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THE LEICESTERSHIRES BEYOND BAGHDAD
by
EDWARD J. THOMPSON, M.C.
Author of
'Mesopotamian Verses,' 'Ennerdale Bridge'
'Waltham Thickets,' Etc.
London
The Epworth Press
J. Alfred Sharp
First Edition, December, 1919
To my brother, FRANK D. THOMPSON, Second-Lieutenant Civil Service
Rifles, attached King's Royal Rifles; killed in action, near Ypres,
Jan. 13, 1917.
Our soldier youth thrice-loved, whose laughing face
In battle's front can danger meet with eyes
No fear could e'er surprise;
Nor stain of self in their gay love leave trace,
His nature like his name,
Frank, and his eager spirit pure as flame.
_Waltham Thickets._
PREFACE
The Mesopotamian War was a side-show, so distant from Europe that even
the tragedy of Kut and the slaughter which failed to save our troops
and prestige were felt chiefly in retrospect, when the majority of the
men who suffered so vainly had gone into the silence of death or of
captivity. When Maude's offensive carried our arms again into Kut, and
beyond, to Baghdad, interest revived; but of the hard fighting which
followed, which made Baghdad secure, nothing has been made known, or
next to nothing. The men in Mesopotamia did not feel that this was
unnatural. We felt, none more so, that it was the European War which
mattered; indeed, our lot often seemed the harder by reason of its
little apparent importance. Yet, after all, Baghdad was the first
substantial victory which no subsequent reverse swept away; and it came
when the need of victory, for very prestige's sake, was very great.
Mr. Candler has written, bitterly enough, of the way the Censorship
impeded him in his work as official 'Eye-witness.' His was a thankless
task; as he well knows, few of us, though we were all his friends, have
not groused at his reports of our operations. No unit groused more on
this head than my own division. We usually had a campaign and a bank
of the Tigris to ourselves. 'Eye-witness' rightly chose to be with the
other divisions across the river. Inevitably the 7th Meerut Division
got the meagrest show in such meagre dispatches as the Censors allowed
him to send home. The 2nd Leicestershires, an old and proud battalion,
with the greatest of reputations on the field of action, remained
unknown to the Press and public. Our other two British battalions, the
1st Seaforths and the 2nd Black Watch, could be referred to--even the
Censors allowed this--as 'Highlanders'; and those who were interested
knew that the reference lay between these two regiments and the
Highland Light Infantry. But who was going to connect the rare
reference to 'Midlanders' with the Leicestershires?
In May, 1917, the 7th Division tried to put together, for the Press, a
connected account of their campaigning since Maude's offensive began.
After various people, well qualified to do the work, had refused, it
was devolved on me, on the simple grounds that a padre, as is well
known, has only one day of work a week. The notion fell through. The
authorities declined flatly to allow any reference to units by name,
and no one took any more interest in a task so useless and soulless.
But I had collected so much information from different units that I
determined some day to try to put the story together. I have now
selected two campaigns, those for railhead and for Tekrit, and made a
straightforward narrative. From a multitude of such narratives the
historian will build up his work hereafter.
An article by General Wauchope appeared in _Blackwood's_, 'The Battle
that won Samarrah.' This article not only stressed the fact that the
Black Watch were first in Baghdad and Samarra--an accident; they were
the freshest unit on each occasion, while other units were exhausted
from fighting just finished--but dismissed the second day of 'the
battle that won Samarra' with one long paragraph, from which the reader
could get no other meaning except the one that this day also was won by
the same units as did the fighting of the 21st. This was a handling of
fact which appealed neither to the Black Watch, whose achievements need
no aid of embellishment from imagination, nor to the Leicestershires,
who were made to appear spectators through the savage fighting of two
days. If the reader turns to the chapter in this book entitled 'The
Battle for Samarra,' he will learn what actually happened on April 22,
1917. The only other reference in print, that I know of, to the
fighting for Samarra is the chapter in Mr. Candler's book. This, he
tells us, was largely taken over by him from a journalist who visited
our battlefields during the lull of summer. He showed the account to
officers of my division, myself among them, and they added a few notes.
But the chapter remained bare and comparatively uninteresting beside
the accounts of actions which Mr. Candler had witnessed.
For this book, then, my materials have been: First, my own experience
of events _quorum ego pars minima_. Next, my own note-books, carefully
kept over a long period in Mesopotamia and Palestine, a period from
which these two campaigns of Samarra and Tekrit have been selected.
Thirdly, I saw regimental war-diaries and talked with brigade and
regimental officers. Most of all, from the Leicestershires I gained
information. It is rarely any use to question men about an action; even
if they speak freely, they say little which is of value on the printed
page. One may live with a regimental mess for months, running into
years, as I did with the Leicestershires' subalterns, and hear little
that is illuminating, till some electric spark may start a fire of
living reminiscence. But from many of my comrades, at one time and
another, I have picked up a fact. I am especially indebted to Captain
J.O.C. Hasted, D.S.O., for permission to use his lecture on the Samarra
battle. I could have used this lecture still more with great gain; but
I did not wish to impair its interest in itself, as it should be
published. From Captain F.J. Diggins, M.C., I gained a first-hand
account of the capture of the Turkish guns. And Major Kenneth Mason,
M.C., helped me with information in the Tekrit fighting. My brother,
Lieutenant A.R. Thompson, drew the maps.
