Kut-el-Amara,April 10th, 1916.
"The result of the attack of the Relief Force on the Turks entrenched in the Sannaiyat position is that the Relief Force has not as yet won its way through, but is entrenched close up to the Turks in places some 200 to 300 yards distant. General Gorringe wired me last night that he was consolidating his position, as close to the enemy's trenches as he can get, with the intention of attacking again. He had had some difficulty with the flood which he had remedied. I have no other details. However, you will see that I must not run any risk over the date calculated to which our rations would last, namely April 15th, as you will all understand well that digging means delay, though General Gorringe does not say so. I am compelled, therefore, to make an appeal to you all to make a determined effort to eke out our scanty means, so that I can hold out for certain till our comrades arrive, and I know I shall not appeal to you in vain.
"I have, then, to reduce the rations to five ounces of meal for all ranks, British and Indian. In this way I can hold out till April 21st if it becomes necessary. I do not think it will become necessary, but it is my duty to take all precautions in my power. I am very sorry I can no longer favour the Indian soldiers in the matter of meal, but there is no possibility of doing so now. It must be remembered that there is plenty of horseflesh which they have been authorized by their religious leaders to eat.
"In my communiqué to you on January 26th I told youthat our duty stood out plain and simple: it was to stand here and hold up the Turkish advance on the Tigris, working heart and soul together; and I expressed the hope that we would make this defence to be remembered in history as a glorious one, and I asked you in this connection to remember the defence of Plevna, which was longer than that even of Ladysmith.
"Well, you have nobly carried out your mission, you have nobly answered the trust and appeal I put to you. The whole British Empire, let me tell you, is ringing now with our defence of Kut. You will all be proud to say one day, 'I was one of the garrison of Kut,' and as for Plevna and Ladysmith, we have beaten them also. Whatever happens now, we have done our duty. In my report of the defence of this place, which has now been telegraphed to headquarters, I said that it was not possible in dispatches to mention every one, but I could safely say that every individual in this force had done his duty to his King and Country. I was absolutely calm and confident, as I told you on January 26th, of the ultimate result, and I am confident now, I ask you all, comrades of all ranks, British and Indian, to help me now in this food question."
(Sd.)Charles Townshend,Major-General,Commanding the Garrison at Kut.
Thiscommuniquéis a breezy one! But we all know our General has a difficult task in communicating these repeated disappointments. The native troops are beginning to recall that the G.O.C. months ago passed his word for early relief. To a British Tommy this was what he calls "'opeful buck," but to the Sepoy it is a promise.
Kut-el-Amara,April 11th, 1916.
"General Sir Percy Lake, the Army Commander, wired me yesterday evening to say: 'There can be no doubt that Gorringe can in time force his way through to Kut. In consequence of yesterday's failure, however, it is certainly doubtful if he can reach you by April 15th.' This is in answer to a telegram from me yesterday morning to say that, as it appeared to me doubtful that General Gorringe would be here by the 15th, I had reluctantly still further reduced therations so as to hold on till April 21st. I hope the Indian officers will help me now in my great need in using commonsense talk with the Indian soldiers to eat horseflesh, as the Arabs of the town are doing."
(Sd.)Charles Townshend,Major-General,Commanding the Garrison at Kut.
April 12th.—This entry I am making with my eyes almost shut. I have had a miraculously narrow shave, and got a nasty shock and contusion since the last entry. At about 3 p.m. shells began to k-r-r-ump into the town, and the fire steadily thickened. I had just finished the war diary, and was sitting up on my bed restlessly awake with stomach pains, and Square-Peg was fast asleep by the other wall, when a high-velocity shell crashed into the room and burst. I was completely dazed by the concussion, which drove me against the wall. In fact, I was half stunned, as I was directly in line for the back-lash of the burst. I wasn't certain I wasn't hit, and my back felt queer. The room was so dark with dust and the dense yellow fumes that stank horribly that I couldn't see an inch. We were half smothered indébris. The walls and roof in part collapsed, letting fall dozens of bricks which had propped up some huge beams on the ceiling.
Square-Peg, who was groping about, assured me he wasn't hit, and hurrahed when he heard I was alive. However, on trying to rise, I found myself partly paralysed in my back, my spine in severe pain, and I could hardly see at all. He helped me out of the yellow gases, for I couldn't walk alone. I lay down in the mess, and after drinking some water felt better. But I am horribly shaken and suffer acute pain in whatever position I lie. In fact, last night I couldn't sleep, for every movement awoke me.
