TOWARDS the end of March the several Australian units camped at Tel-el-Kebir were under orders for employment on the defences of the Suez Canal. On the 27th of the month the 48th Battalion set out on its long journey of some 43 miles across the desert. A camp at Serapeum was to be its resting place and training ground before occupying the front trenches.
There is nothing in a soldier's experience that involves more weary suffering than a march through the desert. The visitor to the seaside when crossing a sandy track keeps as near to the water's edge as possible, for there the receding tide has left the sand firm and compact. He is not unmindful of wet feet nor the effect of salt water on fine boots, but he prefers those risks to the painful plodding over that dry belt of sand further back where his feet sink with every step.
The soldier's circumstances are very different. When he changes his place of abode, and often does he change it when on active service, he must carry with him all the means and utilities of his daily life, the bed on which he sleeps, the utensils with which he eats his food, and that food itself - his rations for the day and the morrow. His pack contains a change of underwear, a second pair of boots, washing and shaving outfit, needles and cotton and buttons, besides all his little household goods in the shape of souvenirs and presents from home. His water-bottle is filled and adds not a little to the weight that is dragging at his neck, and his field-dressing flaps at his side pocket. When his personal necessities are thus attended to, the army makes its own use of him, giving him a rifle and bayonet to carry, and a trenching-tool and 120 rounds of ammunition. That was "full marching order" on the way to Serapeum.
The battalion started in the evening when the heat was less intense, and after marching 12 miles rested for the night. There were no tents nor shelter of any kind, and as often happens on the desert a cold night followed a very hot day. But the men were tired, and wrapped in their blankets they were soon asleep.
The late start had been a prudent thing, as it allowed the march to be done in the comparative cool of the evening. It was resolved that on the next day advantage should also be taken of the early hours of the morning, before the sun became so intolerable. On the following morning, therefore, the journey was resumed about 8 o'clock. They marched only a distance of three miles, when a halt was made and all rested during the intense heat of the day. In the evening they again set out, and after marching for eight miles bivouacked.
It must be remembered that those men were not trained to march. There was no time for such training at Tel-el-Kebir, where the men were only gradually coming into camp, and where the heavy sands gave little scope for regular route marching. Many of them came from Gallipoli, in whose tranches [sic] they had been cooped up for months. Many came from the dysentery wards of Cairo and Alexandria, a backwash of Gallipoli.
Now on this second day of their journey the hard conditions began to tell on them. The boots were not fine, but of strong, formidable stuff, made to stand the test of rough roads and rough weather. In this fine, deep sand those boots became as dry and hard as well-seasoned timber.
The son of the desert wears sandals, for he would have as much as possible of the foot exposed to the air. He would have as little as possible of it so encased as to produce heat and moisture and consequent chafing. But those men came to the desert as clumsy novices, with high-topped service boots met by the closely-rolled puttee and with close-fitting breeches. And the desert had no pity on them. Wherever the minutest inlet showed itself in their coarse boots, the desert's sand entered to blister and chafe and raise red, tender blotches on their hot feet. The sun blazed mercilessly down upon them, menacing them with sun-stroke if they dared to discard their helmets, and matting their hair and making their eyes smart with trickling, perspiration because they could not do so. The wind playing over the surface of the desert like the fitful ripple on a mountain lake, would now and then whirl the dust into their faces, there to form a sickly paste with the perspiration that bathed their brows and filled their ears and made a greasy dam on their bared chests. The desert refused them water, and when they had forced some from its few and reluctant pools and doctored it with their ill-smelling chemicals to guard themselves against the worse evils that lurked in it, the desert's scorching heat penetrated their cloth-bound water-bottles and made the water a tepid unwholesome thing that brought not refreshment and strength but nausea and weakness.
On they trudged, accomplishing so little, yet doing so much, marching in close formation with each file on the heels of the preceding one. The heavy smell of human sweat permeated the whole column, moving with the column, ever present with it because constantly generated by it, until it felt like being in a large, overcrowded, hot, reeking chamber that was slowly moving ahead. They were tired and weary men when at night they threw themselves on the sand to have a well-earned sleep.
Next morning the camp was astir very early, as the battalion was to move off at 6 o'clock. Before some 900 men can be ready to start many things have to be done, and a battalion commander takes no risks of being behind the time appointed. In those days the battalion had no regular transport, and indeed heavy-wheeled limbers and thirsty mules would have been of little avail on that trek with its deep sand and scanty water-supply. But a number of camels were allotted to the battalion, and these, led by their Indian guides, stalked solemnly after the column. They were laden and over-laden, with such gear as could not be conveniently carried, stores, dixies and huge coppers for cooking the meals, officers' surplus gear that the loaders often insisted with lurid language could be very well done without, rations and some reserve supply of water. All these things had to be unloaded at each is stage of the journey, and again loaded and ready for the march.
