"Or caravans that from Bassorah's gateWith Westward steps depart;Or Mecca's pilgrims confident of Fate,And resolute in heart!"
That is the old Basra downstream: I must, if possible, visit the ruins of Babylon some sixty odd miles from here and forty directly west of Azizie. Also I would like to see Istamboul as they call it: and if Aylmer doesn't hurry up I possibly shall.
February 28th.—Alarming reports are to hand that the river is rising. It is already three feet higher than it was two days ago. The Shat-el-hai now has changed from a water-course to a broad deep river thatmahelascan navigate quite easily. It is worthy of mention how very close themahelaresembles one's nursery pictures of the Ark and possibly most correctly so, for with its great beams and high bow and stern it has remained unchanged for thousands of years. This land, we are told, is God-forsaken. Animals there are none, beside the goat, sheep, camels, donkeys, jackals, and river buffaloes. A few herds of the latter used to bask downstream near Kut. Now they too have deserted us.
It is reported that the Russian General Baratoff has takenKermanshah on the road to Baghdad. We are all anxiously hoping he may get through.
A large sweepstake on the date of the relief has been started for all European troops. Relief is defined as the time when our first boat passes the Fort. The contingency of our having ultimately to surrender is not included. For who could entertain that possibility except in the extremest banter?
A Reuter tells us of a big German shove at Verdun. What an awful slaughter yard that will be! The news has become most unsatisfactorily fragmentary. We hear that something or other is about to take place; then subsequently the wireless is blocked and we never know whether it happened or not.
There is much anxiety in the town about the floods that must soon come, and the river's level is the all-absorbing topic.
The fine spell of weather seems about to break.
February 29th.—It is raining in a most shocking fashion. Lord! How it does rain here—when it wants to! The sun goes, the sky shuts its eyes and rains with all its might, so that it is difficult to believe there ever was a time when it did not rain.
Cockie is sick. I took his duty on the river-front observation post and watched for hours the deluge of water falling down and flowing past in a yellow turgid current. The reports are that it is hourly rising. Every endeavour is being made to strengthen thebundsand build others. The mainbundacross our front still holds and the other side of it is already a great lake where our former position was. The Turks have had to leave this part of their line and go back a few hundred yards to the sand-hills. Through my telescope I can see tiny waves dashing up against thebundlike a drifting sea against a breakwater. I met Captain Stace, R.E., to whom I lent a clinometer while he worked at this invaluable construction. He is most reassuring in his quiet optimistic way.
The next most important event of to-day is that Dorking was persuaded to exchange seven cigars for my ten cigarettes. I came by them yesterday in a special issue "found" by the Supply and Transport people. By the way, there are more things in the Supply and Transport philosophy than heaven and earth ever dreamed of.
It is the gala-day of Leap Year, but I have no extra proposals to record—not even from Sarah Isquashabuk, the Arabianlady with bread-plate feet and small gate-post legs and a card-table back on which she carries small trees and walls of houses. She is a hard worker and always cheerful, but with a most murderous-looking eye, and I confess that one doesn't always see daylight through all her actions. This morning I saw her dragging a stalwart Arab along by the unshaven hair with much laughter—possibly her truant Adonis.
The Arab population have done themselves fairly well until recently, for they had hidden much foodstuff and stolen considerable supplies since. But the last few weeks they have been begging, and the children search corners and rubbish heaps.
If the siege goes to extremities it will be ten thousand pities that the Arab population was not removed out at the outset. For the laws of humanity would restrain our pushing them out now—the Turks or surrounding hostile Arabs would murder the lot. But we should have had the food they are getting now for rations, and that might have saved the lives of thousands of British downstream. All we did was to invite them to stay at their peril. They accepted.
March 1st.—A most eventful day. Cockie is still down with dysentery, and I have relieved him all day at the observation post. Everything was very quiet on my way to tea. I walked through the palm grove intending to examine the mountings of the anti-air gun when I heard the muffled boom of guns to the north. Then others sounded—that ruffling sound of a blanket being shaken. I hastened back to the observation post, shells falling in the trees and alongside the trench. I got on top and ran until I got back. The fire increased into the biggest artillery bombardment the enemy has yet made, lasting for two and a half hours. About ten batteries opened out on us, searching the palm grove for our 4-inch, and then four batteries concentrated on the 4·7 guns in the horse boats and barges moored in the river 150 yards from them, and also on the 5-inch heavies immediately below them but thirty yards to a flank. Thankful I was indeed for that thirty yards respite. At least fifty shells pitched at exact range for my few sandbags that any direct hit would knock flying—exact range but always within those thirty yards to a flank, and of course on the other side into the river dozens of them. But not all, for sometimes they "swept"and the heavy Windy Lizzies tore up the green ground all around, and the building, on the roof of which were my bags, shook so much that the bags moved. Then one lucky shell struck themahelanear by, another got the building I was on, smashing down the end room, and yet another pierced the side partition ten yards off, and for a few seconds I didn't know whether I had been blown into the river or not, for the shock was severe and all was yellow darkness. Large pieces of wood andmuttiwere hurled all around my sandbags, one piece fetching me a clout on the helmet and denting in my megaphone. I remember a faint cheer from the Supply and Transport shelters when the smoke cleared away and the observation post was seen still to exist. All this time I had been engaging one target with our 18-pounders, and keeping the rifle fire of Snipers' Nest down with another.
It all seemed to come about so very quickly. One moment I was walking out of the trench in the date grove threading my way over the slippery ground when the first three muffled booms told me B target had opened fire. The next, without wondering what the grimy Turkish gunners at B were shooting at, or what the result of the shells still in the air would be, I was tearing back to the river front. One counted the usual twelve seconds from the distant boom of these targets and then heard the invisible singers in the mid-air, and then krump-kr-rump-sh-sh-sh-sh as the shells struck with a deep bass explosion followed by the swishing sound of falling earth that had been hurled up aloft. I recollect now seeing a mule bolt as it heard the increasing hits, and although I felt quite as uncomfortable as the mule I was tickled with the notion of a mule developing the fire instinct, for it bolted intelligently to a flank. That mule deserves to live.
