Sannaiyat. The crested larks were of a new species. Owls nested in the
old wells; and most units were presently owning their owlets or
kestrels or speckled kingfishers, miserable-looking birds. Sandgrouse
were few, but commoner towards the central plateau, where were
water-holes. Gazelles were often seen by pickets, and used to break
across the railway-line, to water at the river. One regiment took a
Lewis-gun after them, and other folk chased them in motor-cars. The
British army, as ever, busied itself, as opportunity came, in its
self-appointed task of simplifying the country's fauna that the
naturalist's work might be easier. Wherefore the gazelles left our
precincts, but still haunted the channels of the Dujail, by Beled and
Istabulat. For most of the year the water-holes sufficed them, the
green, velvet dips, with zizyph-bushes fringing each hollow, which
redeem the desert. Hedgehog quills and skins were common, as everywhere
in Mesopotamia. A vast hedgehog led C Company of the Leicestershires
nightly to their picket-stations. On its first appearance a man ran to
bayonet it, but the officer did not see the necessity of this, and
stopped him. So the urchin lived, and ever after paced gravely before
its friends. Then we had the usual birds. Storks nested in the town;
there were rollers and kingfishers, and a hawk or two. But the desert,
with its starved crop of dwarf thorns, had no place for bird or animal.
Men who saw Samarra after my time raved of its winter glory, its
irises, its grass knee-high, its splendid anemones. But in summer the
land lay desolate. Nothing abounded but scorpions, mantidae, and
grasshoppers.
And nothing happened but the heat. In July, in ghastly heat, men were
expected to take Ramadie. They failed, most of their heavy casualties
being from heat-stroke. But that was the Connaught Rangers and a
Euphrates affair. At Samarra we experienced nothing more dangerous
than Fritz's[20] visits. Once or twice he bombed the station. When the
railway began running, there were two accidental derailments, in the
second of which several men were killed and General Maude had a narrow
escape. By Sumaikchah a British officer and his Indian escort were
waylaid and murdered. The murderers were outlawed; but a year later the
first on our list of the whole gang walked back into occupied territory
and was taken and hanged, despite the wish of the Politicals to spare
him. Of all these events, such as they were, we heard from Barron--'the
bold, bad Barron,' who left the Leicestershires to take up 'important
railway duties' pending the renewal of fighting.
These matters are dull enough; but no recital can be so dull as the
times were, and we had to live through them. At Samarra the division
worked unmolested through the awful heats, digging the hard ground,
cutting avenues for machine-gun fire, making strong points. Wilson had
gone, but he had an adequate successor in Haigh. Thanks to him, the
Leicestershires established the singular fact that Samarra is the
healthiest spot in the world. One man died, in place of the dreadful
sequence of deaths a year before at Sannaiyat. The division's daily
sick-rate was .9 a thousand! The Leicestershires and the Indian
battalions did even better. And yet we spent the summer in a place
where fresh vegetables were unprocurable, except a most inadequate
supply of melons and (rarely) beans. _Djinns_ scoured the plain, and at
any hour of any day half a score of 'dust-devils' could be seen racing
or sweeping majestically along--each _djinn_ seemed to make his own
wind and choose his own pace--now towering to a height of several
hundred feet, with vast, swirling base, and now trailing a tenuous mist
across a nulla. Our few hens ran panting into the tents, ejected at one
door, only to enter at another. And yet, as I have said, only one man
died--with the battalion, that is--and ridiculously few went sick. But
by Colonel Knatchbull's death in Baghdad the battalion lost its
commander, and the division a very fine soldier. Wounded at Sheikh Saad
in January, 1916, he had returned in time for the three railhead
battles. He struggled on with sickness, refusing to contemplate a
second leave to India, and died at midsummer.
The worst of the heats I escaped. After a spell in Beit Na'ama, the
delightful estuary-side officers' hospital, a tangle of citron and
fig-groves, with vines making cool roofs, and with the Shat-el-Arab
flowing by, I was discharged. Feeling more wretched than ever, I
lingered on at Busra in the poisonous billets, filthy Arab houses,
named by their present occupants 'Flea Villa,' 'Bug Cottage,' 'Muddy
View' (this would be for winter; the world nowhere else holds such mud
as Busra mud). Busra is hateful beyond words; any place up the line is
preferable, except perhaps Twin Canals[21] and Beled. I was to be
returned to duty 'in due course'; but the Transport authorities were
never in a hurry. It was like being slowly baked in a brick oven. I had
spent ten days so, with no prospect of being given a boat up-stream,
when some one told General Fane, the O.C. 7th Division, that I had
been very sick and was waiting to get back to duty. He said,
'Nonsense,' and sent a wire direct to G.H.Q., insisting that I be given
a month's leave in India. I got it immediately. But for this action,
leave could not have come my way. No division ever had a kinder O.C.
than Fane. He knew every one, and was constantly doing thoughtful acts
such as this.