It proved to be a segment shell that had burst inside the room, and dozens of pieces were buried deep all round the walls and on the floor.
There is no luck like good luck. Tudway says it was an intended punishment for the affair of the fowl, which, nevertheless, we ate completely.
RECENT PHOTO OF AUTHOR'S LAST BILLET IN KUT(ABOVE LITTLE ARAB BOY).THE SHELL DEMOLISHED THE UPPER STORY.
We are sleeping in the mess until the wreckage is cleared up. Major Aylen, commanding the officers' hospital, visited me, and, although there is no incision, says there is a contusion over the spine from a blow. Either a brick must have hit me, or when I was flung violently back I struck the broken bed. I am writing this in bed.
The shelling continued last evening until late, and began again early this morning. I have been severely shaken, and it was as much as I could manage, even with assistance, to get on the verandah to my old room to see how it was the shell got in. For a time I could find no sign of its entry, but in getting my servant to remove the tins of earth I saw the shell-hole. There was no doubt the two tins had been removed, and the culprit had replaced them after the shell came. We were terribly angry, and had the whole crowd of men-servants and bearers and orderlies up about it at once. The orders had been strict. I had myself made a practice of going around the place every morning. Yesterday morning they were all right. They all said they knew nothing of it, but this afternoon I discovered that a syce from the lines had gone up to the room for my saddlery about an hour before the affair and moved the tins. He was in the next room when the shell entered, and hastily replacing the tins, he bolted in fright. I threatened him with a court-martial for removing defences, etc., at which he got in an awful funk, so I let him go. He shifted them, he said, to look for a tin of saddle soap, which I don't believe, as the wooden frieze was missing. He probably had come after the firewood.
In the night we had another thunderstorm. This will assist the floods, against which Gorringe is building at a fever rate.
According to general opinion, the suspense now occasioned by this last news from Sir Percy Lake is the most severe trial of the siege. We are all rather glad than otherwise that the state of our rations must precipitate the crisis one way or the other soon. The casualties on our behalf are appalling. An extraordinary sequence of fortunate factors, such as the discovery of the mill, has enabled us to hold out months longer than ever we could have dreamed possible—and we are in as great a state of uncertainty as ever. It is true that we all try to avoid the selfish point of view of requiring Kut to be relieved at all costs. The military situation is the only one to be considered, and to that end every other considerationmust be sacrificed. If it is necessary that Kut should be sacrificed to the military end, none of His Majesty's forces could be more ready for sacrifice than the Sixth Division. But when one thinks of the past months and the neglect to face the obvious military situation after Ctesiphon, one feels that the sufferings of the troops in Kut and the heavy loss of life downstream could easily have been avoided. There yet remains for us the hope that unnecessary as these sacrifices may have been, they will at least not have been made in vain.
To a soldier war may be sheer fatalism, but to a general it should be snatching victory from the knees of the gods.
Later.—General Hoghton, commanding the 17th Brigade, entered hospital yesterday suffering from acute enteritis and dysentery. Early this morning, to the universal sorrow of the garrison, he died. It is said that the wild green grass stuff was partly the cause, and also abstinence from horseflesh, which a digestion ravaged by the siege could not stand. He was a most genial and kind general, and always cheerful. I saw quite a lot of him in the "fort" days. I was sorry to be unable to attend his funeral. A great number were present. There was no funeral party, but from the verandah I heard the piercing bugle notes of the soldier's requiem. The Last Post came thrilling and sharp from the silence of the palm grove, and was no doubt heard in the Turkish lines. A brave soldier in a soldier's grave, amidst a goodly number!
8 p.m.—It has been a cool, breezy day, and the floods have subsided one inch. We hope the heavy rains that fell in the night won't bring them up again.
Tudway brought a rumour that good news had been received, but could not be published just yet. Has Sunnaiyat fallen? That is the question in every one's mouth. I have given my rations to the others and stuck to barley for two days. They aren't much to give, certainly—merely two small slices of bread. My shell-shock and bruise have affected my digestion, and all my nerves are in constant trembling, and my legs and arms jump and twitch.
It is a damp evening, and although I have been up only three or four hours to-day I shall get back to bed presently. At any rate it is much better than being in hospital, and one can do minor duties. Tudway is an awful brick at his job, and he is very seedy indeed.
A month or two ago three or four of men who were also at the siege of Ladysmith had a dinner. They say that the conditions there were infinitely less severe than they are here. There was only one hostile siege-gun that reached into the town; the hillsides and higher slopes were not under fire; they had some provisions, no floods, and their enemies did not include Arabs.
