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Taking Sneezes Nothing is out there—let's try again

I am living Egypt, living.... Your pyramids and your mosques and your old Nile can talk to me of things long past and gone, and I shall listen with interest to what they have to say, but I would rather be a living dog of an Egyptian than the dead lion of an Egyptian king—I would rather be a moving, talking native dressed in garish clothes than a Prince of the House of Rameses, sans eyes, sans ears, sans tongue, in the shrivelled brown form of a mummy.

For there is something about these living ones that brings the dead to life. Sometimes when I look into their eyes I seem to see a strange, mysterious light in them—a light that never was on sea or land. It is then that I think of the things these people have seen in the forty centuries of which Napoleon spoke. I don't believe in magic, but I have seen strange things—things that make me remember that the magicians of Pharaoh were able to turn their rods into serpents!

There came one day a very wise Egyptian—one whom I know as a Freemason—and he gave a valuable scarab, mounted in a gold ring, to Major Lynch. There was no doubt that the wise man valued it, and there is no doubt that he left an impression on Major Lynch. It is a talisman and a protection to the owner, but it has deadly powers. Nothing can harm the owner so long as he has it in his possession, and the owner can shrivel up an enemy by merely pointing at him and muttering incantations—just as the Northern Territory natives in Australia can will an enemy to die by pointing a bone at him. Major Lynch lost no time in putting the scarab to the test. There was a very troublesome native who used to bother him several times a day about things that don't matter, and the day after the wise Egyptian had made his presentation the major pointed at the native and muttered a powerful Australian incantation. Since then the native has not been seen.

Heavy Talks Heated conversations in the back yard

One could not help contrasting this large force from Australia and New Zealand—a force that was to be doubled and trebled ere long—with the little force of 500 men which William Bede Dalley, Australian Orator and Patriot, sent from New South Wales to the Sudan just thirty years before. It spoke not only of the wonderful growth in population of Britain's Dominions of the South, but it was a living proof that the years had only served to cement the bonds of love and loyalty that bind the grand old Mother land to her Oversea Dominions. The rising in India, the intention of the Australians to proclaim their independence the moment when Britain found herself in peril—where were they? Where now was the "disintegration" of the British Empire which the German Emperor and his War Lords had so confidently predicted?

With Cairo and the Nile safe, General Wilson was able to deal effectively with the invaders. Towards the latter end of January, Northern Sinai was overrun with them. From a couple of captured Shawishes of the 75th Turkish Regiment I learned that the staff arrangements by the German officers were excellent. Everything had been foreseen and provided for—or nearly everything. Water was available at each stage of the journey across the desert. Many boats and pontoons were dragged by oxen and camels along the caravan route from Kosseima, El Arish, and Nekl. A few six-inch guns were also transported to the Canal. To supplement the Turkish force on its south-westerly march all the pilgrims and Bedouins met with were pressed into service and rifles were given to them.

It was on the morning of January 28 that the initial conflict took place at Kantara. A reconnoitring party from Bir El Dueidar attacked the British outposts but was repulsed, our losses being only one officer and one soldier killed and five Gurkhas wounded. Further south, near Suez, a nocturnal demonstration by the Turks merely served to prove the alertness of the defenders, though unfortunately two of our air scouts met with disaster. Their aeroplane came down outside our lines, and on returning on foot they were both shot dead by our own Indian patrols. The pity of it.