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[Page 58]
forward under the stars. Everything is very still and quiet. Our course is shaped now almost due north for about five or six miles, I should judge, with frequent five minute stops to rest the horses. We have not gone far before one of the Machine Gun pack horses lies down and refuses to get up again, Colic probably, She has put in perhaps a twelvemonth, or eighteen months of useful service on short rations a great part of the time, and often without water, on stunts for many hours at a stretch. It does not avail her now. The harness is transferred to a spare horse, the poor faithful brute is given a dope, that will end her career, and the troop moves on, and she is left to die alone. Such is one of the indirect cruelties of war. No time to minister to the sufferings of a patient, dumb animal here. We are on the march. She must die. After all, it is the kindest form of cruelty.
Presently we strike the bank of another Wadi, a little too high for the crossing, and we follow its course in a south easterly direction till we reach a place where it is crossable. The