We watched our guns run up to the 'Pimple,' a recently built-up mound slightly ahead of us, lately used as a Turkish O. Pip, now accruing to us for the same purpose. The infantry assumed that these wagons and limbers moving a hundred yards to our right would draw all the enemy's fire, in which case we, helpless on the flat, would be shelled out of this existence. But this did not happen; why, I cannot guess, unless I have correctly traced the reason for that bad observation so marked in the Turkish gunning all through this day. We were in the slightest possible depression, with a scarcely perceptible lift on our left and a steady rise before. Shells plunged incessantly down our left, and went whistling far beyond us. But comparatively few burst among us; and the shrapnel burst far too high to do damage.

Our batteries were in position at the 'Pimple.' We rose, marched through a tornado of noise, right-turned, and went across the muzzle of our own guns, also in full blast. In front I saw lines of Leicestershires scaling the slope and melting into the mounds.

My diary notes: 'Men's delight to see river.' We came suddenly upon Brother Tigris, basking in beautiful sunlight, becalmed in bays beneath lofty bluffs. In this dreadful land water meant everything; we had had experiences of thirst, not to be effaced in a lifetime. Away from the river men grew uneasy. The river meant abundance to drink, and bathing; everywhere else water was bad, or the supply precarious. We had been away from the river since that night opposite Sindiyeh. So not the crashing shells, the 'pipsqueaks' ripping the air like dried paper, nor the bullets pinging by, prevented men from greeting so dear a sight. Standing on the beach of imminent strife, in act to plunge, men cried, 'The Tigress, the Tigress!' Instantly a scene flashed back to memory from the book so often near to thought in these days: how Xenophon, weary and anxious with the restlessness and depression of his much-tried troops, heard a clamour from those who had reached a hill-crest, and, riding swiftly up to take measures against the expected peril, found them shouting 'Thalatta, Thalatta.' Seafaring folk, the most of them, they had caught, far below, their first glimpse of the Euxine, truly a hospitable water to them, since it could bear them home.

Wilson dressed his first wounded in sheltered, broken ground, high above the river. The peaceful beauty of the place is with me still. Above the blue, unruffled pools green flycatchers darted, and rollers spread metallic wings. The left bank lay low and very lovely with flowers and fields. 'I will answer you,' said Sir Walter Raleigh, asked his opinion of a glass of wine, given as he went to execution, 'as the man did who was going to Tyburn. "This is a good drink, if a man might but tarry by it."' Wilson left me here with Dobson; but almost immediately he sent back asking us to rejoin him. Our few cases, all walking ones, remained in this shelter till such time as they could fall back, and Dobson and I crossed into the mounds.

It was nearly eleven o'clock. Our leading company had advanced by rushes to a distance of a hundred and fifty yards beyond the Second Median Wall. They were within three hundred yards of the main enemy trenches. Battalion Head Quarters was at the wall, the 56th Rifles were to the left, the two Sikh regiments a quarter of a mile to the rear. Machine-gun sections were at the wall, supporting the forward regiments. The 56th Brigade, R.F.A., had moved up, and were firing close behind Wilson's new aid-post. Presently two more companies of Leicestershires were sent beyond the wall, the third in response to a message that the front line had suffered heavily and were short of ammunition. Before the final assault, then, the Leicestershires' line, from the east inland, was D, A, B, these three companies in this order.

But I am anticipating.

Wilson's A.P. was in a dwarf amphitheatre, and was filling up fast. Bullets were zipping over from left and front. The enemy position rested on river and railway, a half-dug position which some six thousand men were frantically completing when we caught them. Away beyond Tigris glittered the golden dome of Samarra mosque; Samarra town and Samarra station, like Baghdad town and station, are on opposite banks of the river. The station was railhead for this finished lower line of eighty miles, and in it were the engines and rolling-stock which had been steadily withdrawn before our advance. Beyond the mounds the ground dropped and stretched, level but broken, swept by machine-gun and rifle, torn with shell and shrapnel, away to Al-Ajik, against Samarra town. Here the Turk resisted savagely. He was ranging on the wall, which was an extremely unhealthy spot, particularly in its gaps, and he enfiladed the mounds from the railway. We flung our fifteen hundred bayonets and our maniple of cavalry at the position. The one British regiment, the Leicestershires, went in three hundred and thirty strong, and lost a hundred and twenty-eight men.

Dropping bullets took toll even before we left the mounds. As I came up to join Wilson a man was carried past. It was Major Adams, acting second-in-command of the 53rd Sikhs. He had gone ahead of his battalion to the wall, where a bullet struck him in the forehead. He died within fifteen minutes, and was unconscious as he went past me. No man in the brigade was more beloved. He was always first to offer hospitality. It was he who met our mess when they first reached Sumaikchah and invited them to come to his own for lunch. I never saw him but with a smile of infinite kindliness on his face, and I saw him very often.

Face swift to welcome, kindling eyes whose light Saw all as friends, we shall not meet again!

Here in the aid-post sat the Cherub, struck at last, a flesh-wound in his thigh; with many others. Next to him was Charles Copeman, unwounded, waiting to go forward with his bombers. Presently came Warren, bright and jaunty as a bird, and carrying his left arm. 'I'm all right,' said Montag, 'got a cushy one here.' On his heels came G.A.; his face was that of a man fresh from the Beatific Vision. Much later, when I had managed to get transport to push him away, I asked him, 'Got your stick, G.A.?' This was a stout stave on which he had carved, patiently and skilfully, his name, 'H.T. Grant-Anderson,' and a fierce and able-looking tiger at the top, then his regiment, then curving round it the names of the actions in which it had supported him: Sannaiyat, Iron Bridge, Mushaidie, Beled Station; while down the line now he was to add Istabulat-Samarra. This famed work of art he flaunted triumphantly as he climbed into the ambulance.

But with these, and before some of them, came very heavy news. By that fatal wall and on the bullet-swept space before it died many of our bravest. Hall, M.C., aged nineteen, who looked like Kipling's Afridi:

He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and he looked like a lance in rest;

Hall fell, facing the finish of our journey and those bright domes of Samarra, already gilded from the sloping sun. His death was merciful, a bullet through the heart; 'and sorrow came, not to him, but to those who loved him.'

The theory was strongly held in the Leicestershires that the only way was to advance steadily. This weakened the enemy's morale, and, further, he had no chance to pick out his ranges accurately. To this theory and practice of theirs they put down the fact that, though in the forefront of all their battles, their losses were often so much slighter than those of units that had acted more cautiously. I quote again from Hasted's brilliant lecture on the battle:

There was no hesitation about the advance. Rushes were never more than twenty yards, more often ten to fifteen yards, as hard as one could go, and as flat as one could lie, at the end of it. The theory, 'the best way of supporting a neighbouring unit is to advance,' was explained at once. The attention of the enemy's rifles and machine-guns was naturally directed to the platoon or section advancing, even when they had completed their rush. Directly one saw a party getting slated, one took advantage of it to advance oneself, in turn drawing fire, but taking care to finish the rush before being properly ranged on. One seldom halted long enough to open covering-fire, and besides, there was nothing to fire at. Despite the very short halt, it is no exaggeration to say that I have seen men go to sleep between the rushes.

Shell-bursts provided excellent cover to advance behind. Individuals, such as runners, adopted a zigzag course with success; we lost very few. Platoons and companies got mixed, but it was not difficult to retell off. Perhaps control was easier owing to very little rifle-fire from our side and the majority of enemy shells landing on the supports. There was no question of men taking insufficient cover; they melted into the sand after five minutes with an entrenching tool, and during the actual advance they instinctively took advantage of every depression. Officers had no wish to stand up and direct; signallers lay flat with telephones. Stretcher-bearers did not attempt to work in front of the wall. Lewis-gunners suffered; they carried gun and ammunition on the march (there were no mules), and the men were tired; their rushes were not so fast as the platoon advances.

To G.A., lying waiting, before he was hit, came up his sergeant and said, 'That's Mr. Hall over there, sir. I can see him lying dead.' But G.A. had thoughts which pressed out even grief for his dead friend. 'I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.' Shakespeare might have added these men to those Time stood still withal. For over four hours they lay, within three hundred yards of their invisible foe, under the sleet of bullets. McInerney told me afterwards that it was the heaviest rifle-fire he had known, except the Wadi.[13] The Wadi was the one which made the deepest impression of horror, of all those dreadful and useless slaughters in Aylmer's and Gorringe's attempt to relieve Kut—made this impression, that is, so far as (to paraphrase Macaulay) there is a more or less in extreme horror. And McInerney had seen the 1915 fighting in Flanders. Fortunately the enemy kept most of his shells for farther back. We got plenty in the ruins. But by far the greatest number went far back, where he supposed our reinforcements were coming up. All afternoon we worked in the aid-post under a roof of shells, screaming in both directions, from the enemy and from our own guns. In front the enemy watched the ground so closely that G.A. got his wound by the accident of raising his elbow. But now, as it drew towards noon, there was a clatter as of old iron behind him, and Service, the machine-gunner, rushed up and erected his tripod and lethal toy. No man was more popular than Service in normal times. But to-day he and all his tribe stirred the bitter enmity that Ian Hay tells us the trench-mortar people aroused in France. 'Go away, Service,' his friends entreated. But Service stayed, a fact which precipitated G.A.'s next short rush forward.

On the left the three Indian battalions did a holding attack, pushing out from the wall. They lost heavily. The 53rd Sikhs lost their Colonel (Grattan), their second-in-command (Adams), their adjutant (Blewitt), their quartermaster (Scarth), all killed or died of wounds. The last-named, a very gallant and lovable boy, died in my own aid-post, which he reached after nightfall. On the right Graham, of the machine-gunners, won the V.C. For this battle he was attached to the 56th Rifles. In the advance from the mounds and the heavy fighting on the left all his men became casualties. His gun was knocked out, and he was wounded. McKay, his second-in-command, was hit in the throat, and died. Graham then went back for his other gun. This also was knocked out. Meantime he had collected two more wounds. Compelled to retire, he disabled his second gun completely; then he carried on with the Lewis-gun, though very short of ammunition, till a fourth wound put him out of action. Single-handed he held up a strong counter-attack from the Turks massing on our left. Had these got round, the Leicestershires would have been cut off. It is satisfactory to be able to say that he survived, with no worse hurt than a scar across his face.

