ng from our course of Sumaikchah waters, and progress was slow. Splashing through the marshes, we came to undulating upland, long, steady slopes, pebble-strewn and with pockets of grass and poppies

arger sort than those in the wheatfields, and of a very glorious crimson. In among the grasses was yellow coltsfoot; among the pebbles were sowthistle, mignonette, pink bindweed, and great patches of storksbill. Many noted the beauty of these flowers, a scene so un-Mesopotamian

ld get was this one, 'Because.' He puzzled upon it, till the whole flashed on his brain-'Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee.' Thenceforward he went his ways content; neither can any man have gathered gr

the Leicestershires. Some time after 8 a.m. rifle-fire on our left told us that the Cherub's scouts were in touch wit

front, from west to east; turned, and went across our front again. Beyond this was Beled Station, lying at the point of a wide fork of hills, the left prong a good mile away, but the right bending almost up to it. From the forking to the station was a broken plain of two thousand yards. This plain had to be overcome, with such assistance as the hills gave. The hills were pretty uniform

n where the range curved north-westerly. Here two four-gun batteries put up a slow and not heavy bombardment on the station. We waited and watched the shrapnel bursting five hundred yards to our right. About noon the Leicestershires wer

the reader will learn. Fowke was detached with his platoon to act on our extreme left in co-operation with our handful of Indian cavalry. The operation was an undesirable one, to advance into a maze of tiny hills, held by an enemy of unknown strength; and as Fowke moved off I remembered the Sieur de Joinville's Memoirs and a passage mentioned between us the previous day. So, as I wished him good luck, I sa

a section of machine-gunners under Lieutenant Service. The

rtillery formation up the right side of the railway

, who had deceived the recruiting people most shamelessly and enlisted as under thirty, took life jovially and generally humorously. He was never without his pipe. He enjoyed a large medical practice in the regiment, unofficial and unpaid, and he held strong opinions, observing frequently that he 'didn't hold with' a thing. I remember well the annoyance of Wilson's successor on hearing that D

we crossed the first ridge we picked up a man prostrate with heat-stroke

used us casualties. Lieutenant-Colonel Knatchbull, learning this, on his own initiative swung round B and C Companies across the railway to support D. Wilson now ca

a long narrow nulla to the hills where D were eng

uarry, awaiting orders. 'It's unhealthy over there,' said their O.C., Lieutenant Sanderson. 'The Turks have a machine-gun on it.' However, there was a lull as we crossed to the nulla, and only a very few bullets went by. In the nulla Wilson set up his aid-post, sticking a second flag above the railway, for the solitary company that was supporting the Sikhs' attack. Wounded began to com

case was following him. As the doctor saw to that broken body, my friend rested his wounded leg, and we had some talk. The long marches, the nights of little sleep, and the unsheltered days of heat and toil and wearied waiting for e

w a deal of pain, and grew stale with the smell of blood. A fair number of bullets flew over, and there was the occasional swish of a machine-gun. Mules wer

was the best and most central place for the aid-post. He sear

tain Hasted called out, 'Keep your heads down.' Almost at that moment Marner looked over, having spotted a sniper who was vexing us, and fell dead at Grant-Anderson's feet. Though in falling he brushed against Hasted, the latter could not pause to see who it was; nor did he know till he cried out, a minute later, that Marner was to move round the flank of the position immediately before them. Some two hundred yards farther on Second-Lieutenant Otter was struck by a bullet which went through both left arm and body, a bad but not fatal wound. But a gracious thought came to the Turkish gunners. Seeing us wi

vering fire, and every knoll and hummock became a shoulder to lift the force along. Their supporting battery had located the enemy's gun-positions, and kept down his fire. One gun-team bolted, and the crew were seen getting the gun away by hand and losing in the effort. The Sikhs rushed a low hill, which had long checked them, and its garrison of one officer and twenty-five men surrendered. This attack was led by the well-known 'Boomer' Barrett, colonel of the 51st. He slapped the nearest prisoner on the back

ation conspicuous throughout, shelling our right exclusively, for not a shell came on the left. We passed the enemy's trenches and rifle-pits

t's the ammunition he can't get away. He'll be moving his guns quickly enough when we get ours on to them.' But, as the official report afterwards observed, with just annoyance at the enemy's refusal to recognize that the action was finishe