From the observation post there was no need of a telescope to tell me that B was in action. The three puffs stood out very clearly and three more to the right. I reported a new target, gave the bearing, and watched our 5-inch and 4·7's reply. This brought A and B targets to engage our 4·7 and 5-inch below me. The 40-pounders tore up the water, going very close to but always missing the barges, and the shock from a Windy Lizzie hitting the water was always much greater to my sandbags on the roof, than when hitting the earth beneath us. In the former case my six-foot stack vibratedseveral inches. I saw one shell actually enter the 5-inch emplacement. It exploded on touching the other side, missing a gun-layer by inches. The shock knocked him down—that was all. Ten minutes later another shell got there again, within two feet of the former one. This time the men were taking cover. It was now that the battery opened on the town with 16-pounders, and on my engaging them the Turkish heavies lengthened and shelled my observation station, also the other observation station for our heavies 100 yards away. As I have noted, they got me in a beautiful 100-yards bracket, the one crashing into the poor devils in the hospital amid awful yells, and the two nearest getting the end of this building and smothering me with débris. Some pitched into the hospital forty yards away, their trajectory just above us. It is extraordinary the tricks one gets up to on occasions. The sergeant-major, an excellent soldier and very cool fellow, stuck his hands on his head more than once, and I found myself leaning hard up against the sandbags the hissing Lizzies were directly making for, just as if my doing so would help the bags to stick there. They came with a slow hiss that finished in a vicious whip past for the last bit. The sandbags stopped scores of bullets this afternoon, and that is all they are meant to do. I had very good luck with the target we had previously registered on. It is a target of three guns over the Shat-el-hai. I shut them up with half a dozen rounds, and then took on another new target that opened further south. Then still another target on the Woolpress sector shelled Kut and the 82nd engaged them. We had barely shut up this target M, and also S, when several other Turkish batteries that had been silent for months opened up on the town. This proved too much for the youthful spirit of Funny Teddy, that ardent and sprightly young mountain gun, which just as a puppy watching a fight between his seniors tries to have a look in too and barks and bucks about in the most promising style, opened up on H.M.S.Sumana. From my observation post I could see targets all round the compass being engaged by our guns. The Turk was out-gunned and out-shot absolutely, but his target was Kut and ours merely his guns.
A hot rifle fire sprang up from the Snipers' Nest, Shat-el-hai, and from across the river by the tomb. This we kept down in a fashion in our sector, and the 12-poundersof theSumanaalso gave them hot music, as the men call it.
The town then came in for it badly, the hospital especially catching it. We may thank heaven the Turks haven't anything much in the way of high-explosive shell. They use old stuff, common and segment, and the thick crust of baked mud wall is usually sufficient percussion to bring about the burst. The danger then is from the fragments. The building usually escapes. I have seen segments of a Windy Lizzie as big as a half loaf embedded in a wall opposite to the aperture it made on entering. High-explosive shell would demolish the building altogether.
At the height of the show the sharp notes of the alarm gong rang over Kut, and Fritz, with a second machine accompanying his Morane, was seen approaching rapidly from the north. Our machine-guns opened on them and also a brisk fusillade from the trenches as they came over. They bombed Kut and then returned to their camp for more bombs. This was repeated again and again, making a dozen trips in all. Every one took cover in basements. Scarcely a soul was to be seen. We had to stick where we were, as our guns were still in action, but one had plenty of time to look skyward and see the death-bird there, as I did three or four times this afternoon, directly in a plumb-line over our heads, and to hear the whirring propeller of the bomb increasing in loudness and pace as it fell. One trusted in Providence or luck. He got the bank of the river and the hospital several times, but his nearest to us was at least forty yards off. The bombs cannot be placed with great accuracy, so they drop three or four close together to make a zone. Some of the bombs were 100-pounders, which would blot a fellow out as effectually as an hydraulic stamp.
Funniest of all, the heavy mortar, Frolicsome Fanny, tiring of acting wallflower on the other bank, chucked her big bombs at us. But she is a left-handed and cross-eyed filly, and the gods have set a limit to her range for evil. Some went in the river near the horse boats. These were received calmly by the Tigris. Another got into the sand-heap near our butchery and fell into it without exploding. Some scientifically minded Arabs charged up to secure it and were within thirty yards when the thing went off to their huge astonishment.We had a good laugh at the way they sprinted back jabbering with rage and fear. The mules have got to know her, and, keeping one eye on the bomb as it comes over the river, continue grazing until it is nearly across and then bolt the opposite way.
One of Fritz's bombs, a 100-pounder, we saw toppling over and over in the air quite plainly. It didn't go off. But another such sent a table at least two hundred feet into the air. This is true. I won't spoil it by saying that the cloth was laid and set. It was merely a table and its four legs stuck up towards the evening moon.
The bombing raid continued until it was too dark for Fritz to see. Then I went home, and on my way saw interested little crowds that had emerged to examine various shell-holes. Arabs ran up and down the streets howling for their dead. Over a thousand shells have been flung into the town and there were a good few hit among the hospital patients, and the Arabs lost many. About a score only were killed, but many more were injured. Considering the intensity of the bombardment this is an excellent tribute to the shelters of Kut.
10 p.m.—Every one is extra vigilant to-night although we think it hardly likely the Turks will try to storm us. That they cannot easily do now, and the floods increase their difficulty daily.
March 2nd.—The whole night long wild howlings and dismal wailing of the Arabs for their dead and wounded continued and kept me awake. Now and then some other Arab extra full of despair would let out a yell like a steam-whistle that rose high above the universal hubbub. The Jews here cry in a different key altogether, a wobbly vibrato long sustained, much less sweet but not wholly unlike thetangiof the Maoris in New Zealand. A Jewish funeral is a sad little affair. Dressed in long black robes and carrying lights in little tins they escort the dead to a grave way out on themaidan. They walk with bowed heads in twos, a tiny column and a sort of acolyte person following the body. They perform their ceremonies by night so as to avoid drawing fire upon themselves.
It is a peaceful day, the peace that follows a violent storm. Rumour has it that various Turkish guns which had been withdrawn for service downstream have been brought backhere, and the bombardment was intended to acquaint us with the fact. Or else they are thinking of sending the guns down and wanted to disillusion us on the point. This is most likely. It certainly hasn't done much harm, and surely Khalil Pacha does not suppose he can give us "nerves" by this sort of thing.
A beautiful aeroplane of ours flew over, her wings resplendent with the morning sun.
It has been very cold and windy all day, but so very peaceful—not the peacefulness of calm but of a windy, lonely day.
During the show yesterday I was practically doing C.R.A River-front, a high-sounding title especially pleasing to Cockie, but as a matter of fact it is merely an observation job, as all he does is to command his own three guns. He is still seedy and inconsolable at his inaction.
March 2nd.—An uneventful day. We fired a few sniping rounds. I hear the 76th Battery got its share of shelling the other day, and a bombardier was killed.
I persuaded Cockie to talk about ancient Egyptian kings. He annotates himself in a most delightful way in talking history, and has an extraordinary imagination for detail. This imagination it must be admitted does not get much of a chance in Egypt, which has been fairly well explored. I would suggest turning him loose among visions of the lost Atlantis. I believe he would even produce the history of the other Adam's first love affair in that continent. Some such sentence as this—"Yes! In that extraordinary land which history has almost forgotten and which geology never knew, Phargon the bog-king, the præcursor of Romeo, proceeded to divest himself of shoes and jacket, and taking in another hole of his belt, plunged, according to Whinny, feet foremost after Phargette."
March 3rd.—The cold wind, or the wet, or something, has made my back so rheumaticky that I can hardly turn round or get down to tie my bootlaces. I am very lucky to have kept as fit as I have. Dozens of men from the trenches are in hospital with muscular rheumatism from the floods—the source of many evils.
I have finished "Monte Cristo." What an artist he was! And I have started "David Copperfield" again.
I omitted to record that a shell tore down the house atthe front of this, and one wrecked the base of the column office. Several horses were wounded during the bombardment.
We had a parade of Mussulman drivers, and I read a communiqué asking them to eat horseflesh, as their Mullah in India requested, this being required by the exigencies of the service. Not they! I believe, nevertheless, there is only one thing rooted deeper than a man's religion, and that is his appetite. This proves it, for hunger is driving them to eat it. What an awful joke on the part of Charon if, when these fellows reach the banks of the river Styx, he informs them the only available ferry is astride of swine.