Before noon Wilson asked me to take charge of the aid-post. Dobson remained with me; Wilson and Whitehead went up to the wall and established a new A.P. With me were left many stretcher-cases. In the confused character of the ground my place quickly developed into an independent aid-post, and, in addition to receiving a stream of walking cases, methodically passed down by Wilson, had some hundred and thirty wounded, including Turks, who had no other treatment than such as Dobson and I knew how to give. I had never bandaged a man before, but my hands grew red to the elbow. Dobson worked grandly. As far as possible I left our own men to him, and dressed wounded Turks, of whom seventy were sent in late in the afternoon. This was on the fiat experimentum in corpore vili principle, as my fingers were unskilled, and yet the work was very great.

About noon a gun was heard on the left bank of the river. Shrapnel burst 'unpleasantly close,' says Hasted, 'to our front line. More followed, and, after bracketing, seemed to centre about two hundred and fifty yards in front of us. We then realized that General Marshall's Column had joined in, supporting us with enfilade gunfire; we were unable to see their target, and could see nothing of the enemy trenches. We could make out single occasional shivering figures moving laterally in the mirage. One Turk was seen throwing up earth, standing up now and then to put up his hands to us. We tried him at ranges of three hundred to twelve hundred yards, but did not even frighten him; observation was absurdly difficult. Firing slackened down, but on the left, out of sight in a depression, we could hear the 56th engaged.'

As Hasted remarks, it seems incredible that our men lay from 11 a.m. till 3.30 p.m. within three hundred yards of the enemy's trenches. Yet such is the fact.

At 4 p.m. we put down a concentrated bombardment of twenty minutes. The Leicestershires, a forlorn and depleted hope, moved swiftly up to within assaulting distance, C Company in reserve behind the right. The 51st Sikhs supported the attack. The 56th Rifles put down the heaviest fire they could, of rifles and all the efficient machine-guns with the Brigade. At 4.20 the guns lifted one hundred yards, and the Leicestershires rushed in. Hasted, watchful behind with C Company, pushed up rapidly to assist the front line. A long line of Turks rose from the ground. All these, and the enemy's second line also, were taken prisoners. Dug-outs were cleared, and many officers were taken, where lofty cliffs overhang the Tigris. These prisoners were sent back with ridiculously weak escorts. They were dazed, their spirits broken. G.A., wounded and falling back in search of the aid-post, came on a large body, wandering sheep without a shepherd. These he annexed, and his orderly led them; he himself, using the famous stick as a crook, coaxed them forward. Prisoners came, ten and twenty in charge of one man. When night had fallen, they sat round us and curiously watched us. Altogether the 'Tigers'—hardly two hundred strong by now—took over eight hundred prisoners. Many of these escaped by reason of the poverty of escort.

But I will not speak of prisoners now. Whilst our scanty stock of ammunition was being fired at the Turks, retiring rapidly, the Leicestershires were pushing far out of reach of telephone communication. 'Limited objectives were not known in the open fighting.'[14] To Captain Diggins fell an amazing success. Suddenly there were flashes almost in his face. 'Guns,' he shouted, and rushed forward. On and on he rushed, till he reached the enemy's guns, he and three of the men of A Company, which he commanded. These guns were in nullas by the river-bank. Their crews were sitting round them. Diggins beckoned to them to surrender, which they did. He was so blown with running that he felt sick and faint. Nevertheless he recovered, and rose to the occasion. To us, away in the aid-posts, came epic stories of 'Digguens,' with the ease and magnificence of Sir Francis Drake receiving an admiral's sword, shaking hands with the battery commander. He is a singularly great man in action, is Fred Diggins. In all, from several positions, Diggins took seven fourteen-pounders and two 5.9's. They were badly hit, some of them. The horses were in a wretched condition, none of them unwounded. Several were shot by us almost immediately. Diggins sent his prisoners back, battery commanders and all, in charge of Corporal Williamson and one private. On his way back, after delivering up his prisoners, Williamson was killed.

Very soon on Diggins's arrival his subalterns, Thorpe and McInerney, joined him. He sent them racing back across the perilous mile which now lay between them and the wall. Thorpe went to Lieutenant-Colonel Knatchbull, and McInerney to Creagh, the second-in-command this day. All did their best to get reinforcements. The two other brigades, however badly hit the previous day, were now close up. The 19th Brigade, becoming aware of the situation, eagerly put their services at our disposal. After the action the official explanation of the loss of the guns was that the Leicestershires got out of hand and went too far; so I was told in the colloquial language which I have set down. A nearer explanation is that they went because of over-confidence somewhere back. Night was falling, and the guns already gone, when reinforcements from the 19th Brigade came past my aid-post and asked me the direction. Had the guns been kept, I verily believe at least one V.C. would have come our way, for Diggins, and M.C.'s for his lieutenants. As it was, Diggins got an M.C. and Thorpe a 'mention.' Nothing came to McInerney, who was one of the many soldiers who went through years of battle, always doing their duty superbly, but emerging ribbonless at the end. Six months later, at Tekrit, these guns took a heavy toll from our infantry. Now, after all effort, scarcely fifty men could be got up to them.

In these exalted moments of victory glorious almost beyond belief Sergeant-Major Whatsize fell, twenty yards from the enemy's line. In his last minutes he was happy, as a child is happy.

The handful at the guns waited. A large barrel of water had been put there for the Turkish gunners. This was drained to the last drop. The guns were curiously examined. 'Besides the intricate mechanism and beautifully finished gear, there were some German sextants and range-finders, compasses like those on a ship's binnacle, and other instruments on a lavish scale,' says Hasted. But this inspection was cut short, for now came the counter-attack. The Turks began to shell the captured gun-position. Then, from the railway-embankment, nearly a mile to the Leicestershires' left front, several lines of Turks emerged, in extended formation, a distance of fifty yards between each line. At least two thousand were heading for the fifty Leicestershires holding the guns. 'It was like a crowd at a football-match,' a spectator told me. Diggins sent word to Lowther, commanding B Company, a little to his left rear, 'The Turks are counter-attacking.' Lowther replied that he was falling back. Diggins and Hasted fell back in conformity. Hasted was asking his men how many rounds of ammunition they had left. None had more than five rounds, so perforce we ceased fire. The 51st Sikhs, with the exception of Subahdar Aryan Singh and two sepoys, had not appeared. The Leicestershires damaged the guns as they might for half a dozen fevered, not to say crowded, minutes of glorious life. Hasted, who was one of those who enjoyed this destruction, complains that they did not know much about what to do; they burred the breech-block threads and smashed the sights with pickaxes. The Mills bombs put in the bores did not explode satisfactorily. Then they fell back. One of the sergeants was hit in the chest, Sergeant Tivey, a Canadian; he was put on one of the Turkish garrons and led along. 'From the attention he received from the enemy's guns, they must have thought him a Field-Marshal.'[15] The Turks, for all their force, crept up timidly. After securing the guns, they raced to Tekrit, thirty miles away. But they sent a large body in pursuit of the retreating 'Tigers.'

The Leicestershires fell back rapidly, the enemy pressing hard. The 51st Sikhs were found, hidden by the hollows of the ground; they had been a buttress to the left flank of that handful of adventurous infantry in their forward sweep into the heart of the Turkish position. It was now that Graham and the 56th Rifles checked the counter-attack, which threatened to drive a wedge between the Leicestershires and the river. The whole front was now connected up, and, in face of an attacking army, British and Indians dug themselves in. The 51st sent along some ammunition. The sun was setting, and in the falling light the last scene of this hard-fought day took place. Turkish officers could be seen beating their men with the flat of their swords. The enemy came, rushing and halting. The sun, being behind them, threw a clear field of observation before them; but over them it flung a glamour and dimness, in which they moved, a shadow-army, silhouettes that made a difficult mark. And our men were down to their last rounds of ammunition. Our guns opened again, but too late, and did not find their target. But the Leicestershires' bombers, sixty men in all, were thrown forward, bringing ammunition which saved the day. Thirty of the sixty fell in that rush. The Turks were now within two hundred and fifty yards; but here they wavered. For half an hour they kept up a heavy rifle-fire. Then, at six o'clock, the 19th Brigade poured in, and the thin lines filled up with Gurkhas, Punjabis, and Seaforths. Moreover, the new-comers had abundance of ammunition. Darkness fell, and our line pushed forward. For over two hours we could hear the Turks man-handling their guns away. But there were strong covering-parties, and our patrols were driven back with loss. Our guns put down a spasmodic and ineffectual fire. Then all became quiet. All along the enemy's line of retreat and far up the river were flares and bonfires. Away in Samarra buildings were in flames, and down the Tigris floated two burning barges, of which more hereafter.

I cannot speak as they deserve of the gallant work of the Indian regiments. The severity of their losses is eloquent testimony. 'Boomer' Barrett came down the field, shot through the face, cheerfully announcing his good luck: 'I've got a soft one, right through the cheek.' I have spoken of the 53rd Sikhs. They lost their four senior officers, killed. But every regiment had brave leaders to mourn. One thinks with grief and admiration of that commander, a noble and greatly beloved man, whom a bullet struck down, so that he died without recovering consciousness several days later. Though the body's tasks were finished, his mind worked on the fact that his men had been temporarily checked, and he kept up the cry, 'What will they say in England? The —— fell back; —— failed them.' Even so, when duty has become life's ruling atmosphere,

One stern tyrannic thought which makes All other thoughts its slave,

it matters little that the body should fail. The mind labours yet, fulfilling its unconscious allegiance.

He went, unterrified, Into the Gulf of Death.

