CHAPTER XII

Spring. Plots to escape. Betrayal. Escape of others. I am sent

to Stamboul for hospital 267

PART III

STAMBOUL AND BRUSA

CHAPTER XIII

Psamatia (Stamboul). Starvation and neglect in hospital and

garrison. Plots to escape by the Bosphorus. I organize escape

from Psamatia through the heart of Stamboul. Storm and wreck

on Sea of Marmara. Return 291

CHAPTER XIV

Discovery of the letter. Brusa. Court-martial. Life in a Stamboul

prison. Politics and intrigue 323

CHAPTER XV

Brusa again. Change on Western Front. Stamboul before the end.

Political manoeuvring. The Prince Subaheddine. The Union and

Progress Party 350

CHAPTER XVI

I leave Stamboul on a mission _en route_ for the Fleet.

Meet the Prince's delegate at Smyrna. Free! With the Entente

Fleet at Mudros before entering the Dardanelles 367

CHAPTER XVII

I leave Mudros with despatches for Rome, Paris, and

London, England! 381

EPILOGUE 386

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

FACING PAGE

CTESIPHON _Frontispiece_

THE BRICK-KILNS, KUT 24

REMAINS OF MY BATTERY POSITION ON THE MAIDAN 56

RECENT PHOTO OF AUTHOR'S LAST BILLET IN KUT 134

GENERAL TOWNSHEND AT BAGHDAD, A PRISONER, WITH KHALIL

PASHA ON HIS LEFT 158

OUR PRISON, BAGHDAD (after British Occupation) 166

LETTER FROM EVE. (Photographed from _Smoke_) 232

KASTAMUNI KUTTITES KLEAROUT KOMPANY. (_Smoke_) 234

KING ARTHUR'S KNIGHTS OF THE OBLONG TABLE, ETC. (_Smoke_) 240

MERMAID READING (_Smoke_) 240

DIE NACHT, ETC. (_Smoke_) 244

AN ESCAPE STORY. (_Smoke_) 244

"FALL OF KUT." (_Smoke_) 248

THE SONG OF THE RAIN. (_Smoke_) 248

ENTRY OF GENERAL MAUDE INTO BAGHDAD 296

PHOTO OF AUTHOR TAKEN SECRETLY WHILE A PRISONER IN STAMBOUL 310

LIEUT.-COL. S. F. NEWCOMBE, D.S.O., R.E. 318

HOTEL AT BRUSA, ETC. 326

DJEMAL PASHA, ONE OF THE TRIUMVIRATE WHOSE A.D.C., ISMID

BEY, MET ME SECRETLY 340

GENERAL TOWNSHEND ON HIS ISLAND (PRINCIPO) WITH VISITORS 342

THE FIRST WARSHIP IN TURKISH WATERS: H.M.S, MONITOR 29 370

MAPS

OF KUT DURING SIEGE 42

OF GENERAL AYLMER'S ATTEMPT OF MARCH, 1916 88

OF TREK, INCLUDING PLANS OF ESCAPE 392

PART I

TO THE FALL OF KUT, APRIL 29TH, 1916

THE SECRETS OF A KUTTITE

CHAPTER I

EN ROUTE FROM HYDERABAD TO MESOPOTAMIA--VOYAGE

UP THE TIGRIS

_Kut-el-Amara, December 22nd, 1915._--At the present

moment I'm snugly settled inside my Burberry sleeping-bag.

The tiny candle that burns gloomily from its

niche in the earth wall of the dug-out leaves half the compartment

in sharp shadow. But through the doorway it lights a

picture eloquent of war. This picture, framed by the sandbags

of the doorway, includes a gun-limber, observation pole,

rifles, a telescope, and a telephone, along a shell-pierced wall.

Above winding mounds of black soil from entrenchments

hang the feathery fronds of the eternal palm. Only some

droop, for mostly they hang, bullet-clipped, like broken

limbs. The night is still and cold, the stillness punctuated by

the rackety music of machine-guns. As I write snipers'

bullets crack loudly on the _mutti_ wall behind my head.

Another night attack is expected from the trenches in front

of the 16th Brigade which we must support. When the

battery is in action the most unloved entertainment that

offers is the rifle fire that just skips the wall enclosing the

date-palm grove in which we are hidden. Sometimes the

sharp crackling sound of bullets hitting the trees increases

as the flashes of our guns are seen by the enemy, and resembles

in its intensity a forest on fire. One hears a sudden crack

just ahead like the sharp snapping of a stick, and in the early

days of one's initiation a duck is inevitable. I don't say one

ducks, but one finds one has ducked. For a time every one

ducks. It is no use telling people that if the bullet had been

straight one would have been hit before hearing it strike the

palm. Some people go on ducking for ages. Of course I'm

talking of the open. In the trenches ducking is a fine art.

The last time I ducked commendably, that I remember, was

yesterday. I was observing from our front line trenches

with plenty of head protection from the front, when a bullet

came from an almost impossible direction. It flung a piece

of hard earth sharply on my cheek, and I ducked. Afterwards

I laughed and took more care.

By the way, as this is not a diary but an unpretentious

record of things not forgotten, and intended on reference to

dispel the illusion that all this is a dream, I may as well furnish

an explanation of how I, Edward Mousley, a subaltern in the

Royal Field Artillery, come to be in this dug-out here in

Kut-el-Amara, along with the Sixth Division under General

Townshend, that is to say, almost the whole original Force D,

besieged by the whole Turkish army in Mesopotamia under

Nureddin Pasha.

My brigade was at annual practice near Hyderabad Scind

when a wire ordered another subaltern and me to proceed

at once on service with Force D (in Mesopotamia) to replace

casualties. Some very kind words and excellent advice from

my Colonel and innumerable _chota_ pegs from every one else

and the next morning we left, the other subaltern and Don

Juan and I, to exchange practice for reality. Don Juan is

my faithful horse. At Karachi I found several gunners of my

acquaintance who had come out from Home with me in the

_Morea_, a few months before, including one Edmonds, who

had tripped with me across India.

At Karachi I stored much useless kit, motor cycle, and

spare saddlery, and notwithstanding a heavy bout of malaria

just before, left for service fit and well equipped and with as

excellent a horse as one could wish for. We sailed in the tiny

mail boat _Dwarka_ for Muscat, Bushire, Basra.

Muscat is a mere safety valve of Satan in his sparest

wilderness, a lonely patch of white buildings completely shut

in by awful mountains, rocks that in remote ages seem to

have frowned themselves into the most fearful convulsions.

And, even in November, hot!

After two days of scorching heat and tempestuous seas we

arrived at Bushire, where a spit keeps shipping off.

Fifty Gurkhas, and a subaltern of whom I was to see

something by and by, came aboard. Fine little fellows they

are and very cheerful and contented even on the wretched

deck of a tiny steamer loaded with fowls, food, a Persian

donkey, vermin, and half-breeds.

Then, in a resplendent dawn, I saw the banks of the

Shatt-el-Arab, verdant with the greenness of a new lawn,

where millions of date palms clustered side by side on the flat,

flood-washed shores. Here the river is half a mile wide.

One may imagine its changed appearance when the great

floods come, that are now three months off. Outside the

entrance on the right bank, Fao, a tiny village and fort, marks

the initial landing and conquest by Force D--General

Delamain's brigade--in October, 1914.

Both banks of the river are thickly forested with date-palms

right up to Basra, a crowded spot of a few hundred

yards in frontage on both sides of a tiny creek Ashar, whence

once Sinbad sailed. It was brimful of soldiers and Arabs, and

quantities of stores and planks stood around half-erected

buildings. It had the appearance of a very busy port, some

dozen huge ocean-going vessels being anchored in the stream.

There was no wharfing accommodation at all. One communicates

with the shore by bellums. This is a flat-bottomed

pointed boat and propelled by bamboo poles or paddled by

sticks nailed on to a round blob of wood.

The shipping included H.M.S. _Espiegle_, the _Franz Ferdinand_,

and the _Karadenis_, the two latter being large steamers captured

by us and used as accommodation boats, each taking a thousand

men if necessary. Pending the arrival of our upstream

transport I was ordered with the other officers on to the

_Karadenis_ which lay in mid-stream. Some wretched-looking

Turkish prisoners were aft.

We little knew it at the time, but our few days on this

ship or mosquito-hive were destined to be our last in even

moderate comfort. Henceforth we were to be playthings of

the God of War.

There was a strange silence about news on this front.

Some thought our army was near Azizie, over four hundred

miles up river; others that we were just outside Baghdad. We

were chafing to get away to our units before we got malaria.

A sudden chance with a detachment of the 14th Hussars was

offered to a subaltern nick-named "Fruit-salt," because

"'e knows," and myself. We left on a paddle-boat called

the _P.5_, a barge of horses, Don Juan among them, on either

side.

To get on the _P.5_ again from the horse-barges we hop

over to the paddle-box and clamber on deck. Our camp

beds we stretched out forward, the men, arms, and maxims

arranged aft. We had a comfortable mess table set so that

we could see upstream and also a good deal of the left

bank. The officers of this troop of the 14th Hussars on

board were all very young, very pleasant, and very keen.

We sat and drank or smoked and talked, and war seemed then

very far away. Or we watched a wandering tribe of Arabs

trekking in the distance. The country was, of course, dead

flat and except for a scrubby grass there was nothing to

intercept one's eye reaching to the horizon. The river winds

a lot and far away the _mahela_ sails seemed to be making over

land. One thought of the Norfolk Broads. Somewhere in

the early morning we passed the confluence of the Euphrates

and Tigris, and Ezra's tomb. (Maxim fire increasing: I

must switch off here now.) _Later._--No harm occurred except

the heavy sniping has knocked out some poor horses and

wounded a syce and spoiled some more palms. I continue.

There was also on board an excellent engineer, full of

"sunny retrospect." He could talk or listen, which is like

unto a horse that can gallop and walk. As he explained on

inquiry, he had never married, nor had he ever avoided

marriage. Altogether he was a delightful fellow for company.

We passed the marshes of Kurna of an earlier engagement

in this campaign, where our army had dislodged the Turk

with guns mounted on planks between bellums, and whole

brigades punted and poled their way up. "Forward the light

bellums!" "Charge!" were the orders the commanding

officers yelled on that day. Britain was always irresistible

on the water! The whole affair is now called "Regatta

week."

We also passed where the Garden of Eden was said to have

been. As a matter of fact, the whole of this country, like the

plains of India, is delta formation. The two rivers must have

been higher up and consequently Eden also. The latter fact

rather knocks out the little remaining romance about the

place. Sir William Wilcocks puts the site at Hit, above

Baghdad, and says that even going no further back than the

tertiary epoch would place the delta there.

We reached Amara on the fourth day. It is a village of

some considerable size pleasantly lining both banks of a

beautiful straight reach in the Tigris. In the broad, clear

water one sees reflected the languid droop of the eternal date

palm, the great triangular sails of the _mahela_, the regular

contour of the Bridge of Boats. It is not unpicturesque.

Here, some months ago, a delightful _coup_ was effected by the

commander of H.M.S. _Shaitan_ and about a dozen men. These

were the first in the pursuit from Kurna, and the others not

having arrived, determined on a bold policy, as at any moment

the Arabs might have joined forces with the Turk and rendered

the taking of Kurna quite difficult. These few men went

ashore and, entering the barracks containing some several

hundreds of men, demanded their surrender and the immediate

handing over of the town. The prestige of the British Navy

or the eloquent silence of the gunboat's guns did the rest.

And so by this remarkable bluff Amara fell without bloodshed,

and was held although reinforcements did not arrive until the

next day.

Above Amara the country is still perfectly flat, but appears

less marshy in winter than lower down. Here a thicker ground

scrub teems with black partridge and quail, some of which we

shot from the boat. A sub. in the Hussars, named Pope,

brought off a wonderful revolver shot into a jackal's ribs from

the boat: we practised revolver shooting hard.

Arabs clustered in tiny tribes every few miles along the

river. The men, some of whom are quite naked, I thought

remarkable for great size of limb and muscular development.

They would sometimes accompany the boat for miles, doing

their weird undulating dance, hopping round first on one foot

and then on the other. They welcome us when we win and

torture and loot our wounded when they get a chance. Here

and there Jewish women and old men ladle water by a swinging

scoop into a drain for their irrigation. The dress and general

customs continually recall one's school days' pictures of

Biblical times.

Two or three days later we got to Kut-el-Amara (pronounce

Kut like foot), passing the battlefield of Essin _en route_.

It was at Essin where Townshend, by leaving his tents on one

bank of the river and crossing in the night, deceived the Turk

into fancied security, and the next day flung him neck and

crop out of a position of great strength.

Here the Hussars took my horse on by the desert and I

left in the _Shirin_ for Azizie. At Kut we had heard that

Baghdad would fall that evening, and later that night reverse

news that we had had very heavy casualties. The hospitals

were removed from the barges, and reinforcements' kit of the

West Kents and Hussars was left with us instead. "Fruit-salt"

and I messed with the West Kents, awfully good fellows,

one a youngster just from Clare College. The remaining

West Kents marched, escorted by the 14th Hussars, and met

us at some point on the river each day. One night we were

stranded ashore and in awful rain. The _tatti_ (rush) roof let

most of the water through, and what it did not let through,

collected in gutters that every now and then deluged over us.

