(Sd.)C. V. F. Townshend,Major-General,Commanding 6th Division and Forces at Kut.
A great arrangement. We are a sick army, a skeleton army rocking with cholera and disease. Instead of the lot of captivity in this terrible land, with the Turks who have never had anybandobastfor anything, and merely barbaric food themselves, the garrison may see India again and have a welcome there. Whatever our end, there is no denying the great fighting qualities of the Sixth Poona Division. More than its glorious career, its stupendous efforts in vain to overtake the tragic destiny decreed by the gods for the mistake of others, must make it famous in arms.
The fact that the communiqué does not state for absolutecertainty the condition of parole does not detract so much from the spirit of the garrison, such faith have they in the G.O.C., and General Townshend's prestige with the Turks is held sufficient to get this condition. Besides, they say a general must always leave a big margin, and when he states probability he means certainty. I cannot imagine a greater change than this that has come over all to-day.
Dying men laugh and talk of Bombay and news of home. The sepoy sees again his village and feels the shade of the banyan. "Not to bear arms against Turkey." That still leaves Germany and all the rest. Others say they knew all along it had to come like this, that in high heaven the gods that had forsaken the Sixth Division at the zenith of its conquest and decreed for it tasks too Herculean, would now crown its career with an honourable return. Except on the two occasions when we expected to debouch, I doubt if the heart of Kut ever beat higher.
Later.—Two junior officers visited the Turkish headquarters' camp. General Townshend did not go.
They brought back news that Enver Pasha had refused parole and demands unconditional surrender. Destruction of our ammunition, spare rifles, and kit, proceeds apace. I have just destroyed my two saddles, field-glasses, revolver, and much else. Detonations are heard all along the trenches. Kut falls to-morrow. This news on top of these few short hours of hope seems incredible, and the silence with which the garrison received it is too magnificent for reference.
Later, 4.30 p.m.—At lunch Tudway informed me in his quiet way that he contemplated running the gauntlet downstream in theSumanato-night in the hope of saving his ship from the Turks. He has communicated with his S.N.O. at Basrah. He invited me to come with him. I felt very complimented and after some consideration I agreed. Tudway knew his ship, the river, and the likely stoppages. He had counted the risk of cables. The current would help us and the Turkish guns were all still, no doubt, pointing downstream against other possibleJulnas. In two hours we should be down. We left things at this and Tudway went to make inquiries.
He has just returned in a resigned frame of mind. The project was absolutely private and not known to headquarters, who, however, sent anticipatory orders to Tudway that theSumanawas under no circumstance to be damaged but kept intact in Kut.
The surrender was unconditional, and we were destroying everything. TheSumana, however, was a most valuable asset for inducing Turks to give us transport. One learnt subsequently, however, that the G.O.C. had retained it for his own use on a Turkish promise to allow him to go downstream to see Sir Percy Lake the Army Commander.
Whether this was actually so I cannot say. We have considered the chance of getting downstream by night on a ship's lifebelt, the current doing several knots and quite enough to carry one down. There was, of course, the considerable chance of capture by the devilish Arabs or being seen by the Turks. The chief question, however, was whether we could stay in the water six or seven hours. In our present health we decided it out of question, even if we had covered ourself with oil.
9 p.m.—Our little mess had its last talk. We sat and smoked, divided the remnants of tobacco and tin of atta, and awaited news. I am told to come into hospital, but a later report says there is no room.
April 29th.—General Townshend has issued a last communiqué holding out hope that he will go home and arrange the exchange on parole. It is, however, a very slender hope.
Kut-el-Amara, April 29th, 1916.
"Communiqué.1. The G.O.C. has sent the following letter to the Turkish Commander-in-Chief:
'Your Excellency,
Hunger forces me to lay down our arms, and I am ready to surrender to you my brave soldiers who have done their duty, as you have affirmed when you said, "Your gallant troops will be our most sincere and precious guests." Be generous, then, they have done their duty, you have seen them in the Battle of Ctesiphon, you have seen them during the retirement, and you have seen them during the Siege of Kut for the last five months, in which time I have played the strategical rôle of blocking your counter-offensive and allowed time for our reinforcements to arrive in Iraq. You haveseen how they have done their duty, and I am certain that the military history of this war will affirm this in a decisive manner. I send two of my officers, Captain Morland and Major Gilchrist, to arrange details.
I am ready to put Kut into your hands at once and go into your camp as soon as you can arrange details, but I pray you to expedite the arrival of food.
I propose that your Chief Medical Officer should visit my hospitals with my P.M.O. He will be able to see for himself the state of many of my troops—there are some without arms and legs, some with scurvy. I do not suppose you wish to take these into captivity, and in fact the better course would be to let the wounded and sick go to India.
The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, London, wires me that the exchange of prisoners of war is permitted. An equal number of Turks in Egypt and India would be liberated in exchange for the same number of my combatants.
Accept my highest regards.
(Sd.)General Townshend,Major-General,Commanding the 6th Division and the Force at Kut.'
'2. I would add to the above that there is strong ground for hoping that the Turks will eventually agree to all being exchanged. I have received notification from the Turkish Commander-in-Chief to say I can start for Constantinople. Having arrived there, I shall petition to be allowed to go to London on parole, and see the Secretary of State for War and get you exchanged at once. In this way I hope to be of great assistance to you all. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your devotion and your discipline and bravery, and may we all meet in better times.
(Sd.)Charles Townshend,Major-General,Commanding the 6th Division and the Force at Kut.'"
No orders have been issued about the entry of the Turks. Some sort of formality in handing over is talked of. We have demolished everything. I have just met the brigade armourer, a most valuable N.C.O., who has the history of every gun in the brigade. He looked many years older, andsaid he had just helped to blow up the last gun. One breech-block of the howitzers which we demolished by lyddite in the bore travelled over Kut far on to themaidan.
May 7th.—I am lying in a very shaky condition in the overcrowded officers' hospital in Kut. This is due to temperature of a 104° from malaria, also dysentery, and mild enteritis, apart from my bruise. Many ages seem to have passed since my last entry. We had understood that the Turks would make a formal entrance into Kut. Instead, some time after lunch, I heard wild yelling in the streets. Arabs armed with dozens of crescent flags danced and cheered some Turkish horsemen that rode along a street known as Regent Street. Then, suddenly, wild yells and scuffling came from the wall upstairs on our tiny roof, and over this wall separating the adjoining houses I saw crowds of wild bearded men in the most unkempt condition conceivable, armed with rifles and bayonets. With loud shouts and cries they passed over our kit, yelling out "Kirich" (sword). One seized mine and tried to open my kit. They were very excited. At the same moment our front door was knocked in, and Square-Peg's effects were similarly wanted. Looting of the mess and of our mess servants followed. They seized the bombardier's coat which was hanging on a nail. He objected, and got hammered with rifle butts until I intervened. It looked like a general scuffle. I went outside and found a diminutive officer who spoke German, was extraordinarily polite, and evidently much elated. He came in and restored some small degree of order by requesting his men, in fact he pleaded with them rather than ordered them. I took my sword from the Turkish soldier and handed it to this officer. At this he was most moved. Square-Peg went into the hospital near by for orders. There, also, it seemed events had taken unexpected turns, and looting had begun. We were ordered in at once.
