"And so, Timon, thou tiny frog, now shalt thou hear more

of thy long history. Before Daly's Theatre or America was,

before 'dry land was or ever the sea,' before there even

roamed a Brighton bather along the shore, nay even before

the forests themselves had appeared, thou wert. That, wee

frog, was long, long ago to us men. It was in the twilight days

when this round earth beneath our feet had just rolled out of

primeval Night, and upon her still hung the shadows of

Tehom which is Chaos. Then all was still, there were no

forests, and no birds sang. In that deeper silence was only

the whispering of racing stars and the humming of the spheres.

A great symphony was that, the lullaby of the earth's infancy.

After a long time and many changes, came the marsh reeds

and the squashy moss plants that did for vegetation. It was

all bog, wee frog--all. No wonder thy eyes grow big with

wonder. And somewhere in that great marsh that covered

the world was thy first great ancestor born. God knows what

freakish fancy of a frolicsome couple in that distant Walpurgis

night brought _him_ forth. He was a salamander and he had

the world to splash and croak in. Thou hast a question?

Ah! Yes to be sure there were many insects and pulpy sedge

for thy meat and vegetable. Wouldst have been there, my

Timon? Well! and then alongside the salamanders came

toads, and these multiplied and filled the world with noise.

Such was the first chorus that arose from the dank, dark

reeds--ten billion million jumping, diving, frolicsome little

fellows, all lifting their voices in one tremendous

croak--croak--croak--croak in perpetual chorus. Then was thy

ancestor, the salamander, the largest animal or moving thing.

But in time the water receded and shrubs grew, then themselves

fell and sank deep down to form the coal beds of other

ages. That was the coal plant. And then small trees

appeared, later forests, and great beasts hung therefrom or

walked beneath. But thy line remains distinct. Ages flew

by and then I found thee, Timon, in my trench.

"Thou listenest intently as if thou rememberest it all.

Canst hear the voice of thine ancient father still echoing

adown Time's corridors? 'Tis a great thought, is it not, my

Timon, that the earth, being a female, possessed herself of

many-coloured draperies and the moving fancies of ten

thousand hues, and man, that extraordinary biped, then

appeared, and invented locomotives and whistles and violins

and guns. Truly we are large frogs equipped with ancient

instincts. Imagine thine ancient ancestors in the primeval

swamp ahorseback on tiny horses, or standing boldly up to

their guns from which they shot fire at other obstinate frogs.

It's a lovely idea is it not? Of course at the first shot there

had doubtless been a tremendous plop and a universal view of

disappearing hind feet, but they would have got accustomed

to it as have we. Thou hast forgotten. Man never knew.

But the earth hath a memory long and sad, and it is said that

she longs for the ancient stillness and turns yearly more cold.

And one day when the sun no longer warmeth her glaciers

and frozen seas she will return to that cold contemplation of

the eternal problem from which she was diverted to watch

the careering antics of man. A mere wraith of memory will

she retain of tiny bleached bones gripped once again in the

eternal snows--the last relics of that small and daring race of

unaccountable beings. And then the wraith will be closed

over by the mists, and Night shall descend once more. Thou,

Timon, and I, will be what Thomas Atkins calls 'done in.'

Hast still a smile? 'Tis well! 'Tis very well. Thou art a

game little devil, and altogether the queerest little cus I've

ever come across. So! Thou wishest a stroll after our long

talk. Bravo, thy profile is absolutely wreathed in smiles.

That was a right merry little hop. I wish dearly that I could

teach thee to dance. Thou would'st make Gaby blush, and

she is no small fish at the game. Now what in the name of

the Seven Gods art thou at, poking thy head in that fashion?

Thou shalt to supper and bed. Here are three flies and a

squashed worm. Fill thy small green belly and sleep. _Pax_,

I say, _vobiscum_. For thou also wert made by God."

_February 13th._--I have had a half cup of milk. This

morning I awoke feeling abominably seedy with sharp pains

across the small of my back, awful head and wretchedly

feverish. Devereux and I are suffering from dysentery, as,

in one form or another, are many others. This complaint in

its mildest form is diarrhoea which becomes colitis, which

becomes dysentery, which turns sometimes to cholera. The

doctors shake their heads and say: "Diet." They might as

well recommend a sea trip. But of course they are right.

Some fellows in their unwillingness to enter hospital stuff

down dozens of leaden opium pills, various powders, much

castor oil with chlorodyne and camphoradyne in between.

The last is an excellent drug. It's all a matter of constitution,

but sooner or later it's a case of hospital and injection of

emmatine. A hostile aeroplane flew over to-day and dropped

bombs on the town and brick kilns, evidently potting at the

5-inch guns there. A brisk rifle fire from our trenches

followed it. Accounts suggest the unpopularity of this

demon bird with its unhappy trick of laying, in mid-air, eggs

that explode on reaching the earth. Another danger is from

falling bullets fired at the place. The circuit is now complete.

We are shot at all round and from on top.

General Aylmer's forces concentrated on the 6th for a

new effort in a new position. It wants two days only in which

to disprove General Townshend's prophecy about the date of

relief. We hear that a Division has left Egypt for here.

Every one is asking why it didn't leave months ago. Impatient

questions are quite in vogue, but then we are many of us

seedy and "siegy" and "dug-outish," and the end does not

seem in sight. The latest news is that at Home no one knows

a word of it all. We are merely "hibernating in Kut." Well,

if it isn't known now it will be one day, that the siege of Kut

is probably the most important and vigorous siege in modern

military history.

I finished a novel to-day. It has at least made me long

for England again. We are all full of longings; and the

chief blessing of civilization is that it supplies the wherewithal

to quieten them. Lord! for a glass of fresh milk and a jelly.

Temperature 103° and shivering. I am going to have an

attempt at sleeping. Everything is very quiet. The sentry's

steps beside my roof make the earth shake.

It is the seventieth day of the siege.

_February 14th._--Well, here am I again in my sleeping-bag

at six minutes past eight p.m. Everything is dead quiet.

Stillness itself is throbbing with the pulsation of a very real

thing. Two sections are away digging at the alternative position

by the kilns which faces both ways. There is a great deal of

work required to complete such emplacements for a whole

battery. Besides the gun-pits and parapets and communication

trenches, there are ammunition dug-outs, a telephone and

battery dug-out where the battery headquarters are, officers'

mess, officers' dug-outs, men's dug-outs, cook-houses, and

water dug-outs, and latrines. Then a trench and _bund_ must

be made around the position to keep out rain floods.

Dorking came to see me this morning for a time. The

fever has decreased but my boasted fitness seems to have

deserted me for good. I believe those wretched floods did

the damage. Sleeping more or less under water tells on

one in weakened condition. I have no cold though,

luckily. Number 3 gun's detachment has appalling coughs,

and every dug-out is the same. They have two blankets, but

when the dug-out gets wet they have nothing even wherewith

to dry themselves.

Cockie, who rather prides himself on some rudimentary

knowledge of Egyptology, sent me a perfectly undecipherable

note in hieroglyphics to come and dine. At least I guessed

this out. What other interest could men have in common so

much at such a time? I sent a figurative reply with a linear

representation of myself in bed, a procession of ancient

Thebans filing out of the dug-out with fowls, snipe on toast,

puddings and fruits--all untouched. I hope to be able to

toddle out for a walk to-morrow.

We have laid in a stock of Arab tobacco--half branches

and twigs, and make our own cigarettes. Our reserve bottle

of whisky to be drunk the night of relief we have divided, as

firstly the relief may never come, and secondly we may be

bowled over beforehand, in which case the one concerned

would lose his share. Finally, I suggested that when the

relief does come we shall be sufficiently intoxicated with joy,

even supposing no refreshment is with the relieving force on

that fortunate day.

The Turkish aeroplane bombed us again to-day. Yesterday

thirty-five people including Arabs were wounded.

The sniper fellow over the river hit a gunner in the back

yesterday at the next gun. The poor fellow is mortally

wounded I hear. I was at my own gun at the time and heard

him sing out. He didn't fall but walked about a little, "just,"

he said, "not to let the swine know he had been lucky." We

sent him to hospital and will visit him to-morrow.

How very horrible to be quite poor! Here am I longing

for hot milk and buttered toast, and instead I have a coarse

slice of black _boosa_ bread with the chaff sticking out of it--and

a tiny portion of tinned cheese! But I will forget these

abominations of the flesh and hope my twenty--one aches and

pains won't pursue me into dreamland.

Venus, in her whitest robes, is shining resplendent over

the Eastern horizon above my mud staircase.

_February 15th._--I am feeling somewhat better, thank

goodness. I hear that Pars Nip, the garrison gunner sub

that came out from India with us, is in hospital with dysentery.

There is quite a deal of sniping. A bullet whinged off

a limber a few minutes ago. My candles are finished and I

don't like sitting alone in a dug-out on a foggy evening without

any sort of light. It suggests being buried alive.

A shocking report is to hand concerning Don Juan.

During the last two days he has taken advantage of the cold

weather to eat three successive blankets, four jhuals, and his

companion's head-collar. I suggest turning him loose in the

dismantled hospital camp on the _maidan_, now a wilderness

dotted with rotten tents. Some horses have commenced to

eat their tails and are not above snapping at their mates' tails

if they get a chance. It's great fun watching them all on the

qui vive sparring for an opening to attack one another's tail,

or cover, or head collar. Don has even gnawed his wooden

peg to chips and swallowed most of them.

_February 16th._--This morning we had a heavy artillery

duel. Fritz, the Turkish planist, flew over several times but

did not bomb. He is evidently observing. His plane proved

to be an old pattern Morane and is certainly very fast.

I have been for a little walk in the trenches. I felt awfully

groggy and returned to R. L. Stevenson's "Silverado

Squatters," which rings so very true even in a Mesopotamian

dug-out. In this volume Robert Louis, without the addition

of the terrible occurrences so dear to the sensational writer,

and so rare to the lives of most of us, has left the beauty of

simplicity unadorned.

_February 17th._--Fritz flew back this afternoon and dropped

bombs on the town. The one nearest to us was 300 yards

towards the 4-inch guns. One bomb fell in our horse lines in

Kut, just missing several drivers in a harness room, and taking

the adjoining room completely. Everything therein was

wrecked, but the effect of a bomb is very local. They are as

yet only 30-pounders, all of which along with some larger

ones, 100-pounders, were captured from us on a barge in

Ascot week. Ascot week represents the temporal series from

Ctesiphon to Kut. The passing overhead of Fritz's Morane we

view with feelings compatible with our universal conception

of him as the Destroying Angel. All deeply detest his tricks

and damn him most devoutly, and I have heard many say

that to be bombed by an aeroplane is the worst experience in

the field. Not in the trenches, for there one is comparatively

safe unless it pitches to a yard. Who doesn't take many more

risks motoring? But when one's duty requires one to move

about a battery in action, the fire of which is a perfect target

to the plane hovering overhead, or to move about Kut or the

horse lines, it is a considerably smaller joke. For the most

part the dug-outs are entirely unproof against bombs, or, of

course, a direct hit by a shell. The town quarters of the

regiment on relief from the trenches are dug-outs covered

with canvas or straw _tatti_-work and three or four inches of

soil. The only safe place is in these Arab houses of two floors.

The roof explodes the bomb which wrecks the upper room

and possibly the first floor if not very substantial. Now an

S & T walla sprinting for cover is considered, not being a

combatant, quite in order, but an infantry officer not so. As

for an artillery officer, he is supposed to be so used to high

explosives that if the table and everything thereon blows up

while he is drinking his cup of coffee, he must nevertheless not

take the cup from his lips until he has drained it dry.

The first indication of his visit comes from the alarm gong

which hangs near the river front observation post. All eyes

strain skyward and a little black speck scarce distinguishable

from a bird dots the blue sky. It approaches, and our

improvised air-gun, a 13-pounder worked on a circular

traverse at a high angle, has a pot at it. This gun was set up

by Major Harvey, R.F.A., our adjutant, a most efficient

gunnery expert from Shoeburyness. He worked out the

mathematics, too, with schemes of ranging in the two planes,

perpendicular and horizontal. A little white puff of cloud

appears near the plane and one hears the report. Then

another shot is fired and the plane mounts or swerves and

still comes on. His propellers and engine are heard quite

distinctly as he gets within range. A fierce burst of rifle fire

and the still sharper maxim gun's staccato music is the signal

for all to take cover. One sees him now directly over the

Gurkha regiment's bivouacs, and hears a faint hissing

noise as of rapidly spinning propellers. The hissing increases

for several seconds until it becomes quite loud and terminates

with a crashing explosion. One bomb has dropped. The air

is full of other hissing things in various stages of their careers.

A creepy feeling suggests that the bomb with its tiny propellers

rapidly spinning, is going to pitch on the top of one's

head and blot one out of existence, like stamping out an ant.

It strikes a building a hundred yards off and the resounding

smash of falling timber is caught up by another smash which

has struck earth, a third that has landed in the hospital,

scattering death all around, a fourth that has splashed small

pieces of horseflesh and hair on the surrounding walls and

trees.

