Letters from Wilfred Evans to his family, 1917 - Part 1

4.1.17.
My dear mother,
Since I last wrote you we have had
a mail & I received one letter from you in it & today
another registered one & also a nice little parcel of
chocolates & other little items. The socks also arrived
a few days ago & were a very nice fine pair too - 
I have them on at present, Mabs socks also
arrived so I am quite well off in that
line now. I also received the Life & Windsor
from Candelo & three Sydney Mails from Ern
& some other letters so I fared very well indeed
this time especially as a nice little parcel from
Ern & Alice arrived only a few days ago. It
contained chocs & biscuits, the former soon
disappeared & I kept the latter for a few days
as the others here had received some cake &
we had that for afternoon tea for a few days
till it was finished Then one day we moved
camp & missed our proper lunch & it was cold
wet & miserable & the cooks managed to get
a cup of tea about 4 oclock &  x I came
along & found the others sitting round with
four cups of tea & nothing good to eat with them
looking very disconsolate & when I dived

into a bag & produced the biscuits there was
a general roar of approval. We have only
a small mess here - four officers consisting of
Colonel Frazer Major White Captain Bassett & myself
& we have been joined lately by a Veterinary
officer Captain Worthington who would otherwise
be on his lonesome. Some one or another of
the party generally has something on hand
to help matters along. I told you, did I not
that we were so busy on Xmas day that we
dined from bully & biscuits although we had sent
all the way to Port Said to get turkeys. Well
we were busy for some days after that but
one day we slaughtered one of them & our
cook did his best & we had our Xmas dinner
on Jan 2^nd we had intended it for New Years Day
but our move spoilt it. He was a beauty
& we had plum pudding (tinned) & some jelly
with tinned fruit in it, followed by almonds &
raisins so we just did have a spread. It
was a bitterly cold day & raining most of
the time so our appetites were sharp & we
did full justice to it. We have had most
remarkable weather lately, cold & rainy,
we must have had several inches this week

& for some reason or other we were moved some
days ago from out sheltered palm grove, some
miles away into a bare open bleak plain.
Most of the poor fellows had no shelter save
what they could make from waterproof sheets
& blankets, & though most of them are very good at
making shelters they must have suffered considerably.
We had by this time evacuated all our wounded &
had very few sick with us so were able to make
use of one of the six tents we always carry with
us & so were on clover. However today the weather
has improved & we are back again in our palm
grove by the sea. Last Sunday we had church
parade on the ocean beach, quite picturesque
it was to see the hollow square of men drawn up
on the sands with the breaking spray in the background
& the padrē in his robes. I felt awfully sad
however as I looked at one of the regiments & missed
two faces of officers who had fallen in the last
fight, such good fellows too, one had been a Rhodes
Scholar & was a barrister by profession in Melbourne
-Higgins by name (I think a son of the Judge).
When I was picking up wounded just after the
fight I came on a sorrowful group with his body
in the midst - he had just been killed at the end
& I picked him up hoping to bring the body right

in here but soon found that I had too
many wounded to carry the dead so he
had to be buried there & they are making
a fine cross to be placed on it presently though
it is so far away. I am glad you have maps
of this country you will be able to see our exact
position. You remember the long trip we went
to El Maza once - I did not mention the
name but we had a brush with the Turks there.
At that time we were on the canal side of Bir el
Abd. Then where we were camped before coming on
to El Arish was near Maza so you can see our
gradual advance. I am very glad indeed to
hear that your health is improving &
wish I could come along to take you out
for a run occasionally. Aunty Lily's preserved
fruit was apparently addressed x wrongly &
a letter posted to the same place eventually arrived
but not the parcel. You were asking about
washing - my batman does that for me
always & is quite a good hand at it.
You would laugh at the way we wash ourselves
- when we rise in the morning we have a horse -
bucket of water brought from a well if there is
one handy spread out an oil sheet or sack
on the ground & with the aid of a sponge