We have finished the inspections. The horse rations have fallen away to very little. We give them pieces of palm tree to gnaw at.
March 4th.—The rheumatism is much worse. It is bleak and cold in the observation post. On such an occasion the vigil is a wretchedly dull one. I'm too cold to dream. One can only psychologize viciously on the difference in point of view between a full man and an empty one. Eating maketh a satisfied man, drinking a merry man, smoking a contented man. But eating, drinking, and smoking maketh a happy man—that is, the heart of him glad.
It is not far from the truth to say I have to-day done none of these. For byeatingone cannot mean half a slice of chaff bread, nor bydrinkinga water-coloured liquid like our siege tea, nor yet bysmokinga collection of strange dried twigs and dust. Man, it has been excellently observed, cannot live by bread alone. How much less, then, can he live upon half chaff and half flour?
Far away on the edge of the western horizon I watched for hours, through my telescope, a convoy of camels, each with a tiny white dot of humanity aboard, striding away with delightful patience to the Turkish camp downstream. They were conveying stores from Shamrun, the enemy depot on the river above us.
General Smith, of former mention in these notes, has been dangerously ill in hospital, but the crisis has been passed. He contracted pneumonia on the retirement. I have been to see him. He is very full of pluck, and gave me aTimes.
Tudway, R.N., dropped in for a pipe. We talked of the sea, and he spoke of the soft life on the Chinese station.
The adjutant of the Dorsets was killed while strolling in a communication trench yesterday—a chance bullet getting his heart. The D.A.A.G. is being operated on to-day with an abscess in the thigh. The facilities for operating on such cases are very modest. But nothing less than raising the siege could alleviate these matters. And in this little maelstrom of destiny here at Kut, we and our weaknesses are whirled around together. Some of us disappear in the vortex, and others continue circling around the swift walls, and may or may not be fortunate enough to so continue. But from this seething cauldron none can escape by his own effort, for we are all up against a thing greater than ourselves.
March 5th, 6th.—Shortly after daybreak, as usual, I got up, feeling awfully full of aches and unsteady. Cockie, however, being still seedy, it was necessary for me to be on duty on the observation post, so I flannelled myself up and went. I stuck it until 9 a.m., when I returned for breakfast. Our Parsee regimental doctor, from whom I required a dose of rheumatism physic, sent for a major of the Fourth Field Ambulance, who pronounced me bad enough with muscular rheumatism to have to go into hospital. I was awfully disgusted at this after holding out so long, and begged to be allowed to stay in my billet. But it was of no use. He said strict orders made it imperative, also that in hospital eggs were forthcoming. Four native bearers and a stretcher turned up shortly afterwards, much to my disgust. Anyway I walked, after fixing up for the sergeant-major to carry on.
I entered a ward too terrible for words, next bed to a most sad and awful apparition of a poor fellow who had been very ill. It was a long skin-covered skeleton with skinless ears, eyes protruding so far that one wondered how they stuck up at all, teeth on edge, legs thinner than a pick handle, and two arms like gloved broom-sticks catching frantically at various parts of his apparel where creatures of the amœbic world fled before those awful eyes. Add to this a half-insane chattering, punctuated with a periodical sharp crack as louse after louse was exploded between the creature's two thumbs, and you have the picture entitled, "A Hospital Shikar." Altogether it was a sight utterly terrible.
I thought of flight, and other things, but the hospital was small, and there was no other available room. So I wishedthem all good morning, and sat on the side of my bed farthest away, and having undressed got into bed as the assistant-surgeon, otherwise apothecary, directed. I had not been there for more than three minutes when the Enigma's Hindoo bearer entered. He became quickly engaged with his master in strenuous argument relating to curry, what time the Enigma ricochetted on and off the bed, and his mouth became the exhaust valve for his pent-up opinions of the world in general and his bearer in particular. I discovered later that malaria and dysentery had between them rendered him temporarily insane. He had been in the hospital for the whole of the siege, but was now slowly recovering. While he wasin extremis, however, I should say from all accounts that he must have been by far the most interesting person in Kut. For many days it seems his main hobby was in trying to make his bearer precede him through a door which did not exist at the foot of his bed. Another diversion was in seating himself on the window-sill stark naked about 1 a.m. in the night and mimicking, often with ghastly relish, the sounds and noises of various members of the Turkish artillery from Windy Lizzie to Naughty Nellie, the buzzing howitzer. I believe he was quite good at the bullets, and very promising on Frolicsome Fanny, which was easy, and only required an awful noise without warning—for as I have noted Fanny's jokes sometimes held fire for minutes. But in reproducing vocally the aeroplane's 100-pound bombs he is reported as having outdone even the bomb itself. In fact his own nerves could not stand this performance, and he generally wound up the item by taking cover under his bed.
Other nights he has been known to get behind his overturned bed and preach in a most entertaining way. Why he took to preaching was, he explained, due to the fact that he had been to church only once in his life, and that was his wedding-day. His sermons may be described as unorthodox, and varied from blatant sarcasm in such texts as, "When ye hear of war and rumours of wars be yenottroubled" ("Not" being considerably emphasized) to sheer optimism, one being, "Eat, sleep, and be merry, for to-morrow ye starve." But he did not always stick to his text, and in the last-mentioned sermon made a humorous digression on Kut, the way in and the way out, this being, as he informed his midnight audience, the prelude to a book he had recently written called "The Lastof the Sixth Division," by a Field Officer. One day he insisted on believing he was on board a P. boat going downstream in charge of Turkish officers, and having attempted unsuccessfully to rejoin his boat in scanty apparel, finally consoled himself with fishing out of the window. However, he is now supposed to be more or less permanently located in the sane region, but this from the other would seem to be separated by a mere dividing line, and he occasionally strays back.
But these interesting events are past, and the poor fellow is a dull subaltern once more. Other occupants of the ward were the Welsh Bulbul and an awfully decent subaltern in the Territorial Battery named Tozer, whom they called the Eye-Opener, because he never slept.
An awful place is this hospital. Our ward is on the first floor on one side of the yard, and the barred windows are sandbagged up part of the way.
I read and slept, and then stole downstairs to interview "G. B.," who was in a most kind and amiable mood.
The only advantage to be derived from being in hospital here is that one has facilities for dying under medical supervision. Not that the authorities don't do all they can, for the officer commanding the officers' hospital is as kind and thoughtful as he is able, and altogether the best of good fellows. But his difficulties are enormous. There is the scantiest of sick diet left, medicines are more or less exhausted, only the simplest drugs remaining. Besides, the pressure of work on all the medical people here necessitates the use of untrained orderlies. One of these, a podgy and giggling recruit, enters twice daily with a handful of pills in his fist, and distributes them as per order, but it is well to know one's ailment and the remedy, for sometimes the ardent youth is forgetful. The C.O. comes round once a day, which is the event of the twenty-four hours. He is all patience, encouragement, and industry. The orderly rubs the backs of the rheumatic patients, and this is a delightful relief.
