THE SECRETS OF A KUTTITE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
AN EMPIRE VIEW OF
THE EMPIRE TANGLE
With an Introduction by the
RT. HON. W. F. MASSEY
THE PLACE OF
INTERNATIONAL LAW
IN JURISPRUDENCE

THE SECRETS OF A KUTTITE

AN AUTHENTIC STORY OF KUT,
ADVENTURES IN CAPTIVITY AND STAMBOUL INTRIGUE

BY

CAPTAIN E. O. MOUSLEY, R.F.A.

LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXXII

SECOND EDITION
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.

THE TREK

No pause, no rest! Forward the column pushes
Across the stern and unproductive plain—
And Thirst, Satan's archfiend, darts at the brain
And the weight of the great heat their spirit crushes
To deeper silence and the tired feet bleed—
While the ruthless Turk with yells and sometimes blows
Urges them on beside his impatient steed
To a Future where and how no soldier knows
Beyond the dust-cloud on the horizon's rim,
Beyond the range of Hope—to memories grim.
But neither desert thirst nor fiercest sun
Nor dust-storms, nor the unknown miles ahead
Can touch their heart or clog its valves with dread—
These English lads that fought at Ctesiphon.

"Sparkling Moselle."
From Smoke, the Kastamuni Punch.

TO
MY MOTHER

PREFACE

The following pages were actually written during the siege of Kut or during captivity. The original manuscript was concealed in Turkey and recovered months after the Armistice. I have been persuaded by my friends that to recast or add to the story would detract from whatever appeal it may have as a human document. As such, with all its limitations, it is offered to the public.

The exigencies of a captivity such as mine, even more than in the field, determine from moment to moment one's focus and perspective, and what to-day presents itself for record is to-morrow ignored or forgotten by concentration on the few things and the few moments that count. Added to this there is for the prisoner the pressure of existence when, so far from being allowed a pencil, he is considerably occupied with selling his last fork.

One moves on from minute to minute between walls that recede or converge, and one's experience, therefore, is a series of incidents often unfinished. A diary must reflect one's experience.

The secrets of every Kuttite would "make many books" as large as this. And from an experience more varied than fell to the lot of many prisoners the author hopes that the following extract, a simple story of incident, adventure and intrigue, may interest the British reader.

Edward O. Mousley.

Oxford and Cambridge Club,
Pall Mall,
March, 1921.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

PART I

TO THE FALL OF KUT, APRIL 29TH, 1916

THE SECRETS OF A KUTTITE

CHAPTER I

EN ROUTE FROM HYDERABAD TO MESOPOTAMIA—VOYAGE
UP THE TIGRIS

Kut-el-Amara, December 22nd, 1915.—At the present moment I'm snugly settled inside my Burberry sleeping-bag. The tiny candle that burns gloomily from its niche in the earth wall of the dug-out leaves half the compartment in sharp shadow. But through the doorway it lights a picture eloquent of war. This picture, framed by the sandbags of the doorway, includes a gun-limber, observation pole, rifles, a telescope, and a telephone, along a shell-pierced wall. Above winding mounds of black soil from entrenchments hang the feathery fronds of the eternal palm. Only some droop, for mostly they hang, bullet-clipped, like broken limbs. The night is still and cold, the stillness punctuated by the rackety music of machine-guns. As I write snipers' bullets crack loudly on the mutti wall behind my head. Another night attack is expected from the trenches in front of the 16th Brigade which we must support. When the battery is in action the most unloved entertainment that offers is the rifle fire that just skips the wall enclosing the date-palm grove in which we are hidden. Sometimes the sharp crackling sound of bullets hitting the trees increases as the flashes of our guns are seen by the enemy, and resembles in its intensity a forest on fire. One hears a sudden crack just ahead like the sharp snapping of a stick, and in the early days of one's initiation a duck is inevitable. I don't say one ducks, but one finds one has ducked. For a time every one ducks. It is no use telling people that if the bullet had been straight one would have been hit before hearing it strike the palm. Some people go on ducking for ages. Of course I'm talking of the open. In the trenches ducking is a fine art. The last time I ducked commendably, that I remember, was yesterday. I was observing from our front line trenches with plenty of head protection from the front, when a bullet came from an almost impossible direction. It flung a piece of hard earth sharply on my cheek, and I ducked. Afterwards I laughed and took more care.

By the way, as this is not a diary but an unpretentious record of things not forgotten, and intended on reference to dispel the illusion that all this is a dream, I may as well furnish an explanation of how I, Edward Mousley, a subaltern in the Royal Field Artillery, come to be in this dug-out here in Kut-el-Amara, along with the Sixth Division under General Townshend, that is to say, almost the whole original Force D, besieged by the whole Turkish army in Mesopotamia under Nureddin Pasha.

My brigade was at annual practice near Hyderabad Scind when a wire ordered another subaltern and me to proceed at once on service with Force D (in Mesopotamia) to replace casualties. Some very kind words and excellent advice from my Colonel and innumerable chota pegs from every one else and the next morning we left, the other subaltern and Don Juan and I, to exchange practice for reality. Don Juan is my faithful horse. At Karachi I found several gunners of my acquaintance who had come out from Home with me in the Morea, a few months before, including one Edmonds, who had tripped with me across India.

At Karachi I stored much useless kit, motor cycle, and spare saddlery, and notwithstanding a heavy bout of malaria just before, left for service fit and well equipped and with as excellent a horse as one could wish for. We sailed in the tiny mail boat Dwarka for Muscat, Bushire, Basra.

Muscat is a mere safety valve of Satan in his sparest wilderness, a lonely patch of white buildings completely shut in by awful mountains, rocks that in remote ages seem to have frowned themselves into the most fearful convulsions. And, even in November, hot!

After two days of scorching heat and tempestuous seas we arrived at Bushire, where a spit keeps shipping off.

Fifty Gurkhas, and a subaltern of whom I was to see something by and by, came aboard. Fine little fellows they are and very cheerful and contented even on the wretched deck of a tiny steamer loaded with fowls, food, a Persian donkey, vermin, and half-breeds.

Then, in a resplendent dawn, I saw the banks of the Shatt-el-Arab, verdant with the greenness of a new lawn, where millions of date palms clustered side by side on the flat, flood-washed shores. Here the river is half a mile wide. One may imagine its changed appearance when the great floods come, that are now three months off. Outside the entrance on the right bank, Fao, a tiny village and fort, marks the initial landing and conquest by Force D—General Delamain's brigade—in October, 1914.

Both banks of the river are thickly forested with date-palms right up to Basra, a crowded spot of a few hundred yards in frontage on both sides of a tiny creek Ashar, whence once Sinbad sailed. It was brimful of soldiers and Arabs, and quantities of stores and planks stood around half-erected buildings. It had the appearance of a very busy port, some dozen huge ocean-going vessels being anchored in the stream. There was no wharfing accommodation at all. One communicates with the shore by bellums. This is a flat-bottomed pointed boat and propelled by bamboo poles or paddled by sticks nailed on to a round blob of wood.

The shipping included H.M.S. Espiegle, the Franz Ferdinand, and the Karadenis, the two latter being large steamers captured by us and used as accommodation boats, each taking a thousand men if necessary. Pending the arrival of our upstream transport I was ordered with the other officers on to the Karadenis which lay in mid-stream. Some wretched-looking Turkish prisoners were aft.

We little knew it at the time, but our few days on this ship or mosquito-hive were destined to be our last in even moderate comfort. Henceforth we were to be playthings of the God of War.

There was a strange silence about news on this front. Some thought our army was near Azizie, over four hundred miles up river; others that we were just outside Baghdad. We were chafing to get away to our units before we got malaria. A sudden chance with a detachment of the 14th Hussars was offered to a subaltern nick-named "Fruit-salt," because "'e knows," and myself. We left on a paddle-boat called the P.5, a barge of horses, Don Juan among them, on either side.

To get on the P.5 again from the horse-barges we hop over to the paddle-box and clamber on deck. Our camp beds we stretched out forward, the men, arms, and maxims arranged aft. We had a comfortable mess table set so that we could see upstream and also a good deal of the left bank. The officers of this troop of the 14th Hussars on board were all very young, very pleasant, and very keen. We sat and drank or smoked and talked, and war seemed then very far away. Or we watched a wandering tribe of Arabs trekking in the distance. The country was, of course, dead flat and except for a scrubby grass there was nothing to intercept one's eye reaching to the horizon. The river winds a lot and far away the mahela sails seemed to be making over land. One thought of the Norfolk Broads. Somewhere in the early morning we passed the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris, and Ezra's tomb. (Maxim fire increasing: I must switch off here now.) Later.—No harm occurred except the heavy sniping has knocked out some poor horses and wounded a syce and spoiled some more palms. I continue.

There was also on board an excellent engineer, full of "sunny retrospect." He could talk or listen, which is like unto a horse that can gallop and walk. As he explained on inquiry, he had never married, nor had he ever avoided marriage. Altogether he was a delightful fellow for company.

We passed the marshes of Kurna of an earlier engagement in this campaign, where our army had dislodged the Turk with guns mounted on planks between bellums, and whole brigades punted and poled their way up. "Forward the light bellums!" "Charge!" were the orders the commanding officers yelled on that day. Britain was always irresistible on the water! The whole affair is now called "Regatta week."

We also passed where the Garden of Eden was said to have been. As a matter of fact, the whole of this country, like the plains of India, is delta formation. The two rivers must have been higher up and consequently Eden also. The latter fact rather knocks out the little remaining romance about the place. Sir William Wilcocks puts the site at Hit, above Baghdad, and says that even going no further back than the tertiary epoch would place the delta there.

We reached Amara on the fourth day. It is a village of some considerable size pleasantly lining both banks of a beautiful straight reach in the Tigris. In the broad, clear water one sees reflected the languid droop of the eternal date palm, the great triangular sails of the mahela, the regular contour of the Bridge of Boats. It is not unpicturesque. Here, some months ago, a delightful coup was effected by the commander of H.M.S. Shaitan and about a dozen men. These were the first in the pursuit from Kurna, and the others not having arrived, determined on a bold policy, as at any moment the Arabs might have joined forces with the Turk and rendered the taking of Kurna quite difficult. These few men went ashore and, entering the barracks containing some several hundreds of men, demanded their surrender and the immediate handing over of the town. The prestige of the British Navy or the eloquent silence of the gunboat's guns did the rest. And so by this remarkable bluff Amara fell without bloodshed, and was held although reinforcements did not arrive until the next day.

Above Amara the country is still perfectly flat, but appears less marshy in winter than lower down. Here a thicker ground scrub teems with black partridge and quail, some of which we shot from the boat. A sub. in the Hussars, named Pope, brought off a wonderful revolver shot into a jackal's ribs from the boat: we practised revolver shooting hard.

Arabs clustered in tiny tribes every few miles along the river. The men, some of whom are quite naked, I thought remarkable for great size of limb and muscular development. They would sometimes accompany the boat for miles, doing their weird undulating dance, hopping round first on one foot and then on the other. They welcome us when we win and torture and loot our wounded when they get a chance. Here and there Jewish women and old men ladle water by a swinging scoop into a drain for their irrigation. The dress and general customs continually recall one's school days' pictures of Biblical times.

Two or three days later we got to Kut-el-Amara (pronounce Kut like foot), passing the battlefield of Essin en route. It was at Essin where Townshend, by leaving his tents on one bank of the river and crossing in the night, deceived the Turk into fancied security, and the next day flung him neck and crop out of a position of great strength.

Here the Hussars took my horse on by the desert and I left in the Shirin for Azizie. At Kut we had heard that Baghdad would fall that evening, and later that night reverse news that we had had very heavy casualties. The hospitals were removed from the barges, and reinforcements' kit of the West Kents and Hussars was left with us instead. "Fruit-salt" and I messed with the West Kents, awfully good fellows, one a youngster just from Clare College. The remaining West Kents marched, escorted by the 14th Hussars, and met us at some point on the river each day. One night we were stranded ashore and in awful rain. The tatti (rush) roof let most of the water through, and what it did not let through, collected in gutters that every now and then deluged over us. My sleeping bag became a tank. Suddenly came the dawn and we awoke to a steaming-hot sunny world.

A heavily-armed launch protected with boosa bales passed us. Their answer—"Headquarters"—was our first intimation of the seriousness of the position of our army. Two days after this, and about eight or nine since leaving Basra, we got to Azizie, a mere bend in the river with a few huts. There were many horses watering and several hundred Turkish prisoners on the bank. On every side we saw evidence of a hurried march. It was all hustle and haste. We went ashore, our last orders being to leave for Salaiman Pak, some thirty miles up river and fifteen from Baghdad. But once ashore, we saw from the ungroomed condition of the horses, the dust-covered harnesses and wagons, the exhausted men, many asleep in their roughly arranged lines, that our army after tremendous exertions had just arrived and halted. The C.R.A.'s flag hung over a mud hut. He explained that we had fought a big action at Ctesiphon where the Turks were heavily entrenched, that we had turned them out, and got into their second line when the enemy had retired to the Diala river, his third line. But the action, which was tactically a brilliant success, had cost us a third of our force. The word came that two Turkish divisions were reinforcing them, so we retired in the night. It seems that for a time both armies were in retreat, but the Turks, on hearing of our withdrawal, gave chase. They were, however, doubly respectful in having suffered casualties twice our own, and they held off some few miles from Azizie.

CHAPTER II

WITH THE SIXTH DIVISION AFTER CTESIPHON—THE RETREAT
AND ACTION AT UM-AL-TABUL

"Fruit-salt" and I joined our batteries, mine being the 76th R.F.A. All the force bore marks of a great struggle, great losses, keen hardship. The weary army was resting. That was well. Some kindly god that knew what still awaited them smiled on them, and they slept. Here at last, I thought, is the famous army of General Townshend, the fighting Sixth Division, that had overcome difficulties that few other armies had been called on to do, that had endured hardships of heat and thirst and pestilence in the cauldron of Asia, marched hundreds of miles with improvised transit, and moved from victory to victory until Ctesiphon. General Townshend's was the most loyal of armies in adversity. They knew that against his counsel he had been ordered to risk the action, where even if doubly victorious their tiny numbers would have been insufficient to hold Baghdad. There was also the haunting dream of that lonely river, our sole communication, winding through a hostile country five hundred miles to Basra. Reinforcements there were none at all in the country, which was a fortnight's distance from India and more from Egypt. Anyway, this was the army of which I, a subaltern in the 76th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, was now privileged to consider myself a member.

Rapid plans were in execution to strengthen Azizie, as the Turks might try a night attack. The troops had only arrived that morning, but by nightfall we had thrown up quite a bit of cover with gun pits and light breastwork for the infantry. Perfect order reigned over the customary military procedure. No Turks were in sight. Every man of the fatigued army worked as happens on manœuvres. It was only the battered condition of the gun carriages, the gaping wounds in the diminished teams of horses and that quiet "balanced up" look in the eyes of every Tommy that told of a reality more grim. On the flat mud desert, with no kind asset of nature to assist them, the nearest reinforcements hundreds of miles away, but with its own transport and some limited supplies, this lonely British army formed its semi-circle on the river. So it faced this unkind plain, its destiny in its hands.

An atrociously bad place to defend is Azizie, merely a meagre bend in the river, a floody or dusty desert with a few mud-walled buildings on the Tigris edge. Much of our baggage had to be left on a barge and the rest was taken from the Shirin into the R.A. shed. The first was ultimately sunk and the latter burned. None of it I have ever seen since—saddlery, coats, uniforms, camp equipment—all went.