Not Marius amid Carthage ruins was more careless of the desolation around him. With him was Culverwell, adjutant of the same battalion. They hailed me with joyous affection, and we drank the waters and swapped the news. General Davies came up and asked, 'Have the Leicesters taken any prisoners?' I told him 'No.' He seemed di

id the Brigadier; and the Brigade-Major added, 'He was the brigade's gr

long ears. 'You're last from school,' said Brigade-Major McLeod. 'You know Napier's message-"Peccavi, I have Sind." Gi

e most people realized what had happened, Wilson and Stones were carrying the men up the bank. This was an extremely brave deed, for a second shell was certain, and, as a matter of fact, a second and a third came just as they had reac

The other had his left leg torn off below the knee, his right heel blown away, and wounds in his head and stomach. He died that eve

r Action for

lt the station, throwing at least two hundred rounds on it in two hours. Mules and horses were hit, and many men. Isolated men, holding horses in the open, had a bad time. Several shells landed on the roof, and had there been against us the huge guns of other fronts the station would have gone up in dust. When I saw it again, a month later, I realized what a rough house that tiny spot had experienced. Unexploded shells were still in the walls, and on the inner wall of the side that had sheltered me I counted over twenty direct hits. Fortunately the 5.9's were not in action this day, and every station on the Baghdad-Samarra line has been built as a fortress, massively. By

ot a bit unhealthy, sir?' 'Oh, no,' said McLeod. 'It's quite safe from splinters, and it's no use bothering about a direct hit.' As I had seen high explosive burst pretty well all round, and both windows were smashed of every inch of glass, I could not quite share this confidence that the hut

. He must have had other casualties in addition to our prisoners. Our left wing, when they occupied the hills, saw four or five hundred Turks 'skirr away' in one body

and campions; the innumerable folds and hollows were emerald-green. C Company were holding the extreme left of our picket-line. Here I found Hasted, Hall, Fisher, and Charles Copeman. We held a dry, very deep irrigation-canal, running at right angles to the Dujail. There were no shells, and we could listen composedly to the last of the shrapnel away on the right. The full moon presently flooded the hills with enchantment. But our night was broken by Arab raids.

behind the station. In that ten minutes I had opportunity to admire the soldier-man's resourcefulness. One of the picket, thrusting his hand deep into one of the countless holes in our canal-wall, found two tiny eggs. Raising fat in some fashion-probably a candle-end-he had fried e

. Marner's death had gone deep. 'I hear Mr. Marner's dead,' said a voice. 'I'm sorry to hear that,' said another; 'he was a nice feller.' 'He was a good feller an' a',' said a third. 'He was more like a brother to me than an officer,' his p

s a model of a successful little battle. Our losses were miraculously slight. But for the very great skill with which the two separate attacks were organized, and the constant alertness which exploited every one of the ground's endless irregularities, our losses must have been many times heavier. The advance was conducted with caution and the utmost economy of life; but the moment

h less than half the casualties their numerically superior foe sustained. Since a small battle is an epitome of a large one, and far easier to see in detail, even this lengthy account may have justification. The Army Commander's opinion was shown not alone by his congratulatory message, but by the immediate honours awarded. To the Leicestershires fell one Mili

ok, the silken

rning red whe

in the station

was bought wi

TNO

ion. The identification of Sumaikchah and Sit

done' (H

gh exp

e's. See ne

I

A

may unworth

ch of Harry

Hen

than Mesopotamia, I'd be a

rigade, doing no damage, and when that Brigade pushed on to Harbe he fell back on his strong lines at Istabulat, another four miles. The 19th Brigade, with only one or two men wo

rable, but the journey was short. Beyond the river plunging shells told u

ssure. Arabs watched impudently, sniping his party from a few hundred yards away. Neither did they let him get more than a quarter of a mile away, when he had finished, before they flocked down. The Cherub made his way to the station, and watched, as a boy watches a bird-trap. The Arabs fell to scooping out the soil badger-fashion with their hands. There was an explosion, and the earth shot up in a fountain of clods. The robbers ran, but returned immediately and