The hard conditions of the journey were not without their relieving features. No large gathering of Australian soldiers can ever be bereft of humour, and the more difficult their circumstances the more irrepressible is that humour. So when an officer who was unable to continue the march clumsily mounted a camel and immediately got pitched over its ears, the crowd roared with lusty merriment that made it difficult to believe they presented such a sorry spectacle on the preceding evening. Things had been very busy on the third morning of the journey. But at last breakfast was over and the men had fallen in for the usual inspection. The sick parade had been held and the medical officer had handed out the last piece of sticking plaster for a sore heel, and told the patient he "just had to march whether he could or not." The rations were loaded and the quartermaster stood eyeing in uncertain manner a stove copper that rested on the ground beside a camel. Then the battalion commander walked up the lines and immediately the quartermaster endeavoured to look as alert and busy as possible. For the battalion commander was in a vile mood; things were not going too well; his men were suffering, they were certain to be even worse off today, and he could do nothing to help them. His eyes fell on the stove and copper not yet loaded on the camel, and the quartermaster got a bad time. The latter's several attempts at explanations were cut short with such insistent demands that they be got ready for transport immediately, that in desperation he forthwith had the stove and copper placed on the kneeling camel. Immediately there was a smell of singeing hair, a bellowing snort, and the camel dashed for the sky-line like a mad thing. The articles in question were quite hot after their use in cooking the morning meal, and the quartermaster had been patiently waiting for them to cool before placing them on the camel's back. They had plenty of time to cool afterwards, for they were of no further use to the battalion after the camel had finished with them. But the immediate task of rescuing them gave the quartermaster an opportunity to get away from the commander and explanations.
Moasca was to be their next stage in the journey. This was the third day of the march, heavy packs felt heavier, the sun seemed to blaze worse than ever, and of water they had none.
The soldier on the march in a hot climate requires to be very sparing in his use of water. The old soldier drinks very little of it, and when the water becomes warm he does not drink it at all. He takes a mouthful, rinses his mouth, and then squirts it out again. Most of the time he jogs along with a small pebble in his mouth. But on the desert track to Serapeum there were few old soldiers. Most of them were very new soldiers and very young soldiers, and regardless of instructions they would often have exhausted their water-bottles long before the completion of the day's journey. A brilliant idea had occurred to someone by which this could be obviated, and a supply of water made available for the men at that stage of the day's march where they should most need it. During the midday halt on the preceding day all water-bottles were collected, stowed on camels, and some men detailed to go on ahead and meet the column on the following day with refilled bottles. This seemed all right and it enabled those who had been sparing of their water bottles to have one glorious drink before parting with them.
But many brilliant ideas fail in execution, and the practical working out of this one had several disadvantages. For camels are occasionally obstreperous animals, and on this occasion their Indian guides were found to be equally unsatisfactory. During the next day's march the men looked anxiously for the coming of those camels, but it was not until they were within two miles of Moasca that they appeared.
The water proved to be warm, sickly stuff, but it was not so regarded by those who drank it eagerly and greedily. The result was inevitable, and soon showed itself. Men fell out of the line of march and throwing themselves on the ground in a state of reckless exhaustion, rolled over to vomit in the sands. One hundred and twenty-four men thus fell out whilst the column continued on its way to Moasca.
Those who were left behind could be trusted to rejoin their unit, for ways and means never failed the Australian soldier whatever the army might sometimes think of his casual choice of them. They did not fail him on this occasion. When those soldiers had rested they struck across the desert to where they could see a black line trailing through the sands. It was the railway from Cairo, and when they had reached its hard, firm track they felt that buoyancy which only those who have trudged through the sands of Egypt can understand. In this way 98 of them regained their unit; whilst others further improved the occasion by boarding a passing train which brought them to Serapeum, a day's journey ahead of the column.
The battalion rested for the remainder of the day at Moasca. It was a good spell and afforded an opportunity of attending thoroughly to the many sore feet of all ranks. The next day's march lay along the banks of a fresh-water canal, and 43 men unable to march were sent on to Serapeum by barge. The distance to camp was then about 13 miles, and none fell out, although the last few miles of the journey were done in the face of a blinding sand-storm.