All these are our captured bombs. A Tommy to-day

observed that the Turk was flinging our bombs about as if

they belonged to him. Another wag suggested Fritz was

merely returning them.

_February 18th._--This afternoon we had to shoot at a gun

target that was pestering the Fort, and as a consequence drew

thick shell fire on ourselves. Shells fell all around every gun.

We went to the fastest rate of fire, gun-fire, the first heavy

firing for over a month. Last evening the 82nd Battery,

R.F.A., had its turn when, although concealed in the palm-grove,

it was bombed by the plane and shot over by three

or four targets.

There were several wounded and two killed. The guns

on the water front are very active. The greater attention

which the Turks have paid us during the last few days suggests

that something startling is doing.

_4 p.m._--I have just received orders attaching me temporarily

to the ammunition column, which is practically without any

officer as Cockie has several guns on the river front, and is

continually up in the observation post there. I am to take

charge of the column and incidentally relieve him at observation.

It is thought that the enemy may try to rush boats

down the river. They could never get past our four-point-sevens

in horse barges moored on the river, or the 5-inch or

the 18-pounders or the 12-pounders from the Sumana. But

great vigilance is necessary. The river is at least 400 yards

wide.

It is quite good business getting attached to the column.

I shall be practically C.O. with all the horses and wagons

and ammunition, and two guns to keep my eye on, and

observing between whiles. It will mean living in a house, for

which I am very thankful. Anyway, I have been moved

about owing to casualties certainly as much as any other

subaltern, and up till now I have been fairly fit all along.

Those early days in the brick kilns, then in the shallow

trenches, then in the Fort, and especially during the floods in

this battery, absorbed my fitness, and I am now a bag of

pains and have lost ten pounds in weight.

I have had tea, and am already packed up. Farewell my

dug-out, in which I have spent many wonderful hours and

thought many strange thoughts. I am wiser at leaving than

on entering thee. Timon, also my friend, thou hast earned

thy freedom. Thy supper eaten, I shall put thee near the

pond behind the old communication trench near the palm

woods. I have no time to write an elegy upon thee. Thou

camest sharply into my life and leavest it as suddenly. It is

the way of the army and of life. Thou hast been a soldier's

companion. Many, many are the fantasies we have indulged

in, have we not? Many thoughts exchanged that could never

be set on paper, oh dear, no. What better confidant than a

wee green frog! Mind not thy unceremonious dismissal. My

advice is to smile. When thou seest thy fly, go for him between

wind and water, and smile even if thou art unsuccessful.

Joyful days and full rations I wish thee. Never think!

Farewell!

_February 19th._--Graoul removed my kit to the building

in the town occupied by the 6th D.A.C. near the Minaret,

where I had enjoyed my Christmas dinner. It is close to the

mosque, and two minutes from the guns on the river front.

There is the usual tiny concrete square with rooms all around

it, mostly occupied by the servants, and one large room with

wooden shutters which was the mess. Cockie sleeps in a

basement room as being presumably safer and wishes me to

share with him. But he is such an extremely exuberant and

nervy companion, I have taken a small room on the first floor

which has a thick wall on the side from which the shells come.

Of course the doorway is also there, directly in line of the

usual fire direction, and many bullets have at one time or

other entered there and gone through the front wall which is

quarter inch wood only. However, I have enough room for

my bed, and must learn to lie close. Outside my room is a

tiny promenade space of the flat roof and the basement rooms,

and bounded by a low wall which stops a lot of bullets. I

have often sat up there close to the wall and read while bullets

cracked into the other side of it or flew overhead. Looking

over this wall, one may see the deserted shell-ploughed ground

between the battery and the palm trees that fringe the river,

the river itself and the Turkish trenches beyond.

I dined with Cockie and Edmonds, who is convalescing,

and enjoyed an excellent cup of coffee with tinned milk.

I commenced duty this morning by inspecting the horse

lines. Cockie has not been near the lines for months, and

the general condition of things is highly creditable to the

N.C.Os. who have carried on. The horses, I find, are easily

the best conditioned in Kut, but that is because they are by

far the youngest, and also have not had the work of the

battery horses. The wagons and harness require attention,

and I have ordered inspection of each in sections. We are

almost out of dubbin, which is in great demand for light. A

twisted piece of rope, or wick, if possible, gives a mild, dull

light.

Graoul I had to send back to the battery, which is too shorthanded

to spare men. My new servant is a Punjabi Mohammedan

from the lines, by name Amir Bux. He is a good,

silent lad, and very attentive. This morning the aeroplane

got up and then went down so we have been spared one

entertainment at least.

This afternoon I spent some hours in Cockie's observation

post, river front, which is a tiny sandbag affair arranged

around an opening in the roof to which a ladder leads from the

first floor of the heavily bricked and sandbagged building on

the river bank, and some forty yards from the water. This

tiny strip of land, once the wharfage, is now grass green. To

cross it is certain death. The observation post is certainly

the most exposed in Kut, being nearer the river front than

the Heavies, and getting all the 5-inch over and shorts. The

Turks are thickly entrenched on the other side of the river,

and have a bee line on every brick on the water front. The

two-horse artillery guns and the 18-pounders are behind

emplacements just below, and are within megaphone distance

from the observation post. Our telephonists are at the foot

of the ladder on the first floor. The post commands a view

of three quarters of the horizon, the whole of the right bank,

and has artistic advantages all its own. The solitary waters

of the sunlit Tigris and the misty distances between and

beyond the palm trees invite one to pleasant dreams after

the strenuous times of trench days, and fort days, and perpetual

dug-out days.

Edmonds returned to the battery and my dug-out. He has

had a delightful period of convalescence here on the balcony,

and seems much more fit.

This afternoon there was quite a strafe. The Turkish

snipers' nest near the mouth of the Shat-el-hai, opposite our

observation station, became troublesome, and we popped a

few into them from the 13-pounders. That shut them up.

Then Fanny, the huge Turkish trench mortar near the Woolpress

post we hold on the other bank, popped her bomb of

150 pounds weight towards us. The bomb comes slowly at

about the pace of a falling football, and of course is quite

visible. It burst about a half-minute after reaching this bank,

but did no damage. Then Fritz flew over and dropped three

crashing bombs on the town, and returning to the Turkish

lines for more ammunition, dropped four bombs near the

104th heavy battery. We gave him a hot rifle fusillade, and

our improvised anti-aircraft gun did quite well. One burst

was just below and two just in front. Fritz mounted very

hurriedly.

As I write, guns are rumbling downstream in a most

pessimistic way. Reuter reports this campaign has been

taken over by the British War Office. The reinforcing

division is said to have embarked at Port Said on the 10th.

That would remove the date of relief at least to the end of

March. Food may be made to stretch, but the casualty list

of sick will be very high. Even now some castes will not eat

horseflesh, and the Mohammedans have refused to touch it.

To-night for the first time in three months I am sleeping

in pyjamas, as my only duty with the guns is to relieve

Cockie.

_February 20th._--I have to-day continued inspection and

altered the horse-lines in case of a flood. I also went to the

first-line trenches for a walk, the second line that was, for the

floods compelled us to abandon the original line. I scarcely

knew the place. The trench was a fine broad pathway ten

feet deep with firing platforms several feet wide where the

men bivouacked and the officers had tiny mess tents. A wall

or _bund_ loopholed at the top, some five or six feet high,

sloped towards the Turkish position for fifteen feet. Beyond

it, in patches, are the waters of the last flood. The loopholes

lend this firing-line an appearance of mediæval embattlements.

My old acquaintance, Dinwiddy, in the West Kents I found

doing awfully well under awnings, but looking very thin.

This flood scheme is one of the most praiseworthy incidents

in the siege of Kut. Every day the flood waters of the

approaching annual floods are creeping across our front. We

believe the _bund_ will save us.

It was a beautiful day, and I enjoyed my walk immensely.

At midday the sun is unpleasantly warm, and the nights are

quite cold. We have all gone back to helmets, and perspired

freely in the day. We hear the _avant-courrière_ of the summer.

Last night Wells of the Flying Corps came into the mess,

and "re-flew over Ctesiphon." I should like to fly. He has

had the bad luck to lose all the fingers of one hand while

engaged manufacturing hand grenades for the trenches. The

old Flying Corps has been of great assistance to us in Kut.

Another Flying Corps officer, Captain Winfield Smith, rigged

up old engines and made our corn grinders and mills practically

out of scrap-iron.

Cockie wants me to promise to go Egyptologizing with

him after the war! Fancy a mummy awakening from a

silence of three to five thousand years to hear a voice like

Cockie's!

Frolicsome Flossy, that very aggressive female, made four

overtures to the gunners on the 4·7 barges. Needless to say

her warm attentions met with the cold reception they merited.

I also visited the hospital to look up some sick friends.

One who was in with jaundice had a complexion like grass-green

oil flung into a bowl of rich Jersey cream. The sight

made one bilious. I'm not so seedy as I was, but the

universal complaint still pursues me.

Don Juan is in his new lines with a native syce. He has

already eaten both tails off his new companions, one of which

is Cockie's charger. Cockie is furious, but seeing that Don

has eaten his own tail also I don't see much for Cockie to

grumble at.

Erzeroum has fallen. That may relieve the pressure here.

I have just come across Longfellow's "Daybreak," an old

favourite of mine that I once heard that excellent song writer

Mallison and his wife render in a most delightful manner.

One misses any music except this endless fire symphony!

_February 21st._--The eightieth day of siege. We fired at

Snipers' Nest across the river, otherwise the day was very

quiet except for the visit of Fritz who had evidently had

sufficient taste of our anti-aircraft gun, and he flew diagonally

across the town and right around to avoid it.

Upon the tiny observation station, which is scarcely large

enough for two to sit down in, Cockie entertained me with

antiquities. He likes to talk of empires and dynasties falling,

and thousands of years gone by, and Good-God-look-at-it-all-now

sort of thing. To which I always lend a careful ear, and

if he ever asks me a question to see if I am attending, I say,

"Good heavens! How extraordinary! Don't spoil it by interrogations.

Go on!" Not that I'm not interested in such

things, far from it, but Cockie gets impatient with his inadequacy

of description.

Sealed orders arrived at 10 p.m. to be opened at 4 a.m.

Something is agog! I must sleep again in breeches and

field boots.

_February 22nd._--At 4 a.m. by the dusky dubbin's misty

light, Cockie opened the secret orders with an air of mystery

becoming an Egyptologist having the secrets of forgotten

worlds beneath his thumb.

The General Staff has been hatching a scheme for some time

past, and this is why I was wanted in the column so urgently.

Cockie is to remain C.R.A. of the river front artillery. I'm in

command of the ammunition column. General Townshend,

our G.O.C., intends to attack in two columns, Column A comprising

General Melliss's 30th Brigade and one battery R.F.A.

to debouch through Redoubt A, Column B with the 17th Brigade

and two batteries R.F.A. to debouch through by the

Fort. The show is conditioned to take place if the Turkish

forces retreat past Kut to their main camp on this bank--or

if any reinforcements proceed on their way to the Turkish

Essin forces downstream. The latter condition makes it

appear that something should happen soon.

Some say it is a risky thing for us to move outside our

position, but somehow one has every confidence in such

an old campaigner as the Sixth Division. The intention is for

the 16th Brigade in front of the 82nd Battalion position, to

demonstrate, holding the Turks there and thus enabling

Column A to move on. One section per battery (R.F.A.) will

remain to cover the advance. The advance of either column

must necessarily be subjected to a lively enfilade fire from

across the river and by the transverse trenches rounding the

Fort. Enfilade from our left, _i.e._ the right bank of the river,

must be kept down by the river-front artillery. The sappers

will go ahead to spring the many-rumoured mines of which I

doubt the existence, as the Turks are not very up to date

this way.

I have everything ready, wagons loosened up, shovels and

picks on, ammunition filled, double feed in horse bags, men's

rations ready for one day. The ammunition column does not

move off until the last guns of the 63rd have moved clear.

So we are not harnessed up, as there will be more than doubly

sufficient time when the batteries get the order to go--and it

will save the horses a lot, as it may be a long waiting affair.

Our job will be to keep in touch with both columns and have

a first position outside Kut only if either column advances

into the open. The trip will have to be done again and again,

so we shall not escape without casualties.

It is on the knees of the gods, and I for one hope it comes

off. In fact we all do. An impression has stolen upon us that

if we don't help ourselves we shall stay here altogether.

_2 p.m._--There is heavy firing downstream. Fritz has just

flown by to see what's doing. The G.O.C.'s intention, according

to rumour, is to consign matters to final issue, and to force

a great battle, provided the show downstream goes decently

well.

I am glad the horses have not been in their harness all day.

Four teams have had to be lent to the batteries as theirs

have been eaten more largely than ours.

Now I'm off to have another look round my show and then

on to the observation post.

