On the 24th February, 1919, I was appointed to the command of "Rafa Area." The "Area" was rather an extensive one; it included nearly the whole of the Sinai Desert to the south, and Palestine to the north, almost as far as Bir Salem, while to the east it went beyond Beersheba to the Arabian Desert. There were over 150 miles of railway to guard, and the Bedouins had to be constantly watched and checked, or they would have played all sorts of pranks with the line. Constant patrols had to be maintained, and every day provided a fresh problem for solution. The fresh-water pipe line from Egypt ran alongside the railway and, of course, the wandering and thirsty Ishmaelite thought nothing of smashing this in order to get a drink for himself and his camel. We had to be on the alert all the time and nip these little enterprises of our friendly Allies in the bud. They did not hesitate to attempt to loot the supply stores of flour, forage, etc., stored at Rafa, and our sentries had many lively little encounters with these marauders, and I must say that the wily rascals took their chance of a bullet quite casually. While the Anzac Division was with us I felt quite easy in my mind about being able to keep these slippery customers in check, but it was quite "another pair of shoes" when the Anzacs were hurriedly called away to suppress the disorders in Egypt. In addition to the 38th Battalion, I had some Indian Infantry holding Gaza, and some South African troops holding El Arish. As demobilization progressed these were withdrawn and the whole of this great area was, in the end, solely garrisoned and guarded by the Jewish Battalion. They performed their arduous duties extraordinarily well. They were scattered up and down the line in small posts, often in the midst of Arab villages and Bedouin camps, yet there was never any friction between Jew and Arab, although here was a likely setting for it, if there had been any real ill-feelings animating either side; but, as a matter of fact, the Jew and Arab got on wonderfully well together all over Palestine, and had worked amicably side by side for over forty years in the Jewish colonies. When the Egyptian Nationalist riots started the Military Governor of El Arish feared an outbreak in this large Arab town, so I had to send reinforcements to the garrison there under the command of Captain Jaffe, an officer of the battalion. Aeroplanes flew up from the Aerodrome at Heliopolis, and swooping low over El Arish put the fear of the Lord into the inhabitants; this demonstration, and the great personal influence of the Military Governor, Colonel Parker, kept these people quiet, and they gave us no trouble whatever. Later on we had to guard a number of political prisoners who were sent up from Egypt as a result of the disturbances there, and this added considerably to the heavy work of the battalion.