After the Turks had made the last of a series of costly but abortive
counter-attacks to regain Jerusalem and were finally and for ever driven
back, the city was placed strictly out of bounds until Borton Pasha and the
medical authorities had thoroughly purged it of all unpleasantness: the
Germans and Turks were extremely uncleanly in their habits. Later, when
this had been done, Desert Corps established a Rest Camp at Enab, about six
miles from Jerusalem, and from time to time organised parties to visit the
tombs and other holy places in the neighbourhood. As these were very well
arranged and were usually in charge of padres from the various
denominations they were much appreciated by the tired men coming up from
the Jordan Valley for a rest. It is no part of my purpose to take the
reader on a kind of personally conducted war-time tour of Jerusalem; the
guide books will supply him with all the information he wants. Besides, he
would inevitably be disappointed, unless his first glimpse of the Holy City
was from the summit of Nebi Samwil or, coming out of the Jordan Valley on a
moonlit night, he saw the shimmering radiance of the Mosque of Omar at the
top of Mount Moriah.
But the Rest Camp at Enab was strictly limited both in size and scope. It
was for the use of the mounted divisions only, and men went there chiefly
for a rest; amusement, such as could be had in the form of sight-seeing,
was of secondary importance. A more universal camp was at Beni Saleh, on
the coast near Khan Yunus, where glorious sea-bathing was to be had; it
was, in fact, the only thing to do.
You started the day by a wild sprint across the short stretch of beach
between the tents and the sea, finishing up with a headlong dash into the
water, which was just cold enough to make the body tingle, but imparted
none of the shock that comes with the morning tub at home. This gave you an
appetite for breakfast, if any such aid were needed. When the sun grew hot
towards the middle of the morning you went in the sea again and stayed
there for an hour or two, with an occasional sprawl on the warm sand by way
of a sun-bath.
If you felt particularly energetic a pair of ancient drill shorts rolled up
and tied with a piece of a head-rope made quite an adequate ball for
water-polo, until it became water-logged and sank to the bottom; then you
had to fish it out and spread it on the sands until it was dry enough to
resume duty. A few units used footballs for water-polo, but this was mere
luxury. Ours, worse luck, always had a puncture somewhere in its internal
economy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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