They brought a broken body, frail but brave;
A boy who carried into death the smile
With which he thanked for water that we gave.
Steadfast among the steadfast, those who kept
The narrow pass whereby the Leicesters swept,
Amid the mounded sands of ancient pride
He sleeps where Grattan fell and Adams died.
I know his father, and the Himalayan oaks and pines amid which he grew
to manhood. Men looking on Scarth loved him. The freshness of his
mountain home and his free, happy life clung to him to this end, amid
the tumults and terrors of our desert battle.
The son of Hyrtacus, whom Ide
Sent, with his quiver at his side,
From hunting beasts in forest-brake,
To follow in Æneas' wake.[16]
At dusk Wilson came. He had been toiling away, exposed and close up to
the fighters, as always--there never was a braver regimental medical
officer--and he now asked me to be responsible for getting his wounded
away, whilst he searched the battlefield. So all his cases were
evacuated into my place. At the same time many chits reached me,
addressed to the O.C. Clearing-Station. As there was no such person, I
opened these. The regimental aid-posts were pressing to be cleared. My
own place had men from seven different regiments, British and Indian,
as well as Turks, and Wilson was sending more along. So I found McLeod,
and we 'phoned down to the field ambulances. These were congested from
yesterday's battle and to-day's walking cases, and replied that nothing
could be done till dawn. But we were so insistent that about midnight
bullock-carts turned up, and I got fifty wounded away. The
'cahars,'[17] in their zeal to remove all kit belonging to the wounded,
carried off my water-bottle, haversack, rations, and communion-kit. But
before this I had been down to the Tigris in the darkness, and drunk
like a wounded wolf.
To return to the battle as it died away. The Forward Observing Officer
with the Leicestershires sent word back that fourteen guns (instead of
nine) had been taken. The news was exultantly forwarded to Corps H.Q.
When the case proved to be nine only, and those nine lost again, the
message was allowed to stand, the authorities hoping against hope that
the guns would walk back into our possession. And Fortune was very good
to them. Those guns, indeed, came not back; but, as darkness fell, two
burning barges, as already mentioned, floated down the river. One was
exploding, like a magazine on fire. This contained ammunition. The
other barge, when pulled to shore, was found to contain fourteen
field-guns, the number specified to Corps--old guns, but serviceable.
Johnny, despairing of getting these away, had set fire to the barge to
sink them. So the original message stood, and our loss could be glossed
over. And the wastefulness of sinking quite good guns was avoided.
The night was sleepless, bitterly cold. Dobson and I kept a watch for
Arabs. I sat beside a dead man, and shared his oil-sheet. A few more
wounded came in after midnight, among them Sergeant Tivey. All night
long wounded Turks crawled the battlefields and cried in the cold. But
I heard none of them, for there were groans much nearer. Our unwounded
prisoners were crowded into a nulla. Among them was the Turkish
Artillery Brigade Commander, who knew some English and kept insisting
on a hearing from time to time. But all he ever said was, 'Yes,
gentlemen, you have got my guns, but, what is far worse, you have got
me.' Had we cared, we might have cheered him with the information that
we had not got his guns, but only himself. Yet, considering the
relative value, in his eyes, of himself and these, such information
would hardly have consoled him.
In this battle occurred a case of a man being 'fey.' An officer gave
his kit and money to his batman, for distribution to his platoon, the
previous night. As he went into action a friend exchanged greetings. He
replied, 'Yes, but I'm afraid I'm not coming back to-day.' No one saw
him fall, but he was found dead in the mounds, with several wounds.
The east was reddening when I saw Haughton, Staff-Captain of the 19th
Brigade, on the hillock above the aid-post. This Brigade H.Q. were my
best friends in the division. I begged a mug of tea from him, so we
went along together. I found General Peebles and Brigade-Major
Thornhill, and they gave me an excellent breakfast.