My sleeping bag became a tank. Suddenly came the dawn

and we awoke to a steaming-hot sunny world.

A heavily-armed launch protected with _boosa_ bales passed

us. Their answer--"Headquarters"--was our first intimation

of the seriousness of the position of our army. Two days

after this, and about eight or nine since leaving Basra, we got

to Azizie, a mere bend in the river with a few huts. There

were many horses watering and several hundred Turkish

prisoners on the bank. On every side we saw evidence of a

hurried march. It was all hustle and haste. We went ashore,

our last orders being to leave for Salaiman Pak, some thirty

miles up river and fifteen from Baghdad. But once ashore,

we saw from the ungroomed condition of the horses, the dust-covered

harnesses and wagons, the exhausted men, many

asleep in their roughly arranged lines, that our army after

tremendous exertions had just arrived and halted. The

C.R.A.'s flag hung over a mud hut. He explained that we

had fought a big action at Ctesiphon where the Turks were

heavily entrenched, that we had turned them out, and got

into their second line when the enemy had retired to the

Diala river, his third line. But the action, which was tactically

a brilliant success, had cost us a third of our force. The word

came that two Turkish divisions were reinforcing them, so

we retired in the night. It seems that for a time both armies

were in retreat, but the Turks, on hearing of our withdrawal,

gave chase. They were, however, doubly respectful in having

suffered casualties twice our own, and they held off some few

miles from Azizie.

CHAPTER II

WITH THE SIXTH DIVISION AFTER CTESIPHON--THE RETREAT

AND ACTION AT UM-AL-TABUL

"Fruit-salt" and I joined our batteries, mine being

the 76th R.F.A. All the force bore marks of a

great struggle, great losses, keen hardship. The

weary army was resting. That was well. Some kindly god

that knew what still awaited them smiled on them, and they

slept. Here at last, I thought, is the famous army of General

Townshend, the fighting Sixth Division, that had overcome

difficulties that few other armies had been called on to do,

that had endured hardships of heat and thirst and pestilence

in the cauldron of Asia, marched hundreds of miles with

improvised transit, and moved from victory to victory until

Ctesiphon. General Townshend's was the most loyal of

armies in adversity. They knew that against his counsel he

had been ordered to risk the action, where even if doubly

victorious their tiny numbers would have been insufficient to

hold Baghdad. There was also the haunting dream of that

lonely river, our sole communication, winding through a

hostile country five hundred miles to Basra. Reinforcements

there were none at all in the country, which was a fortnight's

distance from India and more from Egypt. Anyway, this

was the army of which I, a subaltern in the 76th Battery,

Royal Field Artillery, was now privileged to consider myself

a member.

Rapid plans were in execution to strengthen Azizie, as the

Turks might try a night attack. The troops had only arrived

that morning, but by nightfall we had thrown up quite a bit

of cover with gun pits and light breastwork for the infantry.

Perfect order reigned over the customary military procedure.

No Turks were in sight. Every man of the fatigued army

worked as happens on manoeuvres. It was only the battered

condition of the gun carriages, the gaping wounds in the

diminished teams of horses and that quiet "balanced up"

look in the eyes of every Tommy that told of a reality more

grim. On the flat mud desert, with no kind asset of nature

to assist them, the nearest reinforcements hundreds of miles

away, but with its own transport and some limited supplies,

this lonely British army formed its semi-circle on the river.

So it faced this unkind plain, its destiny in its hands.

An atrociously bad place to defend is Azizie, merely a

meagre bend in the river, a floody or dusty desert with a few

mud-walled buildings on the Tigris edge. Much of our baggage

had to be left on a barge and the rest was taken from the Shirin

into the R.A. shed. The first was ultimately sunk and the

latter burned. None of it I have ever seen since--saddlery,

coats, uniforms, camp equipment--all went.

All the officers of the 76th Battery had been wounded

except one--Devereux, who had been with me at Hyderabad,

and Captain Carlyle of the 63rd Battery was in command.

I slept by the gun pits. Beyond the line of infantry that

separated us from the Turk, some jackals howled in ghoulish

song. They had followed on the flank of our army and waited

expectant, for they too had visited the field of Ctesiphon!

Their devilish symphony grew fainter, and I slept. Now and

then I was awakened by sniping.

The next day, November 29th, we got matters in order,

rearranged teams and sections to replace casualties, and

overhauled. We continued our vigilance. There was much

to be done and, as might be expected after the recent ordeal,

many were nerve-ragged and irritable, but all were light-hearted.

We expected to move that evening, but did not.

I slept on the perimeter by the guns again, and awoke to find

my servant packing up. Orders to stand by to move in an

hour set me going at once. After an early breakfast I had to

go and relieve another artillery officer on the observation post,

which was merely a few sandbags on the roof of a house,

covered with rushes to keep off the sun. At 11 a.m. the

greater part of the force had got on the road. Southward ho!

The Staff left about 11.30. General Smith, C.R.A., asked me

my orders, which were to wait there until sent for, but which

should have included "unless the Staff leaves first," as I was

left without any guard and surrounded by hostile Arabs. I

thought it better to wait a little and give a last attention to

the column I had seen emerging from the northward clumps of

trees where the enemy was waiting. I am glad I did so, for I

was afforded the privilege of witnessing a spectacle at once

unique and magnificent.

Below me the river lay blue in the morning sun between

the black winding banks, and dark Arab forms dotted its

shores. Somewhere ahead upstream was Baghdad. Distant

horsemen scoured the plain. Some cavalry of ours lay hidden

in an old smashed _serai_ just north of the village. Moving

south-eastward rose the dust of the main Turkish advance,

mounting in clouds higher and higher. The quicker dust

marked their cavalry, and here and there in dense column

formation their wheeled traffic came on. To the southward

in perfect order, and moving at an even pace, was our own army

in retreat. The khaki column reached away to the horizon

of dust, and the swarthy visages of our Indian troops doing

rearguard in extended order, and the gleam from the accoutrements

of the 14th Hussars were visible without field glasses.

The village itself that was burning in a dozen places now

broke into one great conflagration, and simultaneously some

Arab bullets cut their way unmistakably near. I decided

to rejoin my battery that was waiting half a mile off, as it was

selected for rear guard. Fortunately, before climbing down

the observation post I took the precaution to peer over the

edge at the doorway. I saw about a dozen gigantic Arabs,

one or two with knives, lounging round the exit, evidently

counting on my uniform and equipment after they had

despatched me. So I talked and answered for a minute, and

shouted an order for them to think I was not alone. Then I

ducked out the other side and jumped the back wall. I met

my orderly coming with my horse. The Arabs around the

doorway yelled in disappointment as we both galloped off.

I brought the battery into action just south of the town, but

we did not open fire. Then the C.O. signalled "Retire." It

was "Rear limber up, walk march, trot, canter," then a mile

farther on "Halt! Action rear," and so on. A delightful

battery, men and horses knew their job perfectly and foresaw

the order every time.

We did about fifteen miles, and halted by the river side

at Um-al-Tabul, a mere locality without a building. I had

scarcely seen that the horses were fixed up and fed, when an

order came that General Smith, B.G.R.A., C.R.A., wanted me

as orderly officer. I was to report immediately. An orderly

officer, I was told at once, is responsible for the health and

well being of his general, and has many details to attend to.

In action there are countless orders to deliver and reports to

make. The Brigade Major, mistaken for General Smith, had

unfortunately been knifed by an Arab while asleep one night

on a boat, so the Staff Captain and I were the only Staff. We

shared a dug-out, or rather hole, eighteen inches deep and of

course uncovered. Reinforced with some bread, meat, and

whisky, I scooped a pillow place for the General's head, and

in the darkness tried to collect some little of my kit, which,

however, got lost in the subsequent events of the night. I

completed arrangements for the morning and then slept.

General Townshend's _jugga_ was next ours. We were on

the river bank. Behind us lay H.M.S. _Firefly_ and other boats

and barges.

Presently from out of the darkness shells began to fall

around us. We were right in the line of fire. It appeared

that they were shelling the _Firefly_. One shell pitched just

short of us and wounded the syces, another burst exactly

over us, but too high for the spread to reach us. Then a brisk

rifle fire commenced and here and there we heard a suppressed

groan. These were my first real moments under fire. The

darkness and scantiness of cover made it seem worse, but I

was not half so frightened as I thought I should be, and after

some minutes, when it was necessary for me to deliver some

messages, I gave myself up to Fate with a light heart and

blundered in the darkness on my several errands. That was

infinitely better than lying pinched up in the inadequate hole

watching the dried grass being cut by bullets a foot above

one's head. It is a great thing to be occupied in times like

this. In passing through my battery I heard that two drivers

of my section had been killed. On returning to the dug-out

I saw the Staff Captain ferociously digging with a mess-tin.

I did the same for the General's side with his own shaving mug,--which

I bent, to his disgust--and then got on to my own.

About midnight the rifle fire thickened. Now of all entirely

horrid things under these conditions you have first and

foremost the bullet. It is a thing conceived by Satan for the

dispatch of his outsiders and unbeloved. Invisible it comes

from anywhere. You hear it and know you are safe. Or you

feel it and know you're hit. Since then I have often been under

rifle fire, but that night the devilry of the bullets was strange.

At 3 a.m. General Townshend said he would attack in two

columns unless the fire ceased. I delivered orders connected

therewith, but the fire slackened. I slept, and awoke before

the dawn, and bustled around after our headquarters' transport,

as we expected an immediate move. I also got breakfast

ready. This was December 1st.

At 8 a.m. the transport began to move. At 8.30 it had

got fairly on its way. At nine I was standing by the Headquarters

transport ready to move off, when the fog cleared as

suddenly as the shadows lift when the moon comes from behind

a cloud. Before us, some eighteen hundred to two thousand

yards off, on the higher ground, we saw a host of tents. Even

as we looked the guns of the Field Brigade on the outer

perimeter were limbering up. But within two minutes they

were down again in action, and the first shell sang out the

delight of the gunner at the prospect of so gorgeous a target.

For one minute it was splendid. The spirits of the incarnated

field guns ripped their music across the morning sky and over

the dewy earth in quick and lightning song. The next his

shells came back. I relished much less the white puffs up in

the air near us, each burst a better one. But almost immediately

I found myself taking a professional interest in the

faulty fuses of the Turk. Our own shells were cutting great

gaps in the tents and in the columns of panic stricken fleeing

Turks. I saw our bursts in excellent timing, quite low. But

their fire also thickened, and converged on the mass of troops

not yet under way, and also on our shipping, which was caught

at a wholesale disadvantage. Still, a great mass of transport

stuff and ammunition was on the move.

At last it was all off, and only the perimeter of our camp

remained, the four field batteries and the single line of infantry

close beyond them. Standing in the centre of the shell-strewn

ground was General Townshend and his Staff. I stood

for a while between him and General Smith, from time to time

galloping to the several batteries with orders or inquiries about

ammunition. Away to our right between the Turkish advance

and our own, the 14th Hussars were very busy, now covering

behind the knolls and now swooping upon the enemy, who,

however, gave them no chance of getting in at close quarters.

S Battery, R.H.A., which worked with them, was pouring

shell after shell into the teeth of the Turkish force.

One could not but feel the keenest admiration for General

Townshend, so steady, collected and determined in action, so

kind, quick and confident. There, totally indifferent to the

shell fire, he stood watching the issue, receiving reports from

the various orderly officers and giving every attention to the

progress of the transport. Some shells pitched just over us,

one, not fifteen yards away, killing a horse and wounding

some drivers. The restlessness of the horses, some stamping

their feet, others tossing their heads, betokened their objection

to standing still at such a time. It really is the most difficult

thing to do. One's mind was left too free to prophesy where

the next shell would fall. More than once I caught a humorous

smile on the General's face as some shell just missed us.

Suddenly, to the southward, a thick dust wall appeared.

The Turks had got round, and our transport, uncertain about

advancing, was held up. For ten minutes it seemed that the

issue might become general, but our gunners, and especially

S Battery, kept up such a rate of fire that the Turks were

paralysed. The officer commanding this battery, acting on

local knowledge, remained in action after the order to retire

had reached him, and by so doing contributed greatly to the

success of the day.

About nine o'clock General Melliss' Brigade, which had preceded

us from Azizie by several miles and which had been sent

for during the night, arrived on the scene of action, appearing

from the south-eastern quarter. That effectively threw back

the Turkish attack.

Then, as we gradually gave way, the tide of action moved

very slowly southwards. The General motioned us to take

cover in a ditch. Our horses we had sent on. It was about

this time that H.M.S. _Firefly_ was hit in her boiler and

captured by the Turks. Several barges filled with wounded

and stores had to be abandoned.

First one battery limbered up and fell into action half a

mile to the rear, then another, and so on. Several times I

took orders over the intervening ground that was now being

plastered with shells bursting either too high or on graze. Don

Juan behaved excellently. He shied once violently when a

shell burst just behind us, and again as he took off to jump a

nullah at the bottom of which a medical officer I knew, Major

Walker, was attending to a wounded man. For the rest he

went in his best hunting style over ditches and holes and took

not the slightest notice of the noise or bursts. I often give

him an extra handful of hay when I recall December 1st.