In my aid-post we carried on, secure beneath our canopy of racing shells. The slope gave cover against 'over' bullets, except when it was necessary to walk about. Early in the afternoon, during a lull, a doctor appeared and asked if it was safe to bring up his ambulances. I told him 'Yes'; there were dropping bullets, but very little shell-fire. He replied that he would come immediately. But the supply of shells greatly quickened, and he did not appear again till near darkness, when he brought two motor ambulances, taking five sitting and four lying cases in each. He promised to return, but did not. Apart from these eighteen, only the walking wounded got away, pushing back into our noisy and perilous hinterland.

About four o'clock the Turks, in reply to our intense bombardment, put a brief but terrific fire on the mounds, blowing up men on every side. I decided to clear out to where, round the corner, an old wall gave upright shelter. As our first exodus swung round, a huddled, hobbling mass, two 'coal-boxes' burst in quick succession, each closer than the last shell before it. I shouted 'Duck!' We ducked, then made a few yards and ducked for the second time. A perfect sleet of wind and steel seemed to pass overhead. But no one was hit, and we were round the corner, where, I fear, I dropped the Cherub with considerable emphasis on his gammy leg. But indeed we were very lucky. Shells burst on every side of the aid-post—on right and left, but not on us. This was one of the rare occasions when I have felt confidence. Dobson and I were far too busied to worry. Also it seemed hard to believe that a shell would be allowed to fall on that shattered, helpless suffering. I saw, without seeing, things that are burnt into memory. We had no morphia, nothing but bandages. There was a man hit in the head, who just flopped up and down, seemingly invertebrate as an eel, calling out terribly for an hour till he died. Another man, also hit in the head—but he recovered, and I afterwards met him in Bombay—kept muttering, 'Oh those guns! They go through my head!'

A large body of prisoners was massed in the hollow beside us. When these marched off, some seventy wounded were sent to me, under the impression that the place was a regular aid-post. They were horribly smashed. General Thomson's Brigade (14th Division) had enfiladed them with artillery fire from the other bank, with dreadful effect. He got into their reserves, their retreat, their hospitals, and broke them up. In one place his fire caught a body of Turks massing for a counter-attack, beneath big bluffs by the water, and heaped the sand with dead and maimed. These men came with their gaping wounds and snapped limbs. Private Clifton, a friend of mine, brought bucket after bucket of water from the river. They drank almost savagely. My inexpert fingers hurt cruelly as I bandaged them, and they winced and cried. But the next minute they would stroke my hand, to show they understood good intentions. They had a great belief in the superiority of our civilization—at any rate in its medical aspect. They insisted, those who had been bandaged by the Turkish aid-posts, in tearing off their bandages—perfectly good ones, but smaller than ours—and on having new bandages from me. Just when the 5.9's blew us round the corner, Waller, adjutant of the 56th Brigade, R.F.A., came up and asked if I could send any one to look at some men just hit by the tornado. Mester Dobson was as busied as a man could be, his inevitable pipe in his mouth, so I went with Waller. One man was breathing, his head broken behind; the others were dead. Beside one of the corpses was a red mass. I saw, noting the fact automatically and without the least squeamishness, that it was his brains. We carried the living man in.

In the darkness Dobson came and said. 'There's a wounded officer just come in. I've given him a drink and dressed him.' A minute later he said, 'That officer's dead, sir.' I went across, and found it was Scarth, of the 53rd. No braver spirit went out in this day of storm and sorrow than this very gallant boy. He was aged nineteen.

Night fell, and slowly o'er the blood-bought mile They brought a broken body, frail but brave; A boy who carried into death the smile With which he thanked for water that we gave. Steadfast among the steadfast, those who kept The narrow pass whereby the Leicesters swept, Amid the mounded sands of ancient pride He sleeps where Grattan fell and Adams died.

I know his father, and the Himalayan oaks and pines amid which he grew to manhood. Men looking on Scarth loved him. The freshness of his mountain home and his free, happy life clung to him to this end, amid the tumults and terrors of our desert battle.

The son of Hyrtacus, whom Ide Sent, with his quiver at his side, From hunting beasts in forest-brake, To follow in AEneas' wake.[16]

At dusk Wilson came. He had been toiling away, exposed and close up to the fighters, as always—there never was a braver regimental medical officer—and he now asked me to be responsible for getting his wounded away, whilst he searched the battlefield. So all his cases were evacuated into my place. At the same time many chits reached me, addressed to the O.C. Clearing-Station. As there was no such person, I opened these. The regimental aid-posts were pressing to be cleared. My own place had men from seven different regiments, British and Indian, as well as Turks, and Wilson was sending more along. So I found McLeod, and we 'phoned down to the field ambulances. These were congested from yesterday's battle and to-day's walking cases, and replied that nothing could be done till dawn. But we were so insistent that about midnight bullock-carts turned up, and I got fifty wounded away. The 'cahars,'[17] in their zeal to remove all kit belonging to the wounded, carried off my water-bottle, haversack, rations, and communion-kit. But before this I had been down to the Tigris in the darkness, and drunk like a wounded wolf.

To return to the battle as it died away. The Forward Observing Officer with the Leicestershires sent word back that fourteen guns (instead of nine) had been taken. The news was exultantly forwarded to Corps H.Q. When the case proved to be nine only, and those nine lost again, the message was allowed to stand, the authorities hoping against hope that the guns would walk back into our possession. And Fortune was very good to them. Those guns, indeed, came not back; but, as darkness fell, two burning barges, as already mentioned, floated down the river. One was exploding, like a magazine on fire. This contained ammunition. The other barge, when pulled to shore, was found to contain fourteen field-guns, the number specified to Corps—old guns, but serviceable. Johnny, despairing of getting these away, had set fire to the barge to sink them. So the original message stood, and our loss could be glossed over. And the wastefulness of sinking quite good guns was avoided.

The night was sleepless, bitterly cold. Dobson and I kept a watch for Arabs. I sat beside a dead man, and shared his oil-sheet. A few more wounded came in after midnight, among them Sergeant Tivey. All night long wounded Turks crawled the battlefields and cried in the cold. But I heard none of them, for there were groans much nearer. Our unwounded prisoners were crowded into a nulla. Among them was the Turkish Artillery Brigade Commander, who knew some English and kept insisting on a hearing from time to time. But all he ever said was, 'Yes, gentlemen, you have got my guns, but, what is far worse, you have got me.' Had we cared, we might have cheered him with the information that we had not got his guns, but only himself. Yet, considering the relative value, in his eyes, of himself and these, such information would hardly have consoled him.

In this battle occurred a case of a man being 'fey.' An officer gave his kit and money to his batman, for distribution to his platoon, the previous night. As he went into action a friend exchanged greetings. He replied, 'Yes, but I'm afraid I'm not coming back to-day.' No one saw him fall, but he was found dead in the mounds, with several wounds.

The east was reddening when I saw Haughton, Staff-Captain of the 19th Brigade, on the hillock above the aid-post. This Brigade H.Q. were my best friends in the division. I begged a mug of tea from him, so we went along together. I found General Peebles and Brigade-Major Thornhill, and they gave me an excellent breakfast.

The 28th Brigade moved on, following the 21st Brigade, who occupied Samarra. But the wounded remained. Shortly after dawn the medical folk, in fulfilment of their promise, sent up an ordinary motor-car and took away two sitting cases. Nothing else happened. Time passed, and the heat was getting up. So I wandered back some miles, and found hospital-tents. Here was Father Bernard Farrell, the Roman Catholic padre, slaving, as he had done all night. I saw Westlake, and Sowter, who was dying. 'It's been a great fight, padre,' said Sowter, 'a great fight. I'm getting better.' No loss was felt more severely than that of this quiet, able man. He had seen much fighting in France, and in this, his first action with us, he impressed every one with his coolness and efficiency. He had walked across to Lowther, his company commander, to draw his attention to a new and threatening movement of the enemy. Then, as he stopped to bandage a wounded sergeant, a bullet pierced his stomach. The same bullet, leaving his body, went through both legs of Sergeant Lang, the one bullet making six holes. Sowter had been with us one week. I never knew any one whose influence went so deep in so brief a time.

Our seven-days' guest, he came and went his ways, Walking the darkness garlanded with praise! Our seven-days' guest! Yet love that this man gained Others have scarce in three-score years attained.

The hospital-tents were congested with wounded, and the responsible officer declined to take any more. They had no more stretchers, all being used as beds, and no more space. Fortunately an order came from Division that they must immediately remove some wounded Turks. I said, 'I have some wounded Turks.' 'Yes, but I'm afraid those aren't the Turks meant.' 'Well,' I replied, 'I've been up all night, and I'm very footsore. You might at least give me a lift back.' This was conceded, and I returned in the first of five motor-ambulances. The corporal-in-charge had no idea where he was to find the wounded Turks, so I swept him into my place. This I cleared of every one but a few horribly wounded prisoners, and sent on a note to the M.O. of the 51st Sikhs.

The previous day two wounded Turks, a machine-gun officer and a Red Crescent orderly, had arrived in the aid-post. The latter helped nobly with the wounded, so I had a note sent down with them, that they had earned good treatment. The officer had a friend from the same military college in Stamboul, which friend had a ghastly shell-wound in his back. What happened, I think, was this. When his friend was knocked out, the unwounded officer—they were both boys, well under twenty—brought up a medical orderly. All three were then overwhelmed by our rush, and in the confusion the unwounded men kept with the other, to see that he got treatment when opportunity came. So they slipped into my aid-post, where they stopped all night, making no offer to escape. I sent a message to Brigade, but their reply, a verbal one which did not reach me till next evening, was that they had better stay where they were. The unwounded officer's silent anxiety for his friend was most touching, and I pushed the latter away with the midnight convoy. Next morning I sent both officer and orderly to the nearest prisoners' camp; but the sergeant-in-charge returned them, with word that he took only wounded prisoners. So I had to keep them. Weir, the staff-captain, joined me, and we talked to the officer in French while we waited for the divisional second line to come up. We were puzzled as to why the Turks left a position so strong as Istabulat before being actually driven out. The officer's reply was, 'Because of the tiar' (aeroplane). I cannot follow this, unless, misunderstanding us, he was referring to this second day's fight and the aeroplane brought down at the beginning. Perhaps, being afraid to send up any other 'planes, they were deceived as to our number. He insisted that we had had three divisions in action, and was mortified when we told him the truth.