In conclusion, though the Mesopotamian War was of minor importance
beside the fighting in Western Europe, for the chronicler it has its
own advantages. If our fighting was on a smaller scale, we saw it more
clearly. The 7th Division, as I have said, usually had a campaign, with
its battles, to themselves. We were not a fractional part of an
eruption along many hundreds of miles; we were our own little volcano.
And it was the opinion of many of us that on no front was there such
comradeship; yet many had come from France, and two divisions
afterwards saw service on the Palestine front. Nor can any front have
had so many grim jokes as those with which we kept ourselves sane
through the long-drawn failure before Kut and the dragging months which
followed.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION 15
I. BELED 21
II. HARBE 48
III. THE FIRST BATTLE OF ISTABULAT 59
IV. THE BATTLE FOR SAMARRA 70
V. SUMMER AND WAITING 104
VI. HUWESLET; OR, 'THE BATTLE OF JUBER ISLAND' 120
VII. DAUR 124
VIII. AUJEH 131
IX. TEKRIT 135
X. DOWN TO BUSRA 145
INTRODUCTION
On November 6, 1914, Brigadier-General Delamaine captured Fao forts,
and the Mesopotamian War began in the smallest possible way, the
proverbial 'corporal's guard' breaking into an empire.
The next twelve months saw a great deal of fighting, unorthodox in
every way, carried through in appalling weathers and with the most
inadequate forces.
In the three days' battle at Shaiba, in April, defeat was hardly
escaped.
In April and May General Gorringe conducted the Ahwaz operations, near
the Persian border, with varying success, and threatened Amara, on the
Tigris, midway between Busra and Baghdad.
In May Townshend began his advance up-country. By June 3 he had taken
Q'urna, where Tigris and Euphrates mingle; presently his miscellaneous
marine and a handful of men took Amara, in what was known as
'Townshend's Regatta.' Seventeen guns and nearly two thousand prisoners
were taken at Amara.
In the heats of July, incredible as it sounds, Gorringe was fighting on
the Euphrates, by Nasiriyeh, taking twenty-one guns and over a thousand
prisoners.
On September 28 Townshend won his last victory at Kut-el-Amara, taking
fourteen guns and eleven hundred prisoners. Every one knows what
followed: how Ctesiphon was fought in November, with four thousand five
hundred and sixty-seven casualties, and how his force raced back to
Kut. On December 7 Kut was invested by the Turks. Townshend's stand
here saved the lower country to us.
Relief forces disembarked at Ali Gharbi, between Amara and Kut, and
some of the bitterest fighting the world has seen began. Sheikh Saad
(January 6 to 8) was a costly victory. A gleam of hope came with the
Russian offensive in Northern Asia Minor. On January 13, at the Wadi,
six miles beyond Sheikh Saad and less than thirty miles from Kut, the
Turks held us up, but slipped away in the night.
All advancing was over flat ground devoid of even scrub-cover, through
a region the most desolate in the world. Above Amara there is a place
called 'Lone-Tree Village,' which has a small tree ten feet high.
Except for a handful of draggled palms at Sheikh Saad, this tree is the
only one till Kut is reached, on a river frontage of sixty miles.
On January 20 the British suffered a heavy repulse at Umm-el-Hanna,
five miles beyond the Wadi. For nearly seven weeks our troops sat down
in the swamps, and died of disease. The rains were abnormal.
On March 8 a long flank march up the right bank of the Tigris took the
enemy by surprise, and reached Dujaileh, less than ten miles from Kut.
Time was wasted in an orthodox but unnecessary bombardment. The Turks
swarmed back into the redoubt, and we were bloodily thrust back, and
returned to our lines before Hanna, with heavy losses in men and
transport. After that very few cherished any hope of saving Kut.
April was a month of terrible fighting, frontal attacks on a very brave
and exultant enemy. The 13th Division, from Gallipoli, took the Hanna
trenches, which were practically deserted, on April 5. The day went
well for us. In the afternoon Abu Roman lines on the right bank, and in
the evening those of Felahiyeh on the left bank, were carried by storm.
But next day the first of the five battles of Sannaiyat was fought. We
were repulsed.
The Turk's procedure was easy. He shot us down as we advanced over flat
country. We dug ourselves in four hundred yards away (say). Then we
sapped up to within storming distance, and attacked again, to find that
the lines were thinly held, with a machine-gun or two, but that another
position awaited us beyond, at the end of a long level sweep of desert.
On April 9 came the second battle of Sannaiyat. The time has not come
to speak frankly of this day; but our men lay in heaps. So from the
16th to the 18th we tried frontal attacks on the other bank, the right
again. This was the battle of Beit Aiessa. We did so well that the
enemy had to counter-attack, which he did in the most determined
manner, forcing us back. It cost him at least three thousand dead; but
by this day's work he made sure of Kut and its garrison. Our one hope
now was in the Russians. But their offensive halted; and we fought, on
the 22nd, the third of the Sannaiyat battles. On the 29th, after a
siege of one hundred and forty-three days, Kut surrendered, and with it
the biggest British force ever taken by any enemy.