The transport was now some miles on its way and the mule-drivers

were doing their utmost. Then the Staff mounted and

I was sent to see the whereabouts of the ammunition barge,

as the guns, especially S Battery, were running short. Luckily,

I discovered where it had got stuck. In feverish haste we

replenished the carts ourselves, General Smith, the Staff

Captain and I, our telephonists and horseholders, all loading

the first few carts at the run. In less than five minutes the

cute little Jaipur ponies and mules had galloped to their guns.

The batteries remained in action as long as possible without

jeopardizing their safety, and each covered the retirement of

the other. This went on for hours. We, the Staff, walked

our horses half a mile, dismounted and waited. Our pace was

the pace of the slowest fighting unit, _i.e._ a walk. Gradually

we out-distanced the enemy, the Cavalry Brigade keeping him

back. Once they caught us up and sent shells wildly over our

heads. The Turks don't know enough of the science of

gunnery. If their fuses had been more correct our casualties

could not have failed to be very heavy. As it was they were

extraordinarily small considering the huge losses we inflicted

on them.

It was a most wonderful engagement, and General Townshend

watched its every phase with great satisfaction. An

exclamation of delight broke from him as he directed our

attention to a charge of the 14th Hussars. Over the brown of

the desert a mass of glittering and swiftly-moving steel bore

down upon the line of Turks, which broke and bolted. Then

the 14th came back.

My next job was to gather spare men and protect the

General's flank from Arab snipers. Once or twice a bullet

hit the ground at my feet. These Arabs use a tremendous

thing, almost as big as an elephant bullet.

At four o'clock I was ordered to ride ahead of the column

to find a watering place, which I did; but the Turks still

pressed in our rear, and we had to shove on without watering.

I managed to water Don Juan, however, and gave him three

of my six biscuits. The General had one and Garnett and I

had half each. We pushed on, the horses showing signs of

fatigue. At 6 p.m. it was dreadfully cold, and dark as

Tophet. The order of the column had now been changed, the

Field Artillery leading. The B.G.R.A. (General Smith), the

Staff Captain, and I, rode at the head of the Division. The

orders were seventy paces to the minute with compass directing.

We took this in turns of half-hours. The strain was very

severe. We had had no food except a sandwich for breakfast

for twenty-four hours--violent exercise under exhausting

conditions. The ten hours in the saddle had made me stiff,

which was to be expected after the slack life of a month on

board. We lost our way again and again as we got deeper into

the dense black night. Road there was none, only a few hoof

marks on the _maidan_. Tracks that went comfortably for a

mile suddenly proved false, and then we had to hunt for the

road. We all grew more irritable as we grew more tired, and

I got an awful wigging about every two minutes. It's no

joke leading an army on a pitch black night and endeavouring

to keep to a road that doesn't exist, especially when

thousands of Turks are in hot pursuit a mile or two behind

the tail of the column.

"Is this the road?" asks one.

"I don't believe it is."

"I think he's wrong. He's taking that fire for the

star."

"He must be wrong. That fire has been directly ahead

for hours and now it's to the left."

This was the eternal conversation behind as one tried to

count the seventy and answer inquiries as to the magnetic

bearing at the same time. With such preoccupations one

could not very well suggest that the nearer one got to the fire,

the more to a flank it must appear unless we were to walk on

the top of it.

Then arguments would follow as to whether such a mark

were really a hoof-mark or wheel track. The Staff Captain

lost his way several times running, and I confess my heart

rejoiced thereat. But we soon passed from levity that was

born of nervous exhaustion, to silence, grim and impenetrable.

I shall never forget that night. The want of sleep was maddening.

Since then I have gone without sleep for days together,

except for an hour or so once or twice. Then it came on one

unprepared. We stumbled on. I thought of the army behind

us, men as tired and hungry as I was, the army that had conquered

Mesopotamia, all bravely staggering onwards in the

darkness; heroes of Ctesiphon, full of painful memories of

lost pals somewhere behind, marching, marching, marching

to the pace we set, and following the indication of my prismatic

compass.

Some of the Staff suggested a halt. But our Napoleonic

general drove us on. Again, as we learned subsequently, he

saved us. That night the Turkish army, reinforced, was

trying to outmarch us.

We pressed on and on. Don Juan followed with my

orderly. It was awfully cold, but I preferred the cold to the

weight of my coat. I slung it over Don Juan. The poor

brute shivered from cold and hunger every halt. The march

became a nightmare. With frequent drinks of water I managed

to keep on. At eleven o'clock we were almost into the halting-place--Monkey

Village by name--when the whole column,

which was some five miles long, was compelled to halt owing to

a block. The ground was very uneven and scored with

nullahs, and had only the one narrow track leading to the

village. Across this track the Cavalry Brigade, which had

gone on ahead of us as advance guard, had bivouacked. The

block took about an hour and a half to rectify.

At last we got to some open ground past the village. How

cold it was! We bivouacked on sandy soil. I scooped a

dug-out for the General, got a few handfuls of hay for Don

Juan, and a whisky and water for myself. General Smith

got some sort of a meagre meal with me from a tin of jam, a

little bully and a biscuit. We kept half for the morning. All

our delightful _yak-dans_ of stores, hams, fowls, biscuits, jam,

tea and coffee were miles away with the transport, and I

inquired a hundred times that night before turning in, without

result. Those of our blankets which were not lost in the

scurry of the morning fight, were there also with the transport.

So in the bitter cold wind, feet numbed and teeth chattering,

I scraped a hole for my arm and a sand pillow for my head,

and shoving my topee over my ears to drown the nervy rip-rip

of the Arab snipers, I slept. It was not for many minutes.

The cold was too intense, without a coat. Then I had to ride

to General Townshend for orders several times. Poor Don

Juan was awfully done, but very game. There was a tiny

stone bridge over a deep nullah near the village. Each time

I was held up there. The scene was of the wildest confusion.

Camels were being thrashed across, kicking mules hauled

across, troops trying to cross at the same time. Several overturned

vehicles complicated matters. The whole force had

to go over that tiny bridge. After all had crossed the sappers

blew it up.

I was quite an important person that night, what with

orders and reports. The _Blosse Lynch_, with Major Henley

aboard and also plenty of food, if I had known, was alongside.

Captain Garnett was quite done up with continuous fatigue,

although he had not ridden very much. We couldn't sleep

for the cold, so we talked and hoped to get to Kut the next

morning. That day, December 1st, he informed me, was his

birthday. There could be many worse ways of passing one's

birthday than in participating in the engagement we had fought

that day. We felt a deep debt of gratitude due to our General

for bringing us out of such a tight corner so brilliantly. At one

moment the whole force was imperilled. The next our guns

smashed lanes of casualties through the Turkish troops. I

was assured by senior officers of much service that I had

witnessed one of the most brilliant episodes possible in war,

where perfect judgment and first-rate discipline alone enabled

us to smash the sting of the pursuit and to continue a retreat

exactly as it is done at manoeuvres.

At 4 a.m. we were away again. We walked half a mile,

then rested. After an hour or two of this the pace got slower

and troops began to fall out and sit down. More than one

dusky warrior unconsciously depicted the Dying Gladiator.

We spoke kind words to them and where possible gave them a

lift. Many mules were shot as their strength gave out. I ate

my biscuit and gave Don a pocketful of hay I had kept for

him. He rubbed his nose on my cheek and wished he were

back in his excellent stable at Hyderabad.

Once this day my General's horse nearly unseated him as

we crossed a nullah where a camel was lying stretched out.

"Come on," he shouted to me. "It's dead, and won't

bite."

Don hates camels, and was rearing up in fine style. Therein

he showed judgment more correct than did the General, for,

in answer to my spur, he had no sooner drawn level with the

beast than the "dead" camel swung its long snaky neck

round upon us and opened eyes and mouth simultaneously.

Don jumped the bank and the whole staff of telephonists and

landed almost on top of General Smith, whose horse objected

considerably. I laughed until the general restrained my

humour.

The horses were awfully done, and in the batteries could

just move the guns at the slowest walk. We did about a mile

an hour. About 3 p.m. General Townshend shouted to

General Smith that one of our batteries was shelling our own

transport which appeared round the head of the river, miles

ahead. My general apparently forgot me, and went off on

his old charger. The transport could not have been saved by

the time he got up to the guns. I put Don at a ditch and,

racing up a knoll close by, blew on my long sounding whistle

"cease fire," and held up my hand. The battery commander

saw it, and when I galloped up I apologized for interrupting

his shooting, and explained. They had bracketed the transport

and a shot was in the breech of the gun, so my whistle

had just got them in time. A splendid fellow is the commander

of that battery, Major Broke-Smith, an excellent

soldier and cheerful friend. Unperturbed, he said, "Well, if

I'm to shell all Arab bodies, and the river will wind so----"

And when I got back General Townshend thanked me, at

which I was much elated.

In the afternoon we halted for two and a half hours to

enable the straggling crowds to catch up. I rode miles trying

to find our transport cart with the stores, but it had got somewhere

in the front several miles off. Some one produced a

cube of Oxo, and we had that divided and a whisky peg each.

"G. B." slept, and I saw the horses watered and unsaddled.

The general had some biscuits given him, and some signalling

officer--whom the gods preserve!--gave me a sausage, which

I ate before considering whether it would divide or not.

Then on again, on, on, for hours. Mules fell down and

were helped up only to fall again a hundred yards further on.

Then word came by aeroplane that we might have to fight

our way into Kut through an Arab and Turkish force. Later,

to every one's dismay, we heard that we were not to reach Kut

that night after all, but to bivouac five miles from it. In the

last light of December 2nd, we saw the sun on the distant

roofs of the village we had legged it so strenuously to reach.

The brisk and prolonged marching of yesterday, and of last

night, had reduced the present possible pace to a mile an hour.

We found a ruined _serai_, a four-walled enclosure of ground

thirty yards square. Headquarters came here. A heap of

dust and trampled chaff I selected as a sleeping place for the

General, Captain Garnett, and me. It was colder than ever

and a biting wind blew through our very souls. No one who

has not sampled it for himself can credit the intense cold of

such a Mesopotamian night. I have registered the cold of

Oberhof, where twenty feet of snow and icicles forty feet high

rendered every wood impassable. I have boated on the west

coast of Scotland, where the wind from Satan's antipodes cuts

through coat and flesh and bone. I have felt the cold from

the glaciers of New Zealand. But I have never felt cold to

equal that of December 2nd of the Retreat. Perhaps hunger

and extreme exhaustion help the cold.

We lay close together for warmth. Late in the night some

bread arrived from Kut. I had an awful passage of a mile,

falling over ruts and into nullahs, and once very nearly into

the river. We could not show lights as the opposite bank

swarmed with Arabs. I walked with General Hamilton to

the supply column. While we waited he told me of the battle

of Ctesiphon. I got five stale loaves, two of which I gave Don

Juan, who was shivering violently. Then I picketed the

horses close together for warmth and we three ate our loaves.

General Townshend occupied the far corner of the _serai_, and he

spoke very cheerily to me for a minute or two. It was very

extraordinary how well I had got to know some of the Staff

during the last two days. Our acquaintanceship seemed of

years. But then the retirement itself seemed that long.

CHAPTER III

WE REACH KUT--BEGINNING OF THE SIEGE--THE CHRISTMAS

ASSAULT

We left at 5 a.m. and trotted over the _maidan_ to Kut.

The horses knew that there food and rest awaited

them. We got in at 7·30 a.m., but the column took

hours. I found Headquarters on the river front of the town

and our ill-omened transport already arrived there. I rode

on ahead to get things ready. First, I quieted my stomach

with some whisky and warm water, and then had a remarkable

breakfast of bacon and eggs, cold ham, cold fowl, toast

and marmalade and coffee.

But there was no chance of rest yet awhile. A siege was

impending. No reinforcements were in the country and

Townshend's plan was to hold up the Turkish advance at Kut.

While we defended this strategical junction of the Tigris and

Shat-al-Hai, the enemy could neither get to Nasireyeh nor

down to Amarah. The river is the means of transport. And

so there was much to be done--wounded and ineffectives to

be moved downstream, trenches and gun-pits and redoubts

to be made, defences erected, and everywhere communication

trenches miles long to be dug and a thousand other things

arranged for. It was a race of parapet building against the

Turk. The army could not be spared much rest. I had to

collect the B.G.R.A.'s stores from _mahelas_ and elsewhere, get

a secure place for ourselves and our horses, and buy stuff for

the possible siege, although it might be for only three weeks.

The river-front then became too hot for the Staff, so we

adjourned to dug-outs in the construction of which hangs a

story. In the meantime one learned that we had lost a barge

of wounded, several _mahelas_ of supplies, supply barge,

H.M.S. _Firefly_, _Comet_, and _Shaitan_ in the retirement. The

_Firefly_ was an unfortunate affair, the shell striking her boiler.

There might have been time to blow her up, but it appears

that there was a wounded man down below. The breech-blocks

of her guns were thrown overboard and the crew escaped.

An excellent range-finder was captured on her. At

the moment of writing she is pelting shells at us into Kut.

We also heard that two cavalry officers who had ridden

through the Arabs' lines to General Melliss' brigade with

orders to join in the Um-al-Tabul engagement on the night of

December 1st, had been recommended for the V.C.

On December 4th, the day after we entered Kut, the last

boat left for down the river. On the 5th the Cavalry Brigade

and S Battery left Kut for down below, as they would not be

of so much importance in a siege. Before they went Major

Rennie-Taylor, commanding S Battery, had lunch with us.

