And we will start now, while the scent is hot, for already the infantry have begun their march and guns and waggons are rumbling along the roads from Suez to Kantara, the gate of the desert.
At this point it would be as well to confer with the map once more. Be pleased to imagine that we have trekked northwards from Suez, through the beautiful little town of Ismailia, "the emerald of the desert," thence to Ferry Post, which was a position of considerable importance when the Turks attacked the Canal in February 1915, and finally to Kantara, where we will pause to see if an answer can be found to the query propounded in the preceding chapter.
If our inquiring friends had sailed down the Canal in 1915 they would have seen at Kantara--had they noticed the place at all, which is unlikely--a cluster of tents, a few rows of horse-lines, some camels, a white-walled mosque, and a water-tank close to the water's edge; while their nostrils would have been pungently assailed by the acrid smell of burning camel-dung.
It is at least probable that the last-named would have made the most striking impression. (It is still a powerful characteristic of Kantara.) Certainly they would never have guessed from its appearance what Kantara was destined to become: the terminus of the great military railway running across the desert and through Palestine, a military port of the utmost value, the beginning--or end--of the main road into Palestine, and the biggest base in Egypt.
They are to be excused; no one would. Kantara did not unduly lift its head in those days, and one did not, perhaps, at a first glance fully appreciate its unique geographical position; for it is situated within easy reach of Port Said and Suez, the two great termini of the Canal, and is thus conveniently near the sea.
Moreover, the Turks were only some fourteen miles away, and the time was not yet ripe. It is illustrative of our early limitations that our postal designation was "Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Canal Defences." Note that no idea was then entertained of anything beyond defending the great waterway.
Nothing else could be done. We had simply to hold off the Turks and make shift as best we could, meanwhile collecting materials and making preparations for a definite offensive when the psychological moment arrived.
