diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:55:32 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:55:32 -0700 |
| commit | 9d76a9735b19685f653a06d31b127526274e7632 (patch) | |
| tree | a2770b309987a0e7016dafb7738c658acc9af453 /19379-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '19379-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 19379-h/19379-h.htm | 4979 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19379-h/images/map001.png | bin | 0 -> 1379798 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19379-h/images/map001tn.png | bin | 0 -> 115589 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19379-h/images/map002.png | bin | 0 -> 1124717 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19379-h/images/map002tn.png | bin | 0 -> 179823 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19379-h/images/map003.png | bin | 0 -> 1178934 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19379-h/images/map003tn.png | bin | 0 -> 104094 bytes |
7 files changed, 4979 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/19379-h/19379-h.htm b/19379-h/19379-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a203e74 --- /dev/null +++ b/19379-h/19379-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4979 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad, by Edward John Thompson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; + text-indent: 1em; + } + H1 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + H1.pg { + text-align: center; font-family: Times-Roman, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + H5,H6 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + H2 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* centered and coloured */ + } + H3 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* centered and coloured */ + } + H4 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + H4.pg { + text-align: center; font-family: Times-Roman, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + a {text-decoration: none} /* no lines under links */ + div.centered {text-align: center;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */ + div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 2 */ + ul {list-style-type: none; font-size: 105%;} /* no bullets on lists */ + li {margin-top: .15em; margin-bottom: .15em;} /* spacing for list */ + + .cen {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} /* centering paragraphs */ + .sc {font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 95%;} /* small caps */ + .sc2 {font-variant: small-caps;} /* small caps, normal size */ + .noin {text-indent: 0em;} /* no indenting */ + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .block {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} /* block indent */ + .block2 {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} /* block indent */ + .block2p {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; padding-top: .25em; padding-bottom: .25em;} /* block indent */ + .block3 {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} /* block indent */ + .right {text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;} /* right aligning paragraphs */ + .totoc {position: absolute; right: 2%; font-size: 75%; text-align: right;} /* Table of contents anchor */ + .totoi {position: absolute; right: 2%; font-size: 75%; text-align: right;} /* to Table of Illustrations link */ + .img {text-align: center; padding: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} /* centering images */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + .tdr {text-align: right; padding-right: .5em;} /* right align cell */ + .tdc {text-align: center;} /* center align cell */ + .tdl {text-align: left;} /* left align cell */ + .tdlsc {text-align: left; font-variant: small-caps;} /* aligning cell content and small caps */ + .tdrsc {text-align: right; font-variant: small-caps;} /* aligning cell content and small caps */ + .tdcsc {text-align: center; font-variant: small-caps;} /* aligning cell content and small caps */ + .tr {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 1em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} /* transcriber's notes */ + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 2%; + font-size: 75%; + color: silver; + background-color: inherit; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers */ + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 90%;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: text-top; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 15%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 12em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i14 {display: block; margin-left: 14em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i5 {display: block; margin-left: 5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + .poem span.pn { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 2%; + font-size: 75%; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + color: silver; background-color: inherit; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers in poems */ + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + border: solid black; + height: 5px; } + pre {font-size: 80%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad, by Edward +John Thompson</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad</p> +<p>Author: Edward John Thompson</p> +<p>Release Date: September 26, 2006 [eBook #19379]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEICESTERSHIRES BEYOND BAGHDAD***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4 class="pg">E-text prepared by Jeannie Howse, Geetu Melwani, David Clarke,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net/">http://www.pgdp.net/</a>)<br /> + from page images generously made available by<br /> + Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries<br /> + (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/toronto">http://www.archive.org/details/toronto</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #ccccff;"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See + <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/beyondbaghdad00thomuoft"> + http://www.archive.org/details/beyondbaghdad00thomuoft</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<br /> +<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.</p> +<p class="noin">There are 3 maps in this text, each spanning 2 pages. +To avoid losing information along the crease, the joined versions are larger than usual coloured images. +Click the thumbnail versions to see a much larger image.</p> +<p class="noin">A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. +For a complete list, please see the <a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1 class="sc2">Beyond Baghdad</h1> + +<h3 class="sc2">with The Leicestershires</h3> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2 class="sc2">E. J. Thompson M.C.</h2> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>THE LEICESTERSHIRES BEYOND<br /> BAGHDAD</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h1>The Leicestershires<br /> +Beyond Baghdad</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4 style="margin-bottom: -1px;">BY</h4> +<h2 style="margin-top: -1px;">EDWARD J. THOMPSON, M.C.</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h6>AUTHOR OF<br /> +'MESOPOTAMIAN VERSES,' 'ENNERDALE BRIDGE'<br /> +'WALTHAM THICKETS,' ETC.</h6> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h5>LONDON<br /> +THE EPWORTH PRESS<br /> +J. ALFRED SHARP</h5> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h5><i>First Edition, December, 1919</i></h5> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="block2"><p>To my brother, <span class="sc">Frank D. Thompson</span>, Second-Lieutenant Civil +Service Rifles, attached King's Royal Rifles; killed in action, near +Ypres, Jan. 13, 1917.</p> +</div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our soldier youth thrice-loved, whose laughing face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In battle's front can danger meet with eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No fear could e'er surprise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor stain of self in their gay love leave trace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His nature like his name,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frank, and his eager spirit pure as flame.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10"><i>Waltham Thickets.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>PREFACE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The Mesopotamian War was a side-show, so distant from Europe that even +the tragedy of Kut and the slaughter which failed to save our troops +and prestige were felt chiefly in retrospect, when the majority of the +men who suffered so vainly had gone into the silence of death or of +captivity. When Maude's offensive carried our arms again into Kut, and +beyond, to Baghdad, interest revived; but of the hard fighting which +followed, which made Baghdad secure, nothing has been made known, or +next to nothing. The men in Mesopotamia did not feel that this was +unnatural. We felt, none more so, that it was the European War which +mattered; indeed, our lot often seemed the harder by reason of its +little apparent importance. Yet, after all, Baghdad was the first +substantial victory which no subsequent reverse swept away; and it +came when the need of victory, for very prestige's sake, was very +great.</p> + +<p>Mr. Candler has written, bitterly enough, of the way the Censorship +impeded him in his work as official 'Eye-witness.' His was a thankless +task; as he well knows, few of us, though we were all his friends, +have not groused at his reports of our operations. No unit groused +more on this head <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>than my own division. We usually had a campaign and +a bank of the Tigris to ourselves. 'Eye-witness' rightly chose to be +with the other divisions across the river. Inevitably the 7th Meerut +Division got the meagrest show in such meagre dispatches as the +Censors allowed him to send home. The 2nd Leicestershires, an old and +proud battalion, with the greatest of reputations on the field of +action, remained unknown to the Press and public. Our other two +British battalions, the 1st Seaforths and the 2nd Black Watch, could +be referred to—even the Censors allowed this—as 'Highlanders'; and +those who were interested knew that the reference lay between these +two regiments and the Highland Light Infantry. But who was going to +connect the rare reference to 'Midlanders' with the Leicestershires?</p> + +<p>In May, 1917, the 7th Division tried to put together, for the Press, a +connected account of their campaigning since Maude's offensive began. +After various people, well qualified to do the work, had refused, it +was devolved on me, on the simple grounds that a padre, as is well +known, has only one day of work a week. The notion fell through. The +authorities declined flatly to allow any reference to units by name, +and no one took any more interest in a task so useless and soulless. +But I had collected so much information from different units that I +determined some day to try to put the story together. I have now +selected two campaigns, those for railhead and for Tekrit, and made a +straightforward narrative. From a multitude of such narratives the +historian will build up his work hereafter.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>An article by General Wauchope appeared in <i>Blackwood's</i>, 'The Battle +that won Samarrah.' This article not only stressed the fact that the +Black Watch were first in Baghdad and Samarra—an accident; they were +the freshest unit on each occasion, while other units were exhausted +from fighting just finished—but dismissed the second day of 'the +battle that won Samarra' with one long paragraph, from which the +reader could get no other meaning except the one that this day also +was won by the same units as did the fighting of the 21st. This was a +handling of fact which appealed neither to the Black Watch, whose +achievements need no aid of embellishment from imagination, nor to the +Leicestershires, who were made to appear spectators through the savage +fighting of two days. If the reader turns to the chapter in this book +entitled 'The Battle for Samarra,' he will learn what actually +happened on April 22, 1917. The only other reference in print, that I +know of, to the fighting for Samarra is the chapter in Mr. Candler's +book. This, he tells us, was largely taken over by him from a +journalist who visited our battlefields during the lull of summer. He +showed the account to officers of my division, myself among them, and +they added a few notes. But the chapter remained bare and +comparatively uninteresting beside the accounts of actions which Mr. +Candler had witnessed.</p> + +<p>For this book, then, my materials have been: First, my own experience +of events <i>quorum ego pars minima</i>. Next, my own note-books, carefully +kept over a long period in Mesopotamia and Palestine, a period from +which these two campaigns <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>of Samarra and Tekrit have been selected. +Thirdly, I saw regimental war-diaries and talked with brigade and +regimental officers. Most of all, from the Leicestershires I gained +information. It is rarely any use to question men about an action; +even if they speak freely, they say little which is of value on the +printed page. One may live with a regimental mess for months, running +into years, as I did with the Leicestershires' subalterns, and hear +little that is illuminating, till some electric spark may start a fire +of living reminiscence. But from many of my comrades, at one time and +another, I have picked up a fact. I am especially indebted to Captain +J.O.C. Hasted, D.S.O., for permission to use his lecture on the +Samarra battle. I could have used this lecture still more with great +gain; but I did not wish to impair its interest in itself, as it +should be published. From Captain F.J. Diggins, M.C., I gained a +first-hand account of the capture of the Turkish guns. And Major +Kenneth Mason, M.C., helped me with information in the Tekrit +fighting. My brother, Lieutenant A.R. Thompson, drew the maps.</p> + +<p>In conclusion, though the Mesopotamian War was of minor importance +beside the fighting in Western Europe, for the chronicler it has its +own advantages. If our fighting was on a smaller scale, we saw it more +clearly. The 7th Division, as I have said, usually had a campaign, +with its battles, to themselves. We were not a fractional part of an +eruption along many hundreds of miles; we were our own little volcano. +And it was the opinion of many of us that on no front was there such +comradeship; yet many had come from France, and two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>divisions +afterwards saw service on the Palestine front. Nor can any front have +had so many grim jokes as those with which we kept ourselves sane +through the long-drawn failure before Kut and the dragging months +which followed.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span><br /> +<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<br /> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdr" width="15%"><span style="font-size: 90%;">CHAP.</span></td> + <td class="tdl" width="70%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="15%"><span style="font-size: 90%;">PAGE</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</a></td> + <td class="tdr">15</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">I.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">BELED</a></td> + <td class="tdr">21</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">II.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">HARBE</a></td> + <td class="tdr">48</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">III.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">THE FIRST BATTLE OF ISTABULAT</a></td> + <td class="tdr">59</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">THE BATTLE FOR SAMARRA</a></td> + <td class="tdr">70</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">V.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">SUMMER AND WAITING</a></td> + <td class="tdr">104</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">HUWESLET; OR, 'THE BATTLE OF JUBER ISLAND'</a></td> + <td class="tdr">120</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">DAUR</a></td> + <td class="tdr">124</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VIII.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">AUJEH</a></td> + <td class="tdr">131</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IX.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">TEKRIT</a></td> + <td class="tdr">135</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">X.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">DOWN TO BUSRA</a></td> + <td class="tdr">145</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span><br /> +<a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>INTRODUCTION<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> +<br /> + +<p>On November 6, 1914, Brigadier-General Delamaine captured Fao forts, +and the Mesopotamian War began in the smallest possible way, the +proverbial 'corporal's guard' breaking into an empire.</p> + +<p>The next twelve months saw a great deal of fighting, unorthodox in +every way, carried through in appalling weathers and with the most +inadequate forces.</p> + +<p>In the three days' battle at Shaiba, in April, defeat was hardly +escaped.</p> + +<p>In April and May General Gorringe conducted the Ahwaz operations, near +the Persian border, with varying success, and threatened Amara, on the +Tigris, midway between Busra and Baghdad.</p> + +<p>In May Townshend began his advance up-country. By June 3 he had taken +Q'urna, where Tigris and Euphrates mingle; presently his miscellaneous +marine and a handful of men took Amara, in what was known as +'Townshend's Regatta.' Seventeen guns and nearly two thousand +prisoners were taken at Amara.</p> + +<p>In the heats of July, incredible as it sounds, Gorringe was fighting +on the Euphrates, by Nasiriyeh, taking twenty-one guns and over a +thousand prisoners.</p> + +<p>On September 28 Townshend won his last victory at Kut-el-Amara, taking +fourteen guns and eleven <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>hundred prisoners. Every one knows what +followed: how Ctesiphon was fought in November, with four thousand +five hundred and sixty-seven casualties, and how his force raced back +to Kut. On December 7 Kut was invested by the Turks. Townshend's stand +here saved the lower country to us.</p> + +<p>Relief forces disembarked at Ali Gharbi, between Amara and Kut, and +some of the bitterest fighting the world has seen began. Sheikh Saad +(January 6 to 8) was a costly victory. A gleam of hope came with the +Russian offensive in Northern Asia Minor. On January 13, at the Wadi, +six miles beyond Sheikh Saad and less than thirty miles from Kut, the +Turks held us up, but slipped away in the night.</p> + +<p>All advancing was over flat ground devoid of even scrub-cover, through +a region the most desolate in the world. Above Amara there is a place +called 'Lone-Tree Village,' which has a small tree ten feet high. +Except for a handful of draggled palms at Sheikh Saad, this tree is +the only one till Kut is reached, on a river frontage of sixty miles.</p> + +<p>On January 20 the British suffered a heavy repulse at Umm-el-Hanna, +five miles beyond the Wadi. For nearly seven weeks our troops sat down +in the swamps, and died of disease. The rains were abnormal.</p> + +<p>On March 8 a long flank march up the right bank of the Tigris took the +enemy by surprise, and reached Dujaileh, less than ten miles from Kut. +Time was wasted in an orthodox but unnecessary bombardment. The Turks +swarmed back into the redoubt, and we were bloodily thrust back, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>and +returned to our lines before Hanna, with heavy losses in men and +transport. After that very few cherished any hope of saving Kut.</p> + +<p>April was a month of terrible fighting, frontal attacks on a very +brave and exultant enemy. The 13th Division, from Gallipoli, took the +Hanna trenches, which were practically deserted, on April 5. The day +went well for us. In the afternoon Abu Roman lines on the right bank, +and in the evening those of Felahiyeh on the left bank, were carried +by storm. But next day the first of the five battles of Sannaiyat was +fought. We were repulsed.</p> + +<p>The Turk's procedure was easy. He shot us down as we advanced over +flat country. We dug ourselves in four hundred yards away (say). Then +we sapped up to within storming distance, and attacked again, to find +that the lines were thinly held, with a machine-gun or two, but that +another position awaited us beyond, at the end of a long level sweep +of desert.</p> + +<p>On April 9 came the second battle of Sannaiyat. The time has not come +to speak frankly of this day; but our men lay in heaps. So from the +16th to the 18th we tried frontal attacks on the other bank, the right +again. This was the battle of Beit Aiessa. We did so well that the +enemy had to counter-attack, which he did in the most determined +manner, forcing us back. It cost him at least three thousand dead; but +by this day's work he made sure of Kut and its garrison. Our one hope +now was in the Russians. But their offensive halted; and we fought, on +the 22nd, the third of the Sannaiyat battles. On the 29th, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>after a +siege of one hundred and forty-three days, Kut surrendered, and with +it the biggest British force ever taken by any enemy.</p> + +<p>A summer inexpressibly harassing and depressed followed; but towards +the end of 1916 affairs were reorganized, and at last a general was +found. On the night of December 13 we crossed the Shat-el-Hai, and +Maude's attack on Kut began. Ten weeks of fighting, very little +interrupted by the weather, followed. It was stern work, hand-to-hand +and trench-to-trench, as in France. By the end of the third week in +February Kut was doomed. The Turk had made the mistake of leaving +small, unsupported groups of men in angles and corners of the Tigris. +Maude destroyed these, and between the 22nd and the 25th launched his +final attacks simultaneously on both banks. A badly managed attack on +Sannaiyat had failed on the 17th; but now, on the 22nd, the lines were +stormed. Fighting continued here, and the river was crossed and +bridged behind the Turks, above Kut, at Shumran. The Sannaiyat +garrison fled precipitately, and the 7th Indian Division occupied +successively the Nakhailat and Suwada lines with no opposition worth +mentioning. Kut fell automatically, the monitors steaming in and +taking possession. The infantry had no time to bother about it. Kut +had become a symbol only.</p> + +<p>So the infantry swung by Kut and on to Baghdad. The cavalry and +gunboats hunted the enemy northward, till he made a stand on the +Diyaleh, a large stream entering the Tigris a few miles below Baghdad. +Very heavy fighting and losses had come to the 13th Division, and the +7th Division <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>would be the first to acknowledge that the honour of +first entering Baghdad, for whatever it was worth, should have fallen +to them. But, in spite of desperate attempts to cross, they were held +on the Diyaleh. The 7th Division therefore bridged the river lower +down, and after two days of battle in a sandstorm, blind with +thirst—for the men had one water-bottle only for the two +days—captured Baghdad railway-station, and threw pickets across the +river into Baghdad town. This was on March 11. The 13th and 14th +Divisions then crossed the Diyaleh, and were in Baghdad almost as soon +as any one from the 7th Division. The 7th and 3rd Indian Divisions +passed by Baghdad on opposite sides, as they had passed by Kut, and +engaged the enemy's rearguards at Mushaidiyeh and in the Jebel Hamrin. +They then concentrated again towards Baghdad.</p> + +<p>This book deals first with the April campaign as it affected the right +bank of the Tigris. Between Baghdad and Samarra was a stretch of +eighty miles of railroad, the only completed portion, south of Mosul, +of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. If we could capture this the Turk would +have to supply his troops from Mosul by the treacherous and shallow +Tigris. The Samarra fighting, these railhead battles, was the last +organized campaign which the Turk fought. Our First Corps, consisting +of two Indian divisions, the 3rd and the 7th, operated against +railhead; while the Third Corps, consisting of the 13th Division, the +only all-British division in Mesopotamia, and the 14th Indian +Division, fought their way up the left bank.</p> + +<p>After Samarra fell the Turk could do nothing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>but collect small bodies +of troops, which we attacked in detail, usually with success, and +throughout 1918, after Tekrit, always attacked with complete success +(as we did at Ramadie in September, 1917, destroying the whole force). +Ramadie, on the Euphrates, and Tekrit, on the Tigris, were the first +of the campaigns of this last phase of the Mesopotamian War, campaigns +that were glorified raids. At the time of Tekrit, General Allenby +settled for the Turk, once for all, the choice between Palestine and +Mesopotamia.</p> + +<p>Our Tekrit campaign was a sympathetic attack, concurrent with +Allenby's great Gaza offensive. This campaign is the theme of the +second portion of this book.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>BELED</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Red of gladiolus glimmering through the wheat—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Red flower of Valour springing at our feet!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dark-flowered hyacinth mingling with the red—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dark flower of Patience on the way we tread!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Scarlet of poppy waving o'er the grass—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Honour's bright flags along the road we pass!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thorns that torment, and grassy spikes that fret,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thistles that all the fiery way beset!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">These shall be theirs, when Duty's day is sped;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They shall lie down, the living and the dead.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> + +<h4 class="sc2">1. The Way to Beled</h4> + +<p>Baghdad fell on March 11, 1917. The soldier's joy was deepened by the +belief that here his warfare was accomplished, his marching finished. +Even when we went by the city, and fought battles on either bank, the +7th Indian Division at Mushaidiyeh (March 14) and the 3rd Indian, most +disastrously, in the foothills of the Jebel Hamrin (March 25), this +comfort was not destroyed. These two hard actions were but the +sweeping away of ants' nests from before a house; our position now +secured, we should fall back, and rest in Baghdad. The Turk might try +to turn us out; but that was a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>very different affair, and it would be +months before he could even dream of an offensive.</p> + +<p>So in April the 7th Division had withdrawn to Baghdad, all except the +28th Brigade, who were at Babi, a dozen miles up-stream. At Babi it +was not yet desert—there was grass and wheat; but the garden-belt and +trees had finished.</p> + +<p>On the 3rd came official news that Tennant, of the R.F.C., had landed +among the Cossacks, and been tumultuously welcomed; presently we heard +that the Russians and ourselves had joined hands. This was towards the +Persian border, on the left bank of the Tigris, where the 13th and +14th Divisions were operating. That force and ours, the 7th, were now +to advance together on Samarra; a new campaign was beginning, in which +we took the right bank.</p> + +<p>A Mobile Column was formed, under Brigadier-General Davies, as the +spearhead of the 7th Division's thrust. It consisted of the 28th +Infantry Brigade (2nd Leicestershires, 51st and 53rd Sikhs, 56th +Rifles, and 136th Machine-Gun Company), the 9th Brigade, R.F.A. (less +one battery), one section of the 524th Battery, R.F.A., a +Light-Armoured Motor-Battery, the 32nd Lancers (less two squadrons), +and a half-company of Sappers and Miners; an ammunition column and +ambulances.</p> + +<p>Fritz—the enemy's airman—inspected us before we started. Then the +Leicestershires, by twelve and eight miles, marched in two days to a +point opposite Sindiyeh, on the Tigris. The Indian battalions cut +across country to Sumaikchah, which lies inland.</p> + +<p>That day and night by Sindiyeh! '<i>Infandum <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>jubes renovare dolorem.</i>' +The day was one of burning discomfort, spent in cracks and nullas, +under blanket bivouacs. We had tramped, from dawn, through eight miles +of 'chivvy-dusters,' and our camp was now among them. These are a +grass which crams the clothes and feet with maddening needles; once in +they seemed there 'for duration.' The soldier out East knows them for +his worst foe on a march. Lest we should be obsessed with these, we +were infested with sandflies and mosquitoes. But large black ants were +the principal line in vermin. At dinner they swarmed over us. Man +after man dropped his plate and leapt into a dervish-dance, frenziedly +slapping his nose and ears. We tried to eat standing; even so, we were +festooned. Little Westlake, the 'Cherub,' abandoned all hope of +nourishment, and crept wretchedly into a clothes-pile. There was no +sleep that night.</p> + +<p>The river ran beneath lofty bluffs; on the left bank was a +far-stretching view of low, rich country, with palms and canals. Fritz +visited us, and a monitor favoured us with some comically bad +shooting. And after sundown came a moon, benignant, calm, in a +cloudless heaven, looking down on men miserable with small vexations, +which haply saved them from facing too much the deeper griefs which +accompanied them.</p> + +<p>Next morning, Good Friday, we joined the rest of the column at +Sumaikchah. The Cherub with his scouts went ahead to find a road. All +the field was jumping with grasshoppers, on which storks were feeding. +Scattered bushes looked in the mirage like enemy patrols. We were +escorted by Fritz, whose kindly interest in our movements never +flagged. We started late, at 6.50 a.m., and without breakfast, the +distance being under-estimated. A zigzagging course made the journey +into over ten miles, in dreadful heat; we were marching till past +noon. When Sumaikchah came in sight, men fell out, exhausted, in +bunches and groups.