Soldiers' Tales #2 by Denny Neave

Author:Denny Neave
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Big Sky Publishing

Moya Moya – Beersheba

Henry Gullet, Official Historian, Palestine, 1917

The Battle of Beersheba took place on 31 October 1917, as part of the Sinai and Palestine campaign during World War I. This was the scene of the charge of the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade. They covered nearly 6 kilometres to overrun and capture the last remaining Ottoman trenches, and secure the surviving wells at Beersheba.

The night brought no rest for the light horsemen. Circumstances necessitated a strong and alert outpost line, and every man who could be spared was put to work to water the horses. Except for the drink on the previous night near the Wady Hesi, the animals had not been refreshed since leaving Beersheba, and the brigade was threatened with crippling losses. All the little villages on the flanks and rear were exploited for water, but the wells were from 100 to 250 feet deep. With the exception of an occasional antiquated water-wheel, the only appliance for raising the water was a bucket and a rope, and most of the ropes had been removed by the natives.

To water 2,000 thirst -stricken horses was, under these conditions, a task exceedingly laborious and slow. All night the crooked little streets of the mud-built, straw-thatched villages were packed with restless, thirsty horses, and gaunt, dusty, unshaven men, careless of their exhaustion in their desire to relieve their animals, and in the buoyancy of the indescribable sense of sweeping victory. Where ropes were missing they were replaced with bridle-reins and telephone wire, and cattle and horses, thus attached to the buckets and walking out in a straight line, hauled the water from depths as great as 200 feet.

Mingled with the troops and their horses were crowds of dirty, ragged, picturesque natives, who had been denied their supply during the fight and now, very thirsty, were clamorously fighting for their share. Telephone wire saved the brigade. All night, and until late on the following day, the water was raised bucket by bucket, and the work went on until all the parched horses had been relieved. In the areas where prisoners were assembled the horror of war was seen at its worst. Hundreds of hapless Turks, fighters for a cause for which they knew no enthusiasm and which was even beyond the understanding of men so simple and ignorant, moaned and cried in their sickness and thirst. ‘Moya! Moya!’ (water! water!) sounded all through that hideous night; and the light horsemen, deeply moved by pity for a foe whom they always regarded with respect and even kindliness, shared their own scanty supply with the afflicted prisoners, and worked the night through to bring them a little ease.

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