YOU WILL REMEMBER I was sitting in my car waiting to move on in my last letter. We were kept dawdling for two hours which gave me a chance to walk over and look at an Allied plane near which I was parked. It was strewn over a wide area, and the remains had been quite thoroughly picked over by the troops stationed in the vicinity. I was told that the pilot had been a young South African who had been shot down two weeks before in flames. With these skeleton, fire-ravaged wrecks there is really very little to see. The motor had been thrown about thirty feet away, the wings ripped off and the inch-thick windshield was riddled with machinegun fire. I kicked among the charred metal a few minutes, and was about to walk away when a white bit gleaming in the sun caught my eye. I stooped down to pick it up and saw three shining molars hanging on a burned strip of jaw-bone. Somehow I wasn't horrified until I saw a silver filling in one tooth and it all became so real.
A few moments later our train of vehicles started to crawl forward and I had to run and jump in to get my ambulance moving. We drove along, halting and edging forward in varying degrees of speed, never more than twenty miles per hour. The thoroughfares out here run parallel to the Coast Road which skirts the sea. Each track has a different name. Empty petrol tins, sometimes with a candle burning in them when the enemy isn't in the vicinity, are placed at intervals throughout the countryside, vague flickers for guidance. Every ten miles or so a wider road cuts through to the Coast Road, this is parallel to the big Cairo-Alexandria Road. We followed one of these roads for miles due west. We ploughed along through vast deep ruts in the sand where tanks and trucks had moved the day before after the retreating Germans. There are mine-fields, both ours and the enemy's, in various spots which bottle-neck traffic terribly, as everyone must get back on the original roadway to pass through them. The mines look like round cymbals, laid under the sand, anything with 500 lbs. pressure explodes long strings of them placed helter-skelter on wires.
For hours the long columns groaned ahead. Staff cars running up and down. The high, old signal lorries trying to establish communications with forward units. Out of the big, wooden box-like trucks you'd hear voices yelling into short wave sets as you passed: "Hello, hello, hello. Calling Orange three! Calling Orange three! Do you hear me? Queen calling! Queen calling!" All code words, of course. We drove throughout that day and, towards sunset, with some of the convoy diverted into the side fields for the night, the traffic lightened a bit. It was still, however, far worse than Labor Day on the Merrick Parkway, and the awful roads, dust and noise added. At last we turned left along a denuded line of telegraph poles. After five miles or so we pulled off into a shallow bowl of sand flats with greenish shrubs which seemed peaceful and silent away from the swirling road. As we got out of our vehicles and started fires for supper, a soldier on the outskirts reported three demolished tanks just over the rise in the land. So, our mouths crammed with corned beef and dry biscuit, tea in our mugs, we set out to see for ourselves. I only got as far as the first tank. It was a huge German tank, ten wheels and big tractors in back, a veritable Behemoth of machinery, all blistered and burned, in the dusk. Around it was strewn a strange variety of tools, suitcases, food and medicines, mostly scorched and all in the wild scattering of doom. The ground was literally spikey with bits of shrapnel and in the background a tremendous bomb-crater told the story. One of the men, named Gilcrist, had gotten out of one of the other tanks, they were both English. There were only three graves. The crews of these two tanks which had been hit by our shell while advancing, were in cinders inside the tanks. I picked up a beautiful book from the ruins, on Oriental horses (Berlin 1941) full of Persian and Japanese color-plates. In a half hour or so I was called back to the main center of our bivouac. A German auto had been captured ahead with four youths in it, one with a fractured leg, so they had been told to drive back to us.
It was dark, the traffic was still grinding through and the flames and shells were beginning their evening spurt. The English were sending up multi-colored lights and rockets of red, blue, green and purple into the splendid dusk. They put a splint on the German, gave him some tea and a shot of morphine, and we set out. I didn't have the faintest notion of where I was going, the entire territory being quite new to me. By some miraculous guidance or my rather good bump of direction, we lurched back through the dwindling trains of guns to the desired spot, a tent in the dark. The fellow must have been under twenty, in considerable pain and very scared. I gave him some of my cigarettes and we managed to understand each other, in spite of no common language. He asked if we were going to Cairo or Alexandria, and I fingered out to him we were going only eight miles. He nodded and I smiled at him. Finally the dope worked and beyond groans, we crawled back in silence. Towards the end of the trip we both took a swig of Scotch and arrived tired, but at least in one piece. You will be glad to know that the orderlies seem most solicitous with the prisoners. When I left him he was gently being fed crackers and tea.
I raced home through a veritable fireworks display and reached camp about nine. I'd had no lunch and supper had consisted of that mouthful before going out to see those tanks. Breakfast next morning was a five minute affair of biscuit and marmalade.
We were off before eight turning away into the wide open desert which rolled ahead of us. Our colonel, a fussy old soul with a red, sandy-haired face, was up ahead following the sun-compass readings. Presently we veered away from any other lines and headed out into the fresh, flat land, full of morning air and sunshine. It turned out to be quite the wrong route, but the release from the crowded track was worth it.
The sky gradually clouded over and the land developed gentle slopes, like an English moor. Patches of vivid green shrubbery appeared, and birds flew overhead. Presently the rain pattered on the ground and our dusty windshields were streaming with mud. We drove up over rises of glistening stone, then down through gullies of water and herbage. The grey clouds, so unknown here, piled up and though there was no thunder, the water pouring down on the twisting caravan was very dramatic. We stopped for five minutes and as I passed my rear tire I heard a soft hissing! I examined it and found a sharp stone through the heavy rubber. Four of the fellows helped me and we unbolted and jacked up the car like mad, and managed to get a fresh wheel on just as the order was given to pull out.
I wish I could give you an actual picture of the country-side. It was storming, as I have said, a strong scent of sage blew over the wet slope on the wind. It was chilly and the skeletons of tanks, autos, motorcycles and planes dotting the landscape seemed bizarre and unreal. Here a silent gun tilted against the uncomplaining sky, there a broken wing marked a plane crash. High foreign-looking autos with six doors and station-wagon benches were abandoned in some wayward gully. You could see a tin of "pasta tomata" lying near a drenched book in the sage-patch. The strange mixture of highly mechanized break-down and the simplicity of the plains was unforgettable, and the lonely quietness over everything.
We drove on, the landscape rising slowly toward the coastline and I realized we were bending back slowly to the Mediterranean. About three in the afternoon we pulled up on a round, rocky hill for lunch, (and a repair job for me!) and spread out in the distance we saw all the medical trains, lorries of ammunition and files of guns that we had by-passed that morning. In an hour or so we moved on again, down into the other encampments, which were already on the move. We came through two tremendous barbed-wire areas, filled with Germans and Italians, all gesticulating and full of good spirits, it seemed. Many were frankly relieved to be out of it, though here and there a Nordic face stoically glowered for the lost cause. The Nazi men certainly believe fully in their "esprit", that is clear. They may be duped, but they are definite.