All the officers of the 76th Battery had been wounded except one—Devereux, who had been with me at Hyderabad, and Captain Carlyle of the 63rd Battery was in command.

I slept by the gun pits. Beyond the line of infantry that separated us from the Turk, some jackals howled in ghoulish song. They had followed on the flank of our army and waited expectant, for they too had visited the field of Ctesiphon! Their devilish symphony grew fainter, and I slept. Now and then I was awakened by sniping.

The next day, November 29th, we got matters in order, rearranged teams and sections to replace casualties, and overhauled. We continued our vigilance. There was much to be done and, as might be expected after the recent ordeal, many were nerve-ragged and irritable, but all were light-hearted. We expected to move that evening, but did not. I slept on the perimeter by the guns again, and awoke to find my servant packing up. Orders to stand by to move in an hour set me going at once. After an early breakfast I had to go and relieve another artillery officer on the observation post, which was merely a few sandbags on the roof of a house, covered with rushes to keep off the sun. At 11 a.m. the greater part of the force had got on the road. Southward ho! The Staff left about 11.30. General Smith, C.R.A., asked me my orders, which were to wait there until sent for, but which should have included "unless the Staff leaves first," as I was left without any guard and surrounded by hostile Arabs. I thought it better to wait a little and give a last attention to the column I had seen emerging from the northward clumps of trees where the enemy was waiting. I am glad I did so, for I was afforded the privilege of witnessing a spectacle at once unique and magnificent.

Below me the river lay blue in the morning sun between the black winding banks, and dark Arab forms dotted its shores. Somewhere ahead upstream was Baghdad. Distant horsemen scoured the plain. Some cavalry of ours lay hidden in an old smashed serai just north of the village. Moving south-eastward rose the dust of the main Turkish advance, mounting in clouds higher and higher. The quicker dust marked their cavalry, and here and there in dense column formation their wheeled traffic came on. To the southward in perfect order, and moving at an even pace, was our own army in retreat. The khaki column reached away to the horizon of dust, and the swarthy visages of our Indian troops doing rearguard in extended order, and the gleam from the accoutrements of the 14th Hussars were visible without field glasses. The village itself that was burning in a dozen places now broke into one great conflagration, and simultaneously some Arab bullets cut their way unmistakably near. I decided to rejoin my battery that was waiting half a mile off, as it was selected for rear guard. Fortunately, before climbing down the observation post I took the precaution to peer over the edge at the doorway. I saw about a dozen gigantic Arabs, one or two with knives, lounging round the exit, evidently counting on my uniform and equipment after they had despatched me. So I talked and answered for a minute, and shouted an order for them to think I was not alone. Then I ducked out the other side and jumped the back wall. I met my orderly coming with my horse. The Arabs around the doorway yelled in disappointment as we both galloped off. I brought the battery into action just south of the town, but we did not open fire. Then the C.O. signalled "Retire." It was "Rear limber up, walk march, trot, canter," then a mile farther on "Halt! Action rear," and so on. A delightful battery, men and horses knew their job perfectly and foresaw the order every time.

We did about fifteen miles, and halted by the river side at Um-al-Tabul, a mere locality without a building. I had scarcely seen that the horses were fixed up and fed, when an order came that General Smith, B.G.R.A., C.R.A., wanted me as orderly officer. I was to report immediately. An orderly officer, I was told at once, is responsible for the health and well being of his general, and has many details to attend to. In action there are countless orders to deliver and reports to make. The Brigade Major, mistaken for General Smith, had unfortunately been knifed by an Arab while asleep one night on a boat, so the Staff Captain and I were the only Staff. We shared a dug-out, or rather hole, eighteen inches deep and of course uncovered. Reinforced with some bread, meat, and whisky, I scooped a pillow place for the General's head, and in the darkness tried to collect some little of my kit, which, however, got lost in the subsequent events of the night. I completed arrangements for the morning and then slept.

General Townshend's jugga was next ours. We were on the river bank. Behind us lay H.M.S. Firefly and other boats and barges.

Presently from out of the darkness shells began to fall around us. We were right in the line of fire. It appeared that they were shelling the Firefly. One shell pitched just short of us and wounded the syces, another burst exactly over us, but too high for the spread to reach us. Then a brisk rifle fire commenced and here and there we heard a suppressed groan. These were my first real moments under fire. The darkness and scantiness of cover made it seem worse, but I was not half so frightened as I thought I should be, and after some minutes, when it was necessary for me to deliver some messages, I gave myself up to Fate with a light heart and blundered in the darkness on my several errands. That was infinitely better than lying pinched up in the inadequate hole watching the dried grass being cut by bullets a foot above one's head. It is a great thing to be occupied in times like this. In passing through my battery I heard that two drivers of my section had been killed. On returning to the dug-out I saw the Staff Captain ferociously digging with a mess-tin. I did the same for the General's side with his own shaving mug,—which I bent, to his disgust—and then got on to my own. About midnight the rifle fire thickened. Now of all entirely horrid things under these conditions you have first and foremost the bullet. It is a thing conceived by Satan for the dispatch of his outsiders and unbeloved. Invisible it comes from anywhere. You hear it and know you are safe. Or you feel it and know you're hit. Since then I have often been under rifle fire, but that night the devilry of the bullets was strange. At 3 a.m. General Townshend said he would attack in two columns unless the fire ceased. I delivered orders connected therewith, but the fire slackened. I slept, and awoke before the dawn, and bustled around after our headquarters' transport, as we expected an immediate move. I also got breakfast ready. This was December 1st.

At 8 a.m. the transport began to move. At 8.30 it had got fairly on its way. At nine I was standing by the Headquarters transport ready to move off, when the fog cleared as suddenly as the shadows lift when the moon comes from behind a cloud. Before us, some eighteen hundred to two thousand yards off, on the higher ground, we saw a host of tents. Even as we looked the guns of the Field Brigade on the outer perimeter were limbering up. But within two minutes they were down again in action, and the first shell sang out the delight of the gunner at the prospect of so gorgeous a target. For one minute it was splendid. The spirits of the incarnated field guns ripped their music across the morning sky and over the dewy earth in quick and lightning song. The next his shells came back. I relished much less the white puffs up in the air near us, each burst a better one. But almost immediately I found myself taking a professional interest in the faulty fuses of the Turk. Our own shells were cutting great gaps in the tents and in the columns of panic stricken fleeing Turks. I saw our bursts in excellent timing, quite low. But their fire also thickened, and converged on the mass of troops not yet under way, and also on our shipping, which was caught at a wholesale disadvantage. Still, a great mass of transport stuff and ammunition was on the move.

At last it was all off, and only the perimeter of our camp remained, the four field batteries and the single line of infantry close beyond them. Standing in the centre of the shell-strewn ground was General Townshend and his Staff. I stood for a while between him and General Smith, from time to time galloping to the several batteries with orders or inquiries about ammunition. Away to our right between the Turkish advance and our own, the 14th Hussars were very busy, now covering behind the knolls and now swooping upon the enemy, who, however, gave them no chance of getting in at close quarters. S Battery, R.H.A., which worked with them, was pouring shell after shell into the teeth of the Turkish force.

One could not but feel the keenest admiration for General Townshend, so steady, collected and determined in action, so kind, quick and confident. There, totally indifferent to the shell fire, he stood watching the issue, receiving reports from the various orderly officers and giving every attention to the progress of the transport. Some shells pitched just over us, one, not fifteen yards away, killing a horse and wounding some drivers. The restlessness of the horses, some stamping their feet, others tossing their heads, betokened their objection to standing still at such a time. It really is the most difficult thing to do. One's mind was left too free to prophesy where the next shell would fall. More than once I caught a humorous smile on the General's face as some shell just missed us.

Suddenly, to the southward, a thick dust wall appeared. The Turks had got round, and our transport, uncertain about advancing, was held up. For ten minutes it seemed that the issue might become general, but our gunners, and especially S Battery, kept up such a rate of fire that the Turks were paralysed. The officer commanding this battery, acting on local knowledge, remained in action after the order to retire had reached him, and by so doing contributed greatly to the success of the day.

About nine o'clock General Melliss' Brigade, which had preceded us from Azizie by several miles and which had been sent for during the night, arrived on the scene of action, appearing from the south-eastern quarter. That effectively threw back the Turkish attack.

Then, as we gradually gave way, the tide of action moved very slowly southwards. The General motioned us to take cover in a ditch. Our horses we had sent on. It was about this time that H.M.S. Firefly was hit in her boiler and captured by the Turks. Several barges filled with wounded and stores had to be abandoned.

First one battery limbered up and fell into action half a mile to the rear, then another, and so on. Several times I took orders over the intervening ground that was now being plastered with shells bursting either too high or on graze. Don Juan behaved excellently. He shied once violently when a shell burst just behind us, and again as he took off to jump a nullah at the bottom of which a medical officer I knew, Major Walker, was attending to a wounded man. For the rest he went in his best hunting style over ditches and holes and took not the slightest notice of the noise or bursts. I often give him an extra handful of hay when I recall December 1st.

The transport was now some miles on its way and the mule-drivers were doing their utmost. Then the Staff mounted and I was sent to see the whereabouts of the ammunition barge, as the guns, especially S Battery, were running short. Luckily, I discovered where it had got stuck. In feverish haste we replenished the carts ourselves, General Smith, the Staff Captain and I, our telephonists and horseholders, all loading the first few carts at the run. In less than five minutes the cute little Jaipur ponies and mules had galloped to their guns. The batteries remained in action as long as possible without jeopardizing their safety, and each covered the retirement of the other. This went on for hours. We, the Staff, walked our horses half a mile, dismounted and waited. Our pace was the pace of the slowest fighting unit, i.e. a walk. Gradually we out-distanced the enemy, the Cavalry Brigade keeping him back. Once they caught us up and sent shells wildly over our heads. The Turks don't know enough of the science of gunnery. If their fuses had been more correct our casualties could not have failed to be very heavy. As it was they were extraordinarily small considering the huge losses we inflicted on them.

It was a most wonderful engagement, and General Townshend watched its every phase with great satisfaction. An exclamation of delight broke from him as he directed our attention to a charge of the 14th Hussars. Over the brown of the desert a mass of glittering and swiftly-moving steel bore down upon the line of Turks, which broke and bolted. Then the 14th came back.

My next job was to gather spare men and protect the General's flank from Arab snipers. Once or twice a bullet hit the ground at my feet. These Arabs use a tremendous thing, almost as big as an elephant bullet.

At four o'clock I was ordered to ride ahead of the column to find a watering place, which I did; but the Turks still pressed in our rear, and we had to shove on without watering. I managed to water Don Juan, however, and gave him three of my six biscuits. The General had one and Garnett and I had half each. We pushed on, the horses showing signs of fatigue. At 6 p.m. it was dreadfully cold, and dark as Tophet. The order of the column had now been changed, the Field Artillery leading. The B.G.R.A. (General Smith), the Staff Captain, and I, rode at the head of the Division. The orders were seventy paces to the minute with compass directing. We took this in turns of half-hours. The strain was very severe. We had had no food except a sandwich for breakfast for twenty-four hours—violent exercise under exhausting conditions. The ten hours in the saddle had made me stiff, which was to be expected after the slack life of a month on board. We lost our way again and again as we got deeper into the dense black night. Road there was none, only a few hoof marks on the maidan. Tracks that went comfortably for a mile suddenly proved false, and then we had to hunt for the road. We all grew more irritable as we grew more tired, and I got an awful wigging about every two minutes. It's no joke leading an army on a pitch black night and endeavouring to keep to a road that doesn't exist, especially when thousands of Turks are in hot pursuit a mile or two behind the tail of the column.

"Is this the road?" asks one.

"I don't believe it is."

"I think he's wrong. He's taking that fire for the star."

"He must be wrong. That fire has been directly ahead for hours and now it's to the left."

This was the eternal conversation behind as one tried to count the seventy and answer inquiries as to the magnetic bearing at the same time. With such preoccupations one could not very well suggest that the nearer one got to the fire, the more to a flank it must appear unless we were to walk on the top of it.

Then arguments would follow as to whether such a mark were really a hoof-mark or wheel track. The Staff Captain lost his way several times running, and I confess my heart rejoiced thereat. But we soon passed from levity that was born of nervous exhaustion, to silence, grim and impenetrable. I shall never forget that night. The want of sleep was maddening. Since then I have gone without sleep for days together, except for an hour or so once or twice. Then it came on one unprepared. We stumbled on. I thought of the army behind us, men as tired and hungry as I was, the army that had conquered Mesopotamia, all bravely staggering onwards in the darkness; heroes of Ctesiphon, full of painful memories of lost pals somewhere behind, marching, marching, marching to the pace we set, and following the indication of my prismatic compass.

Some of the Staff suggested a halt. But our Napoleonic general drove us on. Again, as we learned subsequently, he saved us. That night the Turkish army, reinforced, was trying to outmarch us.

We pressed on and on. Don Juan followed with my orderly. It was awfully cold, but I preferred the cold to the weight of my coat. I slung it over Don Juan. The poor brute shivered from cold and hunger every halt. The march became a nightmare. With frequent drinks of water I managed to keep on. At eleven o'clock we were almost into the halting-place—Monkey Village by name—when the whole column, which was some five miles long, was compelled to halt owing to a block. The ground was very uneven and scored with nullahs, and had only the one narrow track leading to the village. Across this track the Cavalry Brigade, which had gone on ahead of us as advance guard, had bivouacked. The block took about an hour and a half to rectify.

At last we got to some open ground past the village. How cold it was! We bivouacked on sandy soil. I scooped a dug-out for the General, got a few handfuls of hay for Don Juan, and a whisky and water for myself. General Smith got some sort of a meagre meal with me from a tin of jam, a little bully and a biscuit. We kept half for the morning. All our delightful yak-dans of stores, hams, fowls, biscuits, jam, tea and coffee were miles away with the transport, and I inquired a hundred times that night before turning in, without result. Those of our blankets which were not lost in the scurry of the morning fight, were there also with the transport. So in the bitter cold wind, feet numbed and teeth chattering, I scraped a hole for my arm and a sand pillow for my head, and shoving my topee over my ears to drown the nervy rip-rip of the Arab snipers, I slept. It was not for many minutes. The cold was too intense, without a coat. Then I had to ride to General Townshend for orders several times. Poor Don Juan was awfully done, but very game. There was a tiny stone bridge over a deep nullah near the village. Each time I was held up there. The scene was of the wildest confusion. Camels were being thrashed across, kicking mules hauled across, troops trying to cross at the same time. Several overturned vehicles complicated matters. The whole force had to go over that tiny bridge. After all had crossed the sappers blew it up.

I was quite an important person that night, what with orders and reports. The Blosse Lynch, with Major Henley aboard and also plenty of food, if I had known, was alongside. Captain Garnett was quite done up with continuous fatigue, although he had not ridden very much. We couldn't sleep for the cold, so we talked and hoped to get to Kut the next morning. That day, December 1st, he informed me, was his birthday. There could be many worse ways of passing one's birthday than in participating in the engagement we had fought that day. We felt a deep debt of gratitude due to our General for bringing us out of such a tight corner so brilliantly. At one moment the whole force was imperilled. The next our guns smashed lanes of casualties through the Turkish troops. I was assured by senior officers of much service that I had witnessed one of the most brilliant episodes possible in war, where perfect judgment and first-rate discipline alone enabled us to smash the sting of the pursuit and to continue a retreat exactly as it is done at manœuvres.