ot need clothes, and we do.' The logic of this does not carry far. To them, as Mussulmans, graves were sacrosanct to a unique degree; a suspicion of disrespect on our part would rouse the whole of Islam to flaming wrath. They were criminals, by their own ethos, when they desecrated our dead. Moreover, they murdered whenever they could, in the cruellest and beastliest fashion. The marvel is, our actions of reprisal were so rare. Apart from this of the Cherub

a steamer on the Tigris. An Arab calmly dropped on one knee and took aim at the Englishmen, as if the latter were gazelles or partridges. He missed, and they followed him into his village, where they asked him why he had fired. The man answered that he did i

middle of the 19th Brigade's camp, outside General Peebles' tent, wailing. The women said their husbands had been bayoneted and mutilated by

In his turn he robbed and slew as chance offered. He pursued the chase for

he graves of our battlefields. Great delight was given by the thought that Westlake's still unexploded bombs would receive consecration also for any retributi

he whole landscape seemed one dust-heap, sand and rubbish. But by the brook were poppies, marguerites, delicate pink campions, wheat and barley growing as weeds of former cultivation, and thickets o

phemy under such provocation, the Recording Angel's office was hard worked these days. One would be reading a letter, already wretched enough with heat and flies, and suddenly you would be fighting for breath and sight in a maelstrom of dirt, indescribably filthy dirt, whilst your papers flew up twenty feet and your rifle hit you cruelly over the head. As a Marian ma

were found also almost hourly. The snakes were small asps; the scorpions were small also, but sufficiently painful. My batman was consumed with curiosity as

n the discomforts. Hebden returned with stores of sorts from Baghdad. Two new subalterns, Sowter and Keely, came. On Tuesday Hall's M.C. for Sannaiyat was announced. We celebrated t

dusk our Me

es strong

eir tuneful

r stave f

' breaks in

ing in t

ond which kn

ous man a

he flowing

s have co

youngest c

the as

trudge aw

an's wai

bomb and

we keep t

the cavalry captured twelve hundred and fifty Turks on the Shat-el-Adhaim. Our wait was necessary. But we knew the enemy was terribly entrenched less than six miles away, and that our sternest fight since Sannaiyat was preparing. 'This will be a full-dress affair, with the corps artillery,' I was told. Some of my

r many weeks, with every discomfort and over a cursed monotonous plain, without even the palliation of fairly regular mails. When men have been 'going over the top' repeatedly, emerging always with comrades gone, the nerves give way. We longed to be at that Istabulat position. Yet here we had to wait while Cailley's Column fou

we now

ousand of thos

no wor

ish spirit facing great odds invincibly,

ray thee, wish

at all, mentioned save this once. But all were eager and spe

it, Westmorland,

hath no stomac

im de

r being made now, or of the alleged consequences of such an offer, in the instant streaming away of all His Majesty's Forces in Mesopotamia, co

ort shall

5

r convoy put

he line and ration-inde

die in that

s fellowship

ecstasy of sarcasm as he assur

in England

elves accursed th

cted for 'hopping the parapet.' The brigades reconnoitred, and exchanged shots with enemy pickets. Fritz came, of course. Then the 19th Brigade

nd now, after our long sojourn in stoneless lands, these pebbles were a temptation, and there was a deal of surreptitious chucking-about. One watched with secret glee while a smitten colleague pretended to be otherwise occupied, but nevertheless kept cunning eyes searching for the offender. I enjoyed myself best, for I lay and watched the daily parad

ed to usurp their self-appointed duties-and when I put in services for Sunday, the 22nd, it was recognized that we should march, and fight on the Sabbath. Not more anxiously did the legionary listen for tales of supernatural fires in the corn and of statues

no stomach t

im de

Bishop Adhemar, who had died at Antioch, was said to have gone before Godfrey of Boulogne's scaling-l

nk-hole. It was a very splendid and elaborate hole, and no one was allowed to come near, lest he cause its perfection to crumble away. So, to dry ourselves after the rain, we all dug, and the Desert-Gods laughed in their bitter little minds as th