We jounced over the railroad track, the same little line that we'd been parked against in British territory, and found a little stucco station, several loaded freight cars and much activity. Men were re-wiring the telephone poles, repair crews were working over the captured vehicles many of which had been captured from us on the push through Alamein. Consequently, as I was later to see, we often came upon our own buildings, roads, supplies, etc., left there when we retreated before. All very confusing and unwarlike!
In about a mile or so we hit the black, smooth Coast Road and I was surprised to see us heading across it, straight for a large hospital camp on the indigo Mediterranean. The white tents shone in the afternoon sun, the Red Crosses flapped in the breeze and the area was laid out in driveways and sign posts. There were many trucks parked around but none moved. It was some time before I suddenly realized we were in a captured dressing station at Barce, from which the personnel had lately fled! The tents were lined with blue, or sea-green canvas, matting on the floors, chairs, tables, truck-loads of uniforms, cases of Italian mineral water which we fell upon, cases of food and cigarettes! It was like a dream after our long, hungry, dry, drive forward. Our water ration had been two quarts per day per man for cooking, washing and drinking.
We moved on two days later but for forty-eight hours I ate, dozed and BATHED to my heart's content. The station had been a permanent one from the general appearance and even had had nurses working there. It was laid out on a sandy crest, forty feet above the crashing sea, with magnificent wet, black rocks spilling into the water. No beach at this point but a very free, vivid feeling of the Mare Nostrum. The first night, lying in my ambulance, full of delicacies and wine, I heard shouts outside and opened the door to look out. There was an airport squarely behind us on the sands and the German planes, flying over from Crete now, came in from the sea directly overhead. The great searchlights played about through the smoke and glare, just like a Warner Bros. epic.
Next morning we had to ourselves. The Colonel had commandeered most of the enemy goods, and we had a chance to get cleaned up, there being no runs on account of the rushing ahead of all the medical units. I decided to go down the cliff and bathe. There was a steep little path curling down the boulders and, at the bottom a big prow of rock jutting out into the blue, blue water, backed by a shelf of white sand a foot under water. It was a perfect place to clean up and I splashed around in the sunlight with one of your Cash-marked washcloths.
On my way up the rocks again I passed a curious little cave, with stretchers, blankets and empty tins about. I pictured some romantic Italian making time with a Fraulein-nurse of an Egyptian evening, and went on up to the crest. As I climbed the sea-wall, a group of eight Germans filed past with two guards. Having on nothing but the washcloth they considered capturing me, but I soon convinced them of my good intentions. The guard then told me the Germans had been living in the cave, hoping to make their way up the coast by night. They had been hiding in the cave watching me below! And had been surprised by the Tommies as they patrolled the cliff.
The next morning we set out for another leap up the coast this time mercifully traveling on the macadam road. For hundreds of miles the Coast Road unfolds along the Mediterranean, beaded with lovely towns from Alexandria to Algiers. I tried to think of their names. El Daba, Mersa Matruh, Benghasi, Tripoli, Sfax, with its prudent little French harbor, then on to Tunis. We had forty miles to go so set out at 9 A. M. By dark we had covered twenty-two miles which will give you some idea of the traffic! After a ten-minute stop for cold baked beans we set out driving tail-to-tail in the dark. We had covered two miles when I gracefully ran over a piece of shell ripping my front tire. I pulled off the road and settled down for the night, fixing the tire at dawn the next morning and moving on to where we were supposed to go. I arrived only an hour after the others, who had finally quit in the dark with the hideous traffic and had camped down the road. Fortunately I had an Englishman with me at the time so we had a pleasant ride, using a side road and going through the lovely seaside town of Mersa Matruh, shot to pieces, but still charming in the sunshine. Mersa Matruh---wasn't that where Wallie and the Duke stayed? Equerries and ices on the terrace, the white Schiaperelli dresses, people laughing and drinking and staring at Wallie; like an Egyptian Grande Hotel. How far away it all seemed now, and strange that the careless sunwashed resort spells only war to the people back home now. The pink hotel at Mersa is only a shell, the whole coast wears a ravaged air, rubble where the villages had been, the Road battered and sunk. Wraiths of wrecked vehicles on either side, the people gone long since. Flashes of familiar things at home kept rising in my mind, running around in my exhausted head. If I could be home again just for an hour, away from the heat and strain and disgust, some place where I wouldn't see an ambulance or a tank or the little white crosses in the sand. You get so damn hungry for a little peace out here. To be able to look up and not see signs of war.
I could write you ten times more fully and still have ideas left, but there is not the time or space. The American Field Service HQ. is due to pass up the road today to Sidi Barrani so we will doubtless be on the move tomorrow.
We've just heard about Algiers! How wonderful. That campaign seems almost bloodless so far.
LIFE SEEMS rather peaceful the last few days. No clouds of enemies overhead, the noise is abated, the debris is rapidly being cleared up and the English are taking over, once again, the facilities and towns they raced out of last June! In fact, I often remark on some passing scene only to be told our own unit lived there a few months ago. It is all very see-saw, the captured material is many times our own stuff, while one finds Italian camps equipped with Allied goods, German quartermaster trucks filled with Greek equipment. The droves of prisoners do not seem very harassed and many are laughing and gay. The advance of scientific war---machinery has lessened the individual ferocity, I believe. Then too, many men are completely unwarlike; little civilians called up by an all-powerful government.
The Mediterranean appears here and there along the Road, where we carry casualties to the C.C.S. down about twenty miles. On the way home if there is no rush, we stop by the roadside and go in for a swim. How unbelievably blue the water is. And the banks of green sage, the very soft, white sand and the men laughing and splashing in the surf---it is very picturesque.
We are living on corned beef and "dog" biscuit, and water is scarce. The Germans poured fish-oil down the wells before retreating.
This letter is being written at night, believe it or not, I guess this does not mean much to you but we have total darkness by 6 P.M. and I am usually asleep by 7 as there is absolutely nothing to do and I am conversationally decrepit with my six companions by this time. But this evening, it is almost the devilish hour of eight, I blanketed my windows, closed the rear door and decided to clean out my belongings and write you. The lights are blazing inside and I feel very gala. I am having my last pinch of Nescafé tomorrow at dawn, as I have an early run to make with an emergency case. They do not like us to drive in the blackout if possible.
I think of you all so often, and almost unconsciously. Henry James said "One's friends and kin were an investment in happiness." And no one has surely had better dividends than I. Your letters from home are a tangible expression of all the warmth and affection that wings its way far cross the world. We are all looking forward with bright hearts to the days when there will be no more separations.
IT IS ONE OF THOSE DAYS that, even I must admit, sometimes blurs the Egyptian climatic reputation. A fast dust is blowing continuously, not sand, but the light surface powder that flies along in the autumn wind. It seeps into my ambulance between the window cracks and the windshield drifts a bit at the corners with dry dust, like tan snow.