</p> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24-25]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a></span> + +<div class="img"> +<a href="images/map001.png"> +<img border="0" src="images/map001tn.png" width="85%" alt="Lower Mesopotamia" /></a><br /> +<p class="cen sc" style="margin-top: .2em;">Lower Mesopotamia</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>Though we were unmolested, the countryside was full of eyes. Shortly +afterwards an artillery officer, bringing up remounts, sent a Scots +sergeant ahead to Sumaikchah, with a strong escort, to bring back +rations. The party was fired on by Buddus. The sergeant's report +attained some fame; deservedly, so I give it here:</p> + +<p>'We were fired on, sirrr.'</p> + +<p>'Did you fire back?'</p> + +<p>'No, sirrr. I thocht it would have enrrraged them. But I'd have ye +know, sirrr, that it's hairrrdly safe to be aboot.'</p> + +<p>We came, says Xenophon, to 'a large and thickly populated city named +Sittake.' His troops encamped 'near a large and beautiful park, which +was thick with all sorts of trees, at a distance of fifteen stades +from the river.'<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> This description still holds true of Sumaikchah. +The ancient irrigation channels are dry, and the town has shrunken; +but it remains a large garden-village. Here were melons and oranges, +fowls and turkeys, exorbitantly priced, of course; possibly Xenophon's +troops got their goods more cheaply in the year 399 <span class="sc">B.C</span>.</p> + +<p>Sumaikchah is an oasis with eighty wells. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>water was full of +salts. It was bad as water; it was execrable as tea. Many of the wells +on the Baghdad-Samarra Railway have these natural salts. Every one who +left Sumaikchah next morning was suffering from diarrhœa. Here +again one remembers the <i>Anabasis</i> and the troublesome experience +which the notes I read at school ascribed to poisonous honey gathered +from the flowers of <i>rhododendron ponticum</i>.</p> + +<p>Our brief stay here was unlike anything we had known, except in our +racing glimpse of the flowery approaches to Kut. The village had palms +and rose bushes. A coarse hyacinth, found already at Mushaidiyeh, now +seeding, grew along the railway and in the wheat. We camped amid green +corn; round us were storksbills, very many, and a white orchis, slight +and easily hidden, the same orchis that I found afterwards in +Palestine and in the Hollow Vale of Syria. A small poppy and a bright +thistle set their flares of crimson and gold in the green; sowthistle +and myosote freaked it with blue; a tall gladiolus, also to be found +later by the Aujeh and on Carmel, made pink clusters. Thus did flowers +overlay the fretting spikes of our road, and adorn and hide 'the +coming bulk of Death.'</p> + +<p>Through Saturday we rested. Fritz came, of course; and there was a +little harmless sniping.</p> + +<p>The knowledge filtered in that fighting was again at hand. It was +accepted without comment, with the soldier's well-known fatalism, the +child of faith and despair. 'Every man thinks,' said one to me, 'I +don't care who he is. But we believe it's all right till our number's +up. Take M——, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>for instance. When he was left out at Sannaiyat we +all envied him; we thought we were for it. But we went through +Sannaiyat; and M—— was the first of us to be killed at Mushaidiyeh, +his very first action, where we had hardly any casualties.'</p> + +<p>In the evening the rest of the division came up to take our place. +Sunday, by old prescription, was the 7th Division's battle-day; next +Sunday being Easter, it was not to be supposed that so fair an +occasion would be passed over. Accordingly, when I put in my services, +I was told that the brigade would march before dawn, and that some +scrapping was anticipated. The Turks were holding Beled Station, half +a dozen miles away in a straight line. Their main force was at Harbe, +four miles farther. The maps were no use, and distances had to be +guessed. 'The force against us,' observed the Brigade-Major, 'is +somewhere between a hundred Turks and two guns, and four thousand +Turks and thirty-two guns.' 'And if it's the four thousand and +thirty-two guns?' 'Then we shall sit tight, and scream for help,' he +answered delightedly.</p> + +<br /> + +<h4 class="sc2">2. The Action for Beled</h4> + +<p>Davies's Column were away before breakfast. In the dim light we moved +through wet fields of some kind of globe-seeded plant, abundantly +variegated with gladiolus and hyacinth. Every one was suffering from +our course of Sumaikchah waters, and progress was slow. Splashing +through the marshes, we came to undulating upland, long, steady +slopes, pebble-strewn and with pockets of grass and poppies. The +morning winds made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>these uplands exceedingly beautiful. Colonel +Knatchbull said, the week he died, that what he most remembered from +Beled were the flowers through which we marched to battle. As we +approached them, the ruffling wind laid its hand on the grasses, and +they became emerald waves, a green spray of blades tossing and +flashing in the full sunlight. As we passed, the same wind bowed them +before it, and they were a shining, silken cloth. The poppies were a +larger sort than those in the wheatfields, and of a very glorious +crimson. In among the grasses was yellow coltsfoot; among the pebbles +were sowthistle, mignonette, pink bindweed, and great patches of +storksbill. Many noted the beauty of these flowers, a scene so +un-Mesopotamian in its brightness. We were tasting of the joy and life +of springtide in happier latitudes, a wine long praetermitted to our +lips; and among us were those who would not drink of this wine again +till they drank it new in their Father's Kingdom. After Beled we saw +no more flowers.</p> + +<p>With the first line was my friend Private W——. As we pushed forward +he looked up, as his custom was, for a 'message.' Perchance, with so +many fears and hopes stirring, there was some buzzing along the +heavenly wires; but the only word he could get was this one, +'Because.' He puzzled upon it, till the whole flashed on his +brain—'Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall +praise Thee.' Thenceforward he went his ways content; neither can any +man have gathered greater pleasure from the beauty of the morning and +those unwonted flowers than this Plymouth Brother, a gardener by +profession, and, as I found <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>in later days, amid the rich deep meadows +of the Holy Land, a passionate lover of all wild plants.</p> + +<p>The left flank was guarded by one section of machine-gunners and one +section of the 32nd Lancers. Next to them moved the Leicestershires. +Some time after 8 a.m. rifle-fire on our left told us that the +Cherub's scouts were in touch with enemy patrols. About 9.30 the first +shell came, our advanced guard being some five thousand yards from +Beled Station.</p> + +<p>There were frequent halts, while our few cavalry reconnoitred. Then we +passed into a deep broad nulla between two ancient earth-walls. All +this terrain had been a network of canals and cultivation. Shrapnel +was bursting in our front. We filed out, at the left, on to a plain. +Half a mile ahead was the nearer curve of a hilly ground. The main +range ran in a Carpathian-like sweep across our front, from west to +east; turned, and went across our front again. Beyond this was Beled +Station, lying at the point of a wide fork of hills, the left prong a +good mile away, but the right bending almost up to it. From the +forking to the station was a broken plain of two thousand yards. This +plain had to be overcome, with such assistance as the hills gave. The +hills were pretty uniform in height, and nowhere above thirty feet. +The railway cut directly through the main range, giving the enemy a +field of fire for his machine-guns. The range, with its double fold +across our front, gave the artillery cover, and enabled us to conceal +the smallness of our force; and on both sides of the station it broke +into a wilderness of little knobs and hollows, by which we might creep +up.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>The shrapnel was uncomfortably close as we crossed to the first sweep +of hilly ground. But it was bursting high, and no casualties occurred. +We halted behind the hills, and the artillery left their wagons, +taking their guns into position where the range curved north-westerly. +Here two four-gun batteries put up a slow and not heavy bombardment on +the station. We waited and watched the shrapnel bursting five hundred +yards to our right. About noon the Leicestershires were ordered to +support the 53rd and 51st Sikhs in an attack on the station. (The 56th +Rifles were in reserve throughout the action.) D Company was to move +on the left of the railway as a flank-guard, and went forward under +Captain Creagh.</p> + +<p>I must now speak of Second-Lieutenant Fowke, our tallest subaltern. In +place of the orthodox shade of khaki he wore a reddish-brown +shooting-jacket, which shimmered like bright silk if there was any +sun. Nevertheless he was the only Leicestershire subaltern who went +through all our battles unwounded. Of his cheerfulness and courage, +his wit, and the love with which his colleagues and his men regarded +him, the reader will learn. Fowke was detached with his platoon to act +on our extreme left in co-operation with our handful of Indian +cavalry. The operation was an undesirable one, to advance into a maze +of tiny hills, held by an enemy of unknown strength; and as Fowke +moved off I remembered the Sieur de Joinville's <i>Memoirs</i> and a +passage mentioned between us the previous day. So, as I wished him +good luck, I said, 'Be of good cheer, seneschal, for we shall yet talk +over this day in the ladies' bowers.' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>Once upon a time Fowke had read +for Holy Orders, a fact which contributed not a little to the +astonishment and delight with which he was regarded. He smiled gravely +in answer to me, and moved on. But after the scrap he told me that he +wished just then that he had continued in his first vocation and +become a padre.</p> + +<p>Behind D Company moved Charles Copeman, O.C. bombers, and a section of +machine-gunners under Lieutenant Service. The rest of the +machine-gunners followed up along the railway.</p> + +<p>We who remained crossed the ridge and advanced in artillery formation +up the right side of the railway. The Sikhs slipped away into the +hills to our right.</p> + +<p>Readers of <i>Quentin Durward</i> will remember the two hangmen of Louis +XI, the one tall, lean, and solemn; the other short, fat, and jolly. +Wilson, the Leicestershires' doctor, had two most excellent assistants +who occupied much the same positions. But Sergeant Whitehead, who was +short, went his sombre way with a gravity that never weakened into a +smile; while Dobson, an ex-miner, aged forty-seven, who had deceived +the recruiting people most shamelessly and enlisted as under thirty, +took life jovially and generally humorously. He was never without his +pipe. He enjoyed a large medical practice in the regiment, unofficial +and unpaid, and he held strong opinions, observing frequently that he +'didn't hold with' a thing. I remember well the annoyance of Wilson's +successor on hearing that Dobson 'didn't hold with' inoculation, which +just then was occupying most of the medical officer's time. Another +thing that Dobson <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>'didn't hold with' was the modern notion that some +diseases were infectious. Because of his years and medical knowledge, +this kindly, never-wearied old hero was always known by the regiment +as 'Mester Dobson.' I shall follow their example, and so call him +henceforth.</p> + +<p>I also was of Wilson's entourage, and went with him accordingly. +Before we crossed the first ridge we picked up a man prostrate with +heat-stroke; we left him under a culvert, in charge of John, Wilson's +Indian orderly.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile D Company found the hills on our left strongly held. Every +slope was sown with shallow trenches, earth-scars which held six or +seven Turks, and snipers caused us casualties. Lieutenant-Colonel +Knatchbull, learning this, on his own initiative swung round B and C +Companies across the railway to support D. Wilson now came upon his +first casualty, a signaller hit in the spine. We bandaged him, and +left him in a shallow nulla, sheltered from the bullets flying over. +He died next day.</p> + +<p>B and C Companies, crossing the railway, pushed up a long narrow nulla +to the hills where D were engaged. Service's machine-guns put up a +covering fire.</p> + +<p>The attack had now developed along two distinct lines, and on the +railway itself we had no troops. The enemy presently put down a +barrage of shrapnel all the right length of the line, where he had +seen our men cross, of which barrage every shell during two hours was +wasted. As Wilson dropped down the embankment on our left side of the +railway, we found machine-gunners sheltering <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>in a quarry, awaiting +orders. 'It's unhealthy over there,' said their O.C., Lieutenant +Sanderson. 'The Turks have a machine-gun on it.' However, there was a +lull as we crossed to the nulla, and only a very few bullets went by. +In the nulla Wilson set up his aid-post, sticking a second flag above +the railway, for the solitary company that was supporting the Sikhs' +attack. Wounded began to come in, the first cases being not bad ones. +'Give you five rupees for that wound, sergeant,' said Mester Dobson. +'You can't have it for seventy-five,' said Sergeant Hayes, as he +limped off in search of the ambulances, smiling happily. Perhaps +nothing will stir the unborn generations to greater pity than this +knowledge, that for youth in our generation wounds and bodily hurt +were a luxury.</p> + +<p>But cases soon came in of men badly hit, in much pain. With them was +borne a dead man, Sergeant Lawrence, D.C.M., a quiet and much-liked +man. My Plymouth Brother friend came also, and sat aside, saying he +could wait, as a stretcher-case was following him. As the doctor saw +to that broken body, my friend rested his wounded leg, and we had some +talk. The long marches, the nights of little sleep, and the +unsheltered days of heat and toil and wearied waiting for evening had +tired him out. 'I want rest,' he said, 'and I think the Lord knows it, +and has sent rest along.' All our men were brave and cheerful, but no +more cheerful hero limped off through the bullets than my calm and +gentle friend.</p> + +<p>Wilson went out for a few minutes to see a man in the second line, hit +in the groin. When he returned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>we had some cruelly broken cases in, +and that nulla saw a deal of pain, and grew stale with the smell of +blood. A fair number of bullets flew over, and there was the +occasional swish of a machine-gun. Mules were killed far back in the +second line, and men hit. But the nulla was safe. The misguided Turk +shelled and machine-gunned the empty space beyond the railway.</p> + +<p>Colonel Knatchbull came in and assured Wilson that the nulla was the +best and most central place for the aid-post. He searched the front +with his glasses. Then he said, 'Marner's dead.'</p> + +<p>The Leicestershires' attack was held up in the hills. They asked for +support, but none was available. They were told to advance as far as +they could, and then hold their line till help could come. The hills +were thick with excellent positions. Every fold and dip was utilized +by a scattered and numerous foe, to whom the ragged ground was like a +cloak of invisibility. No artillery help could be given. We could only +seize the ground's advantage and make it serve as help to the attack +as well as to the defence. It was here that Marner fell. C Company was +sheltering in an ancient canal. Seeing a man fall, Captain Hasted +called out, 'Keep your heads down.' Almost at that moment Marner +looked over, having spotted a sniper who was vexing us, and fell dead +at Grant-Anderson's feet. Though in falling he brushed against Hasted, +the latter could not pause to see who it was; nor did he know till he +cried out, a minute later, that Marner was to move round the flank of +the position immediately before them. Some two hundred yards farther +on Second-Lieutenant Otter was struck by a bullet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>which went through +both left arm and body, a bad but not fatal wound. But a gracious +thought came to the Turkish gunners. Seeing us without artillery +support from our own guns, they put two rounds of shrapnel over, the +only shells on these ridges during the fight. These burst directly on +the Turkish snipers, who did not wait for the hint to be repeated, but +went. The Leicestershires topped the last ridge, and were on the plain +before the station. Fowke and Service remained to guard the left +flank, while Hasted went forward with the bayonet to clear the hills +to the left. Fowke, watching benevolently the evolutions of certain +horsemen on his left, received a message from our cavalry, 'Those are +Arabs on your left, and are hostile to you.'</p> + +<p>And now it would have meant a bloody advance for A and B Companies +against those trenches in the open. But the Turks, held by the +Leicestershires' strong steady attack, had given insufficient +attention to the movement threatening their left. The two Sikh +regiments, though checked and held from time to time by rifle and +machine-gun fire, used the broken ground with extraordinary skill. +Their experience on the Afghan frontier had trained them for just such +work as this. Rising ground was used as positions for covering fire, +and every knoll and hummock became a shoulder to lift the force along. +Their supporting battery had located the enemy's gun-positions, and +kept down his fire. One gun-team bolted, and the crew were seen +getting the gun away by hand and losing in the effort. The Sikhs +rushed a low hill, which had long checked them, and its garrison of +one officer and twenty-five men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>surrendered. This attack was led by +the well-known 'Boomer' Barrett, colonel of the 51st. He slapped the +nearest prisoner on the back and bellowed '<i>Shabash</i>.'<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> The enemy's +resistance crumbled rapidly. A breach had been made in his defence, +and the Sikhs poured through. They made two thousand yards, and did a +swift left-turn. The enemy on their right slipped off, but the Turks +in the trenches covering the station had left things too late. The +51st drove the foe before them to the north of the station, and the +53rd rushed the station itself, capturing eight officers and a hundred +and thirty-five men, with two machine-guns. This was about 3 p.m.</p> + +<p>Wilson now left his aid-post, and we came up the line. All the way the +Turk was shelling the railway, but, by that fortunate defect of +observation conspicuous throughout, shelling our right exclusively, +for not a shell came on the left. We passed the enemy's trenches and +rifle-pits, which scarred some six or seven hundred yards of space +before the station; there were rifles leaning against the walls, with +bayonets fixed.</p> + +<p>The station had excellent water, a great attraction after the filthy +wells of Sumaikchah. No one heeded that the Turk was dropping shells +two thousand yards our side of the station. 'He always does that. It's +a sort of rearguard business. It's the ammunition he can't get away. +He'll be moving his guns quickly enough when we get ours on to them.' +But, as the official report afterwards observed, with just annoyance +at the enemy's refusal to recognize that the action was finished: +'During the whole of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>afternoon and till dusk the enemy continued +to shell the captured position with surprising intensity, considering +what had been heard of his shortage in gun-ammunition.' What happened, +in fuller detail, was this.</p> + +<p>Beled Station was like the gate of Heaven. With the exception of the +Leicestershires, still in the field, all the great and good were +gathered there. The first I saw was that genial philosopher, Captain +Newitt, of the 53rd Sikhs, sitting imperturbable on a fallen wall and +smoking the pipe without which he has never been seen. Not Marius amid +Carthage ruins was more careless of the desolation around him. With +him was Culverwell, adjutant of the same battalion. They hailed me +with joyous affection, and we drank the waters and swapped the news. +General Davies came up and asked, 'Have the Leicesters taken any +prisoners?' I told him 'No.' He seemed disappointed; then added, +'We've taken over two hundred prisoners, including nine officers and +three machine-guns. What were your casualties?' 'About twenty, sir,' I +said. 'The 53rd have had thirteen men wounded,' said the +Brigade-Major. 'Fifty will cover the casualties for the whole brigade. +It's been a most successful action.'</p> + +<p>Marner's loss was greatly felt. 'I hear you've lost a good officer,' +said the Brigadier; and the Brigade-Major added, 'He was the brigade's +great stand-by for maps and drawings. I don't know how we can replace +him.'</p> + +<p>Then for a moment we fell to jape and jesting; foolishly, for the Gods +are always listening, and the Desert-Gods have long ears. 'You're last +from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>school,' said Brigade-Major McLeod. 'You know Napier's +message—"<i>Peccavi</i>, I have Sind." Give me a wire for Corps, "I have +B-led."' '"<i>Sanguinevi</i>,"' I said, 'if such a verb exists. Let's call +it very late Latin.'</p> + +<p>As we spoke, the enemy shortened his range; a shell skimmed the roof, +and burst at the embankment bottom, directly under two Sikhs who were +cooking. It hurled one man into the air and the other to one side. A +great dust went up. Before most people realized what had happened, +Wilson and Stones were carrying the men up the bank. This was an +extremely brave deed, for a second shell was certain, and, as a matter +of fact, a second and a third came just as they had reached our wall. +Stones, like many medical officers, was a missionary; he had come from +West Africa. He had one of the noblest faces I ever saw; a very gentle +and courteous man, fearless and with eager eyes. He served with the +56th Rifles.</p> + +<p>One of the stricken men was a mass of bleeding ribbons, the top of his +head blown off. A cloth was drawn over his face; he was dead. The +other had his left leg torn off below the knee, his right heel blown +away, and wounds in his head and stomach. He died that evening. Now he +lay with scarcely a moan, while Sikhs gathered round and gave such +consolation as was possible, an austere, brave group.</p> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40-41]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a></span> + +<div class="img"> +<a href="images/map002.png"> +<img border="0" src="images/map002tn.png" width="50%" alt="Sketch Map for Action for Beled Station" /></a><br /> +<p class="cen sc" style="margin-top: .2em;">Sketch Map for Action for Beled Station.</p> +</div> + +<p>The Turkish gunners now concentrated on the station and its +approaches. Our cavalry rode through the Leicestershires' lines as +those warriors moved up to an advanced line of defence. They brought a +wounded prisoner. The enemy instantly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>shrapnelled them, and they +scattered, the prisoner, for all his broken leg, keeping his seat +excellently and riding surprisingly fast. Luck had been with the +battalion this day, and it now remained with them. Many had rifles +hit. Fowke, who was a magnet for bullets, had his right shoulder's +star flattened. But there were no casualties. The enemy, growing +vindictive, chased small bodies of even three or four with shrapnel. +He continued to pelt the station, throwing at least two hundred rounds +on it in two hours. Mules and horses were hit, and many men. Isolated +men, holding horses in the open, had a bad time. Several shells landed +on the roof, and had there been against us the huge guns of other +fronts the station would have gone up in dust. When I saw it again, a +month later, I realized what a rough house that tiny spot had +experienced. Unexploded shells were still in the walls, and on the +inner wall of the side that had sheltered me I counted over twenty +direct hits. Fortunately the 5.9's were not in action this day, and +every station on the Baghdad-Samarra line has been built as a +fortress, massively. By incredible luck no shell came through the +doorless openings and rooms behind us; they struck the inner wall and +roof. But the water-station behind us gave very poor shelter to the +men there. Shells burst on the railway, and sent a sheet of smoke and +rubble before them. Two of our guns came up to the hills that had +covered the Sikhs' advance, but fired very few shells, failing to find +a target. The enemy saw their flashes, and fired back without effect. +Then Fritz came and hovered above our huddled crowd with low, +deliberate circles. We took it for granted he would bomb us, or, at +kindest, spot for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>his guns. But he just hung over us, and then went +to look for our batteries.</p> + +<p>Before this McLeod offered me a cup of tea. We drank it in a tin shed +a few yards south of the station. I wanted the tea horribly, but felt +it was 'hairrdly safe to be aboot.' This feeling was shared, for when +the staff-captain and signalling-officer joined us, the latter asked, +'Isn't this spot a bit unhealthy, sir?' 'Oh, no,' said McLeod. 'It's +quite safe from splinters, and it's no use bothering about a direct +hit.' As I had seen high explosive burst pretty well all round, and +both windows were smashed of every inch of glass, I could not quite +share this confidence that the hut was splinter-proof. But I required +that tea. It was very good tea. Had it been shaving water, it would +have gone cold at once. But being tea which I wished to drink quickly, +it remained at boiling-point and declined to be mollified with milk. +However, no more H.E.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> came our way, only shrapnel.</p> + +<p>McLeod said we had had at least two thousand Turks against us and at +least twelve guns. During the action the enemy reinforced the position +from his main one at Harbe. He must have had other casualties in +addition to our prisoners. Our left wing, when they occupied the +hills, saw four or five hundred Turks 'skirr away' in one body, and +the machine-gunners found a target. Raiding-parties of Arabs hung on +our flanks throughout the day, and increased the force against us, at +any rate numerically.</p> + +<p>The day had been cloudy and comparatively cool, and an exquisite +evening crowned it. With <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>dusk I left the station, where wounded Turks +were groaning and shells bursting, and sought the hills. The shrapnel +was dying down, and, once off the plain, all was quiet. The scene here +was one of great loveliness. The Dujail, a narrow canal from the +Tigris, ran swiftly with water of delightful coldness and sweetness. +The canal was fringed with flowers, poppies, marguerites, and +campions; the innumerable folds and hollows were emerald-green. C +Company were holding the extreme left of our picket-line. Here I found +Hasted, Hall, Fisher, and Charles Copeman. We held a dry, very deep +irrigation-canal, running at right angles to the Dujail. There were no +shells, and we could listen composedly to the last of the shrapnel +away on the right. The full moon presently flooded the hills with +enchantment. But our night was broken by Arab raids. Twice these +robbers of the dead and wounded tried to rush us. The first party +probably escaped in the bushes, but the second suffered casualties. In +the evening Arabs had raided our aid-post, wounding the attendant, who +escaped with difficulty. Fortunately there was none but dead there; +these they stripped, cutting off one man's finger for the ring on it. +All night long they prowled the battlefield and dug up our buried +dead. For which, retribution came next day.</p> + +<p>Fisher and I scraped a hole in our canal, and tried to sleep. But a +cold wind sneaked about the nulla, and the hours dragged past with +extreme discomfort. No one had blanket or overcoat, and most were in +shorts. At dawn we had ten minutes' notice to rejoin the rest of the +regiment behind the station. In that ten minutes I had opportunity to +admire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>the soldier-man's resourcefulness. One of the picket, +thrusting his hand deep into one of the countless holes in our +canal-wall, found two tiny eggs. Raising fat in some fashion—probably +a candle-end—he had fried eggs for breakfast before we moved. The +eggs were presumed to be grouse-eggs. More likely they were +bee-eater's, or may have been snake's or lizard's. These canals are +haunted by huge monitors, and there must be tortoises in the Dujail. +However, eggs were found, and eggs were eaten.</p> + +<p>On picket the men's talk was interesting to hear. They were regardless +of the discomfort they had known so long; and when his turn came to +watch, every man was eager to lend his waterproof sheet to Fisher and +me, who had only our thin khaki. Marner's death had gone deep. 'I hear +Mr. Marner's dead,' said a voice. 'I'm sorry to hear that,' said +another; 'he was a nice feller.' 'He was a good feller an' a',' said a +third. 'He was more like a brother to me than an officer,' his +platoon-sergeant told me. These were brief tributes to an able and +conscientious man, but they sufficed. At Sumaikchah our bivvies had +been side by side, where the green was most glowing, and we had +rejoiced together in that light and colour.</p> + +<p>Beled Station was a small action, scarcely bigger than those dignified +in the Boer War with the name of battles. Our casualties were little +over a hundred for the whole day, and more than half of these were +incurred in the station itself. The Leicestershires lost twenty, three +killed among them; several of the wounded died later. But the action +attained considerable fame locally as a model of a successful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>little +battle. Our losses were miraculously slight. But for the very great +skill with which the two separate attacks were organized, and the +constant alertness which exploited every one of the ground's endless +irregularities, our losses must have been many times heavier. The +advance was conducted with caution and the utmost economy of life; but +the moment a breach was effected or an opportunity offered, then there +was a lightning blow and a swift push forward. Thus the enemy in the +station were trapped before they realized that their retreat was +threatened. The careless trooping together at the station was the one +regrettable thing, and it cost us dear. The water of Beled Station was +like the water brought to David from Bethlehem.