However, since then I'm more awake, and when, which is not often, I bag his queen, or when, which is very often, he makes a slip, my arms are around the board before you could smile. It's the only way to keep the men on. If we were in America I should practise "getting the drop on him with a Colt's revolver" at each crisis.
Poor Square-Peg came to me in trouble on this point the other day.
"We have to be thankful, S.-P.," said I, "that Cockie has not yet commented on our morality."
"But it's coming. He's saving it up. I'm sure of it. Why, this morning I had a certain mate in two moves, but my dread of what he would say in another explosion was such that I thought it necessary to extend the check to six times before finally checkmating him. It was a hard job and might have cost me the game. But then, since that last show, my nerves are none too good."
"Well, you got off lightly! I heard him merely knock his chair over and say that your playing was only better than mine. Did he not?"
"Yes! he's a blank, ten to one."
Whereat we both laughed as only subalterns can. At this point Cockie, who wanted my field-glasses, looked in at the mess. Now, if one thing annoys him more than another it is to see two people laughing and not to be in the joke. He always presumes he is in it. This time he was correct. Turning to me venomously Cockie said, "I suppose you'd like a game?"
"Rather not, thanks awfully, I might get beaten."
Cockie snorted in disgust, and I had to give him a last cigarette I had just made for myself.
"The truth is, Cockie, that Square-Peg and I are hopelessly deficient in this chess business, and we have to fluke to win as they say in 'pills.' That churns you up and you can't see the pieces, and consequently move the wrong one. Don't swear. I've a proposition. 'Nellie' is coming to lunch and will give you a game. He's very hot stuff."
So it was settled. Square-Peg and I made our plans and fixed it all right with Nellie, who tries to be a very dignified and silent person of the cutting variety, and dislikes Cockie.
After our lunch of stewed horse and horse-beans and rice the game began. After a few moves Cockie had a slight advantage, and I took this opportunity to whisper to him that Nellie had a weak heart and it was dangerous to shout at him. Cockie nodded approvingly and the game went on. Half an hour later Cockie lost a bishop which he could only retrieve by uncovering check.
His face went red and he took a breath. "Don't forget," I sang out, and I and S.-P. each seized a glass of water and an almost empty rum bottle for any emergency.
Cockie glared at me in a cannibalistic fashion, and eyeing Nellie carefully the while, addressed some superlatives to us, saying that the interruption had spoilt his move. Nellie sat with steady countenance while I replied that the interruption came after the move. But Cockie played brilliantly and recovered a piece, whereupon he got quite genial and addressed conciliatory remarks to me.
Twice Cockie forced exchanges, and as in both instanceshe got "position," which means that he was a pawn to the bad each time, we quietly stood up with the water in a first-aid attitude. But Cockie was playing as he never played before, and was nodding his head in a queer way. I thought he was so blind with annoyance that he was counting the pieces, but Square-Peg assured me that his engine had got hot and was running free. Cockie went on serenely for about another half-hour when, after a pause of several minutes, he suddenly discovered himself to be mated, for Nellie had said only the word "check" and now added "mate" in the most matter-of-fact voice.
"Damned fluke," screamed Cockie, forgetting himself, and springing up he banged the chessboard down fiercely on the table with an awful smash.
Poor Nellie gasped and said "Oh-o-o-o," and apparently stopped breathing and reeled in his chair. Not having brandy we gave him the last of Cockie's rum, which he managed to negotiate, and then, as usually happens, felt better. We three preserved a frigid silence towards Cockie, who said he was damned if he knew what was the use of people on service with weak hearts, and then strode off, Nellie in the meantime pulling hard at the bottle for an extra drip or so. How we laughed. For Cockie was really scared. It's not the sort of story to make you popular if it gets about—wilfully startling a fellow to death with a weak heart merely for beating you in a game of chess.
Later on Square-Peg and I joined Cockie on the observation post and a battle royal ensued.
"I tell you," said Cockie to me, "it's fearfully difficult to give the whole of one's attention to the game when one is playing an absolute novice. So things are missed. But if you will back me for five rupees against Square-Peg to win ten games out of ten I'll do it, you see. That will supply the interest."
I complied at once, offering one game in, which he proudly refused. With a vicious jab to Cockie to please remember it was "my money and not his" that was concerned, and to have no nonsense, he grew demonstrative, and I fled to pay a visit to Tudway on theSumana.
"I tell you I can't lose," he had said. When I returned to the mess, there I found Square-Peg, who announced that hehad left Cockie in a fury, he having lost the first three games. I insisted on Square-Peg's taking the five dibs. It appears that during the first game Fritz passed him and said "Good afternoon," to which interruption Cockie stormily attributed his subsequent beating....
Later.—This very morning the other half of the shell that crashed outside my doorway (there isn't a door) went through the roof of Cockie's bedroom and simply smashed most things in it. A foot ofdébrisfrom the roof lay on the floor. It was lucky for Cockie that he was on duty. And luckier for me that I did not accept Cockie's many invitations to share his room. Only yesterday he asked me again to do so. But Cockie generally has two or more rounds with Curra Mirali and pursues him round the yard, leaving the door open—every morning about 6 a.m. when I am doing my best to have one other dream.
To-night after dinner Fritz, Cockie, Square-Peg, and I discussed the proposition that the hole a shell makes is the safest place, as no two shells ever fall in exactly the same spot. One recalled that very good Tommy story from France when, on being asked why he hadn't taken cover in a Jack Johnson crater as he had been ordered, replied, "Unsafe, sir. I'd rather try another spot and chance it."
"But you know that the same gun never shoots into exactly the same spot twice?"
"Yes, sir. But another gun might."
Fritz and I upheld the theory of probabilities as being against a second shell getting into Cockie's room. For that meant a very precise elevation just clearing the back houses and wall, and meant also the range to a foot or it would get the yard.
Cockie and Square-Peg, on the contrary, held that because one shell has got there and so proved that a shellcanget there, another might get there also. I remember painfully suggesting that Cockie ought not to sleep in the room if he thought that another shell might come in, especially as he had no doubt offended the gods over the Nellie incident. This is altogether an extraordinary affair and I am recording it in detail. Well, Cockie went to bed, taking the precaution from my incident of the morning to sleep with his head to the door instead of his feet. We were half undressed when thebombardment reopened. It became so hot that we all took shelter in the mess, the safest place. Indeed the back wall was stopping dozens of them. Later it slackened and we went to bed, whereon it gradually increased. After I had tossed restlessly for half an hour it exceeded the limit, and the plaster and dust were being flung through the doorway of my bedroom. On my way down I inspected the whole of the wall and found the roof all around pulverized. Five minutes later Square-Peg and I were smoking half undressed in the mess when the stunning noise of a splitting crash seemed to burst the world in halves.Débriscame into the mess. We thought the shell had entered the tiny yard, but Cockie's voice in unearthly yells quickly disillusioned us.