April 13th.—More rain! We hear that Gorringe is awaiting the arrival of another British division, theseventhin number, according to rumour, that has come into this infernal problem. Even the Twenty-first April isn't so certain now, and that must be the last day. There is practically nothing to eat. However, we are prepared for anything. Even an order for the whole garrison to undergo a fasting cure for six weeks wouldn't startle us.
The death of General Hoghton seems to have impressed every one with the ruthless passage of the God of the Siege. They are aware, a little more plainly than before, how undeviating is the course of that Relentless Spirit. Somehow one expects generals should be spared. Two others have recovered from sharp attacks of sickness, and one has been wounded.
It has been said that the soldier becomes callous. It would be more true to say that he merely becomes indifferent. But an exceptional phase of death removes the blinds from many disused windows of his mind, and he sees all too well. Such an event is the loss of this kind-hearted general, and it has given to many a higher altitude in point of view. There is the point of view of the trench and dug-out, of the hospital, of the observation post, on a roof top. There is that of an aeroplane. There is the standpoint of the overhead stars that see us as a flashing sphere. Tommy does not borrow the vantage point of a god from way beyond the farthest star, the most distant sun, to behold the universe, that gaily lighted ship of destiny travelling forward through the Seas of Time. But he has at any rate reached very far. This morning I was visited by some of my old section at the battery, and talked a time to the men, and I gave them some Arab tobacco. I find they have thought a good deal about things in general, and one was induced, to the amusement of the others, to give us what he considered a "bird's hye view" of our immediate future, which certainly didn't seem too bright. He saw Kut,a tiny spot under famine and fire, completely surrounded by hordes of the enemy, beyond them the menacing waters and fatal floods, beyond the floods the God-forsaken country of murderous Arabs,—and beyond that great and stretching continents of desert reaching thousands of miles away and ending in those strangely silent and unknown shores or losing themselves in the heart of Asia.
But fortune has smiled on us quite a deal, too. We found the grain stores at Woolpress, and the Flying Corps rigged up the mill-crusher discovered lying there. Then a large store of oil for the river steamers was utilized for fuel and lighting for all duty, and the Sappers and Flying Corps artificers made our bombs out of various charges for the howitzers and 4·7's. The aeroplanes brought us the detonators. Then the subsidence of the floods brought up the grass with which we bribed the animals to exist a little longer, while we ate their grain—and them.
The ammunition has lasted wonderfully well. We have over half of the original lot still in hand.
In truth, when one thinks how the Fighting Sixth fought its way across Mesopotamia, battling with fire and floods, thirst and heat, right up to the gate of Baghdad, and then was let down by want of supports, one has to extract thankfulness from the thought that Chance left it to the same division, alone and unreinforced, to stem the result of the turned tide. This it has done from December 1st at Um-al-Tabul until now, April 13th, a temporal avenue through sickness and death.
One is informed that if Kut had not been held, the position of the Turks would have been consolidated, and the tactical and strategical usefulness of its position with the enemy. These are the most cheerful thoughts possible in the garrison when one feels extra weary and sick.
It is not too much to say that almost no one has any misgiving as to the future. In this tiny horse-shoe panorama on the Tigris, where the destiny of Kut has pursued its dramatic evolution for the last four and a half months, the garrison awaits the ultimate development of the drama with a feeling merely of wide curiosity. Will the last scene be Tragedy, or will the people be allowed to leave the theatre feeling "comfortable," that it all came right in the end?
Alas! whatever the play is, it cannot be Comedy. Andwhen one remembers the large-hearted general who has gone, and whom some few medical comforts in time might have saved, one is made aware of the stern conditions of victory!
The enemy provoked an artillery duel this afternoon, and quite a number of shells fell in the town. Rain has stopped Gorringe's attack. Every possible disposition has been made for the entry of our relieving force or co-operation with their arriving on the other bank. We can only wait.
We brought about a delightful coup this afternoon in the purchase of 2½ lbs. of bad rice for five rupees. Tudway and Square-Peg go hungry now. I don't feel the last decrease in bread so much as they, as I am too seedy to eat it, and sometimes I can scarcely see. However, I am better to-day. Some one has placed a bradawl in the dessert dish! It forms the second and last course. It is "not to be eaten" in large letters, and "may be used for making another hole in your belt." The fish have left Kut. I wonder that even the birds don't fly away....