& soap manage to sluice ourselves all over
It is rather chilly in the open & the wind
whistles round a little but we are quite used
to it now. The sea has been very rough ever
since we arrived but we quite enjoy it's roar
when we are well & truly wrapped up in our
blankets at night. I have seen one or two
accounts in the papers of the Battle of Magdaba
since I last wrote but very poor ones they were
& they don't mention very much the work of
this particular Brigade which in this case
did the bulk of the work, but that is
generally the way in the accounts of battles
In August last at Romani, one would think
that the Infantry & Yeomanry had done
wonders whereas they hardly saw a Turk
except in the distance & the Anzac Division
did almost all the fighting & in the decorations 
later the Infantry got about five or six honors
to xxx the Anzac Division. (I censored this
myself to save the official censor the trouble)
I sent along to you a Turkish ground flag
this week with the hospital red crescent for on
it. There were several of these scattered on
the ground about the hospital at Magdaba

& I picked this one up. It will
be a good trophy in the future.
Hoping you are keeping well & in
good spirits. Love to all
with mother's extra lot
from
Your loving son
Wilf.

(1)
xx
12.1.17
My dear mother,
A mail is expected here ta today
or tomorrow but I have quite a lot to tell you
so will start right away. We have had another
scrap as you doubtless know & I sent off another
cable today with Smith who went right away
to Port Said & will get it away tomorrow &
you should have it on Sunday or Monday. I
sent the last by letter to M^r Bryan in Cairo & have
just received a letter from him saying he sent it
off but it took a week to reach him. I put
in the cable to send more tobacco as I am on the
last tin of Lucy Hinton & smoked some other
stuff today & didn't like it one bit. Would it
be too much to ask you my dear to send
me say 3 tins each month not to be paid for
from your money but from my cheques. I think
that will just keep me going & allow me to offer others
some If sent in little lots it has more chance of
arriving or some of it. I think it would be better to
send half of it as plug tobacco for the tinned is often too
dried up when it reaches here & the plug is easier to send
& keeps better - but please don't say you will pay for
it or I will regret having asked you to send it.

(2)
Now about the latest scrap. We knew for some
days previously that it was brewing & we
left here about midday on the 9^th inst. We
crossed our old friend the Wady El Arish, & instead
of following it as before to Magdaba went at
right angles to it along the sea - coast but about
two or three miles inland. We travelled all
night continuously & suffered considerably
from the cold as it was an exceptionally chilly
night. x These night marches are very trying
as one becomes terribly sleepy in the early hours
of the morning & rides along in a kind of
dream sometimes dozing off on the saddle &
waking up with a sudden jerk to find
that the horse has strayed out of the line &
is going off alone. x
We approached Rafa which is 30 miles East
of El Arish at dawn & then the General
commanding made a reconnaissance of the
place & then disposed his troops accordingly.
The redoubts to be taken were very strong indeed
& there was not a scrap of shelter for man

(3)
or beast for miles round so that the undertaking
was a very formidable one as the Turks were well
supplied with machine guns & had a battery of
artillery of the latest type of mountain guns.
The different Brigades then moved forward to
their allotted posts going right round the
position until it was completely surrounded. Then
of course some had to be sent out to our rear
into enemy country to protect us from attack in
that direction.
We moved forward with our Brigade but before
proceeding with the account of the battle I must
say a little more of the country.
The first ten or twelve miles on our way from El Arish
was desert except at the mouth of the Wady El
Arish where there is a considerable Arab population
who tried to sell us fresh carrots & parsnips as we
passed along but we weren't having any just then.
After this the country improved & towards Rafa
was almost all under cultivation. The soil
just became clay mixed with sand & then
almost pure clay, & oats was springing up
everywhere. This is sown & cultivated by the Arabs
& Bedouins who live in peculiar tents made
from long strips of camel & goat hair carpet
about 3 feet wide & some yards in length & resembles

(4)
stair carpet very much. Several of these
strips are supported alongside one another
from 3 to 6 feet from the ground & the
sides closed in forming long flat low
shelters which look very peculiar at first
Surely the Biblical expression "To your tents
O Israel" must have referred to such
structures as these for the ones I mention
were actually in Palestine the border of which
we crossed just before we started the battle
which was fought partly in the Holy Land.
The Arab population is very large indeed &
they have numerous flocks of sheep & goats
grazing on the country & many camels &
horses. They are not a very attractive class
of people & have the unfortunate habit of
disinterring our dead from the ground in order
to take the clothes & belongings from the bodies
One of our airmen who was wounded in a fight
with an enemy machine & his machine forced
to descend into the sea swam ashore & fell
into the hands of these people who stripped