The sun was getting very hot, and, since no more ambulances came, we were troubled for the few pitifully smashed Turks who still remained. We got covers of sorts for them, though we could not prevent the flies from festooning their wounds. 'It's up to us to do our best,' said Weir. 'We shouldn't care for it if our wounded were left by them.' In the afternoon ambulances began to arrive, and I evacuated these few and saw the evacuation of the Indian regimental A.P.'s commence. My dead were buried, and their graves effaced, so far as possible, against prowling Buddus. The second line arrived, so my prisoners and I set out on our tired trudge to Samarra. I told the Turks of our Somme successes (as we then took them to be) and our more recent March victories in Flanders, pointing out the big improvement. 'In the beginning we had little artillery, but now we have much.' 'Beaucoup,' he repeated, with conviction. In every way one spared a brave enemy's feelings. Last year they had won; now it was our turn. 'That is so,' said he. This thought comforted him, and the memory of their great triumphs before Kut in early 1916. Did he not wear a medal for those days? 'Pour le merite,' the orderly proudly told me. I begged scraps of biscuits from men on the march, and we shared them. I expressed regret for this march on empty stomachs. 'C'est toujours la marche,' said the officer, shrugging his shoulders. Truly, it must have been; a nightmare of rapid movement and sleeplessness even for us who pursued—hammer and chase ever since Maude broke up the Turkish lines before Kut.

As we marched I found that the Indians took us for three prisoners and not two, I being a German officer. But when J.Y. cantered up and hailed me, a laugh ran down the column, with the words 'Padre Sahib.' At Samarra the first person we ran into was General Peebles, to whom I handed over my prisoners, with a request that they should be fed. Haughton promised to see to this. Then a pleasant thing happened. The Turkish officer stepped quickly up to me, saluted, and held out his hand. I saluted back, and we shook hands. They were good fellows, both officer and orderly, and carried themselves like free men.

It was now 5 p.m. I joined the 'Tigers.' Fowke and Lowther had each killed a snake after laying their blankets down. They gave me good greeting. I fed and washed, then slept abundantly.

For the two Istabulat battles the official return of captures was: Twenty officers and six hundred and sixty-seven men, one 5.9, fourteen Krupp field-guns, two machine-guns, twelve hundred and forty rifles, a quantity of hand-grenades, two hundred rounds of gun-ammunition, five hundred and forty thousand rounds of rifle-ammunition, four limbers, sixteen engines, two hundred and forty trucks, one crane, spare wheels and other stores, two munition barges. Samarra Station was dismantled, but the engines and trucks were there. Up to the last the Turk had meant to keep the railhead, so the engines were only partly disabled, boilers having been removed from some and other parts from others. By putting parts of engines together we got a sufficiency of usable engines. Within a fortnight we had trains running.

For the battle of the 22nd both Diggins and Lowther got M.C.'s. If it was the former's elan which carried our wave into the enemy's guns, the latter's judgement played a great part in extricating us without disaster. Hasted, the alert and watchful, had already been gazetted after the fall of Baghdad as D.S.O. He left us shortly after, returning to his own regiment, the Durham Light Infantry, in India. In Rawal Pindi he delivered a lecture on the action in which he had played so brilliant a part.

It would be interesting to know if Hasted has ever had an enemy. His personal charm is almost greater than any man has a right to have, especially when the Gods have already made that man an able soldier and administrator. But it is an unfair world.

These awards were announced in a Gazette nearly a year later. To Sowter, had he lived, would have fallen a third M.C. Fowke, as well as Thorpe, got a 'mention,' of which he was utterly unaware, being away sick, till I ran into him in Kantara[18] in 1918, about eleven o'clock at night. I roused him from sleep for a chat. When I told him of his 'mention,' he considered that I was making a very successful attempt to be humorous, and laughed himself to sleep again. At intervals till dawn I heard him still laughing in his dreams at a notion so ridiculous.

I hope that some other will tell of the deeds of the Indian regiments. Even more I hope that some one will tell, as I cannot, of the gallant and costly charge which our cavalry made on the Turkish trenches to our left, a charge which staggered the enemy as he swung round to cut off the Leicestershires. The 32nd Lancers lost, among others, their Colonel (Griffiths) and their Adjutant (Captain Hunter), killed.

These two days' fighting at Istabulat and for Samarra cost us about two thousand four hundred casualties. The 28th Brigade, on the 22nd, lost four hundred and forty-six men. The enemy's losses, including prisoners, must have been at least three thousand.

My one note for April 24 is 'Flies.' It was high summer, and in the terrible and waxing heats we lay for over a month longer, with no tents, and with no shelter save our blanket-bivvies. We were the more wretched in that we occupied an old enemy camp, and were entered into full possession of its legacy of filth and flies. On the first Sunday my morning service was swathed in dust, one swirling misery, and I was sore tempted to preach, foreseeing the days to come, on 'These are but the beginning of sorrows.'

FOOTNOTES:

[12] A lecture delivered by him at Rawal Pindi, India. See Preface.

[13] Action of January 13, 1916.

[14] Hasted.

[15] Hasted.

[16] AEneid, Book IX, Conington's translation.

[17] Indian hospital orderlies and bearers.

[18] On the Suez Canal.



V

SUMMER AND WAITING

Samarra was entered on April 23, the 21st and 8th Brigades going through the 19th and 28th Brigades. These brigades followed during the course of the day, and the ridge of Al-Ajik fell into our hands. From Samarra northwards high bluffs run with the river, pushing out to it from plateaus stretching across the heart of Jezireh and climbing again beyond the river to the Jebel Hamrin. Below the bluffs are wide spaces of dead ground, beds which the Tigris has forsaken. On the right bank, before the dead ground begins and directly opposite Samarra town, is a plain some ten or dozen miles in length, between the mounds of the battle of April 22 and the crest of Al-Ajik; this plain may be three miles broad. Al-Ajik covers and commands all approaches from the north, and, with the central plateau, shuts the plain within a crescent. Here, behind Al-Ajik, lay our camp for the next seven months.

North from Al-Ajik the plateau rolls away to Tekrit, and the same rolling country lies to westward also, broken with nulla and water-hole. To Tekrit, more than twenty miles beyond, the Turkish Army fled.

Samarra is a dirty, sand-coloured town, with no touch of brightness but what its famous dome gives it. This dome it was that shone over against the sunset, the last earthly beauty for so many eyes, on that evening of savage battle when the 7th Division flung out its leading brigade and reached, all but held, the Turkish guns. The dome hides the cavern into which the Twelfth Imam vanished, and from which he will emerge, bringing righteousness to a faithless world. Just beyond the dome rises the corkscrew tower, built in imitation of the Babylonian ziggurats. To the north-east is 'Julian's Tomb,' a high pyramid in the desert. It was near Samarra that he suffered defeat and died of wounds. For twenty miles round, in Beit Khalifa, Eski Baghdad, and elsewhere, is one confused huddle of ruins. It is hard to believe that such tawdry magnificence as Harun's successors intermittently brought to the town during the precarious times of Abbasid decay is responsible for all these arches and caverns and tumbled bricks. Major Kenneth Mason, already mentioned as having identified Xenophon's Sittake, has collected good reasons for placing Opis, once the great mart of the East, at Eski Baghdad, and not where the maps conjecturally place it, twenty miles farther down Tigris. In summer, green is none save in patches by the river; but a thin scurf of yellow grass and coarse herbage overspread the ruins, in which were abundant partridges and quails. Germans had been excavating before we came, and we found in the town many cases of antiquities, ready packed for transport to Europe. The 7th Division, digging their positions, presently found pottery, glazed fragments, and tear-bottles.

The town is walled, and sits above steep bluffs. Tigris, swift and clear like a mountain stream, races by, dividing round an island. Below the town is another island, with an expanse of shingle towards the right bank; to this island Divisional Head Quarters went, a most unfair avoidance of the 'dust-devils' which plagued their brethren. Here were tamarisk thickets, haunted with great metallic beetles, with such wings as Eastern smiths know how to use. The green bushes were good to the eyes, and a pleasant curtain from flying sand. But a sudden rise in the river flushed its shallow right arm, and made the place an island in reality and all inconvenience. The righteous, seeing this, rejoiced.

The brigades scattered over the plain, the 8th Brigade going on, after brief pause, to the ravines and jungles of the Adhaim, where the war was dying. May's first week swept the Turk out of the Adhaim Valley, and our troops settled down for the summer.

The brigades scattered; blankets came up, and we slept. For over a month we had only bivvies, the usual rifle-supported blanket, tugging and straining at the stones which held it whenever a 'dust-devil' danced by or a sandstorm arose. But E.P.[19] tents dribbled in. Even mails began to arrive, and parcels; and to me, on the first day of ease, came a jubilant telegram from my old friends of the 19th Brigade: 'Come and have tea with us. We have a cake!' I went, and found them where the shingles led to Divisional Island. Blue rollers swung themselves on the air below the cliffs; and on the pebbles an owl skipped and danced, showing off in the beautiful evening sunlight. This was a daily performance, Thornhill told me. It had been General Peebles' birthday, and the brag about the cake was splendidly justified. There were buns also.

Summer dragged by. In Baghdad pomegranates blossomed, mulberries fruited, figs ripened. But in Samarra the desert throbbed and shimmered in the growing and great heats. Worst of all, we missed the dates. The fresh dates are the one solace of Mesopotamia. My campaigning recollections are embittered by this memory, that both my two date-seasons were spent up the line, at Sannaiyat and Samarra, where dates never came. Till mid-May the nights remained cool. Mesopotamia's extremes are amazing. After a day intolerable as I have found very few days in India will come a night, not close and sleepless as an Indian night, but cool, even cold. In the April fighting we found the nights bitter. So May gave us a fortnight of tolerable nights; but then fire settled on the land. The flies all died. But the infantry had an elaborate trench-system to dig, so they were not able to die. The ground was solid gypsum.