A day later the aeroplanes flew away. Then we were

decidedly alone. Bullets fell from the north. Soon they

came from every direction.

The dug-out for the B.G.R.A.'s Staff was to be made out

on the _maidan_ near the brick-kilns. The General added to

the plans of the Pioneers for its construction, and so the

thing was built like a long grave and the poles laid

cross-wise. As a traveller of some experience myself I saw

that trouble was obviously ahead. I hinted that as three

poles were bearing on the centre one, that was insufficient to

carry the total weight. My suggestion was dispersed by an

eloquent explosion on the part of my General. So it was

built; and somewhere in high heaven a humorous Fate

looked down and smiled. At midnight the roof that carried

tons of bricks and soil collapsed without warning. It was the

greatest luck we escaped without awful accident. I occupied

the end farther from the entrance where General Smith slept,

Garnett sleeping underneath beneath the ledge.

Luckily I was awake and, hearing the beam snap, I was

out of my sleeping bag like a bullet, accidentally upsetting

the General on top of Garnett. As I moved it fell in. I

had taken the precaution to sleep with my head towards the

entrance, else I had never escaped. For the rest of the night

I shivered in the cold alongside the cook, without blankets,

sleeping bag, or even jacket. All these were pinned down.

In the morning when the working party came, we found that

the central beam had broken and the two broken ends were

forced a foot into the hard basement of my bed, just where

my chest would have been. My General offered the remark:

"An orderly officer is responsible for the health of his

General." And remembering the mental curses I had

manufactured at the time of the occurrence, and extracting

further humour from having accidentally omitted to remove

a stone from the part of the trench where the general had

been compelled to lie, I proffered embrocation, and, being a

dutiful subaltern, hid my smile. In the teeth of Turkish opposition

the West Kents remade the dug-out that day. It

has not collapsed yet.

To get from the dug-out to the town we had to cross a

shell-swept zone. Every few yards was a splash of smoke and

flame. That was, of course, at the beginning of the siege.

Our dug-outs were near several brick-kilns, themselves

sufficient target without our gun flashes. We had a battery

of 18-pounders on one side, 5-inch on the other, and howitzers

behind. So we came in for all the ranging. It was out of the

question to leave any cooking utensils above ground, for they

were certain to be perforated within a few moments.

A most wretched existence it was in that abominable

little dug-out, but the balancing feature was our proximity to

Colonel Courtenay of the 5-inch. A fountain of good-humour,

ever flowing, an excellent story-teller, and a very human

person. I delighted in his company. He was a very brave

man, not of the defiant sort, but rather as one who has learned

not to fear the inevitable. I saw him observing one day and

a burst described a complete zone around him, but he went

on stuffing tobacco into his pipe as if it was all November

fireworks.

One evening I stood at the mouth of the dug-out giving

orders. Some snipers from over the river must have seen me.

A volley whistled past, one bullet cutting through the pocket

of my tunic close to the hip. More extraordinary was the

escape of the C.O. of the 63rd Battery, Major Broke-Smith.

One morning he had a bullet through his topee and one

through a pocket. In the afternoon another bullet got

another pocket. Some one suggested his requiring a new

outfit at an early date.

[Illustration: THE BRICK-KILNS WELL REMEMBERED BY ALL KUTTITES. THE

GROUND HERE WAS HONEYCOMBED WITH DUG OUTS, GUN PITS

AND TRENCHES.]

After the Cavalry Brigade had crossed our bridge of boats

below the town we found it necessary to destroy it, owing to a

Turkish concentration upon that side. Its demolition was

the occasion of considerable excitement. We lost an officer

and men on the further bank. At the last moment it was

found difficult to blow the bridge up. The heavy guns could

not reach it, and I set off with orders for the howitzers to

blow it up--an impossible target. The nearest shell was

somewhere about 50 yards off. Then General Melliss rode

up across the open to see what could be done, and interviewed

my General. Finally, the bridge was destroyed by a very

gallant subaltern assisted by another equally plucky in the

following way.

At the further end of the bridge the Turks were in strong

force. When night fell, and a dark night fortunately it was,

a sapper subaltern started across the bridge with a charge,

fuse lighted, strapped to his back. That was to ensure the

explosion taking place even if he were hit. Strange to say,

he got out, planted his charge, and got back without a shot

being fired at him. The Turks must have been slacking.

Then the other charge was laid. Both were quite successful

and the bridge totally demolished. The officers have been

recommended for the V.C.[1]

I was then quite busy for a few days with communications.

We were very short of thick cable, and the thin stuff was

being continually broken by fatigue parties. The General,

as a rule, slept a little after tiffin, and at such times I would

look up Colonel Courtenay.

"Hallo, Mousley! How are you and the General?

Hope you are keeping him fit. Temperamentally of course,

yes."

"Hello? Oh, they're all right. Except lucky ones.

Help yourself to that lot. But I've a cigar for you. Now

let's talk about fishing."

Then there was Oxo (among the subalterns so named from

resemblance to an advertisement)--a fiery ha ha, hum hum

little colonel, as busy as a pea on a drum and exuberant

as a thrush in June. He came to see us frequently.

On the 10th General Smith went sick. Captain Garnett

followed suit. We left the dug-out for Headquarters, a

building in the centre of the town with a courtyard. Like

most others it was a two-story building with a promenade

roof that was used for observation. Helio was used up there.

Why, no one knows. Shells came on the building too,

hundreds of them, and smashed the wall or thudded against

it. The three legs of the helio disappearing over the balcony

was the first sight I saw one early morning, and the signallers

came down with white faces. The shell had smashed the

helio without touching them. The Turks religiously refrained

from hitting the mosque, but the hospital got it badly, and so

did the horses which are stalled in the streets.

The enemy's lines have drawn much closer in some places,

and are only sixty to two hundred yards off. The Turkish

commander, Nureddin Pacha, sent word to Townshend that

as our garrison was besieged by all the Turkish forces in Mesopotamia,

he called on him to yield up his arms. General

Townshend replied characteristically. Daily our General

issued _communiqués_ urging us to put up a good fight and to

dig deep and quickly. Within a week we knew what that

meant.

On the morrow I was brimful of influenza and chill

contracted in the night the dug-out fell in, and was slacking

on the bed when a report came from the 82nd Battery R.F.A.

saying that a subaltern was wounded that morning and the

captain was in hospital sick. The other subaltern, who had

come from Hyderabad with me, had been slightly wounded

days before. The message asked if the General could spare

me. A very ardent soldier I was that morning. I jumped

into my accoutrements feeling very weak from the influenza.

However, I did not want to lose the opportunity, so with

revolver, field glasses, and prismatic, I set off at once.

So delighted was I at the prospect of leaving the Staff for

regimental duty that I had not noticed the artillery duel

seemed to have developed into a general attack. No one

seemed quite certain as to where the battery exactly was. It

appeared to be somewhere in a palm wood some distance up

the river. There were no communication trenches yet dug,

so I went along the river-front which was shortest, and where

I had heard there was also some rudimentary trench. It was

a grave mistake, and I paid the penalty with as uncomfortable

a half-hour as ever I had in my life. The _maidan_ was

deserted. Shells plunged into the first wood which I skirted.

Rifle fire thickened and cracked fiercely in the trees. Snipers

fired at me from over the river and I ran for it, stooping low,

a hundred yards at a time. The Turkish gunners appeared to

be sweeping all the woods. I got through to a little _maidan_,

dead flat, not a blade of grass on it, and here was the hottest

cross-fire I have yet seen. I crawled along back into the wood

to get some way from the bank before going on. Then I

raced for it and did about a fifth of the distance, bullets

humming like bees in swarm. I took cover from the frontal

fire, and then flank fire from over the river made it intolerable.

About half way I saw a heap of rubbish and dirt about two

feet high. I arrived breathless and fell flat. Shells came too,

one burst on a building thirty yards nearer the river and the

bullets splashed all round me. I had evidently been spotted

over the river; bullets began to make a tracery around the

rotten little heap. One dug itself in a few niches from my

knee. The base of the mound stopped some, but when one

bullet came clean through the middle, the dust being flung

over my face and eyes, I got up and ran my best. This time

I reached a nullah where a mule that had been hit was kicking

to death invisible devils. From here I was fairly protected

from flank fire so I bolted through the wood, and two hundred

yards in I heard the battery in action. I shall never forget

that horrible little affair behind the dust heap. I could see

the Arabs' heads over the river as they shifted to take better

aim, and the dust every yard or so that the bullets knocked

up reminded one of Frying-Pan Flat in the volcanic region of

New Zealand.

I sprinted over to the cover of a wall in the centre of the

palm wood, and following it came across a gun-limber on end

used sometimes as an observation post. It was protected

by a few sandbags in front. I found the sergeant-major

carrying on, the subaltern just hit being in a dug-out near by,

where he was left until the "strafe" was over. The sergeant-major

asked me to take better cover as several casualties had

just occurred. I am now writing the first pages of this account

from the identical dug-out near the limber. For hours I

could not leave the post. The telephonist lay huddled

underneath the wheels and orders coming by wire from the

major I shouted on by megaphone to the battery, which was

dug in thirty yards in front. Later on, reporting myself to

my C.O. and the colonel of the brigade, I was laughed at for

coming across the open, and they were astonished at my

arriving at all.

"It's a miracle you weren't knocked over," was the

colonel's comment.

The fire slackened and fell to mere sniping. I looked

around. The battery had excellent gun-pits, sandbagged in

front. The dug-outs were very well built, the roofs being

supported by beams and trees. Each detachment had its

own dug-out, and the men had furnished them snugly with

old horse-rugs and rush curtains and ammunition boxes

inlaid into the walls. Our chief zone was directly up river.

My own dug-out was built up rather than dug out, being

constructed against a _mutti_ wall which we believed was shell

proof until one day three shells plugged straight through near

by. Then we dug down. The mess was a very thick-walled

building and heavily sandbagged. It also formed brigade

headquarters. To get to the mess from the battery or from

one's dug-out, one had to run the gauntlet through the

incessant sharp music of rifle bullets cracking against trees or

branches. As a rule, we one and all arrived in the mess

breathless from an ever-improving sprint. This, of course,

and also the going from here to Kut, will be better when the

communication trenches have been dug.

On the same evening at dinner a native servant brought

in most startling news that a bullet had gone through the last

barrel of beer. But jubilation succeeded dismay when we

found that a gunner, with the instinct of the British soldier for

preserving anything in the "victuals" line, had turned the

barrel over. The bullet had entered near the ground, so

quite three-quarters was saved. I hear on good authority

that the gunner will get the D.C.M. We are almost out of

anything drinkable and the siege may go on several weeks.

At 9.30 p.m. I felt tired from the excitement of the day

and from the influenza, and turned in. Ten minutes afterwards

I was summoned on a night job. Two guns of the

Volunteer Battery were in difficulties in an advanced position

near the river bank and just behind the first-line trenches.

They had been under heavy rifle and maxim fire at two

hundred yards range, and were enfiladed from over the river.

The guns were thus rendered unworkable. I was to take two

gun teams and a G.S. wagon at midnight to retrieve them.

This meant crossing the main _maidan_ in the open without an

inch of cover. It meant going almost under the rifles of the

enemy scarcely two hundred yards off, and being visible in

any sort of light to the enemy over the river. A guide was to

await me at twelve midnight, near the battery.

I arranged for the teams and wagon to be there at

11.40 p.m., and for all links, swingle-tree hooks, drag-washers,

and pole-bar to be bound up with rag so as to render them as

noiseless as possible. The teams arrived punctually, their

breath steaming up in the cold night air. The G.S. wagon

had had a mishap over a rut just before pulling up, and the

body was flung backward off the axle trees and jambed. We

all tried our best to rectify it, but the jamb was so bad that

it involved taking the thing to pieces. Here was first-rate

luck already. The adjutant had spoken of the difficulties of

the job, and strongly doubted the advisability of taking the

wagon for the detachment's kit. A wagon is a rattling affair

after any length of service. I utilized the accident as an

excuse for waiting until the moon had gone down, which I

thought advisable. I then awoke the battery sergeant-major

and a detachment for a final attempt on the wagon. That

was unsuccessful.

My drivers were all picked and excellent fellows. I

mounted an old cavalry stager, and we set off about 1 a.m.,

when I met the guide, who, to my surprise, instead of being

an officer or European N.C.O., was a half-caste, and as hopeless

an idiot as ever got lost. His teeth were chattering with

fright from the start. The _maidan_ we had to cross was scored

with trenches and barbed wire, and there was only one crossable

place on each occasion that had been purposely made for us

to cross. The guide could not even find the first flag. I

threatened him with all sorts of disasters if he didn't find the

place at once. We wandered about inside the _bund_ of a communication

trench for thirty minutes in awful darkness, that

was at once our salvation and greatest difficulty. I rode along

several trenches, and at last found the bridge the sappers had

built for us. I believe they had measured the wheel-tracks

of a gun-limber and deducted one-eighth of an inch from each

side just to test the driving capacity of the field artillery.

We found a plank and shoved it down. It was quite dark,

and any light was fatal. The drivers pointed out the difficulty.

I told them to do their best. They deserved a medal, every

man of them. The teams dressed exactly for the bridge, and

then, when all was ready, moved forward and crossed safely.

