A mile or two out of the nullah we encountered the rest of the brigade, and gradually a troop from one unit or a squadron from another joined the column. By now it was pitch dark, but as far as one could judge we were taking a different route from that by which we had come. Our present direction was due west, and had we persisted in following it this route would have led us straight into the Turkish lines at Gaza. The reason, which I give with some reserve, was learnt later. A German officer speaking perfect English and dressed in the uniform of a British staff-officer, rode up to the head of the column and announced that he had been sent by Headquarters as a guide. Thereupon the column followed this audacious gentleman's leadership for some miles, until a pukka British officer, who had providentially spent some years surveying this very country, asked his commander whether he knew that we were making a bee-line for the Turkish defences. A startled ejaculation burst from the general, who turned to the guide to ask him if he was quite sure of the way. But he asked in vain, for the man had disappeared! Whether this explanation be true or no, there are in connection therewith two somewhat significant points: one was that some days later a German, masquerading as a British staff-officer, was undoubtedly captured, and paid the customary penalty; the other was that after we had trekked for perhaps a couple of hours in a westerly direction, we turned sharply to the left and continued almost due south, at right angles to our previous route. We had not proceeded far this way when we came across the remainder of the mounted divisions, and fell in beside them, a heterogeneous mass. Troopers of the Light Horse were riding with gunners from the artillery; cacolet camels, whose native drivers had their heads shrouded in blankets, trudged beside ambulance carts; here and there a man who had lost his horse stumbled wearily along, first in one column then in another; guns and ammunition-limbers were mingled with cable-waggons; and all followed blindly man or waggon in front of them. The army slept as it marched. Men slid gradually down into the saddle, with bowed heads, until the tired horses stumbled and jerked them again into a hazy consciousness for a few yards. Then the heads drooped once more, the nerveless hands loosed the reins, and bodies swayed unevenly back and forth. Here and there a man, utterly overcome by sleep, lurched from his saddle, pitched headlong and lay where he had fallen until one more wakeful picked him up and set him on his waiting horse again or in an ambulance. Some tied themselves on gun-limbers and slept there, while their riderless horses gregariously followed the column.