At seven o'clock we unhooked the horses from the guns and ammunition-waggons and let them graze on the herbage. No sound of battle came to our ears; indeed, so profound was the silence that enveloped us, we might have been in a tomb. Then, perhaps half an hour later, the fog suddenly lifted like the drop-scene in a theatre, and we found ourselves in the middle of a wide undulating plain stretching to the remote horizon. Then we saw that the stage was set and the actors were ready. On our left, their approach unnoticed by us in the fog, our infantry were marching in fours; from away to the south-west, as far as the eye could see, came three mighty columns of marching men, sunburnt, silent, inexorable. They looked immensely efficient, these veterans of Gallipoli, tramping steadily along in their shirt sleeves--best of all fighting kit--and there were two divisions of them. Alongside them came another long column of ambulance-carts drawn by mules, beyond which, again, marched the auxiliary branch of the medical service, the camels, soft-footed and supercilious, with the white hoods of the cacolets swaying unevenly as they marched. Then came the light armoured-car batteries and in the centre the horse-artillery. Out on the flank the plain was black with the horses of the mounted divisions, disposed in brigades, and on the right the Imperial Camel Corps had a roving commission. So the army marched steadily forward to the assault, a wonderful spectacle. There was this to be said for the fighting in Palestine: you fought in the open most of the time; with certain limitations you could see your enemy and he could see you. The personal element, therefore, played a more important part than when there was an overwhelming concentration of artillery on one side or the other, and as a rule battles were won because the victors were both collectively and individually the better men.