India, when it found time to give thought to Mesopotamia, chattered of
the tremendous Turco-German offensive which was to sweep down from
Mosul in the autumn. When I returned, at the end of August, all down
the line I found excitement. Only at Samarra itself was quiet and ease
of mind, where old comrades greeted me joyously and introduced
new-comers. There was Fergusson, reputed to have half a century of
ranching and horse-dealing in the Argentine; 'Forty-nine,' said Fowke,
in a delighted whisper, assessing his age. (As a matter of fact,
Fergusson's years were forty-one.) There was 'Ezra' ('Likewise Beetle,'
interpolated Fowke), who had arrived the day I went sick. 'Ezra,' who
signed his name as Mason, and was brother of Kenneth Mason, engineer
and archaeologist, got his nickname from a supposed modelling of his
bald dome upon Ezra's Tomb, by Q'urna. Keely, classical scholar and
philosopher, was standing outside his tent, pondering, as I came up to
rejoin the battalion. He called me up, and asked me earnestly what girl
from Greek literature I should like to have known, even to have had as
companion on the Thames at Richmond. 'Nausicaa,' I said. 'Every time,'
agreed Keely, brightening up as if a heavy load had been lifted from
his mind, and begged me to have a drink in her honour. Bale and Charles
Copeman were away, by Al-Ajik; 'in the nearest E.P. tent to
Constantinople,' G.A. said. Of our wounded, only G.A. was back. Warren
came later; Westlake remained in India.
Some surprise was expressed that I had returned at all. This was
Thorpe's doing. To explain, I must go back a little. I knew Thorpe
years before the war. We met again in Sannaiyat trenches. His
messmates, who desired to know more of Thorpe's old life, asked me how
we met first. 'I was chaplain of a jail at Peterborough,' I replied.
The statement was received at once; the only head on which further
light was sought was as to the number of years that were deducted from
his sentence for service in Mesopotamia. (Convicts from India who came
out in the Labour Corps to Mesopotamia were remitted ten years.) Now,
during my Indian leave, an old friend found me out and took me to spend
the last days of my Darjiling visit with him. He was, among other
things, superintendent of the prison. I carelessly wrote to Thorpe on a
sheet of paper with the printed heading 'Jail-house, Darjiling.' Thorpe
spent July and August in taking this sheet round from mess to mess. He
blackened my reputation, and opened up a field of speculation as to the
reason of my incarceration. 'No doubt this man is a murderer, whom,
though he hath escaped from the sea'--from Mesopotamia, say--'yet
Justice hath not suffered to live.' He considered that he was level
with me for my Peterborough jail-jape, and was much cheered.
It took the best part of September to get up-stream and back to
Samarra. When the boat reached Busra, scores of men were prostrate on
the deck from heat-stroke and exhaustion. In the Gulf I had a funeral.
I tried to skip to the finish of the service, with the page shimmering
and jumping before me, but had to hand the book to the captain as I
reeled down. He threw the body over, and every one flew up-deck. Later,
on the up-stream trip, we realized the fact on which all Mesopotamia
agreed, that for sheer horror the deck of a P-boat[22] is unrivalled.
Possibly it is due to the glare from the water, but our daily
temperatures of between 115° and 125° in the shade seemed a hundredfold
higher than they were. Just below Kut we were held up for several days
in a camp; not even Sheikh Saad in the old, bad days was more cursed
with sandflies.
I had for companion on board Kenneth Mason, engineer and archaeologist.
We passed Sannaiyat and the winding reaches where every earth-scar and
mound had a history. Here the Turk had blown up the ammunition barges,
and for hundreds of yards inland the ground was still strewn with
twisted scrap-iron; here he had set his 5.9's on the balloon, and the
evening fishing had been interrupted; here used to be the advanced
dressing-station in the times of trench warfare; here was Left Bank
Group, where our guns had been, the tamarisk thickets and wheeling
harriers, and the old shell-holes on the beach. Those crumbling
sandbanks were Mason's Mounds, and those were Crofton's O. Pip.[23]
Here were Abu Roman Mounds, and here the lines of Nakhailat or Suwada;
here were the Beit Aiessa defences; here those of Abdul Hassan and E
Mounds. It was on that angle that the _Julnar_ grounded in that
despairing, impossible attempt to run the blockade and bring food to
Townshend's men. It was in that scrub that the Turks and H.L.I.[24]
crashed when both sides launched a simultaneous attack.