At 4 a.m. we were away again. We walked half a mile, then rested. After an hour or two of this the pace got slower and troops began to fall out and sit down. More than one dusky warrior unconsciously depicted the Dying Gladiator. We spoke kind words to them and where possible gave them a lift. Many mules were shot as their strength gave out. I ate my biscuit and gave Don a pocketful of hay I had kept for him. He rubbed his nose on my cheek and wished he were back in his excellent stable at Hyderabad.

Once this day my General's horse nearly unseated him as we crossed a nullah where a camel was lying stretched out.

"Come on," he shouted to me. "It's dead, and won't bite."

Don hates camels, and was rearing up in fine style. Therein he showed judgment more correct than did the General, for, in answer to my spur, he had no sooner drawn level with the beast than the "dead" camel swung its long snaky neck round upon us and opened eyes and mouth simultaneously. Don jumped the bank and the whole staff of telephonists and landed almost on top of General Smith, whose horse objected considerably. I laughed until the general restrained my humour.

The horses were awfully done, and in the batteries could just move the guns at the slowest walk. We did about a mile an hour. About 3 p.m. General Townshend shouted to General Smith that one of our batteries was shelling our own transport which appeared round the head of the river, miles ahead. My general apparently forgot me, and went off on his old charger. The transport could not have been saved by the time he got up to the guns. I put Don at a ditch and, racing up a knoll close by, blew on my long sounding whistle "cease fire," and held up my hand. The battery commander saw it, and when I galloped up I apologized for interrupting his shooting, and explained. They had bracketed the transport and a shot was in the breech of the gun, so my whistle had just got them in time. A splendid fellow is the commander of that battery, Major Broke-Smith, an excellent soldier and cheerful friend. Unperturbed, he said, "Well, if I'm to shell all Arab bodies, and the river will wind so——" And when I got back General Townshend thanked me, at which I was much elated.

In the afternoon we halted for two and a half hours to enable the straggling crowds to catch up. I rode miles trying to find our transport cart with the stores, but it had got somewhere in the front several miles off. Some one produced a cube of Oxo, and we had that divided and a whisky peg each. "G. B." slept, and I saw the horses watered and unsaddled. The general had some biscuits given him, and some signalling officer—whom the gods preserve!—gave me a sausage, which I ate before considering whether it would divide or not.

Then on again, on, on, for hours. Mules fell down and were helped up only to fall again a hundred yards further on. Then word came by aeroplane that we might have to fight our way into Kut through an Arab and Turkish force. Later, to every one's dismay, we heard that we were not to reach Kut that night after all, but to bivouac five miles from it. In the last light of December 2nd, we saw the sun on the distant roofs of the village we had legged it so strenuously to reach. The brisk and prolonged marching of yesterday, and of last night, had reduced the present possible pace to a mile an hour.

We found a ruined serai, a four-walled enclosure of ground thirty yards square. Headquarters came here. A heap of dust and trampled chaff I selected as a sleeping place for the General, Captain Garnett, and me. It was colder than ever and a biting wind blew through our very souls. No one who has not sampled it for himself can credit the intense cold of such a Mesopotamian night. I have registered the cold of Oberhof, where twenty feet of snow and icicles forty feet high rendered every wood impassable. I have boated on the west coast of Scotland, where the wind from Satan's antipodes cuts through coat and flesh and bone. I have felt the cold from the glaciers of New Zealand. But I have never felt cold to equal that of December 2nd of the Retreat. Perhaps hunger and extreme exhaustion help the cold.

We lay close together for warmth. Late in the night some bread arrived from Kut. I had an awful passage of a mile, falling over ruts and into nullahs, and once very nearly into the river. We could not show lights as the opposite bank swarmed with Arabs. I walked with General Hamilton to the supply column. While we waited he told me of the battle of Ctesiphon. I got five stale loaves, two of which I gave Don Juan, who was shivering violently. Then I picketed the horses close together for warmth and we three ate our loaves. General Townshend occupied the far corner of the serai, and he spoke very cheerily to me for a minute or two. It was very extraordinary how well I had got to know some of the Staff during the last two days. Our acquaintanceship seemed of years. But then the retirement itself seemed that long.

CHAPTER III

WE REACH KUT—BEGINNING OF THE SIEGE—THE CHRISTMAS
ASSAULT

We left at 5 a.m. and trotted over the maidan to Kut. The horses knew that there food and rest awaited them. We got in at 7·30 a.m., but the column took hours. I found Headquarters on the river front of the town and our ill-omened transport already arrived there. I rode on ahead to get things ready. First, I quieted my stomach with some whisky and warm water, and then had a remarkable breakfast of bacon and eggs, cold ham, cold fowl, toast and marmalade and coffee.

But there was no chance of rest yet awhile. A siege was impending. No reinforcements were in the country and Townshend's plan was to hold up the Turkish advance at Kut. While we defended this strategical junction of the Tigris and Shat-al-Hai, the enemy could neither get to Nasireyeh nor down to Amarah. The river is the means of transport. And so there was much to be done—wounded and ineffectives to be moved downstream, trenches and gun-pits and redoubts to be made, defences erected, and everywhere communication trenches miles long to be dug and a thousand other things arranged for. It was a race of parapet building against the Turk. The army could not be spared much rest. I had to collect the B.G.R.A.'s stores from mahelas and elsewhere, get a secure place for ourselves and our horses, and buy stuff for the possible siege, although it might be for only three weeks.

The river-front then became too hot for the Staff, so we adjourned to dug-outs in the construction of which hangs a story. In the meantime one learned that we had lost a barge of wounded, several mahelas of supplies, supply barge, H.M.S. Firefly, Comet, and Shaitan in the retirement. The Firefly was an unfortunate affair, the shell striking her boiler. There might have been time to blow her up, but it appears that there was a wounded man down below. The breech-blocks of her guns were thrown overboard and the crew escaped. An excellent range-finder was captured on her. At the moment of writing she is pelting shells at us into Kut. We also heard that two cavalry officers who had ridden through the Arabs' lines to General Melliss' brigade with orders to join in the Um-al-Tabul engagement on the night of December 1st, had been recommended for the V.C.

On December 4th, the day after we entered Kut, the last boat left for down the river. On the 5th the Cavalry Brigade and S Battery left Kut for down below, as they would not be of so much importance in a siege. Before they went Major Rennie-Taylor, commanding S Battery, had lunch with us. A day later the aeroplanes flew away. Then we were decidedly alone. Bullets fell from the north. Soon they came from every direction.

The dug-out for the B.G.R.A.'s Staff was to be made out on the maidan near the brick-kilns. The General added to the plans of the Pioneers for its construction, and so the thing was built like a long grave and the poles laid cross-wise. As a traveller of some experience myself I saw that trouble was obviously ahead. I hinted that as three poles were bearing on the centre one, that was insufficient to carry the total weight. My suggestion was dispersed by an eloquent explosion on the part of my General. So it was built; and somewhere in high heaven a humorous Fate looked down and smiled. At midnight the roof that carried tons of bricks and soil collapsed without warning. It was the greatest luck we escaped without awful accident. I occupied the end farther from the entrance where General Smith slept, Garnett sleeping underneath beneath the ledge.

Luckily I was awake and, hearing the beam snap, I was out of my sleeping bag like a bullet, accidentally upsetting the General on top of Garnett. As I moved it fell in. I had taken the precaution to sleep with my head towards the entrance, else I had never escaped. For the rest of the night I shivered in the cold alongside the cook, without blankets, sleeping bag, or even jacket. All these were pinned down. In the morning when the working party came, we found that the central beam had broken and the two broken ends were forced a foot into the hard basement of my bed, just where my chest would have been. My General offered the remark: "An orderly officer is responsible for the health of his General." And remembering the mental curses I had manufactured at the time of the occurrence, and extracting further humour from having accidentally omitted to remove a stone from the part of the trench where the general had been compelled to lie, I proffered embrocation, and, being a dutiful subaltern, hid my smile. In the teeth of Turkish opposition the West Kents remade the dug-out that day. It has not collapsed yet.

To get from the dug-out to the town we had to cross a shell-swept zone. Every few yards was a splash of smoke and flame. That was, of course, at the beginning of the siege. Our dug-outs were near several brick-kilns, themselves sufficient target without our gun flashes. We had a battery of 18-pounders on one side, 5-inch on the other, and howitzers behind. So we came in for all the ranging. It was out of the question to leave any cooking utensils above ground, for they were certain to be perforated within a few moments.

A most wretched existence it was in that abominable little dug-out, but the balancing feature was our proximity to Colonel Courtenay of the 5-inch. A fountain of good-humour, ever flowing, an excellent story-teller, and a very human person. I delighted in his company. He was a very brave man, not of the defiant sort, but rather as one who has learned not to fear the inevitable. I saw him observing one day and a burst described a complete zone around him, but he went on stuffing tobacco into his pipe as if it was all November fireworks.

One evening I stood at the mouth of the dug-out giving orders. Some snipers from over the river must have seen me. A volley whistled past, one bullet cutting through the pocket of my tunic close to the hip. More extraordinary was the escape of the C.O. of the 63rd Battery, Major Broke-Smith. One morning he had a bullet through his topee and one through a pocket. In the afternoon another bullet got another pocket. Some one suggested his requiring a new outfit at an early date.

After the Cavalry Brigade had crossed our bridge of boats below the town we found it necessary to destroy it, owing to a Turkish concentration upon that side. Its demolition was the occasion of considerable excitement. We lost an officer and men on the further bank. At the last moment it was found difficult to blow the bridge up. The heavy guns could not reach it, and I set off with orders for the howitzers to blow it up—an impossible target. The nearest shell was somewhere about 50 yards off. Then General Melliss rode up across the open to see what could be done, and interviewed my General. Finally, the bridge was destroyed by a very gallant subaltern assisted by another equally plucky in the following way.

At the further end of the bridge the Turks were in strong force. When night fell, and a dark night fortunately it was, a sapper subaltern started across the bridge with a charge, fuse lighted, strapped to his back. That was to ensure the explosion taking place even if he were hit. Strange to say, he got out, planted his charge, and got back without a shot being fired at him. The Turks must have been slacking. Then the other charge was laid. Both were quite successful and the bridge totally demolished. The officers have been recommended for the V.C.[1]

I was then quite busy for a few days with communications. We were very short of thick cable, and the thin stuff was being continually broken by fatigue parties. The General, as a rule, slept a little after tiffin, and at such times I would look up Colonel Courtenay.

"Hallo, Mousley! How are you and the General? Hope you are keeping him fit. Temperamentally of course, yes."

"Hello? Oh, they're all right. Except lucky ones. Help yourself to that lot. But I've a cigar for you. Now let's talk about fishing."

Then there was Oxo (among the subalterns so named from resemblance to an advertisement)—a fiery ha ha, hum hum little colonel, as busy as a pea on a drum and exuberant as a thrush in June. He came to see us frequently.

On the 10th General Smith went sick. Captain Garnett followed suit. We left the dug-out for Headquarters, a building in the centre of the town with a courtyard. Like most others it was a two-story building with a promenade roof that was used for observation. Helio was used up there. Why, no one knows. Shells came on the building too, hundreds of them, and smashed the wall or thudded against it. The three legs of the helio disappearing over the balcony was the first sight I saw one early morning, and the signallers came down with white faces. The shell had smashed the helio without touching them. The Turks religiously refrained from hitting the mosque, but the hospital got it badly, and so did the horses which are stalled in the streets.

The enemy's lines have drawn much closer in some places, and are only sixty to two hundred yards off. The Turkish commander, Nureddin Pacha, sent word to Townshend that as our garrison was besieged by all the Turkish forces in Mesopotamia, he called on him to yield up his arms. General Townshend replied characteristically. Daily our General issued communiqués urging us to put up a good fight and to dig deep and quickly. Within a week we knew what that meant.

On the morrow I was brimful of influenza and chill contracted in the night the dug-out fell in, and was slacking on the bed when a report came from the 82nd Battery R.F.A. saying that a subaltern was wounded that morning and the captain was in hospital sick. The other subaltern, who had come from Hyderabad with me, had been slightly wounded days before. The message asked if the General could spare me. A very ardent soldier I was that morning. I jumped into my accoutrements feeling very weak from the influenza. However, I did not want to lose the opportunity, so with revolver, field glasses, and prismatic, I set off at once.

So delighted was I at the prospect of leaving the Staff for regimental duty that I had not noticed the artillery duel seemed to have developed into a general attack. No one seemed quite certain as to where the battery exactly was. It appeared to be somewhere in a palm wood some distance up the river. There were no communication trenches yet dug, so I went along the river-front which was shortest, and where I had heard there was also some rudimentary trench. It was a grave mistake, and I paid the penalty with as uncomfortable a half-hour as ever I had in my life. The maidan was deserted. Shells plunged into the first wood which I skirted. Rifle fire thickened and cracked fiercely in the trees. Snipers fired at me from over the river and I ran for it, stooping low, a hundred yards at a time. The Turkish gunners appeared to be sweeping all the woods. I got through to a little maidan, dead flat, not a blade of grass on it, and here was the hottest cross-fire I have yet seen. I crawled along back into the wood to get some way from the bank before going on. Then I raced for it and did about a fifth of the distance, bullets humming like bees in swarm. I took cover from the frontal fire, and then flank fire from over the river made it intolerable. About half way I saw a heap of rubbish and dirt about two feet high. I arrived breathless and fell flat. Shells came too, one burst on a building thirty yards nearer the river and the bullets splashed all round me. I had evidently been spotted over the river; bullets began to make a tracery around the rotten little heap. One dug itself in a few niches from my knee. The base of the mound stopped some, but when one bullet came clean through the middle, the dust being flung over my face and eyes, I got up and ran my best. This time I reached a nullah where a mule that had been hit was kicking to death invisible devils. From here I was fairly protected from flank fire so I bolted through the wood, and two hundred yards in I heard the battery in action. I shall never forget that horrible little affair behind the dust heap. I could see the Arabs' heads over the river as they shifted to take better aim, and the dust every yard or so that the bullets knocked up reminded one of Frying-Pan Flat in the volcanic region of New Zealand.

I sprinted over to the cover of a wall in the centre of the palm wood, and following it came across a gun-limber on end used sometimes as an observation post. It was protected by a few sandbags in front. I found the sergeant-major carrying on, the subaltern just hit being in a dug-out near by, where he was left until the "strafe" was over. The sergeant-major asked me to take better cover as several casualties had just occurred. I am now writing the first pages of this account from the identical dug-out near the limber. For hours I could not leave the post. The telephonist lay huddled underneath the wheels and orders coming by wire from the major I shouted on by megaphone to the battery, which was dug in thirty yards in front. Later on, reporting myself to my C.O. and the colonel of the brigade, I was laughed at for coming across the open, and they were astonished at my arriving at all.

"It's a miracle you weren't knocked over," was the colonel's comment.

The fire slackened and fell to mere sniping. I looked around. The battery had excellent gun-pits, sandbagged in front. The dug-outs were very well built, the roofs being supported by beams and trees. Each detachment had its own dug-out, and the men had furnished them snugly with old horse-rugs and rush curtains and ammunition boxes inlaid into the walls. Our chief zone was directly up river. My own dug-out was built up rather than dug out, being constructed against a mutti wall which we believed was shell proof until one day three shells plugged straight through near by. Then we dug down. The mess was a very thick-walled building and heavily sandbagged. It also formed brigade headquarters. To get to the mess from the battery or from one's dug-out, one had to run the gauntlet through the incessant sharp music of rifle bullets cracking against trees or branches. As a rule, we one and all arrived in the mess breathless from an ever-improving sprint. This, of course, and also the going from here to Kut, will be better when the communication trenches have been dug.