_6 p.m._--There has been nothing to report except a decided

Turkish movement downstream from the right bank. It has

been a beautiful day with plenty of cloud.

Downstream the firing, which had lulled this afternoon, is

increasing. I have been on the _maidan_ near the pine woods

watching distant bursts.

_February 22nd._--There has been another hitch downstream.

The Turkish position blocking the relief advance is

evidently much stronger than was anticipated. This we hear

in the form of a rumour that there was insufficient artillery

preparation of the position before the infantry got in. Also

a lot of difficulty and uncertainty has arisen over some of the

native troops. Two or three times to-day the heavy bombardment

downstream has suddenly ceased, a phenomenon pregnant

with meaning in war, for it means that the infantry has

advanced to the last stage and awaits the cessation of gun-fire

to spring up and rush the position. But as often as it ceased,

it recommenced an hour later and continued until the next

break.

As yesterday, we are all ready and awaiting the order for

immediate debouch. I am "booted and spurred" and feeling

very important. The Turks are reinforcing heavily on the

other bank, the sly dogs, as appears from the movement in

their trenches. Our little affair is supposed to be awfully

secret, but there is no doubt that Arabs scuttle away across

the river or swim it and keep their religious pals in the know.

_February 23rd._--Last night at 11.30 p.m., as a counter

demonstration, there was a night attack on Woolpress Post,

our village over the river. This induced an attack from the

enemy facing our 16th Brigade. The town was alive with

bullets that cracked incessantly on the _mutti_ walls of the town.

Through the deserted streets I ran to the observation station,

river front, in case the field-guns were required to go into action.

For forty yards I had to run the gauntlet from the street end

to the door. There was not an inch of cover and the bullets

were splashing on the road and into the buildings on my left.

The fire was swishing as thick as water from a powerful fire

hose. Goodness knows how I got through. I passed several

poor wretches on stretchers and ran up the ladder.

On the first floor bullets were viciously cutting through the

_tatti_ and interstices, and some plopped into sandbags, and the

air seemed full of that tiny buzzing music as from some lightning-winged

bee.

When I returned I found that some men and several horses

had been hit, and in my room one bullet had ricochetted across

the bed and three others had entered by the doorway and gone

out by the window. Anyway it is more pleasant up here, and

the bed zone is safe enough, so I'm going to risk it. And I must

dress on the far side of the room. I am sure, after the awful

air in that wretched dug-out, with swamp water oozing through

it, that most people would risk something for this comparatively

delightful air.

_February 24th._--We are to remain in a state of diminishing

expectancy and increasing disappointment. We acknowledge

the colossal difficulties that beset our friends downstream,

nor do we forget one division there has been previously decimated

in France, and has many recruits. The fighting is

against the pick of Turkish troops entrenched behind seas

of mud.

The Mussulman soldiers here will not eat horseflesh.

Among their excuses is one that the signature from India of

their High Priest's permission to eat it is not authentic. It

came by wireless!

Generally speaking, the native soldier for first-rate work in

the field is only third class if he has no _khana_ (food).

_February 25th._--The show downstream has been postponed.

More reinforcements are necessary. History repeats

itself, and we are down to three slices of bread a day. It is a

lovely morning. Some gunners and Fritz, R.A.M.C., were

around to dinner last night bringing their own bread, as is

the correct order of things in Kut. We had an excellent roast

of horse. For sweets we had rice and date juice, and instead

of savoury, "post mortems" on Ctesiphon.

Our friend, Tudway, R.N., has been awarded the Military

Cross for Essin services. This we celebrated.

_February 26th._--Much firing downstream. Last night I

dreamed that Alphonse (Townshend) was communicating with

Aylmer by megaphone, all Kut excepting I being asleep. And

this is what happened--

"There, Aylmer?"

"Of course."

"Why didn't you attack on the 22nd? What happened?"

"Sweet damn all. Didn't even get a look in!"

"Then why on earth didn't you? You've had your reinforcements

and sufficient time."

"'Tis not in the nature of mortals to command success.

We've done better, Townshend--we've deserved it!"

"Rot! There's a screw loose somewhere. At Essin I

turned him out of a much stronger position than he's got now,

and with one-fourth of your force. Do you suppose we like

being here or can hold out indefinitely?"

"Don't gibe! Do you know you're certain for a peerage--Townshend

of Ctesiphon, I hear--nice alliteration too."

"No, really? Well, old chap, get through when you can.

Some old time! We're eating door-mats and dubbin [Liar]!

My pigeon though."

"Oh, I say! Last night I thought of suggesting we risked

a plane landing in Kut for you and bringing you away so that

you could have had the honour of relieving Kut."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Well, I thought what a godless ass you would look if

you didn't succeed. Nothing seems certain except these

floods!"

"Do you really think there is any chance of your getting

through?"

"Not in the least! Even Lloyds wouldn't look at it.

But the Bishop of London says you are making a glorious

page in British history!"

"Page, sir, be damned! We've finished two volumes

long ago. Is there anything else?"

"Yes! The people in all the churches at home are

praying for you."

Loud laughter sounded through both megaphones, and I

bethought me of the queer temperament of our race--and

awoke.

_10 p.m._--Cockie has retired to bed. I am alone with the

"dim glim." The Turkish aeroplane has left us unmolested

to-day, and for a change one of our own machines from below

flew past us and bombed the Turkish main camp. It also

dropped some money for the troops and letters for the General,

as it has several times previously. There has been a considerable

increase in the scurvy cases lately among the native

troops. Of course all the drivers in the ammunition column

are native troops. I had a scurvy inspection to-day, and the

regimental surgeon picked out the grubby ones. It is due to

total lack of vegetables. This is what we must chiefly guard

against--disease.

Anthrax also has broken out in a few isolated cases and

the orders are for livers of all animals to be buried.

I am much more comfortable here, as we have a long table

and chairs and two or three stock books, "Monte Cristo" and

Longfellow. That simple poet's lines in "Sand of the Desert

in an Hour Glass" seem to have added to themselves additional

appeal since the siege.

"Or caravans that from Bassorah's gate

With Westward steps depart;

Or Mecca's pilgrims confident of Fate,

And resolute in heart!"

That is the old Basra downstream: I must, if possible,

visit the ruins of Babylon some sixty odd miles from here and

forty directly west of Azizie. Also I would like to see

Istamboul as they call it: and if Aylmer doesn't hurry up

I possibly shall.

_February 28th._--Alarming reports are to hand that the

river is rising. It is already three feet higher than it was two

days ago. The Shat-el-hai now has changed from a water-course

to a broad deep river that _mahelas_ can navigate quite

easily. It is worthy of mention how very close the _mahela_

resembles one's nursery pictures of the Ark and possibly

most correctly so, for with its great beams and high

bow and stern it has remained unchanged for thousands

of years. This land, we are told, is God-forsaken. Animals

there are none, beside the goat, sheep, camels, donkeys, jackals,

and river buffaloes. A few herds of the latter used to bask

downstream near Kut. Now they too have deserted us.

It is reported that the Russian General Baratoff has taken

Kermanshah on the road to Baghdad. We are all anxiously

hoping he may get through.

A large sweepstake on the date of the relief has been

started for all European troops. Relief is defined as the time

when our first boat passes the Fort. The contingency of our

having ultimately to surrender is not included. For who

could entertain that possibility except in the extremest banter?

A Reuter tells us of a big German shove at Verdun. What

an awful slaughter yard that will be! The news has become

most unsatisfactorily fragmentary. We hear that something

or other is about to take place; then subsequently the wireless

is blocked and we never know whether it happened or not.

There is much anxiety in the town about the floods that

must soon come, and the river's level is the all-absorbing topic.

The fine spell of weather seems about to break.

_February 29th._--It is raining in a most shocking fashion.

Lord! How it does rain here--when it wants to! The

sun goes, the sky shuts its eyes and rains with all its might,

so that it is difficult to believe there ever was a time when

it did not rain.

Cockie is sick. I took his duty on the river-front observation

post and watched for hours the deluge of water falling

down and flowing past in a yellow turgid current. The reports

are that it is hourly rising. Every endeavour is being made to

strengthen the _bunds_ and build others. The main _bund_ across

our front still holds and the other side of it is already a great

lake where our former position was. The Turks have had to

leave this part of their line and go back a few hundred yards

to the sand-hills. Through my telescope I can see tiny waves

dashing up against the _bund_ like a drifting sea against a

breakwater. I met Captain Stace, R.E., to whom I lent a

clinometer while he worked at this invaluable construction.

He is most reassuring in his quiet optimistic way.

The next most important event of to-day is that Dorking

was persuaded to exchange seven cigars for my ten cigarettes.

I came by them yesterday in a special issue "found" by the

Supply and Transport people. By the way, there are more

things in the Supply and Transport philosophy than heaven

and earth ever dreamed of.

It is the gala-day of Leap Year, but I have no extra proposals

to record--not even from Sarah Isquashabuk, the Arabian

lady with bread-plate feet and small gate-post legs and a

card-table back on which she carries small trees and walls of

houses. She is a hard worker and always cheerful, but with

a most murderous-looking eye, and I confess that one doesn't

always see daylight through all her actions. This morning

I saw her dragging a stalwart Arab along by the unshaven

hair with much laughter--possibly her truant Adonis.

The Arab population have done themselves fairly well

until recently, for they had hidden much foodstuff and stolen

considerable supplies since. But the last few weeks they have

been begging, and the children search corners and rubbish

heaps.

If the siege goes to extremities it will be ten thousand

pities that the Arab population was not removed out at the

outset. For the laws of humanity would restrain our pushing

them out now--the Turks or surrounding hostile Arabs would

murder the lot. But we should have had the food they are

getting now for rations, and that might have saved the lives

of thousands of British downstream. All we did was to invite

them to stay at their peril. They accepted.

_March 1st._--A most eventful day. Cockie is still down

with dysentery, and I have relieved him all day at the observation

post. Everything was very quiet on my way to tea.

I walked through the palm grove intending to examine the

mountings of the anti-air gun when I heard the muffled boom

of guns to the north. Then others sounded--that ruffling

sound of a blanket being shaken. I hastened back to the

observation post, shells falling in the trees and alongside the

trench. I got on top and ran until I got back. The fire

increased into the biggest artillery bombardment the enemy

has yet made, lasting for two and a half hours. About ten

batteries opened out on us, searching the palm grove for our

4-inch, and then four batteries concentrated on the 4·7 guns

in the horse boats and barges moored in the river 150 yards

from them, and also on the 5-inch heavies immediately below

them but thirty yards to a flank. Thankful I was indeed for

that thirty yards respite. At least fifty shells pitched at

exact range for my few sandbags that any direct hit would

knock flying--exact range but always within those thirty

yards to a flank, and of course on the other side into the river

dozens of them. But not all, for sometimes they "swept"

and the heavy Windy Lizzies tore up the green ground all

around, and the building, on the roof of which were my bags,

shook so much that the bags moved. Then one lucky shell

struck the _mahela_ near by, another got the building I was on,

smashing down the end room, and yet another pierced the

side partition ten yards off, and for a few seconds I didn't

know whether I had been blown into the river or not, for the

shock was severe and all was yellow darkness. Large pieces

of wood and _mutti_ were hurled all around my sandbags, one

piece fetching me a clout on the helmet and denting in my

megaphone. I remember a faint cheer from the Supply and

Transport shelters when the smoke cleared away and the

observation post was seen still to exist. All this time I had

been engaging one target with our 18-pounders, and keeping

the rifle fire of Snipers' Nest down with another.

It all seemed to come about so very quickly. One moment

I was walking out of the trench in the date grove threading

my way over the slippery ground when the first three muffled

booms told me B target had opened fire. The next, without

wondering what the grimy Turkish gunners at B were shooting

at, or what the result of the shells still in the air would be, I

was tearing back to the river front. One counted the usual

twelve seconds from the distant boom of these targets and then

heard the invisible singers in the mid-air, and then

krump-kr-rump-sh-sh-sh-sh as the shells struck with a deep bass

explosion followed by the swishing sound of falling earth that

had been hurled up aloft. I recollect now seeing a mule bolt as

it heard the increasing hits, and although I felt quite as

uncomfortable as the mule I was tickled with the notion of a

mule developing the fire instinct, for it bolted intelligently

to a flank. That mule deserves to live.

From the observation post there was no need of a telescope

to tell me that B was in action. The three puffs stood out

very clearly and three more to the right. I reported a new

target, gave the bearing, and watched our 5-inch and 4·7's

reply. This brought A and B targets to engage our 4·7 and

5-inch below me. The 40-pounders tore up the water, going

very close to but always missing the barges, and the shock

from a Windy Lizzie hitting the water was always much greater

to my sandbags on the roof, than when hitting the earth

beneath us. In the former case my six-foot stack vibrated

several inches. I saw one shell actually enter the 5-inch

emplacement. It exploded on touching the other side, missing

a gun-layer by inches. The shock knocked him down--that

was all. Ten minutes later another shell got there again,

within two feet of the former one. This time the men were

taking cover. It was now that the battery opened on the

town with 16-pounders, and on my engaging them the Turkish

heavies lengthened and shelled my observation station, also

the other observation station for our heavies 100 yards away.