While he was away I had kept the officer with me, and we went about the street stopping similar scenes. When we returned a few moments later we heard our bombardier had been unmercifully beaten by Turks for trying to retain his boots. The Turkish officers did not mind much when this was reported. We got some sepoys to carry our kit, or ratherthe remains of it, and as I left the tiny courtyard the last thing I saw was poor Don Juan's black tail hanging on a nail on the post in the sun to dry. I wanted it for a souvenir of a trusty friend, but there was not a second to be lost. In the street the Arabs were all hostile to us. Turks full of loot raced up and down. We met officers whose rings had been taken and pockets emptied.
The padre's wrist-watch and personal effects were taken. In hospital, Square-Peg and I lay on our valises on the ground of the tiny yard, as the hospital was overflowing and officers kept still arriving. Sir Charles Melliss came shortly after. He had a bed beside mine near the doorway, and I thought looked very ill. His little white dog was beside him and all around him were sick and dying officers. Nothing I can say could measure my gratitude and admiration for Major Aylen, the C.O. officers' hospital. While living on the hardest and most severe of diet himself he has gone from minute to minute with only one thought—for his charge. He is everywhere, and in adversity his industry, patience, and hopefulness are all we have left. If I am to be fortunate enough to survive this ordeal I shall have him to thank.
Tudway turned up as arranged for the evening meal. We pooled our flour and hadChuppatis, one-fourth of which we gave to Holmes my orderly. We lay on blankets on the ground and smoked the lime-leaves, and Tudway said good-bye. After leaving us in the morning he had returned to theSumanato find a party of Turks had been sent over to seize her, taking everything on board, including the whole of his kit. His men had been put off. Remonstrations were useless. At the last moment the G.O.C. was not permitted to go downstream, and so we lost theSumanaintact to the Turks. Naturally her able and devoted commander felt sore about this. He announced his intention to go upstream with some other brigade, and I said good-bye to a very pleasant companion.
The hospital had already been looted several times by Turks. The night was hot. One heard the moans of the enteritis patients and the tramp of troops all night long.
In the early dawn some Turkish troops entered past the sentry, whom they ignored. I had slept in my boots and hidden all my loose kit, but they commenced to seize whatthey wanted from others. One took General Melliss' boots from under his bed and another his shoes, and made off, notwithstanding the general's loud protests. Sir Charles jumped out of the bed and followed them. A scuffle ensued in the street. The general reappeared, and put on his cap and jacket showing his rank and decorations, and then returned to the fray. The soldier, however, seized him by the throat, and the general, in a highly indignant frame of mind, and looking very dishevelled, returned and got leave to go to General Townshend, which he did in his socks. While he was gone more Turks swarmed in and robbed patients who were too ill to move, taking shoes, razors, mirrors, knives, and anything they fancied.
Our C.O., Major Aylen, in a tremendous rage seized the sentry and pointed to his red-cross badge and the flag of the hospital. Although his not knowing a word of the language made things worse, there could be no mistaking his meaning as he pointed to the looters and our red-cross flag. A group of Turks, some junior officers, stood looking on, merely interested spectators. Half an hour later a Turkish officer appeared from headquarters in a frenzy. He had evidently been severely reprimanded. He kicked the sentry and struck him repeatedly in the face. After this for some hours looting was less frequent, but later recommenced.
Square-Peg's interpreter was next found on the roof of the hospital. He was kicked down head foremost, and dragged off to be hung. This was the unfortunate man who had brought us vegetables and supplies from the Arabs. Officially interpreter to Square-Peg who was fire-brigade officer, he had asked us about escaping, and hoped to disguise himself as a Eurasian from the Volunteer Battery. A Baghdadi by nationality he said he had lived in Calcutta. He had been with our force, and was no doubt betrayed by the pro-Turk Arabs in the town. Sassoon, our other interpreter and a well-known figure in Kut, has also, I hear, been hung with his legs broken, for he had been so thrashed and tortured that he jumped off the roof to kill himself. The friendly Sheik and family have met a similar fate. One now sees the Turk at close quarters.
To crown all, the disastrous news has come that, despite most elaborate assurances to the effect that the garrisonwould be conveyed upstream in barges, the men have been ordered to march to Baghdad with kit through this fearful heat. They have no rations except the coarse black Turkish biscuit. Officers have not been allowed to accompany them and their guards are mostly Kurdish rank and file, the most barbarous savages in this country. In some cases there are no Turkish officers, but merely Turkish sergeants or privates in charge of our prisoners. We are all many stages past indignation. The Turkish promises at the surrender were too much relied upon. General Townshend, we hear, has already left for Constantinople by a special steamer and car, and is permitted to travelen prince. I can believe already the prophecy of the reverend father that surrender would mean a trail of dead. Most of our troops left Kut on the 29th or next day for Shamrun, ten miles up-river. We had eaten our last rations on the 28th, and supplies were expected immediately from our captors. However, they sent us nothing for four days, and only black biscuit then. Everything must be bought from the Arab bazar—after the Turks have taken what they want. Some stores and letters have gone upstream from down below, but so far nothing has arrived for the lonely hospital here filled with wounded and sick and dying. Nothing, except for a few gifts Major Aylen brought us from the hospital ship and a few cigars from the padre.
May 9th.—The Turkish authorities seem determined not to send any British officer back if it can be helped. More than one who was rejected by the Turkish medical officer as not sufficiently ill to warrant exchange has succumbed. A poor fellow in the next ward who has been groaning for days died yesterday. One is not likely to recover on Turkish biscuits at this stage. I was ordered by Colonel Brown-Mason, our P.M.O., to translate for the Turkish doctor who knew German and a little French. This I did for several officers, but we were all rejected, although about six of us had been told we were certain to go. Four were selected in all, by no means the worse of the cases, while men with legs in splints, smashed thighs, and shot backs, one of whom could not sit or stand up, were rejected. Kut was deserted and lone. General Aylmer, we heard, had retired to Amarah. We expect to leave every day for Baghdad. How the men have faredwe don't know, but from time to time terrible stories reach us.
