exceedingly bold and resourceful

The right flank of our line being thus ‘in the air’ out in the desert, it was a comparatively easy matter for enemy spies, disguised as peaceful natives, to pass round it under cover of darkness, and approach our positions from the rear in daylight. Native hawkers, other than those with passes from the Intelligence Staff, were forbidden to approach our lines, but it was impossible to control all the natives in such a scattered area, and much can be seen, with the aid of a pair of field-glasses, from the top of a hill a mile away. There were also at least two very daring Germans, who several times penetrated our lines disguised as British officers. They were both exceedingly bold and resourceful men, and it is probable that they obtained a good deal of useful information, before they met the almost inevitable fate of spies suv car rental. Before the end of our time of preparation, however, methods were evolved to deal with this nuisance, and the enemy was kept in ignorance of our movements and intentions with that success which always attended the efforts of General Allenby in this direction. An enemy staff document, subsequently captured by us, and dated just prior to the commencement of the operations, stated that: ‘An[Pg 6] outflanking attack on Beersheba with about one infantry and one cavalry division is indicated, but the main attack, as before, must be expected on the Gaza front.’ How far wrong was this appreciation of the situation will be apparent later on. The same document also stated that we had six infantry divisions in the Gaza sector, whereas at the time there were only three. The Royal Air Force was an important factor in denying information to the enemy during the latter part of our time of preparation. One of the first things the Commander-in-Chief had done on his arrival at the front, was to re-equip the force completely. Hitherto the German Flying Corps had done what it liked in the air over our lines. For several months on end our troops had been bombed, almost with impunity, every day. Our own pilots, starved alike of aeroplanes and of materials for repairs, gingerly man?uvring their antiquated and rickety machines, fought gallantly but hopelessly against the fast Taubes and Fokkers of the German airmen, and day by day the pitiful list of casualties that might have been so easily avoided grew longer Word Of Mouth. In four months all this had changed. Our pilots, equipped with new, up-to-date and fast machines, met the Germans on level terms, and quickly began to obtain supremacy in the air. By the end of October this supremacy was definitely established, and the few enemy pilots who crossed our lines at that time flew warily, ever on the look-out for one of our fighting machines. The country occupied by the opposing armies varied considerably in character. The district near the coast consisted of a series of high dunes of loose, shifting sand, impassable for wheeled traffic. Farther east the ground became harder, but it was still sandy[Pg 7] and heavy going for transport. Eastwards again, towards Beersheba, the country changed to a wilderness of bare, rocky hills, intersected by innumerable wadis (dry river beds). These wadis were, for the most part, enclosed between limestone cliffs, sometimes 100 feet or more in height, and impassable except where the few native tracks crossed them. The whole of this part of the country was waterless, except for three very deep wells at Khalasa and one at Asluj (all of which had been destroyed by the Turks), and some fairly good pools in the Wadi Ghuzze at Esani and Shellal. In Beersheba itself there were seven good wells hong kong hotel promotion .