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Updated: May 12, 2025
They also established themselves at Khan Yunus, on the coastal road a few miles to the east of Rafa. On the 23rd February, a reconnaissance was carried out against Khan Yunus. The column, arriving at dawn, found the position strongly held, and, after manoeuvring the enemy out of his front line of defence and capturing prisoners, withdrew without difficulty.
One morning we visited the nearest ruins on the other side of the Tigris, at the village Nebbi Yunus opposite the town; and, on another day, those called Tel-Nimroud, which are situated at a greater distance, about eighteen miles down the river. According to Strabo, Nineveh was still larger than Babylon. He represents it as having been the largest city in the world.
Every few moments an enemy plane came over to have a look at Khan Yunus, though it is doubtful whether they saw very much, for an army could easily have hidden itself between the hedgerows of the village. So great was the bustle that most of us fully expected that the first battle in the Holy Land was about to begin.
Belah had now usurped the position of Rafa as railhead and the station had been greatly enlarged by the addition of numerous sidings for the reception of the heavy trains daily arriving from Kantara. The few wells in the place had been medically tested and numbered and were now in use, supplemented by those of Khan Yunus and the supply of water sent up by rail.
Camels only were used, in such numbers that from Belah to Khan Yunus the country was like a vast patch-work quilt of greys and blacks and browns.
"Yes," replied Yunus. So the stranger alighted and said, "Give me to drink of thy wine." Yunus gave him to drink and he said, "If it please thee, sing us a song." So Yunus sang this couplet extempore, "She joineth charms were never seen conjoined in mortal dress: * And for her love she makes me love my tears and wakefulness."
Whereto wine and shame and awe of the stranger led Yunus to reply, "I will trust thee; take her and Allah bless thee in her!" Whereupon the visitor bade one of his pages sit her before him on his beast, and mounting his own horse, farewelled of Yunus and rode away out of sight.
The full effects had not been wholly realised when the War Cabinet selected General Allenby for the control of the big operations, but the improvement in the condition of the troops was already most marked, and when General Allenby arrived and at once directed that General Headquarters should be moved from Cairo, which was pleasant but very far away from the front, to Kelab, near Khan Yunus, there was not a man who did not see in the new order of things a sign that he was to be given a chance of testing the Briton's supremacy over the Turk.
Another division had been brought up, and the 52nd Lowland Division, who, by way of a startling change, had not been engaged in the first battle, also arrived from Khan Yunus to swell the tide of troops. Accordingly a branch line was laid from Belah down to the seashore, where immense quantities of ammunition and stores were landed from cargo-boats coming direct from Port Said or Alexandria.
Meanwhile the fellaheen refilled their pockets or wherever they keep their money, and lived in fatted peace. We had scarcely halted to await orders on the outskirts of Khan Yunus before an aged Arab, rather the worse for wear, arrived with a basket of large and luscious oranges for sale. Ye gods, oranges! And we had seen no fresh fruit for months!
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