On the same evening at dinner a native servant brought in most startling news that a bullet had gone through the last barrel of beer. But jubilation succeeded dismay when we found that a gunner, with the instinct of the British soldier for preserving anything in the "victuals" line, had turned the barrel over. The bullet had entered near the ground, so quite three-quarters was saved. I hear on good authority that the gunner will get the D.C.M. We are almost out of anything drinkable and the siege may go on several weeks.

At 9.30 p.m. I felt tired from the excitement of the day and from the influenza, and turned in. Ten minutes afterwards I was summoned on a night job. Two guns of the Volunteer Battery were in difficulties in an advanced position near the river bank and just behind the first-line trenches. They had been under heavy rifle and maxim fire at two hundred yards range, and were enfiladed from over the river. The guns were thus rendered unworkable. I was to take two gun teams and a G.S. wagon at midnight to retrieve them. This meant crossing the main maidan in the open without an inch of cover. It meant going almost under the rifles of the enemy scarcely two hundred yards off, and being visible in any sort of light to the enemy over the river. A guide was to await me at twelve midnight, near the battery.

I arranged for the teams and wagon to be there at 11.40 p.m., and for all links, swingle-tree hooks, drag-washers, and pole-bar to be bound up with rag so as to render them as noiseless as possible. The teams arrived punctually, their breath steaming up in the cold night air. The G.S. wagon had had a mishap over a rut just before pulling up, and the body was flung backward off the axle trees and jambed. We all tried our best to rectify it, but the jamb was so bad that it involved taking the thing to pieces. Here was first-rate luck already. The adjutant had spoken of the difficulties of the job, and strongly doubted the advisability of taking the wagon for the detachment's kit. A wagon is a rattling affair after any length of service. I utilized the accident as an excuse for waiting until the moon had gone down, which I thought advisable. I then awoke the battery sergeant-major and a detachment for a final attempt on the wagon. That was unsuccessful.

My drivers were all picked and excellent fellows. I mounted an old cavalry stager, and we set off about 1 a.m., when I met the guide, who, to my surprise, instead of being an officer or European N.C.O., was a half-caste, and as hopeless an idiot as ever got lost. His teeth were chattering with fright from the start. The maidan we had to cross was scored with trenches and barbed wire, and there was only one crossable place on each occasion that had been purposely made for us to cross. The guide could not even find the first flag. I threatened him with all sorts of disasters if he didn't find the place at once. We wandered about inside the bund of a communication trench for thirty minutes in awful darkness, that was at once our salvation and greatest difficulty. I rode along several trenches, and at last found the bridge the sappers had built for us. I believe they had measured the wheel-tracks of a gun-limber and deducted one-eighth of an inch from each side just to test the driving capacity of the field artillery. We found a plank and shoved it down. It was quite dark, and any light was fatal. The drivers pointed out the difficulty. I told them to do their best. They deserved a medal, every man of them. The teams dressed exactly for the bridge, and then, when all was ready, moved forward and crossed safely. The noise brought rifle and machine-gun fire on us at once, but the bullets went high, a few hitting the ground with a sticky thud. I took the first team to a flank, and then we got the second over. The fire increased. I ordered the second gun team to keep one hundred yards behind the first in case of a volley. I didn't want to lose both. Again the guide was at fault, leading us bang upon our first-line trench some one hundred and fifty yards off the Turks. But the breeze came from the enemy to us, and, besides, the limbers moved almost noiselessly, so excellently taut did the drivers keep their traces. At last we found the small scrub and the guns. A subaltern rushed out and said we should be shot to the devil in two seconds if we came an inch further. Two days under continual rifle fire and no chance of doing anything had naturally not improved his nerves. I remember saying certain "things" about guides. I was much concerned with the state of his guns. They were in a banked hollow, close together in such a way as to render it impossible for the teams to hook in. Besides that, tins and rubbish were right across the track of any team attempting to approach the guns. As for the guns themselves, they bristled with the surplus baggage. All this meant noise, and my orders were for the greatest silence.

I ordered all baggage to be taken off the guns, and ammunition to replace it, as we had no wagon. We loaded all the ammunition, and after some trouble got the teams hooked in and away, following two feet of cover along the river edge. It was on the knees of the gods whether the enemy heard us. The fire had dwindled to sniping only, but we could see the lights of the Turks. A second guide now appeared. He was to conduct us to the new position for the Volunteer Battery guns in the middle of the maidan. To get there we had to cross three or four trenches and barbed-wire entanglements. The new guide, also a Eurasian gunner of the Volunteer Battery, was more confident than the other, but as utterly useless. He led us everywhere except in the right quarter. Once he was certain he had found the crossing that had been shown to him that evening. On approaching it, however, I found it to be the flimsy roof of an officers' mess. In desperation I led the guns towards the original crossing, intending to reconnoitre for myself. The fire now increased, and a maxim opened. I believed we were discovered. But the bullets flew high. The Turks never dreamed that we could be so close.

At the bridge we made an awful row, the heavy guns straining and creaking abominably. It took some time to dress on to the narrow bridge. I wanted to get both guns over without delay, as I knew we should be spotted then. The first team refused to cross, but were persuaded to follow my horse, an old cavalry thing I had for the evening, that wanted to gallop on hearing the bullets. The drivers handled their teams magnificently. A few inches of error would have landed the guns in the deep trench—here quite ten feet wide on the top. The first gun got over, and something snapped in the bridge. I cautioned the drivers to have their whips ready. The second gun smashed the plank, and the bridge gave way. But the limber was over, and with whips and spurs the gun was bumped over also. We hurried to a flank, as several machine-guns opened on us. The fire was too high, and neither man nor horse was hit. One or two bullets cracked on a limber, and my old horse reared, breaking his girth, and the saddle and I found the ground together. I exchanged horses with a sergeant, and we went on. For the best part of an hour I rode alone up and down trenches, and at last found the crossings and the new gun emplacements. General Delamain, whose dug-out we missed by a few feet, asked if we had had casualties, and what had happened to our guide. We got back about 3.30 a.m. The sergeant-major had lain awake anxious. He is a father to the battery, and was delighted we had had no casualties. "Didn't expect to see you all back, sir."

My adjutant said he felt certain we were all done in when he heard the machine-guns open fire; and Colonel Maule said: "Good show," and complimented me kindly on the affair. Looking backwards now, I am sure we could never have managed it with the G.S. wagon.

On the evening of the next day, December 12th, the Turks made an attack they had evidently been preparing some days. It started so suddenly and decisively we felt no doubt as to the matter. The bullets came without warning, a veritable blizzard. I rushed out to the limber 'phone box, and we were soon at it hammer and tongs. The attack was on the fort, and a demonstration supported it from the trenches and scrub in the zone in front of our guns. We raked the trenches with shrapnel for hours. Subsequently the Arabs reported that while the Turks were concentrating in the scrub, our fire had killed a great many. We also fired some star shell, getting the burst well behind the enemy so as to show him up. Guns were booming all around, and the rifle fusillade on the walls and in the trees crackled like a forest on fire.

On December 13th I began duty as Forward Observing Officer for the field batteries. That meant that from our first-line trenches I was to range our guns into the enemy's trenches and saps. I was advised to dispense with helmet and wear a comforter as offering less target. I left with a signaller so as to reach the trenches at dawn, which was about 6.40 a.m. A surprise was in store for me. Instead of the roomy deep trenches with firing platforms, dug-outs, and so on, I found wretched little ditches, in many cases only three feet deep at the traverses. I did not know then, as I know now, the tremendous amount of work required in digging a good trench, and in Kut there were miles of them to be dug. The first few days I crawled miles on my knees. Every few yards some one had been sniped, so it came to crawling round the traverses. The trenches smelled horribly in the parts held by the native regiments. The dead were slung over the parapet, and sometimes not buried for days. The Gurkhas are truly gorgeous little men, patient, and very keen. They soon had their trenches wonderfully improved. The parapets varied most unreliably in thickness, and one had to keep one's head below the level, as bullets often came through. Turkish snipers were quite good. One day I saw a Punjabi carrying a pot of curry on his head and a bullet knocked it off. It spilled its hot contents over him and several others that blocked the road as they sat huddled up in the trench.

I ranged our fire on to the Turkish trenches that in places had got so close as fifty yards, and at one place where they were sapping, only thirty yards off. We were firing 18-pounders at very close range, the nearest being eight hundred and fifty yards. It was great fun to correct back a few yards and see the shell burst twenty yards in front of me, having travelled about five feet above one's head. One such occasion I was ordered to empty the trench for some yards in case of accidents. It was as well we did so, for one or two prematures burst behind us, and quite an appreciable amount of shrapnel got in the trench. Several times after ranging I saw dead and wounded among the digging parties of the enemy's trenches.

These trenches! They have their advantages, it is true, for the Turks dare not shell them, and if you keep your head down they are about the safest place in Kut; but in the course of their construction it was a case of a breaking back from hours of stooping, or a bullet if one stretched. I've had bullets knock dirt into my face, so that I thought that I was hit, and had periscopes smashed to bits in my hand. Once a bullet cut dead in the centre of the glass of the exposed end, and pieces crashed all around my head, burying themselves in the wall of the trench, and wounding a naik near by. The Turks even came to know my yellow ranging flag, and cut the bamboo rod time and again. They also had a nasty trick of ricochetting bullets at us by firing them just ahead on the ground. Not a few came into the trenches, especially before they were very deep. Another factor that brought more fire on us was the necessity of signalling from the trenches to the battery by flag, and also having a danger flag. The reason for this was the shortage of wire. The Turks always opened a hot fire in the vicinity of the flags, and observation was very difficult, except by periscope, as the loopholes were most unsafe.

One afternoon I had been trying to discover a hostile maxim that was playing havoc in our main communication trench. A native reported that he had located it, and while looking through a tiny loophole in plate iron he was shot through the forehead, the bullet making a ghastly mess of his head. Such a quick, silent death makes one careful. By and by more periscopes were made by the sappers, and there were fewer casualties. One mistake is enough, unless one is very lucky. Turkish snipers lay with their rifles ready on a part of our trench that was insufficiently deep. The first sign of a movement there was the signal for a volley. After a time we got accustomed to the dead things in the trenches, and ate by them and slept by them. After all, they are only earth full of memories as is an old coat.

Direct hits were very rare, but on one occasion I had the satisfaction of seeing a machine-gun hurled over the Turkish parados. The 82nd was an excellent battery, and shot well. It was great fun ranging on the new trenches that had begun to appear since the night. We blew one whole trench completely out of shape and there was a stampede of Turkish heads.

Great luck decreed that two shells, on different days, both premature, should scatter shrapnel in our trenches, while emptied for safety. On one occasion Major Nelson, of the West Kents, I, and my signaller were there standing at the end of a traverse. A kerosene tin and some utensils were scuppered between us, and dozens of our shrapnel bullets buried themselves in the wall of the trench. But incidents of this nature grew too numerous for mention, and happened to many. Another round from a cold gun landed into the cookhouse of the 76th Punjabis. No one was there, but the cookhouse was not improved. Another tragic premature killed a private of the Hants and badly wounded a second. Some of the shrapnel of this burst reached to where I was in the trenches nine hundred yards away.

We were in daily dread of another attack, and at night all our guns were placed on their night-lines, each to its zone, just over our trenches. On the first indication of a general attack we thus made a curtain of fire that the Turks funked breaking through. Two or three times a night we would sometimes have to go into action for this purpose.

The West Kents improved their trenches splendidly, and made them quite comfortable. A very nice regiment they were, and on many occasions I have been grateful for their hospitality at a breakfast.

They had a wee wooden home-made trench-mortar that we christened "Grasshopper," as every time he was fired he jumped, sometimes several feet back over the parados, out of the trench, and had to be recovered with lassos. Once he tried to range to some trenches farther away, and blew himself to small bits. The casualties during these first weeks were very heavy. Our line was short, scarcely more than a mile and a half, and the enemy swept this with fair regularity. The fatigue parties often had to risk going over the top in the night, and there was almost always a casualty. I often think of my great luck on that night when I went for the guns.

Nor shall I easily forget the first time I was in a trench when an attack began. This trench was about eighty yards from ours, and the rate of fire was terrific, but not so fast as ours. The Turks well knew that although only eighty yards had to be crossed nothing human could arrive.

My trench incidents would fill a volume, which I have no time to write, and even with time it would be difficult to isolate individual instances of extraordinary routine.

What a kaleidoscopic mixture this diary is, to be sure. I confess that on reading a passage here and there it seems merely an autobiographical sequence, and egoistical into the bargain. But the truth is, that personal experience in this thing called war is at best an awakening of memory from a dream of seas and foggy islands bewildering and confusing. A few personal incidents loom a little clearer, deriving what clarity they have from the warmth of personal contact. Then incidents fraught even with the greatest danger become commonplace, until the days seem to move on without other interest than the everlasting proximity of death. Even that idea, prominent enough at first, gets allocated to the back of one's mind as a permanent and therefore negligible quantity. I firmly believe that one gets tired of an emotion. A man can't go on dreading death or extracting terrific interest from the vicinity of death for over long. The mind palls before it, and it gets shoved aside. I have seen a man shot beside me, and gone on with my sentence of orders without a break. Am I callous? No, only less astonished. Death has lost its novelty. I am tempted to diverge into a speculation as to the necessary permanency of Heaven's novelty, a novelty of which one can never tire. Alas, I am not now up in the cloistral peacefulness of Cambridge, so I can't follow up that speculation. Life never seemed so wonderful a thing as it does now. I am extracting more fun and fact to the square inch here than I ever did before. Now we know death as a tangible and non-abstract affair. Let me not be accused of irreverence if I say we walk in his shadow and lunch with him.

Every evening I return to the battery and enjoy a meal in mess or relieve my major at his post. Then follows a look around my section and inspection of the night-lines, and then bed in my dug-out among the date palms. Our sergeant-major is the best I've seen yet. The other day, just as he put down his megaphone in the speaking hole, a bullet plugged clean through it into the opposite wall, a vicious twang. He laughed quietly. "I believe it was alive," he said.

The Turks have moved their big guns closer, and their shells crash straight at this wall, which before was perfectly safe. On the 20th, two days ago, a shell smashed into our ammunition boxes after coming through the wall, a few yards from my dug-out, which I have been deepening this afternoon. It is a quiet day, and I left the firing-line early. The enemy can't locate our guns, as there is a wall some eighty yards ahead of the battery, so his gunners range just over the wall and search. Several shells have been through the gun emplacements, and some trenches have been smashed. Now and then a palm tree goes down with a crash. I've often awakened in the night thinking the whole place on fire. Sometimes, again, I awake to the sound of soft ceaseless swishing, that full and incessant sound of early morning in England, dear England, when the gentle rain washes open the eyelids of the waking world and green trees murmur, and birds begin to sing—but I look outside my dug-out and see only a mass of black crows flying over a palm-dotted wilderness to their Tigris haunts.

This morning the Gurkha regiment relieved in the first line. I am quite keen about them, a manly, silent, respectful set of men; but children, too, mere children, for all that they are tigers in a scrap. Their genial colonel and I had a pleasant conversation after my morning ranging was done. We discussed the war and the Mesopotamian campaign and the eternal question of relief. He is a most active C.O. of a sprightly regiment. It yet remains a wonder to me how these full-sized colonels can possibly get along the half-completed trenches, which the first fortnight were only some 3 ft. 6 ins. deep, and often barely 2 ft. wide, and partly filled with ammunition boxes, stores, men's kit, and sundry cooking pots.

