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.

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1935 | | pagina 20