TNO

in Mesopotamia,' Blackwo

opotamia; nor

IT

BATTLE O

ying, won for themselves a crown of glor

hundred feet in height. Once it was the border between Assyria and Babylonia, and must have stretched to the Euphrates. Even now it runs from the Tigris far into the desert. It has crumbled to one-third of the height given by Xenophon. The semblance of a wall no longer, it is a mighty flank of earth, covering tiers of bricks. It effectually hi

, known as 'Fowke-lore,' and received with delight, but not quite implicit belief, foretold that on the morrow our cavalry-it was a point of principle with the infantry to assume that the cavalry, as well as all Higher Commands, were capable of

a person more alliterative than observant, 'a frail, flitting figure with a fly-flap.' Yet he had taken over Brodie's job, at Sannaiyat, when that experienced 'quarter' had wakened suddenly to find that an aeroplane bomb had wounded him. Within a year of this event I was privileged to be present at an argument between our D.A.D.O.S. and our D.A.D.S. & T.,[8] as to whether Copeman or Jock Reid, of the Seaforths, was the greater quartermaster. Where two such authorities failed to come to a decision, I must stand aside, especially as both

r lines, D lay behind the wall. Fires were kept low.

s the action began, and to work their spades frantically, sending up such dust-clouds that the bemused Turk might suppose a new Army Corps advancing to attack his right, and take steps accordingly. The brown-coated figure took a sombre farewell of me, reminding us that, though his crowd were going to be cut up by our own cavalry, the rest of

of Istabulat Mounds. The Istabulat fight was one in which my own Brigade were spectators, except for isolated and piece-meal action. We were in reserve; and the 8th Brigade, of the 3rd Division, were in support, in line with us, and behind the Median Wall

nfairly. That unfairness I shall correct in the next chapter. But for this first action I do not propose to do

elieve we hoped to do more than eat our way into a part of his line. The operation was magnificent bluff. His morale was calculated to be now so low that he was likely to evacuate the position if we bit deeply into it. If this view is correct, General Maude was taking a heavy risk. But he not only always made all preparation possible before he struck, but on occasion did not hesitate to strike where the odds should have been against success, but the prize of success was great, and t

didly supported, would have been helpless. 'I'll never say a word against the gunners again after to-day and Sannaiyat,' said a wounded Seaforths' officer to me in the evening. The field-guns were well up from the start, and the 'hows' soon advanced. When the action began, the latter were half-a-mile behind us at the wall. It was an impressive si

low and very impudent. He reported that it was only Fowke, and sheered off with a contempt quite visible from the ground. He was s

. The 9th Bhopals-who were playfully and better known as the 9th 'Bo-Peeps'-crossed in front of a strong machine-gun position instead of outflanking it. The Turks held their fire till the regiment was close up. The latter lost two hundred men in three minutes; a

t sheer walls of the Turkish left. But it was too much; and a counter-attack swept the survivors off, and took two officers and several men prisoners. Evening found our

ring his water-bottle to a wounded Turk. Irvine, of the 9th Bhopals, was wounded, and lay out all day; two wounded Turks looked after him, surrendering when we ultimately came up. The Gurkhas and Bhopals took two hundred and thirty prisoners. A B

popular, unassuming man. Lieutenant Stewart, of the same battery, was wounded. Colonel Cotter, commanding the 56th Brigade, R.F.A., was hit in the forehead. Lieutenant Hart's

the trenches before the wall to rest, so far as heat and flies would permit. In that period of slackness a number of men swarmed up the wall. Instead of sitting where we had done, they sat on the crest, against the sky-line. Hitherto the shrapnel had not come nearer than a ridge four hundred yards away, which had been often and well peppered. But now came the hateful whistle, and the ridge was swept from end to end with both H.E. and shrapnel. In our trenches we we

field. It was an open human shambles, with miserable men lying about, some waiting on tables to be operated on. Knott was about to help in amputating a leg. In the few words I had with him I learnt that Suffolk was killed. I think I am right when I say that he was the only man killed among our 7th Division gunners. (We had other artillery with us, and they lost heavily.) It seemed strangely mediaeval, as

its fortunes. I found an officer with whom I had travelled on a river-boat not long before, when his mind held the presentiment of death in his first action.