Changes happened. Generals Peebles and Davies went to India on leave. The enemy's Intelligence Department, alert as ever, noted the fact, and gave it out that our losses in the Istabulat battles were even heavier than they had supposed at first, for two generals had left the front, casualties. Such a statement was twice blessed: it cheered the enemy, and cheered us also. In my own brigade Thorpe became staff-captain, in place of Weir, who went home. To all the Leicestershires, and to me especially, Thorpe's going was a heavy loss. 'I could have better spared a better man.' I must henceforth botanize alone. No longer could he teach young subalterns to 'practise music'—in the Socratic sense, that the best music was philosophy—to be repaid with their affectionate regard as 'Daddy.' He wrote to me, a month after his going, that he was becoming as 'great a horseman as John Wesley'; and he lost weight during that summer. He lost a good deal his first week, and in this manner. The Bishop of Nagpur was due to visit us, and all who had subscribed their religion officially as 'C. of E.' were commanded to brighten belts and buttons for a service parade on Wednesday at 6 ak. emma. The parade was held, every one arriving, of course, considerably before the hour. The Divisional General was there, and many generals and colonels; in fact, every Anglican of note, except Thorpe, who sent word, about 6.30, that he had made a mistake, and the service was to be next day, Thursday, at the same hour. At this announcement a wave of uncontrollable grief swept over the vast assembly, and for some days Thorpe was a fugitive. But he returned to normal courses, and in time even this witty inauguration of his reign was forgiven. But I had many inquiries as to the tenets of Wesleyanism.

For me, I went sick; recovered; and went sick again, drifting down-stream, and to India. But first Thornhill, Bracken the machine-gunner, and I explored Al-Ajik.

Once upon a time the river had washed the foot of Al-Ajik ridge. But now a long stretch of dead ground intervenes before water is reached. Local legend says a lady lived here who played Hero to a Leander on the opposite bank. More obviously, Al-Ajik castle guarded Samarra from the north. The castle is on steep crags, with vast nullas in front. In the old days it should have been impregnable. Underneath are very large vaults, filled with rubbish. As our exploring party came up a pair of hawks left their eyrie, and circled round us, screaming their indignation. When the division first reached Al-Ajik, Thornhill said, a pair of Egyptian vultures (Pharaoh's Chickens) were nesting here. These had gone. They are rare birds in Mesopotamia, and I never saw them north of Sheikh Saad. Thornhill had seen Brahminy Duck in a nulla, so we searched till we found a tunnel. Bracken leading, we got in some hundred yards, stooping and striking matches, till we came on a heap of bones. Thornhill surmised a hyena, so we returned, as no one wished to fight even that, unarmed and in a diameter of less than five feet. There must be many tunnels leading into the heart of Al-Ajik fortress; and here, as everywhere on the plateau, were remains of the most complicated irrigation system the ancient world knew. The castle, as it stands, has been largely built out of the ruined portions on its northern face.

Life was scant at Samarra, as poor as it had been abundant at Sannaiyat. The crested larks were of a new species. Owls nested in the old wells; and most units were presently owning their owlets or kestrels or speckled kingfishers, miserable-looking birds. Sandgrouse were few, but commoner towards the central plateau, where were water-holes. Gazelles were often seen by pickets, and used to break across the railway-line, to water at the river. One regiment took a Lewis-gun after them, and other folk chased them in motor-cars. The British army, as ever, busied itself, as opportunity came, in its self-appointed task of simplifying the country's fauna that the naturalist's work might be easier. Wherefore the gazelles left our precincts, but still haunted the channels of the Dujail, by Beled and Istabulat. For most of the year the water-holes sufficed them, the green, velvet dips, with zizyph-bushes fringing each hollow, which redeem the desert. Hedgehog quills and skins were common, as everywhere in Mesopotamia. A vast hedgehog led C Company of the Leicestershires nightly to their picket-stations. On its first appearance a man ran to bayonet it, but the officer did not see the necessity of this, and stopped him. So the urchin lived, and ever after paced gravely before its friends. Then we had the usual birds. Storks nested in the town; there were rollers and kingfishers, and a hawk or two. But the desert, with its starved crop of dwarf thorns, had no place for bird or animal. Men who saw Samarra after my time raved of its winter glory, its irises, its grass knee-high, its splendid anemones. But in summer the land lay desolate. Nothing abounded but scorpions, mantidae, and grasshoppers.

And nothing happened but the heat. In July, in ghastly heat, men were expected to take Ramadie. They failed, most of their heavy casualties being from heat-stroke. But that was the Connaught Rangers and a Euphrates affair. At Samarra we experienced nothing more dangerous than Fritz's[20] visits. Once or twice he bombed the station. When the railway began running, there were two accidental derailments, in the second of which several men were killed and General Maude had a narrow escape. By Sumaikchah a British officer and his Indian escort were waylaid and murdered. The murderers were outlawed; but a year later the first on our list of the whole gang walked back into occupied territory and was taken and hanged, despite the wish of the Politicals to spare him. Of all these events, such as they were, we heard from Barron—'the bold, bad Barron,' who left the Leicestershires to take up 'important railway duties' pending the renewal of fighting.

These matters are dull enough; but no recital can be so dull as the times were, and we had to live through them. At Samarra the division worked unmolested through the awful heats, digging the hard ground, cutting avenues for machine-gun fire, making strong points. Wilson had gone, but he had an adequate successor in Haigh. Thanks to him, the Leicestershires established the singular fact that Samarra is the healthiest spot in the world. One man died, in place of the dreadful sequence of deaths a year before at Sannaiyat. The division's daily sick-rate was .9 a thousand! The Leicestershires and the Indian battalions did even better. And yet we spent the summer in a place where fresh vegetables were unprocurable, except a most inadequate supply of melons and (rarely) beans. Djinns scoured the plain, and at any hour of any day half a score of 'dust-devils' could be seen racing or sweeping majestically along—each djinn seemed to make his own wind and choose his own pace—now towering to a height of several hundred feet, with vast, swirling base, and now trailing a tenuous mist across a nulla. Our few hens ran panting into the tents, ejected at one door, only to enter at another. And yet, as I have said, only one man died—with the battalion, that is—and ridiculously few went sick. But by Colonel Knatchbull's death in Baghdad the battalion lost its commander, and the division a very fine soldier. Wounded at Sheikh Saad in January, 1916, he had returned in time for the three railhead battles. He struggled on with sickness, refusing to contemplate a second leave to India, and died at midsummer.

The worst of the heats I escaped. After a spell in Beit Na'ama, the delightful estuary-side officers' hospital, a tangle of citron and fig-groves, with vines making cool roofs, and with the Shat-el-Arab flowing by, I was discharged. Feeling more wretched than ever, I lingered on at Busra in the poisonous billets, filthy Arab houses, named by their present occupants 'Flea Villa,' 'Bug Cottage,' 'Muddy View' (this would be for winter; the world nowhere else holds such mud as Busra mud). Busra is hateful beyond words; any place up the line is preferable, except perhaps Twin Canals[21] and Beled. I was to be returned to duty 'in due course'; but the Transport authorities were never in a hurry. It was like being slowly baked in a brick oven. I had spent ten days so, with no prospect of being given a boat up-stream, when some one told General Fane, the O.C. 7th Division, that I had been very sick and was waiting to get back to duty. He said, 'Nonsense,' and sent a wire direct to G.H.Q., insisting that I be given a month's leave in India. I got it immediately. But for this action, leave could not have come my way. No division ever had a kinder O.C. than Fane. He knew every one, and was constantly doing thoughtful acts such as this.

India, when it found time to give thought to Mesopotamia, chattered of the tremendous Turco-German offensive which was to sweep down from Mosul in the autumn. When I returned, at the end of August, all down the line I found excitement. Only at Samarra itself was quiet and ease of mind, where old comrades greeted me joyously and introduced new-comers. There was Fergusson, reputed to have half a century of ranching and horse-dealing in the Argentine; 'Forty-nine,' said Fowke, in a delighted whisper, assessing his age. (As a matter of fact, Fergusson's years were forty-one.) There was 'Ezra' ('Likewise Beetle,' interpolated Fowke), who had arrived the day I went sick. 'Ezra,' who signed his name as Mason, and was brother of Kenneth Mason, engineer and archaeologist, got his nickname from a supposed modelling of his bald dome upon Ezra's Tomb, by Q'urna. Keely, classical scholar and philosopher, was standing outside his tent, pondering, as I came up to rejoin the battalion. He called me up, and asked me earnestly what girl from Greek literature I should like to have known, even to have had as companion on the Thames at Richmond. 'Nausicaa,' I said. 'Every time,' agreed Keely, brightening up as if a heavy load had been lifted from his mind, and begged me to have a drink in her honour. Bale and Charles Copeman were away, by Al-Ajik; 'in the nearest E.P. tent to Constantinople,' G.A. said. Of our wounded, only G.A. was back. Warren came later; Westlake remained in India.

Some surprise was expressed that I had returned at all. This was Thorpe's doing. To explain, I must go back a little. I knew Thorpe years before the war. We met again in Sannaiyat trenches. His messmates, who desired to know more of Thorpe's old life, asked me how we met first. 'I was chaplain of a jail at Peterborough,' I replied. The statement was received at once; the only head on which further light was sought was as to the number of years that were deducted from his sentence for service in Mesopotamia. (Convicts from India who came out in the Labour Corps to Mesopotamia were remitted ten years.) Now, during my Indian leave, an old friend found me out and took me to spend the last days of my Darjiling visit with him. He was, among other things, superintendent of the prison. I carelessly wrote to Thorpe on a sheet of paper with the printed heading 'Jail-house, Darjiling.' Thorpe spent July and August in taking this sheet round from mess to mess. He blackened my reputation, and opened up a field of speculation as to the reason of my incarceration. 'No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped from the sea'—from Mesopotamia, say—'yet Justice hath not suffered to live.' He considered that he was level with me for my Peterborough jail-jape, and was much cheered.