Outside in the street, beneath my window, a decrepit Arab beggar, in a deep passionate voice, asks for alms for the love of Allah and Mahomet. It is often the first sound I hear in the morning. Later in the day the Arab children make their appearance in groups, begging and wailing piteously. Once the babes in their mothers' arms used to cry the whole day long, but the unfortunates are probably long since gone. The Arab population has been dying by the hundreds, and they look dreadfully shrunken and gaunt. A few escaped, but were shot by the Turks. They have had everything possible done for them.
It is the hour of themuezzin, the most peaceful of the day, for at that ancient call of prayer even the wailing and begging ceases. From the mosque near by, whose open doorway faces Mecca, I hear the high thrilling notes quivering and trembling with all the passion of the East, the high-pitched semi-tone cadences sailing afar out and cutting ever greater ripples on the bosom of the still night air like growing circles from a stone dropped into a placid pool. It is truly wonderful this immemorial custom of calling the Followers of Mahomet. The volume of sound echoing from the minaret is thrown by themuezzinfurther and further. With extraordinary power his voice rises and falls, describing circles, arcs, and strangelywinding parabolas out of the still silences of evening. It is but an appeal. He calls the world to prayer. It is more potent than the appeal of bells. In themuezzinthe Mussulman hears the voice of Allah.
Now themuezzinis finished, and everything is so very still. I wonder if they are praying for the relief—as hard as their fellow religionists in the rest of Turkey are praying for the fall—of Kut. The odds, I fear, are against us.
I must sleep! I cannot remain awake five minutes longer. God in His wisdom made sleep the great possession. For the first essential to man is a gift of humour, and the second is the capacity for sleep. Sleep and forgetfulness! How many warriors on this dreadful planet at this fearful hour would willingly drink of Lethe and wake up on their respective battlefields when the war is over?
Eheu! I see the dark forms asleep on the snows of Russia, in the trenches of France, on the mountains of Italy, on the decks swept by the night winds of the North Sea. Who of them would not wish it?
"Nox ruit, et fuscis tellurem amplectitur alis.""Night descends and folds the earth in her dusky wings!"
April 14th.—Heavy firing began downstream just before the dawn. It continued till about 8 a.m.
The floods are spreading. A little rain fell during the night. Around Kut everything is extraordinarily quiet. I was very seedy during the night with violent pains and nausea, possibly the result of attempting to eat a little liver for dinner. I don't remember feeling worse. I took some opium pills at once, and Graoul came in early this morning with some hot water, which I drank. Have had two eggs sent from the hospital, and am ordered to eat nothing beside the yolk and a half cup of milk. About midday I felt quite bright again, and wrote some letters with one eye more or less closed. One's stomach these days has become an awful snob and simply won't look at anything. How fit I was until these wretched floods!
A report says that we must be fed by aeroplanes, but it seems that it will take three days in which to carry one day's provisions.
I imaginePunchwill have something to say on this. Weshall be represented as fielding for loaves and cakes and fishes and whisky bottles, Mellins' Food, and some of us charging towards the Tigris under fire from the opposite bank and endeavouring to recover our balance on the edge as we watch the priceless articles falling into the water.
The coming of the Turkish armada down the Shat-el-hai is evidently postponed. They are possibly frightened of John Bull on the water, even if it is only the river.
The Catholic padre and Square-Peg are playing chess. The Pope in other lands is probably entering in his diary that he has had a tiring day and that Kut must fall. Not because God has forgotten it, but because the garrison has no provisions.
Equally well advised is our mess bombardier, who has invented certain rhymes which he repeats over his cooking as no soothsayer ever did.
"Hashes to hashes! Bust ter bust!If Gorringe cawn't 'elp us the Lord Gawd must!"
April 15th.—This was the day beyond which we were assured it was impossible to go. We are evidently out for records.
The floods are steady. They can scarcely fall. Will the Turk attack to-day? Will Gorringe?
There is a tide in the affairs of KutThat taken at the flood will let through Gorringe—Omitted, all the voyage of the survivors is bound on donkeys or on camels.On such a full sea we are now afloatAnd we must chance the Tigris at the curves or down go Kut debentures!
Shelling now is a regular thing on and off the whole day. The Arabs are preparing to flee.