As I have noted, they got me in a beautiful 100-yards bracket,

the one crashing into the poor devils in the hospital amid

awful yells, and the two nearest getting the end of this building

and smothering me with débris. Some pitched into the

hospital forty yards away, their trajectory just above us. It

is extraordinary the tricks one gets up to on occasions. The

sergeant-major, an excellent soldier and very cool fellow,

stuck his hands on his head more than once, and I found myself

leaning hard up against the sandbags the hissing Lizzies were

directly making for, just as if my doing so would help the bags

to stick there. They came with a slow hiss that finished in

a vicious whip past for the last bit. The sandbags stopped

scores of bullets this afternoon, and that is all they are meant

to do. I had very good luck with the target we had previously

registered on. It is a target of three guns over the Shat-el-hai.

I shut them up with half a dozen rounds, and then took on

another new target that opened further south. Then still

another target on the Woolpress sector shelled Kut and the

82nd engaged them. We had barely shut up this target M, and

also S, when several other Turkish batteries that had been

silent for months opened up on the town. This proved too

much for the youthful spirit of Funny Teddy, that ardent and

sprightly young mountain gun, which just as a puppy watching

a fight between his seniors tries to have a look in too and barks

and bucks about in the most promising style, opened up on

H.M.S. _Sumana_. From my observation post I could see

targets all round the compass being engaged by our guns.

The Turk was out-gunned and out-shot absolutely, but his

target was Kut and ours merely his guns.

A hot rifle fire sprang up from the Snipers' Nest, Shat-el-hai,

and from across the river by the tomb. This we kept

down in a fashion in our sector, and the 12-pounders

of the _Sumana_ also gave them hot music, as the men

call it.

The town then came in for it badly, the hospital especially

catching it. We may thank heaven the Turks haven't anything

much in the way of high-explosive shell. They use old

stuff, common and segment, and the thick crust of baked mud

wall is usually sufficient percussion to bring about the burst.

The danger then is from the fragments. The building usually

escapes. I have seen segments of a Windy Lizzie as big as a

half loaf embedded in a wall opposite to the aperture it made

on entering. High-explosive shell would demolish the building

altogether.

At the height of the show the sharp notes of the alarm

gong rang over Kut, and Fritz, with a second machine

accompanying his Morane, was seen approaching rapidly from

the north. Our machine-guns opened on them and also a

brisk fusillade from the trenches as they came over. They

bombed Kut and then returned to their camp for more bombs.

This was repeated again and again, making a dozen trips in

all. Every one took cover in basements. Scarcely a soul

was to be seen. We had to stick where we were, as our guns

were still in action, but one had plenty of time to look skyward

and see the death-bird there, as I did three or four times this

afternoon, directly in a plumb-line over our heads, and to hear

the whirring propeller of the bomb increasing in loudness and

pace as it fell. One trusted in Providence or luck. He got

the bank of the river and the hospital several times, but his

nearest to us was at least forty yards off. The bombs cannot

be placed with great accuracy, so they drop three or four

close together to make a zone. Some of the bombs were

100-pounders, which would blot a fellow out as effectually

as an hydraulic stamp.

Funniest of all, the heavy mortar, Frolicsome Fanny, tiring

of acting wallflower on the other bank, chucked her big bombs

at us. But she is a left-handed and cross-eyed filly, and the

gods have set a limit to her range for evil. Some went in

the river near the horse boats. These were received calmly

by the Tigris. Another got into the sand-heap near our

butchery and fell into it without exploding. Some scientifically

minded Arabs charged up to secure it and were within thirty

yards when the thing went off to their huge astonishment.

We had a good laugh at the way they sprinted back

jabbering with rage and fear. The mules have got to know

her, and, keeping one eye on the bomb as it comes over the

river, continue grazing until it is nearly across and then bolt

the opposite way.

One of Fritz's bombs, a 100-pounder, we saw toppling

over and over in the air quite plainly. It didn't go off. But

another such sent a table at least two hundred feet into the air.

This is true. I won't spoil it by saying that the cloth was laid

and set. It was merely a table and its four legs stuck up

towards the evening moon.

The bombing raid continued until it was too dark for

Fritz to see. Then I went home, and on my way saw interested

little crowds that had emerged to examine various shell-holes.

Arabs ran up and down the streets howling for their dead.

Over a thousand shells have been flung into the town and there

were a good few hit among the hospital patients, and the

Arabs lost many. About a score only were killed, but many

more were injured. Considering the intensity of the bombardment

this is an excellent tribute to the shelters of Kut.

_10 p.m._--Every one is extra vigilant to-night although we

think it hardly likely the Turks will try to storm us. That

they cannot easily do now, and the floods increase their

difficulty daily.

_March 2nd._--The whole night long wild howlings and dismal

wailing of the Arabs for their dead and wounded continued

and kept me awake. Now and then some other Arab extra

full of despair would let out a yell like a steam-whistle that

rose high above the universal hubbub. The Jews here cry

in a different key altogether, a wobbly vibrato long sustained,

much less sweet but not wholly unlike the _tangi_ of the Maoris

in New Zealand. A Jewish funeral is a sad little affair.

Dressed in long black robes and carrying lights in little tins

they escort the dead to a grave way out on the _maidan_. They

walk with bowed heads in twos, a tiny column and a sort of

acolyte person following the body. They perform their

ceremonies by night so as to avoid drawing fire upon themselves.

It is a peaceful day, the peace that follows a violent storm.

Rumour has it that various Turkish guns which had been

withdrawn for service downstream have been brought back

here, and the bombardment was intended to acquaint us with

the fact. Or else they are thinking of sending the guns down

and wanted to disillusion us on the point. This is most likely.

It certainly hasn't done much harm, and surely Khalil Pacha

does not suppose he can give us "nerves" by this sort of thing.

A beautiful aeroplane of ours flew over, her wings resplendent

with the morning sun.

It has been very cold and windy all day, but so very

peaceful--not the peacefulness of calm but of a windy, lonely

day.

During the show yesterday I was practically doing C.R.A

River-front, a high-sounding title especially pleasing to

Cockie, but as a matter of fact it is merely an observation job,

as all he does is to command his own three guns. He is still

seedy and inconsolable at his inaction.

_March 2nd._--An uneventful day. We fired a few sniping

rounds. I hear the 76th Battery got its share of shelling the

other day, and a bombardier was killed.

I persuaded Cockie to talk about ancient Egyptian kings.

He annotates himself in a most delightful way in talking

history, and has an extraordinary imagination for detail.

This imagination it must be admitted does not get much of

a chance in Egypt, which has been fairly well explored. I

would suggest turning him loose among visions of the lost

Atlantis. I believe he would even produce the history of

the other Adam's first love affair in that continent. Some such

sentence as this--"Yes! In that extraordinary land which

history has almost forgotten and which geology never knew,

Phargon the bog-king, the præcursor of Romeo, proceeded

to divest himself of shoes and jacket, and taking in another

hole of his belt, plunged, according to Whinny, feet foremost

after Phargette."

_March 3rd._--The cold wind, or the wet, or something, has

made my back so rheumaticky that I can hardly turn round

or get down to tie my bootlaces. I am very lucky to have

kept as fit as I have. Dozens of men from the trenches are

in hospital with muscular rheumatism from the floods--the

source of many evils.

I have finished "Monte Cristo." What an artist he was!

And I have started "David Copperfield" again.

I omitted to record that a shell tore down the house at

the front of this, and one wrecked the base of the column

office. Several horses were wounded during the bombardment.

We had a parade of Mussulman drivers, and I read a communiqué

asking them to eat horseflesh, as their Mullah in

India requested, this being required by the exigencies of the

service. Not they! I believe, nevertheless, there is only one

thing rooted deeper than a man's religion, and that is his

appetite. This proves it, for hunger is driving them to eat it.

What an awful joke on the part of Charon if, when these

fellows reach the banks of the river Styx, he informs them the

only available ferry is astride of swine.

We have finished the inspections. The horse rations have

fallen away to very little. We give them pieces of palm tree

to gnaw at.

_March 4th._--The rheumatism is much worse. It is bleak

and cold in the observation post. On such an occasion the

vigil is a wretchedly dull one. I'm too cold to dream. One

can only psychologize viciously on the difference in point of

view between a full man and an empty one. Eating maketh a

satisfied man, drinking a merry man, smoking a contented

man. But eating, drinking, and smoking maketh a happy

man--that is, the heart of him glad.

It is not far from the truth to say I have to-day done none

of these. For by _eating_ one cannot mean half a slice of chaff

bread, nor by _drinking_ a water-coloured liquid like our siege

tea, nor yet by _smoking_ a collection of strange dried twigs and

dust. Man, it has been excellently observed, cannot live by

bread alone. How much less, then, can he live upon half chaff

and half flour?

Far away on the edge of the western horizon I watched for

hours, through my telescope, a convoy of camels, each with a

tiny white dot of humanity aboard, striding away with delightful

patience to the Turkish camp downstream. They were

conveying stores from Shamrun, the enemy depot on the

river above us.

General Smith, of former mention in these notes, has been

dangerously ill in hospital, but the crisis has been passed. He

contracted pneumonia on the retirement. I have been to see

him. He is very full of pluck, and gave me a _Times_.

Tudway, R.N., dropped in for a pipe. We talked of the

sea, and he spoke of the soft life on the Chinese station.

The adjutant of the Dorsets was killed while strolling in a

communication trench yesterday--a chance bullet getting his

heart. The D.A.A.G. is being operated on to-day with an

abscess in the thigh. The facilities for operating on such cases

are very modest. But nothing less than raising the siege could

alleviate these matters. And in this little maelstrom of

destiny here at Kut, we and our weaknesses are whirled around

together. Some of us disappear in the vortex, and others

continue circling around the swift walls, and may or may not

be fortunate enough to so continue. But from this seething

cauldron none can escape by his own effort, for we are all up

against a thing greater than ourselves.

_March 5th, 6th._--Shortly after daybreak, as usual, I got up,

feeling awfully full of aches and unsteady. Cockie, however,

being still seedy, it was necessary for me to be on duty on the

observation post, so I flannelled myself up and went. I stuck

it until 9 a.m., when I returned for breakfast. Our Parsee

regimental doctor, from whom I required a dose of rheumatism

physic, sent for a major of the Fourth Field Ambulance, who

pronounced me bad enough with muscular rheumatism to have

to go into hospital. I was awfully disgusted at this after

holding out so long, and begged to be allowed to stay in my

billet. But it was of no use. He said strict orders made it

imperative, also that in hospital eggs were forthcoming. Four

native bearers and a stretcher turned up shortly afterwards,

much to my disgust. Anyway I walked, after fixing up for

the sergeant-major to carry on.

I entered a ward too terrible for words, next bed to a most

sad and awful apparition of a poor fellow who had been very

ill. It was a long skin-covered skeleton with skinless ears,

eyes protruding so far that one wondered how they stuck up

at all, teeth on edge, legs thinner than a pick handle, and two

arms like gloved broom-sticks catching frantically at various

parts of his apparel where creatures of the amoebic world fled

before those awful eyes. Add to this a half-insane chattering,

punctuated with a periodical sharp crack as louse after louse

was exploded between the creature's two thumbs, and you have

the picture entitled, "A Hospital Shikar." Altogether it was

a sight utterly terrible.

I thought of flight, and other things, but the hospital was

small, and there was no other available room. So I wished

them all good morning, and sat on the side of my bed farthest

away, and having undressed got into bed as the assistant-surgeon,

otherwise apothecary, directed. I had not been there

for more than three minutes when the Enigma's Hindoo bearer

entered. He became quickly engaged with his master in

strenuous argument relating to curry, what time the Enigma

ricochetted on and off the bed, and his mouth became the

exhaust valve for his pent-up opinions of the world in general

and his bearer in particular. I discovered later that malaria and

dysentery had between them rendered him temporarily insane.

He had been in the hospital for the whole of the siege, but was

now slowly recovering. While he was _in extremis_, however,

I should say from all accounts that he must have been by far

the most interesting person in Kut. For many days it seems

his main hobby was in trying to make his bearer precede him

through a door which did not exist at the foot of his bed.

Another diversion was in seating himself on the window-sill

stark naked about 1 a.m. in the night and mimicking, often

with ghastly relish, the sounds and noises of various members

of the Turkish artillery from Windy Lizzie to Naughty Nellie,

the buzzing howitzer. I believe he was quite good at the

bullets, and very promising on Frolicsome Fanny, which was

easy, and only required an awful noise without warning--for

as I have noted Fanny's jokes sometimes held fire for minutes.

But in reproducing vocally the aeroplane's 100-pound bombs

he is reported as having outdone even the bomb itself. In

fact his own nerves could not stand this performance, and he

generally wound up the item by taking cover under his bed.