Among the gunner subs, is one known as R. A., which some say means Royal Artillery, and others the Ricochetting American. He has just returned from ranging, with the announcement that he knocked out half a dozen maxims with his 18-pounders. We have been ragging him by suggesting his field-glasses must be faulty, and asking to see them.

At a conversation in Kut to-day one heard many conclusions about America, who is not yet in the war. "It is a terrible New World," as Dooley said of the war; "but it is better than no world at all." Not the least of our blessings is the gift of Time. Time it is that invites us to sit tight and say nothing while bounders and cleverly veneered barbarians romp rapturously through an applauding world. We have found them out. In time others will find them out. In the meantime we wait patiently. And patience is life. This has no connection with America, except that the Americans, with all their virtues, and they have many, have adopted impatience as their national characteristic. And Impatience is the offspring of Ambition, and Ambition is forgetful of many things.

"Hitch your wagon to a star," suggests Emerson to his countrymen. "I guess I'll do better," says the American citizen, "I'll hitch it to a comet." At what time the shade of Don Quixote, that excellent gentleman, smiles quietly as he recalls having once hitched his charger to a windmill!

Later. Quos Di Amant.—I hear that poor Courtenay and Garnett are dead. Some days have elapsed since writing the last lines owing to a severe engagement we fought on the 24th and 25th. I will revert to that in a moment, but just now, as I sit here writing in the Fort, my narrative seems incapable of any reference quite fitting for that excellent soldier Colonel Courtenay. My General was ill when I left Headquarters to replace a casualty in the 82nd Battery that day under heavy fire.

Colonel Grier became C.R.A., and got hit in the head with the splinter of a shell. Then Colonel Courtenay became C.R.A., and Captain Garnett, Staff Captain of retirement memories, removed with the office of the B.G.R.A. on top of the building where the helio men had been. It was quite a good place, but conspicuous and dangerous, and shells struck incessantly on the wall behind. It was also in line for Headquarters, which the Turks had located. Not long after my leaving the building a disastrous shell killed Captain Begg instantly, an awfully nice fellow, with whom I had often had a joke, wounded and burned Captain Garnett severely in the leg, and hit Colonel Courtenay badly in the lower leg, smashing it. I tried hard to get along to see them, but urgent duties prevented. Garnett's case was complicated with jaundice. He died suddenly, to our great surprise and grief. I thank goodness I am not married just now. The General, he, and I, were together in that awful retirement, and during that time we exchanged many confidences, and he had censured me for taking risks. Now he is fallen already. Colonel Courtenay died heroically two days after the amputation. He was known throughout India as "Mike." After the operation we were discussing how fine it would be for him to be able to ride still. They had amputated his leg some few inches below the knee, leaving plenty for a grip. I suppose the shock took him away, that and the inadequacy of medical conditions. He was a robust soldier, and every one says the Service has lost a great sahib and an excellent officer.

Several other amputated cases have died with equal suddenness. It seems that they are mostly run down with the effects of this dug-out, exerciseless life. And the strain is constant. No part of Kut escapes the shell and rifle fire. The hospital has several casualties daily.

We have been on half rations in some things, and others have ceased altogether. Tinned milk and fresh have both stopped. There were a few goats, which have gone under from shell fire. Drinks have become a memory, except for the lucky ones who had huge mess stores awaiting them in Kut. The bread ration is one half, bacon twice weekly, (a tiny portion), no potatoes, and some cheese. Bully and bullocks will last for some little time longer. The trouble is that very many have dysentery, or colitis, or acute diarrhœa, and cannot take much except milk and eggs. These are almost unobtainable. What little there is, goes to the hospital.

The weather is bright and sunny, quite warm at midday and freezing at night. The extremes serve to emphasize the cold, and I find I require more blankets than ever I did even in the coldest weather at Shoebury. I have contrived to be comfortable by the help of my Burberry sleeping-bag and riding coat, combined with a travelling rug that is warm with distant and pleasant memories.

During the week preceding Christmas the assiduous Turk completed alternative positions for most of his guns, and it became necessary for us to do the same, so that at emergency we could shoot over the river also. For this a place was selected on the maidan, as we call the bare flat plain. We began with the pits by night fatigues, under fire the whole time. The high parapet of a communication trench probably saved a lot of us from getting hit. In two nights we equipped my section, which was on the right, with a communication trench, and I then fixed up an excellent little observation post by a wall for myself. Long ramps were made for the guns, so that we could get them into and away from the pits without difficulty. It was to be my show, and I was very keen on it. Then I chose a dark night and took my section down on the edge of the maidan near the river to demolish a mutti building that came in the way of our fire zone. Very heavy fire, but fortunately much too high, broke out from over the river. One man had a shovel hit, and another bullet struck a huge lump of mutti two men were carrying in my direction. Then we built a wall with the débris to screen us from machine-gun fire immediately over the river. Altogether we made a good job of it.

The horses are having many casualties daily. Already we have lost a fourth of their number.

The relieving force is rumoured to be expected about January 3rd. It cannot be a very large force, although on the date of Ctesiphon large reinforcements were wired for immediately. At first we were told that our concentration was taking place near Shaik Saad, some thirty miles below, on December 15th, but the rumours and counter-rumours cast considerable doubt on the whole thing.

On December 24th the enemy tried to storm Kut with a surprise attack by way of the Fort. It was a cold but eventful Christmas Eve. About 12.30 midday a hot rifle fire broke out over our trenches, and within a few seconds the symphony of bullets crackling in the palm trees swelled to a roar like the falling of fast and dense hail.

We went into a fast rate of fire at once with the battery on our prepared zones, and immediately put up a heavy barrage of shrapnel just in front of our first line. At first the densest fire seemed to come from in front of the 16th Brigade, but soon it extended right round our perimeter.

Woolpress appeared to be busy in action also, and then our guns were hotly engaged by enemy guns of varying calibre, but chiefly 16-pounders, shrapnel, and high explosive. From our concealed position in an old orchard surrounded by a high thick wall we were not definitely located, and the Turkish gunners, often after having got our exact range, went on sweeping and searching, hoping to get us. More than one dug-out and gun-pit was entered by a shell, and one particularly narrow shave was when a 16-pounder crashed through the revetment of sandbags, smashed the shield of the gun, and buried itself in the earth behind without exploding. The rifle fire was so thick that our telephone wire in the trees was cut through the first two minutes. Major Harvey, our adjutant, had selected this position for the guns. The dug-outs of the gun detachments and the communication trenches were by this time well and deep down.

The fire became general all round Kut. High above the roar of rifle fire and scream of shell rose the sharp high note of the Turkish mitrailleuses. Suddenly most of his guns concentrated on the Fort, a salient by the river, none too strongly held. The Turk was evidently merely demonstrating on our sector, and intended to attack through the Fort. All our available guns in turn were switched on to their Fort lines, i.e. for a barrage, already prepared, just over the walls of the Fort. We increased our range and searched, getting in among the Turkish reserves all piled up and awaiting ready to support. A red glow hung over the low mud walls, and reports said that the Turks with great gallantry and determination had rushed up to the outer ramparts with grenades and charges of dynamite. By this time their guns had made a breach or two in the eastern sector known as Seymour bastion, and heavy hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Grenades and the bayonet were chiefly in operation. At one time some hundreds of Turks had entered the ramparts, and it was touch and go. The Oxfords and Norfolks were hurried up to stiffen the Indian regiments, and every available man, sappers or pioneers included, was given a weapon and pushed into the fray. The Volunteer Battery did extremely well with rifle and grenade. Instances of pluck and daring were many. Handfuls of men from the British regiments in little knots formed the backbone of the struggle, and, nipping around behind the attackers, dispatched them to a man. Finally, thanks largely to the terrible casualties our guns had inflicted on the enemy supports, the pressure slackened, and the last Turks were bombed out of the bastion. It was a great resistance, and successful chiefly owing to the outstanding merit and fighting quality of the British regular infantry.

Firing continued intermittently all day, and while on duty at the guns pending any renewal of the attack, I inspected the Christmas decorations of the men's dug-outs.

Above ground we saw merely the several sandbagged emplacements of the guns among the long grass and fruit trees, with six ominous muzzles peering through the revetments, and ammunition awaiting ready near the pits, the limbers drawn up snugly in rear for protection. Below, the communication trench ran into and through the dug-out of each gun detachment. The men had made those comfortable by letting into the wall ammunition boxes as receptacles for their smokes and spare kit. Rush curtains hung over the entrance, and matting purchased from the bazaar was on the ground. To-night decorations of palm-leaves were spread out gaily on all sides, and the artistic talent of the various subsections had competed in producing coloured texts: "God bless our Mud Home," "Merry Xmas and plenty of Turks," "Excursions to Kut on Boxing Day." One humorist had hung up a sock without a foot, and suspended a large bucket underneath to catch his gifts.

Our mess secretary, Captain Baylay, an officer of much resourcefulness in cooking and making shift, arranged an excellent plum-and-date duff for the men.

Several alarms were given through the night, and we stood by our guns hour after hour. However, nothing much happened, as the Turks had evidently had enough. Orders came for me to proceed to the serai, River-Front Artillery observation post, and to be ready to open fire, if necessary, at daybreak, and to have my telephone wire already laid. This entailed getting up early, so after an hour's rest without sleeping, I set off with my telephonist. We laid the wire accordingly, direct on to our own brigade headquarters, through the palm grove to the serai. Dawn found me among the sandbags and débris of the dismantled heavy gunners' observation post, looking around on the vast plain, seemingly quiet and deserted and divided by the great broad sheets of the Tigris. Gradually the darkness rolled away. The soft glow of approaching day climbed up in the eastern sky. Ray after ray stole across the water-dotted plain and revealed to me the coloured minaret of Kut silvered in the dawn, emerging from the night. The outlines of Kut followed, our defences, river craft, the palm groves, a few Arab goats grazing out on the Babylonian plain. Less than fifty miles from the scene of my Christmas morning once arose the Babylon of the Ancient world, and her chariots coursed all around this vicinity. Babylon has gone. For thousands of years her memory has slept wrapt in the silence of oblivion except for the passing of Arab or Turkish heel. Perhaps the war is to see this ancient land once again awakened by England to life and a new destiny.

Wild geese and duck were the first to stir. Buffalo far down stream followed. Then small dots began to move along the black lines. They were the heads of Turkish soldiery moving along their trenches.

Suddenly a rifle fusillade broke out, and bullets ripped into my sandbags, and some flew just over. I moved my telescope, for the light of the sun was on it. At the same time one, two, three, four small white fleecy puffs appeared away to the north-west. Immediately after one heard the report. Before the shells had reached us my message was through to the brigade. "Target 'S' opened fire. Bearing so-and-so, new position." Our guns engaged them. Other targets opened, and the morning entertainment began. I was joined by the garrison gunners, Lieutenants Lowndes and Johnston, who took me down later to a wonderfully good breakfast.

I was relieved at lunch, and finding my way back to the battery slept a little before having to stand by for action again. In the evening I had permission to go into Kut to attend a Christmas dinner at the Sixth Divisional Ammunition Column given by "Cockie" R.F.A. It was dark when I left the battery, and rifle fire became lively. The communication trench, however, had progressed considerably, and one went most of the way under cover. I overtook some stretcher parties bearing wounded men from the first line. Arrived at the D.A.C. I found a most cheerful entertainment in progress. A long decorated table seating a dozen guests was full of good things. We commenced with a gin concoction of considerable potentialities. There was Tigre Crème, Turques Diablées, Nour Eddin Entrée, Donkey à la lamb, Alphonse pouding. I sat between Cockie and Major Henley of Dwarka memory. The Navy, Indian Cavalry, Flying Corps, and the Oxford Regiment and West Kents were also represented. A limited supply of whisky was available, and with such a good fellowship we abandoned ourselves to a joyful evening. Anyone hearing our shouts of laughter would not have imagined we were in a siege.

From the pudding I drew a lucky coin, a brand new half rupee, which I am keeping as a mascot. A sweepstake on the date of relief was opened, Lowfield January 1st, Highfield (which I drew) the 31st. So optimistic were we on immediate relief that I was offered for it only four annas. We had a miniature game of football in the tiny quadrangle to terminate proceedings, and at ten o'clock, in joyful frame of mind, I struck out in the pitch-dark night for the palm grove. I missed my way again and again before getting the trench, and finally found the many turnings so bewildering without a light that I got up on top and followed the river-front once more as I had on joining the battery. A faint moon emerged, and the Turkish snipers followed me along. Several shots striking the wall alongside me I went inside it at the first breach and came across a dismantled tent behind which dark forms moved stealthily. On looking to see what it was, I found several jackals and pie-dogs mangling a horse that had strayed and been sniped. They sprang out with most dreadful yells. This commotion was heard across the river, and the Turks turned a machine-gun on. I lay quiet in the wood for some time listening to the rain and the bullets in the palms. It was a most ghostly spot—what with dead horses and mules, dismantled tents, graves, cast clothing, and shell-stricken trees. At this minute I became aware that I was not alone, a feeling one can very well have on such occasions. And I watched a certain shadow move by inches along the ground. It had been hiding behind a tree, and I imagine had been following me some little distance. There were from time to time rumours that the Turks sent Arab spies into Kut to pick off stray people in the hope of getting any plans. With my cocked Webley in my hand I called out. It proved to be an Arab who took to his heels and vanished like a wraith. He had probably been salvaging. I reached my dug-out very tired an hour later and found all the battery asleep. An order required me to stand by from four to six, so I slept with my boots on. At four I went around the battery and had the men standing to, which means awake and dressed ready for action but resting. Nothing happened. At dawn I was told to get my kit and report for duty at the Fort as Observation Officer to the Tenth Field Artillery Brigade, the other officer having been wounded the preceding day. Slinging a few things together to be brought along by my servant, I walked the two miles of trenches to the Fort, which I entered for the first time.

It proved to be a mud-walled enclosure of about seven acres with a few bastions extending beyond. The garrison of the Fort were all underground and dug in. In fact, the place was a network of communication trenches, dug-outs, or store-pits. It was an easy target for the Turkish artillery, and shells of all sizes kept leisurely arriving from all sides, and at this close range we hadn't any warning report of the Turks' guns, besides which, grenades and bombs were slung or fired over the wall indiscriminately into any part of the Fort. In the centre an observation mound of bags of atta (flour), some fifteen feet high, commanded quite an extensive view over the walls on to the plain beyond. One could see three-fourths of the horizon and a very good view of Turkish activities upstream. This observation post was frequently a mark for the Turkish machine-guns, and one had to run the gauntlet in getting up to it by making a sudden bolt, and frequently a r-r-r-rip of bullets into the flour-bags followed. Sometimes, generally during the firing of a series, the Turk ranged several machine-guns and small pounders on to the post.

Besides myself there was an observer for the heavy guns. When registering we seized the most favourable hour of the day for the minimum of mirage, usually just after sunrise or before sunset. As the artillery duel became general, one had to range on several targets in succession and sometimes two simultaneously. When one was too preoccupied the services of the machine-gun officer were utilized. Although not trained for artillery observation, and talking of "degrees over" or "short," which frequently puzzled the gunners, he nevertheless had a good eye for a bursting shell. He was a big-game shot endowed with a large imagination and a bad memory, as he constantly varied the same story, but what one lost in veracity one derived in entertainment. I liked especially to get into the "stack," as we called it, at dawn, and watch the shadows lifting over the plain and the wild duck and fowl flying away to their feeding-grounds.