GENERAL TOWNSHEND A PRISONER, WITH KHALIL PACHA,OUR CAPTOR (RIGHT), AT BAGHDAD AFTER KUT FELL
June 1st.—I am writing from Baghdad in what is supposed to be the hospital, but is actually an empty house commanded by a Turkish dug-out cavalry captain, quite a well-meaning old fellow, but not much use to any one sick, and very strict. After many false alarms we were moved from Kut in a hospital boat, which proved to be the ill-fatedJulna. I was carried on a stretcher which the Turks tried to loot as I passed. On my way I saw looting on every side. Our Indian troops lay like rows of skeletons. Their food and boots were taken from them by their own guards. A few cases of looting have been admonished, but no general measures taken. On more than one occasion the officer whose aid was requested merely asked the Turkish Askar to return the loot. Our kit was searched, and I lost my tiny camera and some excellent photos taken of Aziziyeh on the evacuation, showing our army retreating and the Turkish army advancing. Other photos were of the field artillery in action at Ummal Tabul, and some excellent ones of interesting corners in Kut, dug-outs, battery positions, shelters, and our inner life below—rare photos that, unfortunately, can never be replaced.
We were packed on the deck of theJulna, which had been captured practically intact, one engine working perfectly and one screw. Every yard had a bullet hole. We called this the Death Ship, as on it were all the remnants of the sick. Men were dying as they came aboard. Brigadier-General G. B. Smith was senior officer, but Colonel Brown-Mason, P.M.O., was in charge. We carried a few sentries. As we moved upstream past the palm grove, scene after scene in a tussle of five months became again vivid. Then the Turkish crescent, floating from the Serai in place of our Union Jack, was shut out from our eyes by the bend of the river, and we realized a little more that Kut and the siege were back history, and we prisoners in a relentless captivity....
The voyage was a sad and long one. There was mildewed and rotten bread that no one could touch. It was worse than the biscuits. Other things like eggs and milk we had to buy at huge prices. At Baghailah Arabs came within a yard of our boat, and danced in ecstasy, gibing at us, and drawing their fingers across their throats indicating what they thought we deserved or were in for. That did not trouble us much. But we tingled with anger and shame at seeing on the other bank a sad little column of British troops who had marched up from Kut being driven by a wild crowd of Kurdish horsemen who brandished sticks and what looked like whips. The eyes of our men stared from white faces drawn long with the suffering of a too tardy death, and they held out their hands towards our boat. As they dragged one foot after another some fell, and those with the rearguard came in for blows from cudgels and sticks. I saw one Kurd strike a British soldier who was limping along. He reeled under the blows. We shouted out, and if ever men felt like murdering their guards we did. But that procedure was useless. We prevailed on the Turk in charge of our boat to stop and take some of the men. It seemed that half their number were a few miles ahead and the rest strewed the road to Kut. Some have been thrashed to death, some killed, and some robbed of their kit and left to be tortured by the Arabs. I have been told by a sergeant that he saw one of theSumanacrew killed instantly by a blow on the head from a stirrup iron swung by a Kurdish horseman for stopping by a road a few seconds. Men were dying of cholera and dysentery andoften fell out from sheer weakness. But the remorseless Kurd, worse than the Turk, knows no excuse.
Every now and then we stopped to bury our dead. The awful disease, enteritis, a form of cholera, attacked the whole garrison with greater vigour after Kut fell, and the change of food no doubt helped this. It showed also that before surrender the garrison had drawn on its last ounce of strength. A man turned green and foamed at the mouth. His eyes became sightless and the most terrible moans conceivable came from his inner being, a wild, terrible retching sort of vomiting moan. They died, one and all, with terrible suddenness. One night several Indians were missing. Others reported that these have fallen overboard or jumped overboard to end their wretchedness. But more than one was probably trying to escape. Some officers played bridge and one or two chess.
In a cot close by the wasted form of a well-known major still balanced between life and death. He was a big man, but nevertheless now weighs less than a child of ten.
Then Lieutenant Tozer succumbed to enteritis after a terrible ordeal of some days. The groans of this poor fellow as he lay unconscious hour after hour stirred one to the heart. Periodical violent vomiting succeeded, and one morning the changed and drawn face was still and the tired eyes of a ghastly green were closed. We held a tiny service below Ctesiphon, Arabs waiting around and casting longing eyes on the blanket that enclosed him. But we buried him deep, and a sheik promised to see his grave was respected. General Smith, Major Thomson, and I attended his funeral. He was a very popular and good fellow. We realized as we stood around his grave that the remorseless hand of death overshadowed us too. I think we were ready to fight the symptoms when they should appear and ready to die quietly if it had to be. We were still cheerful but a little quieter.
The voyage up to Baghdad lasted almost two weeks, owing to our running short of petrol. A tin of this turned up here and there and the ship simply went on until this was done.
Messages and countless orders were sent. We waited day after day moored to the bank some miles from Baghdad. The death rate was increasing. This ship seems stricken. Then we were told we had to walk to Baghdad. Very fewof us could have got there. Fortunately our resistance prevailed, although had we been the rank and file I am convinced this order would have been carried out. Finally the engineer in charge of the boat set off on a donkey for Baghdad, his legs doing a dangling jig from side to side. We were now within ten miles or so of Baghdad and the green date palms of the city were before us. Some days afterwards the Mejidieh came and took us in tow, but we made very slow headway against the current and had to tie up once more at night. Waterways worked by a horse running up and down on an incline and hauling over a wheel a rope attached to a large skin receptacle of water was the new irrigation scheme in this district. We passed more palm groves within high walls, and tried to think of Haroun-al-Rashid. Then minarets and the domes of mosques appeared, and we swung into view of a fine river-front of buildings less dilapidated than we had seen for many months. In going round the corner against the rapid current we had to make about eight attempts, each time resulting in our getting swung round, and to avoid the sandbanks we had to return. Assisted by men on shore with ropes we managed this at length and drew near the bank. It was about eight o'clock at night. We passed within a few feet of crowds of fezzed figures on the verandah cafés that stood on piles in the river on the right bank. We heard their carousals, and I remember the red line of their flaming pipes as they cried together yelling and cheering in exultation. Then we drew alongside the left bank near what we called the Water Tower. We were very hungry and ill, and alongside our dead on board many others were dying. The only visitors we had were disreputable Arabs and Turks who, as the night grew darker, swarmed on board and looted or thieved. I define loot as open theft under threat of violence, by a captor from a captive.
In the morning we were subjected to more looting, and if one left one's kit a second it disappeared. Having to carry some of our kit as best we could, the rest was imperilled. I lost my haversack with all my knives and plates and razor and toilet kit and scanty supply of medicine like chlorodyne and quinine, of which the Turks had none. We were left in the sun in rows still without food and under the eyes of a curious crowd. We bought a few things from women hawkers.
This same major who lies here dying in this house in Baghdad was, so soon as we disembarked, left lying uncovered from the sun on a stretcher apparently unconscious and covered by thousands of flies, in fact, black with them. Now and then a wasted arm rose a few inches as if to brush them off but fell back inadequate to the task. One wondered if he were dead. Our protests as we realized he had been left there hours before we arrived were more than vehement. One of our orderlies was finally allowed to remove him under cover from the fierce sun and to give him water. One saw British soldiers in a similar state dying of enteritis with a green ooze issuing from their lips, their mouths fixed open, in and out of which flies walked like bees entering and issuing from a hive. We were thankful to leave the ill-fatedJulna, and personally I felt very grateful to Col. Brown-Mason, the P.M.O., our eternal friend Major Aylen (O.C. officers' hospital) and General G. B. Smith who, in the periods of long waiting, was most cheerful and encouraging.
