Letters from Wilfred Evans to his family, 1918 - Part 10

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 of them as the heavy sandy going had been
even too much for the horse drawn vehicles
& they had great trouble in getting through.
I collected what I could & sent
them on, & then rode across to Tul
Keram about 8 miles East of where I was
to pick up the Motor Ambulances. Tul
Keram was in a horrid mess - the remains
of the battle were everywhere, dead Turks
& horses, horseless vehicles, packs of
abandoned transport - in one place
about 300 wagons in a transport park,
prisoners tired thirsty woebegone
trooping in by their hundreds -
wounded & sick going to hospital
derelict trains in the station & lots
of rolling stock, with the contents
of the trucks & carriages scattered
about the station yard in fact all
the features which one now associates
with the first day of a captured town

8
The enemy usually destroys his wells &
there is a day or two of water shortage till it can
be remedied everyone is busy with his
own work & at first all is confusion
until this is superseded by the calm
orderliness of army workings - each man
to his own task & order supervenes on out of
chaos. My Motor Ambulances did not turn
up until almost evening but I then
set off with them in chase of the Division
reaching Khas Sumrah that night where
we camped & made our evening meal.
I slept well wrapping my mosquito net
about my head as it was a very
mosquito haunted & malarious spot
& started off after an early breakfast
at 6 a.m. next day. We left the
coastal plain at Sumrah turning
sharply East & crossed the range
of hills which runs up from the
mountain range about Nablus &
Jerusalem to Haifa & divides the

9
coastal plain which runs down through
Jaffa & Ludd x the plain of Sharon
from the plain of Esdraelon which
lies on the other side of this range
& which is watered by the brook Kishon
of the Bible. We gradually mounted
the range & entered a narrow defile
which our troops had crossed 24
hours previously & which the rapidity
of our advance had prevented the
Turks from holding - & just as well
as it would have been a very strong
position - & finally reached the top
& had our first glimpse of the plain
of Esdraelon. It is a marvellous
plain running from the sea right down
to the Jordan & surrounded by
hills on both sides - those round
Nablus to the South & those round
Nazareth to the North.
Mount Tabor (the Mount of Transfiguration

10
& where also Napoleon fought a great battle,
rises abruptly out of the plain as a rounded hill.
Nazareth lies in the hills to the North & is plainly
visible from the plain.
I found our headquarters at El Lejjun & after
consultation with Col Fowler proceeded straight
on to Jenin in a S.E. direction. Then I
found my old Ambulance with it's quarters
in a German Hospital & I took over control
of the general medical organisation of the
town. There were four Turkish hospitals
filled with sick & wounded Turks - mostly
malaria cases, several Turkish doctors & a
good many orderlies. The German hospital
had a German doctor in charge, a number
of German orderlies & 11 German sisters - trained
nurses who had been at Nablus & had attempted
to escape by Jenin but were caught there.
Then we had our own Ambulance with a
few sick & wounded. The difficulty was
to feed the Turks & Germans about 400 in all

11
& all short of rations, but I managed to
get some grain; had a mill & bakery
started & got some bread delivered.
Then I requisitioned 10 sheep & got rid
of the shadow of starvation. We also located
a drug store & a sufficiency of drugs & dressings
in it. The next thing was to get more
medical orderlies as the Turks were short
- these we managed to get from among the
prisoners. I took for myself an office
a fine room in the front of the Turkish
hospital & had a bed rigged up there
with nice clean things on it & thought
everything fine. But goodness! when I
lay me down to sleep the fleas started
& nearly eat me alive & in the end I
had to bolt & sleep in an adjacent
garden. I never experienced such fleas.
Things were now going fairly well. The
Turkish hospital was run by their Senior officer
whom I had put in charge, the German hospital
by their own doctor & our own Ambulance by its Senior
officer & each daily rendered to me their
returns & numbers in hospital so that I might