On one such early occasion, after a heavy "strafe" the night before, I had no sooner entered the "stack" than two or three of the several bullets hitting the bags came through and struck the inside wall. We placed another bag or two on the spot, and then in the afternoon a bullet came through between another officer and me. We could not understand why this had happened, as the "stack" had frequently been subjected to the heaviest Maxim fire, and if there had been any flaw we must have been riddled several times. Late at night, before the moon was up, I climbed on to the bags from the outside and found that the machine-gun fire had cut grooves into two sacks and the flour had run out on to the ground, making an excellent mark, and what was worse, the outside bags were three parts empty, allowing the bullets to come through the second.

The long tedious hours of the day were diverted by the Volunteer Battery Section firing at any target that offered. Other things failing, a basket ferry at near range was engaged, and excellent sport it made, the Arabs or Turks ducking out of it into the river. A small mountain gun called Funny Teddy was ubiquitous, appearing on all sides. He was extremely annoying to us, and once several guns were turned on to him. He was fairly well protected, but one round turned him completely over. Great joy reigned over the Fort, and word was sent into Kut. But the last message had scarcely been dispatched when he appeared behind a tent and spat out several rounds almost into the "stack" just to show his spite.

Early one morning, a few days after I had reached the Fort, I observed that the Firefly, formerly H.M.S., now S.A.I., was not in her accustomed spot. We usually located the ships of the Turks and reported any activity to G.H.Q. Suddenly there caught my eye something like a perpendicular stick moving at a rapid rate downstream towards Kut. Her funnel appeared immediately after. We informed Kut and a fire was opened on her from our five-inch and four-inch River Front Guns. This stopped her, but not before she had got some of her 4·7's into Kut. This gun, with some small supply of ammunition, was captured on the Firefly and was the hardest hitting gun the Turks had.

January 1st.—I was up a half-hour before the dawn on first spell of duty, Captain Freeland taking the second hour. We usually took breakfast in turn. Food at the Fort I find much worse than in Kut, the distance out being accountable for that, and the special chances of getting horse-liver or kidneys, a great delicacy, quite a remote one. We live in a tremendously large dug-out, some sixteen feet by ten, the roof being spanned by great beams of wood, eight by six inches, but much too low to allow one to stand upright. The beam is already bent considerably with the great weight of some feet of soil on top, and one lies smoking on one's back staring at this beam and applying the Aristotelian axiom that just as "some planks are stronger than others, so all will break if sufficient weight be applied," and hoping a 60-pounder won't just add the difference.

I am writing alone in the observation post. The New Year has just been heralded in with a wonderful dawn. Shades of mauves and heliotrope and violet are diffused over the most extraordinary geography of floating cloud islets, continents, and seas, sailing and sailing up and away. From a belt of electric blue fringing the southern horizon down to Essin past the Tomb, and over the Eastern desert, cloud island after island has broken from its aerial moorings speeding like sailing ships across the ocean sky up past Shamrun Camp of the enemy towards Baghdad. The first streak of dawn beheld this phenomenon of smartly moving Change. How much more prophetic this than the stillness of a static dawn. As Horace says, one sees not into the future, but such a moving dawn may well be taken as an augury of big happenings in the year just born and, ultimately, let us hope, of a convergence of British destinies moving onward like these cloudlands to Baghdad. But I for one as a traveller do not believe we have yet nearly appreciated the tremendous vitality and potentiality of Germany or fully realized the great strength and solidarity she draws from her geographical centrality.

In the meantime, here am I in a siege, believing in a certain relief within a few days or two weeks if British luck holds, sitting in an observation post of many tons of atta (flour) which seems to have been used for defences on all sides and no tally kept of it at all. Sitting on an atta stack talking of dawns!!

Evening.—Quite a few shells fell about our dug-out, and machine-guns were turned on the stack while I was ranging on to a party of Turks working on two distant gun-emplacements. The Turks seem to know most of the ranging is done from the Fort, and when our guns in Kut open fire the northern sector invariably strafes our observation stack. The working party we can observe quite well taking cover when the shell is heard coming, and immediately after the burst away go their shovels and picks again. We fired sectional salvos, and I believe did good execution, as we observed carts coming out from their hospital and some stretcher parties. The work evidently proceeded nevertheless, and this afternoon two guns in the new position opened fire on Kut. Our heavy guns, however, soon silenced them.

This afternoon I visited the battered sections of the Fort known as Seymour Bastion, still in a most dilapidated and shattered condition from the heavy assault of the 24th, and only roughly reinforced as yet with corrugated sheet iron, barbed wire, and trestles. The bombs and shells have made great breaches in the wall. We went along in the dusk to the listening post and along the bastion, a corridor running out past main wall towards the Turks, and enabling the defending party to enfilade an assaulting party on the outer wall. However, on the 24th, the bastion itself became the scene of a hand-to-hand struggle and it got choked with dead. It is a pity we haven't Lewis guns as they have in France, which are much lighter and more portable in case of an assault. But when our machine-guns were out of action, bombs and bayonets and rifles held him off. The bastion, I was informed by a man of the Oxfords, was a most unhealthy spot. It proved so. As we passed a loophole, bullets entered that one and the one ahead. The Turk here is ever alert, and he has a big tally to account for. One passes a loophole (they are quite low and unavoidable in walking), and then waits for the rifle fire before rapidly crossing another. In one place bullets simply pour through a cavity or chink in the mud wall. This is to be built up to-night. The Oxfords and Norfolks are very proud of the part they took in the fight and showed me scores of dead Turks scattered all around. There were hundreds, only many have been removed by the enemy during the truce. In this heat of the day, the odour that comes to the stack from the "unburied" is at times almost overpowering. More than one Turkish "trophy," rifle, belt, or helmet has been boldly retrieved by our men, and one sepoy has recovered no fewer than three helmets and an officer's sword.

Our frugal breakfast is rice and bully and tea. We have no butter nor sugar. For dinner we are to have a small ration of potatoes, fillet of horse, date and atta roll, and to divide two bottles of beer the Mess has providentially saved—a very good New Year's Day meal considering one is not a Scotsman.

Later, 7 p.m.—Dinner over. I feel in conscience bound to say it was excellent and almost half enough. I have a Burma cheroot from a very precious supply of a kind-hearted subaltern here from Burma.

January 2nd.—The event of to-day was the arrival of an enemy aeroplane flying quite fast. It came from the Shamrun Camp and flew over taking observations, followed by a fusillade from every available rifle and machine-gun.

Later in the day another aeroplane flew over us likewise from the north. Our big-game friend insisted that it was a Turk. One could not see the colour, but I saw what looked like rings. General Hoghton, who came into the stack, agreed with me about it, and on its return so it proved to be. A Turkish plane has a crescent on its wings or generally the German cross. This brigadier is a most intrepid and fearless man, and is to be found everywhere at the loopholes, digging-parties, and observation posts. The Fort is merely part of his command (the 17th Brigade), but one sees much more of him than the C.O. Fort. He is a most genial and kind general and very cheerful about everything. To-day I met Colonel Lethbridge, now commanding the Oxford Regiment, and one of the few officers of that regiment to survive Ctesiphon. We had a most interesting and diverting talk on European politics in general. He is an extraordinarily well-read man and over everything he says plays the quiet light of a well-focussed intellect. We talked of Germany, where I had spent a considerable time before the war, and he asked me many questions of the French front. I hear I am the only one of the garrison who was in France in August, 1914, and only two other officers have been there at all. In fact, one notices that this Division, having come direct from India early in the war, has, for the most part, no idea of the significance of the war and of the new armies. Neither has it, or could it be expected to have, any sort of perspective of the many fronts of the war. They allow either too much or too little. They are focussed sharply on to Mesopotamia and the Sixth Division, and the perspective of the World War suffers. Moreover this front is not contiguous to any other front. But this Colonel of reserved utterance in his grave way dismissed many of the current rumours of Kut as being out of proportion, and made one feel at least how very vast and far were the ultimate issues of the war. And for listening respectfully I had a most entertaining hour and two large whiskies and water. On my way back I saw the work of the Sirmoor Sappers, a most keen and enthusiastic body of men who are never idle.

January 16th.—I am writing in an excavation of four mud walls and beneath a tiny roof of corrugated iron topped by some feet of earth. Two tiny camp chairs, a wooden table with legs driven into the earth, and two niched candles form the furniture. It is the mess of my battery, 76th R.F.A., whither I have been ordered some days since from the Fort to replace Lieut. Edmonds who was wounded while mending a telephone wire. The man accompanying him was killed outright, and Edmonds had a narrow shave, the bullet cutting a deep groove across his neck and just missing the spinal column.

Captain Baylay of the 82nd Battery relieved me at the Fort. He has about eighteen years' service and is by general admission a very good gunner, quick, resourceful, and of instant decision. Apart from the fact that I am getting back to my own battery I feel he will be more able than I am to deal with the ever-increasing responsibilities of observation officer out there, which goes pretty close to having two or three targets almost simultaneously. It will also enable the machine-gun detachment commander to devote his attention to his own particular job and incidentally to become conversant with the theory and terminology of field-gun ranging.

My battery is just behind the middle line out on a solitary position on the maidan. Unlike any other field battery we have no cover whatsoever except that of the earth. Every time a gun fires the flash is visible to every Turkish gun on the north or eastern sector. We are swept by rifle fire all around, the nearest some few hundred yards over the river, and we get all the "shorts" intended for the heavy guns at the brick kiln, five hundred yards behind us. Our Major (Lloyd) is away at the Brick Kilns from where he can observe much better than in the battery, and he messes more comfortably with C.Os. of other batteries there. The only other officer in the battery is Lieut. Devereux, my junior of a few months, who had been sent from Hyderabad before me. He has a keen sense of devotion to duty and is most conversant with every detail of horse management, harness, and guns, but less quick at figures and in making up his mind. I leave much to him, as for some months he had been a sergeant-major of M battery before coming to Hyderabad, and we owe more than one good meal to his knowledge of the Q.-M. department in Kut, and "Coffee-shop" official ropes. We live and sleep in the mess with our boots on, as we frequently go into action during the night.

The new dug-out for myself, just behind my section of guns, is almost complete. It is large and deep, and although in danger of floods, I am content. Some trestle beams from a dismantled dug-out I am using for the roof. The difficulty is to find wood of sufficient strength to support the weight of earth necessary to keep off rifle fire.

The 40-pounders we cannot compete against. For a radius of one hundred yards the battery is thick with holes which in one place have joined up and made a pond where I have counted over sixty unexploded shells. Before I came one of these arrived in the mess, having entered through feet of soil and beam and iron. The thrilled occupants had reason to be thankful that it did not explode. It has been inserted in the hole, which it fits exactly, just above the doorway, its nose pointing at the table, a standing reminder of the thinness of line described by the Circle of Destiny.

We are awfully short of firewood, only enough being available to cook one meal a day for the men, and provide hot water besides for breakfasts. Sometimes there is not even that. Theft of wood is punishable with death. The G.O.C. is loth to destroy the town. We shall, however, have to do that very soon.

News there is none, except that on January 12th General Younghusband smashed into heavy Turkish forces at Wadi, a stream coming down from the Pusht-i-Kuh mountains, and got through with the tremendous losses of four thousand. The liner Persia has been sunk by a submarine.

The patience of the garrison is beyond all praise. I can honestly say I have learned to love the character of the British soldier who has acquired the habit of doing cheerfully what he does not want to do, at the moment when he just does not want to do it. In other words, bigger than himself is the momentum of years, discipline become a habit. There are rumours that the Relieving Force has retired. The fighting, we hear, is in deep mud and must indeed be terrible.

CHAPTER IV

RELIEF DELAYED—FLOODS—LIFE DURING THE SIEGE

January 21st.—A black-letter day for Kut in general and myself in particular. About 6 a.m. in the pitch-dark, the water burst into our front line by Redoubt D and flooded the trenches up to one's neck. All the careful and dogged efforts of our sappers could not stop it. Lately the weather has been what an undergraduate would call the last edge. On the 17th it poured. In fact the heavens opened and lakes of water tumbled down. It has kept this up on and off ever since. To-day we have had to abandon our first line from Redoubt B to the river on the north-west sector, and the line now falls back at a tangent. The salient at the Fort has been kept with the greatest difficulty; but the enemy on the flooded sector has had to go back likewise. It was a queer sight to see them all running over the top where we had previously seen only their pickaxes and caps. Our casualties from rifle fire during this movement were not so many as his. We shelled his ragged masses with great glee. A mile or more of silver water now surrounds this part of the line. As to food, we have eaten up some very tough bullocks, and I much prefer donkey to mule. We are down to horse in a day or so. The floods have put our meagre fires out, and for dinner we had half-raw donkey, red gravy, and half-cooked rice with some date stuff that made me feel like an alarm clock just set off.

January 26th.—The weather gets worse. I am in my new dug-out, cold and shivery. In fact my lower half is almost without feeling. The water percolates from the four sides and from the roofs in several streams. This I have diverted into buckets and ammunition boxes by means of pipes and waterproofs strung up with any available tackle. The various sounds of water falling into its several receptacles remind one of fishing in the rain by a cliff-side.

Our trenches are half full of water, and as we have no change of dry kit we run the gauntlet along the battery to the mess. It is difficult in the dark to get along, and of course no light is permitted, as every day some one pays the penalty of chancing it. One runs low and slides along the mud. In the day a heavy fire is invariably opened. But one just gets through in time. I can tell where I am by the sound of my boots in the water. Once I slipped down with my megaphone, and when I found it a second later it was pinked with two holes from a bullet.

To-day General Townshend has issued a lengthy communiqué dealing with the failure of General Aylmer to get through, and predicting relief by the middle of February, but noting our last day of resistance under reduced rations as reaching to about April 15th excluding horse rations. We are, however, beginning to see how vital a part the floods play in every movement of troops. Here in this dug-out, streaming with tiny rivulets and squelchy underfoot, one feels rather than sees the plainness of the issue between the Turks and us—our advance of four miles with four thousand casualties, a rumour of repulse with as many more, a sequence of Turkish trenches similar, floods rising, etc., etc.

Kut-el-Amara,
January 26th, 1916.

The relieving force under General Aylmer has been unsuccessful in its efforts to dislodge the Turks entrenched on the right bank of the river some fourteen miles from the position of Essin, where we defeated them in September last when the Turkish strength was greater than it is now.

Our relieving force suffered severe loss, and had very bad weather to contend against. More reinforcements are on the way up river, and I confidently expect to be relieved some day during the first half of the month of February.

I desire all ranks to know why I decided to make a stand at Kut during the retirement from Ctesiphon. It was because, as long as we hold Kut, the Turks cannot get their ships, barges, stores, and munitions past this, and so cannot move down to attack Amarah, and thus we are holding up the whole of the Turkish advance.

It also gives time for our reinforcements to come up from Basrah, and so restore success to our arms. It gives time to our allies the Russians, who are now overrunning Persia, to move towards Baghdad, which a large force is now doing.

I had a personal message from General Baratoff in command of the Russian Expeditionary Force in Persia the other day, telling me of his admiration of what you men of the Sixth Division, and troops attached, have done in the past two months, and telling me of his own progress on the road from Kermanshah towards Baghdad.