The noise brought rifle and machine-gun fire on us at once,

but the bullets went high, a few hitting the ground with a

sticky thud. I took the first team to a flank, and then we

got the second over. The fire increased. I ordered the

second gun team to keep one hundred yards behind the first

in case of a volley. I didn't want to lose both. Again the

guide was at fault, leading us bang upon our first-line trench

some one hundred and fifty yards off the Turks. But the

breeze came from the enemy to us, and, besides, the limbers

moved almost noiselessly, so excellently taut did the drivers

keep their traces. At last we found the small scrub and the

guns. A subaltern rushed out and said we should be shot

to the devil in two seconds if we came an inch further. Two

days under continual rifle fire and no chance of doing anything

had naturally not improved his nerves. I remember saying

certain "things" about guides. I was much concerned with

the state of his guns. They were in a banked hollow, close

together in such a way as to render it impossible for the teams

to hook in. Besides that, tins and rubbish were right across

the track of any team attempting to approach the guns.

As for the guns themselves, they bristled with the surplus

baggage. All this meant noise, and my orders were for the

greatest silence.

I ordered all baggage to be taken off the guns, and ammunition

to replace it, as we had no wagon. We loaded all the

ammunition, and after some trouble got the teams hooked

in and away, following two feet of cover along the river edge.

It was on the knees of the gods whether the enemy heard us.

The fire had dwindled to sniping only, but we could see the

lights of the Turks. A second guide now appeared. He was

to conduct us to the new position for the Volunteer Battery

guns in the middle of the _maidan_. To get there we had to

cross three or four trenches and barbed-wire entanglements.

The new guide, also a Eurasian gunner of the Volunteer

Battery, was more confident than the other, but as utterly

useless. He led us everywhere except in the right quarter.

Once he was certain he had found the crossing that had been

shown to him that evening. On approaching it, however, I

found it to be the flimsy roof of an officers' mess. In desperation

I led the guns towards the original crossing, intending to

reconnoitre for myself. The fire now increased, and a maxim

opened. I believed we were discovered. But the bullets flew

high. The Turks never dreamed that we could be so close.

At the bridge we made an awful row, the heavy guns

straining and creaking abominably. It took some time to

dress on to the narrow bridge. I wanted to get both guns

over without delay, as I knew we should be spotted then.

The first team refused to cross, but were persuaded to follow

my horse, an old cavalry thing I had for the evening, that

wanted to gallop on hearing the bullets. The drivers handled

their teams magnificently. A few inches of error would have

landed the guns in the deep trench--here quite ten feet wide

on the top. The first gun got over, and something snapped

in the bridge. I cautioned the drivers to have their whips

ready. The second gun smashed the plank, and the bridge

gave way. But the limber was over, and with whips and

spurs the gun was bumped over also. We hurried to a flank,

as several machine-guns opened on us. The fire was too high,

and neither man nor horse was hit. One or two bullets

cracked on a limber, and my old horse reared, breaking his

girth, and the saddle and I found the ground together. I

exchanged horses with a sergeant, and we went on. For the

best part of an hour I rode alone up and down trenches, and

at last found the crossings and the new gun emplacements.

General Delamain, whose dug-out we missed by a few feet,

asked if we had had casualties, and what had happened to

our guide. We got back about 3.30 a.m. The sergeant-major

had lain awake anxious. He is a father to the battery, and

was delighted we had had no casualties. "Didn't expect to

see you all back, sir."

My adjutant said he felt certain we were all done in when

he heard the machine-guns open fire; and Colonel Maule said:

"Good show," and complimented me kindly on the affair.

Looking backwards now, I am sure we could never have

managed it with the G.S. wagon.

On the evening of the next day, December 12th, the Turks

made an attack they had evidently been preparing some days.

It started so suddenly and decisively we felt no doubt as to

the matter. The bullets came without warning, a veritable

blizzard. I rushed out to the limber 'phone box, and we were

soon at it hammer and tongs. The attack was on the fort,

and a demonstration supported it from the trenches and scrub

in the zone in front of our guns. We raked the trenches with

shrapnel for hours. Subsequently the Arabs reported that

while the Turks were concentrating in the scrub, our fire had

killed a great many. We also fired some star shell, getting the

burst well behind the enemy so as to show him up. Guns

were booming all around, and the rifle fusillade on the walls

and in the trees crackled like a forest on fire.

On December 13th I began duty as Forward Observing

Officer for the field batteries. That meant that from our first-line

trenches I was to range our guns into the enemy's trenches

and saps. I was advised to dispense with helmet and wear a

comforter as offering less target. I left with a signaller so as

to reach the trenches at dawn, which was about 6.40 a.m. A

surprise was in store for me. Instead of the roomy deep

trenches with firing platforms, dug-outs, and so on, I found

wretched little ditches, in many cases only three feet deep at

the traverses. I did not know then, as I know now, the

tremendous amount of work required in digging a good trench,

and in Kut there were miles of them to be dug. The first few

days I crawled miles on my knees. Every few yards some

one had been sniped, so it came to crawling round the traverses.

The trenches smelled horribly in the parts held by the native

regiments. The dead were slung over the parapet, and sometimes

not buried for days. The Gurkhas are truly gorgeous

little men, patient, and very keen. They soon had their

trenches wonderfully improved. The parapets varied most

unreliably in thickness, and one had to keep one's head below

the level, as bullets often came through. Turkish snipers were

quite good. One day I saw a Punjabi carrying a pot of curry

on his head and a bullet knocked it off. It spilled its hot

contents over him and several others that blocked the road

as they sat huddled up in the trench.

I ranged our fire on to the Turkish trenches that in places

had got so close as fifty yards, and at one place where they

were sapping, only thirty yards off. We were firing 18-pounders

at very close range, the nearest being eight hundred

and fifty yards. It was great fun to correct back a few yards

and see the shell burst twenty yards in front of me, having

travelled about five feet above one's head. One such occasion

I was ordered to empty the trench for some yards in case of

accidents. It was as well we did so, for one or two prematures

burst behind us, and quite an appreciable amount of shrapnel

got in the trench. Several times after ranging I saw dead

and wounded among the digging parties of the enemy's trenches.

These trenches! They have their advantages, it is true,

for the Turks dare not shell them, and if you keep your head

down they are about the safest place in Kut; but in the

course of their construction it was a case of a breaking back

from hours of stooping, or a bullet if one stretched. I've had

bullets knock dirt into my face, so that I thought that I was

hit, and had periscopes smashed to bits in my hand. Once a

bullet cut dead in the centre of the glass of the exposed end,

and pieces crashed all around my head, burying themselves in

the wall of the trench, and wounding a _naik_ near by. The

Turks even came to know my yellow ranging flag, and cut the

bamboo rod time and again. They also had a nasty trick of

ricochetting bullets at us by firing them just ahead on the

ground. Not a few came into the trenches, especially before

they were very deep. Another factor that brought more fire

on us was the necessity of signalling from the trenches to the

battery by flag, and also having a danger flag. The reason

for this was the shortage of wire. The Turks always opened a

hot fire in the vicinity of the flags, and observation was very

difficult, except by periscope, as the loopholes were most

unsafe.

One afternoon I had been trying to discover a hostile

maxim that was playing havoc in our main communication

trench. A native reported that he had located it, and while

looking through a tiny loophole in plate iron he was shot

through the forehead, the bullet making a ghastly mess of

his head. Such a quick, silent death makes one careful. By

and by more periscopes were made by the sappers, and there

were fewer casualties. One mistake is enough, unless one is

very lucky. Turkish snipers lay with their rifles ready on a

part of our trench that was insufficiently deep. The first

sign of a movement there was the signal for a volley. After

a time we got accustomed to the dead things in the trenches,

and ate by them and slept by them. After all, they are only

earth full of memories as is an old coat.

Direct hits were very rare, but on one occasion I had the

satisfaction of seeing a machine-gun hurled over the Turkish

parados. The 82nd was an excellent battery, and shot well.

It was great fun ranging on the new trenches that had begun

to appear since the night. We blew one whole trench completely

out of shape and there was a stampede of Turkish heads.

Great luck decreed that two shells, on different days, both

premature, should scatter shrapnel in our trenches, while

emptied for safety. On one occasion Major Nelson, of the

West Kents, I, and my signaller were there standing at the

end of a traverse. A kerosene tin and some utensils were

scuppered between us, and dozens of our shrapnel bullets

buried themselves in the wall of the trench. But incidents

of this nature grew too numerous for mention, and happened

to many. Another round from a cold gun landed into the

cookhouse of the 76th Punjabis. No one was there, but the

cookhouse was not improved. Another tragic premature

killed a private of the Hants and badly wounded a second.

Some of the shrapnel of this burst reached to where I was

in the trenches nine hundred yards away.

We were in daily dread of another attack, and at night all

our guns were placed on their night-lines, each to its zone, just

over our trenches. On the first indication of a general attack

we thus made a curtain of fire that the Turks funked breaking

through. Two or three times a night we would sometimes

have to go into action for this purpose.

The West Kents improved their trenches splendidly, and

made them quite comfortable. A very nice regiment they

were, and on many occasions I have been grateful for their

hospitality at a breakfast.

They had a wee wooden home-made trench-mortar that

we christened "Grasshopper," as every time he was fired he

jumped, sometimes several feet back over the parados, out of

the trench, and had to be recovered with lassos. Once he tried

to range to some trenches farther away, and blew himself to

small bits. The casualties during these first weeks were very

heavy. Our line was short, scarcely more than a mile and a

half, and the enemy swept this with fair regularity. The

fatigue parties often had to risk going over the top in the

night, and there was almost always a casualty. I often think

of my great luck on that night when I went for the guns.

Nor shall I easily forget the first time I was in a trench

when an attack began. This trench was about eighty yards

from ours, and the rate of fire was terrific, but not so fast as

ours. The Turks well knew that although only eighty yards

had to be crossed nothing human could arrive.

My trench incidents would fill a volume, which I have no

time to write, and even with time it would be difficult to

isolate individual instances of extraordinary routine.

What a kaleidoscopic mixture this diary is, to be sure. I

confess that on reading a passage here and there it seems merely

an autobiographical sequence, and egoistical into the bargain.

But the truth is, that personal experience in this thing called

war is at best an awakening of memory from a dream of seas

and foggy islands bewildering and confusing. A few personal

incidents loom a little clearer, deriving what clarity they have

from the warmth of personal contact. Then incidents fraught

even with the greatest danger become commonplace, until

the days seem to move on without other interest than the

everlasting proximity of death. Even that idea, prominent

enough at first, gets allocated to the back of one's mind as a

permanent and therefore negligible quantity. I firmly believe

that one gets tired of an emotion. A man can't go on dreading

death or extracting terrific interest from the vicinity of death

for over long. The mind palls before it, and it gets shoved

aside. I have seen a man shot beside me, and gone on with

my sentence of orders without a break. Am I callous? No,

only less astonished. Death has lost its novelty. I am

tempted to diverge into a speculation as to the necessary

permanency of Heaven's novelty, a novelty of which one can

never tire. Alas, I am not now up in the cloistral peacefulness

of Cambridge, so I can't follow up that speculation.

Life never seemed so wonderful a thing as it does now. I am

extracting more fun and fact to the square inch here than I

ever did before. Now we know death as a tangible and non-abstract

affair. Let me not be accused of irreverence if I say

we walk in his shadow and lunch with him.

Every evening I return to the battery and enjoy a meal in

mess or relieve my major at his post. Then follows a look

around my section and inspection of the night-lines, and then

bed in my dug-out among the date palms. Our sergeant-major

is the best I've seen yet. The other day, just as he

put down his megaphone in the speaking hole, a bullet plugged

clean through it into the opposite wall, a vicious twang. He

laughed quietly. "I believe it was alive," he said.

The Turks have moved their big guns closer, and their

shells crash straight at this wall, which before was perfectly

safe. On the 20th, two days ago, a shell smashed into our

ammunition boxes after coming through the wall, a few yards

from my dug-out, which I have been deepening this afternoon.

It is a quiet day, and I left the firing-line early. The enemy

can't locate our guns, as there is a wall some eighty yards

ahead of the battery, so his gunners range just over the wall

and search. Several shells have been through the gun emplacements,

and some trenches have been smashed. Now and then

a palm tree goes down with a crash. I've often awakened in

the night thinking the whole place on fire. Sometimes, again,

I awake to the sound of soft ceaseless swishing, that full and

incessant sound of early morning in England, dear England,

when the gentle rain washes open the eyelids of the waking

world and green trees murmur, and birds begin to sing--but

I look outside my dug-out and see only a mass of black

crows flying over a palm-dotted wilderness to their Tigris

haunts.

This morning the Gurkha regiment relieved in the first

line. I am quite keen about them, a manly, silent, respectful

set of men; but children, too, mere children, for all that they

are tigers in a scrap. Their genial colonel and I had a pleasant

conversation after my morning ranging was done. We discussed

the war and the Mesopotamian campaign and the

eternal question of relief. He is a most active C.O.

of a sprightly regiment. It yet remains a wonder to me

how these full-sized colonels can possibly get along the half-completed

trenches, which the first fortnight were only some

3 ft. 6 ins. deep, and often barely 2 ft. wide, and partly filled

with ammunition boxes, stores, men's kit, and sundry cooking

pots.