</p> + +<p>For the action itself, a small force advanced steadily throughout the +day, with unreliable maps, over ten miles of broken country, which was +admirably furnished with posts of defence, which posts they seized and +turned into advantages for attack. They captured a strong position and +over two hundred prisoners, three machine-guns, and some hundreds of +rifles with less than half the casualties their numerically superior +foe sustained. Since a small battle is an epitome of a large one, and +far easier to see in detail, even this lengthy account may have +justification. The Army Commander's opinion was shown not alone by his +congratulatory message, but by the immediate honours awarded. To the +Leicestershires fell one Military Cross<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> and four Military Medals, +one of the latter going to Sergeant Batten, Marner's platoon-sergeant. +The water-tank leans against <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>the station no longer, and they have +repaired the crumbled walls. But the cracks and fissures in the great +fort lift eloquent witness to the way both armies desired it, and the +quiet, beautiful hills carry their scars also.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The rushing brook, the silken grass and pride<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of poppies burning red where Marner died,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unchanged! and in the station still, as then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The water that was bought with blood of men.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Anabasis</i>, Book ii., H.G. Dakyns' translation. The +identification of Sumaikchah and Sittake is due to Major Kenneth +Mason, R.E., M.C.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'Well done' (Hindustani).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> High explosive.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Westlake's. See next chapter.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>HARBE</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Behold, as may unworthiness define,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A little touch of Harry in the night.<br /></span> +<span class="i10"><i>King Henry V.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="block2"><p>If I thought Hell was worse than Mesopotamia, I'd be a good +man.—<i>Sayings of Fowke.</i></p></div> + +<br /> + +<p>Next morning was one of leisure. The 19th Brigade took up our line, +and we bivouacked before the station. We fed and washed and slept. The +enemy put a few shells on to the 19th Brigade, doing no damage, and +when that Brigade pushed on to Harbe he fell back on his strong lines +at Istabulat, another four miles. The 19th Brigade, with only one or +two men wounded, seized Harbe and twenty-four railway-trucks, which +were of great assistance presently, when the mules drew them along the +track with ammunition for the assault on Istabulat.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon the 28th Brigade followed to Harbe. The heat was +considerable, but the journey was short. Beyond the river plunging +shells told us that our troops were pushing up both banks of the +Tigris simultaneously.</p> + +<p>The 21st Brigade took over Beled. With them remained the Cherub, +wielding for one day the flaming sword of retribution. Arabs had +desecrated our graves as they always did, and had stripped <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>our dead. +The Cherub put the bodies back and dug several dummy graves. In these +last he put Mills bombs; removing the pin, he held each bomb down as +the earth was delicately piled over. The deed called for great nerve; +he could feel the bomb quick to jump under his finger's pressure. +Arabs watched impudently, sniping his party from a few hundred yards +away. Neither did they let him get more than a quarter of a mile away, +when he had finished, before they flocked down. The Cherub made his +way to the station, and watched, as a boy watches a bird-trap. The +Arabs fell to scooping out the soil badger-fashion with their hands. +There was an explosion, and the earth shot up in a fountain of clods. +The robbers ran, but returned immediately and carried off two of their +number, casualties. Then they remained to dig. Colonel Leslie, +commanding the 21st Brigade, had watched from Beled Station with +enthusiasm, and he now turned a machine-gun on them. The Cherub, +returning to the scene of his labours, found that the Arabs had dug +two feet deeper than his original grave, breaking up the stiff ground +with their fingers. To these desperate people a piece of cloth seemed +cheap at the cost of two dead or wounded.</p> + +<p>From first to last nothing moved deeper anger than their constant +exhumation of our dead, and murder, for robbery's sake, of the wounded +or isolated. Major Harley, A.P.M. of Baghdad in later days, learnt to +admire the ability of the Arabs, whose brief Golden Age, when Abbasids +ruled, so far outshone contemporary Europe. When he pressed them on +their ghoul-like ways, they replied, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>'You British are so foolish. You +bury the dead with the clothes. The dead do not need clothes, and we +do.' The logic of this does not carry far. To them, as Mussulmans, +graves were sacrosanct to a unique degree; a suspicion of disrespect +on our part would rouse the whole of Islam to flaming wrath. They were +criminals, by their own <i>ethos</i>, when they desecrated our dead. +Moreover, they murdered whenever they could, in the cruellest and +beastliest fashion. The marvel is, our actions of reprisal were so +rare. Apart from this of the Cherub's, only two came within my +personal knowledge. Of these two cases, one I and nearly the whole +division considered savage and unjustifiable, which was also the +official view. It was the act of a very young subaltern, mistakenly +interpreting an order. In the other case an Arab was caught +red-handed, lurking in a ditch on our line of march, with one of their +loaded knobkerries for any straggler. I do not know what happened, but +have no doubt that he was shot.</p> + +<p>It cannot be said that they acted for patriotic motives, as the +Spanish guerrillas against Napoleon's troops. I remember an article<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> +by Sir William Willcocks dealing with his experiences before the war, +in which he tells how he and a friend went ashore from a steamer on +the Tigris. An Arab calmly dropped on one knee and took aim at the +Englishmen, as if the latter were gazelles or partridges. He missed, +and they followed him into his village, where they asked him why he +had fired. The man answered that he did it in self-defence, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>for the +others had fired first. 'That,' said the Englishmen, 'is impossible, +for you see we are unarmed.' Hearing this, the village rushed on them +and robbed them of their valuables. Yet one of them was an official +high in Government service.</p> + +<p>The other side of the shield, as it affected Brother Buddu, was shown +next day at Harbe. At dawn three men and four women were found in the +middle of the 19th Brigade's camp, outside General Peebles' tent, +wailing. The women said their husbands had been bayoneted and +mutilated by Turks a fortnight before, and buried here. This story +proved true. The women dug up and bore off the decomposing fragments +for decent burial.</p> + +<p>The Buddu was an alien in his own land, loathed and oppressed by the +Turk. In his turn he robbed and slew as chance offered. He pursued the +chase for the pelt, and went after human life as our more civilized +race go after buck.</p> + +<p>About this time the Bishop of Nagpur was on his second visit from +India. His see was usually mispronounced as Nankipoo. He was following +us up to consecrate the graves of our battlefields. Great delight was +given by the thought that Westlake's still unexploded bombs would +receive consecration also for any retributive work that awaited them. +And we brooded over the suggestion that the good Bishop might find, +even in Mesopotamia, Elijah's way to heaven, fiery-chariot-wise.</p> + +<p>Our new camp was amid mounds and ruins. We found green coins, pottery +fragments, and shells with very lovely mother-of-pearl. The Dujail ran +near by, and made a green streak through an arid waste. The whole +landscape seemed one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>dust-heap, sand and rubbish. But by the brook +were poppies, marguerites, delicate pink campions, wheat and barley +growing as weeds of former cultivation, and thickets of blue-flowered +liquorice. There were many thorns, especially a squat shrub with white +papery globes. A large and particularly fleshy broom-rape, recently +flowering, festered unpleasantly everywhere.</p> + +<p>April was well on, and the sun gained power daily. The camp had a +thousand discomforts. We lay under bivvies formed of a blanket, +supported on a rifle and held down uncertainly by stones. Blinding +dust-storms careered over the desert. These <i>djinns</i>, with their +whirling sand-robes, would swoop down and whisk the poor shelters +away. If the courts above take note of blasphemy under such +provocation, the Recording Angel's office was hard worked these days. +One would be reading a letter, already wretched enough with heat and +flies, and suddenly you would be fighting for breath and sight in a +maelstrom of dirt, indescribably filthy dirt, whilst your papers flew +up twenty feet and your rifle hit you cruelly over the head. As a +Marian martyr observed to an enthusiast who thrust a blazing +furze-bush into his face, 'Friend, have I not harm enough? What need +of that?' One storm at Harbe blew all night, having made day +intolerable and meals out of the question. As Fowke curled himself +miserably under his blanket for the night, I heard him deliver himself +of the opinion quoted at the head of this chapter.</p> + +<p>Flies may be taken for granted. They swarm in these vile relics of old +habitation. Moreover, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>there had been a Turkish camp at hand. But +snakes and scorpions were found also almost hourly. The snakes were +small asps; the scorpions were small also, but sufficiently painful. +My batman was consumed with curiosity as to what a scorpion was like; +he had 'heard tell of them' in Gallipoli. The listening Gods took +account of his desire, and he was mildly stung the day we left.</p> + +<p>We spent the best part of a fortnight at Harbe. Morning and evening +were enlivened by regular hates. So we had to dig trenches. But there +were more memorable happenings at Harbe than the discomforts. Hebden +returned with stores of sorts from Baghdad. Two new subalterns, Sowter +and Keely, came. On Tuesday Hall's M.C. for Sannaiyat was announced. +We celebrated this with grateful hymn far into night. Thursday brought +the Cherub's M.C., another very popular honour, and we sang again, and +the mules from their mess sang a chorus back, as before.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When as at dusk our Mess carouse,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With catches strong and brave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mules their tuneful hearts arouse,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And answer stave for stave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Dumb nature' breaks in festive noise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Remembering in this East<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mystic bond which knits the joys<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of righteous man and beast.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then pass the flowing bowl about—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Our stores have come to-day—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And let the youngest captain shout,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And let the asses bray.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The thorny trudge awhile forget,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And foeman's waiting host!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-morrow bomb and bayonet—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To-night we keep the toast!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>These light-hearted evenings seemed, even then, sacramental. We were +waiting while the Third Corps and the cavalry cleared the other bank +of the Tigris, level with us. On the 19th the river was bridged at +Sinijah, which made close touch between the two corps possible and +passage of men and guns. About the same time the cavalry captured +twelve hundred and fifty Turks on the Shat-el-Adhaim. Our wait was +necessary. But we knew the enemy was terribly entrenched less than six +miles away, and that our sternest fight since Sannaiyat was preparing. +'This will be a full-dress affair, with the corps artillery,' I was +told. Some of my comrades were under twenty; others, like Fowke and +Grant-Anderson, were men of ripe age and experience in many lands. But +all had aged in spirit. Hall, though his years were only nineteen, had +grown since Sannaiyat into a man, responsibility touching his old +gaiety with power. So we waited on this beach of conflict.</p> + +<p>One evening stands out by its beauty and unconscious greatness. It +happened thus. Remember how young many were, and it is small wonder if +depression came at times. After the trying trench warfare before Kut +had come the rush to Baghdad, a period of strain and tremendous +effort. We had been fighting and marching continuously for many weeks, +with every discomfort and over a cursed monotonous plain, without even +the palliation of fairly regular mails. When men have been 'going over +the top' repeatedly, emerging always with comrades gone, the nerves +give way. We longed to be at that Istabulat position. Yet here we had +to wait while Cailley's Column fought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>level with us, and day by day +those sullen lines were strengthening. We had barely six thousand men +to throw at them. So one night talk became discontented, and some one +wished some reinforcement could be with us from the immense armies +which our papers bragged were being trained at home. Then +another—G.A. or Fowke—replied:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Oh that we now had here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But one ten thousand of those men in England<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That do no work to-day!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Swiftly that immortal scene, of the English spirit facing great odds +invincibly, followed, passage racing after passage.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was an electric spark. I never heard poetry, or literature at all, +mentioned save this once. But all were eager and speaking, for all had +read <i>Henry V.</i> When the lines were reached,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he which hath no stomach to this fight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let him depart,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin">laughter cleansed every spirit present of fear, and the shadow of +fear, misgiving. Nothing less grimly humorous than the notion of such +an offer being made now, or of the alleged consequences of such an +offer, in the instant streaming away of all His Majesty's Forces in +Mesopotamia, could have made so complete a purgation. Comedy took upon +herself the office of Tragedy. When voices could rise above the +laughter, they went on:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i5">His passport shall be made,<br /></span><span class='pn'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +<span class="i0">And crowns for convoy put into his purse.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin">'Movement-orders down the line and ration-indents,' was the +emendation.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We would not die in that man's company<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That fears his fellowship to die with us.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin">And Fowke's voice towered to an ecstasy of sarcasm as he assured his +unbelieving hearers that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i5">Gentlemen in England, now abed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall think themselves accursed they were not here.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As a Turkish attack was considered possible, every morning we stood-to +for that 'witching hour,' immediately before dawn, which is usually +selected for 'hopping the parapet.' The brigades reconnoitred, and +exchanged shots with enemy pickets. Fritz came, of course. Then the +19th Brigade went on, and took up a position two miles in front behind +the Median Wall, of which more hereafter. The battle preparations went +busily forward.</p> + +<p>Our camp was strewn with pebbles, an old shingle-beach, for we were on +the ancient edges of the sea, before the river had built up Iraq.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +The stones at Beled had been the first signs that we were off the +alluvial plain. South of Baghdad it was reported that a reward of £100 +would be paid (by whom I never heard) to the finder of any sort of +stone. And now, after our long sojourn in stoneless lands, these +pebbles were a temptation, and there was a deal of surreptitious +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>chucking-about. One watched with secret glee while a smitten colleague +pretended to be otherwise occupied, but nevertheless kept cunning eyes +searching for the offender. I enjoyed myself best, for I lay and +watched the daily parade of the troops before breakfast, and could +inquire genially, 'Have you had a good stand-to?' Fowke asked the +wastes in a soaring falsetto, 'Why do the heathen rage?' And he was +returned question for question, with 'Why do you keep laughing at me +with those big, blue eyes?' Then the camp would rock with song as we +fell to shaving and, after, breakfast.</p> + +<p>The superstitions which old experience had justified waxed strong as +the days went by. When McInerney marked out a quoits-court and Charles +Copeman dug a mess—these officers found their amusement in singular +ways, and would have been hurt had any one attempted to usurp their +self-appointed duties—and when I put in services for Sunday, the +22nd, it was recognized that we should march, and fight on the +Sabbath. Not more anxiously did the legionary listen for tales of +supernatural fires in the corn and of statues sweating blood than the +regiments asked each other, 'Have you dug a mess yet? Has the padre +put in services?' Two of us went down with colitis—possibly the +Sumaikchah waters were not even yet done with—and Fowke, as they left +us, profaned Royal Harry's words:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He which hath no stomach to this fight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let him depart.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>For all this, Shakespeare had a share in the storming of Istabulat, as +will be seen; as the ghost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>of Bishop Adhemar, who had died at +Antioch, was said to have gone before Godfrey of Boulogne's +scaling-ladder when the Crusaders took Jerusalem. ('Thank God!' said +they. 'He was not frustrate of his vows.')</p> + +<p>On Friday rain came, and Charles Copeman, who had, as already +indicated, a passion for digging—caught, perchance, in boyhood from +his father's sexton—dug a funk-hole from the enemy shell-fire. +McInerney helped him. Now this was not an ordinary funk-hole. It was a +very splendid and elaborate hole, and no one was allowed to come near, +lest he cause its perfection to crumble away. So, to dry ourselves +after the rain, we all dug, and the Desert-Gods laughed in their +bitter little minds as they saw. Among the rest, Sowter and I dug a +hole, dug deeply, widely, with much laughter and joyfulness. And to +us, as the afternoon wore towards evening, came the C.O., and, after +watching us for a few minutes, told us that we marched in an hour.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;"/> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'Two and a Half Years in Mesopotamia,' <i>Blackwood's +Magazine</i> March, 1916.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> South Mesopotamia; north is Jezireh.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE FIRST BATTLE OF ISTABULAT</h3> + +<div class="block2"><p>These men, the steadfast among spears, dying, won for themselves +a crown of glory that fadeth not away.—<i>Greek Anthology.</i></p></div> + +<br /> + +<p>In the quiet light we crossed the railway, and moved up to the Median +Wall, in all a march of perhaps a mile and a half. This wall was old +in Xenophon's time<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>; and along its northern side his army moved, +watching, and watched by, the troops of Tissaphernes, moving parallel +on the other side. He speaks of it as twenty feet in breadth and one +hundred feet in height. Once it was the border between Assyria and +Babylonia, and must have stretched to the Euphrates. Even now it runs +from the Tigris far into the desert. It has crumbled to one-third of +the height given by Xenophon. The semblance of a wall no longer, it is +a mighty flank of earth, covering tiers of bricks. It effectually hid +our movements as we crossed the plain before it. The Turk was +shrapnelling the wall and its approaches, endeavouring to reply to +some howitzers. These last we left on our right. As I happened to be +the nearest officer, the major came up and asked me that the +Leicestershires should move more to the left, in case any of his guns +had a premature.</p> + +<p>We fell silently into our places behind the wall. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>The artillery +behind us were favoured with a certain amount of zizyph-scrub; but the +wall furnished no cover but itself. Fowke, who at all times indulged +in a great deal of gloomy prognostication, known as 'Fowke-lore,' and +received with delight, but not quite implicit belief, foretold that on +the morrow our cavalry—it was a point of principle with the infantry +to assume that the cavalry, as well as all Higher Commands, were +capable of every stupidity and of nothing but stupidity—would cut up +B Company, his own, who had a certain unattractive duty assigned to +them on the extreme left. He also told us that the Median Wall would +be shelled to blazes, which seemed pretty probable.</p> + +<p>The clearest figure in my memory for this hurried, stealthy evening is +J.Y. Copeman, cousin of Charles. 'J.Y.'—for he never carried any +graver appellation than mere initials—once a rising lawyer in +Vancouver, was now our quartermaster. The gayest and most debonair +figure in the division, known and popular everywhere, he was also an +incredibly efficient quartermaster. Possibly the same qualities make +for success in law and quartermastering. His gaiety was the mask for a +most unsleeping energy and very great ability. He was once dubbed, by +a person more alliterative than observant, 'a frail, flitting figure +with a fly-flap.' Yet he had taken over Brodie's job, at Sannaiyat, +when that experienced 'quarter' had wakened suddenly to find that an +aeroplane bomb had wounded him. Within a year of this event I was +privileged to be present at an argument between our D.A.D.O.S. and our +D.A.D.S. & T.,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> as to whether Copeman or Jock <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>Reid, of the +Seaforths, was the greater quartermaster. Where two such authorities +failed to come to a decision, I must stand aside, especially as both +J.Y. and Reid are my friends. With his ability J.Y. had an indomitable +resolve, which made him refuse to go sick. He carried on through +months of constant ill-health; sometimes he was borne on one of his +own ration-carts, too unwell to walk or ride. He fed alone, but had a +familiar, in the shape of a ridiculously clever and most selfish cat. +And it is J.Y. whom I remember on this eve of Istabulat—J.Y. +marshalling his carts swiftly and silently up to the wall when +darkness had fallen, and J.Y. next morning scurrying them away before +dawn.</p> + +<p>A Company went on picket, B and C patrolled before our lines, D lay +behind the wall. Fires were kept low. J.Y. got our blankets up to us, +and we had some sleep.</p> + +<p>Next day, the 21st, all kit was packed and on the carts by 4 a.m. +Breakfast was at 3.30; hot tea and a slice of bacon. The second line +fell back. Then we clung to the wall, and waited; all but Fowke. That +warrior moved off to the left with part of B Company, all carrying +spades. Their task was to come out of the shelter of the wall as soon +as the action began, and to work their spades frantically, sending up +such dust-clouds that the bemused Turk might suppose a new Army Corps +advancing to attack his right, and take steps accordingly. The +brown-coated figure took a sombre farewell of me, reminding us that, +though his crowd were going to be cut up by our own cavalry, the rest +of us would be shelled into annihilation when Johnny opened on the +famous wall. 'He's bound to have the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>exact range, for it's such a +landmark. Besides, he's got German archaeologists with him, who've dug +here for years and years; they know every brick. And he's been +practising on it for weeks. You saw how he had it last night when we +came up.'</p> + +<p>The two actions which it is customary to call the two Battles of +Istabulat were fought in positions some miles apart. The title of +Istabulat, or of Dujail River, may fitly be reserved for the first +action. The action of the 22nd may then be known as that of Istabulat +Mounds. The Istabulat fight was one in which my own Brigade were +spectators, except for isolated and piece-meal action. We were in +reserve; and the 8th Brigade, of the 3rd Division, were in support, in +line with us, and behind the Median Wall. The enemy were trying a new +bowler, Shefket Pasha being in command, vice Kazim Karabekir Bey, who +had resigned from command of their Eighteenth Corps just before +Baghdad fell. We should not have supposed that this made any +difference, even had we known.</p> + +<p>The Istabulat battle has been described in print,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> though +inadequately and, in one important respect, most unfairly. That +unfairness I shall correct in the next chapter. But for this first +action I do not propose to do more than give an outline of the work of +the two Brigades engaged, and an account of our own part in reserve.</p> + +<p>The enemy's position was of immense strength. Old mounds made an +upraised plateau, through which the Dujail Canal ran swiftly between +steep and lofty banks. The 19th and 21st Brigades <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>attacked in +converging columns, the first thrusting right in, the second coming +with an arm sweep round. Thus, both frontal and flank attacks were +provided. The enemy's position was so strong, his redoubts so lofty, +and the whole formidable terrain had been so entrenched and wired +round that I do not believe we hoped to do more than eat our way into +a part of his line. The operation was magnificent bluff. His morale +was calculated to be now so low that he was likely to evacuate the +position if we bit deeply into it. If this view is correct, General +Maude was taking a heavy risk. But he not only always made all +preparation possible before he struck, but on occasion did not +hesitate to strike where the odds should have been against success, +but the prize of success was great, and the morale of the troops +against him weakened by repeated blows. In the Jebel Hamrin his +calculation failed. But at Istabulat it succeeded. But, had the Turk +been as he was in Sannaiyat days, two months back, we should have had +a week of dreadful fighting instead of one bloody day. Holding +Istabulat heights was a force estimated at seven thousand four hundred +infantry and five hundred sabres, with thirty-two guns. This force, in +its perfect position, we attacked with two weak brigades.</p> + +<p>The carts had scuttled away; J.Y. and his cat had stalked off through +the dimness. We were shivering behind the wall. At 5 a.m. the +bombardment opened. From five to seven we brought every gun to bear on +the enemy. Istabulat, like the last of Sannaiyat's five battles, was +an artillery battle, in the sense that the infantry, less strongly and +splendidly supported, would have been helpless. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>'I'll never say a +word against the gunners again after to-day and Sannaiyat,' said a +wounded Seaforths' officer to me in the evening. The field-guns were +well up from the start, and the 'hows' soon advanced. When the action +began, the latter were half-a-mile behind us at the wall. It was an +impressive sight, the smoke rushing out with each discharge, and then +swaying back with the gun's recoil. But the guns were rarely +stationary long, and we soon had the unwonted experience of finding +ourselves well behind our own artillery. Finally, in places our +batteries were firing at almost point-blank range; the enemy was +simply blasted out of his trenches.</p> + +<p>Fowke's dust-up drew a few shells; and the Turk strengthened his right +to meet this new threat. But presently Fritz came over, very low and +very impudent. He reported that it was only Fowke, and sheered off +with a contempt quite visible from the ground. He was so low that we +fired at him with rifles, vainly; then he went, and was swooping down +on the Seaforths' attack and machine-gunning it.</p> + +<p>The 19th Brigade got their first objectives with very few casualties. +But then the enemy poured a murderous fire on to them from every sort +of weapon. The 21st Brigade all but accomplished their impossible +task. At a critical point a terrible misfortune occurred. The 9th +Bhopals—who were playfully and better known as the 9th +'Bo-Peeps'—crossed in front of a strong machine-gun position instead +of outflanking it. The Turks held their fire till the regiment was +close up. The latter lost two hundred men in three minutes; and a +large body of Turks, who were wavering on the edge of surrender, fell +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>back instead. The Bhopals never recovered from this disaster. The +skeleton of a battalion which survived the fight was sent down the +line, and its place taken by the 1st Guides from India.</p> + +<p>Two other battalions of the 21st Brigade, the 2nd Black Watch and the +1/8th Gurkhas, crossed a plain bare of cover. They crossed at terrible +cost, and scaled the all but sheer walls of the Turkish left. But it +was too much; and a counter-attack swept the survivors off, and took +two officers and several men prisoners. Evening found our forces held, +though the whole enemy front line was ours and our teeth were fixed +deeply into the position. The Black Watch had lost all four company +commanders, killed.