e news?' I told them we had got on well. Then some one asked, 'But what did you hear about our casualties?' Minds were tense, for every one knew that next day our brigade must take up the attack, and for a whole day we had seen Hell in full eruption on

of them had seen more pitched battles than years, had known Ypres and Loos and Neuve Chapelle, Gallipoli and Sheikh Saad-would not concede it a momentary blanching of

strange fields

eare came to the aid of us, his countrymen, again as gall

no stomach t

m depa

die in that m

s fellowship

of fifteen hundred bayonets, who caught the Turk in his fastnesses, wrested guns and p

ible to bring the carts up. The night was infernal with cold; sand-flies rose in myriads from the ground; we shivered and itched in our shorts. Old aches and pains found me out, rheumatism and troubl

from gurkhing, and the

g. It was Johnny blowing up Istabulat S

TNO

basis,

eads of Ordnance and

y Brigadier-General A.G. Wauchope, C.

ge is a tiger, commemorating

Gun

V

TLE FOR

the sac

and who r

Low

of tea, our bread and bacon. At 3.30 we moved off. We marched behind the wall, then crossed the Dujail, and pushed towards the left flank of the enemy

ways felt that the sight of a dead Highlander touches even deeper springs of pathos than the sight of any other corpse. Analysed, th

lled most of all that any should have scaled its top, though for a moment only. These trenches held abundant dead, Turks and our own. On the reverse slope I came on rows of the enemy, huddled on th

stock. His dead were more than ours; and all our way was strewn with débris. Candles and cones of sugar were in plenty, ammunition, blankets-for

this new day's battle I quote, from Hasted's

hree well-concealed lines of trenches had been prepared, on small hills and amongst deep nullas, with the water-s

e extreme right. We passed the 56th Brigade, R.F.A., whose officers eagerly came

Mounds the Positio

ously.' With it was coupled an assurance that there was nothing

e on the battle which followed. Even at this stage of the campaign, we fought in Mesopotamia, both sides, with the most exiguous number of planes. The Turks having lost their best machine and pilot, our old friend Fritz, feared to risk another. Hence, whe

essage was that the enemy was incapable of serious opposition. But of this the rank and file knew nothing; had they known, old experience would have made them sceptical. Fowke's view, that all would prove to be for the worst in the worst of all possible worlds and arrangements, was the reigning philosophy. An adapted edition of Schopenhauer would have sold well in the mess (or anyw

undred yards away was a fairyland that danced and glimmered. When a target was perceived, of Turks racing back, the orders for fire were changed quickly, from 'Three hundred yards' to 'fourteen hundred yards.' Very vainly. This mirage continued throughout the fight. Ahead

and myself. Then Hell opened all her mouths and spat at us. The battalion lay down and waited. Twelve-pounder 'pipsqueaks' came in abundance, with a sprinkling of heavier stuff. Many soldiers prefer the latter. You can hear a 5.9 coming, and it gives you time to collect yourself, and thus perhaps escape giving others the trouble to collect what is left of you. I remembe

it where horror is radiating out to a wide circumference. In the depths one must surrender one's efforts and trust to elemental powers and agonies, but in the shallows all the calls are on the 'transitory being' whose flesh and blood are pitted against machinery. How can the nerves and trembling thought bear up? Yet they have borne up, even in men quick with sense and imagination. I felt restless as we lay on the flat desert listening to the bullets singing by or to a nosecap's leisured search for a victim, di

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

noise, right-turned, and went across the muzzle of our own guns, also in full blast.

d 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 Xe

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 t

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 Leices

m antic

ation, 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

on 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 hospita

lcome, kindling

ends, we shall

.' 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 ab

t fatal wall and on the bullet-swept space before it died many of our

uck in spring, and he loo

ra, already gilded from the sloping sun. His death was merciful, a bullet t

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

ained 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

d 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

ression 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

ine-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 reti

-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 t

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

lay from 11 a.m. till 3.30 p.m. within three hundred

ted, 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-pos

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 commande

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

ief Sergeant-Major Whatsize fell, twenty yards from the enemy'