I shot into the room, which was stifling with fumes and dense yellow gas and smoke. The lamp went out. I told Square-Peg to fetch a doctor and tried to strike a light, but nothing would burn in the thick fumes. I felt for the ruined bed and managed to get him out of the room into the mess. There was a nasty deep gash over the tendon of Achilles, but no bones were broken, although the ligaments were gone and it was bleeding freely, so I applied a first field dressing, as I had so often done in France, and assured him it was not at all serious and that now he was sure to get downstream. Nevertheless poor Cockie's many nerves had been badly shaken. Fritz came and said:
"Let me see. That's good—no bones. Bleeding stopped. Move your foot. Nothing much really. Where else?"
After a fresh spasm Cockie complained that his back seemed cut in two, and this proved a nasty bruise, although the skin wasn't gone. It was a black bruise, and he must have got a pretty hefty knock from a piece of the bed. How he escaped goodness knows. The room was two feet deep in rubbish—topees, uniforms, cameras, bed, everything was wrecked.
We got him to the hospital, and on the way he invented extraordinary futures for each of the stretcher bearers.
Arrived at the hospital I am afraid the whole place was awakened, and some poor fellows whose dying was only a matter of hours or days turned from their fitful sleep on the ground floor to ask who was hit.
He wanted me to sit up with him, but General Smithinsisted that I went back to bed, assuring me I was far too ill, and he kindly gave me an excellent cigarette.
Cockie is intrepid under fire even to the point of recklessness, but is also of the kind that feels pain tremendously. It is, I suppose, a matter of temperament and nerves.
This has released me from the river-front and I succeed to the command of the ammunition column, and am now running our mess.
Tudway, Square-Peg, and I are now alone here. We have a little potato meal and rice, and I have procured a tin of jam. I could not have two more generous companions with whom to share our last food.
March 23rd.—The servants won't sleep in that part of the building where the shells came, so we have vacated a room for them, and Square-Peg and I have moved below into the basement.
I saw Cockie this morning and heard him from afar.
Near him is an officer lying very still and white and quiet with his whole leg shattered, silent with the paralysis of extreme pain.
I assisted Cockie with letters and other things, and got away as quickly as I could, as I felt this other sufferer wanted silence.
March 24th.—Some shells fell in the town during the night, and once again the horses got it badly.
The 4·7-inch gun which was bombed by the plane is now under-water, as the river has risen five feet, the highest level during the siege.
It is a clear, beautiful day and appreciably warmer. Already the flies are dreadful and swarm everywhere in billions. The Kut fly is a pronounced cannibal.
I walked through the palm woods to the 4-inch guns, where I found Parsnip alone in his glory. There he has been the whole siege with a very comfortable tent under the trees, and his only job is to repeat orders from the telephone to his two antediluvian guns. As a field gunner I am not enamoured of his monotonous and stationary job. Parsnip is a subaltern also and has two characteristics. In playing chess he seizes the pieces by the head, and after describing an artistic parabola, sets them down. He is a Radical, as you would expect of any fellow so handling a pawn, let alone a queen. His second claim to notoriety is said to be as author ofa future publication entitled, "Important People I intend to meet." As a hobby he kills mosquitos with a horse flick.
For over an hour beneath those biblical palms Parsnip, or Pas Nip, and I stood by his guns and smoked and looked out over the darkening plain where shadow chased shadow under the capricious moon, and where, like will o' the wisps of an extravagant dream, tiny flashes tempted us still to hope on. For what? Well, there were the flashes. They were the flashes of our guns. And I longed for tobacco and wine. Parsnip, on the contrary, was a married man!
March 25th.—This morning I had a thorough inspection of the horse and wagon lines and inspected shelters previous to my visit to headquarters to report on ammunition. Orders are out for all ranks to prepare to receive heavy bombardment. I am having the ammunition shelter even further reinforced against shell or bomb. The present scheme is to have two thick roofs each topped by kerosene tins packed close and filled with soil. One of these shelters will explode the shell or bomb, and the other receive the burst. The horse-lines have been changed and pits dug for all drivers and detachments and traversed for possible enfilade bursts. The men are working on a shelter for our basement room with tins of earth piled up. Tins are fearfully scarce, as hundreds have been requisitioned for the defence of H.M.S.Sumanaand other things. We have, we believe, sheltered the probable zones with what tins we have. Thus the doorway and window are unprotected because the upper back room would stop all except howitzer fire, and the enemy's howitzer is south of Kut. Similarly to prevent a lucky shell bursting through the wall of the first-floor room and roof of our present one, we have had three rows of tins—all we could get—arranged in front of the wall upstairs. I have calculated that any burst entering higher than this would get the opposite upstairs wall and pass out into the street.
Tudway and Square-Peg have accused me of being cold-blooded over the affair. But I intended to be nothing if not practical, and the next morning discovered that any shell of average intentions, in fact one falling ten feet shorter than the very one that had plugged into my bedroom wall up above, would have no difficulty in going through the mess roof and so through the mess cupboard—a large receptacle into thewall—into our so-called impregnable bedroom which was to be the emergency shelter for all hands. My bed was just beyond the cupboard the other side of the three-foot wall. So this evening when Tudway went to the cupboard for the jam and meat and bread he found a solid wall of tins filled with earth. This he considered a master-stroke. The provisions, as he explained, would have been directly in the line of fire!
Moreover, I have had removed a score or two of loose bricks which were wedged in the best Damocletian style between the joists and the ceiling. For last night I dreamed one fell on my head. Why my head is always in the line of trouble I can't say.
Talking of dreams, that is the second nasty one in a few days. The previous time I dreamed I was being hung. That was probably due to a button that I had sewn on to the neck of my pyjama jacket by the uncertain light of dubbin oil!
10 p.m.—There is heavy and continuous firing downstream. I respectfully suggest a variation of Watts's "Hope"—that popular picture. A junior sub asleep in a barricaded corner of a room in Kut beside a four-ounce slice of bread, listening in his dreams to distant guns.
I must now make one of the most important entries of the whole siege. General Smith gave me aPunch. I mean that having finished with a copy ofPunch, sent to him by aeroplane, he has passed it on to me.