</p> + +<p>It is not possible to convey to paper the heroism and agony of this +day. Mackenzie, of the Seaforths, who won the D.S.O. two months +previously at Sannaiyat for valour which in any previous war would +have won the V.C., was shot dead as he was offering his water-bottle +to a wounded Turk. Irvine, of the 9th Bhopals, was wounded, and lay +out all day; two wounded Turks looked after him, surrendering when we +ultimately came up. The Gurkhas and Bhopals took two hundred and +thirty prisoners. A Black Watch private captured nine Turks and +brought them in, himself supporting the last of the file, who was +wounded. A machine-gunner, isolated when his comrades were killed or +driven back, although wounded, worked his gun till we advanced again.</p> + +<p>The artillery, as was inevitable from the rôle they filled, suffered. +Major the Earl of Suffolk, commanding B/56th Battery, was killed by +shrapnel <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>through the heart. He was a popular, unassuming man. +Lieutenant Stewart, of the same battery, was wounded. Colonel Cotter, +commanding the 56th Brigade, R.F.A., was hit in the forehead. +Lieutenant Hart's wrist was shot through. The 14th Battery had two +hundred 5.9's burst round them; yet they brought up their team, one by +one, and got the guns away, losing men, but no animals.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile from the Median Wall the 'Tigers'<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> watched the fight. One +could not help being reminded of the grand-stand at a football match. +Sitting on the further side and below the crest, the officers watched +the Indians pushing over the plain steadily through heavy shelling. We +saw dreadful pounding away on our left, where 5.9's plunged and burst +among the trenches the Seaforths were holding. Yet even a battle grows +monotonous; so in the afternoon we went down to the trenches before +the wall to rest, so far as heat and flies would permit. In that +period of slackness a number of men swarmed up the wall. Instead of +sitting where we had done, they sat on the crest, against the +sky-line. Hitherto the shrapnel had not come nearer than a ridge four +hundred yards away, which had been often and well peppered. But now +came the hateful whistle, and the ridge was swept from end to end with +both H.E. and shrapnel. In our trenches we were spattered with +pebbles. Thorpe, next to me, got a piece of H.E. in his coat. But we +escaped a direct hit. One shell passing overhead skimmed the ridge and +burst on the other side, scattering Colonel Knatchbull's kit and +smashing his fishing-rod. It killed a groom <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>and wounded three other +men, and wounded three horses so badly that they all had to be killed. +It is always men on duty, holding horses or otherwise unable to +escape, who pay for the curiosity of the idle.</p> + +<p>Firing continued very heavy till dusk. In the evening I buried the man +killed by the shell, and then went back to find the clearing-station. +Part of a padre's recognized function is to cull and purvey news. And +I had many friends engaged. A couple of miles back I found the 7th +British Field Ambulance, to which my own chief, A.E. Knott, was +attached. The sight here was far more nerve-racking than a +battlefield. It was an open human shambles, with miserable men lying +about, some waiting on tables to be operated on. Knott was about to +help in amputating a leg. In the few words I had with him I learnt +that Suffolk was killed. I think I am right when I say that he was the +only man killed among our 7th Division gunners. (We had other +artillery with us, and they lost heavily.) It seemed strangely +mediaeval, as from the days of Agincourt or Creçi, that Death, +scarring so many, but forbearing to exact their uttermost, should +strike down so great a name and one that is written on so many pages +of our history. I knew well how many would mourn the man. I asked +Knott the question of questions, 'What are our casualties?' These, one +knew, must be heavy; but I was appalled by his reply, 'Sixteen hundred +to one o'clock.'</p> + +<p>I left the wretched scene and went back. Part of the way McLeod, of +the Seaforths, his right arm in a sling, wandered with me, talking +dazedly of the day and its fortunes. I found an officer with whom I +had travelled on a river-boat not long before, when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>his mind held the +presentiment of death in his first action. He, like McLeod, went out +from Istabulat with the card, 'G.S.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> wound, right arm.' So much for +presentiment in some cases. A different case occurred next day.</p> + +<p>I found my mess sitting down to dinner. 'Montag' Warren, our P.M.C., +had excellently acquired dates and white mulberries, which last made a +stew, poorly tasting, but a change from long monotony. A clamour +greeted me. 'Where've you been, padre? What's the news?' I told them +we had got on well. Then some one asked, 'But what did you hear about +our casualties?' Minds were tense, for every one knew that next day +our brigade must take up the attack, and for a whole day we had seen +Hell in full eruption on our right. I told them other things I had +learnt—told them anything that might brush aside the awkward +question. But they demanded to know. Neither do I see how I could have +avoided telling. So at last I said, 'Well, what I was told was sixteen +hundred.'</p> + +<p>Silence fell. To some, sixteen hundred may seem a butcher's bill so +trifling that brave men—and these were men superlatively brave, +officers of the 17th Foot, and some of them had seen more pitched +battles than years, had known Ypres and Loos and Neuve Chapelle, +Gallipoli and Sheikh Saad—would not concede it a momentary blanching +of the cheek. But these sixteen hundred casualties were out of barely +four thousand men engaged, including gunners. In that minute each man +communed with his own spirit,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Voyaging through strange fields of thought alone.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>The reader will be weary of <i>Henry V.</i> Nevertheless Shakespeare came +to the aid of us, his countrymen, again as gallant old Fowke quoted +from the heart and brain of England:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He which hath no stomach to this fight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let him depart....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We would not die in that man's company,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That fears his fellowship to die with us.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So laughter ended a terrible day. Next day our tiny band was the +spearhead of a handful of fifteen hundred bayonets, who caught the +Turk in his fastnesses, wrested guns and prisoners from him, and slew +and broke his forces so that they recoiled for thirty miles.</p> + +<p>There was no rest. Through the darkness J.Y. flitted to and fro, and +here and there a spectral blaze flickered furtively. We had neither +blankets nor greatcoats, for fear of shell-fire made it impossible to +bring the carts up. The night was infernal with cold; sand-flies rose +in myriads from the ground; we shivered and itched in our shorts. Old +aches and pains found me out, rheumatism and troubles of a tropical +climate. I lay between two men, both of whom had seen their last +sunset; one was Sergeant-Major Whatsize. Infinitely far off seemed +peace and the time, as Grant-Anderson expressed it,</p> + +<div class="block3" style="padding-top: .25em; padding-bottom: .25em;"><p>When the Gurkhas cease from gurkhing, and the Sikhs are sick no +more.</p></div> + +<p>At midnight came a roar, then a crashing. It was Johnny blowing up +Istabulat Station. At three o'clock we were aroused.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Anabasis</i>, Book ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The Divisional Heads of Ordnance and Supply and +Transport.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> 'The Battle that Won Samarrah,' by Brigadier-General A.G. +Wauchope, C.M.G., D.S.O.; <i>Blackwood's</i>, April, 1918.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The Leicestershires' badge is a tiger, commemorating +service in India a century ago.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Gun-shot.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE BATTLE FOR SAMARRA</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Salute the sacred dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who went and who return not.<br /></span> +<span class="i10 sc">J.R. Lowell.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> + +<p>Day was welcome, for it brought movement, though movement harassed by +cold and then by heat and ever-increasing clouds of flies. We snatched +our mugs of tea, our bread and bacon. At 3.30 we moved off. We marched +behind the wall, then crossed the Dujail, and pushed towards the left +flank of the enemy's position. Vast clouds of white dust shut us close +from any knowledge as we climbed up a narrow pass. Fortunately the +light was hardly even dim yet.</p> + +<p>We dropped into a plain, and saw the Hero's Way by which the others +had gone. Dead Gurkhas and Highlanders lay everywhere. I have always +felt that the sight of a dead Highlander touches even deeper springs +of pathos than the sight of any other corpse. Analysed, the feeling +comes to this, I think: in his kilt he seems so obviously a peasant, +lying murdered on the breast of the Universal Mother.</p> + +<p>So we marvelled as we saw the way and the way's price—marvelled that +any could have survived to that stiff, towering redoubt, with its moat +of trenches and the trenches ringing its sides; and marvelled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>most of +all that any should have scaled its top, though for a moment only. +These trenches held abundant dead, Turks and our own. On the reverse +slope I came on rows of the enemy, huddled on their knees, their hands +lifted to shield their heads from the shrapnel which had killed them. +Below ran Dujail in its steep ditch; inland the plateau rose, against +which the 19th Brigade had surged.</p> + +<p>For once the Turk's retreat had been precipitate. That master of +rearguard warfare had meant to stand here, to save railhead and all +its rolling-stock. His dead were more than ours; and all our way was +strewn with débris. Candles and cones of sugar were in plenty, +ammunition, blankets—for Johnny had not been cold, as we +had—bivvies, clothes, slippers. I carried an ammunition-box a few +miles, thinking it would make a good letter-case.</p> + +<p>The enemy had gone. Before passing to tell of this new day's battle I +quote, from Hasted's<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> account, a description of Istabulat lines:</p> + +<div class="block" style="font-size: 95%; padding-top: .25em; padding-bottom: .25em;"><p>The Turks intended to spend the summer there; they did not +contemplate an attack before the hot weather set in. Three +well-concealed lines of trenches had been prepared, on small +hills and amongst deep nullas, with the water-supply of the +Dujail running through the centre. Advanced redoubts and strong +points made the defences formidable.</p></div> + +<p>The brigade formed up about 6.30 a.m., the 53rd Sikhs coming in from +picket on the extreme right. We passed the 56th Brigade, R.F.A., whose +officers eagerly came with us a short distance, telling us of the +previous day. We halted for breakfast.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72-3]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> + +<div class="img"> +<a href="images/map003.png"> +<img border="0" src="images/map003tn.png" width="85%" alt="Battle of Istabulat Mounds the Position at Noon April 22nd" /></a><br /> +<p class="cen sc" style="margin-top: .2em;">Battle of Istabulat Mounds the Position at Noon April 22nd</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>Verbal orders came from Division. They were just 'Push on vigorously.' +With it was coupled an assurance that there was nothing against us, +that the enemy was fleeing, thoroughly demoralized.</p> + +<p>We moved on. From across the Tigris guns boomed steadily. Distant +glimpses of river showed shoals, islands, spaces green with +cultivation. An enemy plane, reconnoitring, was shot down, and pilot +and observer killed. This incident had an important influence on the +battle which followed. Even at this stage of the campaign, we fought +in Mesopotamia, both sides, with the most exiguous number of planes. +The Turks having lost their best machine and pilot, our old friend +Fritz, feared to risk another. Hence, when the mounds of the ancient +city of Istabulat lay across our front, the hostile observation was +from the ground in front and from our left flank only. And we were +enabled to pass through a depression, whilst his fire went overhead, +and so into the mounds.</p> + +<p>We passed a 5.9 disabled by a direct hit and nearly buried. The bare +country was cracked with nullas, some of them deep. Then we opened +into artillery formation, and entered utter desert. In front were +innumerable mounds, a dead town of long ago. We went warily, with that +quiet expectation, almost the hardest of all experiences to endure, of +the first shell's coming. The official message was that the enemy was +incapable of serious opposition. But of this the rank and file knew +nothing; had they known, old experience would have made them +sceptical. Fowke's view, that all would prove to be for the worst in +the worst of all possible worlds and arrangements, was the reigning +philosophy. An <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>adapted edition of Schopenhauer would have sold well +in the mess (or anywhere in Mesopotamia). Novelists speak of the hero +being conscious that eyes, in the forest or in his room at night (as +may be), are watching, watching. This knowledge governs the feeling of +'going in artillery formation,' with the added knowledge that, though +in broad sun, you cannot hope to see your foe, who is certain to +spring on you, and merely waits till you are well under fire.</p> + +<p>The bolt fell. About 9 a.m. a double report was heard; then the Cherub +sent back word, 'Four enemy snipers retiring.' By 9.30 firing was +heavy. The Cherub was wounded, and his two scouts killed. The enemy +was invisible, and mirage made ranging impossible. The ground four +hundred yards away was a fairyland that danced and glimmered. When a +target was perceived, of Turks racing back, the orders for fire were +changed quickly, from 'Three hundred yards' to 'fourteen hundred +yards.' Very vainly. This mirage continued throughout the fight. Ahead +was what we called the 'Second Median Wall,' a crumbled wall some +twenty feet high, which ran across the front of the mounds. To its +extreme left, our right, and in front of this wall, was the Turkish +police-post of Istabulat, by which the battle was presently to be +raging.</p> + +<p>In those mounds the enemy had excellent cover. Our leading company +followed the scouts, and took possession of the ruins. The 'Tigers' +were arranged in four lines, according to companies, with less than +three hundred yards between the lines. Dropping bullets fell fast, +especially in the rear lines. About 10 a.m. two shells burst about a +hundred yards in front of Wilson and myself. Then Hell <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>opened all her +mouths and spat at us. The battalion lay down and waited. +Twelve-pounder 'pipsqueaks' came in abundance, with a sprinkling of +heavier stuff. Many soldiers prefer the latter. You can hear a 5.9 +coming, and it gives you time to collect yourself, and thus perhaps +escape giving others the trouble to collect what is left of you. I +remember once hearing General Peebles say that in his long experience +of many wars he had known only three men absolutely devoid of fear, +'Smith and Brown and—Jones' (mentioning a notorious and most-admired +fire-eating brigadier, a little man in whom bursting shells produced +every symptom of intoxication except inability to get about). Then he +added, 'I'm not sure about Jones.'</p> + +<p>It is interesting to notice the different ways in which nervousness +shows. I remember one man in whom was never observed the slightest +emotion amid the terriblest happenings, till one day some one noticed +that whenever he went forward he turned up his jacket-collar, as if to +shelter from that fiery rain. Myself, I hate the beginning of +conflict, and am eager to push well into it and under the +shell-barrage. As there is said to be a cool core in the heart of +flame, so there is a certain cool centre for the spirit where horror +is radiating out to a wide circumference. In the depths one must +surrender one's efforts and trust to elemental powers and agonies, but +in the shallows all the calls are on the 'transitory being' whose +flesh and blood are pitted against machinery. How can the nerves and +trembling thought bear up? Yet they have borne up, even in men quick +with sense and imagination. I felt restless as we lay on the flat +desert listening to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>the bullets singing by or to a nosecap's leisured +search for a victim, dipping and twisting to left and right till at +last it thudded down. If one must lie still, then company gives a +feeling of security. Fate may have, doubtless has, a special down on +you, but even Fate is unlikely to blow you to bits if the act involves +blowing to bits several of her more favoured sons. So I remember with +amusement my vague vexation with the curiosity that always made my +companion get up and stroll about when under fire, peering round. +Though he went scarcely five yards, it seemed like desertion.</p> + +<p>We watched our guns run up to the 'Pimple,' a recently built-up mound +slightly ahead of us, lately used as a Turkish O. Pip, now accruing to +us for the same purpose. The infantry assumed that these wagons and +limbers moving a hundred yards to our right would draw all the enemy's +fire, in which case we, helpless on the flat, would be shelled out of +this existence. But this did not happen; why, I cannot guess, unless I +have correctly traced the reason for that bad observation so marked in +the Turkish gunning all through this day. We were in the slightest +possible depression, with a scarcely perceptible lift on our left and +a steady rise before. Shells plunged incessantly down our left, and +went whistling far beyond us. But comparatively few burst among us; +and the shrapnel burst far too high to do damage.</p> + +<p>Our batteries were in position at the 'Pimple.' We rose, marched +through a tornado of noise, right-turned, and went across the muzzle +of our own guns, also in full blast. In front I saw lines of +Leicestershires scaling the slope and melting into the mounds.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>My diary notes: 'Men's delight to see river.' We came suddenly upon +Brother Tigris, basking in beautiful sunlight, becalmed in bays +beneath lofty bluffs. In this dreadful land water meant everything; we +had had experiences of thirst, not to be effaced in a lifetime. Away +from the river men grew uneasy. The river meant abundance to drink, +and bathing; everywhere else water was bad, or the supply precarious. +We had been away from the river since that night opposite Sindiyeh. So +not the crashing shells, the 'pipsqueaks' ripping the air like dried +paper, nor the bullets pinging by, prevented men from greeting so dear +a sight. Standing on the beach of imminent strife, in act to plunge, +men cried, 'The Tigress, the Tigress!' Instantly a scene flashed back +to memory from the book so often near to thought in these days: how +Xenophon, weary and anxious with the restlessness and depression of +his much-tried troops, heard a clamour from those who had reached a +hill-crest, and, riding swiftly up to take measures against the +expected peril, found them shouting '<i>Thalatta, Thalatta</i>.' Seafaring +folk, the most of them, they had caught, far below, their first +glimpse of the Euxine, truly a hospitable water to them, since it +could bear them home.</p> + +<p>Wilson dressed his first wounded in sheltered, broken ground, high +above the river. The peaceful beauty of the place is with me still. +Above the blue, unruffled pools green flycatchers darted, and rollers +spread metallic wings. The left bank lay low and very lovely with +flowers and fields. 'I will answer you,' said Sir Walter Raleigh, +asked his opinion of a glass of wine, given as he went to execution, +'as the man did who was going to Tyburn. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>"This is a good drink, if a +man might but tarry by it."' Wilson left me here with Dobson; but +almost immediately he sent back asking us to rejoin him. Our few +cases, all walking ones, remained in this shelter till such time as +they could fall back, and Dobson and I crossed into the mounds.</p> + +<p>It was nearly eleven o'clock. Our leading company had advanced by +rushes to a distance of a hundred and fifty yards beyond the Second +Median Wall. They were within three hundred yards of the main enemy +trenches. Battalion Head Quarters was at the wall, the 56th Rifles +were to the left, the two Sikh regiments a quarter of a mile to the +rear. Machine-gun sections were at the wall, supporting the forward +regiments. The 56th Brigade, R.F.A., had moved up, and were firing +close behind Wilson's new aid-post. Presently two more companies of +Leicestershires were sent beyond the wall, the third in response to a +message that the front line had suffered heavily and were short of +ammunition. Before the final assault, then, the Leicestershires' line, +from the east inland, was D, A, B, these three companies in this +order.</p> + +<p>But I am anticipating.</p> + +<p>Wilson's A.P. was in a dwarf amphitheatre, and was filling up fast. +Bullets were zipping over from left and front. The enemy position +rested on river and railway, a half-dug position which some six +thousand men were frantically completing when we caught them. Away +beyond Tigris glittered the golden dome of Samarra mosque; Samarra town +and Samarra station, like Baghdad town and station, are on opposite +banks of the river. The station was railhead for this finished lower +line of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>eighty miles, and in it were the engines and rolling-stock +which had been steadily withdrawn before our advance. Beyond the mounds +the ground dropped and stretched, level but broken, swept by +machine-gun and rifle, torn with shell and shrapnel, away to Al-Ajik, +against Samarra town. Here the Turk resisted savagely. He was ranging +on the wall, which was an extremely unhealthy spot, particularly in its +gaps, and he enfiladed the mounds from the railway. We flung our +fifteen hundred bayonets and our maniple of cavalry at the position. +The one British regiment, the Leicestershires, went in three hundred +and thirty strong, and lost a hundred and twenty-eight men.</p> + +<p>Dropping bullets took toll even before we left the mounds. As I came +up to join Wilson a man was carried past. It was Major Adams, acting +second-in-command of the 53rd Sikhs. He had gone ahead of his +battalion to the wall, where a bullet struck him in the forehead. He +died within fifteen minutes, and was unconscious as he went past me. +No man in the brigade was more beloved. He was always first to offer +hospitality. It was he who met our mess when they first reached +Sumaikchah and invited them to come to his own for lunch. I never saw +him but with a smile of infinite kindliness on his face, and I saw him +very often.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Face swift to welcome, kindling eyes whose light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Saw all as friends, we shall not meet again!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here in the aid-post sat the Cherub, struck at last, a flesh-wound in +his thigh; with many others. Next to him was Charles Copeman, +unwounded, waiting to go forward with his bombers. Presently came +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>Warren, bright and jaunty as a bird, and carrying his left arm. 'I'm +all right,' said Montag, 'got a cushy one here.' On his heels came +G.A.; his face was that of a man fresh from the Beatific Vision. Much +later, when I had managed to get transport to push him away, I asked +him, 'Got your stick, G.A.?' This was a stout stave on which he had +carved, patiently and skilfully, his name, 'H.T. Grant-Anderson,' and +a fierce and able-looking tiger at the top, then his regiment, then +curving round it the names of the actions in which it had supported +him: <i>Sannaiyat</i>, <i>Iron Bridge</i>, <i>Mushaidie</i>, <i>Beled Station</i>; while +down the line now he was to add <i>Istabulat-Samarra</i>. This famed work +of art he flaunted triumphantly as he climbed into the ambulance.</p> + +<p>But with these, and before some of them, came very heavy news. By that +fatal wall and on the bullet-swept space before it died many of our +bravest. Hall, M.C., aged nineteen, who looked like Kipling's Afridi:</p> + +<div class="block2p"><p>He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and he looked like a +lance in rest;</p></div> + +<p class="noin">Hall fell, facing the finish of our journey and those bright domes of +Samarra, already gilded from the sloping sun. His death was merciful, +a bullet through the heart; 'and sorrow came, not to him, but to those +who loved him.'</p> + +<p>The theory was strongly held in the Leicestershires that the only way +was to advance steadily. This weakened the enemy's morale, and, +further, he had no chance to pick out his ranges accurately. To this +theory and practice of theirs they put down the fact that, though in +the forefront of all their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>battles, their losses were often so much +slighter than those of units that had acted more cautiously. I quote +again from Hasted's brilliant lecture on the battle:</p> + +<div class="block" style="font-size: 95%; padding-top: .25em; padding-bottom: .25em;"><p>There was no hesitation about the advance. Rushes were never more +than twenty yards, more often ten to fifteen yards, as hard as +one could go, and as flat as one could lie, at the end of it. The +theory, 'the best way of supporting a neighbouring unit is to +advance,' was explained at once. The attention of the enemy's +rifles and machine-guns was naturally directed to the platoon or +section advancing, even when they had completed their rush. +Directly one saw a party getting slated, one took advantage of it +to advance oneself, in turn drawing fire, but taking care to +finish the rush before being properly ranged on. One seldom +halted long enough to open covering-fire, and besides, there was +nothing to fire at. Despite the very short halt, it is no +exaggeration to say that I have seen men go to sleep between the +rushes.</p> + +<p>Shell-bursts provided excellent cover to advance behind. +Individuals, such as runners, adopted a zigzag course with +success; we lost very few. Platoons and companies got mixed, but +it was not difficult to retell off. Perhaps control was easier +owing to very little rifle-fire from our side and the majority of +enemy shells landing on the supports. There was no question of +men taking insufficient cover; they melted into the sand after +five minutes with an entrenching tool, and during the actual +advance they instinctively took advantage of every depression. +Officers had no wish to stand up and direct; signallers lay flat +with telephones. Stretcher-bearers did not attempt to work in +front of the wall. Lewis-gunners suffered; they carried gun and +ammunition on the march (there were no mules), and the men were +tired; their rushes were not so fast as the platoon advances.</p></div> + + +<p>To G.A., lying waiting, before he was hit, came up his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>sergeant and +said, 'That's Mr. Hall over there, sir. I can see him lying dead.' But +G.A. had thoughts which pressed out even grief for his dead friend. 'I +shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.' Shakespeare might have +added these men to those Time stood still withal. For over four hours +they lay, within three hundred yards of their invisible foe, under the +sleet of bullets. McInerney told me afterwards that it was the +heaviest rifle-fire he had known, except the Wadi.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> The Wadi was +the one which made the deepest impression of horror, of all those +dreadful and useless slaughters in Aylmer's and Gorringe's attempt to +relieve Kut—made this impression, that is, so far as (to paraphrase +Macaulay) there <i>is</i> a more or less in extreme horror. And McInerney +had seen the 1915 fighting in Flanders. Fortunately the enemy kept +most of his shells for farther back. We got plenty in the ruins. But +by far the greatest number went far back, where he supposed our +reinforcements were coming up. All afternoon we worked in the aid-post +under a roof of shells, screaming in both directions, from the enemy +and from our own guns. In front the enemy watched the ground so +closely that G.A. got his wound by the accident of raising his elbow. +But now, as it drew towards noon, there was a clatter as of old iron +behind him, and Service, the machine-gunner, rushed up and erected his +tripod and lethal toy. No man was more popular than Service in normal +times. But to-day he and all his tribe stirred the bitter enmity that +Ian Hay tells us the trench-mortar people aroused in France. 'Go away, +Service,' his friends entreated. But Service stayed, a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>fact which +precipitated G.A.'s next short rush forward.</p> + +<p>On the left the three Indian battalions did a holding attack, pushing +out from the wall. They lost heavily. The 53rd Sikhs lost their +Colonel (Grattan), their second-in-command (Adams), their adjutant +(Blewitt), their quartermaster (Scarth), all killed or died of wounds. +The last-named, a very gallant and lovable boy, died in my own +aid-post, which he reached after nightfall. On the right Graham, of +the machine-gunners, won the V.C. For this battle he was attached to +the 56th Rifles. In the advance from the mounds and the heavy fighting +on the left all his men became casualties. His gun was knocked out, +and he was wounded. McKay, his second-in-command, was hit in the +throat, and died. Graham then went back for his other gun. This also +was knocked out. Meantime he had collected two more wounds. Compelled +to retire, he disabled his second gun completely; then he carried on +with the Lewis-gun, though very short of ammunition, till a fourth +wound put him out of action. Single-handed he held up a strong +counter-attack from the Turks massing on our left. Had these got +round, the Leicestershires would have been cut off. It is satisfactory +to be able to say that he survived, with no worse hurt than a scar +across his face.