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 lif

icers 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 t

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 conscious

rannic thoug

thoughts

uld fail. The mind labours yet, ful

, unter

e Gulf

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 darknes

me. 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

se 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 smalle

sed him.' A minute later he said, 'That officer's dead, sir.' I went across, and found it was Scarth, of the 5

slowly o'er the

broken body,

rried into d

hanked for wate

the steadfast,

whereby the Le

ded sands of

e Grattan fell

en looking on Scarth loved him. The freshness of his mountain home and his free, hap

f Hyrtacu

his quiver

beasts in f

9

in ?neas

n. 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 replie

s 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

rd 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

on to his platoon, the previous night. As he went into action a friend exchanged greetings. He replied, 'Yes, but I'

-post. This Brigade H.Q. were my best friends in the division. I begged a mug of tea from him, so we went a

n 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 acros

guest, he came a

rkness garland

uest! Yet love th

ce in three-scor

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

ee 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

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 comf

.' 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 happene

d each killed a snake after laying their blankets down. They

on, 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 l

d 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 af

is almost greater than any man has a right to have, especially when the Gods have

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

ant 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

r hundred casualties. The 28th Brigade, on the 22nd, lost four hundred and forty-six

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 Sun

TNO

ed by him at Rawal Pin

n of Janua

Has

Has

k IX, Conington

spital orderli

the Su

T

AND W

g 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 len

olling country lies to westward also, broken with nulla and water-h

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 reason

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

to the ravines and jungles of the Adhaim, where the war was dying. May's first week

egan 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 t

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 a

th 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. Th

drifting down-stream, and to India. But first Thornhi

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 st

f, 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 ma

bed 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

n'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

s 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 s

isper, 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 call

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 '

umping 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. Possibl

ishing 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 he

sed 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

racked ship

mbay

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 relic

reen with lettuc

attered walls, a

ting sands; the

nd; the wilder

f 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

ers 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,

General Brooking captured the nucleus of a projected offensive against us. We by

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 de

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

ich, from first to last, I delivered over fifty times. Latterly envious tongues alleged that I had to

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opean pr

course. The old one w

ht bank of the Tigris. A p

Paddl

servati

land Ligh

I

'THE BATTLE OF

ckness touc

hrill clar

ddy' buckets, Di

hnson[26] tumb

's falset

nothing

lion wakes,

s how far i

how many wear

hin some nulla

ep, while the i

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

usand 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 int

ight-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, co

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

humour at the expense of the Royal Flying Co

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ed) donkey. The Leicestershire

to say, we had

ndian

an water-

IT

A

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 lef

an 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 w

eag

eagle.

nork.

owl. Sn

expansion: 'Snemeu,' 'Snalbat

out in a 'lamb'[29] on the other bank of Tigris, almost to Tekrit, and ha

sing to see. He checked, wheeled, abandoned all thought of a visit to our camp, and beetled back, after very elaborate

ght 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 ba

nst 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

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 abou

ifully 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 w

voes. 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 ove

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 Mac

early 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, wi

g hot, being well

ound 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

ing 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 carele

d; 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 di

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armoured mo

II

U

d the rum ration came as a sheer necessity. All through this brief Tekrit campaign the British troops were without coats or bl

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 co

Burberry with me; natheless the night was one of insane wretchedness. We rejoiced, with mor

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 teet

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 ene

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 o

ies.' For such elemental things

e Gaza successes, as the previous

all 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

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

X

KR

ty, 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 Baghd

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 crawl

rra. Staff-captains and quartermasters received orders at the eleventh hour for transport arrangements. The campaign was a tour

the left bank, meeting with no opposition. Their part was enfilade gunfire. Our old colleagues, the 8th Brigade (from the 3rd Lahore Divi

e 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 we

eep and a quarter of a mile wide, commanded by machine-guns, and searched with shrapnel. Later, when my own brigade moved up

ke tho

zure, and the

re besides, vau

he 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 Lie

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 mos

fire, which continued spasmodically all night. My brigade went to rest, in anticipation of a renewal of battle next dawn, when our turn would be due. The ambulances had worked nobly a