It took the best part of September to get up-stream and back to Samarra. When the boat reached Busra, scores of men were prostrate on the deck from heat-stroke and exhaustion. In the Gulf I had a funeral. I tried to skip to the finish of the service, with the page shimmering and jumping before me, but had to hand the book to the captain as I reeled down. He threw the body over, and every one flew up-deck. Later, on the up-stream trip, we realized the fact on which all Mesopotamia agreed, that for sheer horror the deck of a P-boat[22] is unrivalled. Possibly it is due to the glare from the water, but our daily temperatures of between 115 deg. and 125 deg. in the shade seemed a hundredfold higher than they were. Just below Kut we were held up for several days in a camp; not even Sheikh Saad in the old, bad days was more cursed with sandflies.

I had for companion on board Kenneth Mason, engineer and archaeologist. We passed Sannaiyat and the winding reaches where every earth-scar and mound had a history. Here the Turk had blown up the ammunition barges, and for hundreds of yards inland the ground was still strewn with twisted scrap-iron; here he had set his 5.9's on the balloon, and the evening fishing had been interrupted; here used to be the advanced dressing-station in the times of trench warfare; here was Left Bank Group, where our guns had been, the tamarisk thickets and wheeling harriers, and the old shell-holes on the beach. Those crumbling sandbanks were Mason's Mounds, and those were Crofton's O. Pip.[23] Here were Abu Roman Mounds, and here the lines of Nakhailat or Suwada; here were the Beit Aiessa defences; here those of Abdul Hassan and E Mounds. It was on that angle that the Julnar grounded in that despairing, impossible attempt to run the blockade and bring food to Townshend's men. It was in that scrub that the Turks and H.L.I.[24] crashed when both sides launched a simultaneous attack.

We passed Kut. The river was low, and the people were growing lettuce, while they might, on the dried sandbanks. The town front against the palms showed its shell-holes and caverns, and we remembered how we used to see the city, from Dujaileh Redoubt, rising up like a green promontory. From Townshend's first battle there to the day when the 7th Division occupied the lines of Suwada, Kut cost us not less in battle casualties than sixty thousand men. One makes no computation of the dead in the old cholera camps by Abu Roman, or in a score of cemeteries from Sannaiyat and Es-Sinn to Bombay, who perished in that time when

the shark-tracked ships went down To Bombay Town.

Kut will be a place of pilgrimage, and deserves to be, even among the many shrines of this war. From Sheikh Saad to Shumran is one graveyard and battlefield, a stretch of thirty miles, where over twenty pitched battles took place, many being British defeats. At Kut itself Townshend's old trenches can be traced; and in the town are broken buildings, and, to eastward, the monument erected by the Turks. Across the river is the Shat-el-Hai and its complicated and costly battlefields, and the relics of the famous liquorice factory which Townshend held, and which we took, in 1917, almost last of all. At Shumran, above the town, is the place of the great crossing. And on the ribs of sand, when water is low, are liquorice-stacks and lettuce-beds.

The mud-strips green with lettuce, red with stacks Of liquorice; shattered walls, and gaping caves: Beyond, the shifting sands; the jackal's tracks; The dirging wind; the wilderness of graves.

The evening of September 13, the lofty Arch of Ctesiphon showed for hours as we toiled along the winding reaches; in the first gold and chill winds of dawn on the 14th we watched it recede. On the 18th I reached Beled, 'The Home of the Devil,' as the Arabs call it, where the Manchesters dragged out a panting existence, battling with dust-storms. In the station I was shocked to see what vandalism had been at work. The broken glass had been cleared away; in the tin shed where we had drunk tea amid the flying shrapnel on that Easter evening new panes had been put in; the water-tower had been replaced. With dusk I reached Samarra, and set Keely's mind at rest on the Greek girl question.

Through October Fritz came daily, photographing. The sole rays in a dreary protraction of existence were afforded by the Intelligence Summaries, run by Captain Lang, a versatile and popular humorist. Deserters reported that at a certain place the enemy's staff consisted of only one lame Turk and one 'powerful Christian.' The 'powerful Christian' had to do all the work, and was preparing for a hegira to our lines. Then we had exchanged prisoners recently, sending back eight wounded men, one having but one leg. On reaching the Turco lines, when we offered to give these wounded a further lift of some miles, the offer was accepted with cringing gratitude. 'Intelligence' surmised that these wounded might have to walk to Mosul, another hundred and forty miles, and went into reverie on the situation's possibilities. 'If the one-legged man has any influential friends in Constantinople, we may expect to hear shortly of a Turkish Commission in Iraq.' That was the time when the Report of the Mesopotamian Commission came out. Though a revelation in England, it did not excite us, who knew its facts long before. Then letters from the enemy G.H.Q. to General Maude had had his name and address printed on the envelope. This, 'Intelligence' thought, was sheer, outstanding swank, to show us that the Turks had at least one lithograph.

Late in September our second attempt on Ramadie met with complete success, when General Brooking captured the nucleus of a projected offensive against us. We by Tigris rejoiced, knowing, too, that our task, when it came, would be the easier.

The 1st Guides joined the division in place of the 'Bo-Peeps.' The brigades went out on reconnaissance frequently. September 25 saw one of these shows, which included a sham fight. The day was very hot, and Haigh's stretcher-bearers complained of the inconsiderate conduct of the thirty-one 'casualties.' 'Unfortunately there were no dead among them.' However, as one S.B. added, 'fortunately a good many died of wounds.' The 'died of wounds' were formed into platoons, and marched off the field of action.

The stretcher-bearer who made the remark about the 'died of wounds' was a particular friend of mine, who had a great gift of happy phrasing, illustrated in the words I have quoted. Once we had a long talk about the old battles, and, speaking of a common friend who had been killed, he observed, 'I do think it dreadful, his being killed like that—killed outright.' I never got at his notion of what made a cushy death; probably something Mexican or early mediaeval.

Through October my diary notes little but services and a terrible lecture on Mesopotamian history, which, from first to last, I delivered over fifty times. Latterly envious tongues alleged that I had to ask units for a parade when I gave this lecture. But those who said this lied saucily and shamelessly.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] European privates'.

[20] A new Fritz, of course. The old one was killed at Istabulat.

[21] Below Kut, on the right bank of the Tigris. A pestilential haunt in 1916.

[22] Paddle-boat.

[23] Observation post.

[24] Highland Light Infantry.



VI

HUWESLET; OR, 'THE BATTLE OF JUBER ISLAND'

Night's blackness touched with red; A cock's shrill clarion ringing; Clamours for 'ruddy' buckets, Diamond's[25] bray; Grousing of Johnson[26] tumbled out of bed; And Fowke's falsetto, singing 'Is it nothing to you?' So the battalion wakes, to march away Heaven knows how far into the blue, Heaven knows how many weary miles to do, Till stars within some nulla watch us lie, Worshipping sleep, while the icy hours drag by.

October 22 was the date when Johnny developed unheard-of cheek. His patrols appeared by the river, one fellow riding along our wire and slashing it with his sword. Then from 1 p.m. onwards he shelled both banks of the river, having pushed down from his advanced post at Daur, a dozen miles away, with a couple of hundred cavalry, several machine-guns, and light field-guns. The Guides and our cavalry were reported to have lost men and horses; and G.A., on picket, sent word that the Turks were digging themselves in. A and C Companies of the Leicestershires were out all day.

On the 23rd shelling continued, and that evening the division moved out. At the officers' meeting we were told that a force, estimated at four thousand Turks and several guns, was digging in. We were to do twelve thousand two hundred yards north, and then seven thousand five hundred yards half-right, to get behind them. This was the 28th Brigade. The 8th and 19th Brigades, starting later, were to make a frontal attack at 4 a.m.; our brigade were to enfilade the Turk when bolted; and these united efforts were to drive him into the dead ground by the river, and there, as the scheme wittily put it, our artillery and machine-guns would 'deal with him.' Whoever drew up the plan was not only bloody-minded but oblivious of long experience, assuming thus that John was such a very simple person.

We moved off just before dark, raising a white dust. Through all our wide detour there were strict injunctions against smoking, enforced among the Leicestershires, ignored among machine-gunners and Indian drivers. Never can night-march have been noisier. At every halt the mules sang down the whole length of the line; signallers and gunners clattered past. About midnight a stranger was seen talking to some drabis.[27] A Leicestershire sergeant, coming up, said, 'Hullo, it's a bloody Turk.' Hearing himself identified, Johnny turned round and saluted. He was led to the proper authorities, and proved to be a Turkish cadet. He was armed with a penknife and a pair of gloves.

The night was bitterly cold. At 3.30 a.m. we 'rested.' We had reached what in Mesopotamia would be considered well-wooded country, an upland studded with bushes. Just on dawn we rose, with teeth chattering and limbs numbed with contact with the cold ground, and moved on. Our planes appeared, scouring the sky; and a few odd bursts of rifle-fire were heard about 7 a.m. We had now reached the edge of the dead ground against the river, and looked down to Tigris, as in later days I have looked down to the Jordan. The doctor and I were told to set up our aid-post in a deep nulla there, and wait on events. A report came from our air-folk that five thousand Turks were on Juber Island, opposite Huweslet. We moved steadily forward to the attack, steadily but unbelievingly. Unbelief rose to positive derision, for as we topped a slight brow we gave a target no artillery could have resisted, yet nothing happened. 'It's a trap,' said Fowke darkly; 'he's luring us on.' Why should John lie doggo in this fashion? Nevertheless the airmen insisted that the Turks were there. So we dug ourselves in, in a semicircle facing the island, preliminary to attacking it. It was noon, hot and maddening with flies. The Leicestershires sent scouts out, who pushed up to Juber Island, and found that there were indeed five thousand there—five thousand sheep and several Arab shepherds. On the opposite bank John had a machine-gun, with which he sniped those who approached the water. He killed mules, and wounded several bhisties[28] and a sweeper. There were also people sniping with rifles, and the Indian regiments had casualties. On our side, the cavalry brought in a prisoner. We had the young gentleman caught at night, and one other; the 19th Brigade took a fourth prisoner. So we abandoned the battle, had breakfast at 2.30 p.m., and returned. The day was wearying beyond conception, yet the men, British and Indian alike, were singing as they passed Al-Ajik. Samarra camp was a swirl of dust after the day's busyness; almost a faery place in the last sunlight.