</p> + +<p>Before noon Wilson asked me to take charge of the aid-post. Dobson +remained with me; Wilson and Whitehead went up to the wall and +established a new A.P. With me were left many stretcher-cases. In the +confused character of the ground my place quickly developed into an +independent aid-post, and, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>in addition to receiving a stream of +walking cases, methodically passed down by Wilson, had some hundred +and thirty wounded, including Turks, who had no other treatment than +such as Dobson and I knew how to give. I had never bandaged a man +before, but my hands grew red to the elbow. Dobson worked grandly. As +far as possible I left our own men to him, and dressed wounded Turks, +of whom seventy were sent in late in the afternoon. This was on the +<i>fiat experimentum in corpore vili</i> principle, as my fingers were +unskilled, and yet the work was very great.</p> + +<p>About noon a gun was heard on the left bank of the river. Shrapnel +burst 'unpleasantly close,' says Hasted, 'to our front line. More +followed, and, after bracketing, seemed to centre about two hundred +and fifty yards in front of us. We then realized that General +Marshall's Column had joined in, supporting us with enfilade gunfire; +we were unable to see their target, and could see nothing of the enemy +trenches. We could make out single occasional shivering figures moving +laterally in the mirage. One Turk was seen throwing up earth, standing +up now and then to put up his hands to us. We tried him at ranges of +three hundred to twelve hundred yards, but did not even frighten him; +observation was absurdly difficult. Firing slackened down, but on the +left, out of sight in a depression, we could hear the 56th engaged.'</p> + +<p>As Hasted remarks, it seems incredible that our men lay from 11 a.m. +till 3.30 p.m. within three hundred yards of the enemy's trenches. Yet +such is the fact.</p> + +<p>At 4 p.m. we put down a concentrated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>bombardment of twenty minutes. +The Leicestershires, a forlorn and depleted hope, moved swiftly up to +within assaulting distance, C Company in reserve behind the right. The +51st Sikhs supported the attack. The 56th Rifles put down the heaviest +fire they could, of rifles and all the efficient machine-guns with the +Brigade. At 4.20 the guns lifted one hundred yards, and the +Leicestershires rushed in. Hasted, watchful behind with C Company, +pushed up rapidly to assist the front line. A long line of Turks rose +from the ground. All these, and the enemy's second line also, were +taken prisoners. Dug-outs were cleared, and many officers were taken, +where lofty cliffs overhang the Tigris. These prisoners were sent back +with ridiculously weak escorts. They were dazed, their spirits broken. +G.A., wounded and falling back in search of the aid-post, came on a +large body, wandering sheep without a shepherd. These he annexed, and +his orderly led them; he himself, using the famous stick as a crook, +coaxed them forward. Prisoners came, ten and twenty in charge of one +man. When night had fallen, they sat round us and curiously watched +us. Altogether the 'Tigers'—hardly two hundred strong by now—took +over eight hundred prisoners. Many of these escaped by reason of the +poverty of escort.</p> + +<p>But I will not speak of prisoners now. Whilst our scanty stock of +ammunition was being fired at the Turks, retiring rapidly, the +Leicestershires were pushing far out of reach of telephone +communication. 'Limited objectives were not known in the open +fighting.'<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> To Captain Diggins fell an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>amazing success. Suddenly +there were flashes almost in his face. 'Guns,' he shouted, and rushed +forward. On and on he rushed, till he reached the enemy's guns, he and +three of the men of A Company, which he commanded. These guns were in +nullas by the river-bank. Their crews were sitting round them. Diggins +beckoned to them to surrender, which they did. He was so blown with +running that he felt sick and faint. Nevertheless he recovered, and +rose to the occasion. To us, away in the aid-posts, came epic stories +of 'Digguens,' with the ease and magnificence of Sir Francis Drake +receiving an admiral's sword, shaking hands with the battery +commander. He is a singularly great man in action, is Fred Diggins. In +all, from several positions, Diggins took seven fourteen-pounders and +two 5.9's. They were badly hit, some of them. The horses were in a +wretched condition, none of them unwounded. Several were shot by us +almost immediately. Diggins sent his prisoners back, battery +commanders and all, in charge of Corporal Williamson and one private. +On his way back, after delivering up his prisoners, Williamson was +killed.</p> + +<p>Very soon on Diggins's arrival his subalterns, Thorpe and McInerney, +joined him. He sent them racing back across the perilous mile which +now lay between them and the wall. Thorpe went to Lieutenant-Colonel +Knatchbull, and McInerney to Creagh, the second-in-command this day. +All did their best to get reinforcements. The two other brigades, +however badly hit the previous day, were now close up. The 19th +Brigade, becoming aware of the situation, eagerly put their services +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>at our disposal. After the action the official explanation of the loss +of the guns was that the Leicestershires got out of hand and went too +far; so I was told in the colloquial language which I have set down. A +nearer explanation is that they went because of over-confidence +somewhere back. Night was falling, and the guns already gone, when +reinforcements from the 19th Brigade came past my aid-post and asked +me the direction. Had the guns been kept, I verily believe at least +one V.C. would have come our way, for Diggins, and M.C.'s for his +lieutenants. As it was, Diggins got an M.C. and Thorpe a 'mention.' +Nothing came to McInerney, who was one of the many soldiers who went +through years of battle, always doing their duty superbly, but +emerging ribbonless at the end. Six months later, at Tekrit, these +guns took a heavy toll from our infantry. Now, after all effort, +scarcely fifty men could be got up to them.</p> + +<p>In these exalted moments of victory glorious almost beyond belief +Sergeant-Major Whatsize fell, twenty yards from the enemy's line. In +his last minutes he was happy, as a child is happy.</p> + +<p>The handful at the guns waited. A large barrel of water had been put +there for the Turkish gunners. This was drained to the last drop. The +guns were curiously examined. 'Besides the intricate mechanism and +beautifully finished gear, there were some German sextants and +range-finders, compasses like those on a ship's binnacle, and other +instruments on a lavish scale,' says Hasted. But this inspection was +cut short, for now came the counter-attack. The Turks began to shell +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>captured gun-position. Then, from the railway-embankment, nearly +a mile to the Leicestershires' left front, several lines of Turks +emerged, in extended formation, a distance of fifty yards between each +line. At least two thousand were heading for the fifty Leicestershires +holding the guns. 'It was like a crowd at a football-match,' a +spectator told me. Diggins sent word to Lowther, commanding B Company, +a little to his left rear, 'The Turks are counter-attacking.' Lowther +replied that he was falling back. Diggins and Hasted fell back in +conformity. Hasted was asking his men how many rounds of ammunition +they had left. None had more than five rounds, so perforce we ceased +fire. The 51st Sikhs, with the exception of Subahdar Aryan Singh and +two sepoys, had not appeared. The Leicestershires damaged the guns as +they might for half a dozen fevered, not to say crowded, minutes of +glorious life. Hasted, who was one of those who enjoyed this +destruction, complains that they did not know much about what to do; +they burred the breech-block threads and smashed the sights with +pickaxes. The Mills bombs put in the bores did not explode +satisfactorily. Then they fell back. One of the sergeants was hit in +the chest, Sergeant Tivey, a Canadian; he was put on one of the +Turkish garrons and led along. 'From the attention he received from +the enemy's guns, they must have thought him a Field-Marshal.'<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> The +Turks, for all their force, crept up timidly. After securing the guns, +they raced to Tekrit, thirty miles away. But they sent a large body in +pursuit of the retreating 'Tigers.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>The Leicestershires fell back rapidly, the enemy pressing hard. The +51st Sikhs were found, hidden by the hollows of the ground; they had +been a buttress to the left flank of that handful of adventurous +infantry in their forward sweep into the heart of the Turkish +position. It was now that Graham and the 56th Rifles checked the +counter-attack, which threatened to drive a wedge between the +Leicestershires and the river. The whole front was now connected up, +and, in face of an attacking army, British and Indians dug themselves +in. The 51st sent along some ammunition. The sun was setting, and in +the falling light the last scene of this hard-fought day took place. +Turkish officers could be seen beating their men with the flat of +their swords. The enemy came, rushing and halting. The sun, being +behind them, threw a clear field of observation before them; but over +them it flung a glamour and dimness, in which they moved, a +shadow-army, silhouettes that made a difficult mark. And our men were +down to their last rounds of ammunition. Our guns opened again, but +too late, and did not find their target. But the Leicestershires' +bombers, sixty men in all, were thrown forward, bringing ammunition +which saved the day. Thirty of the sixty fell in that rush. The Turks +were now within two hundred and fifty yards; but here they wavered. +For half an hour they kept up a heavy rifle-fire. Then, at six +o'clock, the 19th Brigade poured in, and the thin lines filled up with +Gurkhas, Punjabis, and Seaforths. Moreover, the new-comers had +abundance of ammunition. Darkness fell, and our line pushed forward. +For over two hours we could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>hear the Turks man-handling their guns +away. But there were strong covering-parties, and our patrols were +driven back with loss. Our guns put down a spasmodic and ineffectual +fire. Then all became quiet. All along the enemy's line of retreat and +far up the river were flares and bonfires. Away in Samarra buildings +were in flames, and down the Tigris floated two burning barges, of +which more hereafter.</p> + +<p>I cannot speak as they deserve of the gallant work of the Indian +regiments. The severity of their losses is eloquent testimony. +'Boomer' Barrett came down the field, shot through the face, +cheerfully announcing his good luck: 'I've got a soft one, right +through the cheek.' I have spoken of the 53rd Sikhs. They lost their +four senior officers, killed. But every regiment had brave leaders to +mourn. One thinks with grief and admiration of that commander, a noble +and greatly beloved man, whom a bullet struck down, so that he died +without recovering consciousness several days later. Though the body's +tasks were finished, his mind worked on the fact that his men had been +temporarily checked, and he kept up the cry, 'What will they say in +England? The —— fell back; —— failed them.' Even so, when duty has +become life's ruling atmosphere,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One stern tyrannic thought which makes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All other thoughts its slave,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin">it matters little that the body should fail. The mind labours yet, +fulfilling its unconscious allegiance.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">He went, unterrified,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the Gulf of Death.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>In my aid-post we carried on, secure beneath our canopy of racing +shells. The slope gave cover against 'over' bullets, except when it +was necessary to walk about. Early in the afternoon, during a lull, a +doctor appeared and asked if it was safe to bring up his ambulances. I +told him 'Yes'; there were dropping bullets, but very little +shell-fire. He replied that he would come immediately. But the supply +of shells greatly quickened, and he did not appear again till near +darkness, when he brought two motor ambulances, taking five sitting +and four lying cases in each. He promised to return, but did not. +Apart from these eighteen, only the walking wounded got away, pushing +back into our noisy and perilous hinterland.</p> + +<p>About four o'clock the Turks, in reply to our intense bombardment, put +a brief but terrific fire on the mounds, blowing up men on every side. +I decided to clear out to where, round the corner, an old wall gave +upright shelter. As our first exodus swung round, a huddled, hobbling +mass, two 'coal-boxes' burst in quick succession, each closer than the +last shell before it. I shouted 'Duck!' We ducked, then made a few +yards and ducked for the second time. A perfect sleet of wind and +steel seemed to pass overhead. But no one was hit, and we were round +the corner, where, I fear, I dropped the Cherub with considerable +emphasis on his gammy leg. But indeed we were very lucky. Shells burst +on every side of the aid-post—on right and left, but not on us. This +was one of the rare occasions when I have felt confidence. Dobson and +I were far too busied to worry. Also it seemed hard to believe that a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>shell would be allowed to fall on that shattered, helpless suffering. +I saw, without seeing, things that are burnt into memory. We had no +morphia, nothing but bandages. There was a man hit in the head, who +just flopped up and down, seemingly invertebrate as an eel, calling +out terribly for an hour till he died. Another man, also hit in the +head—but he recovered, and I afterwards met him in Bombay—kept +muttering, 'Oh those guns! They go through my head!'</p> + +<p>A large body of prisoners was massed in the hollow beside us. When +these marched off, some seventy wounded were sent to me, under the +impression that the place was a regular aid-post. They were horribly +smashed. General Thomson's Brigade (14th Division) had enfiladed them +with artillery fire from the other bank, with dreadful effect. He got +into their reserves, their retreat, their hospitals, and broke them +up. In one place his fire caught a body of Turks massing for a +counter-attack, beneath big bluffs by the water, and heaped the sand +with dead and maimed. These men came with their gaping wounds and +snapped limbs. Private Clifton, a friend of mine, brought bucket after +bucket of water from the river. They drank almost savagely. My +inexpert fingers hurt cruelly as I bandaged them, and they winced and +cried. But the next minute they would stroke my hand, to show they +understood good intentions. They had a great belief in the superiority +of our civilization—at any rate in its medical aspect. They insisted, +those who had been bandaged by the Turkish aid-posts, in tearing off +their bandages—perfectly good ones, but smaller than <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>ours—and on +having new bandages from me. Just when the 5.9's blew us round the +corner, Waller, adjutant of the 56th Brigade, R.F.A., came up and +asked if I could send any one to look at some men just hit by the +tornado. Mester Dobson was as busied as a man could be, his inevitable +pipe in his mouth, so I went with Waller. One man was breathing, his +head broken behind; the others were dead. Beside one of the corpses +was a red mass. I saw, noting the fact automatically and without the +least squeamishness, that it was his brains. We carried the living man +in.</p> + +<p>In the darkness Dobson came and said. 'There's a wounded officer just +come in. I've given him a drink and dressed him.' A minute later he +said, 'That officer's dead, sir.' I went across, and found it was +Scarth, of the 53rd. No braver spirit went out in this day of storm +and sorrow than this very gallant boy. He was aged nineteen.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Night fell, and slowly o'er the blood-bought mile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They brought a broken body, frail but brave;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A boy who carried into death the smile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With which he thanked for water that we gave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Steadfast among the steadfast, those who kept<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The narrow pass whereby the Leicesters swept,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amid the mounded sands of ancient pride<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sleeps where Grattan fell and Adams died.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I know his father, and the Himalayan oaks and pines amid which he grew +to manhood. Men looking on Scarth loved him. The freshness of his +mountain home and his free, happy life clung to him to this end, amid +the tumults and terrors of our desert battle.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The son of Hyrtacus, whom Ide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sent, with his quiver at his side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From hunting beasts in forest-brake,<br /></span><span class='pn'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +<span class="i0">To follow in Æneas' wake.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>At dusk Wilson came. He had been toiling away, exposed and close up to +the fighters, as always—there never was a braver regimental medical +officer—and he now asked me to be responsible for getting his wounded +away, whilst he searched the battlefield. So all his cases were +evacuated into my place. At the same time many chits reached me, +addressed to the O.C. Clearing-Station. As there was no such person, I +opened these. The regimental aid-posts were pressing to be cleared. My +own place had men from seven different regiments, British and Indian, +as well as Turks, and Wilson was sending more along. So I found +McLeod, and we 'phoned down to the field ambulances. These were +congested from yesterday's battle and to-day's walking cases, and +replied that nothing could be done till dawn. But we were so insistent +that about midnight bullock-carts turned up, and I got fifty wounded +away. The 'cahars,'<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> in their zeal to remove all kit belonging to +the wounded, carried off my water-bottle, haversack, rations, and +communion-kit. But before this I had been down to the Tigris in the +darkness, and drunk like a wounded wolf.</p> + +<p>To return to the battle as it died away. The Forward Observing Officer +with the Leicestershires sent word back that fourteen guns (instead of +nine) had been taken. The news was exultantly forwarded to Corps H.Q. +When the case proved to be nine only, and those nine lost again, the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>message was allowed to stand, the authorities hoping against hope that +the guns would walk back into our possession. And Fortune was very +good to them. Those guns, indeed, came not back; but, as darkness +fell, two burning barges, as already mentioned, floated down the +river. One was exploding, like a magazine on fire. This contained +ammunition. The other barge, when pulled to shore, was found to +contain fourteen field-guns, the number specified to Corps—old guns, +but serviceable. Johnny, despairing of getting these away, had set +fire to the barge to sink them. So the original message stood, and our +loss could be glossed over. And the wastefulness of sinking quite good +guns was avoided.</p> + +<p>The night was sleepless, bitterly cold. Dobson and I kept a watch for +Arabs. I sat beside a dead man, and shared his oil-sheet. A few more +wounded came in after midnight, among them Sergeant Tivey. All night +long wounded Turks crawled the battlefields and cried in the cold. But +I heard none of them, for there were groans much nearer. Our unwounded +prisoners were crowded into a nulla. Among them was the Turkish +Artillery Brigade Commander, who knew some English and kept insisting +on a hearing from time to time. But all he ever said was, 'Yes, +gentlemen, you have got my guns, but, what is far worse, you have got +me.' Had we cared, we might have cheered him with the information that +we had not got his guns, but only himself. Yet, considering the +relative value, in his eyes, of himself and these, such information +would hardly have consoled him.</p> + +<p>In this battle occurred a case of a man being <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>'fey.' An officer gave +his kit and money to his batman, for distribution to his platoon, the +previous night. As he went into action a friend exchanged greetings. +He replied, 'Yes, but I'm afraid I'm not coming back to-day.' No one +saw him fall, but he was found dead in the mounds, with several +wounds.</p> + +<p>The east was reddening when I saw Haughton, Staff-Captain of the 19th +Brigade, on the hillock above the aid-post. This Brigade H.Q. were my +best friends in the division. I begged a mug of tea from him, so we +went along together. I found General Peebles and Brigade-Major +Thornhill, and they gave me an excellent breakfast.</p> + +<p>The 28th Brigade moved on, following the 21st Brigade, who occupied +Samarra. But the wounded remained. Shortly after dawn the medical +folk, in fulfilment of their promise, sent up an ordinary motor-car +and took away two sitting cases. Nothing else happened. Time passed, +and the heat was getting up. So I wandered back some miles, and found +hospital-tents. Here was Father Bernard Farrell, the Roman Catholic +padre, slaving, as he had done all night. I saw Westlake, and Sowter, +who was dying. 'It's been a great fight, padre,' said Sowter, 'a great +fight. I'm getting better.' No loss was felt more severely than that +of this quiet, able man. He had seen much fighting in France, and in +this, his first action with us, he impressed every one with his +coolness and efficiency. He had walked across to Lowther, his company +commander, to draw his attention to a new and threatening movement of +the enemy. Then, as he stopped to bandage a wounded sergeant, a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>bullet pierced his stomach. The same bullet, leaving his body, went +through both legs of Sergeant Lang, the one bullet making six holes. +Sowter had been with us one week. I never knew any one whose influence +went so deep in so brief a time.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our seven-days' guest, he came and went his ways,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Walking the darkness garlanded with praise!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our seven-days' guest! Yet love that this man gained<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Others have scarce in three-score years attained.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The hospital-tents were congested with wounded, and the responsible +officer declined to take any more. They had no more stretchers, all +being used as beds, and no more space. Fortunately an order came from +Division that they must immediately remove some wounded Turks. I said, +'I have some wounded Turks.' 'Yes, but I'm afraid those aren't the +Turks meant.' 'Well,' I replied, 'I've been up all night, and I'm very +footsore. You might at least give me a lift back.' This was conceded, +and I returned in the first of five motor-ambulances. The +corporal-in-charge had no idea where he was to find the wounded Turks, +so I swept him into my place. This I cleared of every one but a few +horribly wounded prisoners, and sent on a note to the M.O. of the 51st +Sikhs.</p> + +<p>The previous day two wounded Turks, a machine-gun officer and a Red +Crescent orderly, had arrived in the aid-post. The latter helped nobly +with the wounded, so I had a note sent down with them, that they had +earned good treatment. The officer had a friend from the same military +college in Stamboul, which friend had a ghastly shell-wound <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>in his +back. What happened, I think, was this. When his friend was knocked +out, the unwounded officer—they were both boys, well under +twenty—brought up a medical orderly. All three were then overwhelmed +by our rush, and in the confusion the unwounded men kept with the +other, to see that he got treatment when opportunity came. So they +slipped into my aid-post, where they stopped all night, making no +offer to escape. I sent a message to Brigade, but their reply, a +verbal one which did not reach me till next evening, was that they had +better stay where they were. The unwounded officer's silent anxiety +for his friend was most touching, and I pushed the latter away with +the midnight convoy. Next morning I sent both officer and orderly to +the nearest prisoners' camp; but the sergeant-in-charge returned them, +with word that he took only wounded prisoners. So I had to keep them. +Weir, the staff-captain, joined me, and we talked to the officer in +French while we waited for the divisional second line to come up. We +were puzzled as to why the Turks left a position so strong as +Istabulat before being actually driven out. The officer's reply was, +'Because of the <i>tiar</i>' (aeroplane). I cannot follow this, unless, +misunderstanding us, he was referring to this second day's fight and +the aeroplane brought down at the beginning. Perhaps, being afraid to +send up any other 'planes, they were deceived as to our number. He +insisted that we had had three divisions in action, and was mortified +when we told him the truth.</p> + +<p>The sun was getting very hot, and, since no more ambulances came, we +were troubled for the few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>pitifully smashed Turks who still remained. +We got covers of sorts for them, though we could not prevent the flies +from festooning their wounds. 'It's up to us to do our best,' said +Weir. 'We shouldn't care for it if our wounded were left by them.' In +the afternoon ambulances began to arrive, and I evacuated these few +and saw the evacuation of the Indian regimental A.P.'s commence. My +dead were buried, and their graves effaced, so far as possible, +against prowling Buddus. The second line arrived, so my prisoners and +I set out on our tired trudge to Samarra. I told the Turks of our +Somme successes (as we then took them to be) and our more recent March +victories in Flanders, pointing out the big improvement. 'In the +beginning we had little artillery, but now we have much.' +'<i>Beaucoup</i>,' he repeated, with conviction. In every way one spared a +brave enemy's feelings. Last year they had won; now it was our turn. +'That is so,' said he. This thought comforted him, and the memory of +their great triumphs before Kut in early 1916. Did he not wear a medal +for those days? '<i>Pour le mérite</i>,' the orderly proudly told me. I +begged scraps of biscuits from men on the march, and we shared them. I +expressed regret for this march on empty stomachs. '<i>C'est toujours la +marche</i>,' said the officer, shrugging his shoulders. Truly, it must +have been; a nightmare of rapid movement and sleeplessness even for us +who pursued—hammer and chase ever since Maude broke up the Turkish +lines before Kut.</p> + +<p>As we marched I found that the Indians took us for three prisoners and +not two, I being a German <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>officer. But when J.Y. cantered up and +hailed me, a laugh ran down the column, with the words 'Padre Sahib.' +At Samarra the first person we ran into was General Peebles, to whom I +handed over my prisoners, with a request that they should be fed. +Haughton promised to see to this. Then a pleasant thing happened. The +Turkish officer stepped quickly up to me, saluted, and held out his +hand. I saluted back, and we shook hands. They were good fellows, both +officer and orderly, and carried themselves like free men.</p> + +<p>It was now 5 p.m. I joined the 'Tigers.' Fowke and Lowther had each +killed a snake after laying their blankets down. They gave me good +greeting. I fed and washed, then slept abundantly.</p> + +<p>For the two Istabulat battles the official return of captures was: +Twenty officers and six hundred and sixty-seven men, one 5.9, fourteen +Krupp field-guns, two machine-guns, twelve hundred and forty rifles, a +quantity of hand-grenades, two hundred rounds of gun-ammunition, five +hundred and forty thousand rounds of rifle-ammunition, four limbers, +sixteen engines, two hundred and forty trucks, one crane, spare wheels +and other stores, two munition barges. Samarra Station was dismantled, +but the engines and trucks were there. Up to the last the Turk had +meant to keep the railhead, so the engines were only partly disabled, +boilers having been removed from some and other parts from others. By +putting parts of engines together we got a sufficiency of usable +engines. Within a fortnight we had trains running.</p> + +<p>For the battle of the 22nd both Diggins and Lowther got M.C.'s. If it +was the former's élan <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>which carried our wave into the enemy's guns, +the latter's judgement played a great part in extricating us without +disaster. Hasted, the alert and watchful, had already been gazetted +after the fall of Baghdad as D.S.O. He left us shortly after, +returning to his own regiment, the Durham Light Infantry, in India. In +Rawal Pindi he delivered a lecture on the action in which he had +played so brilliant a part.</p> + +<p>It would be interesting to know if Hasted has ever had an enemy. His +personal charm is almost greater than any man has a right to have, +especially when the Gods have already made that man an able soldier +and administrator. But it is an unfair world.</p> + +<p>These awards were announced in a <i>Gazette</i> nearly a year later. To +Sowter, had he lived, would have fallen a third M.C. Fowke, as well as +Thorpe, got a 'mention,' of which he was utterly unaware, being away +sick, till I ran into him in Kantara<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> in 1918, about eleven o'clock +at night. I roused him from sleep for a chat. When I told him of his +'mention,' he considered that I was making a very successful attempt +to be humorous, and laughed himself to sleep again. At intervals till +dawn I heard him still laughing in his dreams at a notion so +ridiculous.</p> + +<p>I hope that some other will tell of the deeds of the Indian regiments. +Even more I hope that some one will tell, as I cannot, of the gallant +and costly charge which our cavalry made on the Turkish trenches to +our left, a charge which staggered the enemy as he swung round to cut +off the Leicestershires. The 32nd Lancers lost, among <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>others, their +Colonel (Griffiths) and their Adjutant (Captain Hunter), killed.