DESERT WARFARE.

West Coast Times, 24 November 1915, Page 4

DESERT WARFARE.

HARDSHIPS OF WORST AN CIT.E CAMPAIGN. HEAT' AND THIRST. The following extract from the tetter of an officer in the Royal Field Artillery gives an idea of what campaigning in the summer in the Persian Oulf means in physical effort and exhaustion ; As we are hung up by a stretch of water nearly two miles wide. I am trying to jot down some of our doings. We continued our march, with a somewhat smaller force, into the unknown desert. We started at 0 p.m. very much overladen, owing to the laet that we wore cut off and had to carry four days' supplies .also transport animals were going sick. When we started the temperature was HOdeg. in the shade, and after a six-mile march through heavy sand we struck the marsh again and hailed. Transport was then very done. 1 was sent on about three miles to find the best way across some sand hills, hut on reluming to the column I found them preparing to stop for the night. The water here was pretty bail, but not very salt. We just lay down for the nigiit, and started again at -I a.m. The going was very heavy that morning, and at about 7, when the sun was very hot, the infantry got very done. "We cannot carry nearly enough water, and one’s tongue soon swells when the sun gets up. After marching about eight miles we struck water and got settled into camp about 8.30 a.m. This was a bad camo on burning sand, and a hot damn wind blew off the marsh all dav. The temporal m e was llOileg. and that for damp heat is about the limit of human endurance. A g-eat many men went sick. We lived through the dav somehow, and moved on again at 0.30 p.m. The going was better, hut we had to stop at dark owing to holes, so only covered five miles. Then wo lay down for the night. No water here, so when we moved on again at 3.30 a.m. we had not much water loft to carry us along the eight miles to th ( . next camp, where there was a fairly docent looking hit ot marsh. Water, however, proved to ho very salt, rather like Epsom suits with a good deal of table salt added, and it appeared to have the same efieet as the former. This cam]) was on hard alluvial plain, and the heat was awful. 1 do not know what th<. actual temperature was, hut in the hospital tent it varied between 125deg. and 130deg. All this lime we were living on tea, sugar, hard cheese, tinned heel, and biscuit, the latter so hard that only those with good teetli can cat it uusoaked. We lay down for an hour's rest at 3 a.m., and at 4 started and picked up the infantry, who went ahead of us. That morning at 8 a.m. we struck marsh and halted for the day. At midday I was sent for and told to ?n on eight miles and find out if we could get across the two miles ol marsh. T had to go across the desert with a guide and my groom. I started at 2 p.m., having forced some food down my throat—you can’t imagine what it was like. 1 covered the eight miles in about IJ hour, and my horse was about cooked. My goggles were so hot that they blistered where they touched my face even under the shade of my helmet.

Two days later.—Soon after writing tlio above I heard the six rafts for our irons wore ready, so I set off at 3 o’clock with 24 men to fetch them into ramp. A very strong dnststorm was blowing and quite a big sea running on the marsh. Wo went in 'Arab dugouts, and two of them capsized on trio way. We got to the rafts and then had to push them back to camp, through two miles of water from Ift. to oft deep. They were moored the wrong side of the channel, and what with the wind and strong current I was thankful no one was. drowned. I gol back to camp at 7.30. having horn in the water for three hours. The rafts were very heavy and wading in the mud made the work much harder, and we were all fairly cooked that night when we pot back. As I had seen so much of the marsh I set out at 4.30 next morning with the first party—namely, eight ammunition wagons and about CO horses. The Arabs pushed the wagons, which were then loaded, in their boats. We all got safely into the next ramp, and I then had to start unloading the wagons from the Arab boats, wi'h no step- to helo me and r« soH of dock to run the boats into. At about 3 p.m. the remaining four wagons and another sixty horses tnrned tip.