As for food it matters not. Dysentery and rheumatic cases can be safely starved, I believe, and if this is the chief way of getting well there is every facility here for rapid recovery. Two small portions of Mellin's food and one egg with a small piece of white bread are the daily ration. A few extra things came for me, but I could not eat them.
From 6 to 8 p.m., as we have no candles we have a spelling game, each one in turn adding a letter that continues to spell a word. The object is to avoid saying the last letter of the word, and consequently the words changed or lengthened in an extraordinary fashion. One-syllable words were barred, and we had challenging for bluffs. Each fall meant a life, and three lives was the total. Thus o-s-t-r-a-c-i-z-i-n-g. The defeat was staved off "ostrich" and "ostracize" on to some one else. It proved highly entertaining, and abuse flowed freely, especially as the abuser was more than once let down deliberately by all hands. Doubtful words we voted on. I got into trouble with "phrenolophaster," which we carried by three to two, I pointing out other words, poetaster, philosophaster, etc. One wouldn't dare to tell Dr. Johnson so, but it "did."
There joined us in these evening orgies a subaltern of the Oxfords named Mellor, otherwise Square-Peg, who was convalescent from a bomb wound in the arm. On the morrow I got out of bed and walked with him to the vegetable gardens, which were planted at the beginning of the siege, like they were in Troy. I hate bed when I'm not fit, and the walk was refreshing. I am trying to get permission to go back to my billet and do duty on diet.
6 p.m.—There is an order for the Arabs to remain confined to their houses as another sortie is imminent.
I have just been talking to Woods, a cheery fellow who got the Military Cross for saving men from a dug-out at the Fort during the heavy bombing of December 24th. He is gleefully nursing the stump of an arm, and tells me how he proposes to still enjoy himself in life with the other. "The Enigma" has just begun anothershikar, the severalth this day.
March 7th.—Late last night there was talk of a brigade going over the river to stop the enemy's forces attempting to retreat that way. We had no bridge, but Major Sandes had prepared a trestled bridge for the Shat-el-hai, and if wanted the brigade was to be ferried over inmahelas. We were all wound up and restless in hospital, and did not wish to miss a show. All night long there was the clang and clump, clump, of marshalled forces, and the champing of bits and the tramp of men under full arms. A few rounds were fired during thenight, and at the dawn a signal awakened us, but nothing else happened. Anyway orders for the debouch were about to be issued the second time, and with this as an excuse I persuaded the C.O. to let me out to resume duty, and I was to remain on diet issued from the hospital. I left the Enigma my midday's rations. It was a relief to escape from the dreadful ward. This I did at 11 a.m.
But before I left I visited General Smith's room on the other floor. From him I learned that Verdun is raging with unabated fury, and Epinal and Belfort still hold out. The Russian General Baratoff is almost on to Khanakin through the mountains. If this were only true the Turks hereabout would have to retire on Baghdad.
The general was what girls call "very nice" this morning. He reads three books at once, so that when he is tired of one he changes to the other. We talked more fishing, and what we would do when we returned to India. This I find the most interesting topic for invalids.
9 p.m.—It is rumoured from headquarters that an attempt is being made by General Aylmer to get through to-day or to-morrow with a dawn attack. The weather is favourable to a long march. We are all ready with ourmahelasand launch andSumanato convey a brigade across, if necessary to cut the Turkish retreat or assist General Aylmer. It is, however, a serious impediment that we have none of the bridging trains which were so famous in the history of the Sixth Division and so efficiently handled by Major Sandes. The last was blown up on December 5th.
Later.—We partly expect some orders this evening. I find I am almost too stiff with this rheumatism to mount my horse. I have been practising on the table, but once in the saddle I shall be perfectly right.
I am overjoyed to have got back to my billet from that hospital ordeal. Have played chess with Mellor.
There is sound of distant firing—a dull smothered roar of an engagement down at el Hannah.
Everybody is talking about Baratoff, and hence this verse:
"The mountains looked on BaratoffAnd Baratoff looked on me;And in my evening dream I dreamedThat Kut might still be free."
March 8th.—In the night a terrific explosion from the direction of the Shatt awoke Kut. Someone says it was caused by a floating mine going aground. It had been intended for the bridge some distance up the Shat-el-hai. Not long after dawn we awoke to the sound of intense gun-fire so close to us, that for a time it seemed like our own guns in Kut. At first we surmised this to be Turkish artillery turned on positions won by the Relief Column, but, on climbing on to the roof, we saw the flashes came from what the experts knew as Dujaila Redoubt. Our own guns were preparing on the Turkish position! This in itself seemed difficult to believe, although, no doubt, some good reason existed for it. As the light got better, before eight o'clock, we saw quite clearly hordes of Turks rushing up towards the Shat-el-hai support trenches, and some troops were being ferried over near Megasis from the other bank. General Aylmer's night march had evidently been a complete success, and the Turks were taken by surprise. Why, then, were we waiting to prepare? The fire grew heavier, the bursts thicker, and all the while the Turks were rushing up troops. Then the fire ceased. We held our breath and waited for news, knowing that the bayonet was busy, and the men at handgrips. No news has come. We have waited hour by hour.
Is anything amiss? Why haven't they got through? Was our artillery preparation intended to be so deadly as to pulverize the Turks' whole series of trenches? Could so many heavy guns be got up? If not, why did we wait? We only know that up to 9 a.m. the Turks' trenches were rows of moving heads, and many went over the open. The fact seems to be that our arrival at the redoubt was absolutely a surprise, and yet, through not pushing on, the benefit of surprise has been lost.
Aylmers Dujailah Attempt8thMarch 1916
March 9th, 3 p.m.—The relieving force did not get through. We have heard this unofficially. We all have the feeling it is "the big effort," and not a side show. We are disappointed, but having had little else than disappointments we are accustomed to them.
March 10th.—There is another famouscommuniquéfrom General Townshend, our G.O.C. It is interesting to see how "Alphonse" improves every occasion. Here it is:
Communiqué to troops.
"As on a former occasion I take the troops of all ranks into my confidence again, and repeat the two following telegrams from General Aylmer from which they will see that the relieving force has again failed to relieve us.
"First telegram: March 8th.—'To-day's operations terminated in a gallant but unsuccessful attempt to storm Dujaila Redoubt. Our troops pushed home the attack and carried out the operations with great gallantry, but the enemy was able to mass great reinforcements which arrived from the left bank at Megasis and Shamran, and we were unable to break through. Unless the enemy retires from his present position on the right bank, which does not seem probable, we shall be unable to maintain ourselves in the present position owing to lack of water, and unless the enemy evacuates the Essin position to-night, we shall be obliged to withdraw to our previous position at Wadi.'
"Second telegram: March 8th.—'We have been unable to break through to relieve you to-day and may have to withdraw to Wadi to-morrow, but hope to make another attack before long and relieve you at an early date. Please wire movements of enemy, who in any case suffered most severely, as their repeated counter-attacks have been repulsed with heavy loss.'
(End of Telegrams.)