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ration them from local resources.
We found large stores of Turkish bully beef a
good deal of champagne & a soda water
factory. So our patients were fairly well
off & ourselves too for that matter. I had
a very busy time but it was enjoyeable.
After 3 days I received word to join
the Division & leave the place in charge
of Col Stuart & I then proceeded 
to El Afuleh where the Division then
was & found them living fairly comfortably in the
railway buildings there. Afuleh was, as I have said
their main railway centre & our primary objective as
it was the junction of the railway from Tul Keram &
Nablus with the line to Haifa & when we got it
Haifa was cut off from railway communication

13
There were millions of sandflies at Afuleh, a lot of buildings
x a good deal of rolling stock & engines & a lot of ordnance
stores. The plain of Esdraelon is exceedingly fertile & malarious
rich black soil which is hard & cracked in summer
& covered with the remnants of crops & in winter is
a huge bog into which one sinks indefinitely.
Next day I started off again to try & reach
Semak xx at the South end of the
sea of Tiberias where one of our Brigade
had had a stiff scrap & a number of
casualties. I went down to Busan first
in the Jordan valley and attempted to go North
to Semak but the road was impossible
for cars & I gave up the attempt & returned
tired as could be to Afuleh. Next morning
at 0600 I started again this time by
a different route following the main
road through Nazareth among the hills to the
town of Tiberias & then round the Southern
shores of the lake to Semak. Nazareth is
a pretty place rather like Bethlehem
situated among huge hills & clustering on

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their slopes. It has some fine buildings
mainly used as hospitals of late,
& generally built of greyish stone. It
is said that it was the main Turkish hospital
base & certainly is high & healthy but very
difficult of approach on account of
the steep hills. The road ascends steeply
even after Nazareth then drops again & runs
along a valley - very pretty covered with crops
& trees, then ascends again & runs along a
plateau & suddenly the sea of Tiberias
bursts upon one thousands of feet below.
The view is one of the most magnificent I
have seen - the still blue waters of the lake
encircled by huge mountains, around & the
white houses of the Town of Tiberias clustered
on it's Southern shore. The descent is terribly
steep into the town & then we turned to the
right & skirted along the Southern shores
till we reached the outlet of the Jordan from
the lake. Semak where the wounded were
lies about a mile beyond the Jordan & unfortunately
the bridge was broken down & the ford

15
rather deep for motors so I hailed a man
on the opposite side to bring over his horse & I
mounted behind him & thus forded the
stream & rode on to the hospital. I asked them
to load their wounded as quickly as possible into
their xx horsed Ambulance wagons & take them
across the ford thus & then transfer them
to the motors. While they loaded the wagons
I had some lunch with Single &
Anderson (my quondam rival at the Varsity)
& then went off with the wagons & made
all speed to retrace my steps to Nazareth
where a hospital had seen opened. What
a tedious return trip especially as we met
hundreds of wagons on the narrow road
& it seemed a long 30 miles. However
we reached Nazareth just after dark
with all the badly wounded & got them
into good comfortable beds in the French
hospital. It must have been a good
70 mile trip altogether that day from
Afuleh to Semak & back to Nazareth
& I was a very tired man. However
a good nights rest did wonders &

16
next day I made for Tiberias again.
On reaching that place I received orders
to collect all the lightly sick & wounded
from Semak who remained to Tiberias
& evacuate by motor lorry. There were still
some 60 people sick & wounded but more
serious, so with my motors & Col Singles
horse wagons & camels we got them all
across safely. I had a Turkish hospital
cleaned out for them & had brought along
with me ten men from Nazareth as the
advance party of our Ambulance which
was moving up from there & with the aid
of these ten we made some tea (we had
no utensils with us but we improvised)
dressed any that required it - with
dressings from the Turkish pharmacy
& made them as comfy as possible under
the circumstances. Next day I moved
on leaving Capt Humphries to complete
the evacuation to Nazareth by aid of
motor supply lorries which were expected to
pass at any moment. That day I
reached the crossing of the Jordan.