Among the gunner subs, is one known as R. A., which

some say means Royal Artillery, and others the Ricochetting

American. He has just returned from ranging, with the

announcement that he knocked out half a dozen maxims with

his 18-pounders. We have been ragging him by suggesting

his field-glasses must be faulty, and asking to see them.

At a conversation in Kut to-day one heard many conclusions

about America, who is not yet in the war. "It is a terrible

New World," as Dooley said of the war; "but it is better

than no world at all." Not the least of our blessings is the

gift of Time. Time it is that invites us to sit tight and say

nothing while bounders and cleverly veneered barbarians

romp rapturously through an applauding world. We have

found them out. In time others will find them out. In the

meantime we wait patiently. And patience is life. This has

no connection with America, except that the Americans, with

all their virtues, and they have many, have adopted impatience

as their national characteristic. And Impatience is the offspring

of Ambition, and Ambition is forgetful of many things.

"Hitch your wagon to a star," suggests Emerson to his

countrymen. "I guess I'll do better," says the American

citizen, "I'll hitch it to a comet." At what time the shade

of Don Quixote, that excellent gentleman, smiles quietly as he

recalls having once hitched his charger to a windmill!

_Later. Quos Di Amant._--I hear that poor Courtenay and

Garnett are dead. Some days have elapsed since writing the

last lines owing to a severe engagement we fought on the

24th and 25th. I will revert to that in a moment, but just

now, as I sit here writing in the Fort, my narrative seems

incapable of any reference quite fitting for that excellent

soldier Colonel Courtenay. My General was ill when I left

Headquarters to replace a casualty in the 82nd Battery that

day under heavy fire.

Colonel Grier became C.R.A., and got hit in the head with

the splinter of a shell. Then Colonel Courtenay became

C.R.A., and Captain Garnett, Staff Captain of retirement

memories, removed with the office of the B.G.R.A. on top

of the building where the helio men had been. It was quite

a good place, but conspicuous and dangerous, and shells

struck incessantly on the wall behind. It was also in line for

Headquarters, which the Turks had located. Not long after

my leaving the building a disastrous shell killed Captain Begg

instantly, an awfully nice fellow, with whom I had often had

a joke, wounded and burned Captain Garnett severely in the

leg, and hit Colonel Courtenay badly in the lower leg, smashing

it. I tried hard to get along to see them, but urgent duties

prevented. Garnett's case was complicated with jaundice.

He died suddenly, to our great surprise and grief. I thank

goodness I am not married just now. The General, he, and

I, were together in that awful retirement, and during that

time we exchanged many confidences, and he had censured

me for taking risks. Now he is fallen already. Colonel

Courtenay died heroically two days after the amputation. He

was known throughout India as "Mike." After the operation

we were discussing how fine it would be for him to be able to

ride still. They had amputated his leg some few inches below

the knee, leaving plenty for a grip. I suppose the shock took

him away, that and the inadequacy of medical conditions. He

was a robust soldier, and every one says the Service has lost

a great sahib and an excellent officer.

Several other amputated cases have died with equal

suddenness. It seems that they are mostly run down with

the effects of this dug-out, exerciseless life. And the strain is

constant. No part of Kut escapes the shell and rifle fire.

The hospital has several casualties daily.

We have been on half rations in some things, and others

have ceased altogether. Tinned milk and fresh have both

stopped. There were a few goats, which have gone under

from shell fire. Drinks have become a memory, except for

the lucky ones who had huge mess stores awaiting them in

Kut. The bread ration is one half, bacon twice weekly, (a

tiny portion), no potatoes, and some cheese. Bully and

bullocks will last for some little time longer. The trouble is

that very many have dysentery, or colitis, or acute diarrhoea,

and cannot take much except milk and eggs. These are

almost unobtainable. What little there is, goes to the

hospital.

The weather is bright and sunny, quite warm at midday

and freezing at night. The extremes serve to emphasize the

cold, and I find I require more blankets than ever I did even

in the coldest weather at Shoebury. I have contrived to be

comfortable by the help of my Burberry sleeping-bag and

riding coat, combined with a travelling rug that is warm with

distant and pleasant memories.

During the week preceding Christmas the assiduous Turk

completed alternative positions for most of his guns, and it

became necessary for us to do the same, so that at emergency

we could shoot over the river also. For this a place was

selected on the _maidan_, as we call the bare flat plain. We

began with the pits by night fatigues, under fire the whole

time. The high parapet of a communication trench probably

saved a lot of us from getting hit. In two nights we equipped

my section, which was on the right, with a communication

trench, and I then fixed up an excellent little observation post

by a wall for myself. Long ramps were made for the guns,

so that we could get them into and away from the pits without

difficulty. It was to be my show, and I was very keen on it.

Then I chose a dark night and took my section down on the

edge of the _maidan_ near the river to demolish a _mutti_ building

that came in the way of our fire zone. Very heavy fire, but

fortunately much too high, broke out from over the river.

One man had a shovel hit, and another bullet struck a huge

lump of _mutti_ two men were carrying in my direction. Then

we built a wall with the _débris_ to screen us from machine-gun

fire immediately over the river. Altogether we made a good

job of it.

The horses are having many casualties daily. Already we

have lost a fourth of their number.

The relieving force is rumoured to be expected about

January 3rd. It cannot be a very large force, although on

the date of Ctesiphon large reinforcements were wired for

immediately. At first we were told that our concentration

was taking place near Shaik Saad, some thirty miles below,

on December 15th, but the rumours and counter-rumours cast

considerable doubt on the whole thing.

On December 24th the enemy tried to storm Kut with a

surprise attack by way of the Fort. It was a cold but eventful

Christmas Eve. About 12.30 midday a hot rifle fire broke

out over our trenches, and within a few seconds the symphony

of bullets crackling in the palm trees swelled to a roar like the

falling of fast and dense hail.

We went into a fast rate of fire at once with the battery

on our prepared zones, and immediately put up a heavy barrage

of shrapnel just in front of our first line. At first the densest

fire seemed to come from in front of the 16th Brigade, but soon

it extended right round our perimeter.

Woolpress appeared to be busy in action also, and then

our guns were hotly engaged by enemy guns of varying calibre,

but chiefly 16-pounders, shrapnel, and high explosive. From

our concealed position in an old orchard surrounded by a high

thick wall we were not definitely located, and the Turkish

gunners, often after having got our exact range, went on

sweeping and searching, hoping to get us. More than one

dug-out and gun-pit was entered by a shell, and one particularly

narrow shave was when a 16-pounder crashed through the

revetment of sandbags, smashed the shield of the gun, and

buried itself in the earth behind without exploding. The rifle

fire was so thick that our telephone wire in the trees was cut

through the first two minutes. Major Harvey, our adjutant,

had selected this position for the guns. The dug-outs of the

gun detachments and the communication trenches were by

this time well and deep down.

The fire became general all round Kut. High above the

roar of rifle fire and scream of shell rose the sharp high note

of the Turkish mitrailleuses. Suddenly most of his guns concentrated

on the Fort, a salient by the river, none too strongly

held. The Turk was evidently merely demonstrating on our

sector, and intended to attack through the Fort. All our

available guns in turn were switched on to their Fort lines,

_i.e._ for a barrage, already prepared, just over the walls of the

Fort. We increased our range and searched, getting in among

the Turkish reserves all piled up and awaiting ready to support.

A red glow hung over the low mud walls, and reports said that

the Turks with great gallantry and determination had rushed

up to the outer ramparts with grenades and charges of dynamite.

By this time their guns had made a breach or two in

the eastern sector known as Seymour bastion, and heavy

hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Grenades and the bayonet

were chiefly in operation. At one time some hundreds of

Turks had entered the ramparts, and it was touch and go.

The Oxfords and Norfolks were hurried up to stiffen the Indian

regiments, and every available man, sappers or pioneers

included, was given a weapon and pushed into the fray. The

Volunteer Battery did extremely well with rifle and grenade.

Instances of pluck and daring were many. Handfuls of men

from the British regiments in little knots formed the backbone

of the struggle, and, nipping around behind the attackers,

dispatched them to a man. Finally, thanks largely to the

terrible casualties our guns had inflicted on the enemy supports,

the pressure slackened, and the last Turks were bombed out

of the bastion. It was a great resistance, and successful

chiefly owing to the outstanding merit and fighting quality of

the British regular infantry.

Firing continued intermittently all day, and while on duty

at the guns pending any renewal of the attack, I inspected

the Christmas decorations of the men's dug-outs.

Above ground we saw merely the several sandbagged

emplacements of the guns among the long grass and fruit

trees, with six ominous muzzles peering through the revetments,

and ammunition awaiting ready near the pits, the

limbers drawn up snugly in rear for protection. Below, the

communication trench ran into and through the dug-out of

each gun detachment. The men had made those comfortable

by letting into the wall ammunition boxes as receptacles for

their smokes and spare kit. Rush curtains hung over the

entrance, and matting purchased from the bazaar was on the

ground. To-night decorations of palm-leaves were spread out

gaily on all sides, and the artistic talent of the various subsections

had competed in producing coloured texts: "God

bless our Mud Home," "Merry Xmas and plenty of Turks,"

"Excursions to Kut on Boxing Day." One humorist had

hung up a sock without a foot, and suspended a large bucket

underneath to catch his gifts.

Our mess secretary, Captain Baylay, an officer of much

resourcefulness in cooking and making shift, arranged an

excellent plum-and-date duff for the men.

Several alarms were given through the night, and we stood

by our guns hour after hour. However, nothing much

happened, as the Turks had evidently had enough. Orders

came for me to proceed to the serai, River-Front Artillery

observation post, and to be ready to open fire, if necessary, at

daybreak, and to have my telephone wire already laid. This

entailed getting up early, so after an hour's rest without

sleeping, I set off with my telephonist. We laid the wire

accordingly, direct on to our own brigade headquarters,

through the palm grove to the serai. Dawn found me among

the sandbags and _débris_ of the dismantled heavy gunners'

observation post, looking around on the vast plain, seemingly

quiet and deserted and divided by the great broad sheets of

the Tigris. Gradually the darkness rolled away. The soft

glow of approaching day climbed up in the eastern sky. Ray

after ray stole across the water-dotted plain and revealed to

me the coloured minaret of Kut silvered in the dawn, emerging

from the night. The outlines of Kut followed, our defences,

river craft, the palm groves, a few Arab goats grazing out on

the Babylonian plain. Less than fifty miles from the scene of

my Christmas morning once arose the Babylon of the Ancient

world, and her chariots coursed all around this vicinity.

Babylon has gone. For thousands of years her memory has

slept wrapt in the silence of oblivion except for the passing of

Arab or Turkish heel. Perhaps the war is to see this ancient

land once again awakened by England to life and a new

destiny.

Wild geese and duck were the first to stir. Buffalo far

down stream followed. Then small dots began to move along

the black lines. They were the heads of Turkish soldiery

moving along their trenches.

Suddenly a rifle fusillade broke out, and bullets ripped into

my sandbags, and some flew just over. I moved my telescope,

for the light of the sun was on it. At the same time one, two,

three, four small white fleecy puffs appeared away to the

north-west. Immediately after one heard the report. Before

the shells had reached us my message was through to the

brigade. "Target 'S' opened fire. Bearing so-and-so, new

position." Our guns engaged them. Other targets opened,

and the morning entertainment began. I was joined by the

garrison gunners, Lieutenants Lowndes and Johnston, who

took me down later to a wonderfully good breakfast.

I was relieved at lunch, and finding my way back to the

battery slept a little before having to stand by for action

again. In the evening I had permission to go into Kut to

attend a Christmas dinner at the Sixth Divisional Ammunition

Column given by "Cockie" R.F.A. It was dark when I left

the battery, and rifle fire became lively. The communication

trench, however, had progressed considerably, and one went

most of the way under cover. I overtook some stretcher

parties bearing wounded men from the first line. Arrived

at the D.A.C. I found a most cheerful entertainment in

progress. A long decorated table seating a dozen guests was

full of good things. We commenced with a gin concoction

of considerable potentialities. There was Tigre Crème,

Turques Diablées, Nour Eddin Entrée, Donkey à la lamb,

Alphonse pouding. I sat between Cockie and Major Henley

of Dwarka memory. The Navy, Indian Cavalry, Flying

Corps, and the Oxford Regiment and West Kents were also

represented. A limited supply of whisky was available, and

with such a good fellowship we abandoned ourselves to a

joyful evening. Anyone hearing our shouts of laughter would

not have imagined we were in a siege.

[Illustration: MAP OF KUT DURING SIEGE]

From the pudding I drew a lucky coin, a brand new half

rupee, which I am keeping as a mascot. A sweepstake on the

date of relief was opened, Lowfield January 1st, Highfield

(which I drew) the 31st. So optimistic were we on immediate

relief that I was offered for it only four annas. We had a

miniature game of football in the tiny quadrangle to terminate

proceedings, and at ten o'clock, in joyful frame of mind,

I struck out in the pitch-dark night for the palm grove. I

missed my way again and again before getting the trench,

and finally found the many turnings so bewildering without

a light that I got up on top and followed the river-front once

more as I had on joining the battery. A faint moon emerged,

and the Turkish snipers followed me along. Several shots

striking the wall alongside me I went inside it at the first

breach and came across a dismantled tent behind which dark

forms moved stealthily. On looking to see what it was, I

found several jackals and pie-dogs mangling a horse that had

strayed and been sniped. They sprang out with most dreadful

yells. This commotion was heard across the river, and the

Turks turned a machine-gun on. I lay quiet in the wood for

some time listening to the rain and the bullets in the palms.