Other nights he has been known to get behind his overturned

bed and preach in a most entertaining way. Why he

took to preaching was, he explained, due to the fact that he

had been to church only once in his life, and that was his

wedding-day. His sermons may be described as unorthodox,

and varied from blatant sarcasm in such texts as, "When ye

hear of war and rumours of wars be ye _not_ troubled" ("Not"

being considerably emphasized) to sheer optimism, one being,

"Eat, sleep, and be merry, for to-morrow ye starve." But

he did not always stick to his text, and in the last-mentioned

sermon made a humorous digression on Kut, the way in and

the way out, this being, as he informed his midnight audience,

the prelude to a book he had recently written called "The Last

of the Sixth Division," by a Field Officer. One day he insisted

on believing he was on board a P. boat going downstream in

charge of Turkish officers, and having attempted unsuccessfully

to rejoin his boat in scanty apparel, finally consoled himself

with fishing out of the window. However, he is now supposed

to be more or less permanently located in the sane region, but

this from the other would seem to be separated by a mere

dividing line, and he occasionally strays back.

But these interesting events are past, and the poor fellow

is a dull subaltern once more. Other occupants of the ward

were the Welsh Bulbul and an awfully decent subaltern in the

Territorial Battery named Tozer, whom they called the Eye-Opener,

because he never slept.

An awful place is this hospital. Our ward is on the first

floor on one side of the yard, and the barred windows are

sandbagged up part of the way.

I read and slept, and then stole downstairs to interview

"G. B.," who was in a most kind and amiable mood.

The only advantage to be derived from being in hospital

here is that one has facilities for dying under medical supervision.

Not that the authorities don't do all they can, for the

officer commanding the officers' hospital is as kind and thoughtful

as he is able, and altogether the best of good fellows. But

his difficulties are enormous. There is the scantiest of sick

diet left, medicines are more or less exhausted, only the simplest

drugs remaining. Besides, the pressure of work on all the

medical people here necessitates the use of untrained orderlies.

One of these, a podgy and giggling recruit, enters twice daily

with a handful of pills in his fist, and distributes them as per

order, but it is well to know one's ailment and the remedy, for

sometimes the ardent youth is forgetful. The C.O. comes

round once a day, which is the event of the twenty-four hours.

He is all patience, encouragement, and industry. The orderly

rubs the backs of the rheumatic patients, and this is a delightful

relief.

As for food it matters not. Dysentery and rheumatic

cases can be safely starved, I believe, and if this is the chief

way of getting well there is every facility here for rapid

recovery. Two small portions of Mellin's food and one egg

with a small piece of white bread are the daily ration. A few

extra things came for me, but I could not eat them.

From 6 to 8 p.m., as we have no candles we have a spelling

game, each one in turn adding a letter that continues to spell

a word. The object is to avoid saying the last letter of the

word, and consequently the words changed or lengthened in

an extraordinary fashion. One-syllable words were barred,

and we had challenging for bluffs. Each fall meant a life, and

three lives was the total. Thus o-s-t-r-a-c-i-z-i-n-g. The

defeat was staved off "ostrich" and "ostracize" on to some

one else. It proved highly entertaining, and abuse flowed

freely, especially as the abuser was more than once let down

deliberately by all hands. Doubtful words we voted on. I

got into trouble with "phrenolophaster," which we carried

by three to two, I pointing out other words, poetaster, philosophaster,

etc. One wouldn't dare to tell Dr. Johnson so, but

it "did."

There joined us in these evening orgies a subaltern of the

Oxfords named Mellor, otherwise Square-Peg, who was convalescent

from a bomb wound in the arm. On the morrow I

got out of bed and walked with him to the vegetable gardens,

which were planted at the beginning of the siege, like they

were in Troy. I hate bed when I'm not fit, and the walk was

refreshing. I am trying to get permission to go back to my

billet and do duty on diet.

_6 p.m._--There is an order for the Arabs to remain confined

to their houses as another sortie is imminent.

I have just been talking to Woods, a cheery fellow who

got the Military Cross for saving men from a dug-out at the

Fort during the heavy bombing of December 24th. He is

gleefully nursing the stump of an arm, and tells me how he

proposes to still enjoy himself in life with the other. "The

Enigma" has just begun another _shikar_, the severalth this

day.

_March 7th._--Late last night there was talk of a brigade

going over the river to stop the enemy's forces attempting to

retreat that way. We had no bridge, but Major Sandes had

prepared a trestled bridge for the Shat-el-hai, and if wanted

the brigade was to be ferried over in _mahelas_. We were all

wound up and restless in hospital, and did not wish to miss a

show. All night long there was the clang and clump, clump,

of marshalled forces, and the champing of bits and the tramp

of men under full arms. A few rounds were fired during the

night, and at the dawn a signal awakened us, but nothing else

happened. Anyway orders for the debouch were about to be

issued the second time, and with this as an excuse I persuaded

the C.O. to let me out to resume duty, and I was to remain on

diet issued from the hospital. I left the Enigma my midday's

rations. It was a relief to escape from the dreadful ward.

This I did at 11 a.m.

But before I left I visited General Smith's room on the

other floor. From him I learned that Verdun is raging with

unabated fury, and Epinal and Belfort still hold out. The

Russian General Baratoff is almost on to Khanakin through

the mountains. If this were only true the Turks hereabout

would have to retire on Baghdad.

The general was what girls call "very nice" this morning.

He reads three books at once, so that when he is tired of one

he changes to the other. We talked more fishing, and what

we would do when we returned to India. This I find the

most interesting topic for invalids.

_9 p.m._--It is rumoured from headquarters that an attempt

is being made by General Aylmer to get through to-day or to-morrow

with a dawn attack. The weather is favourable to a

long march. We are all ready with our _mahelas_ and launch

and _Sumana_ to convey a brigade across, if necessary to cut the

Turkish retreat or assist General Aylmer. It is, however, a

serious impediment that we have none of the bridging trains

which were so famous in the history of the Sixth Division and

so efficiently handled by Major Sandes. The last was blown

up on December 5th.

_Later._--We partly expect some orders this evening. I find

I am almost too stiff with this rheumatism to mount my horse.

I have been practising on the table, but once in the saddle I

shall be perfectly right.

I am overjoyed to have got back to my billet from that

hospital ordeal. Have played chess with Mellor.

There is sound of distant firing--a dull smothered roar of

an engagement down at el Hannah.

Everybody is talking about Baratoff, and hence this verse:

"The mountains looked on Baratoff

And Baratoff looked on me;

And in my evening dream I dreamed

That Kut might still be free."

CHAPTER V

GENERAL AYLMER'S ATTEMPT--MORE FLOODS--PRESSURE OF

THE SIEGE--PREPARATIONS FOR RELIEF--FAILURE--LIFE

IN A SIEGE MESS

_March 8th._--In the night a terrific explosion from

the direction of the Shatt awoke Kut. Someone

says it was caused by a floating mine going aground.

It had been intended for the bridge some distance up the

Shat-el-hai. Not long after dawn we awoke to the sound

of intense gun-fire so close to us, that for a time it seemed

like our own guns in Kut. At first we surmised this to be

Turkish artillery turned on positions won by the Relief

Column, but, on climbing on to the roof, we saw the flashes

came from what the experts knew as Dujaila Redoubt.

Our own guns were preparing on the Turkish position!

This in itself seemed difficult to believe, although, no doubt,

some good reason existed for it. As the light got better,

before eight o'clock, we saw quite clearly hordes of Turks

rushing up towards the Shat-el-hai support trenches, and

some troops were being ferried over near Megasis from the

other bank. General Aylmer's night march had evidently

been a complete success, and the Turks were taken by surprise.

Why, then, were we waiting to prepare? The fire grew heavier,

the bursts thicker, and all the while the Turks were rushing up

troops. Then the fire ceased. We held our breath and waited

for news, knowing that the bayonet was busy, and the men at

handgrips. No news has come. We have waited hour by hour.

Is anything amiss? Why haven't they got through?

Was our artillery preparation intended to be so deadly as to

pulverize the Turks' whole series of trenches? Could so

many heavy guns be got up? If not, why did we wait?

We only know that up to 9 a.m. the Turks' trenches were

rows of moving heads, and many went over the open. The

fact seems to be that our arrival at the redoubt was absolutely

a surprise, and yet, through not pushing on, the benefit of

surprise has been lost.

[Illustration: Aylmers Dujailah Attempt

8^{th} March 1916]

_March 9th, 3 p.m._--The relieving force did not get through.

We have heard this unofficially. We all have the feeling it

is "the big effort," and not a side show. We are disappointed,

but having had little else than disappointments we are accustomed

to them.

_March 10th._--There is another famous _communiqué_ from

General Townshend, our G.O.C. It is interesting to see how

"Alphonse" improves every occasion. Here it is:

* * * * *

_Communiqué to troops._

"As on a former occasion I take the troops of all ranks

into my confidence again, and repeat the two following telegrams

from General Aylmer from which they will see that the

relieving force has again failed to relieve us.

"_First telegram: March 8th._--'To-day's operations terminated

in a gallant but unsuccessful attempt to storm

Dujaila Redoubt. Our troops pushed home the attack and

carried out the operations with great gallantry, but the enemy

was able to mass great reinforcements which arrived from the

left bank at Megasis and Shamran, and we were unable to

break through. Unless the enemy retires from his present

position on the right bank, which does not seem probable, we

shall be unable to maintain ourselves in the present position

owing to lack of water, and unless the enemy evacuates the

Essin position to-night, we shall be obliged to withdraw to our

previous position at Wadi.'

"_Second telegram: March 8th._--'We have been unable to

break through to relieve you to-day and may have to withdraw

to Wadi to-morrow, but hope to make another attack

before long and relieve you at an early date. Please wire

movements of enemy, who in any case suffered most severely,

as their repeated counter-attacks have been repulsed with

heavy loss.'

(End of Telegrams.)

"I know you will all be deeply disappointed to hear this

news. We have now stood a three months' siege in a manner

which has called upon you the praise of our beloved King and

our fellow countrymen in England, Scotland, Ireland, and

India, and all this after your brilliant battles of Kut-el-Amara

and Ctesiphon and your retirement to Kut, all of which feats

of arms are now famous. Since December 5th you have spent

three months of cruel uncertainty, and to all men and all people

uncertainty is intolerable; as I say, on the top of it all this

comes--the second failure to relieve us. And I ask you also

to give a little sympathy to me who have commanded you in

these battles referred to and who, having come to you a

stranger now love my command with a depth of feeling I have

never known in my life before. When I mention myself I

would couple the names of the generals under me whose names

are distinguished in the army as leaders of men.

"I am speaking to you as I did before, straight from the

heart, and as I may ask your sympathy for my feelings having

promised you relief on certain dates on the promise of those

ordered to relieve us. Not their fault, no doubt--do not think

I blame them; they are giving their lives freely and deserve

our gratitude and admiration. But I want you to help me

again as before. I have asked General Aylmer to bring such

numbers as will break down all resistance and leave no doubt

of the issue. Large reinforcements are reaching him, including

an English division of 17,000 men, the leading brigade of

which must have reached Wadi by now--that is to say, General

Aylmer's headquarters. In order, then, to hold out, I am killing

a large number of horses so as to reduce the quantities of grain

eaten every day, and I have had to further reduce your ration.

It is necessary to do this in order to keep our flag flying. I

am determined to hold out, and I know you are with me in

this heart and soul.

"(Signed) CHARLES TOWNSHEND,

"Major-General,

"Commanding the Garrison in Kut.

"Kut-el-Amara,

"10th March, 1916."

* * * * *

The rank and file of the garrison, from what one overhears,

are all for sympathy with their G.O.C. They are quite

sure that "Alphonse would have got through" and have

altered the name of the relieving general to Faylmer. Why

wasn't the action delayed until the new division could have

taken part? As a matter of fact, one should suspend judgment

until all the facts are in, and in the last analysis the blame

must rest on Governments rather than on generals. When

first besieged we expected to be relieved within a month, and

so far as the Government knew we could hold out for about

two months. Fortunately we secured various supplies of corn

from Woolpress, and from dismantled engines we erected

milling facilities which enabled us to turn corn and barley into

bread.

But reinforcements have been sent into the country at a

slow trickle and the enemy has found no difficulty at all in

out-reinforcing us. When one considers the state of Turkey

this is most incredible. One would think that the lesson of

Ctesiphon was sufficient to chasten the authorities out of the

belief that the Mesopotamian campaign could be dallied with.

By sheer brilliancy of arms a whole country had been conquered

by a single unsupported division. This achievement was

not enough, however, and the cheap methods in vogue further

required this one division to risk the whole fruits of a campaign

in a single doubtful throw, and this against the advice

of its generals. Through the same cheap methods of having

insufficient forces to follow up a brilliant victory, our army

was badly let down and several thousand lives flung away.

Then only the same brilliant generalship of General Townshend

disengaged the division from a force several times its size, and

completed a masterly retirement for ninety miles, with the

whole Turkish forces on top of it. Extraordinary success of

the rearguard action at Um-al-Tabul enabled the division to

reach Kut, where it is intended to hold up the Turkish advance

and keep back the enemy tide from reswamping Mesopotamia.

