-five were sunk, each
of them giving forth about three thousand gal-
lons a day.

We laid a pipe line near Jelil which supplied
us with 20,000 gallons of water hourly. Cer-
tainly one of the richest legacies we left to Pale-
stine was the improved water supply. The first
flush of dawn above the jagged Judean hills was
the signal for instant cessation of all work. The
British front became again as silent as the grave;
it was difficult to realise that every road and
track had been so recently black with traffic, that
thousands of troops and tons of stores had been
moved from one part of the front to another, and
many batteries of guns dragged by tractors from
the Jordan front to the Maritime Plain.224 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

Every order issued by the commander-in-chief
was carried out with exactitude and enthusiasm.
I wonder if there was ever an army before with
such complete confidence in its leader as we all
had in Allenby.

The operation orders issued were clear and
definite. We had to break through the enemy’s
defences between the railway and the sea, to
open a way for the cavalry, and at the same time
seize the foot-hills southeast of Jiljulieh. The
<1st Corps was then to swing to the right, on the
line Hableh-Tul Keram, and then advance in a
northeasterly direction through the hills, con-
verging on Samaria and Attara, so as to drive
the enemy up the Messudie-Jenin road into the
arms of the cavalry at El Afule.

At 4.30 A. M., September 19th, there began an
intense bombardment of the Turkish positions
by three hundred of our guns, and lasting fifteen
minutes.

The sound of the first gun was our signal to
advance; and our men dashed forward at such a
rate, that by 4.40 A. M. part of the enemy’s line
was already in our hands. The 60th Division
had to drive the Turks from three lines of
trenches near the coast north of Arsuf, the place
Where Richard the Lion-hearted gained a vic-
tory over the Saracens in 1191.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 225

We attacked on a one-brigade front, the hon-
our falling to my brigade, the 180th.

Soon we forced a gap sufficiently wide for the
eavalry, and they came thundering through,
riding for their lives, for every minute counted.

It would take another volume to describe all
the fighting that followed, and indeed this story
does not claim to be a history of the Palestine
campaign, but merely the personal adventures of
the author.

Suffice it to say that in thirty-six hours,
between 4.30 A. M., September 19th, and 5 P. M.,
September 20th, the greater part of the 8th
Turkish Army had been overwhelmed, and the
troops of the 7th Army were in full retreat
through the hills of Samaria, whose exits were
already in the hands of our cavalry.

Infantry pressed on and drove the retreating
army into the arms of the cavalry, as had been
anticipated; with the result that practically the
whole of the 7th and 8th Turkish Armies were
captured with their guns and transport.

Then followed the capture of Haifa and Acre
(it was at Acre that Richard I landed on the
third crusade), the occupation of Tiberias and
of the country to the south and west of the Sea

of Galilee.226 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

_As the result of the rout of the 7th and 8th
Armies, the 4th Turkish Army, east of the Jor-
dan, began retreating, thoroughly disorganised.

Then the Desert Mounted Corps advanced on
Damascus, capturing the remnants of the 4th
Turkish Army on the way.

Finally our troops reached Homs and Tripoli
and the cavalry advanced on Aleppo which was
occupied on October 26th.

Between September 19th and October 26th
we captured 75,000 prisoners, about 4000 of
these being either German or Austrian. We
also secured practically all the enemy’s guns,
transport and supplies.

October 31st, the anniversary of our attack on
Beersheba, the Turks, with all their armies
destroyed or captured, and Palestine and Syria
wrested from them, asked for an armistice, the

terms of which amounted to unconditional sur-
render.CHAPTER XVII.
THE CRUSADER’S TOWER.

One hears various opinions expressed as to the
Turk’s fitness to govern in Europe, the most gen-
eral and popular one being that he is by no means
as black as he is usually painted.

A great many are influenced in coming to this
favourable decision by the bravery, picturesque-
ness and charming manners of the average
Turk; for the Turkish effendr certainly possesses
charming manners. He is highly educated and
most hospitable; he will invite you to dinner, for
instance, load you with honours and attentions,
bid you farewell with his hand on his heart, and
quite possibly give orders for your assassination
as you leave his house.

The Turkish fighting man, and by this | mean
the man in the ranks, is extremely brave, long-
suffering, patient, cruel and stupid, with all the
charm and defects of a backward child.