We passed Kut. The river was low, and the people were growing lettuce,
while they might, on the dried sandbanks. The town front against the
palms showed its shell-holes and caverns, and we remembered how we used
to see the city, from Dujaileh Redoubt, rising up like a green
promontory. From Townshend's first battle there to the day when the 7th
Division occupied the lines of Suwada, Kut cost us not less in battle
casualties than sixty thousand men. One makes no computation of the
dead in the old cholera camps by Abu Roman, or in a score of cemeteries
from Sannaiyat and Es-Sinn to Bombay, who perished in that time when
the shark-tracked ships went down
To Bombay Town.
Kut will be a place of pilgrimage, and deserves to be, even among the
many shrines of this war. From Sheikh Saad to Shumran is one graveyard
and battlefield, a stretch of thirty miles, where over twenty pitched
battles took place, many being British defeats. At Kut itself
Townshend's old trenches can be traced; and in the town are broken
buildings, and, to eastward, the monument erected by the Turks. Across
the river is the Shat-el-Hai and its complicated and costly
battlefields, and the relics of the famous liquorice factory which
Townshend held, and which we took, in 1917, almost last of all. At
Shumran, above the town, is the place of the great crossing. And on the
ribs of sand, when water is low, are liquorice-stacks and lettuce-beds.
The mud-strips green with lettuce, red with stacks
Of liquorice; shattered walls, and gaping caves:
Beyond, the shifting sands; the jackal's tracks;
The dirging wind; the wilderness of graves.
The evening of September 13, the lofty Arch of Ctesiphon showed for
hours as we toiled along the winding reaches; in the first gold and
chill winds of dawn on the 14th we watched it recede. On the 18th I
reached Beled, 'The Home of the Devil,' as the Arabs call it, where the
Manchesters dragged out a panting existence, battling with dust-storms.
In the station I was shocked to see what vandalism had been at work.
The broken glass had been cleared away; in the tin shed where we had
drunk tea amid the flying shrapnel on that Easter evening new panes had
been put in; the water-tower had been replaced. With dusk I reached
Samarra, and set Keely's mind at rest on the Greek girl question.
Through October Fritz came daily, photographing. The sole rays in a
dreary protraction of existence were afforded by the Intelligence
Summaries, run by Captain Lang, a versatile and popular humorist.
Deserters reported that at a certain place the enemy's staff consisted
of only one lame Turk and one 'powerful Christian.' The 'powerful
Christian' had to do all the work, and was preparing for a hegira to
our lines. Then we had exchanged prisoners recently, sending back eight
wounded men, one having but one leg. On reaching the Turco lines, when
we offered to give these wounded a further lift of some miles, the
offer was accepted with cringing gratitude. 'Intelligence' surmised
that these wounded might have to walk to Mosul, another hundred and
forty miles, and went into reverie on the situation's possibilities.
'If the one-legged man has any influential friends in Constantinople,
we may expect to hear shortly of a Turkish Commission in Iraq.' That
was the time when the Report of the Mesopotamian Commission came out.
Though a revelation in England, it did not excite us, who knew its
facts long before. Then letters from the enemy G.H.Q. to General Maude
had had his name and address printed on the envelope. This,
'Intelligence' thought, was sheer, outstanding swank, to show us that
the Turks had at least one lithograph.
Late in September our second attempt on Ramadie met with complete
success, when General Brooking captured the nucleus of a projected
offensive against us. We by Tigris rejoiced, knowing, too, that our
task, when it came, would be the easier.
The 1st Guides joined the division in place of the 'Bo-Peeps.' The
brigades went out on reconnaissance frequently. September 25 saw one of
these shows, which included a sham fight. The day was very hot, and
Haigh's stretcher-bearers complained of the inconsiderate conduct of
the thirty-one 'casualties.' 'Unfortunately there were no dead among
them.' However, as one S.B. added, 'fortunately a good many died of
wounds.' The 'died of wounds' were formed into platoons, and marched
off the field of action.