Shakespeare, Thackeray, and Punch. In the flesh, what friends those three would have been!
"If," writes an unborn Teufeldrockh, "I were not a German, I would like to be Punch."
"If," replies Punch, with a dignified bow, "you were not a German, you could aspire."
For what duellist but that great English gentleman Punch has the seeing eye, the delicate wrist, the merciful smile?
March 26th.—I am in Indian khaki again, for summer has come to Kut. It is even getting unpleasantly warm.
The massaging has decreased the rheumatics if anything, although I am very much weaker and can't walk 400 yards without getting blown. It is worth while to avoid the chaff bread, and I stick to an occasional egg and rice-husk and soup.
How fit I was when I started on this front! Square-Pegwas seedy yesterday and in pain. I gave him some essence of ginger tabloids, and later on opium, which relieved him somewhat.
It is rumoured that the 6-inch guns from home have at last reached Gorringe. The enemy is now completely outclassed in artillery.
Tudway took me with him on board theSumanato see the effects of the recent bombardment. By a miracle one shell missed the main steam-pipes and carried away part of the bridge and cabin and funnel. Tudway is a keen officer, and has all the delightful insouciance of his service. We went over the whole boat and the barges. He was all on the alert, in his quiet way, to gather any suggestions for further protecting his alumnus. We sat in his dismantled cabin and talked of the sea, or rather he did, and I mentally annotated him with my own dreams. The sea, the sea, so vast, so great, so deep, so far away! As the hart panteth after the water-brooks so pant we Englishmen after thee, O Sea, even after thee, wild and lonely as thou art, and after thy waters briny as tears. Mighty, untamed, eternal! We, thy children, love thee. Alone, thou art free!
Turkish snipers followed us up, and we had to run the gauntlet on the way to the shore over the waters of the flood. I bought three small fish yesterday here, but some one's native servant was killed last evening by a stray shell while fishing, so for the future it's all off. On one occasion, Tudway and I tried to net some, but both the Turks and the fish were against us.
This siege is a perfect device for leaving a man to his own plaguings. A book is now almost as great a luxury as bread. I am even driven to re-robing and criticizing some of our early endeared legacies. Let us begin with the poet's notion of service—admittedly of a bygone day.
The Soldier's Dream.By the other Campbell.Our bugles sang truce for the night-cloud had lowered—Delightful arrangement that, one must admit. A truce is, after all, more fun than a night attack. And perhaps the cloud was a big one and it looked like rain!And the Sentinel stars set their watch in the sky—Much better! But that does away with the rain theory.And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered—Bad-fitting word. Sounds like avoirdupois. But it must have referred to gas fumes, otherwise the line certainly reflects on the condition of the men. This climate could be called "overpowering."The weary to sleep and the wounded to die—That scouts the gas theory! As a matter of fact it's the last thing the weary have a chance to do, and the wounded certainly take weeks to die. Look at Cockie!While reposing one night on my pallet of straw—Fancy Tommy "reposing"! Campbell, may I inform you that Thomas neither poses nor reposes, which suggests the soft, rounded limbs of a Grecian maiden on a bed of rose-leaves. Tommy likes his mouth open, and often prefers to lie on his stomach with his legs wide apart. Reposing! My hat! What an awful swank the man was with his knocking off work because of the night-cloud, and what with his reposing on a pallet of straw. Why he didn't go in for a convertible four-legged wheelbarrow bedstead puzzles me. Tommy lies on the "good 'ole dirt" if it's hot, and otherwise screws himself up into his blanket, head and all. I hear Graoul asking his pal, "O, Halgie, koindly porse erlong may pallet hof straarw hat wance.""Roight yer hare! 'Ere, Toenails, pallit-er strore is forwerd—hand the quilt halso."At the dead of night a sweet vision I saw,And thrice ere the morning I dreamed it again—Kindly eliminate "dreamed" and substitute "saw," then re-read it. Don't laugh! Why shouldn't he "see" it the second and even the third time also? Tommy sees lots of things—at times.I dreamed from the battlefield's dreadful arrayFar, far, I had roamed on a desolate track.It was springtime and summer arose on the way—To the home of my fathers that welcomed me back—Tommy wouldn't dream of dreaming such a thing. As for the "home of my fathers," the shape of the idea would give him a fit. "Bit o' skirt more like it."Stay, stay with us, thou art weary and worn;And fain was the war beaten soldier to stay—But sorrow returned with the dawning of mornAnd the voice in my dreaming ear melted away—"D'ye 'ear this, Spud?" says Tommy Toenails. "The voice in 'is dreeamin' hear melted.""Bit o' wax, more like," says Spud."I say a flea an' charnce it," adds Tooting Tom."Hand," says Spud, "wen 'e hawoke 'e got anuther stomikful o' sorrer. Marrid man, too. Gawd 'elp 'im."We pass on. Let us take that dear little hymn lots of us learned at our mother's knee—"There is a green hill far awayWithout a city wall."How I used to wonder what a green hill could possibly wantwitha city wall. Ah! the dear doubts of childhood! I shall be told that "without" meant "beyond." Another doubt was about "Llewellyn and his Dog." How the siege has helped us to join hands with childhood once more. Surely I haven't thought of the lines for many years. They run—"The gallant hound the wolf had slain,To save Llewellyn's heir."I remember we had to write a composition on the poem, and having decided that it was the wolf that had killed the hound—just as one says, "The scanty bone the beggar picked"—I had to square matters so as to explain how the hound died a second time at the hands of Llewellyn. It's all misty now, but I at least remember propounding the theory that the Welsh chieftain, in his terror, must have mistaken the wolf for the hound, and consequently didhimin for murdering the lost child. It was this incident, I believe, that induced my parents to select for me a career at the Bar.That incident recalls another one later on. At school we had a delightful master who hated using chalk. He informed us that we were to write an essay on—"Beneath the rule of men entirely greatThe pen is mightier than the sword."One promising fellow misheard the last word as "saw." He was rather an authority on saws, and treatedus to a delightful treatise on saws in general, band-saws, hand-saws, rip-saws, fret-saws, and circular saws. As far as I remember, the drift of his argument was that a pen could merely write, whereas a saw could cut a piece of wood.Once more, "Eheu!Fugaces postumi——"I wonder where that lad is now. I should think he must be a large saw-miller somewhere—possibly asleep on a "pallet of straw" in France, and seeing "visions" of his beloved saws. Why not! God bless him. I've forgotten his name and even what he was like.
The Soldier's Dream.By the other Campbell.