A summer inexpressibly harassing and depressed followed; but towards
the end of 1916 affairs were reorganized, and at last a general was
found. On the night of December 13 we crossed the Shat-el-Hai, and
Maude's attack on Kut began. Ten weeks of fighting, very little
interrupted by the weather, followed. It was stern work, hand-to-hand
and trench-to-trench, as in France. By the end of the third week in
February Kut was doomed. The Turk had made the mistake of leaving
small, unsupported groups of men in angles and corners of the Tigris.
Maude destroyed these, and between the 22nd and the 25th launched his
final attacks simultaneously on both banks. A badly managed attack on
Sannaiyat had failed on the 17th; but now, on the 22nd, the lines were
stormed. Fighting continued here, and the river was crossed and bridged
behind the Turks, above Kut, at Shumran. The Sannaiyat garrison fled
precipitately, and the 7th Indian Division occupied successively the
Nakhailat and Suwada lines with no opposition worth mentioning. Kut
fell automatically, the monitors steaming in and taking possession. The
infantry had no time to bother about it. Kut had become a symbol only.
So the infantry swung by Kut and on to Baghdad. The cavalry and
gunboats hunted the enemy northward, till he made a stand on the
Diyaleh, a large stream entering the Tigris a few miles below Baghdad.
Very heavy fighting and losses had come to the 13th Division, and the
7th Division would be the first to acknowledge that the honour of
first entering Baghdad, for whatever it was worth, should have fallen
to them. But, in spite of desperate attempts to cross, they were held
on the Diyaleh. The 7th Division therefore bridged the river lower
down, and after two days of battle in a sandstorm, blind with
thirst--for the men had one water-bottle only for the two
days--captured Baghdad railway-station, and threw pickets across the
river into Baghdad town. This was on March 11. The 13th and 14th
Divisions then crossed the Diyaleh, and were in Baghdad almost as soon
as any one from the 7th Division. The 7th and 3rd Indian Divisions
passed by Baghdad on opposite sides, as they had passed by Kut, and
engaged the enemy's rearguards at Mushaidiyeh and in the Jebel Hamrin.
They then concentrated again towards Baghdad.
This book deals first with the April campaign as it affected the right
bank of the Tigris. Between Baghdad and Samarra was a stretch of eighty
miles of railroad, the only completed portion, south of Mosul, of the
Berlin-Baghdad Railway. If we could capture this the Turk would have to
supply his troops from Mosul by the treacherous and shallow Tigris. The
Samarra fighting, these railhead battles, was the last organized
campaign which the Turk fought. Our First Corps, consisting of two
Indian divisions, the 3rd and the 7th, operated against railhead; while
the Third Corps, consisting of the 13th Division, the only all-British
division in Mesopotamia, and the 14th Indian Division, fought their way
up the left bank.
After Samarra fell the Turk could do nothing but collect small bodies
of troops, which we attacked in detail, usually with success, and
throughout 1918, after Tekrit, always attacked with complete success
(as we did at Ramadie in September, 1917, destroying the whole force).
Ramadie, on the Euphrates, and Tekrit, on the Tigris, were the first of
the campaigns of this last phase of the Mesopotamian War, campaigns
that were glorified raids. At the time of Tekrit, General Allenby
settled for the Turk, once for all, the choice between Palestine and
Mesopotamia.
Our Tekrit campaign was a sympathetic attack, concurrent with Allenby's
great Gaza offensive. This campaign is the theme of the second portion
of this book.
I
BELED
Red of gladiolus glimmering through the wheat--
Red flower of Valour springing at our feet!
Dark-flowered hyacinth mingling with the red--
Dark flower of Patience on the way we tread!
Scarlet of poppy waving o'er the grass--
Honour's bright flags along the road we pass!
Thorns that torment, and grassy spikes that fret,
Thistles that all the fiery way beset!
These shall be theirs, when Duty's day is sped;
They shall lie down, the living and the dead.
1. THE WAY TO BELED
Baghdad fell on March 11, 1917. The soldier's joy was deepened by the
belief that here his warfare was accomplished, his marching finished.
Even when we went by the city, and fought battles on either bank, the
7th Indian Division at Mushaidiyeh (March 14) and the 3rd Indian, most
disastrously, in the foothills of the Jebel Hamrin (March 25), this
comfort was not destroyed. These two hard actions were but the sweeping
away of ants' nests from before a house; our position now secured, we
should fall back, and rest in Baghdad. The Turk might try to turn us
out; but that was a very different affair, and it would be months
before he could even dream of an offensive.
So in April the 7th Division had withdrawn to Baghdad, all except the
28th Brigade, who were at Babi, a dozen miles up-stream. At Babi it was
not yet desert--there was grass and wheat; but the garden-belt and
trees had finished.
On the 3rd came official news that Tennant, of the R.F.C., had landed
among the Cossacks, and been tumultuously welcomed; presently we heard
that the Russians and ourselves had joined hands. This was towards the
Persian border, on the left bank of the Tigris, where the 13th and 14th
Divisions were operating. That force and ours, the 7th, were now to
advance together on Samarra; a new campaign was beginning, in which we
took the right bank.
A Mobile Column was formed, under Brigadier-General Davies, as the
spearhead of the 7th Division's thrust. It consisted of the 28th
Infantry Brigade (2nd Leicestershires, 51st and 53rd Sikhs, 56th
Rifles, and 136th Machine-Gun Company), the 9th Brigade, R.F.A. (less
one battery), one section of the 524th Battery, R.F.A., a
Light-Armoured Motor-Battery, the 32nd Lancers (less two squadrons),
and a half-company of Sappers and Miners; an ammunition column and
ambulances.
