210 THE YPRES TIMES
I look back upon this little incident as the pleasantest of all my memories of war
service. Differences in rank and status were forgotten and all four of us felt that, war
or no war, the world was a fine place on that sunny morning.
Archie and Arthur.
Archie and Arthur were
a pair of entire Egyptian
donkeys. We acquired them
unofficially one very dark
night. These pure white
donkeys, popularly called
Allenby's white mice,
were used for transport after
the rains in the Judaean
mountains.
There never were such
useful animals as Archie and
Arthur. They pulled the
little cart which carried our
portable forge and the coal
for it, so we were never
reduced to the abomination
of cold shoeing. The cart
was a capture from the Turks the harness was made by our wonderful saddler out of
bits of broken reins.
Almost every sick and wounded man who had to go to hospital rode there on one or
other of these little donkeys. Ón slippery mountain tracks a camel is a terrifying carriage
for the seriously sick or badly wounded camels fall down quite frequently on slippery
going, but donkeys never do.
The illustration shows well what a charming pair they were. The late Brig.-General
Hext, our C.R.A., never failed to ask how our donkeys were every time we saw him.
Water Camel.
This is one of the 30,000 camels which carried water both for men and horses for
the Beersheba-Sheria operations. The labour was terrific camels and their drivers
who have to drag them along
in pairs marched daily
twenty hours out of every
twenty-four for a fortnight
on end the endurance of
both was almost incredible
in the scorching sun.
Camels, sour-tempered
vicious beasts, never give it
up on the march until they
are actually dying. Their
drivers were equally plucky
they were willing and cheery
rascals who took a beating
from their Reis (foreman)
without a whimper when
found in some smaljl
dereliction of duty.
The camel is a strange survival from prehistoric times. They have been bred in
domestication for centuries. There are no wild camels in existence.