[Footnote 1: See Appendix v].



CHAPTER V

RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE


To ease the supply problem a spur line was laid from Rafa to Shellal,
on the wadi Ghuzze. In that way supplies, stores, and ammunition were
taken up to our right flank. Shellal was a position of great strategic
importance. At one time it appeared as if we should have to fight hard
to gain it. The Turks had cut an elaborate series of trenches on
Wali Sheikh Nuran, a hill covering Shellal, but they evacuated
this position before we made the first attack on Gaza, and left an
invaluable water supply in our hands.

At Shellal the stony bed of the wadi Ghuzze rests between high mud
banks which have been cut into fantastic shapes by the rushing waters
descending from the southern extremities of the Judean range of hills
during the winter rains. In the summer months, when the remainder
of the wadi bed is dry, there are bubbling springs of good water at
Shellal, and these have probably been continuously flowing for many
centuries, for close above the spot where the water issues Anzac
cavalry discovered a beautiful remnant of the mosaic flooring of an
ancient Christian church, which, raised on a hundred-feet mound, was
doubtless the centre of a colony of Christians, hundreds of years
before Crusaders were attracted to the Holy Land. Our engineers
harnessed that precious flow. A dam was put across the wadi bed and at