Last night the thunder bellowed her despair, or rather ours, according to Kipling, and Square-Peg talked horribly in his sleep, and was putting up a masterly defence in his best English against some Arab hordes—women were in it—who had him at bay somewhere in the gardens. Having lulled them into inattention he shot clean off the bed and out of the door, when he pulled up and said something sheepishly. Of course I pretended to be asleep; and after examining myface carefully he lay down again. Square-Peg is quite touchy about his nightmares. I heard him say "Damn" softly once or twice under his breath, and then fall asleep again. This time he was in an attack, and behaved shockingly, tossing about the bed in a most ghastly manner. Suddenly it dawned on me that he was taking cover. He knew the road to the door too well not to manage an advance or retire at the double. I think it must have been the former, because he hesitated a second this time before he moved, but I gave such a terrific roar that he immediately collapsed on the bed and swore horribly.
"Don't do it again," I said. "If you do, I'll put a bucket in your way. I swear it."
"What the devil do you mean?"
"Mean! Why, don't go after cigarettes with such enthusiasm again, that's all. Have one of these."
Then he called me names, at which I laughed the more.
"They are nothing to what your wife will call you, Square-Peg, if you carry on in that fashion when you are married!"
That set him thinking. The only thing to be said for him is that during a nightmare he doesn't snore.
April 16th.—It is a beautiful summer day full of spiciness. It was impossible to lie in bed, so I got up, imagining I was leaving aches and pains in my sleeping-bag. A distinct scent of green grass and the balmy air filled me with thoughts of England! It was good to be out and to find myself walking again.
After breakfast I crawled out with Tudway on board theSumana, and saw the excellent repair our sappers had effected in the main stop-valve. I make myself walk. We discussed her defences and I worked out the number of gun shields that would be necessary if they were utilized to cover all her deck. The plan was partly adopted. Then we lazied an hour or two in her smashed cabin, getting a hot sniping on our return. Afterwards, I played chess with Square-Peg and Father Tim.
Pars Nip came to tiffin. God has endowed him with two things—a perpetual appetite and a short memory, for he comes to tiffin very often without his bread.
Moreover, on any subject under the sun Pars Nip will dogmatize with all the splendid audacity of youth, with all youth's magnificent indifference to authority. With thesmallest amount of encouragement he has politically the makings of a magnificent catastrophe; otherwise he is normal.
We speculated on the treatment we should receive if captured. The Turk is said to be off the civilized map, but every one seems to think we should be done first rate, and some believe that he would be so bucked at capturing a whole army and five real live generals that we should be offered the Sultan's Palace of Sweet Waters on the Bosphorus and a special seraglio.
An evening communiqué said that Gorringe had captured the enemy's pickets, at Sunnaiyat, presumably, and was ready for a further advance, the results of which are expected by the morning.
For the first time aeroplanes to-day made several early trips, carrying some 150 lbs. of atta each trip. One lot fell into the Turkish lines. Kut apparently is not the easy mark it seems, for at different times quite a few parcels, detonators, money, and medicines have got the other bank or the enemy's lines here. In fact, one wonders why the Turks, instead of shooting at our fliers, don't encourage them. They do some very fair ranging with shrapnel at our planes. The whole garrison is indulging in such calculations as this: If a man and a half eats a slice and a half in a day and a half, how many trips of the planes are necessary before the Turks get more of the rations than we? By going hard all day they cannot supply us with one day's provisions, even on these fractional rations.
But wearegrateful. When we saw the first sack come tumbling down we felt much as Elijah may have done when the ravens ministered to his wants. Of course no aeroplane has landed in Kut during the siege. That would mean very probable disaster, so close are we to the enemy's lines.
To-night at dinner (?) we were without salt again. This is the third or fourth day of an affliction a hundred times worse than having no sugar. I can recommend all doubters to try dispensing with this necessary commodity for a few days in the preparation and eating of food, and to note the result.
Square-Peg and Tudway eat no bread at all for tiffin; just meat. The utmost effort gives them a spoonful of rice every other day for dinner or boiled cress. But we go throughthe form of dinner, and that helps a lot. Some messes of different mind have almost dispensed with the regular meal, and merely negotiate their rations at any old time. It is just possible they miss a lot. For some of us think that the decencies and conventionalities of life go a long way. In diluted quantities they themselves supply motive power to life's wearily knocking engine. They use energy gathered from past events and help us to carry on through gaping periods of our life when nothing seems worth while; and when we are indifferent or impatient with destiny, they are the pacemakers of existence. "A rich man," says the future philosopher, "may afford to dispense with dressing for dinner, but a poor man certainly cannot."