"I know you will all be deeply disappointed to hear this news. We have now stood a three months' siege in a mannerwhich has called upon you the praise of our beloved King and our fellow countrymen in England, Scotland, Ireland, and India, and all this after your brilliant battles of Kut-el-Amara and Ctesiphon and your retirement to Kut, all of which feats of arms are now famous. Since December 5th you have spent three months of cruel uncertainty, and to all men and all people uncertainty is intolerable; as I say, on the top of it all this comes—the second failure to relieve us. And I ask you also to give a little sympathy to me who have commanded you in these battles referred to and who, having come to you a stranger now love my command with a depth of feeling I have never known in my life before. When I mention myself I would couple the names of the generals under me whose names are distinguished in the army as leaders of men.
"I am speaking to you as I did before, straight from the heart, and as I may ask your sympathy for my feelings having promised you relief on certain dates on the promise of those ordered to relieve us. Not their fault, no doubt—do not think I blame them; they are giving their lives freely and deserve our gratitude and admiration. But I want you to help me again as before. I have asked General Aylmer to bring such numbers as will break down all resistance and leave no doubt of the issue. Large reinforcements are reaching him, including an English division of 17,000 men, the leading brigade of which must have reached Wadi by now—that is to say, General Aylmer's headquarters. In order, then, to hold out, I am killing a large number of horses so as to reduce the quantities of grain eaten every day, and I have had to further reduce your ration. It is necessary to do this in order to keep our flag flying. I am determined to hold out, and I know you are with me in this heart and soul.
"(Signed)Charles Townshend,"Major-General,"Commanding the Garrison in Kut.
"Kut-el-Amara,"10th March, 1916."
The rank and file of the garrison, from what one overhears, are all for sympathy with their G.O.C. They are quite sure that "Alphonse would have got through" and have altered the name of the relieving general to Faylmer. Whywasn't the action delayed until the new division could have taken part? As a matter of fact, one should suspend judgment until all the facts are in, and in the last analysis the blame must rest on Governments rather than on generals. When first besieged we expected to be relieved within a month, and so far as the Government knew we could hold out for about two months. Fortunately we secured various supplies of corn from Woolpress, and from dismantled engines we erected milling facilities which enabled us to turn corn and barley into bread.
But reinforcements have been sent into the country at a slow trickle and the enemy has found no difficulty at all in out-reinforcing us. When one considers the state of Turkey this is most incredible. One would think that the lesson of Ctesiphon was sufficient to chasten the authorities out of the belief that the Mesopotamian campaign could be dallied with. By sheer brilliancy of arms a whole country had been conquered by a single unsupported division. This achievement was not enough, however, and the cheap methods in vogue further required this one division to risk the whole fruits of a campaign in a single doubtful throw, and this against the advice of its generals. Through the same cheap methods of having insufficient forces to follow up a brilliant victory, our army was badly let down and several thousand lives flung away. Then only the same brilliant generalship of General Townshend disengaged the division from a force several times its size, and completed a masterly retirement for ninety miles, with the whole Turkish forces on top of it. Extraordinary success of the rearguard action at Um-al-Tabul enabled the division to reach Kut, where it is intended to hold up the Turkish advance and keep back the enemy tide from reswamping Mesopotamia. The post was surrounded and bombarded at once, but the public evidently does not know this owing to very necessary censorship. The garrison, then, can hold out for a certain time. It can forestall disaster for that time only.
One might imagine that the Indian Government would by this have become awake to this aspect of the crisis, have taken prompt action and sent out three or four divisions at once. Even admitting the difficulties of river transport, six weeks from the date of Ctesiphon,i.e.January 9th, would have allowed ample time for arrival at Basra. But the firstreinforcements did not arrive in the country until considerably later, and then only depleted divisions. British divisions, which are really required, were only sent for recently and have hardly started. And now difficulties of transport will delay their transit up river. One cannot help recording these facts in black and white. Every day lost now is piling up tremendous difficulty for the future and swelling the list of lives downstream that, please God, will one day retrieve a disaster that might easily have been avoided. The world knows nothing of the siege of Kut, and the authorities are not being goaded by public opinion. In other words, the Indian Government has played with a serious situation. The price will be disaster. I am not setting this down as my own opinion merely. It is the point of view of every one in Kut. As a soldier one must refuse to believe that the position has been mishandled or that Kut will fall. But if I were a politician, which I am not, then would I add a lot of things here which I will not.
As I write it rains, and with every drop of rain the time within which the garrison, and, more important still, the strategic position at Kut, can be relieved, shortens. Soon come the annual floods, and when the whole country is under water reinforcements will be of no avail. And the time is short. It is the eleventh hour, and unless considerable forces are already on the way it is even now too late. But that is an affair between the authorities and the floods. Our problem is one of food.
The position here is much as it was in the Dardanelles. Excepting for floods and natural conditions we can outgun and outfight the Turk every time here. Moreover, we are tremendously relieving Aylmer of pressure, as the Turkish river communications must stop at Shamrun above us, and then his transport has to go overland. This is the marvellous thing about our enemy. He is daily carrying on a colossal bandobast of transport away from the water.
5 p.m.—Reuter reports the Verdun battle is going satisfactorily. One imagines that the German Kultur Geist must be bilious by this time, according to the numbers they are offering at his shrine. I am wondering how Nietzsche's Zarathusa would speak now if he saw the Verdun shambles. And what his blonde-haired, pink-limbed Über Mensch wouldsay about it too. Somehow I can see old Rudolf Eucken at Jena with outspread hands invoking "Schicksal" (destiny) as once he used to "Die Unendigkeit, Die Ewigkeit." Deep down in the German nature is a connative impulse towards the dramatic, and this is fed by a presentiment coloured with all the hues of harmony sweetest to them. It is not unknown for students at Jena and Heidelberg to extract such exquisite juice out of the word "Unendigkeit" (Immortality) or "Ewigkeit" (Eternity) as to become intoxicated therewith and commit suicide shortly after in the pine forest, or near a ruined "Schloss" (castle) what time the sun sets.
He loves the experience of the actor, likes to feel his gamut of emotions considerably twanged. This dramatic tendency showed itself on the occasion of that delicious utterance of the Kaiser on the eve of the Great War: "Now let my ministers put their hands through mine in token of fidelity, and let the nation follow me through Need and Death." Now, the Roman did this sort of thing rather well, but the German makes an ass of himself. One feels the Kaiser said it to see how it felt to say it.
The Germans tell us they are doing well, but I believe there is a sight becoming more familiar to their eyes, a phenomenon it is their daily delight and wish to behold, and that is the altar of this "Schicksal"—Fate. The Germans think in battalions. They have yet once again to go mad as a nation, as they did on the outbreak of war—absolutely "verrückt,"—and to bolt with competitive haste towards the national funeral pyre. They are not fanatics. They are temperamentalists—and from the spleen of a German musician it is said that in a successful operation you can cut a piece of temperament nine inches long and twenty-five ounces in weight. Apropos of this general digression one may consider their "New Year's Picture" of "Tod" (Death), of which a copy reached us in the autumn of 1914 in France, and cheered us up considerably. "Tod" (please pronounce "toad"), an awfully unpleasant looking "Death," a snobbish skeleton with a bad seat, rode a heavy horse through a smitten land, a tremendous scythe over his shoulder and his metacarpal bones holding his reins incorrectly. The scythe flung a gigantic shadow, and as for Tod, his shadow reached almost to the horizon over black, burned villages, sacked cities, and many corpses. The horse had reached adouble signpost which showed the way to St. Petersburg and the way to Paris. But, more interesting still, the skeleton had the lantern jaws of a Prussian. Fancy turning such a fellow loose! Truly the "God of Want and Rapine and Death!" and a most excellent subject for the Germans' accepted New Year's Picture.