The next day was dedicated to sleep, and to humour at the expense of the Royal Flying Corps, to whose mess a sheep's head was voted.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] The regimental (four-footed) donkey. The Leicestershires' hatbadge is a black diamond.

[26] Needless to say, we had no 'Johnson.'

[27] Indian drivers.

[28] Indian water-carriers.



VII

DAUR

Johnny's leg-pull made him one up. This was recognized, and his action drew our attention to the undesirability of allowing him to remain at Daur. On October 31 the 28th Brigade went into the trenches at Al-Ajik. November 1 was Thursday. Haigh had the misfortune to go very sick on this day; he left us, and his successor arrived about 4 p.m. The new doctor fell into my hands, as the battalion was unknown to him, and he had never been in action.

As we went forward bad news came in, so bad and unexpected that it seemed incredible, the news of the Italian reverses. This filled us with profound depression. Our tiny side-show seemed more insignificant than ever while the European battle was being lost. When word followed of Allenby's success at Beersheba we did not guess that here was the beginning of a tide of victory which would ultimately pull the whole war our way. There was one splinter of light, an absurd joke in London Opinion which set the Leicestershires chuckling, 'Overheard at the Zoo.' It is the conversation of Cockney children before the ostrich cage:

'Sneagle!'

'Snotaneagle. Snork.'

'Snotanork. Snowl.'

'Snotanowl. Snostrich.'

This lent itself to indefinite expansion: 'Snemeu,' 'Snalbatross,' 'Snoriole,' 'Snelephant.'

Report came of the exploit of Marshall at Corps Head Quarters. He had gone out in a 'lamb'[29] on the other bank of Tigris, almost to Tekrit, and had shot down thirty horses and a dozen men as he flew past the enemy lines.

On the evening of November 1 the Al-Ajik trenches were crowded. Fritz came over reconnoitring, and his surprise was amusing to see. He checked, wheeled, abandoned all thought of a visit to our camp, and beetled back, after very elaborate reconnaissance. Then our own planes flew over, sounding their klaxons and dropping messages, in rehearsal for the morrow.

At 9.10 the force met at the place of assembly. The 21st Brigade were to move up the left bank; they are hardly in this picture. On the right bank the 28th Brigade went first, followed by the 19th and 8th Brigades. With the column were the 4th and 9th Brigades, R.F.A., two batteries of the 56th Brigade, and some 4.5 and 6-inch howitzers. Altogether, including those operating on the left bank, we had eighty guns.

The night was even colder than the one before the Juber Island farce. Part of the night I marched with my friends of the 53rd Sikhs, with Newitt and with Heathcote. Every one anticipated a very hard fight. We were up against a position which was reputed to be as strong as Istabulat had been. Before dawn we found ourselves among ghostly-looking bushes, and lay down for one shivering hour. We had marched over seventeen miles, with the usual exhausting checks and halts attendant on night-marching, and we were dead-beat to the wide. Yet nothing could be finer than the way the men threw weariness away, like a garment, with the first shells, and went into battle.

Sarcka, the excellent Yank who ran our Y.M.C.A., marched with us, carrying a camel-load of cigarettes. He was usually called 'Carnegie' by Dr. Haigh. That classical mind memorized Sarcka's name as meaning 'flesh'; then, since it moved with equal ease in Greek and Latin, unconsciously transliterated. As we went forward, and a red sun rose over Tigris, Sarcka remarked: 'The sensation I am about to go through is one which I wouldn't miss for worlds.' Mester Dobson looked surprised. I bided my time, knowing how unpleasant the first fifteen minutes under shell-fire are for even the bravest.

Soon after 6 a.m. the enemy advanced pickets were driven in. We were advancing in artillery formation over undulating and broken country, sparsely set with jujube-bushes (zizyphus). A gazelle bounded away in front of us. At 6.15, says my diary, the first shells came. Our planes swept along, klaxons sounding, and the sky became torn with shrapnel. Johnny felt for us who formed the doctor's retinue, felt with an H.E. bracket, before and beyond us. The advance was extraordinarily rapid, a race; consequently the doctor's party got the benefit of most of this early shelling. Fortunately the enemy seemed to have got on to his old dumps, for his stuff, which came over plentifully enough, was detonating badly. A shell burst in Lyons's platoon, apparently under Lyons; yet he walked out of the dust unhurt. The 56th Rifles went first, advancing as if on parade; this day they rose high in the Leicestershires' admiration. The 'Tigers' came next; then the 51st and 53rd Sikhs. The enemy was fairly caught by surprise. Fritz, the previous day, had brought back the first hint that anything was doing; and, despite that knowledge, it was not expected that march and fight would come so swiftly and together. If the doctor stopped to bandage a man, we had to run to keep touch with the regiment. I was worried with visions of pockets of fifty or sixty wounded awaiting attention. Very early in the fight we found two men hit with shrapnel, and left them in the shell-hole. It was suggested to Sarcka that he stay with them, and guide the ambulances along our track whenever they came. 'No,' he said sturdily, 'I'm going on.' And go on he did, and was shortly afterwards distributing cigarettes under heavy fire. Public opinion had condemned his coming, for the soldier holds that no man should go under fire unless he has a definite job there. But when he justified his place by a score of deeds, from cigarette-distributing to bandaging the wounded, public opinion rejoiced and accepted him, known for a comrade and a brave man.

Along the plain the enemy had a number of large thorn-stacks, with sand-bagged seats in their centres. Here had been snipers. These stacks we avoided; as we did, as a rule, all such things as battalion head quarters. The colonel of a regiment moves with a small army of orderlies; his majestic appearance over a brow rarely fails to draw a few salvoes. The doctor's meinie, therefore, took their way along the open, avoiding all prominences of landscape and people. I turned aside to what proved to be a 56th Rifles' aid-post, with a dead horse before it. Here had been the first Turkish lines. Our guns pushed on very rapidly, the gunners riding swiftly by and into a large, deep nulla. We overpassed them again; there was one smart minute or so when half a dozen 'pipsqueaks' burst in a narrow fault of the ground, scarcely a nulla, beside us, the steep sides killing the spread of the H.E. The enemy had been shrapnelling hard along the line occupied by the 56th Rifles and the Leicestershires. Nevertheless we picked up very few wounded.

Johnny's shrapnel now began to get wilder still. We found Colonel Brock, the Leicestershires' colonel, where several wide, big nullas met. The battalion was digging in, he said. About thirty prisoners came over a hill behind us. We set up an aid-post, our first stationary one; Sarcka produced a tin of Maconochie, and we had tiffin. A few wounded Indians came, the first being a man from whose pocket-book we extracted a shrapnel bullet. He had no other hurt.

The colonel was puzzled at our few casualties. There had been not only a good deal of shrapnel, but heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, yet hardly a man had been hit. The fight was nearly over, so I went back for ambulances. John was throwing a certain amount of explosive stuff about, uselessly and recklessly. On my way back I found Owen, of the 51st Sikhs, with a wounded arm. Owen, long ago, lost an eye in a bombing accident at Sannaiyat. He pluckily returned from India, and again took over the work of bombing instructor to his regiment.

It was now getting hot, being well past nine o'clock.

In the trenches by the 56th's aid-post there were two Turks, each with a leg smashed to pulp by H.E. But the most distressing sight was an enemy sniper on one of the O. Pips already mentioned. Round him were many used cartridges and bandoliers. He sat among the thorns, eight feet above ground, with the impassive mien of a Buddha. His face had been broken by our shrapnel, and his brains were running down it; the flies were busy on a clot of red brain by his temple. He was one mess of blood, and very heavy as well as high up. My efforts to lift him down simply stained my clothes.

About 4 p.m. I was with a doctor, looking at a dead Turk who was a particularly gruesome sight, with blood still dripping from his nose. Suddenly appeared a merchant with a camera, who took this Turk's photo. Not satisfied with this, he proceeded to stage-manage the place. The ambulance was coming up to remove a wounded Turk. He ordered it back, then bade it run up smartly, while the man was to be lifted in, equally smartly. Then he bade the doctor and myself stand behind the dead Turk aforementioned. When he went, the doctor said, 'Thank God, he's gone.' I took the man, in my carelessness, for another doctor with a taste for horrible pictures, and it was not till some time after that I realized he was the official cinematograph operator, and was merely doing his job. So, somewhere or other, a film has been exhibited, 'Wounded being collected on Mesopotamian battlefields.'

Going back to the Turkish sniper, who was still on his stack and had been overlooked by the cinematograph operator, I found that, in his agony, he had dug a hole in the thorns, and buried his head; I suppose, to escape the flies. His legs were waving feebly. It was right he should be left to the last, as he had no chance of life, and nothing could be done for him in any way. But never did I feel more the utter folly and silly cruelty of war than when I saw this brave man's misery. Next morning he was found to have crawled some hundreds of yards before dying. He had left his stack.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Light-armoured motor-battery.



VIII

AUJEH

Our line was where the plateau rose and then dropped steeply into deep, narrow fissures. The night was maddening with cold, and the rum ration came as a sheer necessity. All through this brief Tekrit campaign the British troops were without coats or blankets. The Indian troops had transport for theirs. The arrangement was correct in theory, since we came from a chill climate.

None of these later Mesopotamian pushes could be much more than raids. The rivers in this latitude were too shallow and shifting for transport, so we had to be fed and watered by means of Ford cars. It taxed the whole of the army's resources in Fords for Tekrit, blankets and coats having to give way to rations. Whilst the 7th Division pushed, the other two fronts were practically immobilized. Maude could strike on only one at a time of our three rivers. Ramadie was fought in September; Tekrit in November; Kifri in December; and the same round, of Euphrates, Tigris, and Diyaleh, was followed in 1918.

So we had ten days of what seemed arctic exposure. This night after Daur, Diggins shared a Burberry with me; natheless the night was one of insane wretchedness. We rejoiced, with more than Vedic joy, to greet the dawn, though the flies swiftly made us long for night again.

