uch other equipment as we
required for the operations on which we were to embark.

Immediately we were ready to move, we were railed up to the Front, to
Belah, which, at that time, was railhead. This was our first experience
of travelling on the Kantara Military Railway, and is not likely to be
forgotten. The shortage of rolling stock available did not permit of
troops, or, at that time, even of officers accompanying troops,
travelling in passenger coaches. On the contrary, a number of open
trucks were adapted for troop traffic, being roofed over with a covering
affording protection from the sun but with sides left open. These trucks
had neither continuous brakes nor screw couplings. Our journey,
therefore, was enlivened by the frequent successful attempts of our
truck to overtake the truck ahead, followed by a difference of opinion
with the truck behind, a wavering between two opinions, and then another
mad plunge into the darkness in pursuit of the truck ahead, and the
next check brought about a repetition of this pleasing diversion from
sleep. If the writer of a recent popular song really believed that the
Sands of the Desert never grow cold, let him try travelling across them
by night in an open truck. The train was not furnished with that luxury
of modern travel, steam heating. For the men, a substitute was found by
adopting the method by which sheep are kept cosy on similar occasions,
that is, by packing into each truck a few more than it can accommodate.
The officers rolled themselves up in their valises, bruised every
protruding bone in their bodies, "and wished for the day."

On arrival at the Front, we moved first into a position in reserve near
the Wadi Ghuzzeh. As we crossed the summit of In Seirat Ridge, what a
view unfolded itself before our eyes! Before us lay the Plain of
Philistia, spreading from the sea to the Judaean Hills, to our left front
lay the white buildings of the town of Gaza, while, ever and anon, were
heard and seen the booming of cannon and the bursting of shell.

We were now put through a gradual process of acclimatization. Ensconced
in one of the offshoots of the Wadi Ghuzzeh well behind the front line,
we enjoyed safety from shelling. We were, however, sufficiently in the
picture to have guns constantly firing around us and aeroplanes flying
overhead, and could watch our friends being shelled in the front line
and the daily anti-aeroplane shoots, both by our own and by the enemy's
"Ar