The 28th Brigade moved on, following the 21st Brigade, who occupied
Samarra. But the wounded remained. Shortly after dawn the medical folk,
in fulfilment of their promise, sent up an ordinary motor-car and took
away two sitting cases. Nothing else happened. Time passed, and the
heat was getting up. So I wandered back some miles, and found
hospital-tents. Here was Father Bernard Farrell, the Roman Catholic
padre, slaving, as he had done all night. I saw Westlake, and Sowter,
who was dying. 'It's been a great fight, padre,' said Sowter, 'a great
fight. I'm getting better.' No loss was felt more severely than that of
this quiet, able man. He had seen much fighting in France, and in this,
his first action with us, he impressed every one with his coolness and
efficiency. He had walked across to Lowther, his company commander, to
draw his attention to a new and threatening movement of the enemy.
Then, as he stopped to bandage a wounded sergeant, a bullet pierced
his stomach. The same bullet, leaving his body, went through both legs
of Sergeant Lang, the one bullet making six holes. Sowter had been with
us one week. I never knew any one whose influence went so deep in so
brief a time.
Our seven-days' guest, he came and went his ways,
Walking the darkness garlanded with praise!
Our seven-days' guest! Yet love that this man gained
Others have scarce in three-score years attained.
The hospital-tents were congested with wounded, and the responsible
officer declined to take any more. They had no more stretchers, all
being used as beds, and no more space. Fortunately an order came from
Division that they must immediately remove some wounded Turks. I said,
'I have some wounded Turks.' 'Yes, but I'm afraid those aren't the
Turks meant.' 'Well,' I replied, 'I've been up all night, and I'm very
footsore. You might at least give me a lift back.' This was conceded,
and I returned in the first of five motor-ambulances. The
corporal-in-charge had no idea where he was to find the wounded Turks,
so I swept him into my place. This I cleared of every one but a few
horribly wounded prisoners, and sent on a note to the M.O. of the 51st
Sikhs.
The previous day two wounded Turks, a machine-gun officer and a Red
Crescent orderly, had arrived in the aid-post. The latter helped nobly
with the wounded, so I had a note sent down with them, that they had
earned good treatment. The officer had a friend from the same military
college in Stamboul, which friend had a ghastly shell-wound in his
back. What happened, I think, was this. When his friend was knocked
out, the unwounded officer--they were both boys, well under
twenty--brought up a medical orderly. All three were then overwhelmed
by our rush, and in the confusion the unwounded men kept with the
other, to see that he got treatment when opportunity came. So they
slipped into my aid-post, where they stopped all night, making no offer
to escape. I sent a message to Brigade, but their reply, a verbal one
which did not reach me till next evening, was that they had better stay
where they were. The unwounded officer's silent anxiety for his friend
was most touching, and I pushed the latter away with the midnight
convoy. Next morning I sent both officer and orderly to the nearest
prisoners' camp; but the sergeant-in-charge returned them, with word
that he took only wounded prisoners. So I had to keep them. Weir, the
staff-captain, joined me, and we talked to the officer in French while
we waited for the divisional second line to come up. We were puzzled as
to why the Turks left a position so strong as Istabulat before being
actually driven out. The officer's reply was, 'Because of the _tiar_'
(aeroplane). I cannot follow this, unless, misunderstanding us, he was
referring to this second day's fight and the aeroplane brought down at
the beginning. Perhaps, being afraid to send up any other 'planes, they
were deceived as to our number. He insisted that we had had three
divisions in action, and was mortified when we told him the truth.
The sun was getting very hot, and, since no more ambulances came, we
were troubled for the few pitifully smashed Turks who still remained.
We got covers of sorts for them, though we could not prevent the flies
from festooning their wounds. 'It's up to us to do our best,' said
Weir. 'We shouldn't care for it if our wounded were left by them.' In
the afternoon ambulances began to arrive, and I evacuated these few and
saw the evacuation of the Indian regimental A.P.'s commence. My dead
were buried, and their graves effaced, so far as possible, against
prowling Buddus. The second line arrived, so my prisoners and I set out
on our tired trudge to Samarra. I told the Turks of our Somme successes
(as we then took them to be) and our more recent March victories in
Flanders, pointing out the big improvement. 'In the beginning we had
little artillery, but now we have much.' '_Beaucoup_,' he repeated,
with conviction. In every way one spared a brave enemy's feelings. Last
year they had won; now it was our turn. 'That is so,' said he. This
thought comforted him, and the memory of their great triumphs before
Kut in early 1916. Did he not wear a medal for those days? '_Pour le
mérite_,' the orderly proudly told me. I begged scraps of biscuits from
men on the march, and we shared them. I expressed regret for this march
on empty stomachs. '_C'est toujours la marche_,' said the officer,
shrugging his shoulders. Truly, it must have been; a nightmare of rapid
movement and sleeplessness even for us who pursued--hammer and chase
ever since Maude broke up the Turkish lines before Kut.
