CRAFTY ARAB DISGUISE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 12 February 1917, Page 3

CRAFTY ARAB DISGUISE.

TAKE UNIFORMS OFF DEAD

TOMMIES

In an interesting letter from the East, Private Alec G. Strachan, R.A. M.C., attached to the Indian cavalry, tells of the difficulties our troops have to contend with in that region, particularly from wily Arabs. “Just a few lines to let you all know I’m quite well, although very busy,” he writes. “We have a great deal of work here. Every day I am up at four o’clock in the morning, finish about 10.30, then on again from five to 6.30 p.m., when I have dinner (corned beef and biscuits, sometimes bread). I’ve never had any word from anywhere since we left Southampton. I’m wondering if you ever got my letter. You ought to be getting same about now. Well, I could do with a right good meal; we don’t get much here. It’s not a bit like France for parcels, etc. “It’s surprising how everybody sticks the heat. Of course, we get a few r sunstrokes, jaundices, and cholera, but it’s not as bad as it might be. We are getting nicely through this month. Everything is red hot, and the glaring sun does your eyes no good. It’s a good job I brought a few shillings out here to buy biscuits, etc., with, although they are fearfully dear. IR. for 22 biscuits, weighing half a pound. “I’ve got a decent job, assistant at operation table to Dr. McKenzie. He’s from the States, and very, decent. We are the only white men in the Ambulance. ■ We had a day in Ornara coming up. It’s fine there. You can buy anything you want at the Y.M.C.A. tents and A.T.S.

“We have the river running alongside the hospital, which help us to keep a little cooler, also an Arab camp about five miles on our left. The devils are out every night sniping about. Seventy of them six men and an N.C.O. the night before last. I had one to dress; the bullet caught him just under the ear, went right through his jaw, and came out at the side of his nose. Poor devil was a mess.

“Our people are beginning to weaken up a bit now. We’ve got a few mach-ine-guns waiting for them. There’s a .decent reward for anyone bringing in an Arab, but they take the uniforms off our dead Tommies and wear them, and you don’t know 7 who’s w 7 ho hero. There’s so many different castes of blacks, and they can hardly understand one another.

“We heard the other day of a great Russian victory; they seem to be doing extra just now, I saw several at Shakeshead about a month ago, and I spoke to one. He had travelled with others 300 miles on horseback in 11 days. He said thirty of them had got through the Turks’ lines. They are the finest made fellows I ever saw — all over six feet, and weigh about 13 stone.”