The chief disappointment in a long-range correspondence, to me, is the fact that a letter written in one mood is read so much later by the recipient that the mood had doubtless evaporated by then. Your last letter for instance sounds a bit futile (about the war) and how natural that is! To be truthful, a thinking person, and a feeling one is hard put to find any rhyme or reason to the outcome of human actions. In my own head I can trace back cause and effect, then try to reconcile that with the sights before my eyes---but, sometimes the two don't excuse each other at all. So instead of talking war with you as I should in response, I'll skip over it as a conversation that is already stale.
I just looked up and noticed the whole world was misty with dust, like a monotone study of illusion, all in beige. We had a torrential down-pour a few days ago, I was out walking toward the sea and got drenched. The mud soon was ankle deep and when I returned I found my car in the midst of a raging stream. Next day all was calm and thousands of little green plants, grasses, Jack-in-the-Pulpits and melon vines were vigorously crawling all over the deposited muck-beds.
I am glad to note in your letters that you're becoming fatalistic; it is much the happiest way to be. I practice what I preach in this respect and find myself able to surmount many things that seem to bother the others a great deal. I daresay in some personal catastrophe, my fatalism would be shaken but I'd be no more unhappy, certainly, because of it. I believe one of the strongest realizations that has come to me out here is the basic simplicity of life, as it may be lived. My sense of values has opened up a whole new bottom-drawer where canned meat tastes delicious, a year-old magazine is fascinating, a fresh bath is an occasion. Of course, should better things present themselves on either side, I'd resent not having them; but with everyone cut down to the same essentials, life is very tasteful, though not highly seasoned! I am not unaware of many things but I often followed the trivial trail in civilized surroundings. These months, besides providing an enormous experience of thrills, excitements, laughter and tears, has also been like an empty room wherein I can sit and listen to the noises in the. rest of the crowded house. I have found it possible to get a good perspective on myself and to plan ahead. How long I'll be here is uncertain; it depends on many conditions.
Notations
A pear orchard in the Wadi. Moonlight, chilly driving, midnight halt at Sidi Barrani.
Road menders. Solum after breakfast, Semicircle bay. Climb over the Pass into Libya, Italian barracks on the crest. African blacks working on the road. Viva Mussolini! Commemorative tablets, Fort Cappuzzo. Tobruk in the distance, hospital planes floating down. Graves with guns and traps. Camel on a mine, dead dog. Trucks with parachutes, Italian flags. Rounding hill Tobruk in the moonlight. Mass of ships sticking out of the water. Double convoy jam, down past the sleeping town.
I'm glad I waited to add this postscript for we have moved a great deal, though no new action as yet. The day after the flood I went into Libya, first to Tobruk then to Benghazi where I am now. After tomorrow's trip of about fifty miles I understand we'll stop and do a spell of work. So far, the travel has been so hectic (when it finally gets under way) that we move on day by day without opening for business.
After a day of violent machine work and much needed grease and oiling we set out at 7 A.M. By noon, we'd left the water and the landscape began to look more greenish. Little by little, grassing hillocks dotted the sand, the slopes grew gentler and the road smoother. Rounding a crest of a hill, I saw a herd of black kids and goats munching in the easy valley below. How peaceful they looked! In an hour the highway led into scenes of rolling country, hillsides with knotted olive trees, a strong wind and scent of herbs blowing past. My heart beat quicker---it seemed almost like the farmland en route to Elmira. Presently one saw patches of rich, fertile earth being plowed with a stocky horse or a silly, haughty camel dragging a rough implement. White plaster farm-houses and barns began to show in the afternoon sun, down the side valleys. The grass was a vibrant, vivid green, short and cheery. Little clumps of bluish shrubs, banks of thyme, rose colored ledges of rock, and whole valleys of yellow Quaker-ladies; such freshness and serenity.
The road was splendid, paved and swooping into the interior like a rough Merrick Parkway! About five o'clock we saw a closed notch ahead, steep hills topped with ancient stone firing towers, eucalyptus trees, barnyards, an old Arabic cemetery. We arrived at a little crossroads, leading to three lyrical and old places; and pulled off into the wet grass, at the notch. Soon the peasants were bartering eggs and chickens (oh, the wonder of seeing such things again!) There is fresh water, it is quite cold outside. We had supper standing in the wind and as darkness set, Newell Jenkins and I climbed to an old monastery on the abrupt hill. For miles around the valley and fields spread lovingly in the distance. Newell said it looked like Tuscany with so much stone showing and so many undreamed of shades of green, celodon, sage and dun. To me it looked like an old Alpine settlement above the timberline.
I brought back a squawking black chicken for twenty cents, and five eggs. Tonight, with our lights blacked out, the beater on and cigarettes smoking we cooked a mess of fresh, scrambled eggs and made some ersatz coffee on a captured Gerry stove; it was ambrosia! Later I had a sponge bath, brushed my dusty hair, and read my mail. How it was waiting in this legendary Pass is beyond me!
The mornings are chilly now, the nights cold, days comfortable. We are all screaming for the winter regulation uniforms which have been issued to everyone else weeks ago.
I am going to boil the chicken tomorrow when we camp. I don't have a map and honestly am not sure where I am. But I love the country. It's known as a green belt and was the first Italian colonization out here. It is odd to hear Arab nomads chatting in soft Italian, also to go from piastres to liras!
AS I SIT HERE writing, like the old lady you mentioned, I can hardly believe it is me! I am at a black painted desk, by a high window looking out over broad and fertile valleys. In the distance the little white "Colonnisazione" houses shine against the rich red earth, the avenues of green trees pivot toward the town a mile away, and the mountains gently glower over in the distance. We've been here a week now and I hope for another one with any luck. This country is considered the most rewarding in Libya and, as such, money was poured into it by Mussolini. The town yonder is a little gem of planning---long arcades of empty shops, the Catholic church on a square, a largish railroad station at one end of a shady "Via", the citadel at the other. Everywhere, a thousand times repeated, in frescoes, decorations, plaster, carvings and ironwork is the Fascist "Credere, obbedire, combattere."
We are surrounded with young orchards and vineyards. The air is wet and fresh and dogs bark as the cows wander home at sunset. For ourselves, we are stationed in an enormous hospital camp which was built for the Colonies several years ago. Consequently, the outlay is a permanent one and, even to an American used to governmental spending, it is very impressive. It covers acres, is cut up by long allées and gardens, troughs of water and gateways. At one end, near the sprawling stables, is a charming group of houses, each different but integrated as to plan. They were intended for the head doctors, superintendents, etc., about a dozen in a square plan.
I wish I could do justice to the scene we present! To begin with you must remember that for two solid months we have been sleeping on wet sand banks, in stony fields, in the strong wind, in vehicles reeking with petrol fumes and drugs, in every conceivable and miserable condition. The desert-scene which holds so much beauty is devoid of charm in chilly weather or in the rainy season. So as we travelled west, the deepening green and the land's dips and slopes filled me with joy. Somehow life seemed triumphant once more and only then did I realize how used I had become to death and destruction.
