Their great carcasses dotted the sand in all directions; it was only the wonderful antiseptic power of the Eastern sun that held pestilence in check.
The soldiers themselves suffered much hardship.

The crowding in the tents was unspeakable; the water-supply was almost as inadequate as the medical service, which consisted chiefly of volunteer Red Crescent societies--among them a unit of twenty German nurses sent by the American College at Beirut.

Medical supplies, such as they were, had been taken from the different mission hospitals and pharmacies of Palestine--these "requisitions" being made by officers who knew nothing of medical requirements and simply scooped together everything in sight.
As a result, one of the army physicians told me that in Beersheba he had opened some medical chests consigned to him and found, to his horror, that they were full of microscopes and gynecological instruments--for the care of wounded soldiers in the desert! Visits of British aeroplanes to Beersheba were common occurrences.

Long before the machine itself could be seen, its whanging, resonant hum would come floating out of the blazing sky, seemingly from everywhere at once.

Soldiers rushed from their tents, squinting up into the heavens until the speck was discovered, swimming slowly through the air; then followed wholesale firing at an impossible range until the officers forbade it.