We were split up into parties of sick in various hospitals so called. Two officers accompanied me and the sentry. We were told it was one minute's walk. Lieutenant Richardson, who had a shot back and could not stand for many seconds, had to walk. Lieutenant Forbes and I took his arms to assist him, and like three drunken men lurched forward through the bazaar. Poor Richardson collapsed several times on the way and finally fainted. It was at least a mile off, and our sentry lost his way. He was quite a decent fellow and did not object to some Armenian women who ran out with lemonade. We got a stretcher and at last arrived.
I am in a long room filled with bug and flea infested beds. Twice a day at hours impossible to conjecture a Turk brings in youghut, a curdled milk, in a bucket which we found most uninviting but have since learnt to take, and some rice and pilaf. We have been here some days, and through talking German to the son of the old cavalry commandant, I have actually been allowed to get dressed and go to the adjacent shops to buy castor oil with some of my remaining coins.
OUR PRISON, BAGHDAD,AS IMPROVED AFTER BRITISH OCCUPATION
The American Consul has visited us. He is a kind man, and regrets that he has not any money left, as he gave all he could get to the first column, but he helped us with our luggage and sent along a few comforts such as tobacco and quinine. I heard that all the money at the fall of Kut was distributed among the garrison, and about three or four gold liras were to have reached me. They did not, however. I have only eighty piastres left, the balance of changing fifty rupees. At night it is very hot and we sleep on the roofs, as does all Baghdad. Major Cotton has grown worse. On arrival here he was taken to some contagious disease hospital by mistake, and met no one who knew who he was or who could speak for him, days after he came here. His sufferings and mental anguish had been terrible away from us all. Major Aylen gave him a tablespoonful of champagne brought up secretly from the camp by another party. After this the poor fellow became more coherent and quite restful. Late that night he begged me to take him on to the balcony. Notwithstanding the pain of my back I managed to get him on the verandah. He could not have weighed more than five stone. He said he was very grateful to feel the gentle movement of a breeze. Next morning he was dead. Details of other similar cases I won't write about.
May 26th.—Cavalry Barracks, Baghdad.I have been here some days, having decided that one could not hope to recover in an empty house, and so after a week or more there resolved on a supreme effort. We were sent to these Turkish barracks near the north gate on themaidan. It was no great distance but took much effort to get there. We left in the late afternoon, but owing to mistakes of the sentries, who took us to several wrong places, and to the fact that the Turkish sergeants at the barracks did not approve of our papers, we still wandered about after dark. He sent us back. This was repeated several times. We wandered round the place in the dark huddled up like sheep on the foul and stenchingmaidanby our postas who awaited the Commandant.
Towards 10 p.m., in the dark we got up from the mud pool, which reeked of the dead horses therein and the rubbish of the city. Sick, hungry and cold we plodded up the steps to empty rooms, our means of existence being only what remained to us, that is to say, what the various parties had not looted. This meant two or three tins of milk, a little bad tea, and possibly raisins.
The chief columns of officers have already left for Mosul. Daily I practise walking on the wall, a space that offersopportunity for a good promenade. I want to see how much I can do. Altogether I feel a little better but the dysentery has left me very weak, and after a half-mile have to sit down. I have contrived to send my British orderly to the town where, with the money I have raised by selling some of my kit, he has bought on occasion small pieces of meat or fish, a few vegetables, and even a small fowl which we shared among six sick people. We stewed the fowl to rags and drank the soup.
I have been allowed by special leave to visit General Smith in hospital. He had asked me during the last days of Kut to do A.D.C. again to him in captivity. This was an excellent chance for which I was most grateful, as it seemed doubtful whether I would last the trek. But I have no money and can't get any, and am averse to travelling on my general's supply, as money now is one's chance of life. I told him frankly that I am doubtful about being fit enough to carry on very efficiently for him, but as he is to travel in a carriage over the desert for all those hundreds of miles I could do a certain amount, and I hoped to be of use in knowing something of French and German. However, in my woebegone condition I was promptly turned down. I recognize now that I am in for the ordeal of the survival of the fittest with a heavy handicap. We hear sometimes terrible accounts of the hardships undergone over these hundreds of miles of foodless and often waterless land, to struggle over which is an achievement even for a strong man. But for one thing, we should be too dismayed to start—that is the hope and will strong within us to survive. One recognizes this show has become a competition between a man and a merciless fate. I believe I shall get through.
Major Middlemas and Lieutenant Greenwood shared my room and we slept on our blankets on the floor.
Later.—We have been allowed three times into the town and wandered through a bazaar full of bootshops and cafés. Gunner Holmes sticks faithfully to me. He is lucky to have escaped the lot of the others. Shortly after our arrival we saw what even the oldest soldiers amongst us regarded as the most awful spectacle of their lives—the sight of a column of British soldiers under Turk and Arab guards entering Baghdad after the march from Kut. They were literally walking corpses, some doubled with the pains of cholera, some limpingfrom blows receiveden route. They were pressed on by their guards. Some had lost their boots and shoes or had parted with them for food. Some fell, but under the coercion of loud shouts or a Turkish heel got up and lurched forward again.
We heard from hospital of the awful sufferings of the men here who were quite unnecessarily confined in a bare baked-up field near the station. Indians and British were all mixed up, a deliberate effort of the Turk to encourage strife between the Mussulman prisoners and the others. For some days, mad with thirst, they struggled around a tiny foul pool into which the sick crawled and collapsed. It became stirred up with mud but the men, poor fellows, drank it.
They have no cover from the sun except a few wretched sticks propped on poles.
Baghdad is a very old city. But from its grimy and ill-kept streets and from its dust-smothered houses, the glamour of its ancient romance seems very far off. One minaret of Byzantine design we passed on our way to the town. There is nothing else to tell one of its glorious past, in fact it is said that all Baghdad was on the other bank. It is merely a drab, dull succession of buildings formed of the sun-baked mud of the desert. On the river, however, especially at sunset when the dirt and dust are obscured and only the pipes of the Baghdadis and Arabs blaze in the dusk, it is decidedly picturesque.
All the sick, even if only partly able to walk, start on the desert trek for Mosul in a few days. We have heard so much of waterless marches and barren lands crossed only by the nastiest Arabs, that one has the resistless desire to try one's chance. To move is to live; to stay here is to die.
Later.—I have made a small tour of some antique shops in the bazaar with a delightful youth named Lacy of the Hants. He has just left school and is as slender and green as the young willow, and yet he has contrived to keep his manners intact, to await quietly his turn and to prefer dignified acquiescence to selfishness. We found quite an amount of silver work and even china, some of which we heard had found its way here during the war from an old caravan route from China.