On the 3rd we moved slightly forward. My brigade rested, while the 19th went on. The enemy's lines at Aujeh were taken easily. One wounded Turk was captured. He was set on a horse, and paraded restlessly back and forward, for some mystic reason, during the day. Fowke's solution was that the authorities hoped the troops would count him many times over, and been heartened by the thought that we had destroyed the Turks' last force in Mesopotamia. When the Aujeh lines had been taken, our cavalry, supported by the artillery, tried to rush Tekrit and burn the stores. This proved impracticable, so we shelled the dumps at long range. My brigade stood by, and watched from a high plateau the bursts and the great smoke-curtains which went up, as once from burning Sodom. The affair furnished Fowke with some excellent fooling. He would stand on a knoll and gnash his teeth, in Old Testament fashion declaiming, 'I will neither wash nor shave till Tekrit has fallen.' It is unnecessary to say that the vow was kept, and overkept; and not by Fowke alone. At other times he was plaintive and reproachful. We were shelling Tekrit—Tekrit, the Turkish base, where the Turkish hospitals were, and 'the pretty little Turkish nurses.' 'You chaps don't think about these things. You're selfish, and don't care. I do.'

The desultory fighting of this day was not without casualties. The 19th Brigade lost fifty-six men up to 2 p.m.; later I heard the figures were fourteen killed and seventy-three wounded. These were not in the 'taking' of the single line of Aujeh trenches, but came from long-distance shell-fire. The cavalry, too, lost men. The enemy slipped out on our coming, but their guns had the line beautifully registered. In the evening the 28th Brigade covered the cavalry's return. We had our own work as well. Fourteen shell-ammunition dumps fell into our hands by the enemy's retreat from Daur. These we collected, and quantities of shell-cases and wood. The Turkish gunners had most elaborate and comfortably-made dugouts, finely timbered. These were dismantled and fired. We marched in, with the hills ablaze about us, and the darkness warm and bright.

The 4th was Sunday. Fritz appeared about 6.30 a.m., and bombed us, coming very low indeed. Mesopotamia being a side-show for us, the enemy usually had at least one machine better than any of ours. This Sabbath Fritz spent in fetching bombs and distributing them. Twice he bombed the Leicestershires in the Turks' old trenches, but hit no one. So he paid no more attention to the infantry, but looked up the artillery, and the wagon-lines, and the transport. Here he did a deal of damage, and we soon had horses careering madly about the place. Reports came that the Turks were advancing. So, though no one dreamed that they would make a serious attack, we consolidated the last lines of the Daur position against them.

My diary notes: 'Rum ration. Flies.' For such elemental things had existence become memorable.

The day was cheered by news of the Gaza successes, as the previous day had been by that of Beersheba.

Fritz occupied his afternoon and evening in the same disreputable fashion. At nightfall our authorities were debating whether to go on to Tekrit or fall back to Samarra. Diggins, the fire-eater, hoped earnestly for the former course, and laid confident bets that it would be. Our brigadier, when I ran across him, deplored that in April we had stopped at Samarra, though he had urged our going on to Tekrit (or anywhere else where there were Turks).

Orders came. We were to fall back two miles, then sweep westward, and on to Tekrit. Fowke reiterated his engagement not to shave or wash till Tekrit had fallen; and we burned, with reluctant glee, the excellent wood that Johnny Turk had collected against our coming to Daur. Now in Mesopotamia wood is far, far more precious than rubies. But this wood had to be burned, since we were not coming back. So vast and glorious fires sprang up. And each hero, in his turn lifting a long beam, like a phalarica, hurled it at the blaze. The assembled Trojans cheered, with admiration or derision, according as each shot fell accurately or short. In this wise, then, did Sunday evening pass with the 17th Foot.



IX

TEKRIT

We moved off, footsore. Mention of the cold must have become monotonous. But this night's cold touched a sharper nerve of agony than any before. Our 'rest' came, by a refinement of cruelty, not immediately before dawn, but between 2.30 and 4.30 a.m. We were then on bleak uplands, swept by arctic winds. In Baghdad winter is a time of frost; and we were far north of Baghdad. No men lay down; very few even stood still. The majority used the two hours of 'rest' in running to and fro, and it was with immense thankfulness that we took up our trudge once more.

This time there was no question of surprise. Morning found us on a vast plain, set with yellow-berried jujube-bushes and low scrub. Shortly after 6 a.m. the enemy began shelling our transport, which accordingly moved out of range. My brigade fell slightly back, in conformity. Captain McIntyre, in a gloomy mood perhaps due to the freezing night just finished, prophesied that we should get the 'heavy stuff' and the 'overs' when once the enemy gunners got their nefarious game fairly going. Everything was bustle. Signallers set up their posts, Head Quarters were established, caterpillars crawled up with their heavy guns. Lieutenant-General Cobbe, the First Corps commander, was controlling operations. Fritz also seemed interested. He came over twice, very low and very hurriedly, but did no bombing. His second visit was followed by half a dozen crumps, from the 5.9's, for our 6-inch guns.

This whole campaign had come very suddenly. Corps, I was told, were ignorant up to almost the day of our starting out from Samarra. Staff-captains and quartermasters received orders at the eleventh hour for transport arrangements. The campaign was a tour de force, everything being sacrificed to rations and water. A stream of Fords ran night and day between the troops and Samarra.

My brigade had a day of inaction, being moved up from time to time, and momentarily expecting to be sent in. The 21st Brigade had moved up the left bank, meeting with no opposition. Their part was enfilade gunfire. Our old colleagues, the 8th Brigade (from the 3rd Lahore Division), and the 19th Brigade attacked. The battle was largely one of gunfire. For such an exhibition Guy Fawkes' Day had been fitly chosen.

Tekrit was one of the Turk's best battles in the class of which he is such a master, the rearguard action. Our airmen reported that, from our arrival, his troops and transport were flowing away steadily. His lines were held by artillery and machine-guns, fearlessly worked to the last minute of safety. Our cavalry operated on the left. It was here the action broke down. At this point there was only one line of trenches against us, and many think the 28th Brigade should have been sent in. Had this been done, the enemy right would have been forced back, and his troops pinned to the river, with large captures of men and guns as result. But the 28th Brigade were kept out, because of a cavalry mistake. The latter's orders were to drop one brigade on the flank, and then push through to the river, behind the enemy. Then the 28th Brigade were to go in, and, when they had cleared the Turks out of their entrenchments, the cavalry were to collect the prisoners. But, instead, the cavalry, after dropping a brigade to watch the flank, waited, and finally did a very gallant but useless charge.

The terrain was extremely difficult. Almost the first thing the assaulting forces had to do was to cross a nulla sixty feet deep and a quarter of a mile wide, commanded by machine-guns, and searched with shrapnel. Later, when my own brigade moved up in support, we crossed this nulla. The toilsome going over slipping shingle was like Satan's painful steps on the burning marl,

not like those steps On Heaven's azure, and the torrid clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.

The story of this day belongs to the 8th and 19th Brigades. My own were spectators only; deeply interested, and our own fate might at any moment become involved, but harassed with heat and flies and the unspeakable boredom born of long warfare, which even a battle can disperse only in part. Stories filtered through of the heroic work of the Seaforths and Manchesters and of the 47th and 59th Sikhs. Report persisted that the Seaforths' head quarters had been knocked out by a direct hit, with twelve casualties, and that their regimental sergeant-major (Sutherland) was killed. This rumour was partly true, but a little exaggerated. Their colonel (Reginald Schomberg) was wounded, and their adjutant (McRae). This was the McRae who had fought the Turks with his naked fists at Sheikh Saad in January, 1916, and who rose from sergeant-major to Lieutenant-Colonel, with D.S.O. and Bar. Sutherland was not killed, but wounded. Lee, the Seaforths' padre, kept up the tradition set by Dr. Ewing, that 'unsubduable old Roman' whose white locks had waved through so many battles, till he was wounded at the forcing of Baghdad. Burn, the one Seaforths' officer killed, out of twelve hit, was struck close behind Lee. Milne and Baldry were killed among the Manchesters' officers.

From 10.30 to 11 a.m. was a time of artillery preparation. Fritz drifted restlessly about; our own planes were busy; klaxons sounded; messages were dropped. According to information, opposite us the Turkish 51st and 52nd Divisions were unsupported. Both were old foes of Sannaiyat days. By 11.30 the enemy's first two lines were taken by direct assault. At 3 p.m. my own brigade moved two miles closer in, on the left. It was a costly business, pushing the enemy back by frontal attack just where he was strongest in every way. Long lines of our wounded passed us, with a few Turkish prisoners. The day was as intolerably hot as the night had been cold. By four o'clock the Turk had got most of his heavier guns back. We were shelling a small mosque, which he was using as an O.P. The 6-inches registered a hit, which sent up a white cloud of dust and powder. Every one was hopeful. The cavalry and 'lambs' were said to be right round the enemy's flank, and some thousands of prisoners were regarded as certain. Captain Henderson, the Diggins of the Manchesters, was rumoured to have taken three guns. At 4.30 the 21st Brigade launched an effective enfilade on the enemy's transport from across the river; the two attacking brigades went in again; the cavalry charged across the Turks' right trenches. We of the 28th could watch it all with the naked eye, the one confusion being sometimes as to whether it was Turks scurrying away or Seaforths going in. But we saw the Seaforths' magnificent charge. Unfortunately most of the crumps which we took to be among a Turkish counter-attack were among our own men, who at one time ran into their own barrage. Their line swept forward, irresistible as always. In later days, in Palestine, when a despatch praised various miscellaneous troops who had been in their first actions and done not too badly, some one was foolish enough to express surprise that the Seaforths were not mentioned by name. 'I should consider it an insult,' said their colonel, 'if any one thought it worth mentioning that my regiment had done what they were told to do. We take some things for granted.' At Tekrit Schomberg, though already wounded, led his men in person. He was scholar and Christian; 'the bravest of the brave,' yet a lover of all fair things.