I remember my limber gunners having the same picture, months afterwards, at Aldershot. And Chopin composing the "Marche Funèbre" with a skeleton between his legs while he played wasn't in it with them. They had stuck the picture on the muzzle of the gun while they cleaned it. I hope every one of them goes untouched through the whole war.
Poor Germany! I have had some happy days there, but when I compare the Kaiser's words to his nation on the eve of war with those of our own dear King, how I thank God I am an Englishman. And who would not mind being a Pharisee at the price of being an Englishman? I ask you.
It may be suggested that when Germany falls, the same cement that holds that extraordinary nation together will assist it in falling together. In the meantime it will be an interesting spectacle for history to observe—the German nation sprinting on hot foot towards the registered funeral pyre, with all the dramatics of the bolting horse that gathers speed and insanity from its own flight.
Talking of horses, I hear that to-day is the slaughtering day for numbers of them. This is good-bye to any possibility of debouch, for there will be insufficient horses to move the guns. It will eke out our corn and barley that can be made into bread; but what is wanted is sugar or jam for the body, and tea for the spirit.
"You are," says Townshend, "making a page of history."
"I would rather," thinks Tommy, "make some stew."
March 11th.—We have all been made acquainted with Sir Percy Lake's condolences on our misfortune, but also promising us relief; but the floods are gradually increasing, and we fear it will be a case of Lakev.Lake, and there will be no appeal.
Sir Percy Lake is the Army Commander in place of Sir John Nixon, and General Aylmer is Army Corps Commander. Before going to bed last night we told fortunes by cards. The results in short were these: Firstly, a climax is to be reachedshortly. (I quite agree.) Secondly, March 27th, my birthday, will seal my matrimonial affairs, the marriage to take place before the following March 27th. (Doubtful, unless I marry an Arab or Turk, or get freed for the event.) Thirdly, the star of the Fortune-God is in the ascendant, and his horoscope is wreathed with smiles. Which we two subalterns, and Cockie (a junior married captain), devoutly pray may come true.
Personally, I hold with that excellent fellow Horace that "the gods only laugh if they behold mortals showing an unseemly interest in their destiny." It is essentially a plebeian instinct, a relic from barbaric days when the world was brimful of curiosities for the twilight intelligence of recently-born man. But many decades taught him that unbridled curiosity ended in burnt fingers. Then he avoided with a fearful dread all that he did not know, and not the least of his tortures was occasioned by the Inexplicable straying upon him across the border from the Great Unknown. Later on he gets more nerve and he pioneers—still later he becomes scientific and investigates. And when the facts are more or less all in, his curiosity instead of his investigativity once again gets the better of him, and he fortune-tells and goes table-rapping, and tries to lassoo his astral body and to open up direct communication with those "not lost but gone before." It is, one might say with some truth, a mark of spiritual breeding to know how to acquiesce. Somehow one cannot picture the greatest of the gods tremendously excited. Equanimity is at least more dignified and always useful.
Nor should prophecy be confused with fortune-telling, for it is to the latter what investigation is to inquisitiveness. And inquisitiveness was always bad form. The personal factor looms too large.
Ah! how infinitely colossal and strangely beautiful is that great thing the Future, that ever bears down upon us from across the seas of Time. That dark tidal wave bearing great histories in its bosom and pregnant with joys and sorrows for us all. The gymnastics of living philosophers teach us that Time does not exist—but to me here in Kut it is almost the only real thing. O Futura Divina Ignota! thou mighty engulfing wave advancing from horizon to horizon upon us, with Change and Hope lightly treading thy combing crest—how pricelessly excellent a thing art thou, and what could wedo without thee? Whence art thou? From what distant regions of Eternity art thou sped, on what strange shores do thy billows break! We know not. It is beautiful not to know. And thus is Faith born. Thou art a beautiful stranger. We dread thee not. We trust thee—for thou art God.
Truly it is a great and wonderful world, and considerably reflected upon before patented. Some day a great man will write a book on "Some Attitudes to the Future"—wherefrom it will be gathered that the happiest is he who trusts but does not seek to know. "If," writes the prospective Plato, "it were permitted me of God to be the only mortal in the history of the human race to discover the lever that raises the curtain between us and the next world, and even if by so doing we might at once behold the flight of angels, the life of the spirit world, the procedure of heaven, yet would I certainly refuse to reveal the secret or to use it. Because to behold that Ultramontane would be to remove from life the two essential factors of discipline and hope. Moreover, if likewise I only were accorded the power of turning the searchlight on that land of mists we know as the Future so that all might see what is ahead of each, yet again would I not do so." And on second thoughts, who would? It would indeed be a dreadful ordeal to have to live. And if you don't believe this, then go and ask a certain gunner subaltern in Kut.
9 p.m.—My hospital acquaintance, Square-Peg of the Oxfords, came along this afternoon for a game of chess, and asked if he might join our mess, as he is convalescent. Square-Peg and we talked 'Varsity gossip by the pipe-dozen. He is at present doing light duty on patrol of the gardens, technically known as "C.O. Cabbages."
I managed to best Edmonds later. He conceded me a knight, but then he is a very good player.
I made another acquaintance at the hospital, one Father Tim, the Catholic padre, who called to see me to-day.
A few rounds fell into the town. We did not reply.
We are informed that the English division of which we have heard so much is coming up-river now.
Rations have been still further cut down. We get bread and meat, nothing else, and of the former merely four ounces per diem. The garrison is in a bad way. Men go staggeringabout, resting every now and then up against a wall. I hear that the number succumbing in the trenches is daily increasing. As for the native hospital, the sight is too appalling for words. Skin-covered skeletons crawl about or turn over to receive their scanty nourishment, but nothing else, not even shell fire, engages their attention. One sees a coma stealing over them, a coma not less relentless than the Arctic Sleep of Death in the snow. The poor devils cover up their faces with blankets or tattered turbans, and dream of Home. One told me the other day that he heard the steps of Kismet.
It is roughly estimated that this further reduction of rations will give us two to three weeks—not more.
There is every confidence in our army below. One thing, however, we dread: that is the floods, which may or may not leave sufficient time.
March 12th.—Rain fell last night and again early this morning. Then we heard the sound of distant artillery, which increased to the subdued throb of gun-fire far away. But this was drowned in the grander music of a thunderstorm. How splendid is the artillery of the gods! How majestic their salvos billowing across the heavens!
Last night we felt what we believed to be an earthquake, but which proved to be the sappers trying to dynamite fish in the river, which experiment was completely unproductive.
5 p.m.—It is still raining, which is bad for the river. I did my rounds and straightened up pay books, etc., in the office, and then played chess. I am a little better, and Amir Bux is an excellent masseur, a distinct improvement on Graoul, who used to treat my shoulders like a punch ball.
The soldiers have re-named this place Scuttle-Amara!
March 13th.—More rain has fallen! The Tigris is almost bank high, and still rising.