Our first night here was lovely out in a large field, the town in the distance. The following day we had to make a forty-eight hour trip with many patients evacuated ahead, back to the coast. It was very gruelling as they often complain and groan, the convoys crawl along, meals are unmentionable and my eyes get so tired. We were up at four in the morning and continued the last lap homeward, after a rainy, muddy trip, by bright moonlight.
Back to camp we found that several of the units had moved into these quarters, so with a rush we set about finding rooms for ourselves. Having a sty in my eye, a spare driver is out with my car now, so I have had two days of quiet here. By some quirk of chance, I am living in a house with various assorted fellows of other units which is a relief in itself! We are in one of the main houses surrounded by unkempt gardens, one story high with ceiling at least fifteen feet high. I have a corner room, twenty feet square with a Harlequin floor in red, white and black tiles. The walls are washed in pink plaster, the deeply recessed windows and double-doors are flat dark olive green, We have panelled shutters inside, and rolled metal screen outside so evening finds us in a blaze of candle light, safe from the glowering black-out. The rooms of course were empty and filthy, littered with German camp-fires, Italian squalor and old tin cans. We swept and rushed around in clouds of dust, collecting odd chairs and tables from the dozens of buildings in the "campo." After a morning's work that slipped by like magic, I looked about my room and burst out laughing. It was so amazing and unreal. A desk by the window, my books and cigarettes stacked near a bowl of fragrant sage-greens, a canopied stretcher, festooned with mosquito netting looped back with two coq-feather ornaments of some Bandaliere regiment, gray Etruscan benches along the pink wall, a white hospital cabinet holding my valued collection of canned goods, a Servizio Postale striped sack for dirty linen in one corner and all around the room, fantastic baroque scrolls contributed by visiting friends, scratched on with charcoal bits. The apartment has all the charm and dash of a place that one will live in for only a few days---then back to the fields! The lovely view from each tall window adds to the house-in-the-country feeling.
We have our meals in a little building. down the road, out of the storm, and actually sit about at small tables after getting our plates filled in a queue. Next door our expensive canteen holds forth in an old drawing room. I have a fire burning in a big iron cauldron in the center of my marble floor, and the scent of sage and smoke is delicious.
The forsaken dogs of the neighborhood go about in packs at night and make one feel sad. What can you do for them? Food and water are not in such quantities that one can feed them, and soon one moves away. Last evening I came in and found two gigantic cats sitting on my window sill devouring an opened can of corned beef. Their eyes in the light of my flash frightened me. They streaked off into the night.
IF YOU WILL look at a map you can trace my route almost exactly, except for occasional detours or trips off the main western road. The towns are usually twenty or thirty miles apart and once off the lovely high plateau of farm-lands, one approaches the sea again. Consequently, on leaving the beautiful hospital at Barce of which I have written you, we drove dead west, going down hill most of the way. The last pass out of the mountains is superb. There is an ancient Turkish fort, Alto di Barce, capping the crest, a mouldering stone square with circular towers at each corner, great gateways with sentry pillars and guard houses. As you pass it on the road it glowers down on the surrounding mountains, impregnable and stony in the green-swept sunshine. Then the road begins a breath-taking series of curves and windbacks, doubling upon itself until it finally spills out along the flat sea-shore. The scenery here was very much like Egypt, though a bit lusher and with a softer fringe of palms and shrubs to break the austerity. We skirted Benghazi and continued down the road almost to its lowest point. The town with the name like a magician's incantation (Agedabia) is almost levelled and was disappointing as we'd hoped it might boast a market-place. The peasants in this neighborhood also refuse money but want only tea or sugar for trading eggs. Since we are fed by the cook-truck of the unit we are at present attached to, we never see these two commodities except in unbelievable, awful brews! Everybody tries to hoard a few cans of this or that, like so much gold. I have some Italian tins, a packet of German knock-brat and a bottle of seltzer water. Also some tired lemons which ease the longing for something fresh.
It is about two in the afternoon, they tell me it is Sunday, though nothing indicates it in any way. The sun is warm and pleasant. We are once again under the Colonel who is so fascinated by "dispersal," so as a result, one's nearest neighbor is pleasantly distant. Some of the medical tents are almost out of sight over the scrubby waste. The Colonel was a London radiologist, looks like grandfather, and is about as military. Needless to say he does not bother much with the common herd. I went on a run last evening, spent the night up the road sixty miles and drove back this morning, bringing mail for everyone. Where it came from I don't know, but someone gave me a bundle saying: "Here, this is for your chaps!" so I took it. What a life.
On the way back I had a chance to look around me and the best description is that it looks like the Kingston Flats countryside stretched out for a hundred miles. Minus any hills, of course, and with sandier soil. There are telegraph poles along the whole way, some missing like teeth in a giant comb. The poles must be imported for in the seven hundred or more miles that we have advanced I can't remember seeing a tree more than twenty feet tall. They are often gnarled and spreading but height is not their charm. The rough grey limbs against white walls is very attractive, perhaps mostly as a reaction from the flat soil. The long road is littered with derelict vehicles and the macadam road is pock-marked from shrapnel the entire length. The huge tanks and autos of the fleeing army are already getting rusty and adventurous weeds are creeping closer every day. The British are rewiring the poles quickly, traffic rolls on and everyone is getting ready for the next push. When you hear a man say he is "busy" out here, you can be sure he's doing the labors of a twelve year old, and that at his own tempo! The main enemy is monotony and all its attendant pettiness and hair-splitting. I am fortunate in always having been able to interest myself; so that I am not pulling my hair out if Johnny Smith is sent on an errand and I am not. In fact this life suits me in a variety of ways, and I can make the most of the period, I am sure. Not being interested in the organization as such I don't feel the least competitive, so I can work on my own and do my duties in a minimum of excitement. Also, I feel very lucky in knowing several men in the company. Newell Jenkins, of whom I've written you already, is in my unit and his congeniality and wonderful background fill up many a very pleasant hour for me. Above all, he is a close enough friend that one can stay silent with as well as talk. Having someone like him to have with you for grey days is a good thing out here, especially when you are hungry and tired, and nobody cares very much. He's off on a run now, but I expect him back this afternoon and will show him my new photos which will interest him a great deal. He is eager to see Woodstock since it seems to combine country life and art to some degree. At the moment, I have aided and abetted his enthusiasm for a small farm, and we wrangle for hours over where to place this room or that, and which part of Vermont is the best. It would be enormous fun to do a house for him when the war is over!
Good heavens, here I am on a fifth page and I said there was no news. If Doctor Johnson was right when he said "the art of letter writing is to write when there's no news, no time, and no incentive," then I must be born for belle-lettres!
Since writing the above our seventy-five vehicles have been sent in many directions and this afternoon Newell and I, and three others are to go to a new position, so I'll hand this letter in now to make sure it is mailed.