The post was surrounded and bombarded at once, but the public

evidently does not know this owing to very necessary censorship.

The garrison, then, can hold out for a certain time. It

can forestall disaster for that time only.

One might imagine that the Indian Government would by

this have become awake to this aspect of the crisis, have taken

prompt action and sent out three or four divisions at once.

Even admitting the difficulties of river transport, six weeks

from the date of Ctesiphon, _i.e._ January 9th, would have

allowed ample time for arrival at Basra. But the first

reinforcements did not arrive in the country until considerably

later, and then only depleted divisions. British divisions,

which are really required, were only sent for recently and have

hardly started. And now difficulties of transport will delay

their transit up river. One cannot help recording these facts

in black and white. Every day lost now is piling up tremendous

difficulty for the future and swelling the list of lives

downstream that, please God, will one day retrieve a disaster

that might easily have been avoided. The world knows

nothing of the siege of Kut, and the authorities are not being

goaded by public opinion. In other words, the Indian Government

has played with a serious situation. The price will be

disaster. I am not setting this down as my own opinion

merely. It is the point of view of every one in Kut. As a

soldier one must refuse to believe that the position has been

mishandled or that Kut will fall. But if I were a politician,

which I am not, then would I add a lot of things here which I

will not.

As I write it rains, and with every drop of rain the time

within which the garrison, and, more important still, the

strategic position at Kut, can be relieved, shortens. Soon

come the annual floods, and when the whole country is under

water reinforcements will be of no avail. And the time is

short. It is the eleventh hour, and unless considerable forces

are already on the way it is even now too late. But that is

an affair between the authorities and the floods. Our problem

is one of food.

The position here is much as it was in the Dardanelles.

Excepting for floods and natural conditions we can outgun

and outfight the Turk every time here. Moreover, we are

tremendously relieving Aylmer of pressure, as the Turkish

river communications must stop at Shamrun above us, and

then his transport has to go overland. This is the marvellous

thing about our enemy. He is daily carrying on a colossal

bandobast of transport away from the water.

_5 p.m._--Reuter reports the Verdun battle is going satisfactorily.

One imagines that the German Kultur Geist must

be bilious by this time, according to the numbers they are

offering at his shrine. I am wondering how Nietzsche's

Zarathusa would speak now if he saw the Verdun shambles.

And what his blonde-haired, pink-limbed Über Mensch would

say about it too. Somehow I can see old Rudolf Eucken at

Jena with outspread hands invoking "Schicksal" (destiny)

as once he used to "Die Unendigkeit, Die Ewigkeit." Deep

down in the German nature is a connative impulse towards

the dramatic, and this is fed by a presentiment coloured with

all the hues of harmony sweetest to them. It is not unknown

for students at Jena and Heidelberg to extract such exquisite

juice out of the word "Unendigkeit" (Immortality) or "Ewigkeit"

(Eternity) as to become intoxicated therewith and

commit suicide shortly after in the pine forest, or near a

ruined "Schloss" (castle) what time the sun sets.

He loves the experience of the actor, likes to feel his gamut

of emotions considerably twanged. This dramatic tendency

showed itself on the occasion of that delicious utterance of the

Kaiser on the eve of the Great War: "Now let my ministers

put their hands through mine in token of fidelity, and let the

nation follow me through Need and Death." Now, the Roman

did this sort of thing rather well, but the German makes an ass

of himself. One feels the Kaiser said it to see how it felt to

say it.

The Germans tell us they are doing well, but I believe there

is a sight becoming more familiar to their eyes, a phenomenon

it is their daily delight and wish to behold, and that is the altar

of this "Schicksal"--Fate. The Germans think in battalions.

They have yet once again to go mad as a nation, as they did

on the outbreak of war--absolutely "verrückt,"--and to bolt

with competitive haste towards the national funeral pyre.

They are not fanatics. They are temperamentalists--and from

the spleen of a German musician it is said that in a successful

operation you can cut a piece of temperament nine inches long

and twenty-five ounces in weight. Apropos of this general

digression one may consider their "New Year's Picture" of

"Tod" (Death), of which a copy reached us in the autumn

of 1914 in France, and cheered us up considerably.

"Tod" (please pronounce "toad"), an awfully unpleasant

looking "Death," a snobbish skeleton with a bad seat, rode a

heavy horse through a smitten land, a tremendous scythe over his

shoulder and his metacarpal bones holding his reins incorrectly.

The scythe flung a gigantic shadow, and as for Tod, his shadow

reached almost to the horizon over black, burned villages,

sacked cities, and many corpses. The horse had reached a

double signpost which showed the way to St. Petersburg and

the way to Paris. But, more interesting still, the skeleton

had the lantern jaws of a Prussian. Fancy turning such a

fellow loose! Truly the "God of Want and Rapine and

Death!" and a most excellent subject for the Germans'

accepted New Year's Picture.

I remember my limber gunners having the same picture,

months afterwards, at Aldershot. And Chopin composing the

"Marche Funèbre" with a skeleton between his legs while he

played wasn't in it with them. They had stuck the picture

on the muzzle of the gun while they cleaned it. I hope every

one of them goes untouched through the whole war.

Poor Germany! I have had some happy days there, but

when I compare the Kaiser's words to his nation on the eve

of war with those of our own dear King, how I thank God I

am an Englishman. And who would not mind being a

Pharisee at the price of being an Englishman? I ask you.

It may be suggested that when Germany falls, the same

cement that holds that extraordinary nation together will

assist it in falling together. In the meantime it will be an

interesting spectacle for history to observe--the German

nation sprinting on hot foot towards the registered funeral

pyre, with all the dramatics of the bolting horse that gathers

speed and insanity from its own flight.

Talking of horses, I hear that to-day is the slaughtering

day for numbers of them. This is good-bye to any possibility

of debouch, for there will be insufficient horses to move the

guns. It will eke out our corn and barley that can be made

into bread; but what is wanted is sugar or jam for the

body, and tea for the spirit.

"You are," says Townshend, "making a page of history."

"I would rather," thinks Tommy, "make some stew."

_March 11th._--We have all been made acquainted with

Sir Percy Lake's condolences on our misfortune, but also

promising us relief; but the floods are gradually increasing,

and we fear it will be a case of Lake _v._ Lake, and there will

be no appeal.

Sir Percy Lake is the Army Commander in place of Sir

John Nixon, and General Aylmer is Army Corps Commander.

Before going to bed last night we told fortunes by cards. The

results in short were these: Firstly, a climax is to be reached

shortly. (I quite agree.) Secondly, March 27th, my birthday,

will seal my matrimonial affairs, the marriage to take place

before the following March 27th. (Doubtful, unless I marry

an Arab or Turk, or get freed for the event.) Thirdly, the

star of the Fortune-God is in the ascendant, and his horoscope

is wreathed with smiles. Which we two subalterns, and

Cockie (a junior married captain), devoutly pray may come true.

Personally, I hold with that excellent fellow Horace that

"the gods only laugh if they behold mortals showing an

unseemly interest in their destiny." It is essentially a plebeian

instinct, a relic from barbaric days when the world was brimful

of curiosities for the twilight intelligence of recently-born man.

But many decades taught him that unbridled curiosity ended

in burnt fingers. Then he avoided with a fearful dread all

that he did not know, and not the least of his tortures was

occasioned by the Inexplicable straying upon him across the

border from the Great Unknown. Later on he gets more

nerve and he pioneers--still later he becomes scientific and

investigates. And when the facts are more or less all in, his

curiosity instead of his investigativity once again gets the

better of him, and he fortune-tells and goes table-rapping, and

tries to lassoo his astral body and to open up direct communication

with those "not lost but gone before." It is, one

might say with some truth, a mark of spiritual breeding to

know how to acquiesce. Somehow one cannot picture the

greatest of the gods tremendously excited. Equanimity is at

least more dignified and always useful.

Nor should prophecy be confused with fortune-telling, for

it is to the latter what investigation is to inquisitiveness.

And inquisitiveness was always bad form. The personal

factor looms too large.

Ah! how infinitely colossal and strangely beautiful is

that great thing the Future, that ever bears down upon us

from across the seas of Time. That dark tidal wave bearing

great histories in its bosom and pregnant with joys and sorrows

for us all. The gymnastics of living philosophers teach us that

Time does not exist--but to me here in Kut it is almost the

only real thing. O Futura Divina Ignota! thou mighty

engulfing wave advancing from horizon to horizon upon us,

with Change and Hope lightly treading thy combing crest--how

pricelessly excellent a thing art thou, and what could we

do without thee? Whence art thou? From what distant

regions of Eternity art thou sped, on what strange shores do

thy billows break! We know not. It is beautiful not to

know. And thus is Faith born. Thou art a beautiful

stranger. We dread thee not. We trust thee--for thou

art God.

Truly it is a great and wonderful world, and considerably

reflected upon before patented. Some day a great man will

write a book on "Some Attitudes to the Future"--wherefrom

it will be gathered that the happiest is he who trusts but does

not seek to know. "If," writes the prospective Plato, "it

were permitted me of God to be the only mortal in the history

of the human race to discover the lever that raises the curtain

between us and the next world, and even if by so doing we

might at once behold the flight of angels, the life of the spirit

world, the procedure of heaven, yet would I certainly refuse

to reveal the secret or to use it. Because to behold that

Ultramontane would be to remove from life the two essential

factors of discipline and hope. Moreover, if likewise I only

were accorded the power of turning the searchlight on that

land of mists we know as the Future so that all might see what

is ahead of each, yet again would I not do so." And on second

thoughts, who would? It would indeed be a dreadful ordeal

to have to live. And if you don't believe this, then go and

ask a certain gunner subaltern in Kut.

_9 p.m._--My hospital acquaintance, Square-Peg of the

Oxfords, came along this afternoon for a game of chess, and

asked if he might join our mess, as he is convalescent. Square-Peg

and we talked 'Varsity gossip by the pipe-dozen. He is

at present doing light duty on patrol of the gardens, technically

known as "C.O. Cabbages."

I managed to best Edmonds later. He conceded me a

knight, but then he is a very good player.

I made another acquaintance at the hospital, one Father

Tim, the Catholic padre, who called to see me to-day.

A few rounds fell into the town. We did not reply.

We are informed that the English division of which we

have heard so much is coming up-river now.

Rations have been still further cut down. We get bread

and meat, nothing else, and of the former merely four ounces

per diem. The garrison is in a bad way. Men go staggering

about, resting every now and then up against a wall. I hear

that the number succumbing in the trenches is daily increasing.

As for the native hospital, the sight is too appalling for words.

Skin-covered skeletons crawl about or turn over to receive

their scanty nourishment, but nothing else, not even shell

fire, engages their attention. One sees a coma stealing over

them, a coma not less relentless than the Arctic Sleep of

Death in the snow. The poor devils cover up their faces with

blankets or tattered turbans, and dream of Home. One told

me the other day that he heard the steps of Kismet.

It is roughly estimated that this further reduction of

rations will give us two to three weeks--not more.

There is every confidence in our army below. One thing,

however, we dread: that is the floods, which may or may

not leave sufficient time.

_March 12th._--Rain fell last night and again early this

morning. Then we heard the sound of distant artillery, which

increased to the subdued throb of gun-fire far away. But this

was drowned in the grander music of a thunderstorm. How

splendid is the artillery of the gods! How majestic their

salvos billowing across the heavens!

Last night we felt what we believed to be an earthquake,

but which proved to be the sappers trying to dynamite fish

in the river, which experiment was completely unproductive.

_5 p.m._--It is still raining, which is bad for the river. I

did my rounds and straightened up pay books, etc., in the

office, and then played chess. I am a little better, and Amir

Bux is an excellent masseur, a distinct improvement on

Graoul, who used to treat my shoulders like a punch ball.

The soldiers have re-named this place Scuttle-Amara!

_March 13th._--More rain has fallen! The Tigris is almost

bank high, and still rising.

I have been around the horses. Every tail is bare, and

the _jhuls_ and head ropes disappear as fast as they are put on.

They all remain perpetually on the _qui vive_ to prevent their

stall-mates from biting them. Some are scarcely horses, but

rather half-inflated horse skins.

Father Tim, the worthy Irish padre, who divides his

attention between wistful ultramontane meditations and an

excellent appetite, played chess with me to-day. He rooked

me beautifully once.

_March 14th._--Heavy gun-fire has been heard downstream.

The irrepressible humours of Tommy inform us that it is our

own guns covering Aylmer's retirement to Basra.

_5 p.m._--The rain has stopped. I have been writing to

King's College, Auckland, of many memories, and also to my

acquaintance, "the delicious Conservative," at Corpus--Cambridge.

I find in the latter's epistle this sentence: "To-night I

shall think of you in that delightful room with chairs so easy

and cheroots so persuasive, soliloquizing on the eternal destiny

of the American Conservative candidate."

