nd two blankets were tied to the top of them by their corners,
the other corners being pegged down to the ground, thus forming a
shelter open at each end, and capable of holding two or three men and
their not very numerous belongings. A little study enabled the
architects to combine the maximum of shade with the maximum of wind
ventilation. Save for a short period at Romani and then at el Arish,
when the tents were brought up, these makeshift shelters were our homes
until proper bivouac sheets and poles were issued in June 1917. They had
to come down every night when the blanket was required for covering, and
so we slept beneath the stars. This form of habitation led to a
tremendous demand for bits of string--especially for little bits which
attached the blankets to the poles or to the pegs. It was so easy, when
dismantling a bivouac at night, to lay a bit of string on the ground,
where it was swiftly and inevitably covered with sand and lost for ever.
In consequence the careless or stringless took to sticking the peg
through a hole in the blanket and then to making a hole to stick the peg
through and "this thing became a sin in Israel."

[Illustration: SHEIKH'S TOMB, KATIA.]

Some distance outside the camp we dug a series of little trenches for
pickets which were occupied at night by companies in rotation. Stand-to
for everyone was at 3.45 and was often prolonged by mist. But our only
enemies were usually ineffective bombing planes and exceedingly
effective swarms of flies and also little whirlwinds which rushed across
the camp amid howls of execration and collapsing bivouacs. There were
many chameleons about and they were in that state of disordered fancy
which is supposed to attack the young man in the spring. We would
capture them and, after emblazoning our names and numbers in indelible
pencil on their flanks, an indignity which completely ruined their
carefully worked out camouflage schemes, would set them to fight, which
they did with extreme ferocity and remarkably little effect, nature
having provided them with no weapon of offence whatever. The contest was
chiefly one of swelling up and making faces, and was extremely
exhilarating to the onlookers. Our only other diversion was the not
always popular one of battalion exercises in various stages of the
attack. Few attacks, alas, ever planned out exactly like that when there
was a real enemy, but the exercises kept us fit and thirsty.

Our stay at Rabah lasted