</p> + +<p>These two days' fighting at Istabulat and for Samarra cost us about +two thousand four hundred casualties. The 28th Brigade, on the 22nd, +lost four hundred and forty-six men. The enemy's losses, including +prisoners, must have been at least three thousand.</p> + +<p>My one note for April 24 is 'Flies.' It was high summer, and in the +terrible and waxing heats we lay for over a month longer, with no +tents, and with no shelter save our blanket-bivvies. We were the more +wretched in that we occupied an old enemy camp, and were entered into +full possession of its legacy of filth and flies. On the first Sunday +my morning service was swathed in dust, one swirling misery, and I was +sore tempted to preach, foreseeing the days to come, on 'These are but +the beginning of sorrows.'</p> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> A lecture delivered by him at Rawal Pindi, India. See +Preface.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Action of January 13, 1916.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Hasted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Hasted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Æneid</i>, Book IX, Conington's translation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Indian hospital orderlies and bearers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> On the Suez Canal.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>SUMMER AND WAITING</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Samarra was entered on April 23, the 21st and 8th Brigades going +through the 19th and 28th Brigades. These brigades followed during the +course of the day, and the ridge of Al-Ajik fell into our hands. From +Samarra northwards high bluffs run with the river, pushing out to it +from plateaus stretching across the heart of Jezireh and climbing +again beyond the river to the Jebel Hamrin. Below the bluffs are wide +spaces of dead ground, beds which the Tigris has forsaken. On the +right bank, before the dead ground begins and directly opposite +Samarra town, is a plain some ten or dozen miles in length, between +the mounds of the battle of April 22 and the crest of Al-Ajik; this +plain may be three miles broad. Al-Ajik covers and commands all +approaches from the north, and, with the central plateau, shuts the +plain within a crescent. Here, behind Al-Ajik, lay our camp for the +next seven months.</p> + +<p>North from Al-Ajik the plateau rolls away to Tekrit, and the same +rolling country lies to westward also, broken with nulla and +water-hole. To Tekrit, more than twenty miles beyond, the Turkish Army +fled.</p> + +<p>Samarra is a dirty, sand-coloured town, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>no touch of brightness +but what its famous dome gives it. This dome it was that shone over +against the sunset, the last earthly beauty for so many eyes, on that +evening of savage battle when the 7th Division flung out its leading +brigade and reached, all but held, the Turkish guns. The dome hides +the cavern into which the Twelfth Imam vanished, and from which he +will emerge, bringing righteousness to a faithless world. Just beyond +the dome rises the corkscrew tower, built in imitation of the +Babylonian <i>ziggurats</i>. To the north-east is 'Julian's Tomb,' a high +pyramid in the desert. It was near Samarra that he suffered defeat and +died of wounds. For twenty miles round, in Beit Khalifa, Eski Baghdad, +and elsewhere, is one confused huddle of ruins. It is hard to believe +that such tawdry magnificence as Harun's successors intermittently +brought to the town during the precarious times of Abbasid decay is +responsible for all these arches and caverns and tumbled bricks. Major +Kenneth Mason, already mentioned as having identified Xenophon's +Sittake, has collected good reasons for placing Opis, once the great +mart of the East, at Eski Baghdad, and not where the maps +conjecturally place it, twenty miles farther down Tigris. In summer, +green is none save in patches by the river; but a thin scurf of yellow +grass and coarse herbage overspread the ruins, in which were abundant +partridges and quails. Germans had been excavating before we came, and +we found in the town many cases of antiquities, ready packed for +transport to Europe. The 7th Division, digging their positions, +presently found pottery, glazed fragments, and tear-bottles.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>The town is walled, and sits above steep bluffs. Tigris, swift and +clear like a mountain stream, races by, dividing round an island. +Below the town is another island, with an expanse of shingle towards +the right bank; to this island Divisional Head Quarters went, a most +unfair avoidance of the 'dust-devils' which plagued their brethren. +Here were tamarisk thickets, haunted with great metallic beetles, with +such wings as Eastern smiths know how to use. The green bushes were +good to the eyes, and a pleasant curtain from flying sand. But a +sudden rise in the river flushed its shallow right arm, and made the +place an island in reality and all inconvenience. The righteous, +seeing this, rejoiced.</p> + +<p>The brigades scattered over the plain, the 8th Brigade going on, after +brief pause, to the ravines and jungles of the Adhaim, where the war +was dying. May's first week swept the Turk out of the Adhaim Valley, +and our troops settled down for the summer.</p> + +<p>The brigades scattered; blankets came up, and we slept. For over a +month we had only bivvies, the usual rifle-supported blanket, tugging +and straining at the stones which held it whenever a 'dust-devil' +danced by or a sandstorm arose. But E.P.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> tents dribbled in. Even +mails began to arrive, and parcels; and to me, on the first day of +ease, came a jubilant telegram from my old friends of the 19th +Brigade: 'Come and have tea with us. We have a cake!' I went, and +found them where the shingles led to Divisional Island. Blue rollers +swung themselves on the air below the cliffs; and on the pebbles an +owl skipped and danced, showing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>off in the beautiful evening +sunlight. This was a daily performance, Thornhill told me. It had been +General Peebles' birthday, and the brag about the cake was splendidly +justified. There were buns also.</p> + +<p>Summer dragged by. In Baghdad pomegranates blossomed, mulberries +fruited, figs ripened. But in Samarra the desert throbbed and +shimmered in the growing and great heats. Worst of all, we missed the +dates. The fresh dates are the one solace of Mesopotamia. My +campaigning recollections are embittered by this memory, that both my +two date-seasons were spent up the line, at Sannaiyat and Samarra, +where dates never came. Till mid-May the nights remained cool. +Mesopotamia's extremes are amazing. After a day intolerable as I have +found very few days in India will come a night, not close and +sleepless as an Indian night, but cool, even cold. In the April +fighting we found the nights bitter. So May gave us a fortnight of +tolerable nights; but then fire settled on the land. The flies all +died. But the infantry had an elaborate trench-system to dig, so they +were not able to die. The ground was solid gypsum.</p> + +<p>Changes happened. Generals Peebles and Davies went to India on leave. +The enemy's Intelligence Department, alert as ever, noted the fact, +and gave it out that our losses in the Istabulat battles were even +heavier than they had supposed at first, for two generals had left the +front, casualties. Such a statement was twice blessed: it cheered the +enemy, and cheered us also. In my own brigade Thorpe became +staff-captain, in place of Weir, who went <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>home. To all the +Leicestershires, and to me especially, Thorpe's going was a heavy +loss. 'I could have better spared a better man.' I must henceforth +botanize alone. No longer could he teach young subalterns to 'practise +music'—in the Socratic sense, that the best music was philosophy—to +be repaid with their affectionate regard as 'Daddy.' He wrote to me, a +month after his going, that he was becoming as 'great a horseman as +John Wesley'; and he lost weight during that summer. He lost a good +deal his first week, and in this manner. The Bishop of Nagpur was due +to visit us, and all who had subscribed their religion officially as +'C. of E.' were commanded to brighten belts and buttons for a service +parade on Wednesday at 6 ak. emma. The parade was held, every one +arriving, of course, considerably before the hour. The Divisional +General was there, and many generals and colonels; in fact, every +Anglican of note, except Thorpe, who sent word, about 6.30, that he +had made a mistake, and the service was to be next day, Thursday, at +the same hour. At this announcement a wave of uncontrollable grief +swept over the vast assembly, and for some days Thorpe was a fugitive. +But he returned to normal courses, and in time even this witty +inauguration of his reign was forgiven. But I had many inquiries as to +the tenets of Wesleyanism.</p> + +<p>For me, I went sick; recovered; and went sick again, drifting +down-stream, and to India. But first Thornhill, Bracken the +machine-gunner, and I explored Al-Ajik.</p> + +<p>Once upon a time the river had washed the foot of Al-Ajik ridge. But +now a long stretch of dead <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>ground intervenes before water is reached. +Local legend says a lady lived here who played Hero to a Leander on +the opposite bank. More obviously, Al-Ajik castle guarded Samarra from +the north. The castle is on steep crags, with vast nullas in front. In +the old days it should have been impregnable. Underneath are very +large vaults, filled with rubbish. As our exploring party came up a +pair of hawks left their eyrie, and circled round us, screaming their +indignation. When the division first reached Al-Ajik, Thornhill said, +a pair of Egyptian vultures (Pharaoh's Chickens) were nesting here. +These had gone. They are rare birds in Mesopotamia, and I never saw +them north of Sheikh Saad. Thornhill had seen Brahminy Duck in a +nulla, so we searched till we found a tunnel. Bracken leading, we got +in some hundred yards, stooping and striking matches, till we came on +a heap of bones. Thornhill surmised a hyena, so we returned, as no one +wished to fight even that, unarmed and in a diameter of less than five +feet. There must be many tunnels leading into the heart of Al-Ajik +fortress; and here, as everywhere on the plateau, were remains of the +most complicated irrigation system the ancient world knew. The castle, +as it stands, has been largely built out of the ruined portions on its +northern face.</p> + +<p>Life was scant at Samarra, as poor as it had been abundant at +Sannaiyat. The crested larks were of a new species. Owls nested in the +old wells; and most units were presently owning their owlets or +kestrels or speckled kingfishers, miserable-looking birds. Sandgrouse +were few, but commoner towards the central plateau, where were +water-holes. Gazelles <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>were often seen by pickets, and used to break +across the railway-line, to water at the river. One regiment took a +Lewis-gun after them, and other folk chased them in motor-cars. The +British army, as ever, busied itself, as opportunity came, in its +self-appointed task of simplifying the country's fauna that the +naturalist's work might be easier. Wherefore the gazelles left our +precincts, but still haunted the channels of the Dujail, by Beled and +Istabulat. For most of the year the water-holes sufficed them, the +green, velvet dips, with zizyph-bushes fringing each hollow, which +redeem the desert. Hedgehog quills and skins were common, as +everywhere in Mesopotamia. A vast hedgehog led C Company of the +Leicestershires nightly to their picket-stations. On its first +appearance a man ran to bayonet it, but the officer did not see the +necessity of this, and stopped him. So the urchin lived, and ever +after paced gravely before its friends. Then we had the usual birds. +Storks nested in the town; there were rollers and kingfishers, and a +hawk or two. But the desert, with its starved crop of dwarf thorns, +had no place for bird or animal. Men who saw Samarra after my time +raved of its winter glory, its irises, its grass knee-high, its +splendid anemones. But in summer the land lay desolate. Nothing +abounded but scorpions, mantidae, and grasshoppers.</p> + +<p>And nothing happened but the heat. In July, in ghastly heat, men were +expected to take Ramadie. They failed, most of their heavy casualties +being from heat-stroke. But that was the Connaught Rangers and a +Euphrates affair. At Samarra we experienced nothing more dangerous +than <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>Fritz's<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> visits. Once or twice he bombed the station. When +the railway began running, there were two accidental derailments, in +the second of which several men were killed and General Maude had a +narrow escape. By Sumaikchah a British officer and his Indian escort +were waylaid and murdered. The murderers were outlawed; but a year +later the first on our list of the whole gang walked back into +occupied territory and was taken and hanged, despite the wish of the +Politicals to spare him. Of all these events, such as they were, we +heard from Barron—'the bold, bad Barron,' who left the +Leicestershires to take up 'important railway duties' pending the +renewal of fighting.</p> + +<p>These matters are dull enough; but no recital can be so dull as the +times were, and we had to live through them. At Samarra the division +worked unmolested through the awful heats, digging the hard ground, +cutting avenues for machine-gun fire, making strong points. Wilson had +gone, but he had an adequate successor in Haigh. Thanks to him, the +Leicestershires established the singular fact that Samarra is the +healthiest spot in the world. One man died, in place of the dreadful +sequence of deaths a year before at Sannaiyat. The division's daily +sick-rate was .9 a thousand! The Leicestershires and the Indian +battalions did even better. And yet we spent the summer in a place +where fresh vegetables were unprocurable, except a most inadequate +supply of melons and (rarely) beans. <i>Djinns</i> scoured the plain, and +at any hour of any day half a score of 'dust-devils' could be seen +racing or sweeping majestically along—each <i>djinn</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>seemed to make +his own wind and choose his own pace—now towering to a height of +several hundred feet, with vast, swirling base, and now trailing a +tenuous mist across a nulla. Our few hens ran panting into the tents, +ejected at one door, only to enter at another. And yet, as I have +said, only one man died—with the battalion, that is—and ridiculously +few went sick. But by Colonel Knatchbull's death in Baghdad the +battalion lost its commander, and the division a very fine soldier. +Wounded at Sheikh Saad in January, 1916, he had returned in time for +the three railhead battles. He struggled on with sickness, refusing to +contemplate a second leave to India, and died at midsummer.</p> + +<p>The worst of the heats I escaped. After a spell in Beit Na'ama, the +delightful estuary-side officers' hospital, a tangle of citron and +fig-groves, with vines making cool roofs, and with the Shat-el-Arab +flowing by, I was discharged. Feeling more wretched than ever, I +lingered on at Busra in the poisonous billets, filthy Arab houses, +named by their present occupants 'Flea Villa,' 'Bug Cottage,' 'Muddy +View' (this would be for winter; the world nowhere else holds such mud +as Busra mud). Busra is hateful beyond words; any place up the line is +preferable, except perhaps Twin Canals<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> and Beled. I was to be +returned to duty 'in due course'; but the Transport authorities were +never in a hurry. It was like being slowly baked in a brick oven. I +had spent ten days so, with no prospect of being given a boat +up-stream, when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>some one told General Fane, the O.C. 7th Division, +that I had been very sick and was waiting to get back to duty. He +said, 'Nonsense,' and sent a wire direct to G.H.Q., insisting that I +be given a month's leave in India. I got it immediately. But for this +action, leave could not have come my way. No division ever had a +kinder O.C. than Fane. He knew every one, and was constantly doing +thoughtful acts such as this.</p> + +<p>India, when it found time to give thought to Mesopotamia, chattered of +the tremendous Turco-German offensive which was to sweep down from +Mosul in the autumn. When I returned, at the end of August, all down +the line I found excitement. Only at Samarra itself was quiet and ease +of mind, where old comrades greeted me joyously and introduced +new-comers. There was Fergusson, reputed to have half a century of +ranching and horse-dealing in the Argentine; 'Forty-nine,' said Fowke, +in a delighted whisper, assessing his age. (As a matter of fact, +Fergusson's years were forty-one.) There was 'Ezra' ('Likewise +Beetle,' interpolated Fowke), who had arrived the day I went sick. +'Ezra,' who signed his name as Mason, and was brother of Kenneth +Mason, engineer and archaeologist, got his nickname from a supposed +modelling of his bald dome upon Ezra's Tomb, by Q'urna. Keely, +classical scholar and philosopher, was standing outside his tent, +pondering, as I came up to rejoin the battalion. He called me up, and +asked me earnestly what girl from Greek literature I should like to +have known, even to have had as companion on the Thames at Richmond. +'Nausicaa,' I said. 'Every time,' agreed Keely, brightening up <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>as if +a heavy load had been lifted from his mind, and begged me to have a +drink in her honour. Bale and Charles Copeman were away, by Al-Ajik; +'in the nearest E.P. tent to Constantinople,' G.A. said. Of our +wounded, only G.A. was back. Warren came later; Westlake remained in +India.</p> + +<p>Some surprise was expressed that I had returned at all. This was +Thorpe's doing. To explain, I must go back a little. I knew Thorpe +years before the war. We met again in Sannaiyat trenches. His +messmates, who desired to know more of Thorpe's old life, asked me how +we met first. 'I was chaplain of a jail at Peterborough,' I replied. +The statement was received at once; the only head on which further +light was sought was as to the number of years that were deducted from +his sentence for service in Mesopotamia. (Convicts from India who came +out in the Labour Corps to Mesopotamia were remitted ten years.) Now, +during my Indian leave, an old friend found me out and took me to +spend the last days of my Darjiling visit with him. He was, among +other things, superintendent of the prison. I carelessly wrote to +Thorpe on a sheet of paper with the printed heading 'Jail-house, +Darjiling.' Thorpe spent July and August in taking this sheet round +from mess to mess. He blackened my reputation, and opened up a field +of speculation as to the reason of my incarceration. 'No doubt this +man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped from the sea'—from +Mesopotamia, say—'yet Justice hath not suffered to live.' He +considered that he was level with me for my Peterborough jail-jape, +and was much cheered.</p> + +<p>It took the best part of September to get up-stream <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>and back to +Samarra. When the boat reached Busra, scores of men were prostrate on +the deck from heat-stroke and exhaustion. In the Gulf I had a funeral. +I tried to skip to the finish of the service, with the page shimmering +and jumping before me, but had to hand the book to the captain as I +reeled down. He threw the body over, and every one flew up-deck. +Later, on the up-stream trip, we realized the fact on which all +Mesopotamia agreed, that for sheer horror the deck of a P-boat<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> is +unrivalled. Possibly it is due to the glare from the water, but our +daily temperatures of between 115° and 125° in the shade seemed a +hundredfold higher than they were. Just below Kut we were held up for +several days in a camp; not even Sheikh Saad in the old, bad days was +more cursed with sandflies.</p> + +<p>I had for companion on board Kenneth Mason, engineer and +archaeologist. We passed Sannaiyat and the winding reaches where every +earth-scar and mound had a history. Here the Turk had blown up the +ammunition barges, and for hundreds of yards inland the ground was +still strewn with twisted scrap-iron; here he had set his 5.9's on the +balloon, and the evening fishing had been interrupted; here used to be +the advanced dressing-station in the times of trench warfare; here was +Left Bank Group, where our guns had been, the tamarisk thickets and +wheeling harriers, and the old shell-holes on the beach. Those +crumbling sandbanks were Mason's Mounds, and those were Crofton's O. +Pip.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Here were Abu Roman Mounds, and here the lines of Nakhailat +or Suwada; here were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>the Beit Aiessa defences; here those of Abdul +Hassan and E Mounds. It was on that angle that the <i>Julnar</i> grounded +in that despairing, impossible attempt to run the blockade and bring +food to Townshend's men. It was in that scrub that the Turks and +H.L.I.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> crashed when both sides launched a simultaneous attack.</p> + +<p>We passed Kut. The river was low, and the people were growing lettuce, +while they might, on the dried sandbanks. The town front against the +palms showed its shell-holes and caverns, and we remembered how we +used to see the city, from Dujaileh Redoubt, rising up like a green +promontory. From Townshend's first battle there to the day when the +7th Division occupied the lines of Suwada, Kut cost us not less in +battle casualties than sixty thousand men. One makes no computation of +the dead in the old cholera camps by Abu Roman, or in a score of +cemeteries from Sannaiyat and Es-Sinn to Bombay, who perished in that +time when</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">the shark-tracked ships went down<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To Bombay Town.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin">Kut will be a place of pilgrimage, and deserves to be, even among the +many shrines of this war. From Sheikh Saad to Shumran is one graveyard +and battlefield, a stretch of thirty miles, where over twenty pitched +battles took place, many being British defeats. At Kut itself +Townshend's old trenches can be traced; and in the town are broken +buildings, and, to eastward, the monument erected by the Turks. Across +the river is the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>Shat-el-Hai and its complicated and costly +battlefields, and the relics of the famous liquorice factory which +Townshend held, and which we took, in 1917, almost last of all. At +Shumran, above the town, is the place of the great crossing. And on +the ribs of sand, when water is low, are liquorice-stacks and +lettuce-beds.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The mud-strips green with lettuce, red with stacks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of liquorice; shattered walls, and gaping caves:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond, the shifting sands; the jackal's tracks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dirging wind; the wilderness of graves.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The evening of September 13, the lofty Arch of Ctesiphon showed for +hours as we toiled along the winding reaches; in the first gold and +chill winds of dawn on the 14th we watched it recede. On the 18th I +reached Beled, 'The Home of the Devil,' as the Arabs call it, where +the Manchesters dragged out a panting existence, battling with +dust-storms. In the station I was shocked to see what vandalism had +been at work. The broken glass had been cleared away; in the tin shed +where we had drunk tea amid the flying shrapnel on that Easter evening +new panes had been put in; the water-tower had been replaced. With +dusk I reached Samarra, and set Keely's mind at rest on the Greek girl +question.</p> + +<p>Through October Fritz came daily, photographing. The sole rays in a +dreary protraction of existence were afforded by the Intelligence +Summaries, run by Captain Lang, a versatile and popular humorist. +Deserters reported that at a certain place the enemy's staff consisted +of only one lame Turk and one 'powerful Christian.' The 'powerful +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>Christian' had to do all the work, and was preparing for a hegira to +our lines. Then we had exchanged prisoners recently, sending back +eight wounded men, one having but one leg. On reaching the Turco +lines, when we offered to give these wounded a further lift of some +miles, the offer was accepted with cringing gratitude. 'Intelligence' +surmised that these wounded might have to walk to Mosul, another +hundred and forty miles, and went into reverie on the situation's +possibilities. 'If the one-legged man has any influential friends in +Constantinople, we may expect to hear shortly of a Turkish Commission +in Iraq.' That was the time when the Report of the Mesopotamian +Commission came out. Though a revelation in England, it did not excite +us, who knew its facts long before. Then letters from the enemy G.H.Q. +to General Maude had had his name and address printed on the envelope. +This, 'Intelligence' thought, was sheer, outstanding swank, to show us +that the Turks had at least one lithograph.</p> + +<p>Late in September our second attempt on Ramadie met with complete +success, when General Brooking captured the nucleus of a projected +offensive against us. We by Tigris rejoiced, knowing, too, that our +task, when it came, would be the easier.</p> + +<p>The 1st Guides joined the division in place of the 'Bo-Peeps.' The +brigades went out on reconnaissance frequently. September 25 saw one +of these shows, which included a sham fight. The day was very hot, and +Haigh's stretcher-bearers complained of the inconsiderate conduct of +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>thirty-one 'casualties.' 'Unfortunately there were no dead among +them.' However, as one S.B. added, 'fortunately a good many died of +wounds.' The 'died of wounds' were formed into platoons, and marched +off the field of action.</p> + +<p>The stretcher-bearer who made the remark about the 'died of wounds' +was a particular friend of mine, who had a great gift of happy +phrasing, illustrated in the words I have quoted. Once we had a long +talk about the old battles, and, speaking of a common friend who had +been killed, he observed, 'I do think it dreadful, his being killed +like that—killed outright.' I never got at his notion of what made a +cushy death; probably something Mexican or early mediaeval.</p> + +<p>Through October my diary notes little but services and a terrible +lecture on Mesopotamian history, which, from first to last, I +delivered over fifty times. Latterly envious tongues alleged that I +had to ask units for a parade when I gave this lecture. But those who +said this lied saucily and shamelessly.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> European privates'.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> A new Fritz, of course. The old one was killed at +Istabulat.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Below Kut, on the right bank of the Tigris. A +pestilential haunt in 1916.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Paddle-boat.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Observation post.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Highland Light Infantry.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>HUWESLET; OR, 'THE BATTLE OF JUBER ISLAND'</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Night's blackness touched with red;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A cock's shrill clarion ringing;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clamours for 'ruddy' buckets, Diamond's<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> bray;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grousing of Johnson<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> tumbled out of bed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Fowke's falsetto, singing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Is it nothing to you?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So the battalion wakes, to march away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven knows how far into the blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven knows how many weary miles to do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till stars within some nulla watch us lie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worshipping sleep, while the icy hours drag by.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> + +<p>October 22 was the date when Johnny developed unheard-of cheek. His +patrols appeared by the river, one fellow riding along our wire and +slashing it with his sword. Then from 1 p.m. onwards he shelled both +banks of the river, having pushed down from his advanced post at Daur, +a dozen miles away, with a couple of hundred cavalry, several +machine-guns, and light field-guns. The Guides and our cavalry were +reported to have lost men and horses; and G.A., on picket, sent word +that the Turks were digging themselves in. A and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>C Companies of the +Leicestershires were out all day.</p> + +<p>On the 23rd shelling continued, and that evening the division moved +out. At the officers' meeting we were told that a force, estimated at +four thousand Turks and several guns, was digging in. We were to do +twelve thousand two hundred yards north, and then seven thousand five +hundred yards half-right, to get behind them. This was the 28th +Brigade. The 8th and 19th Brigades, starting later, were to make a +frontal attack at 4 a.m.; our brigade were to enfilade the Turk when +bolted; and these united efforts were to drive him into the dead +ground by the river, and there, as the scheme wittily put it, our +artillery and machine-guns would 'deal with him.' Whoever drew up the +plan was not only bloody-minded but oblivious of long experience, +assuming thus that John was such a very simple person.</p> + +<p>We moved off just before dark, raising a white dust. Through all our +wide detour there were strict injunctions against smoking, enforced +among the Leicestershires, ignored among machine-gunners and Indian +drivers. Never can night-march have been noisier. At every halt the +mules sang down the whole length of the line; signallers and gunners +clattered past. About midnight a stranger was seen talking to some +<i>drabis</i>.