In Mesopotamia Part 2

Through the month of June the sickness increased and work went on steadily increasing. We had 400 beds in the wards at that time, and it was necessary to find accommodation for an average of 700 patients.

Anyone who was likely to be sick for any length of time was sent to India whenever the opportunity arose. Down at the British Hospital on the river front they were sending cases off that were likely to be more than three days ill. It was an oriental polyglot scene down there on the hospital quay in the comparative cool of evening, when the big white hospital ship lay off the bank and crowds of ticketed patients sat under the shelters waiting their turn to embark. Now and then a pale nurse, dressed in white, with white helmet and red-lined parasol would walk through the throng. Arab _belumchis_, Jews, Persians, Armenians, Sikhs, Gurkhas, Pathans, and Ghats crowded the bank, voluble and picturesque.

Dhobies thrashed clothes at the river edge. Bhisties drew water in kerosene tins. Convalescent Tommies in blue dungaree, fished stolidly--wishing they were bound for India. The roofs of the square white buildings were filled with nurses taking tea. Launches whirled up and discharged Staff officers. All down the centre of the stream lay big vessels. Already the place had a cosmopolitan spirit--a new-born genius--and one could see it dimly in the future, when the Baghdad railway runs through it to Kuweit, a white city, garish with painted promenades and electric lights, with as many languages sounding in the street as in Port Said.

The dates were now hanging in big ma.s.ses of oval, greeny-yellow fruit, some in cl.u.s.ters of two hundredweight and more, and the palm leaves were turning brown at their points. The scarlet of the pomegranate trees had vanished from the date groves and the floods were beginning to fall. It had been necessary to surround the hospital clearing with a mud wall, or bund, about four feet in height, in order to keep out the water, for at times there is as much as a six foot rise when the tide comes up the Shatt-el-Arab.

At any simple job of this kind the Arabs are quite good. They can plaster mud on a roof, or make a bund, or run up a mud and reed hut, or raise the level of the flooring of a ward, and they take their time over it. But anything that savours of machinery is usually beyond them. It was a common saying amongst the Arabs that sickness stopped as soon as the dates were gathered in. That proved to be untrue. It was a long while until the dates were ripe, and after they were gathered sickness still continued. The amount of heat those dates required before they turned yellow and soft, and their skins began to crinkle faintly, was extraordinary. For weeks and weeks they remained hard and green, though exposed to the fiercest heat of the sun. Pomegranates, in the same way, hung for months before their skins turned to that beautiful deep mahogany hue of the ripe fruit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE SHATT-EL-ARAB NEAR BASRA.]

On a particular day at the end of June one might have fancied a crisis had been reached. Curiously enough, by the irony of coincidence, the Reuters of that day contained the news that it had been stated in Parliament that, in the interests of the public, no statement would be made about the state of affairs in Mesopotamia.

That night it was rumoured that Verdun had fallen....

The gift of a large fleet of motor ambulances presented by the cinema people at home was a great boon, for urgent cases could be transported to hospital rapidly, instead of jolting over the plain in bullock tongas. Unfortunately, the axles of these cars were not quite equal to the rough work, and in a short time they were sent away to other spheres where roads were better. The ground in our neighbourhood was so undermined by floods that on one occasion one of these cars, standing empty, suddenly broke through the upper crust up to its axles. A great deal of perspiration flowed before it was extricated.

In the meanwhile the creek was full of _mahallas_ loading up equipment, for we had received orders to go higher up-river.

VII

THE NARROWS

We left Basra when the Arabs, and the Indian troops, were celebrating the Mohammedan feast of Ramadhan. During the feast, which lasts a month, night is turned into day. No food is allowed, in theory, from sunrise to sunset. Drums beat, dogs howl, c.o.c.ks crow and the revellers shout and wail and clap their hands in long, rhythmic, staccato periods, and explosions of powder occur under the crescent moon.

A small, double-decked, squat river boat which had been captured from the Turks took us on board. It burned oil fuel. A single canvas awning with many gaps in it covered the upper deck. The lower deck was nearly taken up by engine and boiler, save for a small saloon aft, and water tanks and a galley forward. Our strength was about 100 men with twenty Indians belonging to the hospital, and there were a few odd details travelling as well and the crowding was considerable. On each side of the steamer were big barges. On the port side was a barge of mules. On the starboard side a barge of fodder, and various bales and cases, surmounted by a crowd of coolies. The smell from either side was like a Zoo. We set off in high spirits, for we had heard that Amara, whither we were bound, was a Paradise compared to Basra. The heat was excessive.

Behind the funnel on deck, where our quarters lay, it was 125 degrees, and the awning did not do much towards keeping out the burden of the sun. The country through which we pa.s.sed was green-tinged with spa.r.s.e palms, and absolutely flat. In the river were long strings of _mahallas_, being towed by teams of Arabs. These craft may take sixteen days to reach Amara. In the heat of the day the towing team gets into the river and moves slowly along up to their waists in water. Owing to a long stop at Margil, which lies two miles above Basra, and is the site of the Supply people, we did not make much progress the first day. At sunset it is necessary to tie up, or anchor, in the stream. The night was not so bad save for mosquitoes, and after a sousing of river water, drawn forward of the mule barge, and a cup of tea at dawn, we felt cheerful. We started at four-thirty and pa.s.sed Kurna.