Our bugles sang truce for the night-cloud had lowered—
Delightful arrangement that, one must admit. A truce is, after all, more fun than a night attack. And perhaps the cloud was a big one and it looked like rain!
And the Sentinel stars set their watch in the sky—
Much better! But that does away with the rain theory.
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered—
Bad-fitting word. Sounds like avoirdupois. But it must have referred to gas fumes, otherwise the line certainly reflects on the condition of the men. This climate could be called "overpowering."
The weary to sleep and the wounded to die—
That scouts the gas theory! As a matter of fact it's the last thing the weary have a chance to do, and the wounded certainly take weeks to die. Look at Cockie!
While reposing one night on my pallet of straw—
Fancy Tommy "reposing"! Campbell, may I inform you that Thomas neither poses nor reposes, which suggests the soft, rounded limbs of a Grecian maiden on a bed of rose-leaves. Tommy likes his mouth open, and often prefers to lie on his stomach with his legs wide apart. Reposing! My hat! What an awful swank the man was with his knocking off work because of the night-cloud, and what with his reposing on a pallet of straw. Why he didn't go in for a convertible four-legged wheelbarrow bedstead puzzles me. Tommy lies on the "good 'ole dirt" if it's hot, and otherwise screws himself up into his blanket, head and all. I hear Graoul asking his pal, "O, Halgie, koindly porse erlong may pallet hof straarw hat wance."
"Roight yer hare! 'Ere, Toenails, pallit-er strore is forwerd—hand the quilt halso."
At the dead of night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamed it again—
Kindly eliminate "dreamed" and substitute "saw," then re-read it. Don't laugh! Why shouldn't he "see" it the second and even the third time also? Tommy sees lots of things—at times.
I dreamed from the battlefield's dreadful array
Far, far, I had roamed on a desolate track.
It was springtime and summer arose on the way—
To the home of my fathers that welcomed me back—
Tommy wouldn't dream of dreaming such a thing. As for the "home of my fathers," the shape of the idea would give him a fit. "Bit o' skirt more like it."
Stay, stay with us, thou art weary and worn;
And fain was the war beaten soldier to stay—
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away—
"D'ye 'ear this, Spud?" says Tommy Toenails. "The voice in 'is dreeamin' hear melted."
"Bit o' wax, more like," says Spud.
"I say a flea an' charnce it," adds Tooting Tom.
"Hand," says Spud, "wen 'e hawoke 'e got anuther stomikful o' sorrer. Marrid man, too. Gawd 'elp 'im."
We pass on. Let us take that dear little hymn lots of us learned at our mother's knee—
"There is a green hill far awayWithout a city wall."
How I used to wonder what a green hill could possibly wantwitha city wall. Ah! the dear doubts of childhood! I shall be told that "without" meant "beyond." Another doubt was about "Llewellyn and his Dog." How the siege has helped us to join hands with childhood once more. Surely I haven't thought of the lines for many years. They run—
"The gallant hound the wolf had slain,To save Llewellyn's heir."
I remember we had to write a composition on the poem, and having decided that it was the wolf that had killed the hound—just as one says, "The scanty bone the beggar picked"—I had to square matters so as to explain how the hound died a second time at the hands of Llewellyn. It's all misty now, but I at least remember propounding the theory that the Welsh chieftain, in his terror, must have mistaken the wolf for the hound, and consequently didhimin for murdering the lost child. It was this incident, I believe, that induced my parents to select for me a career at the Bar.
That incident recalls another one later on. At school we had a delightful master who hated using chalk. He informed us that we were to write an essay on—
"Beneath the rule of men entirely greatThe pen is mightier than the sword."
One promising fellow misheard the last word as "saw." He was rather an authority on saws, and treatedus to a delightful treatise on saws in general, band-saws, hand-saws, rip-saws, fret-saws, and circular saws. As far as I remember, the drift of his argument was that a pen could merely write, whereas a saw could cut a piece of wood.
Once more, "Eheu!Fugaces postumi——"
I wonder where that lad is now. I should think he must be a large saw-miller somewhere—possibly asleep on a "pallet of straw" in France, and seeing "visions" of his beloved saws. Why not! God bless him. I've forgotten his name and even what he was like.
Well, well, these frivolities must come to an end for it's ten o'clock. I had intended to set out more details of our starvation methods, but we talk enough of it and I'm sick of the subject. Besides, what is happiness but a big digression?
March 27th.—The day's bulletin is that the Churches in England are praying for us. How we hope they pray hard. There is, we understand, to be a last forward movement of all arms to the relief of Kut. The position down below seems to have developed into something like that in France, as the Turkish forces are dug deep and well flanked with impassable swamps. It is difficult to force such a position against the clock, but we easily outnumber the enemy, so it is said, and then our heavy guns may do a great deal.
The water of the floods is now all over themaidanaround our old first line, in fact in front of our present first line is a great lake some feet deep, and possibly eight feet above the dry base of our trench. The largebundor wall we have made is excellent. The enemy has had to withdraw still further back, and in places he is 1500 yards off. In this way the floods have saved us. There is little chance of an attack through the water. It may be doubted whether our men could have stood the strain in their present condition if the enemy had maintained his original proximity of from 50 to 150 yards. I remember a listening post at C Redoubt something like ten yards from the first line of the enemy.
Over the river all around Woolpress and beyond, and also reaching southward, are shining sheets of water with ever-diminishing green patches between. During the last flood of a few days back the water percolated into Woolpress, which,of course, is on the bank of the river, and wrought great havoc in the trenches and among the men there.
It must be an awfully lonely and desolated existence over there at Woolpress, a siege within a siege. The post is a mere sequence of mud houses, all adjoined, five yards or so from the water and forming a segment of a circle on the river about 250 yards frontage, its first line being the arc extending 150 yards inland at its farthest. They have first and second line trenches, and barbed wire, and since the heavy floods, abund. So that it is now practically an island. The Turkish lines reach all round it in larger arcs also resting on the river-bank. They have not even the chance of buying stores as we have, and never come over, nor is it permitted for any to cross. The communication is by motor-boat or almost always by theSumana. Tudway has the nerve of Beelzebub, and delights most of all in his moonlight trips. It would, of course, be certain destruction for him to cross in the daytime. At the beginning of the siege there was telephonic communication, but the wire was rotten and broke continually. We have helio now, and some sort of understanding for emergency signalling by lights. Our river-front guns are all registered on the enemy's lines around the place, and on one or two occasions we have gone to gun-fire, thus preventing any Turkish reserves getting up. From this side of the river a section of the 82nd R.F.A.'s guns can enfilade the enemy's northern lines around Woolpress.
