Читать книгу By-ways on Service: Notes from an Australian Journal онлайн

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Abbassieh, except for its mosque, is nothing but a barrack-settlement. Barracks almost encircle the camp. Indeed, it would appear that the Regular Cairene troops are mostly quartered in this suburb. The eastern and northern barracks are for the Egyptian Regulars; the Territorials occupy those on the west. We see much of either. The Egyptians are impressive—very lithe and strongly built, but not tall. Alertness is the badge of all their tribe. The first impression they give is that everything in their training is done "at the double." As you turn in your bed at 5.30, you hear their réveille trumpeted forth from the whole barrack settlement; and that is significant. To a man, they bear about the mouth those lines seen upon the face of the thoroughgoing athlete. They love to fraternise with the Australians. The Turks they hate with a perfect hatred; more than one has lost a brother "down the Canal." If this is the type of man Kitchener had with his British, the consistent victories of his Egyptian campaign are quite in the order of nature. They show an individual strength, efficiency, and alertfulness which probably is to be seen nowhere else—except, perhaps, among the Ghurkas—in all the British forces now under arms. The best Australian or Territorial unit will have its weeds and its blear-eyed and its round-shouldered and its slouchers. Here you look for them in vain.