As we marched I found that the Indians took us for three prisoners and
not two, I being a German officer. But when J.Y. cantered up and
hailed me, a laugh ran down the column, with the words 'Padre Sahib.'
At Samarra the first person we ran into was General Peebles, to whom I
handed over my prisoners, with a request that they should be fed.
Haughton promised to see to this. Then a pleasant thing happened. The
Turkish officer stepped quickly up to me, saluted, and held out his
hand. I saluted back, and we shook hands. They were good fellows, both
officer and orderly, and carried themselves like free men.
It was now 5 p.m. I joined the 'Tigers.' Fowke and Lowther had each
killed a snake after laying their blankets down. They gave me good
greeting. I fed and washed, then slept abundantly.
For the two Istabulat battles the official return of captures was:
Twenty officers and six hundred and sixty-seven men, one 5.9, fourteen
Krupp field-guns, two machine-guns, twelve hundred and forty rifles, a
quantity of hand-grenades, two hundred rounds of gun-ammunition, five
hundred and forty thousand rounds of rifle-ammunition, four limbers,
sixteen engines, two hundred and forty trucks, one crane, spare wheels
and other stores, two munition barges. Samarra Station was dismantled,
but the engines and trucks were there. Up to the last the Turk had
meant to keep the railhead, so the engines were only partly disabled,
boilers having been removed from some and other parts from others. By
putting parts of engines together we got a sufficiency of usable
engines. Within a fortnight we had trains running.
For the battle of the 22nd both Diggins and Lowther got M.C.'s. If it
was the former's élan which carried our wave into the enemy's guns,
the latter's judgement played a great part in extricating us without
disaster. Hasted, the alert and watchful, had already been gazetted
after the fall of Baghdad as D.S.O. He left us shortly after, returning
to his own regiment, the Durham Light Infantry, in India. In Rawal
Pindi he delivered a lecture on the action in which he had played so
brilliant a part.
It would be interesting to know if Hasted has ever had an enemy. His
personal charm is almost greater than any man has a right to have,
especially when the Gods have already made that man an able soldier and
administrator. But it is an unfair world.
These awards were announced in a _Gazette_ nearly a year later. To
Sowter, had he lived, would have fallen a third M.C. Fowke, as well as
Thorpe, got a 'mention,' of which he was utterly unaware, being away
sick, till I ran into him in Kantara[18] in 1918, about eleven o'clock
at night. I roused him from sleep for a chat. When I told him of his
'mention,' he considered that I was making a very successful attempt to
be humorous, and laughed himself to sleep again. At intervals till dawn
I heard him still laughing in his dreams at a notion so ridiculous.
I hope that some other will tell of the deeds of the Indian regiments.
Even more I hope that some one will tell, as I cannot, of the gallant
and costly charge which our cavalry made on the Turkish trenches to our
left, a charge which staggered the enemy as he swung round to cut off
the Leicestershires. The 32nd Lancers lost, among others, their
Colonel (Griffiths) and their Adjutant (Captain Hunter), killed.
These two days' fighting at Istabulat and for Samarra cost us about two
thousand four hundred casualties. The 28th Brigade, on the 22nd, lost
four hundred and forty-six men. The enemy's losses, including
prisoners, must have been at least three thousand.
My one note for April 24 is 'Flies.' It was high summer, and in the
terrible and waxing heats we lay for over a month longer, with no
tents, and with no shelter save our blanket-bivvies. We were the more
wretched in that we occupied an old enemy camp, and were entered into
full possession of its legacy of filth and flies. On the first Sunday
my morning service was swathed in dust, one swirling misery, and I was
sore tempted to preach, foreseeing the days to come, on 'These are but
the beginning of sorrows.'
