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

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

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

It was difficult to realise in the midst of a jostling crowd of soldiers,
with guns and all the impedimenta of war in the background, that once on a
time old Father Abraham had lived at Beersheba with his family and
developed the water-supply for his flocks. Impossible, too, to visualise
the past splendours of Beersheba, as became the city on the southern border
of Palestine, on the main caravan-route through the Land of Goshen, across
the Sinai desert into Egyp