The stretcher-bearer who made the remark about the 'died of wounds' was
a particular friend of mine, who had a great gift of happy phrasing,
illustrated in the words I have quoted. Once we had a long talk about
the old battles, and, speaking of a common friend who had been killed,
he observed, 'I do think it dreadful, his being killed like
that--killed outright.' I never got at his notion of what made a cushy
death; probably something Mexican or early mediaeval.
Through October my diary notes little but services and a terrible
lecture on Mesopotamian history, which, from first to last, I delivered
over fifty times. Latterly envious tongues alleged that I had to ask
units for a parade when I gave this lecture. But those who said this
lied saucily and shamelessly.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] European privates'.
[20] A new Fritz, of course. The old one was killed at Istabulat.
[21] Below Kut, on the right bank of the Tigris. A pestilential haunt
in 1916.
[22] Paddle-boat.
[23] Observation post.
[24] Highland Light Infantry.
VI
HUWESLET; OR, 'THE BATTLE OF JUBER ISLAND'
Night's blackness touched with red;
A cock's shrill clarion ringing;
Clamours for 'ruddy' buckets, Diamond's[25] bray;
Grousing of Johnson[26] tumbled out of bed;
And Fowke's falsetto, singing
'Is it nothing to you?'
So the battalion wakes, to march away
Heaven knows how far into the blue,
Heaven knows how many weary miles to do,
Till stars within some nulla watch us lie,
Worshipping sleep, while the icy hours drag by.
October 22 was the date when Johnny developed unheard-of cheek. His
patrols appeared by the river, one fellow riding along our wire and
slashing it with his sword. Then from 1 p.m. onwards he shelled both
banks of the river, having pushed down from his advanced post at Daur,
a dozen miles away, with a couple of hundred cavalry, several
machine-guns, and light field-guns. The Guides and our cavalry were
reported to have lost men and horses; and G.A., on picket, sent word
that the Turks were digging themselves in. A and C Companies of the
Leicestershires were out all day.
On the 23rd shelling continued, and that evening the division moved
out. At the officers' meeting we were told that a force, estimated at
four thousand Turks and several guns, was digging in. We were to do
twelve thousand two hundred yards north, and then seven thousand five
hundred yards half-right, to get behind them. This was the 28th
Brigade. The 8th and 19th Brigades, starting later, were to make a
frontal attack at 4 a.m.; our brigade were to enfilade the Turk when
bolted; and these united efforts were to drive him into the dead ground
by the river, and there, as the scheme wittily put it, our artillery
and machine-guns would 'deal with him.' Whoever drew up the plan was
not only bloody-minded but oblivious of long experience, assuming thus
that John was such a very simple person.
We moved off just before dark, raising a white dust. Through all our
wide detour there were strict injunctions against smoking, enforced
among the Leicestershires, ignored among machine-gunners and Indian
drivers. Never can night-march have been noisier. At every halt the
mules sang down the whole length of the line; signallers and gunners
clattered past. About midnight a stranger was seen talking to some
_drabis_.[27] A Leicestershire sergeant, coming up, said, 'Hullo, it's
a bloody Turk.' Hearing himself identified, Johnny turned round and
saluted. He was led to the proper authorities, and proved to be a
Turkish cadet. He was armed with a penknife and a pair of gloves.
The night was bitterly cold. At 3.30 a.m. we 'rested.' We had reached
what in Mesopotamia would be considered well-wooded country, an upland
studded with bushes. Just on dawn we rose, with teeth chattering and
limbs numbed with contact with the cold ground, and moved on. Our
planes appeared, scouring the sky; and a few odd bursts of rifle-fire
were heard about 7 a.m. We had now reached the edge of the dead ground
against the river, and looked down to Tigris, as in later days I have
looked down to the Jordan. The doctor and I were told to set up our
aid-post in a deep nulla there, and wait on events. A report came from
our air-folk that five thousand Turks were on Juber Island, opposite
Huweslet. We moved steadily forward to the attack, steadily but
unbelievingly. Unbelief rose to positive derision, for as we topped a
slight brow we gave a target no artillery could have resisted, yet
nothing happened. 'It's a trap,' said Fowke darkly; 'he's luring us
on.' Why should John lie doggo in this fashion? Nevertheless the airmen
insisted that the Turks were there. So we dug ourselves in, in a
semicircle facing the island, preliminary to attacking it. It was noon,
hot and maddening with flies. The Leicestershires sent scouts out, who
pushed up to Juber Island, and found that there were indeed five
thousand there--five thousand sheep and several Arab shepherds. On the
opposite bank John had a machine-gun, with which he sniped those who
approached the water. He killed mules, and wounded several
_bhisties_[28] and a sweeper. There were also people sniping with
rifles, and the Indian regiments had casualties. On our side, the
cavalry brought in a prisoner. We had the young gentleman caught at
night, and one other; the 19th Brigade took a fourth prisoner. So we
abandoned the battle, had breakfast at 2.30 p.m., and returned. The day
was wearying beyond conception, yet the men, British and Indian alike,
were singing as they passed Al-Ajik. Samarra camp was a swirl of dust
after the day's busyness; almost a faery place in the last sunlight.