I have corrupted my first sentry by giving him a drink, swallowed a horrible cognac, the immediate effects of which were promising, and learned two Turkish words. One is"yok," which means "there is not," and the other is "yesak," which means forbidden!
Mosul, June 14th.—Nearly three weeks ago at Baghdad the convalescent and sick who were able to move at all were given several false starts, and then without notice marched in the fierce heat to the railway station nearly two miles off. We then lay down in the road until evening when the train was found to be unable to start. We bought some bread and at intervals managed leave from our guards to get water. In the early morning we left by train for Samarra, the rail head eighty miles off, a tiny village on the scorching plain. Dust storms enveloped us as we marched to quarters which were on the ground inside a serai. A few branches interwoven overhead afforded most inadequate shelter. Here we met some other officers who had been left behind from previous columns. Feverish preparations filled the interval while we awaited donkeys which were to transport us. One heard that previous columns had bought the few available stores, and that the Arabs had learned to put up prices. The novelty for the Turk of white prisoners was wearing off, and altogether we seemed in for a rough time. We were allowed to go down to the river near by to bathe under escort. On one occasion our padre quoted "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we thought of thee, O Zion." We realized we were the Third Captivity. In fact he might have selected another psalm.
About a quarter of the donkeys turned up. Our senior officer objected; but ultimately we had to start with what we could get, a half donkey for one's kit and one-third for oneself. We had to walk in turns, and from the size and condition of the donkeys a collapse was soon inevitable. Major Middlemas and I piled our kit on a large donkey, whom we called the Cynic, from the cut of his head and from his eye and his perpetual sneer, no doubt brought about by a disgust of the Turk's hopelessbandobast. He went at his own pace.
The sun was setting on the desert as our column of about forty British officers, a number of native officers, and some sick men whom we took as orderlies, wound slowly over the scorching sand. Dust from the forward column blinded us, and one was frequently almost ridden down by others pressing on. A riding animal I shared with Lieutenant Lee-Bennett, who feeling ill collapsed after doing a mile or two, and so herode most of the time. He had been very ill, whereas I was recovering, and although racked with pain I managed to keep going by holding on to a strap. At intervals in the hot night we halted. I shall never forget the impressiveness of this scene. Our long shadows reached far over the plain. For the most part we were silent men, and determination to get as far as possible was in every one's heart, but it was an absolute gamble. Here and there friends walked beside a donkey and held a sick man up. I felt an inner conviction I would manage all right, and this kept me up in many a doubtful moment later. Here and there an Indian Mussulman soldier fell out for a few seconds, and with his forehead in the desert dust paid his devotion to Allah. More than one of our guards did so likewise. A glorious sky of red sailing clouds stretched above us, and there came over me the battle picture of Détaille's "Dream," a procession of soldier spirits marching across the sky with banners streaming, while down on the plain below, among stacks of piled rifles, men lay sleeping among the dead. Some Arab set up his chant and the rhythm then fitted in exactly with that of Beethoven's funeral march. I was sorry for having had to start without some of my friends. Lieutenant Lacy of the Hants was too ill. He has drawn very much on his youth. I have been much struck with his quiet manly self-possession.
It was a feverish night, and as it wore on we found our strength giving out. To fall out was to be neglected and lost. One pressed on as in a sort of nightmare. Now and then a donkey fell or refused to budge and our orderlies had to be carried also. This meant casting kit. At last we reached the camping place, but there was no water. After an hour or two of broken sleep we were aroused by shouts of "Haidee" (hurry), "Yallah" (get on). Now our donkeys had been requisitioned from Arabs at Samarra, and Turkish payment is generally nothing. These Arabs followed us in the night. In the morning most of the donkeys were missing. We had had to sleep where we were ordered and could not guard them ourselves. This meant a fruitless search, and after much labour the Cynic only was recovered from another convoy. Our riding animal was gone so I had to walk. It was an awful march once the sun had got up. In the distance a few sandstone hills appeared. Our tongues were swollen and ourthroats on fire as we at last staggered on to the river. The donkeys bolted into the water, and some fell in with their packs on them. After a rest of two hours we went on again over stony defiles. I had to fall out several times and then had some luck in buying from an Arab a ride on his tiny donkey, whom I called Peter Pan, a small thing not two feet high but awfully game. We pulled each other up the hills, and hours afterwards tumbled into Te Krit, a hostile Arab village which treated our men abominably.
We slept in a Serai stable place and rested two days, purchasing what food we could. On the river front was a camp of our soldiers dying from enteritis and dysentery. Medicine that had been left in charge of a native assistant surgeon had been sold to the Turks and the money kept by him. Many and loud were the complaints of our men against him. This man I understand is to be dealt with. He was an absolute traitor, in fact, murderer. The Turks had no medicine, and what this man sold had been carefully preserved and given to the camp by a previous column. The ration for the men (who had no money) was indigestible bread, and they were only allowed to crawl to the muddy river which made dysentery worse. The Arabs were particularly bad, and it wasn't safe to go outside the door without a guard. While defending my bundle of scanty clothes on the donkey from a big Arab, his friends made off with my spare haversack of utensils, and I lost this haversack also with my water-bottle.
From here the trek became a daily affair. Men fell out and died or were left in some village. Donkeys collapsed and kit had to be abandoned. From out of the darkness one heard moaning cries of "Marghaya, Sahib" "Marghaya" (dying) from our Indian friends who could go no farther. One looked into the night and saw the Arab fires, and knew the fate of him who fell out.
Turkish troops passing our column in the night seized our water-bottles and rugs or anything they could get without making too much disturbance, and although I have no doubt this was against orders, still no one seems concerned to see Turkish orders carried out. We made bivouac tents of our rugs by the river at which we fetched up each night. The country became a sand-grassy waste. Here and there were a few goats or sheep herded by the river. The rest was desert.At Khan Khernina, a stopping place on the Tigris, we prepared for the long waterless march of which we had heard so much. We bought waterskins, cast spare kit, and with our dates, chupattis, and the bones of our last meal for stew, for we could afford meat only once a week as our small pay from Baghdad was almost finished, we pressed on. It was a terrible march for sick men. Hour after hour we kept going, our thirst increasing and our water evaporating from the skins. I had no donkey but borrowed one here and there from my brother officers. We all tried to help our orderlies also.
Later, I coaxed on a small beast that had collapsed and had been left to die. Gunner Holmes and I had to chastise him along and he required pushing. After a time we got him to go a little better and tried making him walk behind our water-bottles strung on the donkey ahead that carried now three officers' kits. Every one asked why we bothered. That night, however, when other donkeys were giving out and the halting place drew near, our donkey revived and made off at a great rate expecting to end up with his usual draught of water. It was this beast that helped us to negotiate the worst patch.