He does not regard all Americans favourably, and I

remember well how once when a Southern son of that enterprising

nation averred that in the Northern States there were

no aristocrats or conservatives, still the South was full of both,

that he replied he had always understood it to be merely this

way, that the Northern States had neither, and the Southern

believed they had both. Which was very severe. But then

he had a delightful, disarming smile. Oh, for a disarming

smile! ! !

_March 15th._--The Ides of March! Moreover they are

come and gone, for I am making this entry, I find, on the 16th.

The river rose eighteen inches, and for some hours lapped over

the banks. Then it subsided a little. I had a walk through

the palm grove and back via the Gurkha communication

trench.

_March 16th._--It is a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and

the only blur on the silvery brightness is the muddied Tigris

winding like a yellow ribbon over this flat desert land. I felt

so weak during my walk yesterday that to-day I merely

strolled about the "gardens."

It was a fine sunset. Away over the muddy plain the

Western skies were dragon-red, and clouds stirred by the

evening breeze sailed in and out of the luminous belt which

reflected a soft pink on the face of the rising moon climbing

over the Eastern horizon.

I stale-mated a game of chess. Also received a gift of

three brace of starlings that are the veriest God-send for the

seedy.

_March 17th._--We had an extraordinary breakfast of

kedjereed tinned salmon Square-Peg brought with him.

Cockie's temperature is increasing and ought to be

diminished.

I played patience a little, which I can't stick for long.

There are not many books circulating.

_March 18th._--Another beautiful day! I stale-mated a

game of chess with Square-Peg, and then had a walk round

the trenches almost up to the Fort. There is an old disused

trench skirting the river on the eastern side, where we sat in a

hidden nook and let the cool breeze from the river play on our

feverish dank foreheads.

Grass is beginning to grow in patches here and there on

the _maidan_; and here and there a truant mule did himself

well behind the _bund_. Presently the Turks or Arabs spotted

us, and we reluctantly had to leave the blissful spot.

Rumour says that the Turks have some new 7·5-inch guns

coming. If so, the damage done will be ten times what it has

been. And if they only had high-explosive shell the smashing

up of the fort wall and the town would be a very short

affair.

A bombardier of the 76th Battery, an excellent lad, has

just died of wounds from the aeroplane's bomb. I remember

upholding him in a matter of duty once.

Every day some one goes, either from wounds or sickness.

And so far as we know the end is not yet.

_March 19th._--Rheumatics bad again. They remind me I

lived in feet of water in my earthy dug-out during the floods,

even my bed sopping wet. However, in the heat of the day

the aching is less intense. More serious are the increasing

cases of enteritis everywhere in Kut. I believe this is essentially

a siege malady. The symptoms are violent pains in the

intestines and a wish to vomit. It is, I hear, due to bad and

insufficient nourishment. I know many who have already

succumbed, but so far in my case these pains have been rather

stomach than abdominal.

A bombardment started while I was in the gardens, and I

hastened back to Cockie's observation post. It lasted the

best part of an hour.

The floods have necessitated removing the 5-inch guns on

the river-front, which are now in a dead line for our observation

post, so any accurate one will be not far away. Anyway

they can scarcely be closer than they have been. One shell

we felt certain was making dead for us, but it went by with a

fearful swish and burst ten yards off, killing one man and

wounding another after penetrating two feet of brick wall.

The fumes and filthy gases well-nigh choke one.

Another shell got the _Sumana_ through the funnel and

bridge, killing one of her crew. Tudway's cabin was completely

wrecked. Tudway is a deserving, hard-working

subaltern, the only R.N. representative in Kut. He always

takes it as a personal insult if his gunboat is hit. She is the

apple of his eye. H.M.S. _Sumana_, an improvised gunboat, is

of the greatest importance, as she keeps us in touch with

Woolpress, our tiny stronghold on the other bank, which

prevents the Turks from coming right down to the river-bank

and thus rendering our water-front totally unendurable. She

takes across a barge with provisions and reliefs, and makes

three or four trips a week. This the Turks know full well, and

do their best to send her under during the day. However,

she is fairly well protected with _mahelas_ and rafts, though by

no means completely. It is a difficult problem to know how

to protect her, and engages all Tudway's thoughts. In fact,

how she remains afloat at all is a puzzle to every one.

The last trip of the Morane plane was sufficiently disastrous,

one bomb dropping into the hospital ward, killing a

dozen men and wounding many others. These large bombs

are dreadful things, the splinters of the outer case being very

thin and sharp as razors. Square-Peg's servant was among

those hit. In the 1907 Convention at the Hague we tried to

get all the Powers to agree to refrain from this abominable

trick, but it was not to be. Anyway war is now full of

abominable tricks.

_March 20th._--Cold and windy, an ideal day for a leather

chair with book-rest in one's study before an open fire, or for

Grieg's music, for there is a whip and a whistle in the wind,

and Peer Gynt is passing over us.

Another small strafe started, and H.M.S. _Sumana_ stopped

quite a few. She received five direct hits from 9-pounders,

and one from the 18-pounder field-gun the enemy captured

from us at Ahwaz.

To be shelled by one's own gun and ammunition adds

humour to injury. And we have learned to respect the fearful

rip of this weapon. She hits ten times harder than any other

gun they have got of the same size. But as Cockie says, "If

British workmanship will be so thorough----"

The Morane flew over us last night in the moonlight and

dropped several bombs, one of which cut through an ammunition

wagon, setting off several shells. We give every credit

to this intrepid flyer. He came quite close.

For dinner we had a very excellent roast joint of horse and

some rice. I find that first-class horse is better than second-class

mule, and only second to second-rate young donkey. It

beats camel and eclipses buffalo altogether. The horses

decrease most sadly. Poor Don Juan! No insurance

company on earth would look at him.

We smoked lime-leaves and talked rose-leaves, which

means Omar Khayyam and Hafiz. But it lacked much--for

we had no drinks more Khayyamnian than water.

_March 21st._--To-day it is a world of brightness. One has

in one's self a feeling of joy and rejuvenescence, and outside

there are the strong lines of a matter-of-fact morning, bright

with the spangled beauties of ten thousand sheets of sunlight.

They are the banners of approaching summer, and beneath

the palm trees one hears the sweet voice of that ardent goddess

and the elfish cadence of her myrmidons.

Gorringe, promoted to lieut.-general, has succeeded General

Aylmer in the command of the relieving force, and has wired

that he is making his final plans.

The river has fallen three feet, and so to-day the

whole garrison is keen with expectancy and buoyant with

hope.

A few details are to hand with regard to the recent unsuccessful

dash by General Aylmer up the right bank. From

all accounts it was an excellent scheme, and came very near

being a brilliant success. The Turks were completely hoodwinked,

expecting the attack on the left bank, but Aylmer's

flying column, by a commendable night march, got up to the

main line of the enemy, and struck Dujaila Redoubt. The

British troops got into this, but the story goes that General

Aylmer then chose to wait for his guns and prepared before

pushing through. This took two or three hours, and the

Turks, who had scanty troops on that side, immediately rushed

over every available man from the other bank, and Aylmer,

in attacking again, found the position too strong, and had to

cut his way back. If he had shoved on at dawn he must

have carried it easily.

Another version is that he had to go back for water, which

is almost incredible, the show not having miscarried at all in

length of time, and the river lay before him. One thing is

certain: if he had got through, the Essin position would have

had to be abandoned by the Turks, and, incidentally to the

relief of Kut, our debouch would have brought about a

heavy capture of the enemy. The difficulty now is that the

floods are daily rendering more and more of this table country

impassable. The soil is such that a shower of rain makes it

a quagmire, and stagnant water turns it into the stickiest

paste. Guns cannot be moved a yard, and it is almost equally

impossible for man or horse to move. This means that the

enemy's line downstream is shortened considerably, as they

have to depend mainly on the dry land for transport.

To-day there is artillery fire below. Our guns exchanged

a few rounds with his, and then Square-Peg and I strolled to

the middle line and managed to procure some saccharine.

We are spending every available sovereign to buy anything

that can be got to see us over the last days of the

siege.

It is needless to remark that the only foodstuffs now for

secret sale are those that have been stolen or illicitly concealed.

But even these have long since been purchased, and it is only

by secret-service methods that an Arab is fossicked out who

will sell a tin of milk for fifteen rupees, a pound of rice for

five rupees, or atta for ten rupees. Officers and men, we are

all on the same footing, and the extra that one can buy is,

after all, such a very small supplement. There are many

besides myself who have to starve completely if eggs or milk

are not obtainable. Of the latter I have had one on issue

per day when they are available. This just keeps one going,

and after a few days of it one can manage with potato meal

and a small portion of horse.

Tudway has joined our mess altogether on account of the

_Sumana_ being untenable. One shell has completely smashed

his cabin, luckily during his absence. Her 12-pounders are

ashore and he has a little nook which enables him to see a fair

zone on the right bank which he periodically shoots over like

a luxurious lord his pheasant coverts.

_March 22nd._--During the night the enemy's plane visited

us and the sharp staccato notes of our anti-air maxims rapped

out a brisk warning to the sleeping garrison. The others took

shelter downstairs, but my bed was so very comfortable that

I waited for the music of the first bomb before jumping out.

It didn't come. At 5.30 a.m. we were awakened by a sudden

and intense bombardment. This building is not far from the

mosque and quite close to the anti-air maxims, so-called

because they never hit anything but air.

The bombardment seemed concentrated a good deal on

this part of the town. Cockie went to observe. Then the

plane came back and bombed us, circling across the town,

after which the bombardment again opened. Square-Peg

developed a spasmodic sprint of extraordinary alacrity every

time anything happened or the plane gong rang out, and

dressed downstairs. This proved such a nerve-racking ordeal

that I proposed to have my tea in my room and then go below.

The shells were thumping on the houses just behind us, and I

took the precaution to shift over the thick wall side of the

room which left just space enough for my servant Amir Bux

to miss the doorway. Shell after shell struck the adjoining

buildings, shaking our house considerably. Then suddenly

there was an awful roar and splitting crash. The room was

filled with smoke and dust and plaster, and a terrific thud

shook the wall just behind my head. Two segments of shell

had flown through the doorway and embedded themselves in

the opposite wall. That excellent fellow Amir Bux suddenly

asked, "Master thik hai?" And on my assuring him I was

all right he pointed to the embedded segment and smiled,

muttering "Kismet!" On inspection I found that a Windy

Lizzie had crashed through the slender wall of the upper

enclosure around the roof on which my room opened (there

was no door), and about half the fore-end of the shell had

struck the thick wall of my room a few inches behind my

head and had gone halfway through the plaster. Another

foot and it would have got my scalp precisely.

The show kept on intermittently until 8.30 a.m. The

horse lines and hospital have again caught it rather badly.

One shell passed under a patient's bed in the General Hospital

and exploded on the far wall without hurting anybody.

There is not any backward zone worth mentioning in some of

these shells. High explosive would have been a different

story.

_9 p.m._--A few more shells fell this evening. We hear that

after all the plane did bomb last night and altogether made a

most daring raid. We must give Fritz full marks for excellent

bombing. He attended chiefly to Woolpress village over the

river. More serious was the damage done by the same plane

to the 4·7-inch guns in the horse boats--a very small target.

One barge was almost sunk, being suspended by her cables

only, and the other gun was jerked out of its socket by the

force of the explosion. It appears the bomb touched the

edge of the horse boat and fell into the river, exploding under

the water. The result was a deluge that heaved the gun out

of its pedestal. Reports from Woolpress say he flew within

thirty yards of the barges, which for a night performance was

highly commendable. Fritz is a German. He had hard luck

in not getting one gun at least. We contemplate painting in

large letters on the roof of the Serai, our condolences over his

bad luck. Tudway is busy towing the barge to the _Sumana_

shelter where it is to be repaired.

Cockie is a first-rate chess player, at least so he has

repeatedly informed us. He knows the whole history of Ruy

Lopez even to his private affairs, and can at any stage of any

game tell you the exact measurement of the sphere for evil of

any piece on the board. He does not finger his piece and

wave it in mid-air before moving as do smaller fry at the game.

Neither does he hesitate for four minutes ever. Attacks,

counter-attacks, demonstrations, feints, holding and flanking--he

is an artist at them all. At every exchange he gets an

advantage in pieces--_or position_. "Position," he assures us,

"is the all in all." He can even nominate the moves without

looking at the board. In short, if he did not invariably get

beaten, he would be a perfect player, and even Lasker would

have to look out. Square-Peg once brilliantly remarked that

this tendency to get beaten was the tragedy of it all, but with

infinitely more tact, at least to my mind, I added that Cockie

was merely a great player and not infallible; in other words,

that there were limitations in us all. This Cockie said he

denied. And I agreed.