I have been around the horses. Every tail is bare, and thejhulsand head ropes disappear as fast as they are put on. They all remain perpetually on thequi viveto prevent their stall-mates from biting them. Some are scarcely horses, but rather half-inflated horse skins.
Father Tim, the worthy Irish padre, who divides his attention between wistful ultramontane meditations and an excellent appetite, played chess with me to-day. He rooked me beautifully once.
March 14th.—Heavy gun-fire has been heard downstream. The irrepressible humours of Tommy inform us that it is our own guns covering Aylmer's retirement to Basra.
5 p.m.—The rain has stopped. I have been writing to King's College, Auckland, of many memories, and also to my acquaintance, "the delicious Conservative," at Corpus—Cambridge.
I find in the latter's epistle this sentence: "To-night I shall think of you in that delightful room with chairs so easy and cheroots so persuasive, soliloquizing on the eternal destiny of the American Conservative candidate."
He does not regard all Americans favourably, and I remember well how once when a Southern son of that enterprising nation averred that in the Northern States there were no aristocrats or conservatives, still the South was full of both, that he replied he had always understood it to be merely this way, that the Northern States had neither, and the Southern believed they had both. Which was very severe. But then he had a delightful, disarming smile. Oh, for a disarming smile! ! !
March 15th.—The Ides of March! Moreover they are come and gone, for I am making this entry, I find, on the 16th. The river rose eighteen inches, and for some hours lapped over the banks. Then it subsided a little. I had a walk through the palm grove and back via the Gurkha communication trench.
March 16th.—It is a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and the only blur on the silvery brightness is the muddied Tigris winding like a yellow ribbon over this flat desert land. I felt so weak during my walk yesterday that to-day I merely strolled about the "gardens."
It was a fine sunset. Away over the muddy plain the Western skies were dragon-red, and clouds stirred by the evening breeze sailed in and out of the luminous belt which reflected a soft pink on the face of the rising moon climbing over the Eastern horizon.
I stale-mated a game of chess. Also received a gift of three brace of starlings that are the veriest God-send for the seedy.
March 17th.—We had an extraordinary breakfast of kedjereed tinned salmon Square-Peg brought with him.
Cockie's temperature is increasing and ought to be diminished.
I played patience a little, which I can't stick for long. There are not many books circulating.
March 18th.—Another beautiful day! I stale-mated a game of chess with Square-Peg, and then had a walk round the trenches almost up to the Fort. There is an old disused trench skirting the river on the eastern side, where we sat in a hidden nook and let the cool breeze from the river play on our feverish dank foreheads.
Grass is beginning to grow in patches here and there on themaidan; and here and there a truant mule did himself well behind thebund. Presently the Turks or Arabs spotted us, and we reluctantly had to leave the blissful spot.
Rumour says that the Turks have some new 7·5-inch guns coming. If so, the damage done will be ten times what it has been. And if they only had high-explosive shell the smashing up of the fort wall and the town would be a very short affair.
A bombardier of the 76th Battery, an excellent lad, has just died of wounds from the aeroplane's bomb. I remember upholding him in a matter of duty once.
Every day some one goes, either from wounds or sickness. And so far as we know the end is not yet.
March 19th.—Rheumatics bad again. They remind me I lived in feet of water in my earthy dug-out during the floods, even my bed sopping wet. However, in the heat of the day the aching is less intense. More serious are the increasing cases of enteritis everywhere in Kut. I believe this is essentially a siege malady. The symptoms are violent pains in the intestines and a wish to vomit. It is, I hear, due to bad and insufficient nourishment. I know many who have already succumbed, but so far in my case these pains have been rather stomach than abdominal.
A bombardment started while I was in the gardens, and I hastened back to Cockie's observation post. It lasted the best part of an hour.
The floods have necessitated removing the 5-inch guns on the river-front, which are now in a dead line for our observation post, so any accurate one will be not far away. Anyway they can scarcely be closer than they have been. One shellwe felt certain was making dead for us, but it went by with a fearful swish and burst ten yards off, killing one man and wounding another after penetrating two feet of brick wall. The fumes and filthy gases well-nigh choke one.
Another shell got theSumanathrough the funnel and bridge, killing one of her crew. Tudway's cabin was completely wrecked. Tudway is a deserving, hard-working subaltern, the only R.N. representative in Kut. He always takes it as a personal insult if his gunboat is hit. She is the apple of his eye. H.M.S.Sumana, an improvised gunboat, is of the greatest importance, as she keeps us in touch with Woolpress, our tiny stronghold on the other bank, which prevents the Turks from coming right down to the river-bank and thus rendering our water-front totally unendurable. She takes across a barge with provisions and reliefs, and makes three or four trips a week. This the Turks know full well, and do their best to send her under during the day. However, she is fairly well protected withmahelasand rafts, though by no means completely. It is a difficult problem to know how to protect her, and engages all Tudway's thoughts. In fact, how she remains afloat at all is a puzzle to every one.
The last trip of the Morane plane was sufficiently disastrous, one bomb dropping into the hospital ward, killing a dozen men and wounding many others. These large bombs are dreadful things, the splinters of the outer case being very thin and sharp as razors. Square-Peg's servant was among those hit. In the 1907 Convention at the Hague we tried to get all the Powers to agree to refrain from this abominable trick, but it was not to be. Anyway war is now full of abominable tricks.
March 20th.—Cold and windy, an ideal day for a leather chair with book-rest in one's study before an open fire, or for Grieg's music, for there is a whip and a whistle in the wind, and Peer Gynt is passing over us.
Another small strafe started, and H.M.S.Sumanastopped quite a few. She received five direct hits from 9-pounders, and one from the 18-pounder field-gun the enemy captured from us at Ahwaz.
To be shelled by one's own gun and ammunition adds humour to injury. And we have learned to respect the fearful rip of this weapon. She hits ten times harder than any othergun they have got of the same size. But as Cockie says, "If British workmanship will be so thorough——"
The Morane flew over us last night in the moonlight and dropped several bombs, one of which cut through an ammunition wagon, setting off several shells. We give every credit to this intrepid flyer. He came quite close.
For dinner we had a very excellent roast joint of horse and some rice. I find that first-class horse is better than second-class mule, and only second to second-rate young donkey. It beats camel and eclipses buffalo altogether. The horses decrease most sadly. Poor Don Juan! No insurance company on earth would look at him.
We smoked lime-leaves and talked rose-leaves, which means Omar Khayyam and Hafiz. But it lacked much—for we had no drinks more Khayyamnian than water.
March 21st.—To-day it is a world of brightness. One has in one's self a feeling of joy and rejuvenescence, and outside there are the strong lines of a matter-of-fact morning, bright with the spangled beauties of ten thousand sheets of sunlight. They are the banners of approaching summer, and beneath the palm trees one hears the sweet voice of that ardent goddess and the elfish cadence of her myrmidons.
Gorringe, promoted to lieut.-general, has succeeded General Aylmer in the command of the relieving force, and has wired that he is making his final plans.
The river has fallen three feet, and so to-day the whole garrison is keen with expectancy and buoyant with hope.
