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The Malplaquet is an oil-fired ship, so we hadn't any bothering coal bunkers to attract fancy bombs. I was pretty sure that after the Antinous and the Antigone we had mostly wire-cutting to fear. When a man has done one job successfully, and repeated it almost successfully, he is pretty certain to have a third shot. Besides, if one is out to delay a ship, cutting wires is as good a way as any.
The gun teams were generally exposed during the advance and were treated to heavy shrapnel fire, but they swung into action at prearranged points and set about wire-cutting with excellent effect. The first part of the second phase consisted in reducing the enemy's main line from the Khalasa road to the wadi Saba, though the artillery bombarded the whole line.
We had exhibitions of wire-cutting and smoke screens, bangalore torpedoes, and many days of practising co-operation with aeroplanes. Very frequent night marches by compass, combined with digging in, and followed by an attack or advance at dawn. In fact, we were put through a very practical training for the task which we were later to undertake.
Reservoir pens dry up too much in some climates. China ink for permanent marking. Strips of adhesive paper, about a inch and a inches wide, to put round objects for labelling. Strong steel pliers, wire-cutting. A few pocket-knives will serve for presents. It is best to carry money in a little bag or screw of paper, loose in the jacket pocket, it in a risky district.
Then the engine began to slow up, until it finally rested at the water tank. "I was right," said Andrews. He leaped from the cab, and gazed down the line. "The enemy is not in sight now," he cried. "Those ties are giving them trouble. Put some more on the track, boys. George, try some more wire-cutting. Brown, get your boiler filled."
The battalions concerned assiduously practised wire-cutting, filing silently through the gaps, and night-digging. About 1,500 men in all were engaged; the digging was done by the 4th Oxfords and the 5th Gloucesters, while covering parties and fatigues were provided by the Bucks Battalion and ourselves. About six hours were allotted for the completion of the work, from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.
At 3-30 a.m. on the 4th the Boche, either annoyed at our wire-cutting, or to celebrate his favourite anniversary, the declaration of war, opened a heavy fire with guns, mortars, rifle grenades, coloured lights and everything else imaginable.
The gunners were unable clearly to see their targets, or to mark by the spurt of dry earth the exact strike of their wire-cutting shrapnel. Through the mist on that most inappropriate morning appeared a herd of cows and men harvesting between Rossignol and Puisieux, not much more than a mile from our lines.
No alarm followed, however, as the work of wire-cutting went on across the railway and from enclosure to enclosure, care being taken to bend the wires only in one place so that they could be bent back, leaving a space just wide enough for successive companies in fours to defile through. Thus by slow degrees they gained the foot of Surprise Hill, and began the difficult ascent.
We had to win this height in order to get good observation of the enemy's main line of works, and to allow of the advance of field artillery within wire-cutting range of an elaborate system of works protecting Beersheba from an advance from the west. At six the guns began to bombard 1070, and the volume of fire concentrated on that spot must have given the Turks a big surprise.
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