Now there are, of course, quite a few things said beneath our nightly cloud of tobacco smoke that do not appear in this diary. It would be sacrilege in some cases, and in others, why, one never knows who may come across one's diary. Confession is the salt of life, but suppression the sugar. And does not Maeterlinck tell us that the reservoirs of thought are higher than those of speech, and the reservoirs of silence higher still? But so far I have not heard that this has been quoted in a court of law. And to show that we are not totally devoid of artistic intentions I must record a sample of our mental gymnastics this evening. We were tilting at a few enthusiastic sentences of Robert Chambers' books.
"We are informed," I began, "that this interesting youth was sitting disconsolately awaiting his beloved, his well-shaped head in his hands. Any remarks?"
"Prig," said Tudway. "What business has a fellow to have a well-shaped head? Besides, where else could he put it except in his hands?"
"Don't be catty," said Square-Peg, "he wasn't in the navy. Why shouldn't he have a well-shaped head?"
"Probably he hadn't," I suggested mischievously. "We merely have the novelist's word for that, you know." At which they both called me an ass.
"If he did have such a head, I don't see why he shouldn't put it in his hands as well as anywhere else?" ventured the senior service.
"Possibly as he was in love he was hanging on to his head, having already lost his heart." This from the future K.C.
"But if his heart was in his mouth, how——" I was shouted down.
Then we all thought hard.
"What is the point, Curly?" This to me.
"Yes! What's the matter with the sentence after all?" added S.-P.
"Well, I can't quite say. You see she came along the corridor at midnight, we are told, and saw him, his well-shaped, etc. One doesn't like the excellent shape of his head being shoved in there. The fact, after all, was that his head was in his hands, and she surprised him, sorrowing in solitude."
"But if his head was well-shaped, why not say so?" said the truthful Tudway.
"Yes," nodded S.-P., "that may have been essential. If his head hadn't been well-shaped she mightn't have gushed all over him."
"Hang it," I broke in desperately, "I don't care if it was well-shaped or not. The word doesn't fit. Any other word or none. You see it suggests—er—something outside the matter in hand, she may as well have said his mathematical——"
They considered me beaten, and laughed horribly.
"The next is, 'her superb young figure straightened confronting the sea.' Any remarks?"
"She was playing to the gallery, of course," said S.-P., "or else she stood on a thistle."
"Don't talk rot! I'm with Curly there. 'Superb' swanks it too much. There's nothing superb in the world except a destroyer at thirty knots."
"Or the action of a blood filly going through her first pacings," I prompted. This raised a yell.
"The next is, 'her skirts swung high above the delicate contour of ankle and limb.' Any remarks?"
"That's naughty," said Square-Peg. "Besides, it doesn't say which limb."
"There's no doubt about the limb," I said, "unless her arm was meant, in which case her skirts——" But an awful roar interrupted me.
"Cut out 'limb' and substitute 'leg,'" suggested Tudway.
"Worse and worse. If 'limb' suggests anatomy, 'leg' suggests——"
"The Empire," they both screamed, and after the immoderate laughter had ceased I declared I wouldn't go on.
We refilled our pipes, but Tudway grew horribly silent. After a long time we chaffed him about theSumana, and offered him a kabob for his thoughts.
"Ah!" he said, "it was that limb. It recalled——" Then he stopped and actually reddened; and nothing would induce him to go on.
That set us all thinking.
We both retired to bed, and with one eye I finished the story. It is quite a good one, and tells you many other things about the call of the rain. That reminded me of an evening years ago in far-away New Zealand, when in the heart of the great silences I looked through my tent door and saw the rain on the wild river and great forests and distant mountains....
Well, I read with my half-shut eyes by the flickering dubbin tin that gave a small and ever-dwindling light, and although my eyes burned and jumped I read through to the end. And in the end Robert Chambers married them after all—those two young and ardent spirits, and together, no doubt, they looked at the night waves, and the snow on the wintry trees and at the distant stars, and heard the whisper of sweetness ineffable, the inarticulate music of the call of the rain.
And facing that last page was a bold advertisement and the picture of "Our extra guest folding bedstead—folds quite flat when not in use!"
That also was a human note, and how real! It invites us to view the deserted stage, the drabs of colour with grey torn canvas, the ghostly framework of the scenes, the tinsel robes and stifled flowers.
"Folds quite flat when not in use"—which will be quite often, as we have not many friends....
and a tiny little boyWith hey ho, the wind and the rain!A foolish thing was but a toyFor the rain it raineth every day....