"This, to me, is one of the most deeply felt and profoundly moving communications that the war has yet inspired. It is one of the war's major tragedies that young men capable of such vision, self-abnegation, and compassion could not be spared to help shape the peace that, God willing, will be as nearly permanent as men of good will can make it."---Deems Taylor.
Dear Mr. Taylor:
A few weeks ago I set out, with a few other American volunteers to advance into Egypt with the Eighth Army. We were driving ambulances donated by our fellow-countrymen and departed in good spirits, eager to be of any service as would aid our Allied wounded. The days passed, the barrage grew to mounting intensity and, as we progressed, we made many a trip to carry not only our own wounded troops but the hurt and dying of Italy and Germany to the near-hospitals. I grew used to loading men from Munich and Rome into my ambulance along with casualties from London or Capetown or Melbourne. We lit cigarettes for all of them, padded pillows against the jolting cars and rendered what little comfort as was possible under these war-clouds.
Early in November I started out to carry a young German fellow, an emergency case, back to the Medical Station across the desert. It was an English holiday, Guy Fawks' Eve, I believe, and the tracer bullets and flares sprayed into a splendid sunset. The trip was horrible, no headlights in the darkening night, terrible ruts in the track and the continual roar of tanks and convoys moving up around us.
My passenger groaned slightly now and then but an earlier hypodermic had eased his agony somewhat, I hope. As I drove along I thought that medicine, like music, knows no limitations.
And I remembered the Philharmonic concerts of happier days when the magic of music had enriched so many Sunday afternoons at home. I was grateful for those hours, and doubly appreciative, now that I was face to face with war, for the point of view that gave us great music rather than only compositions by men of our own political concepts. Music should always be above the exigencies of the moment.
At last the trip was over, two hours to cover ten miles. I pulled up to the operating tent and opened the back doors. From the dusty, torn knap-sack of the soldier a book had fallen to the floor. In the shielded ray of my flashlight I could read the title in that curious German script---"An Introduction to Mozart."
As I stood aside, the orderlies pulled the stretcher out and carried it into the tent: but it was too late---the reader of Mozart had gone on.
I took the book back to the front with me that night, for written in the fly-leaf by my unknown passenger were two words, that, like music and medicine were above enmity. They were Goethe's last words: "Mehr Licht," more light!
And I am writing you of this incident not as a sentimental episode, but to send to the Philharmonic the gratitude and the hungry welcome that will always greet great music wherever, and whenever, civilized men are listening.
Yours most sincerely,
Caleb Milne
EVER SINCE this Morning's dawn I have been picturing you chugging to Elmira purring at an even tempo to extract the last jet of fumes from your petrol supply; and contrasting my day here, with the one you are spending en route.
We are well back in the desert, miles below the sea.
At five this morning an English soldier opened my door and told me we were to pick up and be off in an hour. I stepped outside into a thick, wet fog, a rarity in these parts. The mist rolled around in cool, refreshing waves, giving our small caravan a closed-in feeling, which was pleasant in this endless stretch of sand. The country was lovely when the sun broke through later; long rolls of undulating plateaus, patches of dwarfed trees like those Japanese ones in Willow-ware bowls, with great pools of purplish shadows that seemed to reach like water into the vistas, longer and longer as the day closed. At dusk we stopped for the night in a Venetian blaze of colored sky, the west a sheet of changing gold-apricot, the east banked high with great black clouds admitting an occasional early star. I went to sleep before eight after cigarettes, talk, and cocoa in the nearest ambulance with two others. By that time the place was absolutely quiet, the sky was an intense dark blue and all the African stars were shining. As I dozed off, I figured you must be going through Endicott-Johnson City and soon would be seeing those magnificent rich farmlands and valley towards Elmira. How excited you must be!
December 18th
We continued on our trek through the desert, travelling southwards quite deeply, then gradually shifting over to the west, then north. The mileage was only a hundred and twenty or so which will enable you to realize the conditions which necessitated such crawling. It was, for the most part, like travelling up Featherbed Lane in second gear, then we'd slide down the other side, at an acute angle, to wallow in stretches of deep sand. Now and then broad, flats of stone ledge eased our jogged bodies, but not for long. How the big lorries, the watertanks, the crates of surgical ware survived is beyond me. The thermometer in my kit broke to slivers, the enamel on my plate cracked off. It was hectic.
And how staggering to see the endless columns that joined and rejoined the great Westward flow of supplies. We travelled in six, eight and ten serpentine lines, three miles wide and stretching before and aft as far as one could see. If a unit in the front stopped for a quick "lunch" the tail of the train would pass their camp-fires two hours later.
Next morning the furies of war burst out like an abscess. In the early hours they headed our way. We were breakfasting in the strange light of semi-day when we were ordered to move our vehicles and the tent a mile back. Shells were landing in plain sight and it was deemed best to push the Medical Units back a bit. So we pulled back and parked. The Germans blasted a way through behind and before us, how many I cannot say, but as soon as the break-through was made our ambulances were loaded with wounded of the night's business and we set out, supposedly for a twenty mile run back to a Casualty Clearing Station. Dear God, what a trip! At eight that evening we were still going, swerving through mine-fields, past escarpments, a lonely fort of the Senussi tribe, and old wrecks scattered throughout the desert. Finally, the train of fifteen vehicles stopped, a tent was hastily put up for a hospital, and the necessary cases were patched up, morphined for the third time, and put to bed. I had been awake most of the previous night with a pain so I was all in by the time I'd carried my four men into the tent, eaten in the dark, and unrolled my crumpled blankets. We were short on stretchers since we were accompanied by three lorries of "walking-wounded" who had to be bedded for the night.
One of my passengers was a young South African pilot who was amazingly familiar with all the area we passed through. He told me that from the air, the network of mines beneath the surface of the earth was dimly visible by some curious shadowing from above. The country is prickly with these mines so we have to be very careful driving, and only on paths designated as having been demined. The retreating Italians are great hands at leaving booby-traps along their tracks, from fountain pens that explode to thermos bottles of T.N.T.
Early the following morning we set off once more, heading toward the sea, straight north. Within two hours we had hit the paved section of the main highway and by noon pulled in to the Main Dressing Station, Here a fresh convoy of English ambulances relieved us of our patients and we relaxed for the first time in several wild days.
As is usual, by some freak of coincidence, we saw many friends during the afternoon, fellows who'd separated from us months ago. It is always a pleasant shock to pull up at some barren, bare flat and, in an hour be able to hail a dozen men you know, with their attendant news and questions.
One of our fellows left our first camp-site five minutes after the other cars had pulled out. Evidently this short space of time made him run into the German advance troops for he is missing four days now. He'll be quite safe with them but it is bad luck from any angle.
Colonel Richmond and Major Benson flew home the other day to find out what is to become of us in the future. The big American planes fly past so often now they seem like a bus-route. It is a thrill to see the star on the end of the body and realize the pilot comes from familiar territory.