The night of the first great waterless march we rested on themaidan, a hilly bare spot near some salt springs, and had a most entertaining time of it. Dust storms revolved around us and donkeys stamped over our heads as they stampeded. Kit, men, and beasts became indistinguishable. Nightmare followed nightmare in quick succession, and shortly after, while it was still dark, we were hurried on. The thing was to get in the lead of the column and, having the use of a donkey for the first hour, I left with the leading file alongside Fauad Bey, our half-Turk, half-Arab Commander. This meant getting ready early. He was a rough sort but his chief sins were ignorance and faulty judgment and inability to make any sort ofbandobast. With proper orders much of our sorrows could have been obviated. The waterless march continued through dust and heat. Donkey after donkey collapsed. Our last drop of water was evaporating, so we drank it. At last, after some hours, we looked down over a depression and the cry "mai," "mai" (water), came from our guards ahead—they, too, wanted water.
The Tigris lay far below. The cry was taken up in Hindustani "pani," "pani." It travelled down the column givinghope to the faltering. The village was still three miles off. Then a thunderstorm with heavy rain broke over us. The beautiful water soaked on to our skin. We loved it.
An hour or so afterwards we reached Shergat, that in old times was Asshur—the Assyrian capital of the 13th century,B.C.The excavations enabled us to see something of the life of that ancient town. There seemed much Roman work there, too. In the first hour we drank and drank and drank again, and then got into the river, sick men and all, to let the glorious element caress us once again. Then we settled down for sleep among donkeys, drivers, and Turks, the bearers flourishing pots all round us. The better rooms on the balcony and first floor were for senior officers. I was feeling very weakened and could not sleep for pain in my spine, but hoped to get through as the waterless march was over.
Malaria returned the second night, and with a temperature of 105° I heard we were off. I felt appallingly unsteady and my head throbbed to every movement of the donkey, as it does in such cases. I was lucky to have any donkey at all, because some of the native orderlies having lost their own donkeys clean shaved most of the others, thus erasing the letters that had been cut out of the hair of the animal. Wild and high raged many a conflict over donkeys. I found mine had been re-branded and was claimed by another. At the last moment I managed to get a tiny animal from an Arab water-carrier for my last money.
Once again we filed out to the setting sun past Bedouin camps. We crossed some heavy water-courses, and more than one humorous event occurred thereat. To see a colonel seated on a diminutive donkey that stuck midstream, refusing to budge either forward or backward while the water gradually climbed up the angry colonel's breeches, was quite entertaining. In such cases a fat Turk or Arab would seize the animal's nose while the others pushed the beast or the colonel from behind. I remember that on one such occasion a very "bobbery" major rode a donkey that had conceived an affection for mine, and always followed my little beast. So when we stuck midstream the major's beast stopped also, and, less lucky than I, his animal happened to have stopped on some quicksand so that when finally my beast was got to move the major's could not. The whole four of us were equallyput out. I suggested later that we should exchange donkeys, but as I had only a slight lien on my animal the major disagreed.
A detailed account of our many wanderings would spoil the perspective of this diary. We went on through the nights and through the days; through dust-storms and heat, by night passing the fires of Arabs who awaited the stragglers, sometimes camping by Bedouin tents or pebbly water-courses, always following the trail of dead, for every mile or so one saw mounds of our dead soldiers by the wayside. We left Hammamali, a village of sulphur-baths, on the 14th June, and stumbling over rocky ground for some hours we reached far-famed Mosul, and with great delight saw again a few trees. Then appeared the mounds of Nineveh and the mounds of the palace of the great King Sardanapalus. But even the shades of Sargon, Shalmaneser and Sennacherib scarcely interested us. In the foreground we saw a great tomb which we were told was John the Baptist's! And Alexander's great battlefield of Arbela lay on the eastern plain.
The impression of life in Mosul is bad. We have some rooms in an appalling dirty barracks among gangs of Kurds in chains. Every day or so one of these is hung. Down below in the basement our men are dying wholesale. They are the survivors of previous columns. We have been compulsory guests of a Turkish officers' club. They charged us three times as much as the town did, and generally neglected us. General Melliss, however, told us to-day to go to the town. We quoted his high authority freely and went to a most excellent little Italian restaurant. The proprietor was from Naples, and we had some conversation of his old haunts. He did us very well and quite reasonably, actually cashing a cheque or two for us.
Nisibin, June 26th.—After many false rumours of wagons and carts for transport and the usual half-dozen false starts we left Mosul on June 20th. Early in the morning before starting I slipped out in the confusion of preparing the columns and did the round of Mosul absolutely unattended. With the little Turkish I had picked up and French here and there, I visited the bank quarter to try to raise some money by cheque. There was no chance of this, but I succeeded in changing the notes I had for smaller. The notes were not accepted in thebazaar, and one was charged for paper change. I had not the fortune of meeting one likely person or I should not have returned, but to attempt to escape without help in such a place with the desert all around was too hopeless. I saw merely bazaar and squabbling Arabs.
On the 20th a few tiny donkeys were given us for riding animals, about enough to allow one officer out of six a ride one hour in three. Some donkeys were on three legs, some so poor and sick they could scarcely move. For transport we were shown a set of a dozen untrained, wild and unharnessed camels, altogether the most savage and nasty brutes I have ever seen. They were unapproachable and snapped and gyrated and then trotted away. If a kit were fixed on they proceeded to brush it off. One or two had a rotten saddletree without any girths, bridles or head-straps there were none, only a piece of rotten rag or rope being around the animals' heads. We had, however, already laid in a stock of the best rope we could get, and having first fitted this into the jaws of the brutes, proceeded to fix on our kit. I was very amused at the efforts of the Turks to help us. They tied the kit actually on one camel's neck, and our Indian bearers went one better by tying it on to his legs. However, finally we got most of our kit on board, and then the fun started. First one and then another got loose, as the servants were too weak to hold them. Soon the road was a procession of fleeing camels dropping bundle after bundle in their headlong flight.
This pantomime went on for hours. It was awfully hot. We took a long time to get them refitted. An hour later, blinded with perspiration and dust and in the last stage of exhaustion, we set out again, having done only about four miles of this terrible trek of which we had heard so much and which was now said to be worse than the other we had just finished. We plodded on. Presently loud shouts of consternation broke from the rear, and we saw a gigantic camel laden up with well-roped valises, firewood, and stores topped with rugs, and a fowl or two. He simply charged through the procession, brushing every bit of kit off the other camels as he passed and setting off two or three along with him. One camel followed him with a helpless bearer seated on the top of the stores, the head-rope gone. His shouts as he was borne toward the wrong part of the horizon would have been funnyif it had not meant disaster for his sahib. We rested an hour or two and then went on in two columns, one of which got lost and did several miles too much, joining us before the dawn in time to start again. The camel pantomime continued. I walked or borrowed a ride from an Arab. My endurance was to me the marvellous thing.