That may seem illogical. But it was necessary. If to

beat Cockie is a misdemeanour, then to allude to the fact is

certainly a crime--in his eyes. Besides, he isn't invariably

beaten, as I have said. That was a mis-statement. For

when he has made a bad slip or, let us say, paid too big a price

for "position," such as losing his queen for a bishop or maybe

a pawn, he frequently goes very red in the face and knocks

all the pieces from the board on to the floor, which shows he

has the foreseeing eye, a faculty absolutely necessary to a

first-rate chess player. Maeterlinck, we are told, has the seeing

eye. How much greater, then, is Cockie, who has the foreseeing

eye? If, thinks Cockie, it is not always the province

of man to anticipate disaster, he can at least forestall it.

"I had the game on my head," Cockie usually bursts out

as he sweeps the board. "And it wasn't lost either, don't

forget--but the interest in it had all gone."

He did the same the first time he played me when he

showed me a new opening--about three moves. He got a

piece or two ahead, when after an hour or so I evened things

up. Then he made his invariable slip, and before one could

strike a match Cockie had the board clean as a skating rink,

remarking hotly, "When I play against myself I'm always

beaten."

"Thank your God, Cockie," I retorted, "then you admit

some one can beat you." Which remark somehow or other

he didn't appreciate.

However, since then I'm more awake, and when, which is

not often, I bag his queen, or when, which is very often, he

makes a slip, my arms are around the board before you could

smile. It's the only way to keep the men on. If we were in

America I should practise "getting the drop on him with a

Colt's revolver" at each crisis.

Poor Square-Peg came to me in trouble on this point

the other day.

"We have to be thankful, S.-P.," said I, "that Cockie has

not yet commented on our morality."

"But it's coming. He's saving it up. I'm sure of it.

Why, this morning I had a certain mate in two moves, but my

dread of what he would say in another explosion was such

that I thought it necessary to extend the check to six times

before finally checkmating him. It was a hard job and

might have cost me the game. But then, since that last show,

my nerves are none too good."

"Well, you got off lightly! I heard him merely knock

his chair over and say that your playing was only better than

mine. Did he not?"

"Yes! he's a blank, ten to one."

Whereat we both laughed as only subalterns can. At

this point Cockie, who wanted my field-glasses, looked in at

the mess. Now, if one thing annoys him more than another

it is to see two people laughing and not to be in the joke. He

always presumes he is in it. This time he was correct.

Turning to me venomously Cockie said, "I suppose you'd

like a game?"

"Rather not, thanks awfully, I might get beaten."

Cockie snorted in disgust, and I had to give him a last

cigarette I had just made for myself.

"The truth is, Cockie, that Square-Peg and I are hopelessly

deficient in this chess business, and we have to fluke to

win as they say in 'pills.' That churns you up and you can't

see the pieces, and consequently move the wrong one. Don't

swear. I've a proposition. 'Nellie' is coming to lunch and

will give you a game. He's very hot stuff."

So it was settled. Square-Peg and I made our plans and

fixed it all right with Nellie, who tries to be a very dignified

and silent person of the cutting variety, and dislikes Cockie.

After our lunch of stewed horse and horse-beans and rice

the game began. After a few moves Cockie had a slight

advantage, and I took this opportunity to whisper to him that

Nellie had a weak heart and it was dangerous to shout at him.

Cockie nodded approvingly and the game went on. Half an

hour later Cockie lost a bishop which he could only retrieve

by uncovering check.

His face went red and he took a breath. "Don't forget,"

I sang out, and I and S.-P. each seized a glass of water and an

almost empty rum bottle for any emergency.

Cockie glared at me in a cannibalistic fashion, and eyeing

Nellie carefully the while, addressed some superlatives to us,

saying that the interruption had spoilt his move. Nellie sat

with steady countenance while I replied that the interruption

came after the move. But Cockie played brilliantly and

recovered a piece, whereupon he got quite genial and addressed

conciliatory remarks to me.

Twice Cockie forced exchanges, and as in both instances

he got "position," which means that he was a pawn to the

bad each time, we quietly stood up with the water in a first-aid

attitude. But Cockie was playing as he never played

before, and was nodding his head in a queer way. I thought

he was so blind with annoyance that he was counting the

pieces, but Square-Peg assured me that his engine had got

hot and was running free. Cockie went on serenely for about

another half-hour when, after a pause of several minutes, he

suddenly discovered himself to be mated, for Nellie had said

only the word "check" and now added "mate" in the most

matter-of-fact voice.

"Damned fluke," screamed Cockie, forgetting himself,

and springing up he banged the chessboard down fiercely on

the table with an awful smash.

Poor Nellie gasped and said "Oh-o-o-o," and apparently

stopped breathing and reeled in his chair. Not having brandy

we gave him the last of Cockie's rum, which he managed to

negotiate, and then, as usually happens, felt better. We three

preserved a frigid silence towards Cockie, who said he was

damned if he knew what was the use of people on service

with weak hearts, and then strode off, Nellie in the meantime

pulling hard at the bottle for an extra drip or so. How we

laughed. For Cockie was really scared. It's not the sort of

story to make you popular if it gets about--wilfully startling

a fellow to death with a weak heart merely for beating you in

a game of chess.

Later on Square-Peg and I joined Cockie on the observation

post and a battle royal ensued.

"I tell you," said Cockie to me, "it's fearfully difficult

to give the whole of one's attention to the game when one is

playing an absolute novice. So things are missed. But if

you will back me for five rupees against Square-Peg to win

ten games out of ten I'll do it, you see. That will supply the

interest."

I complied at once, offering one game in, which he proudly

refused. With a vicious jab to Cockie to please remember it

was "my money and not his" that was concerned, and to

have no nonsense, he grew demonstrative, and I fled to pay a

visit to Tudway on the _Sumana_.

"I tell you I can't lose," he had said. When I returned

to the mess, there I found Square-Peg, who announced that he

had left Cockie in a fury, he having lost the first three games.

I insisted on Square-Peg's taking the five dibs. It appears

that during the first game Fritz passed him and said "Good

afternoon," to which interruption Cockie stormily attributed

his subsequent beating....

_Later._--This very morning the other half of the shell that

crashed outside my doorway (there isn't a door) went through

the roof of Cockie's bedroom and simply smashed most things in

it. A foot of _débris_ from the roof lay on the floor. It was lucky

for Cockie that he was on duty. And luckier for me that I

did not accept Cockie's many invitations to share his room.

Only yesterday he asked me again to do so. But Cockie

generally has two or more rounds with Curra Mirali and

pursues him round the yard, leaving the door open--every

morning about 6 a.m. when I am doing my best to have one

other dream.

To-night after dinner Fritz, Cockie, Square-Peg, and I

discussed the proposition that the hole a shell makes is the

safest place, as no two shells ever fall in exactly the same spot.

One recalled that very good Tommy story from France when,

on being asked why he hadn't taken cover in a Jack Johnson

crater as he had been ordered, replied, "Unsafe, sir. I'd

rather try another spot and chance it."

"But you know that the same gun never shoots into

exactly the same spot twice?"

"Yes, sir. But another gun might."

Fritz and I upheld the theory of probabilities as being

against a second shell getting into Cockie's room. For that

meant a very precise elevation just clearing the back houses

and wall, and meant also the range to a foot or it would

get the yard.

Cockie and Square-Peg, on the contrary, held that because

one shell has got there and so proved that a shell _can_ get there,

another might get there also. I remember painfully suggesting

that Cockie ought not to sleep in the room if he thought that

another shell might come in, especially as he had no doubt

offended the gods over the Nellie incident. This is altogether

an extraordinary affair and I am recording it in detail.

Well, Cockie went to bed, taking the precaution from my

incident of the morning to sleep with his head to the door

instead of his feet. We were half undressed when the

bombardment reopened. It became so hot that we all took

shelter in the mess, the safest place. Indeed the back wall

was stopping dozens of them. Later it slackened and we

went to bed, whereon it gradually increased. After I had

tossed restlessly for half an hour it exceeded the limit, and the

plaster and dust were being flung through the doorway of my

bedroom. On my way down I inspected the whole of the wall

and found the roof all around pulverized. Five minutes

later Square-Peg and I were smoking half undressed in the

mess when the stunning noise of a splitting crash seemed to

burst the world in halves. _Débris_ came into the mess. We

thought the shell had entered the tiny yard, but Cockie's voice

in unearthly yells quickly disillusioned us.

I shot into the room, which was stifling with fumes and dense

yellow gas and smoke. The lamp went out. I told Square-Peg

to fetch a doctor and tried to strike a light, but nothing

would burn in the thick fumes. I felt for the ruined bed and

managed to get him out of the room into the mess. There

was a nasty deep gash over the tendon of Achilles, but no

bones were broken, although the ligaments were gone and it

was bleeding freely, so I applied a first field dressing, as I had

so often done in France, and assured him it was not at all

serious and that now he was sure to get downstream. Nevertheless

poor Cockie's many nerves had been badly shaken.

Fritz came and said:

"Let me see. That's good--no bones. Bleeding stopped.

Move your foot. Nothing much really. Where else?"

After a fresh spasm Cockie complained that his back seemed

cut in two, and this proved a nasty bruise, although the skin

wasn't gone. It was a black bruise, and he must have

got a pretty hefty knock from a piece of the bed. How

he escaped goodness knows. The room was two feet deep

in rubbish--topees, uniforms, cameras, bed, everything was

wrecked.

We got him to the hospital, and on the way he invented

extraordinary futures for each of the stretcher bearers.

Arrived at the hospital I am afraid the whole place was

awakened, and some poor fellows whose dying was only a

matter of hours or days turned from their fitful sleep on the

ground floor to ask who was hit.

He wanted me to sit up with him, but General Smith

insisted that I went back to bed, assuring me I was far too

ill, and he kindly gave me an excellent cigarette.

Cockie is intrepid under fire even to the point of recklessness,

but is also of the kind that feels pain tremendously.

It is, I suppose, a matter of temperament and nerves.

This has released me from the river-front and I succeed to

the command of the ammunition column, and am now running

our mess.

Tudway, Square-Peg, and I are now alone here. We have

a little potato meal and rice, and I have procured a tin of

jam. I could not have two more generous companions with

whom to share our last food.

_March 23rd._--The servants won't sleep in that part of

the building where the shells came, so we have vacated a

room for them, and Square-Peg and I have moved below into

the basement.

I saw Cockie this morning and heard him from afar.

Near him is an officer lying very still and white and quiet

with his whole leg shattered, silent with the paralysis of extreme

pain.

I assisted Cockie with letters and other things, and got away

as quickly as I could, as I felt this other sufferer wanted silence.

_March 24th._--Some shells fell in the town during the night,

and once again the horses got it badly.

The 4·7-inch gun which was bombed by the plane is now

under-water, as the river has risen five feet, the highest level

during the siege.

It is a clear, beautiful day and appreciably warmer. Already

the flies are dreadful and swarm everywhere in billions. The

Kut fly is a pronounced cannibal.

I walked through the palm woods to the 4-inch guns,

where I found Parsnip alone in his glory. There he has been

the whole siege with a very comfortable tent under the

trees, and his only job is to repeat orders from the telephone

to his two antediluvian guns. As a field gunner I am not

enamoured of his monotonous and stationary job. Parsnip

is a subaltern also and has two characteristics. In playing

chess he seizes the pieces by the head, and after describing

an artistic parabola, sets them down. He is a Radical, as you

would expect of any fellow so handling a pawn, let alone a

queen. His second claim to notoriety is said to be as author of

a future publication entitled, "Important People I intend to

meet." As a hobby he kills mosquitos with a horse flick.

For over an hour beneath those biblical palms Parsnip,

or Pas Nip, and I stood by his guns and smoked and looked

out over the darkening plain where shadow chased shadow

under the capricious moon, and where, like will o' the wisps

of an extravagant dream, tiny flashes tempted us still to hope

on. For what? Well, there were the flashes. They were

the flashes of our guns. And I longed for tobacco and wine.

Parsnip, on the contrary, was a married man!

_March 25th._--This morning I had a thorough inspection

of the horse and wagon lines and inspected shelters previous

to my visit to headquarters to report on ammunition. Orders

are out for all ranks to prepare to receive heavy bombardment.

I am having the ammunition shelter even further reinforced

against shell or bomb. The present scheme is to have two

thick roofs each topped by kerosene tins packed close and filled

with soil. One of these shelters will explode the shell or bomb,

and the other receive the burst. The horse-lines have been

changed and pits dug for all drivers and detachments and

traversed for possible enfilade bursts. The men are working

on a shelter for our basement room with tins of earth piled up.

Tins are fearfully scarce, as hundreds have been requisitioned

for the defence of H.M.S. _Sumana_ and other things. We have,

we believe, sheltered the probable zones with what tins we

have. Thus the doorway and window are unprotected because

the upper back room would stop all except howitzer fire, and

the enemy's howitzer is south of Kut. Similarly to prevent

a lucky shell bursting through the wall of the first-floor room

and roof of our present one, we have had three rows of tins--all

we could get--arranged in front of the wall upstairs. I

have calculated that any burst entering higher than this

would get the opposite upstairs wall and pass out into the

street.