Eyewitness by Garrie Hutchinson

of rifle-butt against a comrade’s leggings.
    A khamsin sprang up. It whined in from the desert and its breath was fire – we rode through a haze of hell. I could not see Norry or Stan; I could feel them. The air was saturated with electricity – my little neddy’s mane all stiff and bristly. When I touched it, blue sparks leaped through my fingers. A man lost all sense of direction and conscious unity – he felt he was a blind atom in an invisible body moving across the earth.
    The regiment started out with a native guide but he soon got lost. The screen went on by compass – when they could see it. At daylight the divisions, spread over some miles, were riding right on to the railway line. The sun glowed through the dust like a molten globe.
    Our brigade was disappointed. We were not in the actual blowing up of the line – we just cleared the country of snipers and guarded the flank of the Demolition Troops. The 5 th took up a line between Gos Shelili and Hill 1240, rode thankfully on grassy country away from the dust right on to rifle and machine-gun fire. We galloped straight down on the outposts fronting us. One of our lads away out in front had an exciting time. The sun was just bathing the hills – we cheered as he raced over a skyline at the heels of a mounted Arab scout, both blazing from their saddles. Neither scored a hit. The last we saw of the Arab he was hitting the dust towards Beersheba. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! And our vicious little Tommy guns were surprising the Turks in Beersheba. General Chaytor is a game old beggar. He is very sick but insisted on coming out all that long distance and directing operations from his bed in a sandcart. About eleven o’clock, our brigade thought we were in for a scrap. Two brigades of Turkish cavalry threatened us but they changed their minds and rode back on Beersheba. Meanwhile the demolition forces, the 1 st Light Horse Brigade, the New Zealanders and the Camel Corps were busy on the railway line. Presently the great Asluj Bridge was destroyed, 18 fine arches of stone, all Ashlar work. The German engineers must have cried to see their masterpiece obliterated in that roaring series of explosions. Then up into the sky went 17 miles of line with smaller bridges and fine stone culverts, all exceedingly well built. We were all ready to retire by three o’clock. The ride back that night was the very devil. We rode on a big camp where no camp had been before. It was a blooming Yeomanry division: I wonder what would have happened had we attacked it! Who would have got the greater surprise? The uncertainty delayed us getting back to camp until after midnight.
    … One of our lads got a parcel addressed to ‘a lonely soldier’. Enclosed was a note from the lady expressing the pious wish that a brave soldier in France should get the parcel and not a cold-footed squib in Egypt. The chap who received the parcel sent the lady some photos of our desert graves, with compliments from a cold-footed squib in Egypt.
    May 24th . Had an amusing little ride this morning. Quite a common ride: we happened to be engaged in the peaceful task of collecting wood to boil the regimental stew. In this treeless country, we have to rely on the beams in the Bedouin mud-hovels. But the scattered hovels all along the wadi are long since cleaned out, so pioneers must push right to the Turkish lines for the wherewithal to boil our quart-pots. This morning, seven of us went out, hard-boiled old Corporal Nix in charge, with four packhorses. Every hut we visited was timberless. Norry and I rode well ahead as a target to save the packhorses coming under possible rifle-fire. When about four miles out, we noticed a New Zealand outpost on a low hill to our left, and fronting us was a house. Nix and his cautious men edged away towards the outpost. Norry and I rode on, guessing that concealed riflemen must have driven the outpost from the house. But wood is precious. There was always the possibility of some