Fritz--the enemy's airman--inspected us before we started. Then the
Leicestershires, by twelve and eight miles, marched in two days to a
point opposite Sindiyeh, on the Tigris. The Indian battalions cut
across country to Sumaikchah, which lies inland.
That day and night by Sindiyeh! '_Infandum jubes renovare dolorem._'
The day was one of burning discomfort, spent in cracks and nullas,
under blanket bivouacs. We had tramped, from dawn, through eight miles
of 'chivvy-dusters,' and our camp was now among them. These are a grass
which crams the clothes and feet with maddening needles; once in they
seemed there 'for duration.' The soldier out East knows them for his
worst foe on a march. Lest we should be obsessed with these, we were
infested with sandflies and mosquitoes. But large black ants were the
principal line in vermin. At dinner they swarmed over us. Man after man
dropped his plate and leapt into a dervish-dance, frenziedly slapping
his nose and ears. We tried to eat standing; even so, we were
festooned. Little Westlake, the 'Cherub,' abandoned all hope of
nourishment, and crept wretchedly into a clothes-pile. There was no
sleep that night.
The river ran beneath lofty bluffs; on the left bank was a
far-stretching view of low, rich country, with palms and canals. Fritz
visited us, and a monitor favoured us with some comically bad shooting.
And after sundown came a moon, benignant, calm, in a cloudless heaven,
looking down on men miserable with small vexations, which haply saved
them from facing too much the deeper griefs which accompanied them.
Next morning, Good Friday, we joined the rest of the column at
Sumaikchah. The Cherub with his scouts went ahead to find a road. All
the field was jumping with grasshoppers, on which storks were feeding.
Scattered bushes looked in the mirage like enemy patrols. We were
escorted by Fritz, whose kindly interest in our movements never
flagged. We started late, at 6.50 a.m., and without breakfast, the
distance being under-estimated. A zigzagging course made the journey
into over ten miles, in dreadful heat; we were marching till past noon.
When Sumaikchah came in sight, men fell out, exhausted, in bunches and
groups.
[Illustration: (Map) LOWER MESOPOTAMIA]
Though we were unmolested, the countryside was full of eyes. Shortly
afterwards an artillery officer, bringing up remounts, sent a Scots
sergeant ahead to Sumaikchah, with a strong escort, to bring back
rations. The party was fired on by Buddus. The sergeant's report
attained some fame; deservedly, so I give it here:
'We were fired on, sirrr.'
'Did you fire back?'
'No, sirrr. I thocht it would have enrrraged them. But I'd have ye
know, sirrr, that it's hairrrdly safe to be aboot.'
We came, says Xenophon, to 'a large and thickly populated city named
Sittake.' His troops encamped 'near a large and beautiful park, which
was thick with all sorts of trees, at a distance of fifteen stades from
the river.'[1] This description still holds true of Sumaikchah. The
ancient irrigation channels are dry, and the town has shrunken; but it
remains a large garden-village. Here were melons and oranges, fowls and
turkeys, exorbitantly priced, of course; possibly Xenophon's troops got
their goods more cheaply in the year 399 B.C.
Sumaikchah is an oasis with eighty wells. The water was full of salts.
It was bad as water; it was execrable as tea. Many of the wells on the
Baghdad-Samarra Railway have these natural salts. Every one who left
Sumaikchah next morning was suffering from diarrhoea. Here again one
remembers the _Anabasis_ and the troublesome experience which the notes
I read at school ascribed to poisonous honey gathered from the flowers
of _rhododendron ponticum_.
Our brief stay here was unlike anything we had known, except in our
racing glimpse of the flowery approaches to Kut. The village had palms
and rose bushes. A coarse hyacinth, found already at Mushaidiyeh, now
seeding, grew along the railway and in the wheat. We camped amid green
corn; round us were storksbills, very many, and a white orchis, slight
and easily hidden, the same orchis that I found afterwards in Palestine
and in the Hollow Vale of Syria. A small poppy and a bright thistle set
their flares of crimson and gold in the green; sowthistle and myosote
freaked it with blue; a tall gladiolus, also to be found later by the
Aujeh and on Carmel, made pink clusters. Thus did flowers overlay the
fretting spikes of our road, and adorn and hide 'the coming bulk of
Death.'
Through Saturday we rested. Fritz came, of course; and there was a
little harmless sniping.
The knowledge filtered in that fighting was again at hand. It was
accepted without comment, with the soldier's well-known fatalism, the
child of faith and despair. 'Every man thinks,' said one to me, 'I
don't care who he is. But we believe it's all right till our number's
up. Take M----, for instance. When he was left out at Sannaiyat we all
envied him; we thought we were for it. But we went through Sannaiyat;
and M---- was the first of us to be killed at Mushaidiyeh, his very
first action, where we had hardly any casualties.'
In the evening the rest of the division came up to take our place.
Sunday, by old prescription, was the 7th Division's battle-day; next
Sunday being Easter, it was not to be supposed that so fair an occasion
would be passed over. Accordingly, when I put in my services, I was
told that the brigade would march before dawn, and that some scrapping
was anticipated. The Turks were holding Beled Station, half a dozen
miles away in a straight line. Their main force was at Harbe, four
miles farther. The maps were no use, and distances had to be guessed.
