Читать книгу The Secrets of a Kuttite - Edward O. Mousley - Страница 17

Kut-el-Amara,

January 26th, 1916.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Sd.) Charles Townshend,

Major-General,

Commanding Sixth Division.

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

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

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

REMAINS OF MY (76 R.F.A.) BATTERY-POSITION ON THE MAIDAN. THE GUN ENPLACEMENTS AND DUG-OUTS ARE STILL DISCERNIBLE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is the seventieth day of the siege.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Erzeroum has fallen. That may relieve the pressure here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am glad the horses have not been in their harness all day. Four teams have had to be lent to the batteries as theirs have been eaten more largely than ours.

Now I'm off to have another look round my show and then on to the observation post.

6 p.m.—There has been nothing to report except a decided Turkish movement downstream from the right bank. It has been a beautiful day with plenty of cloud.

Downstream the firing, which had lulled this afternoon, is increasing. I have been on the maidan near the pine woods watching distant bursts.

February 22nd.—There has been another hitch downstream. The Turkish position blocking the relief advance is evidently much stronger than was anticipated. This we hear in the form of a rumour that there was insufficient artillery preparation of the position before the infantry got in. Also a lot of difficulty and uncertainty has arisen over some of the native troops. Two or three times to-day the heavy bombardment downstream has suddenly ceased, a phenomenon pregnant with meaning in war, for it means that the infantry has advanced to the last stage and awaits the cessation of gun-fire to spring up and rush the position. But as often as it ceased, it recommenced an hour later and continued until the next break.

As yesterday, we are all ready and awaiting the order for immediate debouch. I am "booted and spurred" and feeling very important. The Turks are reinforcing heavily on the other bank, the sly dogs, as appears from the movement in their trenches. Our little affair is supposed to be awfully secret, but there is no doubt that Arabs scuttle away across the river or swim it and keep their religious pals in the know.

February 23rd.—Last night at 11.30 p.m., as a counter demonstration, there was a night attack on Woolpress Post, our village over the river. This induced an attack from the enemy facing our 16th Brigade. The town was alive with bullets that cracked incessantly on the mutti walls of the town. Through the deserted streets I ran to the observation station, river front, in case the field-guns were required to go into action. For forty yards I had to run the gauntlet from the street end to the door. There was not an inch of cover and the bullets were splashing on the road and into the buildings on my left. The fire was swishing as thick as water from a powerful fire hose. Goodness knows how I got through. I passed several poor wretches on stretchers and ran up the ladder.

On the first floor bullets were viciously cutting through the tatti and interstices, and some plopped into sandbags, and the air seemed full of that tiny buzzing music as from some lightning-winged bee.

When I returned I found that some men and several horses had been hit, and in my room one bullet had ricochetted across the bed and three others had entered by the doorway and gone out by the window. Anyway it is more pleasant up here, and the bed zone is safe enough, so I'm going to risk it. And I must dress on the far side of the room. I am sure, after the awful air in that wretched dug-out, with swamp water oozing through it, that most people would risk something for this comparatively delightful air.

February 24th.—We are to remain in a state of diminishing expectancy and increasing disappointment. We acknowledge the colossal difficulties that beset our friends downstream, nor do we forget one division there has been previously decimated in France, and has many recruits. The fighting is against the pick of Turkish troops entrenched behind seas of mud.

The Mussulman soldiers here will not eat horseflesh. Among their excuses is one that the signature from India of their High Priest's permission to eat it is not authentic. It came by wireless!

Generally speaking, the native soldier for first-rate work in the field is only third class if he has no khana (food).

February 25th.—The show downstream has been postponed. More reinforcements are necessary. History repeats itself, and we are down to three slices of bread a day. It is a lovely morning. Some gunners and Fritz, R.A.M.C., were around to dinner last night bringing their own bread, as is the correct order of things in Kut. We had an excellent roast of horse. For sweets we had rice and date juice, and instead of savoury, "post mortems" on Ctesiphon.

Our friend, Tudway, R.N., has been awarded the Military Cross for Essin services. This we celebrated.

February 26th.—Much firing downstream. Last night I dreamed that Alphonse (Townshend) was communicating with Aylmer by megaphone, all Kut excepting I being asleep. And this is what happened—

"There, Aylmer?"

"Of course."

"Why didn't you attack on the 22nd? What happened?"

"Sweet damn all. Didn't even get a look in!"

"Then why on earth didn't you? You've had your reinforcements and sufficient time."

"'Tis not in the nature of mortals to command success. We've done better, Townshend—we've deserved it!"

"Rot! There's a screw loose somewhere. At Essin I turned him out of a much stronger position than he's got now, and with one-fourth of your force. Do you suppose we like being here or can hold out indefinitely?"

"Don't gibe! Do you know you're certain for a peerage—Townshend of Ctesiphon, I hear—nice alliteration too."

"No, really? Well, old chap, get through when you can. Some old time! We're eating door-mats and dubbin [Liar]! My pigeon though."

"Oh, I say! Last night I thought of suggesting we risked a plane landing in Kut for you and bringing you away so that you could have had the honour of relieving Kut."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Well, I thought what a godless ass you would look if you didn't succeed. Nothing seems certain except these floods!"

"Do you really think there is any chance of your getting through?"

"Not in the least! Even Lloyds wouldn't look at it. But the Bishop of London says you are making a glorious page in British history!"

"Page, sir, be damned! We've finished two volumes long ago. Is there anything else?"

"Yes! The people in all the churches at home are praying for you."

Loud laughter sounded through both megaphones, and I bethought me of the queer temperament of our race—and awoke.

10 p.m.—Cockie has retired to bed. I am alone with the "dim glim." The Turkish aeroplane has left us unmolested to-day, and for a change one of our own machines from below flew past us and bombed the Turkish main camp. It also dropped some money for the troops and letters for the General, as it has several times previously. There has been a considerable increase in the scurvy cases lately among the native troops. Of course all the drivers in the ammunition column are native troops. I had a scurvy inspection to-day, and the regimental surgeon picked out the grubby ones. It is due to total lack of vegetables. This is what we must chiefly guard against—disease.

Anthrax also has broken out in a few isolated cases and the orders are for livers of all animals to be buried.

I am much more comfortable here, as we have a long table and chairs and two or three stock books, "Monte Cristo" and Longfellow. That simple poet's lines in "Sand of the Desert in an Hour Glass" seem to have added to themselves additional appeal since the siege.