A few details are to hand with regard to the recent unsuccessful dash by General Aylmer up the right bank. From all accounts it was an excellent scheme, and came very near being a brilliant success. The Turks were completely hoodwinked, expecting the attack on the left bank, but Aylmer's flying column, by a commendable night march, got up to the main line of the enemy, and struck Dujaila Redoubt. The British troops got into this, but the story goes that General Aylmer then chose to wait for his guns and prepared before pushing through. This took two or three hours, and the Turks, who had scanty troops on that side, immediately rushed over every available man from the other bank, and Aylmer, in attacking again, found the position too strong, and had tocut his way back. If he had shoved on at dawn he must have carried it easily.
Another version is that he had to go back for water, which is almost incredible, the show not having miscarried at all in length of time, and the river lay before him. One thing is certain: if he had got through, the Essin position would have had to be abandoned by the Turks, and, incidentally to the relief of Kut, our debouch would have brought about a heavy capture of the enemy. The difficulty now is that the floods are daily rendering more and more of this table country impassable. The soil is such that a shower of rain makes it a quagmire, and stagnant water turns it into the stickiest paste. Guns cannot be moved a yard, and it is almost equally impossible for man or horse to move. This means that the enemy's line downstream is shortened considerably, as they have to depend mainly on the dry land for transport.
To-day there is artillery fire below. Our guns exchanged a few rounds with his, and then Square-Peg and I strolled to the middle line and managed to procure some saccharine. We are spending every available sovereign to buy anything that can be got to see us over the last days of the siege.
It is needless to remark that the only foodstuffs now for secret sale are those that have been stolen or illicitly concealed. But even these have long since been purchased, and it is only by secret-service methods that an Arab is fossicked out who will sell a tin of milk for fifteen rupees, a pound of rice for five rupees, or atta for ten rupees. Officers and men, we are all on the same footing, and the extra that one can buy is, after all, such a very small supplement. There are many besides myself who have to starve completely if eggs or milk are not obtainable. Of the latter I have had one on issue per day when they are available. This just keeps one going, and after a few days of it one can manage with potato meal and a small portion of horse.
Tudway has joined our mess altogether on account of theSumanabeing untenable. One shell has completely smashed his cabin, luckily during his absence. Her 12-pounders are ashore and he has a little nook which enables him to see a fair zone on the right bank which he periodically shoots over like a luxurious lord his pheasant coverts.
March 22nd.—During the night the enemy's plane visited us and the sharp staccato notes of our anti-air maxims rapped out a brisk warning to the sleeping garrison. The others took shelter downstairs, but my bed was so very comfortable that I waited for the music of the first bomb before jumping out. It didn't come. At 5.30 a.m. we were awakened by a sudden and intense bombardment. This building is not far from the mosque and quite close to the anti-air maxims, so-called because they never hit anything but air.
The bombardment seemed concentrated a good deal on this part of the town. Cockie went to observe. Then the plane came back and bombed us, circling across the town, after which the bombardment again opened. Square-Peg developed a spasmodic sprint of extraordinary alacrity every time anything happened or the plane gong rang out, and dressed downstairs. This proved such a nerve-racking ordeal that I proposed to have my tea in my room and then go below. The shells were thumping on the houses just behind us, and I took the precaution to shift over the thick wall side of the room which left just space enough for my servant Amir Bux to miss the doorway. Shell after shell struck the adjoining buildings, shaking our house considerably. Then suddenly there was an awful roar and splitting crash. The room was filled with smoke and dust and plaster, and a terrific thud shook the wall just behind my head. Two segments of shell had flown through the doorway and embedded themselves in the opposite wall. That excellent fellow Amir Bux suddenly asked, "Master thik hai?" And on my assuring him I was all right he pointed to the embedded segment and smiled, muttering "Kismet!" On inspection I found that a Windy Lizzie had crashed through the slender wall of the upper enclosure around the roof on which my room opened (there was no door), and about half the fore-end of the shell had struck the thick wall of my room a few inches behind my head and had gone halfway through the plaster. Another foot and it would have got my scalp precisely.
The show kept on intermittently until 8.30 a.m. The horse lines and hospital have again caught it rather badly. One shell passed under a patient's bed in the General Hospital and exploded on the far wall without hurting anybody. There is not any backward zone worth mentioning in some ofthese shells. High explosive would have been a different story.
9 p.m.—A few more shells fell this evening. We hear that after all the plane did bomb last night and altogether made a most daring raid. We must give Fritz full marks for excellent bombing. He attended chiefly to Woolpress village over the river. More serious was the damage done by the same plane to the 4·7-inch guns in the horse boats—a very small target. One barge was almost sunk, being suspended by her cables only, and the other gun was jerked out of its socket by the force of the explosion. It appears the bomb touched the edge of the horse boat and fell into the river, exploding under the water. The result was a deluge that heaved the gun out of its pedestal. Reports from Woolpress say he flew within thirty yards of the barges, which for a night performance was highly commendable. Fritz is a German. He had hard luck in not getting one gun at least. We contemplate painting in large letters on the roof of the Serai, our condolences over his bad luck. Tudway is busy towing the barge to theSumanashelter where it is to be repaired.
Cockie is a first-rate chess player, at least so he has repeatedly informed us. He knows the whole history of Ruy Lopez even to his private affairs, and can at any stage of any game tell you the exact measurement of the sphere for evil of any piece on the board. He does not finger his piece and wave it in mid-air before moving as do smaller fry at the game. Neither does he hesitate for four minutes ever. Attacks, counter-attacks, demonstrations, feints, holding and flanking—he is an artist at them all. At every exchange he gets an advantage in pieces—or position. "Position," he assures us, "is the all in all." He can even nominate the moves without looking at the board. In short, if he did not invariably get beaten, he would be a perfect player, and even Lasker would have to look out. Square-Peg once brilliantly remarked that this tendency to get beaten was the tragedy of it all, but with infinitely more tact, at least to my mind, I added that Cockie was merely a great player and not infallible; in other words, that there were limitations in us all. This Cockie said he denied. And I agreed.
That may seem illogical. But it was necessary. If to beat Cockie is a misdemeanour, then to allude to the fact iscertainly a crime—in his eyes. Besides, he isn't invariably beaten, as I have said. That was a mis-statement. For when he has made a bad slip or, let us say, paid too big a price for "position," such as losing his queen for a bishop or maybe a pawn, he frequently goes very red in the face and knocks all the pieces from the board on to the floor, which shows he has the foreseeing eye, a faculty absolutely necessary to a first-rate chess player. Maeterlinck, we are told, has the seeing eye. How much greater, then, is Cockie, who has the foreseeing eye? If, thinks Cockie, it is not always the province of man to anticipate disaster, he can at least forestall it.
"I had the game on my head," Cockie usually bursts out as he sweeps the board. "And it wasn't lost either, don't forget—but the interest in it had all gone."
He did the same the first time he played me when he showed me a new opening—about three moves. He got a piece or two ahead, when after an hour or so I evened things up. Then he made his invariable slip, and before one could strike a match Cockie had the board clean as a skating rink, remarking hotly, "When I play against myself I'm always beaten."
"Thank your God, Cockie," I retorted, "then you admit some one can beat you." Which remark somehow or other he didn't appreciate.