'The force against us,' observed the Brigade-Major, 'is somewhere
between a hundred Turks and two guns, and four thousand Turks and
thirty-two guns.' 'And if it's the four thousand and thirty-two guns?'
'Then we shall sit tight, and scream for help,' he answered
delightedly.
2. THE ACTION FOR BELED
Davies's Column were away before breakfast. In the dim light we moved
through wet fields of some kind of globe-seeded plant, abundantly
variegated with gladiolus and hyacinth. Every one was suffering from
our course of Sumaikchah waters, and progress was slow. Splashing
through the marshes, we came to undulating upland, long, steady slopes,
pebble-strewn and with pockets of grass and poppies. The morning winds
made these uplands exceedingly beautiful. Colonel Knatchbull said, the
week he died, that what he most remembered from Beled were the flowers
through which we marched to battle. As we approached them, the ruffling
wind laid its hand on the grasses, and they became emerald waves, a
green spray of blades tossing and flashing in the full sunlight. As we
passed, the same wind bowed them before it, and they were a shining,
silken cloth. The poppies were a larger sort than those in the
wheatfields, and of a very glorious crimson. In among the grasses was
yellow coltsfoot; among the pebbles were sowthistle, mignonette, pink
bindweed, and great patches of storksbill. Many noted the beauty of
these flowers, a scene so un-Mesopotamian in its brightness. We were
tasting of the joy and life of springtide in happier latitudes, a wine
long praetermitted to our lips; and among us were those who would not
drink of this wine again till they drank it new in their Father's
Kingdom. After Beled we saw no more flowers.
With the first line was my friend Private W----. As we pushed forward
he looked up, as his custom was, for a 'message.' Perchance, with so
many fears and hopes stirring, there was some buzzing along the
heavenly wires; but the only word he could get was this one, 'Because.'
He puzzled upon it, till the whole flashed on his brain--'Because Thy
lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee.'
Thenceforward he went his ways content; neither can any man have
gathered greater pleasure from the beauty of the morning and those
unwonted flowers than this Plymouth Brother, a gardener by profession,
and, as I found in later days, amid the rich deep meadows of the Holy
Land, a passionate lover of all wild plants.
The left flank was guarded by one section of machine-gunners and one
section of the 32nd Lancers. Next to them moved the Leicestershires.
Some time after 8 a.m. rifle-fire on our left told us that the Cherub's
scouts were in touch with enemy patrols. About 9.30 the first shell
came, our advanced guard being some five thousand yards from Beled
Station.
There were frequent halts, while our few cavalry reconnoitred. Then we
passed into a deep broad nulla between two ancient earth-walls. All
this terrain had been a network of canals and cultivation. Shrapnel was
bursting in our front. We filed out, at the left, on to a plain. Half a
mile ahead was the nearer curve of a hilly ground. The main range ran
in a Carpathian-like sweep across our front, from west to east; turned,
and went across our front again. Beyond this was Beled Station, lying
at the point of a wide fork of hills, the left prong a good mile away,
but the right bending almost up to it. From the forking to the station
was a broken plain of two thousand yards. This plain had to be
overcome, with such assistance as the hills gave. The hills were pretty
uniform in height, and nowhere above thirty feet. The railway cut
directly through the main range, giving the enemy a field of fire for
his machine-guns. The range, with its double fold across our front,
gave the artillery cover, and enabled us to conceal the smallness of
our force; and on both sides of the station it broke into a wilderness
of little knobs and hollows, by which we might creep up.
The shrapnel was uncomfortably close as we crossed to the first sweep
of hilly ground. But it was bursting high, and no casualties occurred.
We halted behind the hills, and the artillery left their wagons, taking
their guns into position where the range curved north-westerly. Here
two four-gun batteries put up a slow and not heavy bombardment on the
station. We waited and watched the shrapnel bursting five hundred yards
to our right. About noon the Leicestershires were ordered to support
the 53rd and 51st Sikhs in an attack on the station. (The 56th Rifles
were in reserve throughout the action.) D Company was to move on the
left of the railway as a flank-guard, and went forward under Captain
Creagh.
I must now speak of Second-Lieutenant Fowke, our tallest subaltern. In
place of the orthodox shade of khaki he wore a reddish-brown
shooting-jacket, which shimmered like bright silk if there was any sun.
Nevertheless he was the only Leicestershire subaltern who went through
all our battles unwounded. Of his cheerfulness and courage, his wit,
and the love with which his colleagues and his men regarded him, the
reader will learn. Fowke was detached with his platoon to act on our
extreme left in co-operation with our handful of Indian cavalry. The
operation was an undesirable one, to advance into a maze of tiny hills,
held by an enemy of unknown strength; and as Fowke moved off I
remembered the Sieur de Joinville's _Memoirs_ and a passage mentioned
between us the previous day. So, as I wished him good luck, I said, 'Be
of good cheer, seneschal, for we shall yet talk over this day in the
ladies' bowers.' Once upon a time Fowke had read for Holy Orders, a
fact which contributed not a little to the astonishment and delight
with which he was regarded. He smiled gravely in answer to me, and
moved on. But after the scrap he told me that he wished just then that
he had continued in his first vocation and become a padre.