ny of the wounded collected in the 19 C.C.S.[30]

e were very doubtful of their being there. However, we went forward in the usual artillery formation. Every house in Tekrit had a white flag. This was the place where Townshend's men were spat on as they limped through it, prisoners. Never

nt live shells, shell-cases, cartridge-cases. But there were very few dead. I saw only two; and a few places where the parapet had been pulled in for a hasty burial. The old question was raised, Did the Turk dig graves beforehand, against an action, to hide his losses? If he did, one can imagine few more effective ways of putting heart into his troops than by detailing them for such a job. I heard that the Seaforths b

s, withdrawing late and rapidly; hence the great dumps of shell-ammunition which were our only booty. We should have got the whole force. But no sufficient barrage was kept up on the lines of retreat during the night; the cavalry's service, though gallant, was ineffective; the 28th Brigade were not used at the one point where they might have done the enemy much harm; and Head Quarters

aring for the regiment he loved so well, found him; and, since he was not ill, obtained permission to feed him with some of the battalion's Christmas p

beyond Tekrit, with the results already stated. One of the two captured planes was a recovered one of our own, with the enemy black

be partly the old monastery wall. The town is built on cliffs, which tower very steeply above the Tigris. The inhabitants were k

in from both ends, till both British forces were shelling each other. However, the Turk ran some seventy miles farther; and

ick, but had more sense than to go to hospital this time; and the troops returned from Tekrit. The Leicestershires on route put up a large hyena, but failed to run hi

cations." We know that story.' It was as after the April fighting, when the wildest distortions were believed down the line, and when I was

er the division. We would have made any effort to hold Tekrit after our toil and losses. But the Fords were needed for ano

TNO

lty cleari

T

TO

t Brigade went across the river. Only the Leicestershires remained at Samarra, and even they sent one company to Istabulat. Our other three

ny others had died. His funeral took place in Baghdad; Fritz attended and dropped a message of sympathy. Mistakin

ss broke in, 'Hallo, hallo, hallo, Baghdad! We can tell you later news. It is three hundred thousand prisoners, two thousand five hundred guns.' The enem

ter floods were even then beginning to gather higher up, and had reached to within a dozen miles of the brook's junction with Tigris. The valley was thick jungle. There were no trees, but a most dense and luxuriant growth of tamarisk, populus euphratica, zizyphs and other thorns, forming a covert six to fourteen feet high. Liquorice grew freely. Wild pig abounded, hares, black partridge, and sisi. In my very brief stay I saw no pig; but their signs were everywhere, and their water-holes in the river-bed bore marks of con

iscovery was of interest beyond itself. The books place Opis near Akab, apparently because the Adhaim enters the Tigris opposite Akab. But, as I have said already, Kenneth Mason has accumulated good reasons for placing Opis near Samarra. With those reasons, this statue of Ishtar may take its place. The Samarra of hi

ome days. We took a hundred and fifty prisoners and two field-guns. Though Russia was out of the war, a local force of Rus

n Baghdad. In those six days of marching they suffered terribly from cold, rain, and footsoreness. But they swung through Baghdad singing. The men of the Anzac wireless bought up oranges, and threw them to our fellows as they passed out of Baghdad to their camp at Hinaidi, two miles below. Baghdad streets were frozen every morning; a bucke

odly Babylonish garments,' the abbas for which the town is famous. Mine were sent home in an oil-sheet. The oil-sheet arrived, the postal-service satisfying themselves w

ad, and was said to have dropped a message, 'Good-bye, 7th Divi

hteen.' But the 28th Brigade knew nothing of this hint to Lee. Some thought we were going to Ahwaz, and thence up to Persia; others held this Persian theory with a modification, that we should arrive up-country

arks, so known and so remembered. On the 20th we passed Kut, and knew that for most of us it was our farew

mn on th

h fields that

te Mothe

ing river, t

moves in th

rumpling thei

e mist, on th

know that ther

nds I shall

which with l

I watched and

mist, in an o

d; and many of us had buried more

ses and discomforts. Marshall, the semi-mythical person at Corps, who had visited the Turks at Tekrit, scattering ruin from a 'lamb,' was everyw