The Turkish official is overbearing, suave,
extortionate and conscienceless, with a complete
knowledge of the psychology of the eastern mind.

One may condemn or admire these qualities

227228 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

at will, but when dispassionately considering the
qualifications of the Turk as governor of a civil-
ised country, one example alone is sufficient to
condemn him—namely, Palestine!

The Turk ruled Palestine for over four hun-
dred years; yet four days after the British army
drove him out, all that remained as a reminder
of his long presence there was a land, once pros-
perous, now stripped and starved; and a people,
once happy and contented, now crushed by
oppression and weakened by disease and priva-
tions.

Turkish rule in Europe has always been that
of an army of occupation, conferring no lasting
benefit on the nation forced by strength of arms
to submit to its dictation.

Five hundred years ago much of the present
barren territory was covered with great forests.
Writers of the period of the Crusades describe
the forests of Northern Sharon and other places:
the word for wood occurs in place names where
trees are now unknown, as in Judaea. Enor-
mous roots can be seen to this day, even on the
bare plateau of Judaea. Palm groves have dis-
appeared from the Jordan Valley, and yet Jeri-
cho in Bible times was known as the City of
Palms.THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 229

Under the Ottoman regime everything that
could be taxed was taxed to the uttermost to
enrich the coffers of the sultan and those whom
the sultan delighted to honour; even the trees
were taxed. Consequently the country is prac-
tically barren of trees to-day. Almond, olive and
fiz trees remain because their produce was suffi-
cient to pay the taxes and leave a little over for
the wretched owners, but all other stately forest
trees, invaluable for tempering the climate and
affording shelter to cattle, were ruthlessly cut
down and used as firewood.

During four centuries of Turkish occupation
Jerusalem had no real water supply, and no
attempt was made to develop the natural
resources available in other parts of the country.

In Roman times a magnificent stone aqueduct,
the ruins of which still remain, brought a plenti-
ful supply of water to the Holy City. Under
Turkish administration the people were forced
to catch the rain that fell during the winter
months on the flat roofs of their houses and store
it in tanks in the cellars, where it became foul
and polluted as the summer advanced. During
the hot weather native water carriers obtained
water from King Solomon’s pools and brought
it, in unsanitary skin gourds, to Jerusalem,230 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

where they sold it in the streets to all who could
afford to pay for it. Is it to be wondered at,
that under these conditions the death rate
amongst the children was twelve times as high
as in any other civilised city in the world?

Two months after the British entered Jeru-
salem, the Holy City was in possession of a
water supply it had been denied by the Turks
for over four hundred years!

Our Royal Engineers laid many miles of pipe
lines from the springs in the Hebron hills and
erected a powerful pumping station; so that by
June 18, 1918, every man, woman and child in
the city could obtain as much pure health-giving
water as they required without paying a penny.
Immediately the death rate began to drop, and
when I left Palestine in 1920, it had become
normal for any semi-tropical city.

One of our biggest undertakings, of which
little has been heard, was the building of the
roads which now intersect the country. They
were intended primarily for military purposes
in order that heavy guns and supply lorries
could be readily moved from one part of the
front to another, but they will nevertheless
undoubtedly prove of the greatest value to
Palestinians in marketing their produce inTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 231

peace times, and should make life more pleasant
for the tourist than it has been in the past.

In building these roads we were enabled to
give employment and assistance to thousands of
destitute people—indeed the entire population
of a town or village would turn out en masse
and work on the highways. Whole families
worked together, even the smallest children
carrying stones graded to suit their capabilities.
Tt was an interesting sight to watch these people
under the direction of our officers and native
overseers chosen from amongst themselves.
Like swarms of industrious white ants they
carried rocks from the surrounding country-
side to where the new road was being con-
structed, thus serving a double purpose; for, as
the land was cleared of obstacles, wandering
tribes of Arabs appeared as if by magic and
began to sow with seed the ground thus made
available for cultivation. With an excellent
organisation and willing and unlimited labour
supply, the roads progressed rapidly. The
workers sang as they laid the bed of the road ;
for they were getting good food and good
money, many of them for the first time in their

lives.
We established fully equipped hospitals for232 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

local inhabitants in all large cities, and insti-
tuted an infants’ welfare bureau in Jerusalem
which was a big success; we also opened a
kitchen to provide food for babies and the poor
of the city.

