After some indecision, my friends and I
finally went up to one of the officers and offered to _buy_ new uniforms
with the money we expected daily from our families. The officer,
scenting the chance for a little private profit, gave his consent.
The days and weeks following were busy ones. From morning till night, it
was drill, drill, and again drill. We were divided into groups of fifty,
each of which was put in charge of a young non-commissioned officer from
the Military School of Constantinople or Damascus, or of some Arab who
had seen several years' service. These instructors had a hard time of
it; the German military system, which had only recently been introduced,
was too much for them. They kept mixing up the old and the new methods
of training, with the result that it was often hopeless to try and make
out their orders. Whole weeks were spent in grinding into the Arabs the
names of the different parts of the rifle; weeks more went to teaching
them to clean it--although it must be said that, once they had mastered
these technicalities, they were excellent shots. Their efficiency would
have been considerably greater if there had been more target-shooting.
From the very first, however, we felt that there was a scarcity of
ammunition.
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