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> A Leicestershire sergeant, coming up, said, 'Hullo, it's +a bloody Turk.' Hearing himself identified, Johnny turned round and +saluted. He was led to the proper authorities, and proved to be a +Turkish cadet. He was armed with a penknife and a pair of gloves.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>The night was bitterly cold. At 3.30 a.m. we 'rested.' We had reached +what in Mesopotamia would be considered well-wooded country, an upland +studded with bushes. Just on dawn we rose, with teeth chattering and +limbs numbed with contact with the cold ground, and moved on. Our +planes appeared, scouring the sky; and a few odd bursts of rifle-fire +were heard about 7 a.m. We had now reached the edge of the dead ground +against the river, and looked down to Tigris, as in later days I have +looked down to the Jordan. The doctor and I were told to set up our +aid-post in a deep nulla there, and wait on events. A report came from +our air-folk that five thousand Turks were on Juber Island, opposite +Huweslet. We moved steadily forward to the attack, steadily but +unbelievingly. Unbelief rose to positive derision, for as we topped a +slight brow we gave a target no artillery could have resisted, yet +nothing happened. 'It's a trap,' said Fowke darkly; 'he's luring us +on.' Why should John lie doggo in this fashion? Nevertheless the +airmen insisted that the Turks were there. So we dug ourselves in, in +a semicircle facing the island, preliminary to attacking it. It was +noon, hot and maddening with flies. The Leicestershires sent scouts +out, who pushed up to Juber Island, and found that there were indeed +five thousand there—five thousand sheep and several Arab shepherds. +On the opposite bank John had a machine-gun, with which he sniped +those who approached the water. He killed mules, and wounded several +<i>bhisties</i><a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> and a sweeper. There were also people sniping <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>with +rifles, and the Indian regiments had casualties. On our side, the +cavalry brought in a prisoner. We had the young gentleman caught at +night, and one other; the 19th Brigade took a fourth prisoner. So we +abandoned the battle, had breakfast at 2.30 p.m., and returned. The +day was wearying beyond conception, yet the men, British and Indian +alike, were singing as they passed Al-Ajik. Samarra camp was a swirl +of dust after the day's busyness; almost a faery place in the last +sunlight.</p> + +<p>The next day was dedicated to sleep, and to humour at the expense of +the Royal Flying Corps, to whose mess a sheep's head was voted.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The regimental (four-footed) donkey. The +Leicestershires' hatbadge is a black diamond.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Needless to say, we had no 'Johnson.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Indian drivers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Indian water-carriers.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>DAUR</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Johnny's leg-pull made him one up. This was recognized, and his action +drew our attention to the undesirability of allowing him to remain at +Daur. On October 31 the 28th Brigade went into the trenches at +Al-Ajik. November 1 was Thursday. Haigh had the misfortune to go very +sick on this day; he left us, and his successor arrived about 4 p.m. +The new doctor fell into my hands, as the battalion was unknown to +him, and he had never been in action.</p> + +<p>As we went forward bad news came in, so bad and unexpected that it +seemed incredible, the news of the Italian reverses. This filled us +with profound depression. Our tiny side-show seemed more insignificant +than ever while the European battle was being lost. When word followed +of Allenby's success at Beersheba we did not guess that here was the +beginning of a tide of victory which would ultimately pull the whole +war our way. There was one splinter of light, an absurd joke in +<i>London Opinion</i> which set the Leicestershires chuckling, 'Overheard +at the Zoo.' It is the conversation of Cockney children before the +ostrich cage:</p> + +<p>'Sneagle!'</p> + +<p>'Snotaneagle. Snork.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>'Snotanork. Snowl.'</p> + +<p>'Snotanowl. Snostrich.'</p> + +<p>This lent itself to indefinite expansion: 'Snemeu,' 'Snalbatross,' +'Snoriole,' 'Snelephant.'</p> + +<p>Report came of the exploit of Marshall at Corps Head Quarters. He had +gone out in a 'lamb'<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> on the other bank of Tigris, almost to +Tekrit, and had shot down thirty horses and a dozen men as he flew +past the enemy lines.</p> + +<p>On the evening of November 1 the Al-Ajik trenches were crowded. Fritz +came over reconnoitring, and his surprise was amusing to see. He +checked, wheeled, abandoned all thought of a visit to our camp, and +beetled back, after very elaborate reconnaissance. Then our own planes +flew over, sounding their klaxons and dropping messages, in rehearsal +for the morrow.</p> + +<p>At 9.10 the force met at the place of assembly. The 21st Brigade were +to move up the left bank; they are hardly in this picture. On the +right bank the 28th Brigade went first, followed by the 19th and 8th +Brigades. With the column were the 4th and 9th Brigades, R.F.A., two +batteries of the 56th Brigade, and some 4.5 and 6-inch howitzers. +Altogether, including those operating on the left bank, we had eighty +guns.</p> + +<p>The night was even colder than the one before the Juber Island farce. +Part of the night I marched with my friends of the 53rd Sikhs, with +Newitt and with Heathcote. Every one anticipated a very hard fight. We +were up against a position which was reputed to be as strong as +Istabulat had been. Before dawn we found ourselves among +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>ghostly-looking bushes, and lay down for one shivering hour. We had +marched over seventeen miles, with the usual exhausting checks and +halts attendant on night-marching, and we were dead-beat to the wide. +Yet nothing could be finer than the way the men threw weariness away, +like a garment, with the first shells, and went into battle.</p> + +<p>Sarcka, the excellent Yank who ran our Y.M.C.A., marched with us, +carrying a camel-load of cigarettes. He was usually called 'Carnegie' +by Dr. Haigh. That classical mind memorized Sarcka's name as meaning +'flesh'; then, since it moved with equal ease in Greek and Latin, +unconsciously transliterated. As we went forward, and a red sun rose +over Tigris, Sarcka remarked: 'The sensation I am about to go through +is one which I wouldn't miss for worlds.' Mester Dobson looked +surprised. I bided my time, knowing how unpleasant the first fifteen +minutes under shell-fire are for even the bravest.</p> + +<p>Soon after 6 a.m. the enemy advanced pickets were driven in. We were +advancing in artillery formation over undulating and broken country, +sparsely set with jujube-bushes (zizyphus). A gazelle bounded away in +front of us. At 6.15, says my diary, the first shells came. Our planes +swept along, klaxons sounding, and the sky became torn with shrapnel. +Johnny felt for us who formed the doctor's retinue, felt with an H.E. +bracket, before and beyond us. The advance was extraordinarily rapid, +a race; consequently the doctor's party got the benefit of most of +this early shelling. Fortunately the enemy seemed to have got on to +his old dumps, for his stuff, which came over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>plentifully enough, was +detonating badly. A shell burst in Lyons's platoon, apparently under +Lyons; yet he walked out of the dust unhurt. The 56th Rifles went +first, advancing as if on parade; this day they rose high in the +Leicestershires' admiration. The 'Tigers' came next; then the 51st and +53rd Sikhs. The enemy was fairly caught by surprise. Fritz, the +previous day, had brought back the first hint that anything was doing; +and, despite that knowledge, it was not expected that march and fight +would come so swiftly and together. If the doctor stopped to bandage a +man, we had to run to keep touch with the regiment. I was worried with +visions of pockets of fifty or sixty wounded awaiting attention. Very +early in the fight we found two men hit with shrapnel, and left them +in the shell-hole. It was suggested to Sarcka that he stay with them, +and guide the ambulances along our track whenever they came. 'No,' he +said sturdily, 'I'm going on.' And go on he did, and was shortly +afterwards distributing cigarettes under heavy fire. Public opinion +had condemned his coming, for the soldier holds that no man should go +under fire unless he has a definite job there. But when he justified +his place by a score of deeds, from cigarette-distributing to +bandaging the wounded, public opinion rejoiced and accepted him, known +for a comrade and a brave man.</p> + +<p>Along the plain the enemy had a number of large thorn-stacks, with +sand-bagged seats in their centres. Here had been snipers. These +stacks we avoided; as we did, as a rule, all such things as battalion +head quarters. The colonel of a regiment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>moves with a small army of +orderlies; his majestic appearance over a brow rarely fails to draw a +few salvoes. The doctor's meinie, therefore, took their way along the +open, avoiding all prominences of landscape and people. I turned aside +to what proved to be a 56th Rifles' aid-post, with a dead horse before +it. Here had been the first Turkish lines. Our guns pushed on very +rapidly, the gunners riding swiftly by and into a large, deep nulla. +We overpassed them again; there was one smart minute or so when half a +dozen 'pipsqueaks' burst in a narrow fault of the ground, scarcely a +nulla, beside us, the steep sides killing the spread of the H.E. The +enemy had been shrapnelling hard along the line occupied by the 56th +Rifles and the Leicestershires. Nevertheless we picked up very few +wounded.</p> + +<p>Johnny's shrapnel now began to get wilder still. We found Colonel +Brock, the Leicestershires' colonel, where several wide, big nullas +met. The battalion was digging in, he said. About thirty prisoners +came over a hill behind us. We set up an aid-post, our first +stationary one; Sarcka produced a tin of Maconochie, and we had +tiffin. A few wounded Indians came, the first being a man from whose +pocket-book we extracted a shrapnel bullet. He had no other hurt.</p> + +<p>The colonel was puzzled at our few casualties. There had been not only +a good deal of shrapnel, but heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, yet +hardly a man had been hit. The fight was nearly over, so I went back +for ambulances. John was throwing a certain amount of explosive stuff +about, uselessly and recklessly. On my way back I found Owen, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>of the +51st Sikhs, with a wounded arm. Owen, long ago, lost an eye in a +bombing accident at Sannaiyat. He pluckily returned from India, and +again took over the work of bombing instructor to his regiment.</p> + +<p>It was now getting hot, being well past nine o'clock.</p> + +<p>In the trenches by the 56th's aid-post there were two Turks, each with +a leg smashed to pulp by H.E. But the most distressing sight was an +enemy sniper on one of the O. Pips already mentioned. Round him were +many used cartridges and bandoliers. He sat among the thorns, eight +feet above ground, with the impassive mien of a Buddha. His face had +been broken by our shrapnel, and his brains were running down it; the +flies were busy on a clot of red brain by his temple. He was one mess +of blood, and very heavy as well as high up. My efforts to lift him +down simply stained my clothes.</p> + +<p>About 4 p.m. I was with a doctor, looking at a dead Turk who was a +particularly gruesome sight, with blood still dripping from his nose. +Suddenly appeared a merchant with a camera, who took this Turk's +photo. Not satisfied with this, he proceeded to stage-manage the +place. The ambulance was coming up to remove a wounded Turk. He +ordered it back, then bade it run up smartly, while the man was to be +lifted in, equally smartly. Then he bade the doctor and myself stand +behind the dead Turk aforementioned. When he went, the doctor said, +'Thank God, he's gone.' I took the man, in my carelessness, for +another doctor with a taste for horrible pictures, and it was not till +some time after that I realized he was the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>official cinematograph +operator, and was merely doing his job. So, somewhere or other, a film +has been exhibited, 'Wounded being collected on Mesopotamian +battlefields.'</p> + +<p>Going back to the Turkish sniper, who was still on his stack and had +been overlooked by the cinematograph operator, I found that, in his +agony, he had dug a hole in the thorns, and buried his head; I +suppose, to escape the flies. His legs were waving feebly. It was +right he should be left to the last, as he had no chance of life, and +nothing could be done for him in any way. But never did I feel more +the utter folly and silly cruelty of war than when I saw this brave +man's misery. Next morning he was found to have crawled some hundreds +of yards before dying. He had left his stack.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Light-armoured motor-battery.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>AUJEH</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Our line was where the plateau rose and then dropped steeply into +deep, narrow fissures. The night was maddening with cold, and the rum +ration came as a sheer necessity. All through this brief Tekrit +campaign the British troops were without coats or blankets. The Indian +troops had transport for theirs. The arrangement was correct in +theory, since we came from a chill climate.</p> + +<p>None of these later Mesopotamian pushes could be much more than raids. +The rivers in this latitude were too shallow and shifting for +transport, so we had to be fed and watered by means of Ford cars. It +taxed the whole of the army's resources in Fords for Tekrit, blankets +and coats having to give way to rations. Whilst the 7th Division +pushed, the other two fronts were practically immobilized. Maude could +strike on only one at a time of our three rivers. Ramadie was fought +in September; Tekrit in November; Kifri in December; and the same +round, of Euphrates, Tigris, and Diyaleh, was followed in 1918.</p> + +<p>So we had ten days of what seemed arctic exposure. This night after +Daur, Diggins shared a Burberry with me; natheless the night <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>was one +of insane wretchedness. We rejoiced, with more than Vedic joy, to +greet the dawn, though the flies swiftly made us long for night again.</p> + +<p>On the 3rd we moved slightly forward. My brigade rested, while the +19th went on. The enemy's lines at Aujeh were taken easily. One +wounded Turk was captured. He was set on a horse, and paraded +restlessly back and forward, for some mystic reason, during the day. +Fowke's solution was that the authorities hoped the troops would count +him many times over, and been heartened by the thought that we had +destroyed the Turks' last force in Mesopotamia. When the Aujeh lines +had been taken, our cavalry, supported by the artillery, tried to rush +Tekrit and burn the stores. This proved impracticable, so we shelled +the dumps at long range. My brigade stood by, and watched from a high +plateau the bursts and the great smoke-curtains which went up, as once +from burning Sodom. The affair furnished Fowke with some excellent +fooling. He would stand on a knoll and gnash his teeth, in Old +Testament fashion declaiming, 'I will neither wash nor shave till +Tekrit has fallen.' It is unnecessary to say that the vow was kept, +and overkept; and not by Fowke alone. At other times he was plaintive +and reproachful. We were shelling Tekrit—Tekrit, the Turkish base, +where the Turkish hospitals were, and 'the pretty little Turkish +nurses.' 'You chaps don't think about these things. You're selfish, +and don't care. I do.'</p> + +<p>The desultory fighting of this day was not without casualties. The +19th Brigade lost fifty-six men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>up to 2 p.m.; later I heard the +figures were fourteen killed and seventy-three wounded. These were not +in the 'taking' of the single line of Aujeh trenches, but came from +long-distance shell-fire. The cavalry, too, lost men. The enemy +slipped out on our coming, but their guns had the line beautifully +registered. In the evening the 28th Brigade covered the cavalry's +return. We had our own work as well. Fourteen shell-ammunition dumps +fell into our hands by the enemy's retreat from Daur. These we +collected, and quantities of shell-cases and wood. The Turkish gunners +had most elaborate and comfortably-made dugouts, finely timbered. +These were dismantled and fired. We marched in, with the hills ablaze +about us, and the darkness warm and bright.</p> + +<p>The 4th was Sunday. Fritz appeared about 6.30 a.m., and bombed us, +coming very low indeed. Mesopotamia being a side-show for us, the +enemy usually had at least one machine better than any of ours. This +Sabbath Fritz spent in fetching bombs and distributing them. Twice he +bombed the Leicestershires in the Turks' old trenches, but hit no one. +So he paid no more attention to the infantry, but looked up the +artillery, and the wagon-lines, and the transport. Here he did a deal +of damage, and we soon had horses careering madly about the place. +Reports came that the Turks were advancing. So, though no one dreamed +that they would make a serious attack, we consolidated the last lines +of the Daur position against them.</p> + +<p>My diary notes: 'Rum ration. Flies.' For <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>such elemental things had +existence become memorable.</p> + +<p>The day was cheered by news of the Gaza successes, as the previous day +had been by that of Beersheba.</p> + +<p>Fritz occupied his afternoon and evening in the same disreputable +fashion. At nightfall our authorities were debating whether to go on +to Tekrit or fall back to Samarra. Diggins, the fire-eater, hoped +earnestly for the former course, and laid confident bets that it would +be. Our brigadier, when I ran across him, deplored that in April we +had stopped at Samarra, though he had urged our going on to Tekrit (or +anywhere else where there were Turks).</p> + +<p>Orders came. We were to fall back two miles, then sweep westward, and +on to Tekrit. Fowke reiterated his engagement not to shave or wash +till Tekrit had fallen; and we burned, with reluctant glee, the +excellent wood that Johnny Turk had collected against our coming to +Daur. Now in Mesopotamia wood is far, far more precious than rubies. +But this wood had to be burned, since we were not coming back. So vast +and glorious fires sprang up. And each hero, in his turn lifting a +long beam, like a <i>phalarica</i>, hurled it at the blaze. The assembled +Trojans cheered, with admiration or derision, according as each shot +fell accurately or short. In this wise, then, did Sunday evening pass +with the 17th Foot.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>TEKRIT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>We moved off, footsore. Mention of the cold must have become +monotonous. But this night's cold touched a sharper nerve of agony +than any before. Our 'rest' came, by a refinement of cruelty, not +immediately before dawn, but between 2.30 and 4.30 a.m. We were then +on bleak uplands, swept by arctic winds. In Baghdad winter is a time +of frost; and we were far north of Baghdad. No men lay down; very few +even stood still. The majority used the two hours of 'rest' in running +to and fro, and it was with immense thankfulness that we took up our +trudge once more.</p> + +<p>This time there was no question of surprise. Morning found us on a +vast plain, set with yellow-berried jujube-bushes and low scrub. +Shortly after 6 a.m. the enemy began shelling our transport, which +accordingly moved out of range. My brigade fell slightly back, in +conformity. Captain McIntyre, in a gloomy mood perhaps due to the +freezing night just finished, prophesied that we should get the 'heavy +stuff' and the 'overs' when once the enemy gunners got their nefarious +game fairly going. Everything was bustle. Signallers set up their +posts, Head Quarters were established, caterpillars crawled up with +their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>heavy guns. Lieutenant-General Cobbe, the First Corps +commander, was controlling operations. Fritz also seemed interested. +He came over twice, very low and very hurriedly, but did no bombing. +His second visit was followed by half a dozen crumps, from the 5.9's, +for our 6-inch guns.</p> + +<p>This whole campaign had come very suddenly. Corps, I was told, were +ignorant up to almost the day of our starting out from Samarra. +Staff-captains and quartermasters received orders at the eleventh hour +for transport arrangements. The campaign was a <i>tour de force</i>, +everything being sacrificed to rations and water. A stream of Fords +ran night and day between the troops and Samarra.</p> + +<p>My brigade had a day of inaction, being moved up from time to time, +and momentarily expecting to be sent in. The 21st Brigade had moved up +the left bank, meeting with no opposition. Their part was enfilade +gunfire. Our old colleagues, the 8th Brigade (from the 3rd Lahore +Division), and the 19th Brigade attacked. The battle was largely one +of gunfire. For such an exhibition Guy Fawkes' Day had been fitly +chosen.</p> + +<p>Tekrit was one of the Turk's best battles in the class of which he is +such a master, the rearguard action. Our airmen reported that, from +our arrival, his troops and transport were flowing away steadily. His +lines were held by artillery and machine-guns, fearlessly worked to +the last minute of safety. Our cavalry operated on the left. It was +here the action broke down. At this point there was only one line of +trenches against us, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>and many think the 28th Brigade should have been +sent in. Had this been done, the enemy right would have been forced +back, and his troops pinned to the river, with large captures of men +and guns as result. But the 28th Brigade were kept out, because of a +cavalry mistake. The latter's orders were to drop one brigade on the +flank, and then push through to the river, behind the enemy. Then the +28th Brigade were to go in, and, when they had cleared the Turks out +of their entrenchments, the cavalry were to collect the prisoners. +But, instead, the cavalry, after dropping a brigade to watch the +flank, waited, and finally did a very gallant but useless charge.</p> + +<p>The terrain was extremely difficult. Almost the first thing the +assaulting forces had to do was to cross a nulla sixty feet deep and a +quarter of a mile wide, commanded by machine-guns, and searched with +shrapnel. Later, when my own brigade moved up in support, we crossed +this nulla. The toilsome going over slipping shingle was like Satan's +painful steps on the burning marl,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">not like those steps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On Heaven's azure, and the torrid clime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin">The story of this day belongs to the 8th and 19th Brigades. My own +were spectators only; deeply interested, and our own fate might at any +moment become involved, but harassed with heat and flies and the +unspeakable boredom born of long warfare, which even a battle can +disperse only in part. Stories filtered through of the heroic work of +the Seaforths and Manchesters and of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>47th and 59th Sikhs. Report +persisted that the Seaforths' head quarters had been knocked out by a +direct hit, with twelve casualties, and that their regimental +sergeant-major (Sutherland) was killed. This rumour was partly true, +but a little exaggerated. Their colonel (Reginald Schomberg) was +wounded, and their adjutant (McRae). This was the McRae who had fought +the Turks with his naked fists at Sheikh Saad in January, 1916, and +who rose from sergeant-major to Lieutenant-Colonel, with D.S.O. and +Bar. Sutherland was not killed, but wounded. Lee, the Seaforths' +padre, kept up the tradition set by Dr. Ewing, that 'unsubduable old +Roman' whose white locks had waved through so many battles, till he +was wounded at the forcing of Baghdad. Burn, the one Seaforths' +officer killed, out of twelve hit, was struck close behind Lee. Milne +and Baldry were killed among the Manchesters' officers.</p> + +<p>From 10.30 to 11 a.m. was a time of artillery preparation. Fritz +drifted restlessly about; our own planes were busy; klaxons sounded; +messages were dropped. According to information, opposite us the +Turkish 51st and 52nd Divisions were unsupported. Both were old foes +of Sannaiyat days. By 11.30 the enemy's first two lines were taken by +direct assault. At 3 p.m. my own brigade moved two miles closer in, on +the left. It was a costly business, pushing the enemy back by frontal +attack just where he was strongest in every way. Long lines of our +wounded passed us, with a few Turkish prisoners. The day was as +intolerably hot as the night had been cold. By four o'clock the Turk +had got most of his heavier guns back. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>We were shelling a small +mosque, which he was using as an O.P. The 6-inches registered a hit, +which sent up a white cloud of dust and powder. Every one was hopeful. +The cavalry and 'lambs' were said to be right round the enemy's flank, +and some thousands of prisoners were regarded as certain. Captain +Henderson, the Diggins of the Manchesters, was rumoured to have taken +three guns. At 4.30 the 21st Brigade launched an effective enfilade on +the enemy's transport from across the river; the two attacking +brigades went in again; the cavalry charged across the Turks' right +trenches. We of the 28th could watch it all with the naked eye, the +one confusion being sometimes as to whether it was Turks scurrying +away or Seaforths going in. But we saw the Seaforths' magnificent +charge. Unfortunately most of the crumps which we took to be among a +Turkish counter-attack were among our own men, who at one time ran +into their own barrage. Their line swept forward, irresistible as +always. In later days, in Palestine, when a despatch praised various +miscellaneous troops who had been in their first actions and done not +too badly, some one was foolish enough to express surprise that the +Seaforths were not mentioned by name. 'I should consider it an +insult,' said their colonel, 'if any one thought it worth mentioning +that my regiment had done what they were told to do. We take some +things for granted.' At Tekrit Schomberg, though already wounded, led +his men in person. He was scholar and Christian; 'the bravest of the +brave,' yet a lover of all fair things.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>As the Turks ran from their trenches our machine-guns cut them up. +Rumour now grew positive that we had the enemy hemmed against the +river. Evening closed with a deal of desultory gunfire, which +continued spasmodically all night. My brigade went to rest, in +anticipation of a renewal of battle next dawn, when our turn would be +due. The ambulances had worked nobly all day, cars sweeping up to well +within shell-range; and all night long stretcher-bearer parties were +busy. Their work was superintended by Captain Godson, whose M.C. was +well earned.</p> + +<p>Tekrit cost us about two thousand casualties. Many of the wounded +collected in the 19 C.C.S.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> at Samarra had been wounded by +aeroplane bombs.</p> + +<p>Next morning our orders of the previous night were confirmed. The +enemy were supposed to be holding the 'kilns' (actually these were +tombs) behind Tekrit. The 28th Brigade were to go through the 8th and +19th Brigades, and drive them out. We were very doubtful of their +being there. However, we went forward in the usual artillery +formation. Every house in Tekrit had a white flag. This was the place +where Townshend's men were spat on as they limped through it, +prisoners. Nevertheless there was the same surprising display of +fairly clean linen to which the villages before Baghdad had treated us +eight months previously, and the Arabs were most anxious for us to +realize how extremely friendly their sentiments were.</p> + +<p>We went forward, but found the Turks had gone. There were crump-holes +everywhere; the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>amount of our shrapnel lying about, wasted, would +have broken a Chancellor of the Exchequer's heart. Parts of the spaces +between the Turkish successive lines were just contiguous craters. But +there had been disappointingly few direct hits on trenches. The +cemetery, hard by, possessed one or two craters also. The enemy had +left abundant live shells, shell-cases, cartridge-cases. But there +were very few dead. I saw only two; and a few places where the parapet +had been pulled in for a hasty burial. The old question was raised, +Did the Turk dig graves beforehand, against an action, to hide his +losses? If he did, one can imagine few more effective ways of putting +heart into his troops than by detailing them for such a job. I heard +that the Seaforths buried sixty Turks. But their losses were certainly +far less than ours. We took a hundred and fifty-seven prisoners. Corps +claimed that evidence collected after the battle showed that the enemy +losses for the three actions of Daur, Aujeh, Tekrit, were at least +fifteen hundred. The Infantry, who had not access to Corps' means of +information, assessed them much lower. Myself, I think eight hundred +would be nearer the mark.</p> + +<p>There were great heaps of cartridge-cases, at intervals of fifty +yards, along the trenches, where machine-gunners had clearly been. The +spaces between showed little sign of having been held. From the Turk's +point of view, Tekrit was as satisfactory a battle almost as, from our +point of view, it was unsatisfactory. His gunners and machine-gunners +fought with very great skill and coolness, withdrawing late and +rapidly; hence the great dumps of shell-ammunition which were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>our +only booty. We should have got the whole force. But no sufficient +barrage was kept up on the lines of retreat during the night; the +cavalry's service, though gallant, was ineffective; the 28th Brigade +were not used at the one point where they might have done the enemy +much harm; and Head Quarters were too far back. The Turks got every +gun and machine-gun away. We captured a hundred boxes of field-gun +ammunition, four hundred rifles, five thousand wooden beams, +gun-limbers, boats, bridging material, buoys, two aeroplanes (one +utterly broken up by the enemy, the other repairable), and a box of +propellers, all serviceable. The enemy blew up three ammunition dumps +before retreating.