Behind D Company moved Charles Copeman, O.C. bombers, and a section of
machine-gunners under Lieutenant Service. The rest of the
machine-gunners followed up along the railway.
We who remained crossed the ridge and advanced in artillery formation
up the right side of the railway. The Sikhs slipped away into the hills
to our right.
Readers of _Quentin Durward_ will remember the two hangmen of Louis XI,
the one tall, lean, and solemn; the other short, fat, and jolly.
Wilson, the Leicestershires' doctor, had two most excellent assistants
who occupied much the same positions. But Sergeant Whitehead, who was
short, went his sombre way with a gravity that never weakened into a
smile; while Dobson, an ex-miner, aged forty-seven, who had deceived
the recruiting people most shamelessly and enlisted as under thirty,
took life jovially and generally humorously. He was never without his
pipe. He enjoyed a large medical practice in the regiment, unofficial
and unpaid, and he held strong opinions, observing frequently that he
'didn't hold with' a thing. I remember well the annoyance of Wilson's
successor on hearing that Dobson 'didn't hold with' inoculation, which
just then was occupying most of the medical officer's time. Another
thing that Dobson 'didn't hold with' was the modern notion that some
diseases were infectious. Because of his years and medical knowledge,
this kindly, never-wearied old hero was always known by the regiment as
'Mester Dobson.' I shall follow their example, and so call him
henceforth.
I also was of Wilson's entourage, and went with him accordingly. Before
we crossed the first ridge we picked up a man prostrate with
heat-stroke; we left him under a culvert, in charge of John, Wilson's
Indian orderly.
Meanwhile D Company found the hills on our left strongly held. Every
slope was sown with shallow trenches, earth-scars which held six or
seven Turks, and snipers caused us casualties. Lieutenant-Colonel
Knatchbull, learning this, on his own initiative swung round B and C
Companies across the railway to support D. Wilson now came upon his
first casualty, a signaller hit in the spine. We bandaged him, and left
him in a shallow nulla, sheltered from the bullets flying over. He died
next day.
B and C Companies, crossing the railway, pushed up a long narrow nulla
to the hills where D were engaged. Service's machine-guns put up a
covering fire.
The attack had now developed along two distinct lines, and on the
railway itself we had no troops. The enemy presently put down a barrage
of shrapnel all the right length of the line, where he had seen our men
cross, of which barrage every shell during two hours was wasted. As
Wilson dropped down the embankment on our left side of the railway, we
found machine-gunners sheltering in a quarry, awaiting orders. 'It's
unhealthy over there,' said their O.C., Lieutenant Sanderson. 'The
Turks have a machine-gun on it.' However, there was a lull as we
crossed to the nulla, and only a very few bullets went by. In the nulla
Wilson set up his aid-post, sticking a second flag above the railway,
for the solitary company that was supporting the Sikhs' attack. Wounded
began to come in, the first cases being not bad ones. 'Give you five
rupees for that wound, sergeant,' said Mester Dobson. 'You can't have
it for seventy-five,' said Sergeant Hayes, as he limped off in search
of the ambulances, smiling happily. Perhaps nothing will stir the
unborn generations to greater pity than this knowledge, that for youth
in our generation wounds and bodily hurt were a luxury.
But cases soon came in of men badly hit, in much pain. With them was
borne a dead man, Sergeant Lawrence, D.C.M., a quiet and much-liked
man. My Plymouth Brother friend came also, and sat aside, saying he
could wait, as a stretcher-case was following him. As the doctor saw to
that broken body, my friend rested his wounded leg, and we had some
talk. The long marches, the nights of little sleep, and the unsheltered
days of heat and toil and wearied waiting for evening had tired him
out. 'I want rest,' he said, 'and I think the Lord knows it, and has
sent rest along.' All our men were brave and cheerful, but no more
cheerful hero limped off through the bullets than my calm and gentle
friend.
Wilson went out for a few minutes to see a man in the second line, hit
in the groin. When he returned we had some cruelly broken cases in,
and that nulla saw a deal of pain, and grew stale with the smell of
blood. A fair number of bullets flew over, and there was the occasional
swish of a machine-gun. Mules were killed far back in the second line,
and men hit. But the nulla was safe. The misguided Turk shelled and
machine-gunned the empty space beyond the railway.
Colonel Knatchbull came in and assured Wilson that the nulla was the
best and most central place for the aid-post. He searched the front
with his glasses. Then he said, 'Marner's dead.'
The Leicestershires' attack was held up in the hills. They asked for
support, but none was available. They were told to advance as far as
they could, and then hold their line till help could come. The hills
were thick with excellent positions. Every fold and dip was utilized by
a scattered and numerous foe, to whom the ragged ground was like a
cloak of invisibility. No artillery help could be given. We could only
seize the ground's advantage and make it serve as help to the attack as
well as to the defence. It was here that Marner fell. C Company was
sheltering in an ancient canal. Seeing a man fall, Captain Hasted
called out, 'Keep your heads down.' Almost at that moment Marner looked
over, having spotted a sniper who was vexing us, and fell dead at
Grant-Anderson's feet. Though in falling he brushed against Hasted, the
latter could not pause to see who it was; nor did he know till he cried
out, a minute later, that Marner was to move round the flank of the
position immediately before them. Some two hundred yards farther on
Second-Lieutenant Otter was struck by a bullet which went through both
left arm and body, a bad but not fatal wound. But a gracious thought
came to the Turkish gunners. Seeing us without artillery support from
our own guns, they put two rounds of shrapnel over, the only shells on
these ridges during the fight. These burst directly on the Turkish
snipers, who did not wait for the hint to be repeated, but went. The
Leicestershires topped the last ridge, and were on the plain before the
station. Fowke and Service remained to guard the left flank, while
Hasted went forward with the bayonet to clear the hills to the left.