By standing at Kut I maintain the territory we have won in the past year at the expense of much blood, beginning with your glorious victory at Shaiba; and thus we maintain the campaign as a glorious one instead of letting disaster pursue its course to Amarah, and perhaps beyond. I have ample food for eighty-four days, and that is not counting the 3,000 animals which can be eaten. When I defended Chitral, some twenty years ago, we lived well on atta and horseflesh, ... but, as I repeat above, I expect confidently to be relieved in the first half of the month of February. Our duty stands out plain and simple. It is our duty to our Empire, to our beloved King and Country, to stand here and hold up the Turkish advance as we are doing now; and with the help of all, heart and soul with me, together we will make this defence to be remembered in history as a glorious one. All in England and in India are watching us now, and are proud of the splendid courage and devotion you have shown; and I tell you, let all remember the glorious defence of Plevna, for that is in my mind. I am absolutely calm and confident as to the result. The Turk, though very good behind a trench, is of little value in the attack; they have tried it once, and their losses in one night, in their attempt on the fort, were 2,000 alone; they have already had very heavy losses from General Aylmer's musketry and guns, and I have no doubt they have had enough.

I want to tell you all now that when I was ordered to advance on Ctesiphon I officially demanded an Army Corps, or at least two Divisions, to do the task successfully, having pointed out the grave danger of attempting to do this with one Division only. I had done my duty: you know the result, and, whether I was right or not, your names will go down to history as the heroes of Ctesiphon, for heroes you proved yourselves to be in that battle. I, perhaps, by right should not have told you of the above, but I feel I owe it to all of you to speak straight and openly and take you into my confidence, for God knows I felt our heavy losses and the sufferings of my poor wounded and shall remember it as long as I live. No general I know of has been more loyally obeyed and served than I have been in command of the Sixth Division.

These words are long, I am afraid, but I speak straight from the heart, and you will see that I have thrown officialdom overboard. We will succeed, mark my words, but save your ammunition as if it were gold.

(Sd.) Charles Townshend,
Major-General,
Commanding Sixth Division.

I grow sleepy. Two nights ago we had a disaster I have not recorded. The flood burst a bund adjacent to us, and surplus flood water travelling fast swept across the battery carrying along with it the revetments and emplacements. The soft side of the trenches collapsed with a sickening thud, and in places filled right in. I was awakened by the sound of trickling water pouring down the earthen steps of my dug-out. It overflooded the bund which I had taken the precaution to build between the battery trench and my cavern. On climbing out I saw that the whole plain was a reach of water. I shouted to my orderly. We seized spades and shovels and filled in. This kept out further water which was still rising. The men were similarly engaged. One dug-out was close to the main trench and only supported by a tiny wall of earth which collapsed when wet. Trench and dug-out then ceased to exist. It was a pathetic sight to see the men, eight to a detachment, diving in five feet of mud and water for their belongings, some of their friends holding up the roof of their dug-out with poles. No bunnies flooded out ever felt more "out" of it than the men of my section. I had all their clothes dried as best as our scanty firewood could do it, some hot tea made for them, and their spare kit put into my dug-out. All night long the fight continued. My floor was two feet under water. In the gun-pits it came up to the breech-blocks of the guns, some of which had collapsed through their planks which had sunk into the mud. This I had foreseen weeks before. In fact, I had drawn up a simple scheme for putting in each gun-pit a foundation of filled ammunition zinc linings, then the planks, and on top the bricks from the brick kilns close by. There were a great quantity of these. My Major, however, possibly for some good reasons of his own, thought this unnecessary, and I was not permitted to go on with it. To-night, as I lay in my dug-out after hours of useless battling with the floods and in endeavouring to get the guns into action, I felt glad that my scheme had proved well-justified, for the ammunition pit which I had made as an experiment was the only dry part of the battery. We had the greatest difficulty in endeavouring to traverse the guns. After getting the wheels level we found every movement of the trail brought it off the scanty planking, and our many targets required considerable traversing. We reinforced the telephone compartment but the mess was feet deep in water. About two dug-outs remained more or less habitable, and in these the men crept while a few still went on trying to retrieve lost kit.

"'Ere, Bill, 'old me 'and, while I reach for this boot." The next moment oaths followed as the unfortunate pair fell in owing to the bank collapsing. Gaspings in the dark indicated where the unfortunates were. "'Ere I tell yer! Take me 'and! That ain't me blanky 'and. That's me blanky foot."

In the morning a most deplorable sight met our eyes. The trenches were unrecognizable, and from six feet had become in places only two feet deep. We had to go into action with the guns in this state and had to depress the gun to get the shell home into the breech without wetting it. Then we elevated the gun. After hours of bailing and bunding we reduced the water in the gun-pits to about eighteen inches, but two guns were still out of action. We now put all hands on making a bunded wall right around the battery, and on this we worked for two days and nights. On this second night I went to Kut and had dinner with "Cockie." We dined on horse and dahl peas quite satisfiedly. My way home was in the pitch dark. Myriads of starlings were screaming and wheeling in the sky. On the plain the high yelping chorus of jackals arose over the steady crack, crack of the enemy's snipers. Beneath all as an accompaniment was the rippling music of the running floods.

From a reminiscent I got into a prophetic mood, and then I suddenly found myself tumbled headlong over some obstacle on the maidan. The trenches were for the most part eighteen inches deep in mud and water, and apart from the discomfort took hours to negotiate, and I had leave only until 10 p.m. from the battery. One therefore walked on top. I found I had stumbled over a horse that had no doubt strayed and been sniped. His four feet turned skywards. As I got up, the moon appeared and played full on his ghastly head with bared gums and teeth. Assuring myself, from an inspection of his hoofs that he wasn't of my battery, I moved along and got into quite an amount of rifle fire. I ran and ran until I almost fell again over Number 2 gun emplacement. Two large saddles, a limber pole, and packal very much known to me, located my tiny boarded bed staked into the wet earth.

Everything is wet. I must stop smoking this drenched Arab cigarette. These are like small spills filled with bad tobacco dust and invariably burn one's clothes. Last night again the rain came! The tackle did not work. Streams poured on to my head and chest. I lit the tiny rope that floats in my dubbin tin. I lit my pipe that had belonged to Colonel Courtenay, my good friend, now resting among the date palms. This tobacco burns well. I listened to the roar of the four sectors of heaven all raining. Heaven, earth, and the waters under the earth, all rained. A raining world, in the centre my dug-out, a beleaguered town, a Turkish rampart. Outside the desert, and somewhere across it home, home, home! One searched oneself to see if one could do ought else, but ever returned to the sound of the rain.... It was at this moment that I bethought me of Timon....

Now Timon was a wee green frog that came to me some days ago from out the deluge. I fed him on many things, and he couldn't escape over the line of my dug-out. Him I watched and addressed on more than one occasion, and our talk found common history. [My notes here are broken, but I find them continued with an address to Timon before going to bed, written probably an hour before the procession of mule carts wound their way out to the Fort with rations, as I frequently smoked in the rain near my doorway until they passed, somewhere about 9.30 p.m. They were my signal for sleep——]

"And so, Timon, thou tiny frog, now shalt thou hear more of thy long history. Before Daly's Theatre or America was, before 'dry land was or ever the sea,' before there even roamed a Brighton bather along the shore, nay even before the forests themselves had appeared, thou wert. That, wee frog, was long, long ago to us men. It was in the twilight days when this round earth beneath our feet had just rolled out of primeval Night, and upon her still hung the shadows of Tehom which is Chaos. Then all was still, there were no forests, and no birds sang. In that deeper silence was only the whispering of racing stars and the humming of the spheres. A great symphony was that, the lullaby of the earth's infancy. After a long time and many changes, came the marsh reeds and the squashy moss plants that did for vegetation. It was all bog, wee frog—all. No wonder thy eyes grow big with wonder. And somewhere in that great marsh that covered the world was thy first great ancestor born. God knows what freakish fancy of a frolicsome couple in that distant Walpurgis night brought him forth. He was a salamander and he had the world to splash and croak in. Thou hast a question? Ah! Yes to be sure there were many insects and pulpy sedge for thy meat and vegetable. Wouldst have been there, my Timon? Well! and then alongside the salamanders came toads, and these multiplied and filled the world with noise. Such was the first chorus that arose from the dank, dark reeds—ten billion million jumping, diving, frolicsome little fellows, all lifting their voices in one tremendous croak—croak—croak—croak in perpetual chorus. Then was thy ancestor, the salamander, the largest animal or moving thing. But in time the water receded and shrubs grew, then themselves fell and sank deep down to form the coal beds of other ages. That was the coal plant. And then small trees appeared, later forests, and great beasts hung therefrom or walked beneath. But thy line remains distinct. Ages flew by and then I found thee, Timon, in my trench.

"Thou listenest intently as if thou rememberest it all. Canst hear the voice of thine ancient father still echoing adown Time's corridors? 'Tis a great thought, is it not, my Timon, that the earth, being a female, possessed herself of many-coloured draperies and the moving fancies of ten thousand hues, and man, that extraordinary biped, then appeared, and invented locomotives and whistles and violins and guns. Truly we are large frogs equipped with ancient instincts. Imagine thine ancient ancestors in the primeval swamp ahorseback on tiny horses, or standing boldly up to their guns from which they shot fire at other obstinate frogs. It's a lovely idea is it not? Of course at the first shot there had doubtless been a tremendous plop and a universal view of disappearing hind feet, but they would have got accustomed to it as have we. Thou hast forgotten. Man never knew. But the earth hath a memory long and sad, and it is said that she longs for the ancient stillness and turns yearly more cold. And one day when the sun no longer warmeth her glaciers and frozen seas she will return to that cold contemplation of the eternal problem from which she was diverted to watch the careering antics of man. A mere wraith of memory will she retain of tiny bleached bones gripped once again in the eternal snows—the last relics of that small and daring race of unaccountable beings. And then the wraith will be closed over by the mists, and Night shall descend once more. Thou, Timon, and I, will be what Thomas Atkins calls 'done in.' Hast still a smile? 'Tis well! 'Tis very well. Thou art a game little devil, and altogether the queerest little cus I've ever come across. So! Thou wishest a stroll after our long talk. Bravo, thy profile is absolutely wreathed in smiles. That was a right merry little hop. I wish dearly that I could teach thee to dance. Thou would'st make Gaby blush, and she is no small fish at the game. Now what in the name of the Seven Gods art thou at, poking thy head in that fashion? Thou shalt to supper and bed. Here are three flies and a squashed worm. Fill thy small green belly and sleep. Pax, I say, vobiscum. For thou also wert made by God."

February 13th.—I have had a half cup of milk. This morning I awoke feeling abominably seedy with sharp pains across the small of my back, awful head and wretchedly feverish. Devereux and I are suffering from dysentery, as, in one form or another, are many others. This complaint in its mildest form is diarrhœa which becomes colitis, which becomes dysentery, which turns sometimes to cholera. The doctors shake their heads and say: "Diet." They might as well recommend a sea trip. But of course they are right. Some fellows in their unwillingness to enter hospital stuff down dozens of leaden opium pills, various powders, much castor oil with chlorodyne and camphoradyne in between. The last is an excellent drug. It's all a matter of constitution, but sooner or later it's a case of hospital and injection of emmatine. A hostile aeroplane flew over to-day and dropped bombs on the town and brick kilns, evidently potting at the 5-inch guns there. A brisk rifle fire from our trenches followed it. Accounts suggest the unpopularity of this demon bird with its unhappy trick of laying, in mid-air, eggs that explode on reaching the earth. Another danger is from falling bullets fired at the place. The circuit is now complete. We are shot at all round and from on top.

General Aylmer's forces concentrated on the 6th for a new effort in a new position. It wants two days only in which to disprove General Townshend's prophecy about the date of relief. We hear that a Division has left Egypt for here. Every one is asking why it didn't leave months ago. Impatient questions are quite in vogue, but then we are many of us seedy and "siegy" and "dug-outish," and the end does not seem in sight. The latest news is that at Home no one knows a word of it all. We are merely "hibernating in Kut." Well, if it isn't known now it will be one day, that the siege of Kut is probably the most important and vigorous siege in modern military history.

I finished a novel to-day. It has at least made me long for England again. We are all full of longings; and the chief blessing of civilization is that it supplies the wherewithal to quieten them. Lord! for a glass of fresh milk and a jelly. Temperature 103° and shivering. I am going to have an attempt at sleeping. Everything is very quiet. The sentry's steps beside my roof make the earth shake.

It is the seventieth day of the siege.

February 14th.—Well, here am I again in my sleeping-bag at six minutes past eight p.m. Everything is dead quiet. Stillness itself is throbbing with the pulsation of a very real thing. Two sections are away digging at the alternative position by the kilns which faces both ways. There is a great deal of work required to complete such emplacements for a whole battery. Besides the gun-pits and parapets and communication trenches, there are ammunition dug-outs, a telephone and battery dug-out where the battery headquarters are, officers' mess, officers' dug-outs, men's dug-outs, cook-houses, and water dug-outs, and latrines. Then a trench and bund must be made around the position to keep out rain floods.

Dorking came to see me this morning for a time. The fever has decreased but my boasted fitness seems to have deserted me for good. I believe those wretched floods did the damage. Sleeping more or less under water tells on one in weakened condition. I have no cold though, luckily. Number 3 gun's detachment has appalling coughs, and every dug-out is the same. They have two blankets, but when the dug-out gets wet they have nothing even wherewith to dry themselves.

Cockie, who rather prides himself on some rudimentary knowledge of Egyptology, sent me a perfectly undecipherable note in hieroglyphics to come and dine. At least I guessed this out. What other interest could men have in common so much at such a time? I sent a figurative reply with a linear representation of myself in bed, a procession of ancient Thebans filing out of the dug-out with fowls, snipe on toast, puddings and fruits—all untouched. I hope to be able to toddle out for a walk to-morrow.

We have laid in a stock of Arab tobacco—half branches and twigs, and make our own cigarettes. Our reserve bottle of whisky to be drunk the night of relief we have divided, as firstly the relief may never come, and secondly we may be bowled over beforehand, in which case the one concerned would lose his share. Finally, I suggested that when the relief does come we shall be sufficiently intoxicated with joy, even supposing no refreshment is with the relieving force on that fortunate day.

The Turkish aeroplane bombed us again to-day. Yesterday thirty-five people including Arabs were wounded.

The sniper fellow over the river hit a gunner in the back yesterday at the next gun. The poor fellow is mortally wounded I hear. I was at my own gun at the time and heard him sing out. He didn't fall but walked about a little, "just," he said, "not to let the swine know he had been lucky." We sent him to hospital and will visit him to-morrow.

How very horrible to be quite poor! Here am I longing for hot milk and buttered toast, and instead I have a coarse slice of black boosa bread with the chaff sticking out of it—and a tiny portion of tinned cheese! But I will forget these abominations of the flesh and hope my twenty—one aches and pains won't pursue me into dreamland.

Venus, in her whitest robes, is shining resplendent over the Eastern horizon above my mud staircase.

February 15th.—I am feeling somewhat better, thank goodness. I hear that Pars Nip, the garrison gunner sub that came out from India with us, is in hospital with dysentery.

There is quite a deal of sniping. A bullet whinged off a limber a few minutes ago. My candles are finished and I don't like sitting alone in a dug-out on a foggy evening without any sort of light. It suggests being buried alive.

A shocking report is to hand concerning Don Juan. During the last two days he has taken advantage of the cold weather to eat three successive blankets, four jhuals, and his companion's head-collar. I suggest turning him loose in the dismantled hospital camp on the maidan, now a wilderness dotted with rotten tents. Some horses have commenced to eat their tails and are not above snapping at their mates' tails if they get a chance. It's great fun watching them all on the qui vive sparring for an opening to attack one another's tail, or cover, or head collar. Don has even gnawed his wooden peg to chips and swallowed most of them.