The Marble Arch turned out to be a gigantic modern triumphal, with a pagoda top, a center inset of a huge bronze figure looking down the road, two Eiffel Tower bases and much Mussolini bravura written all over it.
DUSK AND DAWN are hours of danger as well as beauty. In the last great flush of color the bombing planes come droning across the sky. I have seen them come through the golden shaft of light each evening. Sometimes the marauders arrive in droves like mechanized bees, at other times a single plane circles overhead in the west, a deadly precursor to the black wings of night. After the long African afternoon the ground is warm and hospitable. The lowering of the sun closes in the vastness of the desert somewhat and men eat their suppers in the quiet golden wine of late afternoon. Here and there a lorry groans along a battered white road or a soldier sings over his work. But the shells are silent and the dusty queues of traffic have long since passed along the road. Cigarettes smell good in the clear air, the spilled petrol of the day has evaporated in the sand, leaving only an astringent echo to the nostrils.
Merriment, like wit, loses its vigor in the distance and becomes musical, having no meaning nor malice it floats over the ground devoid of any human quality, blending in with the soft air and the stained-glass sky.
One evening I was lying on the sand cushioned by my camouflage net, the fading light having grown too dim for reading. Across the west, great copper banners were streaming from the horizon. The sun had set but its power was still triumphant pouring forth its golden radiance from beneath the rim of the earth, challenging the tender moon and the stars. Already Venus shone in the sky while in the East the first flickerings of the Pleiades and the pale emergence of Orion announced the evening. The air was very still and clear. Each long-gun, the dusty lorries, every work-a-day motor and distant tank laying in the pool of retrenchant light, assumed a touching and legendary quality spread across the vast landscape like some old caravan caught immobile against the sunset. I lay back my eyes tired from the sun. An old hymn Annie (old nurse) used to sing to me crept through my head "Now the day is over." How sweet the melody is and the words simple and patient. I remembered her elderly negro face droning out the verses in her soft Southern accent. My body slipped back onto the cushion and where it least seemed possible I found peace. A peace that was unknown to me in cities, and only occasionally in our New York countryside. There is a repose in flat land. No mountains lead the mind away and no roads wind out to other worlds. You are alone in the stretches of the eye, no matter how full the scene. I drifted off into my own kingdom slipping into a deepening stream of forgetfulness. I crossed over the channel of sleep lying vulnerable and naked on the sand.
A rush of chill air swept over me, I woke up violently as a bomb crashed. The ground shook, my ears winced at the sudden pressure impact, a haze of invisible sand filled the air. The sky was filled with the drone of motors. To one side the steady thudding on the earth and the terrific side-swipe of noise indicated a targetted objective. The flashes lit the night spasmodically while the whine of guns and delicate tracery of fire-bullets crisscrossed the sky. In a few seconds the ear-splitting shower of anti-aircraft barrage multiplied into a terrific din overhead. As I looked about I felt a chill of horror slide over my flesh. In the splinters of illumination no one was visible. Evidently I was the only person who had not reached a trench. Alone I lay there exposed to the bullets on all sides. With a stupid primeval impulse I tried to pull the net over my head. For some reason I was furious with myself for having fallen asleep. Only a fool would have been seduced by a sunset. This net was too clumsy to move so I shoved it back, and stretched out, hugging the sand savagely. The Olympian crash of noise was earsplitting. Now they were trying to spot the enemy overhead with shells. There was the patter of ack-ack bullets falling around the hill. My brain was numb. I was unable to move or think and lay there frozen in the vacuum of noise. Somehow I was more afraid of our own barrage falling on me than of the enemy's bombs. The German punishment was too vast, it spelled oblivion, it was the hissing bullets that endangered me the most. I clutched at the ground, my heart racing with fright; it seemed that the earth was rising up offering me to the elements, ever higher. The drone of the planes was directly overhead now. They had spent their bombs on the tracks below our hill and were moving to a new position. The throb of their motors shattered the night air. It was almost impossible to lie still beneath them---indeed I might have raced in crazy circles but some inner compulsion kept insisting to stay still, stay still! Maybe they will go away! And as I lay there engulfed in dread and horror I heard the squadron wheel off slightly to the right. If they did not circle that meant they were moving on. I held my breath, then as the minutes hung trembling in fear, the drone grew fainter. I raised my head from the ground and forced my eyes open. Against the starry sky a few bars of black climbed higher and higher, the area-guns spitting bullets and tracers after them. They were veering off to the coast!
I pulled myself up on one elbow, my body runneled with sweat. For a second I could not believe I was alive. My heart was still pounding while reactive waves of nausea choked in my throat, I heard a curious whirring noise overhead. I thought my end had come, Heading directly for me and silently advancing in a great sweep of cold air, a dark glider of black skimmed towards me, only a few feet off the ground. I stared at it, frozen, as the slow whirl bore down with relentless speed. It was almost on top of me. Suddenly in that empty crystal moment when doom confronts one, I heard the soft brush of touching wings and the secret chirrupings of a great flight. Above me, triumphant through the battle wheeled a great crescent of sand-larks, beating the night air, southward to the Transvaal Plain.
Oh, the miraculous spirit, the unquenchable force of life and liberties! Never again can I salute the heralds with so grateful a spirit as reached out to bid God-speed to that whirring rustle of birds. I jumped to my feet, my heart high and all the starred sky was filled with banners.
YOUR LETTER of November 29th combined all the qualities that the perfect letter should have; timeliness (I was feeling very low when it arrived yesterday), news and, most of all, the affections that prompted it. How grateful and thanksgiving one can be for such as you, who seem to understand the unsaid, anticipate the unasked for. The very warmest and deepest Christmas wishes to you, and may their sincerity glow in the cold January day they will reach you. As I write the little water-color photo of Spinny (wirehaired fox terrier) looks out from my writing case and, beneath it, two Scotties come hurtling down that blessed snow-banked lane in the mountains. There is a scarlet maple leaf in another pocket, and pictures of everyone but Stormy (new-born nephew) whom I hope to see soon en negligee in a sea-shell or a fur rug. So you see, the powers of imagination coupled with a loving family have folded a whole background between two covers for me.
And yet today how far away, how unbelievably lonely we all feel. I believe in our heads we listen to distant church bells, inhale the wood-smoked icy air and knock at bewreathed doors. It would be easier perhaps if there were no intimations of Christmas at all: but inevitably one hears, or is given greetings, and we had a slice of bread this morning with our breakfast. The Tommies that we are at present travelling with, each received the opportunity to purchase a bottle of beer in memory of Christ's birthday! The planes are quiet for these few hours, and we can see the Star of the East.
