We had smashed the bottom plate of one of the cars,
so that all the oil ran out of the crank-case, but with a side of the
ever-useful kerosene tin we patched the car up temporarily and pushed off
at early dawn. Our route wound through groves of palms surrounding the
tumble-down tomb of some holy man, occasional collections of squalid
little huts, and in the intervening "despoblado" we would catch sight of a
jackal crouching in the hollow or slinking off through the scrub. Deli
Abbas proved a half-deserted straggling town which gave evidence of having
once seen prosperous days. Some Turkish aeroplanes heralded our arrival.
In front of us rose the Jebel Hamrin--Red Hills--beyond them the
snow-clad peaks of the Kurdish Range. A few months previous we had
captured the passes over the Jebel, and we were now busy repairing and
improving the roads--in particular that across the Abu Hajjar, not for
nothing named by the Arabs the "Father of Stones." Whenever the going
permitted we went out on reconnaissances--rekkos, as we called them. They
varied but slightly; the one I went on the day after reaching Deli Abbas
might serve as model. We started at daybreak and ran to a little village
called Ain Lailah, the Spring of Night, a lovely name for the small clump
of palm-trees tucked away unexpectedly in a hollow among barren
foot-hills. There we picked up a surveyor--an officer whose business it
was to make maps for the army.
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