FOOTNOTES:
[12] A lecture delivered by him at Rawal Pindi, India. See Preface.
[13] Action of January 13, 1916.
[14] Hasted.
[15] Hasted.
[16] _Æneid_, Book IX, Conington's translation.
[17] Indian hospital orderlies and bearers.
[18] On the Suez Canal.
V
SUMMER AND WAITING
Samarra was entered on April 23, the 21st and 8th Brigades going
through the 19th and 28th Brigades. These brigades followed during the
course of the day, and the ridge of Al-Ajik fell into our hands. From
Samarra northwards high bluffs run with the river, pushing out to it
from plateaus stretching across the heart of Jezireh and climbing again
beyond the river to the Jebel Hamrin. Below the bluffs are wide spaces
of dead ground, beds which the Tigris has forsaken. On the right bank,
before the dead ground begins and directly opposite Samarra town, is a
plain some ten or dozen miles in length, between the mounds of the
battle of April 22 and the crest of Al-Ajik; this plain may be three
miles broad. Al-Ajik covers and commands all approaches from the north,
and, with the central plateau, shuts the plain within a crescent. Here,
behind Al-Ajik, lay our camp for the next seven months.
North from Al-Ajik the plateau rolls away to Tekrit, and the same
rolling country lies to westward also, broken with nulla and
water-hole. To Tekrit, more than twenty miles beyond, the Turkish Army
fled.
Samarra is a dirty, sand-coloured town, with no touch of brightness
but what its famous dome gives it. This dome it was that shone over
against the sunset, the last earthly beauty for so many eyes, on that
evening of savage battle when the 7th Division flung out its leading
brigade and reached, all but held, the Turkish guns. The dome hides the
cavern into which the Twelfth Imam vanished, and from which he will
emerge, bringing righteousness to a faithless world. Just beyond the
dome rises the corkscrew tower, built in imitation of the Babylonian
_ziggurats_. To the north-east is 'Julian's Tomb,' a high pyramid in
the desert. It was near Samarra that he suffered defeat and died of
wounds. For twenty miles round, in Beit Khalifa, Eski Baghdad, and
elsewhere, is one confused huddle of ruins. It is hard to believe that
such tawdry magnificence as Harun's successors intermittently brought
to the town during the precarious times of Abbasid decay is responsible
for all these arches and caverns and tumbled bricks. Major Kenneth
Mason, already mentioned as having identified Xenophon's Sittake, has
collected good reasons for placing Opis, once the great mart of the
East, at Eski Baghdad, and not where the maps conjecturally place it,
twenty miles farther down Tigris. In summer, green is none save in
patches by the river; but a thin scurf of yellow grass and coarse
herbage overspread the ruins, in which were abundant partridges and
quails. Germans had been excavating before we came, and we found in the
town many cases of antiquities, ready packed for transport to Europe.
The 7th Division, digging their positions, presently found pottery,
glazed fragments, and tear-bottles.
The town is walled, and sits above steep bluffs. Tigris, swift and
clear like a mountain stream, races by, dividing round an island. Below
the town is another island, with an expanse of shingle towards the
right bank; to this island Divisional Head Quarters went, a most unfair
avoidance of the 'dust-devils' which plagued their brethren. Here were
tamarisk thickets, haunted with great metallic beetles, with such wings
as Eastern smiths know how to use. The green bushes were good to the
eyes, and a pleasant curtain from flying sand. But a sudden rise in the
river flushed its shallow right arm, and made the place an island in
reality and all inconvenience. The righteous, seeing this, rejoiced.
The brigades scattered over the plain, the 8th Brigade going on, after
brief pause, to the ravines and jungles of the Adhaim, where the war
was dying. May's first week swept the Turk out of the Adhaim Valley,
and our troops settled down for the summer.
The brigades scattered; blankets came up, and we slept. For over a
month we had only bivvies, the usual rifle-supported blanket, tugging
and straining at the stones which held it whenever a 'dust-devil'
danced by or a sandstorm arose. But E.P.[19] tents dribbled in. Even
mails began to arrive, and parcels; and to me, on the first day of
ease, came a jubilant telegram from my old friends of the 19th Brigade:
'Come and have tea with us. We have a cake!' I went, and found them
where the shingles led to Divisional Island. Blue rollers swung
themselves on the air below the cliffs; and on the pebbles an owl
skipped and danced, showing off in the beautiful evening sunlight.