It's awfully late. Only millions of starlings are abroad. I wonder if Tudway is dreaming of the limb!
April 18th.—A terrific bombardment continued downstream from last night until early this morning. We have since heard that the Third Lahore Division, under General Keary, after amagnificent struggle, has taken the lines of Beit Aissa, and that Turkish hordes are counter-attacking in successive waves. Our casualties are very heavy. The large pontoons which the Turks dragged overland for a ferry downstream are now in position. Tudway was recently to have led a river attack at night in H.M.S.Sumanaand to have pierced or blown up the bridge. The scheme, however, was cancelled.
Arabs continue to wait around the butchery for horse bladders on which to float downstream. They are shot at by the Turks, who want them to stay on here and eat our food, or else they are killed by hostile Arabs. Every night they go down, and a little later one hears their cries from the darkness. There are rumours that the Arab Sheik and his son, who are here with us and are badly wanted by the Turks, are to escape secretly to-night. These people know the Turk and the treatment they are likely to get for having associated with us.
For three or four days our heavy sea-planes have brought us food, dropping each day from one half to a ton of flour and sugar in the town and as often as not into the Tigris or Turkish lines. We are grateful to our brother officers downstream for this, and realize the difficulty of getting a correct "drop" always. I for one don't consider this at all a possiblesoulagement, as even with their best effort our tiny four-ounce ration cannot be nearly kept up. In fact, one ounce would be nearer the mark. Money is also dropped, and many coins dented in the fall go as souvenirs at double value.
April 24th.—I have been compelled to abandon keeping my diary owing to excruciating pain in my spine from the shell contusion. What is wrong I can't make out, but sometimes the tiniest movement sends a sharp thrill of keenest pain through one's whole being. I think I must have struck the wall forcibly and affected the vertebræ. After lying in one position for any little time this particular spot in my spine aches with a most ravaging pulsation of neuralgia, and I find it difficult to sit upright for many minutes. On these occasions if I lie still my arms and legs shoot out at intervals with a sort of reflex action, and sometimes repeat the performance several times.
But for being much easier to-day I thank God. I have even walked a little with a stick, and the twitching is much less violent and less often. My eyes, however, are still dim, andI find it difficult to see very distinctly. To complete the list of my infirmities of the flesh the enteritis, which has continued in a mild form for three weeks, has got worse, and I find emmatine the only thing that has done any good. Here, again, I have much to be thankful for, in that I have not had the severe form as so many others have, or else with other troubles I should be on unskateable ice. My legs are shockingly thin, less than my arms were, and I can fold my skin round my legs. In fact, I might think of applying my remarks on the poor fellow at the hospital to myself. The daily egg and ounce of milk stopped days ago. We have paid Rupees 30 for a tin of milk which I have with some rice my very good friend Major Aylen sends me from the officers' hospital. He now wishes me to enter hospital, but I prefer being an out-patient. The atmosphere there is both siegy and sick.
The bombardment of the 22nd downstream appears to have been a tremendous attempt by Gorringe to get through at Sannaiyat. It failed. Our comrades gave their lives freely for us and they fought in the mud feet deep trying to get at their enemy. As they fell wounded they were drowned.
What an appalling price we are costing! A calm seems to be stealing over the garrison. It is the reaction from suspense extended infinitely far, and we know that we have done all possible to carry our resistance to the last possible day. These words are not so self-righteous as they look when one considers the gallant effort to walk and to carry out the simplest routine by men dying and doomed. There are men, with cholera staring from their faces, moving along at a crawl with the help of a long stick; men resting against the wall of the trench every ten yards. One wills hard to do the simplest thing. From our men the siege has demanded even more than from us. We have now drifted very near the weir and within a few days must know our fate. A few say it appears already. There is, between us and that, however, only the habit, now strong within us, of refusing to believe that Kut can fall. And yet if Gorringe has not yet got Sunnaiyat, how can he cross these successions of defences in a few days?
April 25th.—I am making a great effort to write further in this diary. Last night there happened one of those gallant episodes that confirm our pride of race.