</p> + +<p>Fowke had dragged through the campaign with a crocked knee. He now +went into hospital. There J.Y., who always anxiously haunted all +battle-purlieus, fearing for the regiment he loved so well, found him; +and, since he was not ill, obtained permission to feed him with some +of the battalion's Christmas pudding, just arrived. He refreshed him, +too, with Kirin beer. Thus J.Y.'s last glimpse of him—for Fowke did +not return to the battalion—was a happy one.</p> + +<p>These days were very wretched. Turkish camps are unbelievably filthy; +and flies swarmed on the battlefield. We salvaged some miles up beyond +Tekrit, with the results already stated. One of the two captured +planes was a recovered one of our own, with the enemy black painted +over our sign. We had a lot of very enjoyable destruction, including +that of the musketry school and barracks, four miles away.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>Tekrit's chief fame is that Saladin was born just outside it. But it +was also an early Christian centre; the town wall is said to be partly +the old monastery wall. The town is built on cliffs, which tower very +steeply above the Tigris. The inhabitants were keen on trade, taking +anything 'not too hot or too heavy'; but were unpleasant and +exorbitant beyond any Arabs, even of Mesopotamia.</p> + +<p>We now held both the Tigris and the Euphrates ends of the caravan +route to Hit. G.A. opined that we should drive the enemy in from both +ends, till both British forces were shelling each other. However, the +Turk ran some seventy miles farther; and our planes did great bombing +raids on their camp in the Jebel Hamrin, having the joy of using some +of the enemy's own bombs.</p> + +<p>On the 8th I got a lift back to Samarra on a Ford, for the purpose of +sending up food and comforts to the battalion. This kindly purpose was +never fulfilled. I went sick, but had more sense than to go to +hospital this time; and the troops returned from Tekrit. The +Leicestershires on route put up a large hyena, but failed to run him +down. My premature return became a famous taunt. 'He deserted,' +Diggins would say when foiled in fair argument; 'deserted from Tekrit, +deserted in face of the enemy.'</p> + +<p>The troops were back at Samarra by the 13th. 'Ah!' Busra surmised, +'they've had a bad knock. "Withdrawn on account of difficulty of +communications." We know that story.' It was as after the April +fighting, when the wildest distortions were believed down the line, +and when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>I was asked in confidence by an officer formerly with the +Leicestershires if it was true that his old regiment had lost eighteen +of our own guns.</p> + +<p>Nearly every one was seedy for a while, with chills on the stomach and +sore feet; and a great wave of depression passed over the division. We +would have made any effort to hold Tekrit after our toil and losses. +But the Fords were needed for another front. So Johnny, after a time, +was able to creep cautiously back, to the extent of cavalry patrols at +Daur and Tekrit.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Casualty clearing-station.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>DOWN TO BUSRA</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Events moved rapidly for the division. The brigades scattered down the +line, and H.Q. went to Akab, near the supposed site of Opis. The 21st +Brigade went across the river. Only the Leicestershires remained at +Samarra, and even they sent one company to Istabulat. Our other three +companies went to the station. The 3rd Division took over Istabulat +and Samarra. The conviction took root that we were leaving the +country.</p> + +<p>On the 19th General Maude's death was told. A pack of rumours came as +to how he had come to die, and as to how many others had died. His +funeral took place in Baghdad; Fritz attended and dropped a message of +sympathy. Mistaking his purpose when he flew so low, the archies fired +on him. Also, for once, they are said to have nearly hit him.</p> + +<p>Knowledge of the magnitude of the Italian reverses filtered in. Our +Baghdad Anzac wireless heard 'one hundred thousand prisoners,' when +the German wireless broke in, 'Hallo, hallo, hallo, Baghdad! We can +tell you later news. It is three hundred thousand prisoners, two +thousand five hundred guns.' The enemy wireless possessed the +code-name of our own, and frequently broke in on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>our messages with +information, asking us to acknowledge; but this was forbidden.</p> + +<p>In December's first week the Kifri push took place. This was not the +7th Division's affair. The Third Corps had it in charge. We rationed +them, which meant thirty-five miles of communications, up the left +bank of the Tigris, into the sub-hills of the Persian borderlands. The +20th Punjabis furnished dump-guards. These days I spent, exceedingly +pleasantly, with the Guides in the Adhaim Valley. Here was a scene of +exquisite loveliness. The Adhaim was dry; but, in its deep bed, green +lines showed where the water ran. The winter floods were even then +beginning to gather higher up, and had reached to within a dozen miles +of the brook's junction with Tigris. The valley was thick jungle. +There were no trees, but a most dense and luxuriant growth of +tamarisk, <i>populus euphratica</i>, zizyphs and other thorns, forming a +covert six to fourteen feet high. Liquorice grew freely. Wild pig +abounded, hares, black partridge, and <i>sisi</i>. In my very brief stay I +saw no pig; but their signs were everywhere, and their water-holes in +the river-bed bore marks of constant resort. The Adhaim was crossed by +Nebuchadnezzar's great Nahrwan Canal. This was now, in effect, a deep +nulla, and had silted in, so that its bottom was above the Adhaim +bank. Its cliffs were tenanted with blue rock-pigeon, with hedgehogs +and porcupines. Shoals of mackerel-like fish used to swim up the +Tigris, with fins skimming the surface. Erskine showed me how to shoot +these; as, in later days, when we were in the Palestine line at Arsuf, +I have seen Diggins stunning fish with rifle-shots in the old Roman +harbour.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>In their Samarra digging the Guides had found a stone statue, which is +what they asked me up to see. The head and arms had been broken off, +obviously deliberately; but it was plainly the Goddess Ishtar, with +breasts remaining. She was sitting before the mess-tent, like Demeter +before the House of Triptolemus. This discovery was of interest beyond +itself. The books place Opis near Akab, apparently because the Adhaim +enters the Tigris opposite Akab. But, as I have said already, Kenneth +Mason has accumulated good reasons for placing Opis near Samarra. With +those reasons, this statue of Ishtar may take its place. The Samarra +of history was not much more than a standing camp for caliphs in +refuge from their true capital, Baghdad. But old Samarra covers nearly +twenty square miles of ruins upon ruins. Opis was a great mart; and +Samarra, in the relics of Eski Baghdad, to the north, reaches almost +to the Tigris end of the Tekrit-Hit caravan road.</p> + +<p>The Kifri push resulted in another withdrawal of the fight-weary John. +He set Kifri coal-mine on fire, and it burned for some days. We took a +hundred and fifty prisoners and two field-guns. Though Russia was out +of the war, a local force of Russians helped us. They were told they +would find their rations in a certain place when they took it. They +took it all right.</p> + +<p>I left the Guides, and went back to Beled, to my good friends of the +56th Brigade, R.F.A. On December 6 the 19th Infantry and the 56th +Artillery Brigades received orders to move down-stream immediately. +All came suddenly; I was awakened by the striking of tents. On the 8th +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>Leicestershires left Samarra. In less than six days they were in +Baghdad. In those six days of marching they suffered terribly from +cold, rain, and footsoreness. But they swung through Baghdad singing. +The men of the Anzac wireless bought up oranges, and threw them to our +fellows as they passed out of Baghdad to their camp at Hinaidi, two +miles below. Baghdad streets were frozen every morning; a bucket of +water, put out overnight, would be almost solid next day. Nevertheless +there were enough flies to be an intolerable pest. When we passed the +variously spelt station of Mushaidiyeh, Keely noted the script +preferred by the railway, Mouchâhadie, and observed, 'Evidently it was +connected in their mind with flies; no doubt with good reason.'</p> + +<p>Baghdad in winter is given up to immense flocks of crows and starlings +and to the 'Baghdad canary.'<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> No wild flowers were out, except a +white <i>alisma</i>. We purchased 'goodly Babylonish garments,' the <i>abbas</i> +for which the town is famous. Mine were sent home in an oil-sheet. The +oil-sheet arrived, the postal-service satisfying themselves with +looting the <i>abbas</i>. After all, men who have the monotony of service +at the Base are entitled to indemnify themselves for the trouble to +which men up the line put them.</p> + +<p>We got our last glimpse of Fritz on the 15th. He was over Baghdad, and +was said to have dropped a message, 'Good-bye, 7th Division.' The +countryside was stiff with troops moving up and down.</p> + +<p>Our destination was matter of constant speculation. When orders to +leave Beled reached the 19th Brigade, there came a wire from +Divisional Head <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>Quarters, 'Tell the padre to preach from Matthew +twenty, verse eighteen.' But the 28th Brigade knew nothing of this +hint to Lee. Some thought we were going to Ahwaz, and thence up to +Persia; others held this Persian theory with a modification, that we +should arrive up-country from Bushire. The favourite notion was that +we were going to do another Gallipoli landing, behind Alexandretta. +Some one got hold of a map, and announced that there were mountains +there nine thousand feet high.</p> + +<p>On the 18th we embarked, and began our slow drift down the flooded, +racing stream. We passed the old landmarks, so known and so +remembered. On the 20th we passed Kut, and knew that for most of us it +was our farewell glimpse of the town that through so many dreadful +months had seemed a place of faery, and inaccessible.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Red Autumn on the banks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, through fields that bear no grain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A desolate Mother treads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the brimming river, torn with rain!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A chill wind moves in the faded ranks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the rushes, rumpling their russet heads.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And out of the mist, on the racing stream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I drift, I know that there gathers fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the lands I shall see no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Another mist, which with life shall last,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till all that I watched and my comrades bore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will be autumn mist, in an old man's dream.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin">Here an Empire's might had agonized; and many of us had buried more +hopes than we shall cherish again.</p> + +<p>It rained, and kept on raining. Knowing what wretchedness this meant +on shore, we were glad of the crowded shelter of our P-boat, maugre +its noises <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>and discomforts. Marshall, the semi-mythical person at +Corps, who had visited the Turks at Tekrit, scattering ruin from a +'lamb,' was everywhere said to be taking bets, ten to one, that the +war would be ended by Christmas. If rumour spoke truth, Marshall must +have lost a pile of money.</p> + +<p>On the 22nd we entrained at Amara, reaching Busra late on the 23rd. We +spent Christmas encamped on a marsh. My mare developed unsuspected +gifts as a humorist. Every time she saw a tree, even a date-palm, she +shied, cavorted, and leapt, showing the utmost amazement and terror. +This was witty at first, but she kept it up too long. Busra backwaters +were lovelier than ever, with the willows in their winter dress, +gold-streaked, and the brooding blue kingfishers above the waveless +channels. <i>Bablas</i><a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> were in yellow button, scenting the ditches +where huge tortoises crawled and clustered. On the 30th I got a +glimpse of Shaiba, of the tall feathery tamarisks above the Norfolks' +graves and trenches. On January 2 we embarked on the <i>Bandra</i>. With +the cheering as we moved away, the words of a Mesopotamian 'gaff'<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> +recurred to memory:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And when we came to Ashar,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> we only cheered once;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I don't suppose we shall cheer again, for months, and months, and months.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin">We drifted down the beautiful waterway, past its forest of palms and +its abundant willows and waving reeds. We reached Koweit Bay on the +4th and waited for rations and our new boats. On the 7th we were on +our way to a new campaign. In nine months <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>the Leicestershires were +swinging through Beirut in the old, immemorial fashion, though +foot-weary, and singing, whilst the people madly cheered and shouted. +But it was not the old crowd. Fowke, Warren, Burrows—these three were +gathered, two months after the battalion left Mesopotamia, at Kantara, +when the German last offensive burst. They were sent at once to +France. Fowke and Warren were badly wounded; a letter from Fowke +informed me that he was hit 'while running away,' a jesting statement +which one understands. Burrows, one of our keenest minds and a +delightful man, a valued friend, did extraordinarily well—he was +strangely fearless—but was killed as the French war was ending. From +the 19th Brigade Haughton, Thornhill, General Peebles, had all gone +long ago. Haughton was wounded in the Afghan War, and Thornhill died +of illness. And now, as I write, G.A. is off to South America again, +and J.Y. to Canada.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">I and my friends have seen our friends no more.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> The domestic ass.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Mimosa.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Concert party.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> At Busra; the place of disembarkation.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span><br /> +<hr /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>INDEX</h3> +<br /> + +<ul><li>Adams, Captain, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li>Adhaim, Shat-el, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Ahwaz, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li>Akab, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Al-Ajik, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li>Ali Gharbi, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + +<li>Amara, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + +<li>Anzac Wireless, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li>Arabs, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + +<li>Aujeh, <a href="#Page_131">131 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Aujeh, (Palestine), <a href="#Page_27">27</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Babi, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li>Baghdad, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li>Baldry, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li>Bale, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li>Barrett, Major, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + +<li>Barron, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li>Batten, Sergeant, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li>Beit Aiessa, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li>Beit Na'ama, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li>Beled, <a href="#Page_21">21 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Beirut, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Bhopals (9th), <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li>Black Watch (2nd), <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li>Blewitt, Captain, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li>Bracken, Captain, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li>British Field Ambulance (7), <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li>Brock, Lieut.-Col., <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + +<li>Brodie, Lieut., <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> + +<li>Brooking, Maj.-Gen., <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li>Buddus. <i>See</i> <span class="sc">Arabs</span></li> + +<li>Burn, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li>Burrows, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Busra, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Cailley's Column, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li>Candler, Edmund, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li>Carmel, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li>Casualty Clearing Station (19), <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li>Cavalry, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li>Clifton, Private, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + +<li>Cobbe, Lieut.-Gen., <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li>Connaught Rangers, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> + +<li>Copeman, Sec.-Lieut. Charles, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li>Copeman, Sec.-Lieut. J.Y., <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Cotter, Colonel, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li>Creagh, Captain, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li>Ctesiphon, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li>Culverwell, Captain, <a href="#Page_38">38</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Daur, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></li> + +<li>Davies, Brig.-Gen., <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li>Delamaine, Brig.-Gen., <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li>Diggins, Captain, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + +<li>Dobson, Private, <a href="#Page_32">32 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li>Dujail Canal, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> + +<li>Dujaileh, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Erskine, Captain, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + +<li>Ewing, Rev. Dr., <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li>Ezra's Tomb, <a href="#Page_113">113</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Fane, Maj.-Gen., <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li>Fao, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li>Farrell, Father, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li>Felahiyeh, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> + +<li>Fergusson, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li>Fisher, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li>Fowke, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_31">31 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Gurkhas (1/8th), <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li>Godson, Captain, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li>Graham, Captain, V.C., <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li>Grant-Anderson, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Grattan, Lieut.-Col., <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li>Griffiths, Lieut.-Col., <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li>Guides (1st), <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Haigh, Captain, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li>Hall, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + +<li>Harbe, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Harley, Major, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + +<li>Hart, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li>Hasted, Captain, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li>Haughton, Captain, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Hayes, Sergeant, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li>Heathcote, Captain, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li>Hebden, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + +<li>Henderson, Captain, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li>Highland Light Infantry, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li>Hinaidi, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li>Hunter, Captain, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li>Huweslet, <a href="#Page_120">120 seq.</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Intelligence Summaries, <a href="#Page_117">117 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Irvine, Captain, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li>Ishtar, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Istabulat, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Italian Reverses, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Jebel Hamrin, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Kazim Karabekir Bey, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li>Keely, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li>Kifri, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Knatchbull, Lieut.-Col., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li>Knott, Rev. A.E., <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li>Koweit, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + +<li>Kut-el-Amara, <a href="#Page_15">15 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Lancers (32nd). <i>See</i> <span class="sc">Cavalry</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></li> + +<li>Lang, Captain, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li>Lang, Sergeant, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> + +<li>Lawrence, Sergeant, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li>Lee, Rev. R.E., <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li>Leslie, Lieut.-Col., <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + +<li>Light Armoured Motor Batteries, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li>Lone-Tree Village, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + +<li>Lowther, Captain, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li>Lyons, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_127">127</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Machine-gunners, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li>Mackenzie, Captain, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li>McInerney, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_57">57 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87 seq.</a></li> + +<li>McIntyre, Captain, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + +<li>McKay, Lieut., <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li>McLeod, Major, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + +<li>McLeod, Sec-Lieut., <a href="#Page_67">67 seq.</a></li> + +<li>McRae, Major, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li>Manchesters, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Marner, Lieut., <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Marshall's Column, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li>Marshall, Captain, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + +<li>Mason, Sec-Lieut., <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li>Mason, Captain Kenneth, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Maude, General, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li>Median Wall, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Median Wall, Second, <a href="#Page_75">75 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Milne, Sec.-Lieut., <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li>Mosul, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li>Mushaidiyeh, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Nagpur, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li>Nahrwan Canal, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + +<li>Nasiriyeh, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li>Newitt, Captain, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li>Norfolks, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Opis, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Otter, Sec-Lieut., <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li>Owen, Sec-Lieut., <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Peebles, Brig.-Gen., <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Punjabis, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Q'urna, <a href="#Page_15">15</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Ramadie, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li>Reid, Major, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> + +<li>Rifles (56th), <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Royal Field Artillery, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Royal Flying Corps, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> + +<li>Russians, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Samarra, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Saladin, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + +<li>Sanderson, Captain, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li>Sannaiyat, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li>Sarcka, <a href="#Page_126">126 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Scarth, Lieut., <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li>Schomberg, Lieut.-Col., <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li>Seaforths (1st), <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Service, Lieut., <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + +<li>Shaiba, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></li> + +<li>Shefket Pasha, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li>Sheikh Saad, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li>Shumran, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Sikhs (51st and 53rd), <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Sikhs (47th and 59th), <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li>Sindiyeh, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li>Singh, Subahdar Aryan, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li>Sinijah, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li>Sittake, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li>Sowter, Lieut., <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li>Stewart, Lieut., <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li>Stones, Captain, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li>Suffolk, Major the Earl of, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li>Sumaikchah, <a href="#Page_22">22 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li>Sutherland, Sergeant-Major, <a href="#Page_138">138</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Tekrit, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132 seq.</a></li> + +<li>Tennant, Major, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li>Thomson, Brig.-Gen., <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + +<li>Thornhill, Captain, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Thorpe, Lieut., <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li>Tivey, Sergeant, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + +<li>Townshend, Maj.-Gen., <a href="#Page_15">15 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li>Townshend's Regatta, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li>Twin Canals, <a href="#Page_112">112</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Umm-el-Hanna, <a href="#Page_16">16 seq.</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Wadi, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + +<li>Waller, Lieut., <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li>Warren, Sec-Lieut., <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Wauchope, Brig.-Gen., <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li>Weir, Captain, <a href="#Page_99">99 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li>Westlake, Sec-Lieut., <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li>Whatsize, Sergeant-Major, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li>Whitehead, Sergeant, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li>Willcocks, Sir William, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + +<li>Williamson, Corporal, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li>Wilson, Captain, <a href="#Page_32">32 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Xenophon, <a href="#Page_26">26 seq.</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> +</ul> + + +<p>Printed by the Southampton Times Company, Ltd., 70 Above Bar.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p> +<br /> +Page 60: argumeut replaced with argument<br /> +Page 97: If ound replaced with I found<br /> +Page 149: thorough replaced with through<br /> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEICESTERSHIRES BEYOND BAGHDAD***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 19379-h.txt or 19379-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/3/7/19379">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/3/7/19379</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution.</p> + + + +<pre> +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/19379-h/images/map001.png b/19379-h/images/map001.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..210b4f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/19379-h/images/map001.png diff --git a/19379-h/images/map001tn.png b/19379-h/images/map001tn.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..73a1f9f --- /dev/null +++ b/19379-h/images/map001tn.png diff --git a/19379-h/images/map002.png b/19379-h/images/map002.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3a397f --- /dev/null +++ b/19379-h/images/map002.png diff --git a/19379-h/images/map002tn.png b/19379-h/images/map002tn.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7a73dd --- /dev/null +++ b/19379-h/images/map002tn.png diff --git a/19379-h/images/map003.png b/19379-h/images/map003.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..11e047a --- /dev/null +++ b/19379-h/images/map003.png diff --git a/19379-h/images/map003tn.png b/19379-h/images/map003tn.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1b175e --- /dev/null +++ b/19379-h/images/map003tn.png |
