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This was our first experience of travelling on the Kantara Military Railway, and is not likely to be forgotten. The shortage of rolling stock available did not permit of troops, or, at that time, even of officers accompanying troops, travelling in passenger coaches.
Beyond this was the barbed wire and redoubt line of the Kantara defences, of which more anon. To the north joining with the lakes and marshes round Pelusium, lay patches of shallow salt water, inundated by cuts from the Canal as part of the defensive scheme. The strength of the Battalion on arrival was little over 300.
At El Ferdan, where some Turks made a demonstration with a battery about this time, there were no losses, though the gunboat Clio was hit several times. At El Kantara, where a part of General Cox's brigade of Gurkhas, Sikhs, and Punjabis were engaged, there were thirty casualties.
A mile or so to the east of our outpost line, the permanent defences were being constructed by the Egyptian Labour Corps, now recruited to do the sand shovelling, which had fallen to our lot at Kantara.
Probably the enemy knew all about this vast base. Any one on any ship passing through the Canal could see the place, and it is surprising, and it certainly points to a lack of enterprise on the part of the Germans, that no attempt was made to bomb Kantara by the super-Zeppelin which in November 1917 left its Balkan base and got as far south as the region of Khartoum on its way to East Africa, before being recalled by wireless.
By now the railway had caught us up again, and almost daily long supply trains come in from Kantara with loads of rations and forage. Also the Egyptian Labour Corps arrived in hundreds and once more made the day hideous with their mournful dirge. But if this eternal chant made one yearn to throw something large and heavy at the performers, their work compelled profound admiration.
On the afternoon of the 22nd June 1916 we left the wilderness under orders for Kantara. We spent several days near Shallufa sidings, and then, having obtained leave for England, I left for Suez with W.H. Barratt and W.T. Thorp, two subalterns who had made their mark while in the ranks by distinguished service in the field.
A network of sidings was constructed, and soon covered many acres of ground; sheds were built for the locomotives; repairing plant was installed and signalling apparatus erected; handsome stone buildings sprang up as station offices; and, in short, one morning Kantara woke up to find itself the possessor of a railway terminus complete in every essential detail, even down to a buffet for the troops.
The Egyptian Labour Corps had not yet arrived on the scenes and the digging of the Kantara defences consequently devolved upon the white troops. This meant six hours' digging almost every day for almost every man, divided into a morning and an afternoon shift. Now sand is admittedly nice easy stuff to dig in, you do not need a pick, and can fill your shovel without exertion.
In June, 1915, Colonel von Laufer and a mixed force attempted a feeble raid on the canal near El Kantara, but were driven off with some loss by the Yeomanry, who had done effective work in keeping the enemy away from the British lines.
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