WW1 Crossing the sinai and the Negev

I can't get away from WW1 in the Middle East this week.  Another blog about a soldier of the the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.

Infantry crossing the Sinai on the wire road

The veteran of hell-hole Gallipoli marches with his unit along the mesh wire road unrolling across the Sinai towards Ottoman territory.  

Building the railway at Al-Arish

Beneath a relentless sun,  he takes his turn  to guard the  Egyptian Labour force creating the  railway  that slowly chases the temporary road.  Rapidly drying sweat on his face proves a magnet for flies.

A Camel Convoy being loaded.

  He views with thirsty eyes a  thousand-strong convoy of camels plodding past,  bearing  water, food, equipment, iron rails and wooden sleepers to the camp he’d be heading for when night stopped work.

German aircraft over the Negev 1916

The sound of enemy aircraft has him dropping to ground, curling up, his heels digging into his backside, his head beneath his chest. The bombs still find him. His body lies fragmented,  inextricably mixed  with those of  Egyptian labourers.

Although his unrecognisable body may be buried in an unmarked common grave, this soldier  has  his name engraved in stone in his native village and is remembered in his regiment’s records.

The civilian Egyptian labourers, however,who literally paved the way for the Allies eventual victory,  remain  forgotten by all.

Inspired by Siobhan Logan's workshop, organised by Writing East Midlands,