I was almost two stone underweight, and very unwell from the long bout of colitis, my digestion quite out of gear, weak from want of nourishment and my shell-bruise, not to mention continual pain from my eyes. Yet with all the exertion and sleepless nights, so fascinating was movement after long inaction that I managed to go along quite well, and at times felt my legs swinging rhythmically along in the night and believed it possible to be well one day again. One donkey I managed to get for my baggage and that of my fellow voyager, Lieutenant Stapleton, I.A.R., who was an official "of important dimensions" in the I.C.S., and although not muchau faitwith knots and donkeys, made a most excellent purchasing officer, as his Arabic was so doubtful that the Arabs, being at a loss to know his wants, had to produce all their possessions, and in this way we ended up more than once in having a goat's head when he had set out to describe the more expensive chicken. He was keen on ologies, and we called him the Ologist. One tried to extract humour out of our incongruous situations, but getting tired of being humorous we ended by examining things from the resigned angle of the fatalist.
Each day before the dawn broke we were up, and after a breakfast of tea, black bread, a small piece of cheese and two figs, or generally only raisins, we prepared to leave. Then the camel pantomime started afresh, and it was no uncommon sight to see half our convoy of camels bolting headlong in the wrong direction before a crowd of galloping gendarmes and Turks, their uplifted tails disappearing over a sand-ridge against the rising sun and their kit distributed at intervals on the plain.
On this trek we lost the sense of time. Sometimes we marched by day, but generally in the evening and well on into the night. But for us time was not. I knew two seasons only: when we walked and when we did not. I did not always sleep. We have had to rely on provisions we brought with us and live chiefly on raisins. Sometimes one was on foot,sometimes one rode, and a broken-down wagon or two offered a fraction of a seat to any one that collapsed up to the number of six. But so many from one cause or another got sick or footsore that the extra had to hang on to the wagon.
Our Commandant, Fauad Bey, has been in a most obstreperous and belligerent mood for days. He allowed our senior officer, Colonel Cummings, to remain and fish at the latter's request at the first camp out of Mosul on the understanding that he would follow with his escort the same night. The colonel turned up some days later, and whatever misunderstanding there was, Fauad considered his kindness abused, and made the whole column suffer with regulations and restrictions. At Demir Kapu we finished the most strenuous march I have ever done. It was a dry, waterless stretch of forty kilometres over parched ground with not even salt springsen route. Again and again we had nothing left but the will to go on. My donkey collapsed, and with difficulty I got him to a swamp of foul slime in which, besides many bones, were the half-picked skeletons of two donkeys that had apparently been drowned in their attempt to get water.
So dry and thirsty were the animals that most of them rushed into the slimy pool up to their backs and then subsided, kit and all, into the mud. We extricated them, and having drunk our fill also of slime, we set out for the last few miles. This water was green and filled with germs, but one's experience had pretty well inoculated one by this time. Our thirst was not to be denied. One's soul was hot within one and one's tongue dry and hard. With our limit of transport there was no alternative, and most of us had had no money wherewith to buy "mussocks" (waterskins). The column reached out for miles. Even our guard were quite done.
At length we reached Demir Kapu (iron gates), where a cool translucent stream runs through some rocks, and we drank and bathed, and some having slept began to fish. At our next halting-place a dust-storm descended on our camp in the night. I have been in dust-storms in various places, but this was of a new order. With a roar like thunder a deluge of sand fell upon us, travelling terrifically fast. It tore down bivouacs, carried off tents and valises, pulled up picketing pegs, and rolled even heavy pots hundreds of yards off, where they were buried in the sand and many lost. We could not stand against itany more than against an incoming tide. It lasted for some minutes. One buried one's head and lay with all one's weight on one's kit. I understand how people are often suffocated in these storms, as even this was quite long enough. My chief loss was my topee, for which I looked long in the dark and even walked along the river to within a few yards of an Arab village to see if it had been carried down. The next day my improvised headgear of a towel proved inadequate, and I went down with an awful attack of sunstroke. Our medical officer allowed me to ride some of the way in the ambulance cart, as my temperature, he said, was quite high. Thanks to his kindness and attention and wet cloths I picked up enough to walk a little. I arrived at Nisibin feeling very ill and feverish.
I am writing under an old Roman stone bridge. Nisibin was once the outpost of the Roman Empire, and ruins of an ancient university life are found on the plain and along the wall. It is frightfully hot. There is little food in the bazaar and prices are the highest yet met, a handful of raisins being about half a crown.
I set out yesterday for the hospital to recover a topee, as I heard a British officer had died there. After many wanderings through tiny streets and dark quarters and backyards and many redirections, I was led through a doorway of matting hanging from the mud-brick wall into a courtyard, where through an opening in the wall I saw a sight that staggered the imagination.
A bare strip of filthy ground ran down to the river some two hundred yards off. Along the wall, protected by only a few scanty leaves and loose grass flung over some tatti work of branches through which the fierce sun streamed with unabated violence, I saw some human forms which no eye but one acquainted with the phenomenon of the trek could possibly recognize as British soldiery. They were wasted to wreathes of skin hanging upon a bone frame. For the most part they were stark naked except for a rag around their loins, their garments having been sold to buy food, bread, milk, and medicine. Their eyes were white with the death hue. Their sunken cheeks were covered with the unshaven growth of weeks. One had just died and two or three corpses just been removed, the Turkish attendant no doubt having heard ofthe approach of an officers' column. But the corpses had lain there for days. Some of the men were too weak to move. The result of the collection of filth and the unsanitary state in the centre of which these men lay in a climate like this can be imagined. Water was not regularly supplied to them, and those unable to walk had to crawl to the river for water. One could see their tracks through the dirt and grime. Three or four hard black biscuits lay near the dead man. Other forms near by I thought dead, but they moved unconsciously again. One saw the bee-hive phenomenon of flies which swarmed by the million going in and out of living men's open mouths. I was discovered talking to the men by a Turk and "haideed" off to the Turkish officer. Having assured them of doing all in my power, and having given them the two or three poor useless little coins I could spare, I went to the Turk, having got the topee of Lieutenant O'Donoghoe, who had died under conditions little better, with no doctor, no medicine, and no food but "chorba" (vegetable soup, practically water). He had lingered in this awfully lonely place for weeks and no transport had been offered him.
I talked long to the Turk, who understood some French, and told him how this sort of thing was destroying the name of Turkey and how for these things the day of reckoning must come. He was more moved by the latter than the former, knowing that in Turkey officials may be sacrificed for any caprice of another person. An Armenian was there also, and I much despised him for expressing horror to me ofles barbareswhen the Turk was outside, but obviously siding with him when together. He then showed me the place of the men in order to point out that I was wrong in not understanding that Turkish kindness was proportionate to their mercy. He was angry, however, when I tried to take him towards "the" place, and more so when he heard that I had actually been allowed to go. The case was taken up by our padre, Rev. H. Spooner, and Father Mullan. What men could move, came along with us. We have raised a subscription of some £60 for the men. Then we heaped large curses on the Commandant and vowed vengeance. The men's lot altered for the better, and we promised to press Turkish authority to send transport. The great pity is that General Melliss, who had achieved miraclesen routein alleviating the sufferings of ourmen, did not stop at Nisibin, the real state of the worst quarters having been withheld from him.