It was a most ghostly spot--what with dead horses and mules,

dismantled tents, graves, cast clothing, and shell-stricken

trees. At this minute I became aware that I was not alone,

a feeling one can very well have on such occasions. And I

watched a certain shadow move by inches along the ground.

It had been hiding behind a tree, and I imagine had been

following me some little distance. There were from time to

time rumours that the Turks sent Arab spies into Kut to

pick off stray people in the hope of getting any plans. With

my cocked Webley in my hand I called out. It proved to be

an Arab who took to his heels and vanished like a wraith. He

had probably been salvaging. I reached my dug-out very

tired an hour later and found all the battery asleep. An order

required me to stand by from four to six, so I slept with my

boots on. At four I went around the battery and had the

men standing to, which means awake and dressed ready for

action but resting. Nothing happened. At dawn I was told

to get my kit and report for duty at the Fort as Observation

Officer to the Tenth Field Artillery Brigade, the other officer

having been wounded the preceding day. Slinging a few

things together to be brought along by my servant, I walked

the two miles of trenches to the Fort, which I entered for the

first time.

It proved to be a mud-walled enclosure of about seven

acres with a few bastions extending beyond. The garrison

of the Fort were all underground and dug in. In fact, the

place was a network of communication trenches, dug-outs, or

store-pits. It was an easy target for the Turkish artillery,

and shells of all sizes kept leisurely arriving from all sides, and

at this close range we hadn't any warning report of the Turks'

guns, besides which, grenades and bombs were slung or fired

over the wall indiscriminately into any part of the Fort. In

the centre an observation mound of bags of _atta_ (flour), some

fifteen feet high, commanded quite an extensive view over

the walls on to the plain beyond. One could see three-fourths

of the horizon and a very good view of Turkish activities upstream.

This observation post was frequently a mark for

the Turkish machine-guns, and one had to run the gauntlet

in getting up to it by making a sudden bolt, and frequently

a r-r-r-rip of bullets into the flour-bags followed. Sometimes,

generally during the firing of a series, the Turk ranged

several machine-guns and small pounders on to the post.

Besides myself there was an observer for the heavy guns.

When registering we seized the most favourable hour of the

day for the minimum of mirage, usually just after sunrise or

before sunset. As the artillery duel became general, one had

to range on several targets in succession and sometimes two

simultaneously. When one was too preoccupied the services

of the machine-gun officer were utilized. Although not trained

for artillery observation, and talking of "degrees over" or

"short," which frequently puzzled the gunners, he nevertheless

had a good eye for a bursting shell. He was a big-game shot

endowed with a large imagination and a bad memory, as he

constantly varied the same story, but what one lost in veracity

one derived in entertainment. I liked especially to get into

the "stack," as we called it, at dawn, and watch the shadows

lifting over the plain and the wild duck and fowl flying away

to their feeding-grounds.

On one such early occasion, after a heavy "strafe" the

night before, I had no sooner entered the "stack" than two

or three of the several bullets hitting the bags came through

and struck the inside wall. We placed another bag or two

on the spot, and then in the afternoon a bullet came through

between another officer and me. We could not understand

why this had happened, as the "stack" had frequently

been subjected to the heaviest Maxim fire, and if there had been

any flaw we must have been riddled several times. Late at

night, before the moon was up, I climbed on to the bags from

the outside and found that the machine-gun fire had cut grooves

into two sacks and the flour had run out on to the ground,

making an excellent mark, and what was worse, the outside

bags were three parts empty, allowing the bullets to come

through the second.

The long tedious hours of the day were diverted by the

Volunteer Battery Section firing at any target that offered.

Other things failing, a basket ferry at near range was engaged,

and excellent sport it made, the Arabs or Turks ducking out

of it into the river. A small mountain gun called Funny Teddy

was ubiquitous, appearing on all sides. He was extremely

annoying to us, and once several guns were turned on to him.

He was fairly well protected, but one round turned him completely

over. Great joy reigned over the Fort, and word was

sent into Kut. But the last message had scarcely been dispatched

when he appeared behind a tent and spat out several

rounds almost into the "stack" just to show his spite.

Early one morning, a few days after I had reached the

Fort, I observed that the _Firefly_, formerly H.M.S., now S.A.I.,

was not in her accustomed spot. We usually located the ships

of the Turks and reported any activity to G.H.Q. Suddenly

there caught my eye something like a perpendicular stick

moving at a rapid rate downstream towards Kut. Her

funnel appeared immediately after. We informed Kut and

a fire was opened on her from our five-inch and four-inch River

Front Guns. This stopped her, but not before she had got

some of her 4·7's into Kut. This gun, with some small supply

of ammunition, was captured on the _Firefly_ and was the

hardest hitting gun the Turks had.

_January 1st._--I was up a half-hour before the dawn on

first spell of duty, Captain Freeland taking the second hour.

We usually took breakfast in turn. Food at the Fort I find

much worse than in Kut, the distance out being accountable

for that, and the special chances of getting horse-liver or

kidneys, a great delicacy, quite a remote one. We live in a

tremendously large dug-out, some sixteen feet by ten, the roof

being spanned by great beams of wood, eight by six inches,

but much too low to allow one to stand upright. The beam

is already bent considerably with the great weight of some feet

of soil on top, and one lies smoking on one's back staring at

this beam and applying the Aristotelian axiom that just as

"some planks are stronger than others, so all will break if

sufficient weight be applied," and hoping a 60-pounder won't

just add the difference.

I am writing alone in the observation post. The New Year

has just been heralded in with a wonderful dawn. Shades of

mauves and heliotrope and violet are diffused over the most

extraordinary geography of floating cloud islets, continents,

and seas, sailing and sailing up and away. From a belt of

electric blue fringing the southern horizon down to Essin

past the Tomb, and over the Eastern desert, cloud island after

island has broken from its aerial moorings speeding like

sailing ships across the ocean sky up past Shamrun Camp of

the enemy towards Baghdad. The first streak of dawn beheld

this phenomenon of smartly moving Change. How much

more prophetic this than the stillness of a static dawn. As

Horace says, one sees not into the future, but such a moving

dawn may well be taken as an augury of big happenings in

the year just born and, ultimately, let us hope, of a convergence

of British destinies moving onward like these cloudlands to

Baghdad. But I for one as a traveller do not believe we have

yet nearly appreciated the tremendous vitality and potentiality

of Germany or fully realized the great strength and solidarity

she draws from her geographical centrality.

In the meantime, here am I in a siege, believing in a

certain relief within a few days or two weeks if British luck

holds, sitting in an observation post of many tons of _atta_

(flour) which seems to have been used for defences on all sides

and no tally kept of it at all. Sitting on an _atta_ stack talking

of dawns!!

_Evening._--Quite a few shells fell about our dug-out, and

machine-guns were turned on the stack while I was ranging

on to a party of Turks working on two distant gun-emplacements.

The Turks seem to know most of the ranging is done

from the Fort, and when our guns in Kut open fire the northern

sector invariably strafes our observation stack. The working

party we can observe quite well taking cover when the shell

is heard coming, and immediately after the burst away go

their shovels and picks again. We fired sectional salvos, and

I believe did good execution, as we observed carts coming

out from their hospital and some stretcher parties. The

work evidently proceeded nevertheless, and this afternoon

two guns in the new position opened fire on Kut. Our heavy

guns, however, soon silenced them.

This afternoon I visited the battered sections of the Fort

known as Seymour Bastion, still in a most dilapidated and

shattered condition from the heavy assault of the 24th, and

only roughly reinforced as yet with corrugated sheet iron,

barbed wire, and trestles. The bombs and shells have made

great breaches in the wall. We went along in the dusk to the

listening post and along the bastion, a corridor running out

past main wall towards the Turks, and enabling the defending

party to enfilade an assaulting party on the outer wall. However,

on the 24th, the bastion itself became the scene of a

hand-to-hand struggle and it got choked with dead. It is

a pity we haven't Lewis guns as they have in France, which

are much lighter and more portable in case of an assault.

But when our machine-guns were out of action, bombs and

bayonets and rifles held him off. The bastion, I was informed

by a man of the Oxfords, was a most unhealthy spot. It

proved so. As we passed a loophole, bullets entered that one

and the one ahead. The Turk here is ever alert, and he has a

big tally to account for. One passes a loophole (they are

quite low and unavoidable in walking), and then waits for

the rifle fire before rapidly crossing another. In one place

bullets simply pour through a cavity or chink in the mud wall.

This is to be built up to-night. The Oxfords and Norfolks

are very proud of the part they took in the fight and showed

me scores of dead Turks scattered all around. There were

hundreds, only many have been removed by the enemy during

the truce. In this heat of the day, the odour that comes to

the stack from the "unburied" is at times almost overpowering.

More than one Turkish "trophy," rifle, belt, or

helmet has been boldly retrieved by our men, and one sepoy

has recovered no fewer than three helmets and an officer's

sword.

Our frugal breakfast is rice and bully and tea. We have

no butter nor sugar. For dinner we are to have a small ration

of potatoes, fillet of horse, date and _atta_ roll, and to divide

two bottles of beer the Mess has providentially saved--a very

good New Year's Day meal considering one is not a Scotsman.

_Later, 7 p.m._--Dinner over. I feel in conscience bound

to say it was excellent and almost half enough. I have a

Burma cheroot from a very precious supply of a kind-hearted

subaltern here from Burma.

_January 2nd._--The event of to-day was the arrival of an

enemy aeroplane flying quite fast. It came from the Shamrun

Camp and flew over taking observations, followed by a fusillade

from every available rifle and machine-gun.

Later in the day another aeroplane flew over us likewise

from the north. Our big-game friend insisted that it was a

Turk. One could not see the colour, but I saw what looked

like rings. General Hoghton, who came into the stack, agreed

with me about it, and on its return so it proved to be. A

Turkish plane has a crescent on its wings or generally the

German cross. This brigadier is a most intrepid and fearless

man, and is to be found everywhere at the loopholes, digging-parties,

and observation posts. The Fort is merely part of

his command (the 17th Brigade), but one sees much more of

him than the C.O. Fort. He is a most genial and kind general

and very cheerful about everything. To-day I met Colonel

Lethbridge, now commanding the Oxford Regiment, and one

of the few officers of that regiment to survive Ctesiphon. We

had a most interesting and diverting talk on European politics

in general. He is an extraordinarily well-read man and over

everything he says plays the quiet light of a well-focussed

intellect. We talked of Germany, where I had spent a considerable

time before the war, and he asked me many questions

of the French front. I hear I am the only one of the garrison

who was in France in August, 1914, and only two other officers

have been there at all. In fact, one notices that this Division,

having come direct from India early in the war, has, for the

most part, no idea of the significance of the war and of the

new armies. Neither has it, or could it be expected to have,

any sort of perspective of the many fronts of the war. They

allow either too much or too little. They are focussed sharply

on to Mesopotamia and the Sixth Division, and the perspective

of the World War suffers. Moreover this front is not contiguous

to any other front. But this Colonel of reserved

utterance in his grave way dismissed many of the current

rumours of Kut as being out of proportion, and made one feel

at least how very vast and far were the ultimate issues of

the war. And for listening respectfully I had a most entertaining

hour and two large whiskies and water. On my way

back I saw the work of the Sirmoor Sappers, a most keen and

enthusiastic body of men who are never idle.

_January 16th._--I am writing in an excavation of four

mud walls and beneath a tiny roof of corrugated iron topped

by some feet of earth. Two tiny camp chairs, a wooden table

with legs driven into the earth, and two niched candles form

the furniture. It is the mess of my battery, 76th R.F.A.,

whither I have been ordered some days since from the Fort

to replace Lieut. Edmonds who was wounded while mending

a telephone wire. The man accompanying him was killed

outright, and Edmonds had a narrow shave, the bullet cutting

a deep groove across his neck and just missing the spinal

column.

Captain Baylay of the 82nd Battery relieved me at the Fort.

He has about eighteen years' service and is by general admission

a very good gunner, quick, resourceful, and of instant decision.

Apart from the fact that I am getting back to my own battery

I feel he will be more able than I am to deal with the ever-increasing

responsibilities of observation officer out there,

which goes pretty close to having two or three targets almost

simultaneously. It will also enable the machine-gun detachment

commander to devote his attention to his own particular

job and incidentally to become conversant with the theory

and terminology of field-gun ranging.

My battery is just behind the middle line out on a solitary

position on the _maidan_. Unlike any other field battery we

have no cover whatsoever except that of the earth. Every

time a gun fires the flash is visible to every Turkish gun on

the north or eastern sector. We are swept by rifle fire all

around, the nearest some few hundred yards over the river,

and we get all the "shorts" intended for the heavy guns at

the brick kiln, five hundred yards behind us. Our Major

(Lloyd) is away at the Brick Kilns from where he can observe

much better than in the battery, and he messes more comfortably

with C.Os. of other batteries there. The only other

officer in the battery is Lieut. Devereux, my junior of a few

months, who had been sent from Hyderabad before me. He

has a keen sense of devotion to duty and is most conversant

with every detail of horse management, harness, and guns,

but less quick at figures and in making up his mind. I leave

much to him, as for some months he had been a sergeant-major

of M battery before coming to Hyderabad, and we owe more

than one good meal to his knowledge of the Q.-M. department

in Kut, and "Coffee-shop" official ropes. We live and sleep

in the mess with our boots on, as we frequently go into action

during the night.