We get news of the place by the drafts that now and then reinforce the post on relief. The story goes that the other day a party of Turks peered over their trenches and cried aloud to our Mussulman soldiers not to fight against their brother followers of Mahomet, but to go over to them who had plenty of food. This sort of thing had gone on quite a time when the officer on picket duty got about a dozen sepoys to fire a volley at the Turks just by way of exchanging compliments. The Turks replied, and general fire ensued. That highly intuitional body over here, Headquarters, believing that Woolpress was being attacked by all the spare Turks in the Ottoman Empire, gave our artillery enthusiastic orders, and Woolpress began to think they took some part in the siege after all, in fact that they belonged to us. And although it was a storm in a teapot, no doubt for those in the teapot itwas highly interesting. It is even said that senior officers struggled out from beneath spider-webbed blankets where they had hoped to complete their hibernation until the siege was over, to see the reason for this turn of events. Woolpress are a gallant little band, no doubt, and there have been times when no insurance company on earth would have looked twice at any one of them, although a philanthropic society might have stretched a point for those certified able to swim; for a red Turkish crescent ringed them in and grew ever closer to them, and once the river took sides and offered to drown them. But that was months ago.
Woolpress, too, has its advantages. They have been practically never shelled and rarely bombed. On the contrary, when we are getting bombarded or any particular show is on, they all take front seats on their river-bank in absolute security and observe our emotions. I well remember that gala day of March 1st, when enemy guns of both sides took part in that very well conducted "command matinée" performance for the entertainment of the gods. The whole crowd of Woolpress was seated early, orchestral stalls for field officers, subalterns in specially erected boxes, and the rank and file everywhere else. I was, of course, very much on the stage, being stuck up there shooting my guns, while the Turks cut patterns round me with all the artistry of Turkish artillery. The heavy gunners on the observation post farther along, that well-battered remnant that is the despair of the Sultan's artillery observers, also attracted considerable attention from an audience particularly sporting. I felt that the Woolpressers were making and taking huge bets as to what time my wee sandbag arrangement with contents would go by the board. Opera glasses were there by the dozen. But Jove, Trenchion, and Shraptune, the sporting gods that had decreed the performance, naturally objected to such small fry sharing the entertainment, and sent Fritz along with bombs. This considerably thinned the box plan, from which many adjourned for afternoon tea, while those more deeply in debt remained taking still larger bets on their own immediate existence.
This is my birthday. We have raised a small quantity of rum with which we three shall notch the year to-night. Why doesn't one feel older? Life lies immediately behind us likethe wake of a ship, butwedon't change—only the distance behind us changes (and a few of us are a stone lighter!).
9.30p.m.—I returned from my round with a copy ofThe Fieldfrom General Smith. There was an excellent article on Pan-Germanism, and another that brought to Kut the brown wintry heather, the smell of the peat streams, the pheasants, and the free rolling moors of Yorkshire. And that led me to contrast the present flooded aspect of this dreary stretch of God's ancient mud with the frilled hedges and those gay wild banners of English springtime.
Speaking for myself on this my thirtieth birthday, I never felt so restful and free from the gnawings of ambition. For better fellows have fallen, and promising careers have closed, and disastrous ones terminated before amends could be made; while I have lots of credit in hand, for I have had many lucky narrow shaves.
March 28th.—It is a quiet day. On the right bank there is some movement of the enemy downstream. Convoys of camels and mules trekked from Shamrun camp over the Shat-el-hai to the Turkish depôts below.
We are all eagerly awaiting news of our preparation for the big show, and there is much debating as to what would be the best plan of attack.
3 p.m.—There is considerable Turkish activity all around, and reinforcements are probably being pushed down below, for the enemy knows quite well that we are on our last legs and that a big attempt will be made to relieve us.
The river is gradually falling, and one 4·7 has been towed back into position, but the other is still under-water.
A bombardment is proceeding downstream, probably the shelling of Sunaiyat, the formidable position of the enemy on the left bank, a series of trenches on a tiny front of 400 yards between a marsh and a river. In this position the enemy is so deep down and has such excellent cover that the place has so far baffled every attempt to take it. Not the least difficulty is that the intervening ground, which every storming party must cross, is wet as a bog. This has, of course, been worked by the Turks. On the right bank Gorringe seems to have pushed on almost level of Sunaiyat, and, with a little more success, enfilade of the Sunaiyat position should be possible.
According to rumour, the plan of attack roughly may be as follows:—
One division will probably have the task of holding Sunaiyat forces while the other two divisions push up through Beit Aessa, whence our 6-inch guns should enfilade the Sunaiyatposition. The line of advance would probably make for Dujaila Redoubt which would be taken on by our big guns and the bridge at O destroyed to prevent escape of the enemy to other bank. One division would then have a large part of the Turkish force hemmed in on the Essin ridge right bank, and the other division crossing into Kut by a bridge to be erected by us would swing around past the Fort to prevent the remaining enemy forces on the left bank from getting away. It will be either a dismal failure or brilliant success, and much at this belated hour must depend upon the floods.
March 29th.—A beautiful day and quite hot. We have been unmolested except for some shells on the Fort. I have finished "Septimus," by W. Locke. Septimus is a delightful chap, and would make much fun for us if he were here.
Then we played chess, and I visited Pas Nip on my way around the trenches. He returned and lunched with us. I have managed to get a tin of gooseberry jam at ten rupees, one tin of milk twelve rupees, 1½ lbs. of atta for fifteen rupees.
I held another inspection of the native drivers among whom scurvy has increased. They still refuse to eat horseflesh.
Don Juan has turned from a dark black to a burned brown. That, possibly, is his way of turning grey! I gather him some grass every possible day.
March 30th.—It has been a day of the most perfect tranquillity, and as I couldn't sleep for this confounded backache I was up for the dawn. I climbed up to the observation post and looked around on a lovely earth. I mean it. The very wretchedness and misery of the floods, and the broken palm grove, and the disfigured earth, were all woven into the most bewitching harmony by sheets of silver and bars of golden sunlight. It was hard to realize it was a scene of war, that those receding terraces were trenches filled with armed Turks. I am beginning to think that, after all, the Garden of Eden could have been very beautiful—at any rate in the dawn, for then it is a country of long shadows and persuasive lights. This morning the drooping palm fronds patterned the water and the wide plain. There was gold and green in every patch of grass. As for the rest of the earth, it was all a wonderful and faithful mirror, for in the lucent waters of the ever-growing flood one saw the moving images of clouds and wild fowl. Downbelow there was not a breath, but high above a gentle breeze from the west caught some fleecy islets of the sky and washed them out into the great blue sea. To-night the geography of the sky has changed. There are no islets, there is no movement. But across the whole western quarter of the sky the clouds have formed an ethereal beach of white-ribbed sands that reach around the world, and form the shores of a wide dark ocean that is lit by flashing stars.