his was witty at first, but she kept it up too long. Busra backwaters were lovelier than ever, with the willows in their winter dress, gold-streaked, and the brooding blue kingfishers above the waveless channels. Bablas[32] were in yellow button, scenting the ditches where huge

to Ashar,[34] we

all cheer again, for mont

ed and shouted. But it was not the old crowd. Fowke, Warren, Burrows-these three were gathered, two months after the battalion left Mesopotamia, at Kantara, when the German last offensive burst. They were sent at once to France. Fowke and Warren were badly wounded; a letter from Fowke informed me that he was hit 'while running away,' a jesting statement which one understands. Burrows, o

s have seen our

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e domes

Mim

oncert

the place of

N

Captain

t-el, 54, 1

az,

, 14

104, 108, 1

Ghar

a, 1

reless,

eq., 96, 100, 1

, 131

(Palest

bi

9, 18 seq.,

Sec.-Lie

ec.-Lie

, Major

Sec.-Lie

, Serg

iessa,

Na'am

q., 48, 49,

rut

(9th), 6

h (2nd), 8

t, Cap

, Capta

eld Ambula

Lieut.-

, Lieu

, Maj.-G

s. Se

ec.-Lie

Sec.-Li

12, 115,

y's Co

, Edmun

mel

earing Stat

36, 39, 60, 61, 102

n, Pri

Lieut.-

ht Rang

. Charles, 32, 44,

t. J.Y., 60, 61, 6

, Colo

Captai

hon, 1

ell, Ca

, 124 seq

ig.-Gen.,

e, Brig.

0, 86 seq., 101, 13

32 seq., 79, 84,

44, 45, 51,

leh,

, Capta

Rev.

s Tom

Maj.-G

o,

l, Fat

hiye

, Sec.-Li

Sec.-L

, 52, 54 seq., 60 seq., 69, 74, 101

/8th), 65,

, Capt

aptain, V

t., 35, 54, 55, 69, 81 se

Lieut.-

, Lieut.-

t), 65, 11

ptain, 11

ieut., 44, 5

28, 43,

y, Ma

ec.-Lie

10, 35, 36, 44, 7

, Captai

Serge

te, Cap

Sec.-L

on, Cap

Light Inf

idi,

, Capt

et, 12

ce Summari

, Capt

tar

t, 48, 5

Reverses

rin, 19,

arabeki

Lieut., 53,

131,

t.-Col., 29, 33,

Rev.

eit

15 seq., 54,

32nd). Se

Captai

Sergea

e, Serg

. R.E.,

Lieut.

d Motor Batte

ee Vill

Captain,

Sec.-Li

nners, 22,

ie, Cap

.-Lieut., 57 s

e, Capt

, Lie

jor, 28, 3

ec-Lieut.

, Maj

ers, 117

eut., 35,

l's Col

Captain,

Sec-Lie

Kenneth, 10, 26

l, 18, 46, 63

all, 56,

ll, Secon

Sec.-Li

19, 1

h, 19, 21,

Bishop o

n Cana

riye

Captain,

olks

105, 1

Sec-Lie

c-Lieut.

Gen., 51, 76, 9

bis,

rna

20, 110

Majo

), 22, 31, 3

ery, 22, 30, 63, 7

lying C

, 16, 17

2, 70 seq., 113, 117

din,

on, Cap

28, 63, 64, 65, 109

a, 12

Lieut.

Lieut.-Co

t), 8, 61 seq

ieut., 32,

a, 15

et Pa

aad, 16,

, 18, 1

3rd), 22, 31 seq.

7th and

yeh,

ubahdar

ija

tak

eut., 53,

t, Lie

, Capt

jor the Ear

2 seq., 37, 4

, Sergeant

10, 20,

t, Maj

, Brig.

aptain, 97,

66, 87 seq., 1

Sergean

Maj.-Gen.,

nd's Re

Canal

Hanna,

, 16

, Lieu

Lieut., 68,

Brig.-Ge

tain, 99

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on, Corp

ain, 32 seq.

, 26 seq

ampton Times Company

errors corre

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rough replace