The new dug-out for myself, just behind my section of guns,

is almost complete. It is large and deep, and although in

danger of floods, I am content. Some trestle beams from a

dismantled dug-out I am using for the roof. The difficulty

is to find wood of sufficient strength to support the weight of

earth necessary to keep off rifle fire.

The 40-pounders we cannot compete against. For a

radius of one hundred yards the battery is thick with holes

which in one place have joined up and made a pond where I

have counted over sixty unexploded shells. Before I came

one of these arrived in the mess, having entered through feet

of soil and beam and iron. The thrilled occupants had reason

to be thankful that it did not explode. It has been inserted

in the hole, which it fits exactly, just above the doorway, its

nose pointing at the table, a standing reminder of the thinness

of line described by the Circle of Destiny.

We are awfully short of firewood, only enough being

available to cook one meal a day for the men, and provide

hot water besides for breakfasts. Sometimes there is not even

that. Theft of wood is punishable with death. The G.O.C.

is loth to destroy the town. We shall, however, have to do

that very soon.

News there is none, except that on January 12th General

Younghusband smashed into heavy Turkish forces at Wadi, a

stream coming down from the Pusht-i-Kuh mountains, and

got through with the tremendous losses of four thousand.

The liner _Persia_ has been sunk by a submarine.

The patience of the garrison is beyond all praise. I can

honestly say I have learned to love the character of the British

soldier who has acquired the habit of doing cheerfully what he

does not want to do, at the moment when he just does not

want to do it. In other words, bigger than himself is the

momentum of years, discipline become a habit. There are

rumours that the Relieving Force has retired. The fighting,

we hear, is in deep mud and must indeed be terrible.

CHAPTER IV

RELIEF DELAYED--FLOODS--LIFE DURING THE SIEGE

_January 21st._--A black-letter day for Kut in general

and myself in particular. About 6 a.m. in the pitch-dark,

the water burst into our front line by Redoubt D

and flooded the trenches up to one's neck. All the careful

and dogged efforts of our sappers could not stop it.

Lately the weather has been what an undergraduate would

call the last edge. On the 17th it poured. In fact the

heavens opened and lakes of water tumbled down. It has

kept this up on and off ever since. To-day we have had to

abandon our first line from Redoubt B to the river on the

north-west sector, and the line now falls back at a tangent.

The salient at the Fort has been kept with the greatest difficulty;

but the enemy on the flooded sector has had to go back likewise.

It was a queer sight to see them all running over the

top where we had previously seen only their pickaxes and

caps. Our casualties from rifle fire during this movement

were not so many as his. We shelled his ragged masses with

great glee. A mile or more of silver water now surrounds this

part of the line. As to food, we have eaten up some very

tough bullocks, and I much prefer donkey to mule. We are

down to horse in a day or so. The floods have put our meagre

fires out, and for dinner we had half-raw donkey, red gravy,

and half-cooked rice with some date stuff that made me feel

like an alarm clock just set off.

_January 26th._--The weather gets worse. I am in my new

dug-out, cold and shivery. In fact my lower half is almost

without feeling. The water percolates from the four sides

and from the roofs in several streams. This I have diverted

into buckets and ammunition boxes by means of pipes and

waterproofs strung up with any available tackle. The

various sounds of water falling into its several receptacles

remind one of fishing in the rain by a cliff-side.

Our trenches are half full of water, and as we have no

change of dry kit we run the gauntlet along the battery to

the mess. It is difficult in the dark to get along, and of course

no light is permitted, as every day some one pays the penalty

of chancing it. One runs low and slides along the mud. In

the day a heavy fire is invariably opened. But one just gets

through in time. I can tell where I am by the sound of my

boots in the water. Once I slipped down with my megaphone,

and when I found it a second later it was pinked with two holes

from a bullet.

To-day General Townshend has issued a lengthy communiqué

dealing with the failure of General Aylmer to get through,

and predicting relief by the middle of February, but noting

our last day of resistance under reduced rations as reaching

to about April 15th excluding horse rations. We are, however,

beginning to see how vital a part the floods play in every

movement of troops. Here in this dug-out, streaming with

tiny rivulets and squelchy underfoot, one feels rather than

sees the plainness of the issue between the Turks and us--our

advance of four miles with four thousand casualties, a rumour

of repulse with as many more, a sequence of Turkish trenches

similar, floods rising, etc., etc.

* * * * *

Kut-el-Amara,

January 26th, 1916.

The relieving force under General Aylmer has been

unsuccessful in its efforts to dislodge the Turks entrenched on

the right bank of the river some fourteen miles from the

position of Essin, where we defeated them in September

last when the Turkish strength was greater than it is

now.

Our relieving force suffered severe loss, and had very bad

weather to contend against. More reinforcements are on the

way up river, and I confidently expect to be relieved some day

during the first half of the month of February.

I desire all ranks to know why I decided to make a stand

at Kut during the retirement from Ctesiphon. It was because,

as long as we hold Kut, the Turks cannot get their ships,

barges, stores, and munitions past this, and so cannot move

down to attack Amarah, and thus we are holding up the whole

of the Turkish advance.

It also gives time for our reinforcements to come up from

Basrah, and so restore success to our arms. It gives time to

our allies the Russians, who are now overrunning Persia, to

move towards Baghdad, which a large force is now doing.

I had a personal message from General Baratoff in

command of the Russian Expeditionary Force in Persia the

other day, telling me of his admiration of what you men of

the Sixth Division, and troops attached, have done in the

past two months, and telling me of his own progress on the

road from Kermanshah towards Baghdad.

By standing at Kut I maintain the territory we have won

in the past year at the expense of much blood, beginning with

your glorious victory at Shaiba; and thus we maintain the

campaign as a glorious one instead of letting disaster pursue

its course to Amarah, and perhaps beyond. I have ample

food for eighty-four days, and that is not counting the 3,000

animals which can be eaten. When I defended Chitral, some

twenty years ago, we lived well on atta and horseflesh, ...

but, as I repeat above, I expect confidently to be relieved in

the first half of the month of February. Our duty stands

out plain and simple. It is our duty to our Empire, to our

beloved King and Country, to stand here and hold up the

Turkish advance as we are doing now; and with the help of

all, heart and soul with me, together we will make this defence

to be remembered in history as a glorious one. All in England

and in India are watching us now, and are proud of the

splendid courage and devotion you have shown; and I tell

you, let all remember the glorious defence of Plevna, for that

is in my mind. I am absolutely calm and confident as to the

result. The Turk, though very good behind a trench, is of

little value in the attack; they have tried it once, and their

losses in one night, in their attempt on the fort, were 2,000

alone; they have already had very heavy losses from General

Aylmer's musketry and guns, and I have no doubt they have

had enough.

I want to tell you all now that when I was ordered to

advance on Ctesiphon I officially demanded an Army Corps,

or at least two Divisions, to do the task successfully, having

pointed out the grave danger of attempting to do this with

one Division only. I had done my duty: you know the

result, and, whether I was right or not, your names will go

down to history as the heroes of Ctesiphon, for heroes you

proved yourselves to be in that battle. I, perhaps, by right

should not have told you of the above, but I feel I owe it to

all of you to speak straight and openly and take you into my

confidence, for God knows I felt our heavy losses and the

sufferings of my poor wounded and shall remember it as long

as I live. No general I know of has been more loyally obeyed

and served than I have been in command of the Sixth

Division.

These words are long, I am afraid, but I speak straight

from the heart, and you will see that I have thrown officialdom

overboard. We will succeed, mark my words, but save your

ammunition as if it were gold.

(Sd.) CHARLES TOWNSHEND,

Major-General,

Commanding Sixth Division.

* * * * *

I grow sleepy. Two nights ago we had a disaster I have

not recorded. The flood burst a _bund_ adjacent to us, and

surplus flood water travelling fast swept across the battery

carrying along with it the revetments and emplacements.

The soft side of the trenches collapsed with a sickening thud,

and in places filled right in. I was awakened by the sound of

trickling water pouring down the earthen steps of my dug-out.

It overflooded the _bund_ which I had taken the precaution to

build between the battery trench and my cavern. On

climbing out I saw that the whole plain was a reach of water.

I shouted to my orderly. We seized spades and shovels

and filled in. This kept out further water which was still

rising. The men were similarly engaged. One dug-out

was close to the main trench and only supported by a tiny

wall of earth which collapsed when wet. Trench and dug-out

then ceased to exist. It was a pathetic sight to see the

men, eight to a detachment, diving in five feet of mud and

water for their belongings, some of their friends holding up the

roof of their dug-out with poles. No bunnies flooded out ever

felt more "out" of it than the men of my section. I had all

their clothes dried as best as our scanty firewood could do it,

some hot tea made for them, and their spare kit put into my

dug-out. All night long the fight continued. My floor

was two feet under water. In the gun-pits it came up to

the breech-blocks of the guns, some of which had collapsed

through their planks which had sunk into the mud. This I

had foreseen weeks before. In fact, I had drawn up a simple

scheme for putting in each gun-pit a foundation of filled

ammunition zinc linings, then the planks, and on top the

bricks from the brick kilns close by. There were a great

quantity of these. My Major, however, possibly for some

good reasons of his own, thought this unnecessary, and I was

not permitted to go on with it. To-night, as I lay in my

dug-out after hours of useless battling with the floods and in

endeavouring to get the guns into action, I felt glad that my

scheme had proved well-justified, for the ammunition pit

which I had made as an experiment was the only dry part of

the battery. We had the greatest difficulty in endeavouring

to traverse the guns. After getting the wheels level we

found every movement of the trail brought it off the scanty

planking, and our many targets required considerable

traversing. We reinforced the telephone compartment but

the mess was feet deep in water. About two dug-outs

remained more or less habitable, and in these the men crept

while a few still went on trying to retrieve lost kit.

"'Ere, Bill, 'old me 'and, while I reach for this boot."

The next moment oaths followed as the unfortunate pair fell

in owing to the bank collapsing. Gaspings in the dark

indicated where the unfortunates were. "'Ere I tell yer!

Take me 'and! That ain't me blanky 'and. That's me

blanky foot."

In the morning a most deplorable sight met our eyes.

The trenches were unrecognizable, and from six feet had

become in places only two feet deep. We had to go into action

with the guns in this state and had to depress the gun to get

the shell home into the breech without wetting it. Then we

elevated the gun. After hours of bailing and bunding we

reduced the water in the gun-pits to about eighteen inches,

but two guns were still out of action. We now put all hands on

making a bunded wall right around the battery, and on this

we worked for two days and nights. On this second night I

went to Kut and had dinner with "Cockie." We dined on

horse and dahl peas quite satisfiedly. My way home was in the

pitch dark. Myriads of starlings were screaming and wheeling

in the sky. On the plain the high yelping chorus of jackals

arose over the steady crack, crack of the enemy's snipers.

Beneath all as an accompaniment was the rippling music of

the running floods.

[Illustration: REMAINS OF MY (76 R.F.A.) BATTERY-POSITION ON THE MAIDAN.

THE GUN ENPLACEMENTS AND DUG-OUTS ARE STILL DISCERNIBLE]

From a reminiscent I got into a prophetic mood, and then

I suddenly found myself tumbled headlong over some obstacle

on the _maidan_. The trenches were for the most part eighteen

inches deep in mud and water, and apart from the discomfort

took hours to negotiate, and I had leave only until 10 p.m.

from the battery. One therefore walked on top. I found I

had stumbled over a horse that had no doubt strayed and

been sniped. His four feet turned skywards. As I got

up, the moon appeared and played full on his ghastly

head with bared gums and teeth. Assuring myself, from an

inspection of his hoofs that he wasn't of my battery, I moved

along and got into quite an amount of rifle fire. I ran and ran

until I almost fell again over Number 2 gun emplacement.

Two large saddles, a limber pole, and packal very much

known to me, located my tiny boarded bed staked into the

wet earth.

Everything is wet. I must stop smoking this drenched

Arab cigarette. These are like small spills filled with bad

tobacco dust and invariably burn one's clothes. Last

night again the rain came! The tackle did not work.

Streams poured on to my head and chest. I lit the tiny rope

that floats in my dubbin tin. I lit my pipe that had belonged

to Colonel Courtenay, my good friend, now resting among the

date palms. This tobacco burns well. I listened to the roar

of the four sectors of heaven all raining. Heaven, earth, and

the waters under the earth, all rained. A raining world, in

the centre my dug-out, a beleaguered town, a Turkish rampart.

Outside the desert, and somewhere across it home, home,

home! One searched oneself to see if one could do ought

else, but ever returned to the sound of the rain.... It was

at this moment that I bethought me of Timon....

Now Timon was a wee green frog that came to me some

days ago from out the deluge. I fed him on many things, and

he couldn't escape over the line of my dug-out. Him I

watched and addressed on more than one occasion, and our

talk found common history. [My notes here are broken, but

I find them continued with an address to Timon before going

to bed, written probably an hour before the procession of

mule carts wound their way out to the Fort with rations, as I

frequently smoked in the rain near my doorway until they

passed, somewhere about 9.30 p.m. They were my signal

for sleep----]