Fowke, watching benevolently the evolutions of certain horsemen on his
left, received a message from our cavalry, 'Those are Arabs on your
left, and are hostile to you.'
And now it would have meant a bloody advance for A and B Companies
against those trenches in the open. But the Turks, held by the
Leicestershires' strong steady attack, had given insufficient attention
to the movement threatening their left. The two Sikh regiments, though
checked and held from time to time by rifle and machine-gun fire, used
the broken ground with extraordinary skill. Their experience on the
Afghan frontier had trained them for just such work as this. Rising
ground was used as positions for covering fire, and every knoll and
hummock became a shoulder to lift the force along. Their supporting
battery had located the enemy's gun-positions, and kept down his fire.
One gun-team bolted, and the crew were seen getting the gun away by
hand and losing in the effort. The Sikhs rushed a low hill, which had
long checked them, and its garrison of one officer and twenty-five men
surrendered. This attack was led by the well-known 'Boomer' Barrett,
colonel of the 51st. He slapped the nearest prisoner on the back and
bellowed '_Shabash_.'[2] The enemy's resistance crumbled rapidly. A
breach had been made in his defence, and the Sikhs poured through. They
made two thousand yards, and did a swift left-turn. The enemy on their
right slipped off, but the Turks in the trenches covering the station
had left things too late. The 51st drove the foe before them to the
north of the station, and the 53rd rushed the station itself, capturing
eight officers and a hundred and thirty-five men, with two
machine-guns. This was about 3 p.m.
Wilson now left his aid-post, and we came up the line. All the way the
Turk was shelling the railway, but, by that fortunate defect of
observation conspicuous throughout, shelling our right exclusively, for
not a shell came on the left. We passed the enemy's trenches and
rifle-pits, which scarred some six or seven hundred yards of space
before the station; there were rifles leaning against the walls, with
bayonets fixed.
The station had excellent water, a great attraction after the filthy
wells of Sumaikchah. No one heeded that the Turk was dropping shells
two thousand yards our side of the station. 'He always does that. It's
a sort of rearguard business. It's the ammunition he can't get away.
He'll be moving his guns quickly enough when we get ours on to them.'
But, as the official report afterwards observed, with just annoyance at
the enemy's refusal to recognize that the action was finished: 'During
the whole of the afternoon and till dusk the enemy continued to shell
the captured position with surprising intensity, considering what had
been heard of his shortage in gun-ammunition.' What happened, in fuller
detail, was this.
Beled Station was like the gate of Heaven. With the exception of the
Leicestershires, still in the field, all the great and good were
gathered there. The first I saw was that genial philosopher, Captain
Newitt, of the 53rd Sikhs, sitting imperturbable on a fallen wall and
smoking the pipe without which he has never been seen. Not Marius amid
Carthage ruins was more careless of the desolation around him. With him
was Culverwell, adjutant of the same battalion. They hailed me with
joyous affection, and we drank the waters and swapped the news. General
Davies came up and asked, 'Have the Leicesters taken any prisoners?' I
told him 'No.' He seemed disappointed; then added, 'We've taken over
two hundred prisoners, including nine officers and three machine-guns.
What were your casualties?' 'About twenty, sir,' I said. 'The 53rd have
had thirteen men wounded,' said the Brigade-Major. 'Fifty will cover
the casualties for the whole brigade. It's been a most successful
action.'
Marner's loss was greatly felt. 'I hear you've lost a good officer,'
said the Brigadier; and the Brigade-Major added, 'He was the brigade's
great stand-by for maps and drawings. I don't know how we can replace
him.'
Then for a moment we fell to jape and jesting; foolishly, for the Gods
are always listening, and the Desert-Gods have long ears. 'You're last
from school,' said Brigade-Major McLeod. 'You know Napier's
message--"_Peccavi_, I have Sind." Give me a wire for Corps, "I have
B-led."' '"_Sanguinevi_,"' I said, 'if such a verb exists. Let's call
it very late Latin.'
As we spoke, the enemy shortened his range; a shell skimmed the roof,
and burst at the embankment bottom, directly under two Sikhs who were
cooking. It hurled one man into the air and the other to one side. A
great dust went up. Before most people realized what had happened,
Wilson and Stones were carrying the men up the bank. This was an
extremely brave deed, for a second shell was certain, and, as a matter
of fact, a second and a third came just as they had reached our wall.
Stones, like many medical officers, was a missionary; he had come from
West Africa. He had one of the noblest faces I ever saw; a very gentle
and courteous man, fearless and with eager eyes. He served with the
56th Rifles.