To-night I should like to be Peter Pan in an obedient cutter and sail there far and wide. Jolly runs I could have, and how very easy to find my way about safely with all those splendid lights and beacons. And being Peter Pan I should know them all.
An ominous buzz recalls me to things nearer at hand. The room has been invaded by mosquitoes. Already the flies are an abominable nuisance in the daytime, and cockroaches are plentiful.
Last night theSumanawas strafed again, and Tudway has been toiling all the evening at her defences.
This morning I paid the men and did some office work, and brought the war diary up to date. After that I found time to try a longer walk around our first line, but felt too seedy to go into the Fort. I heard that the sickness is rapidly increasing, and the condition of the troops is so bad that the chief dread of the whole routine is the marching to and from the trenches. This being so, regiments are now allowed to remain out there permanently. In one Indian regiment man after man has simply sunk down in his tracks and died through want of food. And an extraordinary number of soldiers wretchedly ill won't report sick, partly through a horror of entering the crowded and unhappy hospitals, and also from a sense of duty. Among the men there is, of course, a good deal of ragging and general barracking about our not being relieved, but their spirit and patience and trust in their general is truly magnificent. No soldier, I truly believe, could wish for a more splendid loyalty from his rank and file than these men, the European troops, at any rate, feel and show in a hundred ways for their "Alphonse." They get little news but of disappointments, still they go about their duties with a step unsteady and painfully slow, and at every fresh misfortune they joke and smile.
We miss very much all communication with the outsideworld. The generals get a few letters and papers by aeroplane, but no one else. The other day, however, our mess bombardier received one from an enterprising brother who directed the letter to General Townshend, and enclosed the letter to his brother inside. He tells me his brother is a seaman in a Royal Indian Mail boat, and is a very up-to-date sort of chap. I should just think so!
March 31st.—The weather has broken and once more the steady downpour has made Kut into a mild sort of Venice. We have no gondolas it is true, but if ourbundgoes we can make shift with rafts.
TheSumanagot badly shelled last evening. One shell went through the awning and crashed through the main stop-valve over the boiler, missing the funnel and boiler by an inch or two. That would have been irreparable. As it is things are quite serious with her. Great volumes of steam escaped, no doubt to the huge delight of the Turkish gunners. Great consternation prevailed at headquarters, and Tudway was immediately reminded—-much to his disgust—of the "example set by Beresford on the Nile when he repaired his boiler under fire." Tudway is not the sort of fellow who needs any example.
I went on board this morning and saw the damage done. The old boat has simply been shot through and through. We drew up a scheme for using shields of gun wagons spread out over the awning to lend additional protection. As we sprinted over the planks back to the shore, the Turks at Snipers' Nest were evidently waiting for us, and a hail of bullets flew by. We found cover by some millstones, and after a few minutes' rest took to our heels for the remaining stretch. We are hoping to get a valve up from below by aeroplane.
Native rations, except for meal, have ceased altogether. This may induce them to eat horse. There is nothing against it now as they have the full permission of the Chief Mullahs in India. The horses are on 4 lbs. of bran and 12 lbs. of grass cut by fatigue parties off themaidan. It keeps them going, and that is all. The young animals are merely drawing on their constitution.
I am deeply sorry to hear that poor Woods has gone. He was the subaltern I have mentioned before as having got the Military Cross for bravery at the Fort on December 24th, when he lost his arm. He was a jovial fellow, and a very good sort.We have had many a gossip together at the hospital. He died from jaundice. It is very, very unfortunate, as his arm was quite well, and he was back on light duty. The truth is our condition is so low that anything carries us off. We are all very glad he died happily.
April 1st.—A terrific thunderstorm swamped everything last night. The place was alive with electricity, and flashings kept me awake for hours.
Most of our heavy bombardment trenches are full of water, and I have had fatigue parties on all day baling them out and shifting the horses.
A rumour has it that the Russians are in the Pushtikus, the distant range just to the eastward. I consider this a pathetic rumour, and I'm more interested in what Shackleton is doing at the South Pole.
To-night we had a meagre portion of fish which one of my drivers caught in the river. We pay him well and he buys atta for himself and his pals.
Square-Peg sleeps most of the day, and represents the three of us in collecting a daily account of Cockie's doings. There is no one, I am given to understand, sorrier that Cockie was hit than General "G. B.," who happens to be next door to him. The hospital, I was yesterday informed by an inmate slow to anger and of great mercy, consists of two factions, those that do not love Cockie and those who can't hear him. I hope he doesn't mind my writing this. I have sent him fish and fowl, and for my pains he sent me back inquiries as to why I hadn't done so before. Bah! Cockie can be so rude if you don't always do sufficient homage—and then I'm so forgetful in these matters. Not a man in the garrison has risen to-day to an April fool's joke—not one!
April 2nd.—We tried some green weed or other the Sepoys gathered on themaidan. Boiled and eaten with a little salad oil that Tudway fished out from heaven knows where, it seemed quite palatable. After all, as he says, all we want is something of a gluey nature to keep our souls stuck on to us.
A delightful little mess is ours. There is none cheerier in Kut. Picture a long bare wooden table, the other end piled up with war diaries, books, papers, pipes, and empty bottles, revolvers and field-glasses, we three at this end. Tudway is much senior to me, but insists that I preside. So I have thecamp armchair, and he the other, which has very short legs so that he often seems to be talking under the table. It has also paralysis in the right arm, so that it is necessary to be very careful in leaning that way. Now and then, usually once a night, Tudway forgets, or perhaps he likes doing it, for he simply bowls over sideways, and by dint of repeated practice can now do so while clutching at the bread or joint en route. Sometimes he does it in the middle of a sentence, which he nevertheless completes leisurely on the floor as becomes an imperturbable sailor.
Square-Peg opposite has a high wooden chair, and is getting up a pose for the Woolsack, which I understand he will one day adorn.
