In the end a driver from one section rode into a gun belonging to the other, and the situation was saved. Another driver briefly expressed our unanimous view when he said: "If this is blooming Palestine, give me two yards of Piccadilly and you can have all of it!" Finally, as it never rains but it pours, we had the cheering news that we were not returning to El Chauth, that we were to have a couple of hours' sleep, the first since starting out, after which we had a further twenty miles to go!
The last five miles of those twenty were the hardest I ever remember. The horses had not had the saddles off their backs for over two days and were almost dropping with fatigue; nor were their riders in much better state. The heat was terrific, and the greater part of the journey was over country on which scarcely a vestige of green remained; indeed, the last few miles were through heavy sand powerfully reminiscent of the desert.
We camped at last in a great grove of fig-trees near the sea.
At Fig-tree Camp we had what the army calls a "rest," which must not in any way be confused with the word that implies repose. There is nothing of a reposeful nature about an army "rest." It means that you come out of the line for periods varying from two hours to two months, usually a great deal nearer the former than the latter, and spend the time doing what the authorities term "smartening up," after the gay and festive season through which you have just passed. This generally takes the form of parades every other hour, when the officers prattle amiably of matters to which you have long been a stranger, and the Sergeant-Major takes the opportunity of preventing his vocabulary from falling into disuse. Also, if you are in the artillery, you clean your harness and polish up the steel-work thereon till it twinkles like a heliograph in the sun. Then you go out and dirty everything again.
When you come to examine the various forms of army discipline there are usually to be found sensible and logical reasons for their existence; but we amateur soldiers could never understand the necessity, on active service, for polishing and burnishing steel-work, especially in a country of strong sunlight; and there was certainly nothing in our daily duties that we loathed half so much. For ceremonial parades, of course, you turned out as "posh" as the next man, but in a parched land where you could with difficulty keep your own person clean, it seemed a grievous waste of time and energy polishing bits and chains and stirrup-irons merely for the sake of doing it. Besides, think of the hours so spent which might have been devoted to sleep! The afternoon we arrived at Fig-tree Camp most of us would have liked to follow the sound example of that Lord Chesterfield who, when he felt tired, used to say to his servant: "Bring me a dozen of sherry and call me the day after to-morrow!"