Yesterday we had been encamped for three days in a shallow valley, one of those gentle pauses in the everlasting desert that refreshes the eye and the mind and quickens the heart again with the sight of tender greens and the sunshine on cool grass. It fell off to one side from a dusty rock-road that deviates southward from the main Coastal Highway. After ten miles of nerve-shattering bumps and ditches the way wound to the crest of a rise in the hills. There before one's weary gaze lay this oasis-fed mile or two of peace. There was a small village through which traffic went on, a low castle that had housed a radio station of the Italian colonists and a tiny square filled with lamp posts and dry flower beds. From this centralization of village life a grassy lane wanders off down into lush meadows and a quiet clump of trees. A stone well-house, dynamited by its owners, lay like an ancient ruin among the hillocks of wild rockets, the only reminder of warfare in this countryside. The lane skirted harrowed fields in a loose circle, at the foot of the gentle hills which enclosed one, as it were, in a bowl of security and serenity. It is curious what a great difference this quality must make on civilized man. Sleeping in the open one feels that in this pleasant embrace of dappled hill and meadow no harm can come, no jarring note intrude in the buzzing stillness.
There were rich sandy patches where the season-rams had left a coating of loam. Here vigorous Michaelmas daisies, full size but on two-inch stems, raise their fresh white petals in the grass. Then wide swathes of blue,, fragrant rocket drifted across the fields, heightened here and there with intensely violetted aquilegia, likewise in miniature. The slopes in the background were warm, green-brown with winding double ruts mounting up over the crests. As evening fell the long shadows deepened across the valley and the sturdy eucalyptus grove by the well was silhouetted in the dusky softness. We discussed among ourselves as to what special quality made these sunfalls so lovely and different. The consensus of opinion finally rallied to the clear golden aura that touches this world twice in twenty-four hours. The afternoon clouds positively burst with luminous splendor, still soft and radiant; each cloud, be it Titian grandiosity or the next day's mere fluffs of white, becomes charged with a deep density of goldness, rimmed with light and holding all the pale tints of the setting sun.
At such moments the nestling settlements of the Arabs or Italian colonists assumes a breath-taking suspension, like a last full beneficence before the darkness. The most mundane traffic crawling along the spine of a hill becomes momentarily a rare and historical caravan of romance in the splendors of the dusk.
And it was at just such a moment that we received orders to move on yesterday. Our ambulances hastily packed and petrolled, we pulled into line to await the Colonel's starting of the convoy; and leaning from the window I took a last full breath of the clove scent to carry me through my holiday. As we drove off the lane, darkness set in and it was Christmas Eve.
We continued our way sixty miles into the desert, travelling in the white light of a full moon. There was no road whatsoever, but the terrain was hard gravel, not too bad for driving, and the dips were infrequent and gradual. We stopped once for some cold tinned beef and dog biscuit, and smoked a cigarette. Since we carry emergency supplies of petrol for our own vehicles, it was unwise to light up while travelling. In a few hours we reached this plateau absolutely flat with a hard stony surface, a cemetery of sepulchred shrubs, prickly and grey in the moonlight under the vast starry ceiling. It was cold after the sun set and we opened a bottle saved for the occasion.
About ten o'clock, a half dozen or so of the Americans walked over to my ambulance. We are a good quarter of a mile apart. We bundled up in all available scarves and sweaters, the night was clear and the air exhilarating. With the alcohol warming one's veins the sense of wonder and belief seemed startlingly real. One man began to sing and presently, perhaps a bit shyly we chorused in. For an hour or so, later joined by two Englishmen, we lustily carolled "O Little Town of Bethlehem", "Good King Wenceslaus" and "Silent Night". Then we sang some German songs, and one French noel, the name of which I have forgotten. Then one of the Britishers asked for "My Country t'is of Thee" since he knew the music of "God Save the King!" To end, I suggested my old favorite, "Now the Day is Over" which sounded beautiful in the stillness; and we parted. Overhead the Bethlehem Star and the full moon flooded the desert with white light.
Today has been absolutely quiet, not even a distant gun or airplane overhead. The sun is strong and I am writing in my shirt sleeves.
The New York office sent us each a wallet (the one thing I should have thought every man must have before leaving) and the Cairo HQ. sent out a box containing a package of cigarettes, a bar of chocolate, some loose walnuts and a small slice of fruit cake. But joys of joys, we finally achieved some British overcoats, five for nine of us, but still warm and comforting. A box from Altmans with Spinny's card, arrived yesterday with wonderful, heavenly biscuits, sardines and Virginia Rounds!
I have been enjoying and absorbing the "Wartime Letters" of Rainer Rilke whom I had heretofore relegated to my more neurotic acquaintances. But their clarity and sensitiveness are extraordinarily moving, especially in this atmosphere.
By this evening we expect to be pushing ahead once more as action ahead always needs medical assistance.
How hollow and horrible war is on such a holy day for mankind. I wondered last night, as I walked over to the operating tent for midnight mass, what can the priest say, what will he find to celebrate in a traditional religious métier situated on a battlefield? If I looked for an explanation, some Christian wisdom to light such a confused situation, I was doomed to disappointment. He gave a hackneyed history of Christmas Day, celebrated a monotonous mass in sloppy Latin, and refused communion to all who were not Romans. How miserable the heights of the Church can seem in all but a few hands! The purple surplice, the candles on surgical cases, the red, beaten English soldier-faces looking for some Napoleonic courage de nuit, the smell of ether hanging to the cold canvas---it was all so forlorn and it could, and should, have been so revivifying.
This morning the cars were drenched with heavy dew, but the day is clear. We sat about drinking murky tea and jealously nibbling on our chocolate bar, shouting down anyone who lapsed into a turkey-and-brandy frame of mind.
It is difficult at times to co-ordinate the time element between home and here. But last night it was pleasant and reassuring to know that for a few crossing hours we were all asleep together; and I know our Christmas spirits, though far apart, were able to fuse and join one another in some happy midway of affection and greeting. I know this must be so for today is strong with that inner happiness that is, after all, the essence of Christmas.
Now see what a poor exchange you have gotten for all the Duck-at-the-Plaza and the news of home. I apologize for my field is limited, but be assured of a quite limitless cargo of holiday wishes and prayers. I have already adopted your snap-shot message. "Not yet, but soon!"
I HAVE NOT WRITTEN you for a week or more, as there seemed absolutely nothing happening; or rather the extreme monotony dried up any pleasure in writing. Newell Jenkins and I spent a crazy week trying to find our new unit, which sprang ahead in leaps and bounds and was thus out of touch with signals. En route his wheel broke, and I had three punctures, each one requiring a good two hours repair job, so the situation was tiring, but pleasant in its escape from petty regulations. On New Year's Eve we had almost overtaken the unit as darkness set in and we pulled up and camped with an armoured detachment along a vast moonlit valley. The news came on at 8 P. M., we had some gin to toast the New Year, and even bathed for the occasion, but it was dreary.
Next day we made connections and have been far up ahead since. The Wadi is absolutely bare filled with rocky channels, shadowy "kills" and an ancient, hazy rust color that is curiously juxtaposition to the cold wind and steady sunlight. Immense rock-ledges and slivered stones cut the tires to shreds. Not a living thing in sight as far as you can see up and down the great main valley which resembles a crater-on-the-moon. If it had not been for the flocks of German planes at dawn and during the afternoon, life would have been insupportable. We had eight ambulances there of our own, and only one a day was used. Consequently for four or five day periods the most horrible dullness set in, (perhaps writing about it will dispel it!) the food was short for a time, and a sandstorm blew for two whole days. Even I, who am usually able to cheer others up, felt low and deathly tired of it all.
