The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad

ought battles on either bank, the 7th Indian Division at Mushaidiyeh (March 14) and the 3rd Indian, most disastrously, in the foothills of the Jebel Hamrin (March 25), this com

s a very different affair, and it would be mon

Brigade, who were at Babi, a dozen miles up-stream. At Babi it was not yet

he Russians and ourselves had joined hands. This was towards the Persian border, on the left bank of the Tigris, where the 13th and 14th Divisions

cestershires, 51st and 53rd Sikhs, 56th Rifles, and 136th Machine-Gun Company), the 9th Brigade, R.F.A. (less one battery), one section of the 524th Battery,

by twelve and eight miles, marched in two days to a point opposite Sindiyeh, on the

nd feet with maddening needles; once in they seemed there 'for duration.' The soldier out East knows them for his worst foe on a march. Lest we should be obsessed with these, we were infested with sandflies and mosquitoes. But large black ants were the principal line in vermin. At dinner they swarmed

d us, and a monitor favoured us with some comically bad shooting. And after sundown came a moon, benignant, calm, in a cloudless heaven,

attered bushes looked in the mirage like enemy patrols. We were escorted by Fritz, whose kindly interest in our movements never flagged. We started late, at 6.50 a.m., and without breakfast, the distance be

Meso

ging up remounts, sent a Scots sergeant ahead to Sumaikchah, with a strong escort, to bring back rations.

fired o

ou fir

raged them. But I'd have ye know, sirrr

distance of fifteen stades from the river.'[1] This description still holds true of Sumaikchah. The ancient irrigation channels are dry, and the town has shrunken; but it remains

d-Samarra Railway have these natural salts. Every one who left Sumaikchah next morning was suffering from diarrh?a. Here again one remembers the Ana

e camped amid green corn; round us were storksbills, very many, and a white orchis, slight and easily hidden, the same orchis that I found afterwards in Palestine and in the Hollow Vale of Syria. A small poppy and a bright thistle set their flares of crimson a

itz came, of course; and there

hinks,' said one to me, 'I don't care who he is. But we believe it's all right till our number's up. Take M--, for instance. When he was left out at Sannaiyat we all envied him

told that the brigade would march before dawn, and that some scrapping was anticipated. The Turks were holding Beled Station, half a dozen miles away in a straight line. Their main force was at Harbe, four miles farther. The maps were no use, and distances had to be guessed