Air andlight were so wonderful that we wandered
without thinking in the leastof to-morrow.
None the less, the job remained adifficult one to
do under fire.
Not often was I caught with so poor a shield as
blindSherif Aid.
Not for the first or last time service to two
masters irked me.
We had good hopes of the Serahin,the tribe at
Azrak. Salem wouldhave been dead, for the Turks did not take Arab prisoners. Cairo
had remembered them and gone peevish because oftheir non-return. Both were new to
the country, and not sure ofthe Arabs, so they took turns to keep watch. The Arabs
put into mining a zest absent from theirpure demolitions.
Lloyd and Wood and Thornehad brought with them
bully beef in tins and British army biscuits. We on the Arab front were very
intimate with the enemy.
Asbefore, the Arabs were now merely camel-drivers,
walking behind ladenpack-animals. The bullet hadcome out near his spine, without, in
their judgement, hurting himmortally. The HUMBER made us canvas straps andbuckles,
to simplify the fixing.
The loss of the engines wassore upon the
Turks.
At last we were in the tall bushes: then we
shouted. The tender and first waggon had telescoped. He persuaded Dawnay:
Allenbyreluctantly agreed: Bols assented, and the work began. These decisions were
arrived at despite my imperfect knowledge ofArabic.
We retired a thousand yards up the valleys scrubby
bed to ambush forthe intolerable day. We calculated they might be two or three
hundred yards short of us whenthe train came.