ed completion by the time we left.

This arid outpost of Empire was linked to civilisation by a camel trail
to Railhead. Its garrison duties were performed by some Essex
Territorials, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Jameson, afterwards killed
before Gaza. Yeomanry passed by frequently, scouting far into the waste.
The Manchesters were occupied exclusively in digging trenches and in
laying entanglements in the deep soft sand, "according to plan" and on
a scale sufficient to daunt any invader who could have surmounted the
huge physical obstacles that already barred all approach to this spot
from the Wadi Muksheib and the East.

The arms of Britain have by now made these particular defences of the
Canal of most trifling importance. Her foot is in Palestine. Work done
at Ashton may well be gradually obliterated. Yet a few words can be said
of the men who lived and laboured here in June, 1916, in a temperature
rising often to 120 deg. F. in the shade and rarely falling under 100 deg. F. at
night. No digging was practicable between 7.30 A.M. and 4.30 P.M. The
men rose before four in the morning for the day's work. Progress was
necessarily slow, partly owing to constant silting, partly to the common
weakness of the authorities for varying the sites and types of the
trenches. Materials were often wanting. Nevertheless the Manchesters won
unqualified praise. Their civil life had fitted many for the task of
reveting trenches with hurdles. The defences of Ashton-in-Sinai were
improved in a few weeks beyond recognition.

One incident that occurred here illustrates amusingly the contrast
between the outlooks of the new soldier and the old. Our Manchester
Territorials were distressed to find that thousands of yards of hurdles
were being lined with the best tent cloth at 1s. 4d. a yard, instead of
with cheap cotton at a quarter the price. I repeated their plaint to a
Regular officer of the old school, expecting sympathetic indignation.
"Magnificent," was his reply. "It shows the world in what spirit England
goes to war."

It was at Ashton that we first heard the news of the Jutland Battle from
Colonel Fremantle, R.A.M.C., who could only give us the version spread
by German wireless. A few days later we learnt of Lord Kitchener's
death.

It is clear that this particular phase of soldiering has in itself no
place in the annals of the Great War. Ashton is already nothing but a
desert site. The tide of victorious warfare has left it