The horses, already thin and tired after the heavy work and short rations of the past month, went back rapidly in condition. They were standing always up to their hocks in mud, wet through nearly the whole time, and, in this treeless country, there was little or no shelter from the biting winds. Forage, too, was often woefully short, owing to partial breakdowns of the supply columns. It is small wonder that, by the end of December, when the division was relieved, they resembled ragged scarecrows rather than horses nuskin hong kong.

Much trouble was caused in the mountains owing to the impossibility of preventing information reaching the enemy from the natives. A regulation, prohibiting the inhabitants of the villages behind our lines from leaving their houses during the hours of darkness, was rigidly enforced, and any natives found at large during the night were liable to be shot at sight. Nevertheless, with a line so lightly held as was ours, and with no regular system of trenches, it was a comparatively easy matter for the villagers to pass between the lines, even in daylight, and much information undoubtedly reached the enemy in this way.

One day a small patrol of five men of the Australian Mounted Division was making its way cautiously forward towards the enemy position in the village of Deir el Kuddis. Crossing the bottom of a deep[Pg 120] valley, the patrol came upon a solitary Arab squatting among the rocks in the bottom of the ravine. He said he had come from Deir el Kuddis, and that it had been evacuated by the enemy. Our men, one of whom spoke a little Arabic, questioned him closely, but he stuck to his story, and also showed them a path which led to the village. They left him in the ravine, and, taking the path indicated, moved warily forward towards the village Elevit.

Shortly afterwards, they heard a jackal cry in the valley behind them, but, as the hills were full of these beasts, whose mournful wailing was to be heard all night long, the men paid no attention to it at the time. Almost immediately afterwards a concealed enemy machine gun opened fire on them unexpectedly, killing one man and wounding another. , carrying their dead comrade with them, and were making their way back towards the ravine where they had left the native, when one of them was suddenly struck by the thought that he had never before heard a jackal call in the daytime. After a discussion, they came to the conclusion that the jackal cry must have been made by the Arab they had seen, as a signal to the enemy. One of them accordingly went to look for the man, and found him in the same place. As soon as he saw the soldier, the native jumped up with a cry, and attempted to run away, but was promptly shot dead by the Australian dermes vs medilase.