My position is strategically a difficult one, for the other two acting in conjunction can at a pinch remove the victuals beyond my reach towards the other end of the table, and my rum—when we do raise a peg—is in constant danger until consumed. Square-Peg, whose pseudonym has nothing whatever to do with a drink, is extraordinarily forgetful in this way at times, and has been known in the course of an excellent story to drink all my rum and half of Tudway's. But I've an excellent memory, and the next rum night—possibly weeks after—Square-Peg goes short.
I am carver and taster, both useful functions in a siege. Tudway likes it thin, but with Square-Peg it is necessary to cut it thick. After the third helping Square-Peg has to carve for himself. We inaugurated that last week. If by accident the horse is extra tough, and Square-Peg gets splashed, he gets four helpings, but Tudway does not, for he can take cover under the table.
As regards the vegetables, "Sparrow-grass" and potato mealorbeetroot and rice, I divide, and we all cut cards for first pick. There is always plenty of horse, but vegetables are a great delicacy. Tudway and I conspire to do Square-Peg out of his greens so as to keep him up to the scratch in procuring or in "pinching" vegetables from the garden of which he is C.O. It works admirably, and I am only sorry his small pockets necessitate his making several trips. On wet days we have "encore" in the vegetables, for then he wears a top coat with big pockets. He refuses to do so on fine days as he says it looks suspicious. If we have an issue of a spoonfulof sugar I barter it for milk, and the date juice, when we get it, is measured out with a spoon.
For pudding we have kabobs, fried flour and fat, two each, and we cut for choice. An excellent idea which we have lately followed is to get the fat off a horse—there is very little now, poor things—and render it into dripping, which is quite excellent. I have sometimes waited for hours to get this from the butchery. While we had sardines our bombardier produced a savoury with toast, but that is long ago. Instead we have coffee, which is mostly ground-up roots, plus liquorice powder, if you're not careful in buying. The date juice goes into the coffee, but Square-Peg complains that he can't "feel it that way," so he drinks his like a liqueur. I prefer bad tea, as the coffee is generally atrocious, but Tudway likes it for the sake of "the smell." I provide the tobacco out of the funds, and sometimes have been diligent enough to make cigarettes, which are better than those the Arabs make, by screwing up the paper like a lollipop, pouring the tobacco in and twisting the top end up. The latter cigarettes require great art in smoking. One has to lie back in one's chair and point the cigarette to the roof so as to prevent the baccy emptying out of the cigarette into one's coffee.
This is the hour sacred to us. We exchange rumours or invent them. We pool all our gossip into a common heap which becomes the altar of another day's hope. We avoid all matters of misfortune or suffering. We have mutually and tacitly barred the subject of Home. But when the smoke cloud above the remains of our sorry banquet grows dense from the pipes of three excellent smokers, we lapse into silence, and see in the moving mists sweet fantasies far away. If we were Germans we would, I have no doubt, sing "Home, Sweet Home" in parts, and shake hands, and shed tears in unison. But we are merely Englishmen, and if anyone were to sing five notes of that song he would get slung out for making a brutal assault on our hearts. So instead we merely smoke on and on, and the jackals' chorus grows less and less as memories drift about among the wisps and wraiths of this strange fog-land. We are glad we are here. We have no tears to give, but although we know it not, in the heart of us each is a prayer.
April 3rd.—It is four months to-day since the SixthDivision on its last legs entered Kut-el-Amara, expecting relief to be here in three weeks, a month, possibly six weeks.
Inscrutable are the ways of Allah!
This afternoon a fierce thunderstorm broke over Kut, and hailstones larger than pigeons' eggs rattled upon us with the sharp music of musketry. One should be quite sufficient to knock a fellow out if it got him bare-headed. Afterwards it turned to rain, which we fear may delay the next battle for Kut. We hear that the enemy is making every effort to hold up the relieving force down below, or delay us, for the short time beyond which the garrison cannot now hold out.
I am feeling very seedy again to-day, what with this enteritis and rheumatics and jaundice. So is Tudway, to whom I have given various opium pills and camphoradine. I am, however, lucky so far to have escaped the severe form of enteritis which many others have had. It is a deadly and horrible thing enough, accompanied by violent pains in the abdomen, and vomiting. To be sure I have had the former for so many weeks that I am used to it, and we often say we can scarcely remember the time when we hadn't these infernal pains. "A brandy flip, my dear fellow, is the one and only for it," our medical friend says, and smiles. Ho! for a brandy flip. In the Arctic circle the two seasons are light and dark, and in India dry and wet, and in Kut when one has stomach ache and when one hasn't.
It is said that a certain cavalry regiment has at last unanimously rescinded the rule that it is bad form for any officer of the regiment not to be fit. Most of us have been put down for sick leave at once when the relief occurs. The India list is the most cheerful phrase one hears. Tudway has asked me to go downstream with him on theSumana, and proposes a grand progression down to Basra and to pass H.M.S.Clio, his parent boat, when we get there. I am quite intoxicated with the notion. And truly the sight of theSumanaripped and torn through and through by shell and bullet, with her shotted funnel and her smashed cabins and her twisted bridge, and her white ensign that soiled and tattered bunting, the finest flag in all the world, still fluttering in the stern—would be a sight for the gods. But then I've had nothing whatever to do with theSumana, so I must prefer to be ashore. I see it all exactly, her grey dirty form with theblack patches where shells have shifted her paint, and near the path of that Windy Lizzie that crashed through the bridge, the redoubtable countenance of our friend Tudway, the youthful commander and preserver of this eloquent trophy. TheClio, of course, salutes her diminutive sister, and ah, those terrible and honest cheers! An awful moment for Tudway I admit.... But at twelve o'clock that night he will have indigenous metamorphosis!
"Tudway!" I exclaim, "you no longer have the inches of a god. Can't you stand up?"
"Donsh wansh stansh up. If you'd hads many cockstailsh I've had couldn't either."
Perhaps!
April 4th.—A heavy bombardment downstream continued for hours this morning. The rain has ceased and the soaken earth is steaming under a bright hot sun.
Reports from the hospital are to the effect that Cockie's temperament "has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." His delusions include a notion that he still commands the column. To dispel the latter delusion it is necessary for one to cancel quite a number of his orders.
Dorking has evolved quite a number of literary ideas since my leaving the battery. He has read the letters of "Dorothy to Temple" which I recommended to him, and quite enjoyed them. In fact he says he would not have minded marrying Dorothy himself. Now I wonder what Dorothy would have had to say about Dorking—I wonder.
I hear on very reliable authority that the plane, our own plane, dropped yesterday a packet which was supposed to be a stop-valve for theSumana. The valve, however, went off on themaidan, and in fact proved to be a three-pound bomb. To-day another plane dropped another supposed valve which turned out to be a gear-box for an L boat.