What was my surprise, the other evening to have a car sent up to replace me! I was to chauffeur the head of the - - - - - censored - - - - - since I have been begging to be allowed to see an American dentist. I was overjoyed, but alas, through a double delay in my getting the message, I arrived two hours too late at Field HQs. and the - - - - - had already left with two quite healthy men driving him to the city. Such luck, and I was so near to going. I only hope I can hang on with this toothache until a similar circumstance presents itself.
So here I am back at the Coast Road, the day after, waiting for a new tire, and some motor fixing. These grassy stretches that run along the shore-line are blushed with flowers now, why, at our coldest period, I cannot tell you. They ought to be imported home for God knows they are hardy! We walk through them up to our knees, all blue and yellow and lemon-colored. There are both purple and lavender rocket, violet aquilegia, enormous proud gold dandelions, far lovelier than ours at home, ivory freesia and a form of sunny yellow primroses. The enclosed dried flowers will give you some idea.
Just now I peered through the open window and four Arabs approached through the thicket, swathed in white or grey burnooses, shawls wound about them and woolen turbans on their copper-colored heads against the breeze. You'd go mad over the hand woven cloth! They are coming down the gentle slope from the desert beyond, walking in a wash of flowers. They will, I know, have eggs or a chicken, hidden beneath their wrappings, to be traded for chai (tea), or sukhara (sugar). Strange drinks to a nomad's taste, but such is the fame of Sir Thomas Lipton. No, it is not eggs this time; they have a lamb baa-baaing that they would be happy, salaaming many times, to kill (picture the gesture yourself) for many cigarros.
The tastes must change as one approaches Tripoli; perhaps the tea-drinkers are only in the wilder districts? Of course, sitting here with two cook-houses and a canteen, is the one time I don't need a leg of lamb. This is my unlucky week! How often in some glum cave the meat on a spit would have been deliriously appreciated.
I now have, to warm your heart, a heavy overcoat, a wool tunic and wool slacks so the cold does not faze me any more. I feel well taken care of materially so do not worry about me.
So long, and forgive this semi-demi gloomy letter. I'll be alright soon.
ABOUT 2:30 we got under way. From the sheltered, rusty wadi, the three strings of vehicles wound out into the vast floor of the valley. Far ahead one could see other caravans twisting up into the hills, others moving in to join the ascent, still others trickling down from distant crevasses onto the huge pebbled floor of El Chebir. The order had been given to keep a distance of 200 yards between vehicles, but as usual, a few stragglers and late departures disrupted the perfection of the plan. Across my bow a water-truck, puffing and coughing, pulled into line. Now and then a lorry from the flank lumbered across desperately trying to make time through the deep sand-wedges. By the time I had crossed the valley my mileage gauge showed an advance of three miles which seemed enormous, looking back at our old camp, deserted now, but for a few petrol tins shining in the sun. But distance is an illusion and the desert is nothing more than distances stretching ahead into infinity.
Ahead of me the sinuous train of biscuit colored vehicles edged around the rising shoulder of some fresh hills. Alongside the track the welcome green lushness of the well-lands graced an acre of sandiness.. A few lengths further on I bade goodbye to the tomb of the Holy Man, as I slipped past it on the hill. The four-square roof was golden in the sun, the black iron stirrups hung like temple bells, bannered and cold, along the drooping cornice.
There was a mighty rut across the track near the crest; the white rocks stuck up sharply through the thick carpet of dust, and I wondered if my rotten tires would bite into it without bursting. Shifting into the lowest gear I crawled ahead, picking the least tortuous gullies to cross over. Luck was with me and before long I hit the crest of the new flat-top, that barren plateau that is limited by the two wadis, El Chebir and Zem-Zem. Zem-Zem, what a foolish name! Repetitious as the stunted landscape, dull as the deadly uniformity of myriad shrubs, bristling their dry twigs every few feet on the immense beige carpet. Ah, Zem-Zem, Bug Bug, Zuga Zug! How peaceful, how haunted you will be. Where are the infinitesimal grease drips of 10,000 carburetors, the scattered deluge of gasoline tins, the webbed network of tire tracks which, like old parchment, folded a thousand times, softened your bare harshness for few furtive weeks? The sun has dried the sifting sands across each trail, the awful Spring kamseens have drifted away every trace of man's encroachment, the spitting violence of the rains obliterate our every footprint and curve of wheel; once again the stars look down on the limitless sweeps and seen through a glass darkly the distant beyond is broken once or twice by the half-imagined, half-seen string of pack-camels, pin-points on the past.
And ahead, through a haze of dust, went the Army. The guns rumbled on their careening carriages, the lorries lurched and dragged over the tan powder and white rocks. We drove ahead at decent intervals for six miles; then with no warning the convoy took a sharp curved turn and dispersed into the scrubby lands. The heater in my ambulance was roaring cheerfully and the stiff wind without brought no warning hint of planes. Consequently I was taken by surprise when a flight of Stukas, black and evil, in the sunlight, swooped upon us. There was a burst of orange flame from the ventral ducts, a sharp crackling ripple of gun-fire and the flapping canvas cover of the lorry next to me snapped with holes. For some inane reason I jammed my coat-collar up and pulled my head down tight into my shoulders as the dark body swooped at me. It zoomed with a mighty roar over my head and I saw the sand lift and snap in a sprinkle of machine gun bullets. Then it was gone and through my back window I could see the black cross on the plane's tail slip down into the valley behind. There wasn't time to be frightened. It was over as soon as it had begun; so I fished out a Virginia Round and struck a match. Then I got out and looked about the ambulance. It had not been hit luckily, though rock-chips had ricocheted on to the running board. On all sides men stood up once more and brushed the sand from their clothing. Then climbed back into our seats, and the train moved on.
An hour before sunset the Transport Officers' little car came bouncing over the stones tearing up to each vehicle as it slowed down obediently. Orders were to 'laager" for the evening hours; at midnight we would move ahead under the dubious cover of a half-moon sky. I pulled off the track and headed for an open spot. If each vehicle parked down 600 feet, as ordered, from its nearest neighbor the caravan would be pushed into the sea. But, at best, it was wise to be as far away as possible. By the time I had finally outstripped the lorries and ambulances who were streaking over the desert parallel with me, I was miles away from the main track, just barely visible in the dim distance was the cook-truck. It was a half hours' walk to it. I laid down for a short rest. My back was tired from the jolting and we were short on food, having been waiting to leave since dawn.
My mind wandered off into dreams and imaginings as I lay there, my legs bathed in the warm rays of the sun. The eve of a battle always found me in a curious state of elation and horror.