The next day was dedicated to sleep, and to humour at the expense of
the Royal Flying Corps, to whose mess a sheep's head was voted.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] The regimental (four-footed) donkey. The Leicestershires' hatbadge
is a black diamond.
[26] Needless to say, we had no 'Johnson.'
[27] Indian drivers.
[28] Indian water-carriers.
VII
DAUR
Johnny's leg-pull made him one up. This was recognized, and his action
drew our attention to the undesirability of allowing him to remain at
Daur. On October 31 the 28th Brigade went into the trenches at Al-Ajik.
November 1 was Thursday. Haigh had the misfortune to go very sick on
this day; he left us, and his successor arrived about 4 p.m. The new
doctor fell into my hands, as the battalion was unknown to him, and he
had never been in action.
As we went forward bad news came in, so bad and unexpected that it
seemed incredible, the news of the Italian reverses. This filled us
with profound depression. Our tiny side-show seemed more insignificant
than ever while the European battle was being lost. When word followed
of Allenby's success at Beersheba we did not guess that here was the
beginning of a tide of victory which would ultimately pull the whole
war our way. There was one splinter of light, an absurd joke in _London
Opinion_ which set the Leicestershires chuckling, 'Overheard at the
Zoo.' It is the conversation of Cockney children before the ostrich
cage:
'Sneagle!'
'Snotaneagle. Snork.'
'Snotanork. Snowl.'
'Snotanowl. Snostrich.'
This lent itself to indefinite expansion: 'Snemeu,' 'Snalbatross,'
'Snoriole,' 'Snelephant.'
Report came of the exploit of Marshall at Corps Head Quarters. He had
gone out in a 'lamb'[29] on the other bank of Tigris, almost to Tekrit,
and had shot down thirty horses and a dozen men as he flew past the
enemy lines.
On the evening of November 1 the Al-Ajik trenches were crowded. Fritz
came over reconnoitring, and his surprise was amusing to see. He
checked, wheeled, abandoned all thought of a visit to our camp, and
beetled back, after very elaborate reconnaissance. Then our own planes
flew over, sounding their klaxons and dropping messages, in rehearsal
for the morrow.
At 9.10 the force met at the place of assembly. The 21st Brigade were
to move up the left bank; they are hardly in this picture. On the right
bank the 28th Brigade went first, followed by the 19th and 8th
Brigades. With the column were the 4th and 9th Brigades, R.F.A., two
batteries of the 56th Brigade, and some 4.5 and 6-inch howitzers.
Altogether, including those operating on the left bank, we had eighty
guns.
The night was even colder than the one before the Juber Island farce.
Part of the night I marched with my friends of the 53rd Sikhs, with
Newitt and with Heathcote. Every one anticipated a very hard fight. We
were up against a position which was reputed to be as strong as
Istabulat had been. Before dawn we found ourselves among
ghostly-looking bushes, and lay down for one shivering hour. We had
marched over seventeen miles, with the usual exhausting checks and
halts attendant on night-marching, and we were dead-beat to the wide.
Yet nothing could be finer than the way the men threw weariness away,
like a garment, with the first shells, and went into battle.
Sarcka, the excellent Yank who ran our Y.M.C.A., marched with us,
carrying a camel-load of cigarettes. He was usually called 'Carnegie'
by Dr. Haigh. That classical mind memorized Sarcka's name as meaning
'flesh'; then, since it moved with equal ease in Greek and Latin,
unconsciously transliterated. As we went forward, and a red sun rose
over Tigris, Sarcka remarked: 'The sensation I am about to go through
is one which I wouldn't miss for worlds.' Mester Dobson looked
surprised. I bided my time, knowing how unpleasant the first fifteen
minutes under shell-fire are for even the bravest.