Читать книгу Australia in Palestine - Various - Страница 22

Table of Contents

A brief pause, and then, the Desert Mounted Corps Bridging Train (B Troop, Australian Engineers) having thrown the first bridge across the Jordan, the Anzac Mounted Division, together with the Imperial Camel Brigade and, once again, the Londoners, made their famous rush for the Hedjaz Railway, far out across Jordan to the east, where the Plateau of Moab begins to merge into the sand of the wide Arabian Desert. This expedition, which, so far as the Colonials were concerned, fell chiefly upon the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, the New Zealanders and the Camels, was perhaps the severest we had had since crossing the Canal. Rain fell almost unceasingly for many days. The mountain tracks were so narrow and broken that the Brigades, travelling only by night, moved in single file, leading their horses and camels. The weather was piercingly cold. Men were wet through for several days and nights in which they knew no sleep, and were almost ceaselessly engaged in heavy fighting. In these circumstances, the destruction of some miles of the railway, and the safe withdrawal of the force, was an especially good performance.