As it was, the Turks were in our position twenty minutes after our hurried departure.
Bewildered by this sudden turn of events, we hurriedly hooked the horses in again to guns and ammunition-waggons, slung on the personal equipment recently discarded--though our water-bottles were now, alas, empty--and quickly vacated the nullah.
Where we were going to nobody save those in command knew; most of us were too weary to care. Our deadened senses were hardly capable of realising that the relieving Turks had somewhere broken through the cordon; we had to clear out and, in spite of what the firing had told us at sundown, we had failed to take Gaza. That much was now obvious; victorious troops do not as a rule retreat, especially at our present pace.
Hence we had no option but to keep moving as fast as we could until we were ordered to stop.
A mile or two out of the nullah we encountered the rest of the brigade, and gradually a troop from one unit or a squadron from another joined the column. By now it was pitch dark, but as far as one could judge we were taking a different route from that by which we had come. Our present direction was due west, and had we persisted in following it this route would have led us straight into the Turkish lines at Gaza.
The reason, which I give with some reserve, was learnt later. A German officer speaking perfect English and dressed in the uniform of a British staff-officer, rode up to the head of the column and announced that he had been sent by Headquarters as a guide. Thereupon the column followed this audacious gentleman's leadership for some miles, until a pukka British officer, who had providentially spent some years surveying this very country, asked his commander whether he knew that we were making a bee-line for the Turkish defences. A startled ejaculation burst from the general, who turned to the guide to ask him if he was quite sure of the way.
But he asked in vain, for the man had disappeared!
Whether this explanation be true or no, there are in connection therewith two somewhat significant points: one was that some days later a German, masquerading as a British staff-officer, was undoubtedly captured, and paid the customary penalty; the other was that after we had trekked for perhaps a couple of hours in a westerly direction, we turned sharply to the left and continued almost due south, at right angles to our previous route.