Very facetious of them, I'm sure, but Tudway calls it an indifferent joke.
A mild artillery duel wound up the day's events.
April 5th.—To-day we have had a strenuous Shikar after food. We raised a half-pound of dirty dates which we boiled into jam; also two rupees worth of chupattis and hard, white, mealy flat-jacks—they are eight in number, a two-pound tin of barley which will make an exciting porridge.
We visited the officers' hospital which is full again to overflowing with dysentery, jaundice, and malaria cases. The doctors have put me on diet of one egg and cup of milk daily, which commodities are only procurable on special certificates, and rarely. The mess bombardier draws these.
"I 'ear, sir, that this 'ere milk is sometimes 'uman and sometimes donkey's. I 'ope as you won't drink it, sir."
"To save one's life, bombardier, one may have to eat anything," I told him. Then I heard him in sad conference with the mess cook.
"Gawd! It's 'ot 'uman milk, Bill. An' 'e ain't 'ad no milk for ages. It'll knock 'im hover like 'ot punch."
"Wen you live in Kut," said Bill, "you 'ave to do az Gawd's hancient people do."
10 p.m.—Cheerful news at last! Early this morning Gorringe bombarded and smashed through the Turkish lines above Hannay, and five lines of trenches have been taken. He is consolidating his position before advancing on Essin. It does not seem clear on which bank this success was.
At 8 p.m. this evening the heavy firing recommenced. Square-Peg and I restrained our enthusiasm by a long game of chess. The news has cheered up every one immeasurably. It is the most hopeful night for months.
April 6th.—Downstream a terrific bombardment went on intermittently for hours. We are on six ounces of bread to-day and are almost on to our emergency rations, which can be made to spin out for three days.
TheSumanais going over to Woolpress to bring over reliefs. I had arranged with Tudway to have a starlight excursion there and see something of these strangers, but headquarters disapproved.
Green cress has been issued from the gardens, and every effort is made to save every crumb. The sick and those in hospital are worst off, as hospital comforts like cornflour and Mellins' Food have long since gone.
It is a beautiful day, but the river came up during the night and beat all previous records of the siege by two inches. How very close the relieving force has driven things. Altogether the situation, as Punch said of the man dangling from the drag rope of a balloon, is most interesting.
I have made inventories of ammunition and wagons, linesand horse-lines of the 6th D.A.C., as I am officially returned to my battery pending the relief of Kut. I hope to enter on the next page that the siege has been lifted.
April 7th.—There is a lull in the operations downstream. How we hate lulls. A lull is a divine leg-pull. The word "lull" has an odious sound!
Gunner Graoul has returned to me from the battery apropos of my re-transfer to my original battery, and Amir Bux has returned to duty. There are a good many things to fix up in the ammunition column, so I am remaining in my comfortable billet here unless wanted for urgent duty at the battery—pending relief. I am so weak that my legs collapsed on the ladder, and I find a long staff better than a walking-stick.
We killed one of our two emergency fowls, which we boiled, and I found the broth delicious. Graoul called it "'en brorth."
The river has risen seriously and is now a good three feet deep all over the plain in front of thebunds. General Gorringe has had hard work to bund the river down below and has evidently met with flood difficulties already.
There is an ominous whisper about a "wireless" which is not being made known.
Other and wilder rumours, obviously untrue, are in quick circulation. The men, poor fellows, are keenly on edge for news. There are many merely remaining alive to hear that Kut is saved. They all know the end is now in sight and the coma of the past months is over. We are like restless bees in swarming time.
April 8th.—A quiet day! Some few shells wandered into the town and a steady stream of sniping indicated that the enemy had probably withdrawn many men for reinforcements downstream. Woolpress is a complete island. In fact a part of it had to be abandoned yesterday, and last night theSumanabrought a large part of its garrison back. As a last resort one regiment will remain there to hold the Woolpress buildings only.
From my old observation post to-day, which I climbed with great difficulty, I looked on a very changed scene. The whole country is a series of huge lakes with tiny green patches between. The enemy has had to abandon his lines aroundWoolpress. In front of our first line tiny waves on this tiny ocean lap against our preservingbunds. In fact, Kut is an island!
3 p.m.—Gorringe has wired to say "all's well." "Advance continues!"
Once more with Micawber it is permitted to us to hope.
April 9th.—Shells, expletives, and suspense fell into Kut in unusual quantities. We are on the edge of a volcano. Who could keep a diary while sitting on the edge of a volcano? The gods, those humorous birds, have just flown over Kut on a tour of inspection. We can almost—as John Bright did not say—hear theflappingof their wings.
April 10th.—Poor Don Juan has taken his last hedge! I have hitherto managed to extend his reprieve, but to-day the order came. I gathered him a last feed of grass myself. He salaamed most vigorously as I had taught him. The chargers have been kept to the last. His companions stood by him trembling as the quick shot despatched one after another. Not so he! now and then he stamped, but otherwise stood perfectly still. I asked the N.C.O. to be careful that his first bullet was effective and to tell me when it was over. I kissed Don on the cheek "good-bye." He turned to watch me go. Shortly after they brought me his black tail, as I asked for a souvenir. Strange as it may seem we ate his heart and kidneys for dinner, as they are now reserved for owners. I am sure he would have preferred that I, rather than another, should do so.
He carried me faithfully, and died like a sahib. In the garrison I had no better friend. Being so he shall have this entry to himself.
April 11th.—Two paramount budgets of especial interest and importance reached us first thing this morning. One was that Cockie was annoyed with us for eating our own fowl, the other being from Sir Percy Lake to the effect that Gorringe cannot possibly be present here for the 15th, but will have great pleasure in doing so by the 21st instant. With the help of God and the strength derived from having eaten the hen, we hope to survive the first budget. To this end Square-Peg and Tudway and I immediately slaughtered the second hen and sent a polite message of this information to Cockie with a promise to reserve for him the head and feet. Tudway hasbeen in shrieks of laughter all day, and mounted guard over the hen himself. To be sure I intended to reserve for him half of my portion, but the others voted this treachery, as they think Cockie has done very well lately with hospital rations of fish and eggs. Cockie still consumes slabs of horse, the size of a slab being about that of the ordinary Nelson's 7d.edition.
The news from Sir Percy Lake is serious enough. Our men are now dying by the score and their condition is reduced to the last degree, many being scarce able to walk. It is not merely rations that they require, but sick comforts.
General Townshend has issued these communiqués to the troops—