Nisibin is halfway on the second trek, and the column is getting decidedly weaker. At night, when the remorseless sun is gone, we wander up and down our tiny front between the sentries smoking what Arab tobacco we can get and casting many an anxious glance towards the western horizon over which far, far away lies Ras-el-Ain, the railway terminus. Between this and that there are many marches throughout long nights and days. Shall we reach it?
Ras-el-Ain, July 4th.—I am thankful to Providence that I am lucky enough to write this heading. At last we are arrived in the wretched village, but as I write I hear a locomotive puffing and puffing. We are on the railhead. No sailor after being tossed amid shipwreck in a frantic ocean ever felt happier to be in port than do we, to realize the long march is done. There are other marches ahead over mountains, but they are short, we hear. The desert is crossed.
We left Nisibin on June 29th at 6.30 p.m. with some very unsatisfactory donkeys, taking with us all the sick we could. One or two of these had slipped out from hospital unawares, and joined us as we passed on. They begged to be allowed to come, saying they preferred dying on the desert to going back to the terrors of Nisibin. We put them up on every available donkey, and some in our hospital cart, and our orderlies helped the rest along. For the most part they did well, although, as the trek wore on, one after another collapsed, and those that did not die at once we left in the most congenial camp we could. The first two nights were bad. The donkeys went stubbornly, as they invariably did, before getting into the swing of the trek.
The pace of the column was coming down to about two miles and often less an hour. The local Arabs seemed wilder, and we had to keep together, as one party of Turks had been recently massacred outright.
We were reinforced with vigilant gendarmes. For the stragglers it was certain death at the Arabs' hands. The tail of the column was an awful place. Sometimes one got here when one's donkey collapsed or kit fell off, or when one felttoo seedy to sit on one's donkey, or too tired to walk fast when it was one's relay to walk. Four of us shared one donkey, Stapleton and I and our orderlies. At the rear of the column the mounted gendarmes, Turk and Arab, galloped about, exhorting the sick and dying to hurry, almost riding them down and driving them on with blows of sticks and their rifle butts. We, of course, stopped this when we could. One night I got badly left, and the column was miles off. My donkey and orderly had collapsed at the same time, and Stapleton was not available on this occasion, in fact he was probably ill himself. A small band of us we were, and more than once I was practically knocked over by the impetuous horsemen.
The padre was awfully good and diligent in assisting men, but, nevertheless, from out the night one heard the high Indian wail, "murghaya, sahib," "dying, sahib, dying." For the most part British soldiers stayed with their friends until they were dead. I saw some of the finest examples history could produce of the British soldier's self-sacrifice for and fidelity to his friend. It was a grim reality for the sick of the column. For those well, and many were comparatively so, it was quite a different thing. I shall never forget one soldier who could go no farther. He fell resignedly on to the ground, the stump of a cigarette in his mouth, and with a tiredness born of long suffering, buried his head in his arms to shut out the disappearing column and smoked on. Night was around us and Arab fires near. We were a half-mile behind the column. I was quite exhausted. One sick soldier was hanging on to a strap of my donkey. My orderly on another. His feet were all blood, as his boots had been taken from him. A soldier went to the sick man behind, but I did not see him again. Shortly after, on the same awful night, I saw another man crawling on all fours over the desert in the dark quite alone. He said he hoped to reach the next halt, and get his promised ride for half an hour, and by that time he might go on again to the next place. We picked him up, and I gave him my strap. Another sick orderly held him up. He was all bone, and could scarcely lurch along. We eventually got him to the halt, and gave him a place in a cart.
At another place we came across a British soldier whose suffering had been so acute that he had gone out of his mindand lost his memory. He had been left in a cave, and had evidently eaten nothing for days, but had crawled down to the water. He was delirious and jabbering, and thought he was a dog. We carried him along in the cart to the next camp.
On another occasion our donkey bolted, and we were left with no transport whatever, even for our blankets or water. By the greatest good luck I hired a donkey for some of my kit from a passing convoy, and the Arab followed me up for days, getting all he could out of me. Our Commandant finally thrashed him for charging too much, and gave us the donkey henceforth for nothing. But it disappeared the same night, and was probably stolen. I thought hard things of the Commandant.
The column grew weak and slower, and at the end we had to use three carts to move the sick on in relays.
The march to Tel Ermen was the worst. We were raided by Turkish troops on the march, and lost our boots and lots more. Above us the famous old town of Mardin lay perched up on its altitude, a high-walled and ramparted city of the Ancients looking over a waste of desert and enjoying a secluded life. We wondered how many treks like ours it had seen.
We left more and more of the men and orderlies behind. The last stage was terribly trying, and we were doing forced marches by night and day. We were done to a turn. Only the driving power of one's will made one press on to the magic word "Ras-el-Ain." The future is doubtful enough. But we are at least here. To-morrow we may leave for Aleppo or Konia, no one knows which, least of all the Turk.
We found here most of the doctors, including Fritz and Murphy, living in a wretched little mud-building on rotten and stale eggs brought from Aleppo.
The Hindoos, less favoured than the Mohammedan prisoners, are to remain here. We saw their gaunt skeletons at work carrying baskets of gravel in constructing the railway for the Turks back over the desert they had crossed. This outlook seemed to me sufficiently appalling. They had very little food. The British soldier was to move on. We were glad he was spared this.
I have just visited secretly a German N.C.O. camp of mechanical transport close by. They gave me coffee and biscuits, and, in exchange for a khaki jacket and jodpurs, sometins of bully, a bag of coffee, and some cheese. They were on the point of giving me some more, but I had to go. They told me a lot about Germany, and of the German victory at Kattegat, of which I saw a description in a cutting just received by one of them. We believed, nevertheless, the German had in reality been well hammered on the sea. The Germans couldn't understand my incredulity, and said they didn't see why they shouldn't do on the sea what they had done on the land. Verdun, they said, would be taken in two weeks. They admitted the French defence was a surprise.
Lord Kitchener's death at sea I didn't believe.
Nevertheless, one feels one has reached partial civilization to be able to speak of France and the fleet, even to a German.
We were huddled together near some stagnant water in the village for some hours without cover in the heat of the day. Then the sun went down behind the tiny collection of mud huts. Our future was in doubt. We smoked for the most part in silence, and watched the shadows lengthening towards the Eastern desert over which we had managed to survive. I can only record the dreadful aspect of the lot of those unfortunate prisoners destined to remain here until the end of the war.
I feel dreadfully ill and weak. The last spurt has drained our remaining vitality.