This was a daily performance, Thornhill told me. It had been General
Peebles' birthday, and the brag about the cake was splendidly
justified. There were buns also.
Summer dragged by. In Baghdad pomegranates blossomed, mulberries
fruited, figs ripened. But in Samarra the desert throbbed and shimmered
in the growing and great heats. Worst of all, we missed the dates. The
fresh dates are the one solace of Mesopotamia. My campaigning
recollections are embittered by this memory, that both my two
date-seasons were spent up the line, at Sannaiyat and Samarra, where
dates never came. Till mid-May the nights remained cool. Mesopotamia's
extremes are amazing. After a day intolerable as I have found very few
days in India will come a night, not close and sleepless as an Indian
night, but cool, even cold. In the April fighting we found the nights
bitter. So May gave us a fortnight of tolerable nights; but then fire
settled on the land. The flies all died. But the infantry had an
elaborate trench-system to dig, so they were not able to die. The
ground was solid gypsum.
Changes happened. Generals Peebles and Davies went to India on leave.
The enemy's Intelligence Department, alert as ever, noted the fact, and
gave it out that our losses in the Istabulat battles were even heavier
than they had supposed at first, for two generals had left the front,
casualties. Such a statement was twice blessed: it cheered the enemy,
and cheered us also. In my own brigade Thorpe became staff-captain, in
place of Weir, who went home. To all the Leicestershires, and to me
especially, Thorpe's going was a heavy loss. 'I could have better
spared a better man.' I must henceforth botanize alone. No longer could
he teach young subalterns to 'practise music'--in the Socratic sense,
that the best music was philosophy--to be repaid with their
affectionate regard as 'Daddy.' He wrote to me, a month after his
going, that he was becoming as 'great a horseman as John Wesley'; and
he lost weight during that summer. He lost a good deal his first week,
and in this manner. The Bishop of Nagpur was due to visit us, and all
who had subscribed their religion officially as 'C. of E.' were
commanded to brighten belts and buttons for a service parade on
Wednesday at 6 ak. emma. The parade was held, every one arriving, of
course, considerably before the hour. The Divisional General was there,
and many generals and colonels; in fact, every Anglican of note, except
Thorpe, who sent word, about 6.30, that he had made a mistake, and the
service was to be next day, Thursday, at the same hour. At this
announcement a wave of uncontrollable grief swept over the vast
assembly, and for some days Thorpe was a fugitive. But he returned to
normal courses, and in time even this witty inauguration of his reign
was forgiven. But I had many inquiries as to the tenets of Wesleyanism.
For me, I went sick; recovered; and went sick again, drifting
down-stream, and to India. But first Thornhill, Bracken the
machine-gunner, and I explored Al-Ajik.
Once upon a time the river had washed the foot of Al-Ajik ridge. But
now a long stretch of dead ground intervenes before water is reached.
Local legend says a lady lived here who played Hero to a Leander on the
opposite bank. More obviously, Al-Ajik castle guarded Samarra from the
north. The castle is on steep crags, with vast nullas in front. In the
old days it should have been impregnable. Underneath are very large
vaults, filled with rubbish. As our exploring party came up a pair of
hawks left their eyrie, and circled round us, screaming their
indignation. When the division first reached Al-Ajik, Thornhill said, a
pair of Egyptian vultures (Pharaoh's Chickens) were nesting here. These
had gone. They are rare birds in Mesopotamia, and I never saw them
north of Sheikh Saad. Thornhill had seen Brahminy Duck in a nulla, so
we searched till we found a tunnel. Bracken leading, we got in some
hundred yards, stooping and striking matches, till we came on a heap of
bones. Thornhill surmised a hyena, so we returned, as no one wished to
fight even that, unarmed and in a diameter of less than five feet.
There must be many tunnels leading into the heart of Al-Ajik fortress;
and here, as everywhere on the plateau, were remains of the most
complicated irrigation system the ancient world knew. The castle, as it
stands, has been largely built out of the ruined portions on its
northern face.