Arelief ship,Julnaby name, had been fitted out downstream and loaded with every available comfort for us, and provisions for several weeks. She was heavily protected and commanded by Lieut. Cowley, R.N.R., the famous local celebrity who knows every yard of the Tigris. He with two other officers and some men of the Royal Navy volunteered to outdo the Mountjoy episode. The Turkish gunners were engaged by our artillery down below, and under cover of darkness theJulnaleft. The Turks, no doubt, knew, or soon found out, what the show was. She came along gallantly, drawing a heavy fire, and surmounted all difficulties until reaching Megasis ferry, where, fouling a heavy cable, she swung on to a sandbank. Here the Turkish guns confronted her at a few yards' range. Her officers were killed, Lieut. Cowley captured, and she was taken within sight of our men waiting to unload her by the Fort, and of the sad little group of the garrison who beheld her from the roof-tops of Kut. She lies there now. It appears that this tragic but obvious end of so glorious an enterprise is a last hope. We have scarcely rations for to-morrow.
It now remains for us to submit ourselves as best we can to the workings of the Inexorable Law.
April 27th.—Last night we destroyed surplus ammunition. To-day General Townshend, Colonel Parr (G.S.O.I.), and Captain Morland have gone upstream to interview the Turkish Commander-in-Chief. There is a hum of inquiries. One says it is parole and marching out with the honours of war. Another talks of the Turks requiring our guns as the price of the garrison. To-day it is a changed Kut. It is armistice. No sound of fire breaks the hush of expectations. The river-front, grass-grown from long disuse, and the landing-stage likewise, for it has been certain death to go on that fire-swept zone, to-day swarm with people walking and talking. The Turks on the opposite bank do the same. It is strange. I walked a little with a stick. Hope has made one almost strong. This afternoon I went over the river to Woolpress village, where the tiny garrison has been the whole siege, and many of them have not once visited Kut. The defences are excellent. They have also had to fight floods. A little hockey ground and mess overlooking the river safe from bullets suggested Woolpress as a peaceful spot, notwithstanding its liability to instant isolation from Kut.
April 28th.—General Townshend has issued thiscommuniqué,and its joyous effect on the whole garrison is indescribable. With the tragic side that the relieving forces cannot get through in time we are acquainted as with the fact that we have actually eaten our iron emergency rations, but General Townshend has given out a strong probability that we are to be released and sent back to India on parole, not to fight against Turkey again.
Thiscommuniquéis as follows:—
Kut-el-Amara,April 28th, 1916.
"It became clear, after General Gorringe's second repulse on April 22nd at Sannaiyat, of which I was informed by the Army Commander by wire, that the Relief Force could not win its way through in anything like time to relieve us, our limit of resistance as regards food being April 29th. It is hard to believe that the large forces comprising the Relief Force now could not fight their way to Kut, but there is the fact staring us in the face. I was then ordered to open negotiations for the surrender of Kut, in the words of the Army Commander's telegram, 'the onus not lying on yourself. You are in the position of having conducted a gallant and successful defence and you will be in a position to get better terms than any emissary of ours ... the Admiral, who had been in consultation with the Army Commander, considers that you with your prestige are likely to get the best terms.... We can, of course, supply food as you may arrange.'
"Those considerations alone, namely, that I can help my comrades of all ranks to the end, have decided me to overcome my bodily illness and the anguish of mind which I am suffering now, and I have interviewed the Turkish General-in-Chief yesterday, who is full of admiration at 'an heroic defence of five months,' as he put it. Negotiations are still in progress, but I hope to be able to announce your departure for India on parole not to serve against the Turks, since the Turkish Commander-in-Chief says he thinks it will be allowed, and has wired to Constantinople to ask for this, and theJulna, which is lying with food for us at Megasis now, may be permitted to come to us.
"Whatever has happened, my comrades, you can only beproud of yourselves. We have done our duty to King and Empire, the whole world knows we have done our duty.
"I ask you to stand by me with your ready and splendid discipline, shown throughout, in the next few days for the expedition of all service I demand of you. We may possibly go into camp, I hope between the Fort and town along the shore whence we can easily embark.
"The following message has been received from the Army Commander: 'The C.-in-C. has desired me to convey to you and your brave and devoted troops his appreciation of the manner in which you together have undergone the suffering and hardships of the siege, which he knows has been due to the high spirit of devotion to duty in which you have met the call of your Sovereign and Empire. The C.-in-C.'s sentiments are shared by myself, General Gorringe, and all the troops of the Tigris column. We can only express extreme disappointment and regret that our effort to relieve you should not have been crowned with success.'
Copy of a telegram from Captain Nunn, C.M.G., R.N.
"'We, the officers and men of the Royal Navy who have been associated with the Tigris Corps, and many of us so often worked with you and your gallant troops, desire to express our heartfelt regret at our inability to join hands with you and your comrades in Kut.'"