The head of the American Red Cross in Pal-
estine described our progress as “the civilising
march of the British Army.” Coming from one
who understood so thoroughly the difficulties
that had to be overcome, it was praise worth
having.

For over a year after the armistice I stayed
on with our army of occupation. I was now
free to go where I would, and I took full advan-
tage of the liberty. I rode in a luxurious army
car over roads that had seemed endless when
we marched and fought our way along them a
few months before, but which now flashed by in
an amazingly short space of time.

I spent long, interesting days in Jerusalem
steeping myself anew in all its wonderful his-
tory and romance.

I bathed at Jaffa, visited the orange groves
and cantered past the thriving Jewish colony
at Richon which stands on the hills above Bir
Salem, where Allenby’s headquarters used to
be. I dined with my old divisional general, nowTHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 2383

General Sir John Shea, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O.,
and also dined with a sheik on goat’s flesh in a
camel-hair tent on the plains near Tul Keram.
I played golf on links we made ourselves in the
Desert with mud greens, and rode with Prince
Feisal’s Arab soldiers over the hills outside
Damascus.

Sometimes I wandered through the twilight
dimness of the bazaars in Damascus, full of the
odours of spices, rich with gorgeous colours, and
chequered with the bright pattern of brilliant
sunshine that filtered through rents in the over-
hanging matting. I watched Bedoueen olide
spectrally along with wild roving eyes like
startled deer, and children, more beautiful than
any in the East, play in the living mazes of the
crowd.

I sipped sherbet of roses cooled with snow
from the Lebanons, and drank Mocha coffee in
quaint silver cups.

One day I rode through the wheat fields by a
bridle path, climbing from Esdraelon to the
rocky foot-hills through thick brush and scrub
with undergrowth of large purple thistles, mal-
lows with blossoms like pelargoniums, stocks of
hollyhocks, honeysuckle and convolvulus; then,
between the shoulders of the mountains into the234 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE

cool of the dull green olive groves, with just a
pause for a moment in which to gaze back over
the moorland where a million flowers were
scattered, poppies, pimpernels, anemones, the
mallow, the narcissus and blue iris, “roses of
Sharon and lilies of the valley.” Strange to
think that some of the fiercest battles of the
world had taken place there; that Thotmes,
Rameses, Sennacherib, Cambyses, Alexander,
Pompey Titus, Saladin, Napoleon and many
another led his armies where Allenby led us!

It was harvest time when I received my orders
for demobilisation.

The afternoon before I left Palestine for
Kigypt, en route to England, I climbed to the
top of the Crusader’s tower near Ramleh. It is
known as the Church of Forty Martyrs, and is
all that now remains of the stately pile that
Richard’s warriors built to the glory of God so
many centuries ago.

Nearby is the burial place of England’s patron
saint, St. George, martyred at Ludd in the
year 303.

I wanted to be alone; I wanted to think for
a time of all that had happened since the day
when I first set foot in France. The war had
called me and I had become a soldier. For over
four years I had been constantly with men ITHE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE 230

had learnt to admire and trust. From second
lieutenant I had become a major; many of my
friends had been killed or disabled for life; I
had been through the horrors of a great war
but had experienced much of its romance and
adventure. I stood in the tower and turned my
back on the Mediterranean Sea, looking towards
where the Jaffa road, like a white ribbon, winds
its way up into the hills of Jerusalem. We had
fought over every mile of the way, but now the
country was at peace and the people were free
to return to their homes.

In the fields below me they were gathering in
the harvest, Christians, Jews, Moslems, Syrians,
Bedoueen, Arabs—all gathering in the golden
orain.

The air was filled with bees and butterflies,
and small birds whose sweet song was period-
ically hushed as a great hawk hovered overhead.

In the distance I could hear a military band
at divisional headquarters playing the latest
popular dance tune; nearer an Arab boy was
playing on his reed flute as he drove his goats to
water. We had finished our crusade, peace and
freedom were in the Holy Land for the first time
for five hundred years—and it all seemed worth

while. :
FINIS. eyi
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