One of the stricken men was a mass of bleeding ribbons, the top of his
head blown off. A cloth was drawn over his face; he was dead. The other
had his left leg torn off below the knee, his right heel blown away,
and wounds in his head and stomach. He died that evening. Now he lay
with scarcely a moan, while Sikhs gathered round and gave such
consolation as was possible, an austere, brave group.
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP FOR ACTION FOR BELED STATION.]
The Turkish gunners now concentrated on the station and its approaches.
Our cavalry rode through the Leicestershires' lines as those warriors
moved up to an advanced line of defence. They brought a wounded
prisoner. The enemy instantly shrapnelled them, and they scattered,
the prisoner, for all his broken leg, keeping his seat excellently and
riding surprisingly fast. Luck had been with the battalion this day,
and it now remained with them. Many had rifles hit. Fowke, who was a
magnet for bullets, had his right shoulder's star flattened. But there
were no casualties. The enemy, growing vindictive, chased small bodies
of even three or four with shrapnel. He continued to pelt the station,
throwing at least two hundred rounds on it in two hours. Mules and
horses were hit, and many men. Isolated men, holding horses in the
open, had a bad time. Several shells landed on the roof, and had there
been against us the huge guns of other fronts the station would have
gone up in dust. When I saw it again, a month later, I realized what a
rough house that tiny spot had experienced. Unexploded shells were
still in the walls, and on the inner wall of the side that had
sheltered me I counted over twenty direct hits. Fortunately the 5.9's
were not in action this day, and every station on the Baghdad-Samarra
line has been built as a fortress, massively. By incredible luck no
shell came through the doorless openings and rooms behind us; they
struck the inner wall and roof. But the water-station behind us gave
very poor shelter to the men there. Shells burst on the railway, and
sent a sheet of smoke and rubble before them. Two of our guns came up
to the hills that had covered the Sikhs' advance, but fired very few
shells, failing to find a target. The enemy saw their flashes, and
fired back without effect. Then Fritz came and hovered above our
huddled crowd with low, deliberate circles. We took it for granted he
would bomb us, or, at kindest, spot for his guns. But he just hung
over us, and then went to look for our batteries.
Before this McLeod offered me a cup of tea. We drank it in a tin shed a
few yards south of the station. I wanted the tea horribly, but felt it
was 'hairrdly safe to be aboot.' This feeling was shared, for when the
staff-captain and signalling-officer joined us, the latter asked,
'Isn't this spot a bit unhealthy, sir?' 'Oh, no,' said McLeod. 'It's
quite safe from splinters, and it's no use bothering about a direct
hit.' As I had seen high explosive burst pretty well all round, and
both windows were smashed of every inch of glass, I could not quite
share this confidence that the hut was splinter-proof. But I required
that tea. It was very good tea. Had it been shaving water, it would
have gone cold at once. But being tea which I wished to drink quickly,
it remained at boiling-point and declined to be mollified with milk.
However, no more H.E.[3] came our way, only shrapnel.
McLeod said we had had at least two thousand Turks against us and at
least twelve guns. During the action the enemy reinforced the position
from his main one at Harbe. He must have had other casualties in
addition to our prisoners. Our left wing, when they occupied the hills,
saw four or five hundred Turks 'skirr away' in one body, and the
machine-gunners found a target. Raiding-parties of Arabs hung on our
flanks throughout the day, and increased the force against us, at any
rate numerically.
The day had been cloudy and comparatively cool, and an exquisite
evening crowned it. With dusk I left the station, where wounded Turks
were groaning and shells bursting, and sought the hills. The shrapnel
was dying down, and, once off the plain, all was quiet. The scene here
was one of great loveliness. The Dujail, a narrow canal from the
Tigris, ran swiftly with water of delightful coldness and sweetness.
The canal was fringed with flowers, poppies, marguerites, and campions;
the innumerable folds and hollows were emerald-green. C Company were
holding the extreme left of our picket-line. Here I found Hasted, Hall,
Fisher, and Charles Copeman. We held a dry, very deep irrigation-canal,
running at right angles to the Dujail. There were no shells, and we
could listen composedly to the last of the shrapnel away on the right.
The full moon presently flooded the hills with enchantment. But our
night was broken by Arab raids. Twice these robbers of the dead and
wounded tried to rush us. The first party probably escaped in the
bushes, but the second suffered casualties. In the evening Arabs had
raided our aid-post, wounding the attendant, who escaped with
difficulty. Fortunately there was none but dead there; these they
stripped, cutting off one man's finger for the ring on it. All night
long they prowled the battlefield and dug up our buried dead. For
which, retribution came next day.
Fisher and I scraped a hole in our canal, and tried to sleep. But a
cold wind sneaked about the nulla, and the hours dragged past with
extreme discomfort. No one had blanket or overcoat, and most were in
shorts. At dawn we had ten minutes' notice to rejoin the rest of the
regiment behind the station. In that ten minutes I had opportunity to
admire the soldier-man's resourcefulness. One of the picket, thrusting
his hand deep into one of the countless holes in our canal-wall, found
two tiny eggs. Raising fat in some fashion--probably a candle-end--he
had fried eggs for breakfast before we moved. The eggs were presumed to
be grouse-eggs. More likely they were bee-eater's, or may have been
snake's or lizard's. These canals are haunted by huge monitors, and
there must be tortoises in the Dujail. However, eggs were found, and
eggs were eaten.