February 16th.—This morning we had a heavy artillery duel. Fritz, the Turkish planist, flew over several times but did not bomb. He is evidently observing. His plane proved to be an old pattern Morane and is certainly very fast.

I have been for a little walk in the trenches. I felt awfully groggy and returned to R. L. Stevenson's "Silverado Squatters," which rings so very true even in a Mesopotamian dug-out. In this volume Robert Louis, without the addition of the terrible occurrences so dear to the sensational writer, and so rare to the lives of most of us, has left the beauty of simplicity unadorned.

February 17th.—Fritz flew back this afternoon and dropped bombs on the town. The one nearest to us was 300 yards towards the 4-inch guns. One bomb fell in our horse lines in Kut, just missing several drivers in a harness room, and taking the adjoining room completely. Everything therein was wrecked, but the effect of a bomb is very local. They are as yet only 30-pounders, all of which along with some larger ones, 100-pounders, were captured from us on a barge in Ascot week. Ascot week represents the temporal series from Ctesiphon to Kut. The passing overhead of Fritz's Morane we view with feelings compatible with our universal conception of him as the Destroying Angel. All deeply detest his tricks and damn him most devoutly, and I have heard many say that to be bombed by an aeroplane is the worst experience in the field. Not in the trenches, for there one is comparatively safe unless it pitches to a yard. Who doesn't take many more risks motoring? But when one's duty requires one to move about a battery in action, the fire of which is a perfect target to the plane hovering overhead, or to move about Kut or the horse lines, it is a considerably smaller joke. For the most part the dug-outs are entirely unproof against bombs, or, of course, a direct hit by a shell. The town quarters of the regiment on relief from the trenches are dug-outs covered with canvas or straw tatti-work and three or four inches of soil. The only safe place is in these Arab houses of two floors. The roof explodes the bomb which wrecks the upper room and possibly the first floor if not very substantial. Now an S & T walla sprinting for cover is considered, not being a combatant, quite in order, but an infantry officer not so. As for an artillery officer, he is supposed to be so used to high explosives that if the table and everything thereon blows up while he is drinking his cup of coffee, he must nevertheless not take the cup from his lips until he has drained it dry.

The first indication of his visit comes from the alarm gong which hangs near the river front observation post. All eyes strain skyward and a little black speck scarce distinguishable from a bird dots the blue sky. It approaches, and our improvised air-gun, a 13-pounder worked on a circular traverse at a high angle, has a pot at it. This gun was set up by Major Harvey, R.F.A., our adjutant, a most efficient gunnery expert from Shoeburyness. He worked out the mathematics, too, with schemes of ranging in the two planes, perpendicular and horizontal. A little white puff of cloud appears near the plane and one hears the report. Then another shot is fired and the plane mounts or swerves and still comes on. His propellers and engine are heard quite distinctly as he gets within range. A fierce burst of rifle fire and the still sharper maxim gun's staccato music is the signal for all to take cover. One sees him now directly over the Gurkha regiment's bivouacs, and hears a faint hissing noise as of rapidly spinning propellers. The hissing increases for several seconds until it becomes quite loud and terminates with a crashing explosion. One bomb has dropped. The air is full of other hissing things in various stages of their careers. A creepy feeling suggests that the bomb with its tiny propellers rapidly spinning, is going to pitch on the top of one's head and blot one out of existence, like stamping out an ant. It strikes a building a hundred yards off and the resounding smash of falling timber is caught up by another smash which has struck earth, a third that has landed in the hospital, scattering death all around, a fourth that has splashed small pieces of horseflesh and hair on the surrounding walls and trees.

All these are our captured bombs. A Tommy to-day observed that the Turk was flinging our bombs about as if they belonged to him. Another wag suggested Fritz was merely returning them.

February 18th.—This afternoon we had to shoot at a gun target that was pestering the Fort, and as a consequence drew thick shell fire on ourselves. Shells fell all around every gun. We went to the fastest rate of fire, gun-fire, the first heavy firing for over a month. Last evening the 82nd Battery, R.F.A., had its turn when, although concealed in the palm-grove, it was bombed by the plane and shot over by three or four targets.

There were several wounded and two killed. The guns on the water front are very active. The greater attention which the Turks have paid us during the last few days suggests that something startling is doing.

4 p.m.—I have just received orders attaching me temporarily to the ammunition column, which is practically without any officer as Cockie has several guns on the river front, and is continually up in the observation post there. I am to take charge of the column and incidentally relieve him at observation. It is thought that the enemy may try to rush boats down the river. They could never get past our four-point-sevens in horse barges moored on the river, or the 5-inch or the 18-pounders or the 12-pounders from the Sumana. But great vigilance is necessary. The river is at least 400 yards wide.

It is quite good business getting attached to the column. I shall be practically C.O. with all the horses and wagons and ammunition, and two guns to keep my eye on, and observing between whiles. It will mean living in a house, for which I am very thankful. Anyway, I have been moved about owing to casualties certainly as much as any other subaltern, and up till now I have been fairly fit all along. Those early days in the brick kilns, then in the shallow trenches, then in the Fort, and especially during the floods in this battery, absorbed my fitness, and I am now a bag of pains and have lost ten pounds in weight.

I have had tea, and am already packed up. Farewell my dug-out, in which I have spent many wonderful hours and thought many strange thoughts. I am wiser at leaving than on entering thee. Timon, also my friend, thou hast earned thy freedom. Thy supper eaten, I shall put thee near the pond behind the old communication trench near the palm woods. I have no time to write an elegy upon thee. Thou camest sharply into my life and leavest it as suddenly. It is the way of the army and of life. Thou hast been a soldier's companion. Many, many are the fantasies we have indulged in, have we not? Many thoughts exchanged that could never be set on paper, oh dear, no. What better confidant than a wee green frog! Mind not thy unceremonious dismissal. My advice is to smile. When thou seest thy fly, go for him between wind and water, and smile even if thou art unsuccessful. Joyful days and full rations I wish thee. Never think! Farewell!

February 19th.—Graoul removed my kit to the building in the town occupied by the 6th D.A.C. near the Minaret, where I had enjoyed my Christmas dinner. It is close to the mosque, and two minutes from the guns on the river front. There is the usual tiny concrete square with rooms all around it, mostly occupied by the servants, and one large room with wooden shutters which was the mess. Cockie sleeps in a basement room as being presumably safer and wishes me to share with him. But he is such an extremely exuberant and nervy companion, I have taken a small room on the first floor which has a thick wall on the side from which the shells come. Of course the doorway is also there, directly in line of the usual fire direction, and many bullets have at one time or other entered there and gone through the front wall which is quarter inch wood only. However, I have enough room for my bed, and must learn to lie close. Outside my room is a tiny promenade space of the flat roof and the basement rooms, and bounded by a low wall which stops a lot of bullets. I have often sat up there close to the wall and read while bullets cracked into the other side of it or flew overhead. Looking over this wall, one may see the deserted shell-ploughed ground between the battery and the palm trees that fringe the river, the river itself and the Turkish trenches beyond.

I dined with Cockie and Edmonds, who is convalescing, and enjoyed an excellent cup of coffee with tinned milk.

I commenced duty this morning by inspecting the horse lines. Cockie has not been near the lines for months, and the general condition of things is highly creditable to the N.C.Os. who have carried on. The horses, I find, are easily the best conditioned in Kut, but that is because they are by far the youngest, and also have not had the work of the battery horses. The wagons and harness require attention, and I have ordered inspection of each in sections. We are almost out of dubbin, which is in great demand for light. A twisted piece of rope, or wick, if possible, gives a mild, dull light.

Graoul I had to send back to the battery, which is too shorthanded to spare men. My new servant is a Punjabi Mohammedan from the lines, by name Amir Bux. He is a good, silent lad, and very attentive. This morning the aeroplane got up and then went down so we have been spared one entertainment at least.

This afternoon I spent some hours in Cockie's observation post, river front, which is a tiny sandbag affair arranged around an opening in the roof to which a ladder leads from the first floor of the heavily bricked and sandbagged building on the river bank, and some forty yards from the water. This tiny strip of land, once the wharfage, is now grass green. To cross it is certain death. The observation post is certainly the most exposed in Kut, being nearer the river front than the Heavies, and getting all the 5-inch over and shorts. The Turks are thickly entrenched on the other side of the river, and have a bee line on every brick on the water front. The two-horse artillery guns and the 18-pounders are behind emplacements just below, and are within megaphone distance from the observation post. Our telephonists are at the foot of the ladder on the first floor. The post commands a view of three quarters of the horizon, the whole of the right bank, and has artistic advantages all its own. The solitary waters of the sunlit Tigris and the misty distances between and beyond the palm trees invite one to pleasant dreams after the strenuous times of trench days, and fort days, and perpetual dug-out days.

Edmonds returned to the battery and my dug-out. He has had a delightful period of convalescence here on the balcony, and seems much more fit.

This afternoon there was quite a strafe. The Turkish snipers' nest near the mouth of the Shat-el-hai, opposite our observation station, became troublesome, and we popped a few into them from the 13-pounders. That shut them up. Then Fanny, the huge Turkish trench mortar near the Woolpress post we hold on the other bank, popped her bomb of 150 pounds weight towards us. The bomb comes slowly at about the pace of a falling football, and of course is quite visible. It burst about a half-minute after reaching this bank, but did no damage. Then Fritz flew over and dropped three crashing bombs on the town, and returning to the Turkish lines for more ammunition, dropped four bombs near the 104th heavy battery. We gave him a hot rifle fusillade, and our improvised anti-aircraft gun did quite well. One burst was just below and two just in front. Fritz mounted very hurriedly.

As I write, guns are rumbling downstream in a most pessimistic way. Reuter reports this campaign has been taken over by the British War Office. The reinforcing division is said to have embarked at Port Said on the 10th. That would remove the date of relief at least to the end of March. Food may be made to stretch, but the casualty list of sick will be very high. Even now some castes will not eat horseflesh, and the Mohammedans have refused to touch it.

To-night for the first time in three months I am sleeping in pyjamas, as my only duty with the guns is to relieve Cockie.

February 20th.—I have to-day continued inspection and altered the horse-lines in case of a flood. I also went to the first-line trenches for a walk, the second line that was, for the floods compelled us to abandon the original line. I scarcely knew the place. The trench was a fine broad pathway ten feet deep with firing platforms several feet wide where the men bivouacked and the officers had tiny mess tents. A wall or bund loopholed at the top, some five or six feet high, sloped towards the Turkish position for fifteen feet. Beyond it, in patches, are the waters of the last flood. The loopholes lend this firing-line an appearance of mediæval embattlements. My old acquaintance, Dinwiddy, in the West Kents I found doing awfully well under awnings, but looking very thin. This flood scheme is one of the most praiseworthy incidents in the siege of Kut. Every day the flood waters of the approaching annual floods are creeping across our front. We believe the bund will save us.

It was a beautiful day, and I enjoyed my walk immensely. At midday the sun is unpleasantly warm, and the nights are quite cold. We have all gone back to helmets, and perspired freely in the day. We hear the avant-courrière of the summer.

Last night Wells of the Flying Corps came into the mess, and "re-flew over Ctesiphon." I should like to fly. He has had the bad luck to lose all the fingers of one hand while engaged manufacturing hand grenades for the trenches. The old Flying Corps has been of great assistance to us in Kut. Another Flying Corps officer, Captain Winfield Smith, rigged up old engines and made our corn grinders and mills practically out of scrap-iron.

Cockie wants me to promise to go Egyptologizing with him after the war! Fancy a mummy awakening from a silence of three to five thousand years to hear a voice like Cockie's!

Frolicsome Flossy, that very aggressive female, made four overtures to the gunners on the 4·7 barges. Needless to say her warm attentions met with the cold reception they merited.

I also visited the hospital to look up some sick friends. One who was in with jaundice had a complexion like grass-green oil flung into a bowl of rich Jersey cream. The sight made one bilious. I'm not so seedy as I was, but the universal complaint still pursues me.

Don Juan is in his new lines with a native syce. He has already eaten both tails off his new companions, one of which is Cockie's charger. Cockie is furious, but seeing that Don has eaten his own tail also I don't see much for Cockie to grumble at.

Erzeroum has fallen. That may relieve the pressure here.

I have just come across Longfellow's "Daybreak," an old favourite of mine that I once heard that excellent song writer Mallison and his wife render in a most delightful manner. One misses any music except this endless fire symphony!

February 21st.—The eightieth day of siege. We fired at Snipers' Nest across the river, otherwise the day was very quiet except for the visit of Fritz who had evidently had sufficient taste of our anti-aircraft gun, and he flew diagonally across the town and right around to avoid it.

Upon the tiny observation station, which is scarcely large enough for two to sit down in, Cockie entertained me with antiquities. He likes to talk of empires and dynasties falling, and thousands of years gone by, and Good-God-look-at-it-all-now sort of thing. To which I always lend a careful ear, and if he ever asks me a question to see if I am attending, I say, "Good heavens! How extraordinary! Don't spoil it by interrogations. Go on!" Not that I'm not interested in such things, far from it, but Cockie gets impatient with his inadequacy of description.

Sealed orders arrived at 10 p.m. to be opened at 4 a.m. Something is agog! I must sleep again in breeches and field boots.

February 22nd.—At 4 a.m. by the dusky dubbin's misty light, Cockie opened the secret orders with an air of mystery becoming an Egyptologist having the secrets of forgotten worlds beneath his thumb.

The General Staff has been hatching a scheme for some time past, and this is why I was wanted in the column so urgently. Cockie is to remain C.R.A. of the river front artillery. I'm in command of the ammunition column. General Townshend, our G.O.C., intends to attack in two columns, Column A comprising General Melliss's 30th Brigade and one battery R.F.A. to debouch through Redoubt A, Column B with the 17th Brigade and two batteries R.F.A. to debouch through by the Fort. The show is conditioned to take place if the Turkish forces retreat past Kut to their main camp on this bank—or if any reinforcements proceed on their way to the Turkish Essin forces downstream. The latter condition makes it appear that something should happen soon.

Some say it is a risky thing for us to move outside our position, but somehow one has every confidence in such an old campaigner as the Sixth Division. The intention is for the 16th Brigade in front of the 82nd Battalion position, to demonstrate, holding the Turks there and thus enabling Column A to move on. One section per battery (R.F.A.) will remain to cover the advance. The advance of either column must necessarily be subjected to a lively enfilade fire from across the river and by the transverse trenches rounding the Fort. Enfilade from our left, i.e. the right bank of the river, must be kept down by the river-front artillery. The sappers will go ahead to spring the many-rumoured mines of which I doubt the existence, as the Turks are not very up to date this way.

I have everything ready, wagons loosened up, shovels and picks on, ammunition filled, double feed in horse bags, men's rations ready for one day. The ammunition column does not move off until the last guns of the 63rd have moved clear. So we are not harnessed up, as there will be more than doubly sufficient time when the batteries get the order to go—and it will save the horses a lot, as it may be a long waiting affair. Our job will be to keep in touch with both columns and have a first position outside Kut only if either column advances into the open. The trip will have to be done again and again, so we shall not escape without casualties.

It is on the knees of the gods, and I for one hope it comes off. In fact we all do. An impression has stolen upon us that if we don't help ourselves we shall stay here altogether.

2 p.m.—There is heavy firing downstream. Fritz has just flown by to see what's doing. The G.O.C.'s intention, according to rumour, is to consign matters to final issue, and to force a great battle, provided the show downstream goes decently well.