Kurna is the Garden of Eden. It lies at the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, and is a small hamlet of white houses. Here there is a wide area of date palms and a great brown, tranquil stretch of river. A white doorway in a yellow wall, shaped like a pear, marks the supposed position of Paradise. The doorway bears a tablet with an Arabic inscription. Behind the doorway, just visible over the wall, a tree grows. This may or may not be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because a dwarfed sinister tree lower down, to which barges tie up, is given the name. But I prefer the one in its walled garden, a faded, simple, harmless-looking tree. And the result of eating its fruit can be moralised on here, for on one side of it is the bazaar square, where whisky and beer and tobacco are sold, and on the other side is the telegraph office with the news of the war blazoned on the iron-studded door and an armed sentry before it.

Beyond Kurna the Tigris takes some immense curves so that at times you seem to see the sails of _mahallas_ all round the horizon. We lay on deck, staring idly at the unvarying landscape which quivered under the sun. Occasionally Arab villages were pa.s.sed, constructed out of the matting made from reeds, which is a local industry. The reeds grow in big patches all the way up the river banks. On the second night we tied up below Ezra's tomb. There was local Arab trouble in this part at the time and we pa.s.sed an outpost of native troops; also a mud hut, standing solitary in a swamp in the plain and bearing the words "Leicester Lounge" in black lettering. It seemed deserted.

At night there was a lot of lamp-signalling all round the horizon in naval code. One caught M.M.O. repeatedly and then a lot of figures. Some fires lit up the sky line to the north. On that night the heat was beyond description. A plague of sand-flies and mosquitoes descended on the ship. No one slept a wink. The mules screamed and kicked. There was not a breath of air. A heavy smell pervaded the ship, and at times it seemed that one's mind wandered a little. Before dawn a great cry came out of the steamy darkness from some worshipping Arab and was repeated twice. After a long silence a c.o.c.k crew far across the plain and was answered a hundred times. Then came a misty blue light and a sudden glare of yellow. The day had begun and the engines started.

A monitor pa.s.sed, bristling with guns and painted a vivid green. Ezra's tomb is a mosque standing stark on the brown plain beside the river in a clump of palms. It is kept in beautiful preservation, for it is visited by pilgrim Jews. Against the lovely blue of the dome, with its circle of gold, a tall palm leans, bending sharply inward as if to kiss the Prophet's last resting-place in some sudden mood of devotion. Some way above it lies a big village, and as we pa.s.sed crowds of Arabs lined the bank. Naked boys dived into the river after money. The women, dashing types with nose rings, clad in robes of wonderful vermilion and purple colours, ran along the banks with fowls and eggs for sale. Herds of black buffalo, submerged up to the nose, basked in the water.

At one lonely place we pa.s.sed a small shelter, a roof of yellow matting supported by a few posts, containing six rather pale-hued women with richly coloured robes and bangles seated in a semi-circle on the ground.

Outside stood the lord of the manor, very swarthy, in dazzling white, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, scowling ferociously as he surveyed the plains. He was a kind of policeman, I believe, in our pay.

At any rate he seemed to be, like policemen in general, a strong lover of domestic life. Six wives may have contributed a little towards overcoming the extreme monotony of life in the place.

Above Ezra's tomb begin the Narrows. The Tigris becomes very narrow, pouring its filthy yellow water at a great speed between the sharply cut banks. The turns are so sharp, being at times much more acute than a right angle, that the only way to get round is to charge the bank, b.u.mp off with a great churning of paddles and creaking of lashings and clanging of the telegraph from the bridge, and work the steamer's nose into the centre of the stream again. The banks, at these spots, are perfectly smooth and polished owing to the constant impacts. By themselves the river steamers could get round more skilfully, but with their clumsy barges on each side it was impossible. The S-boats--the stern wheelers--of which there are only a few, do not carry barges, and therefore their handiness and speed are much greater. They can run from Basra to Sheik Saad, close to the front, within three days, and can travel by night if necessary.

At three in the afternoon as we b.u.mped and sc.r.a.ped and panted up the tortuous river, we came on the familiar sight of a convoy stuck, broadside on, across the river in front of us. A little smoke came from her funnel. The sun beat savagely down on her apparently deserted decks.

Behind her there was nothing but shimmering plain and the occasional flash of water. Our engine-room telegraph rang. The engines stopped and we slewed into the bank and dropped anchor. Then the skipper and his navigating lieutenants withdrew to their cabins and the engine-room staff, composed of an Englishman who had run boats up to Baghdad for ten years, and a few Christian Baghdadies--powerful dark men, who seemed to speak a kind of French--disposed themselves for rest on the lower deck, and a great peace descended on the scene. Away over the horizon, north and south, some columns of smoke were visible coming from other convoys that were converging on the Narrows. It was necessary to wait for the tide, as well as for a tug. There was nothing to do but to watch the plain. At first sight it appeared lifeless, an expanse of golden browns, reds and yellows, with a sharp purple rim on the skyline. But closer observation showed long lines of cattle, mere dots in the distance, moving slowly in search of pasture. In the shadow of a hummock an Arab boy and girl sat together motionless. A mile along the level two Arabs were rhythmically swinging water up from a cutting by means of a shallow vessel with ropes attached to the side. The flash of it caught the eye, and there was a patch of vivid emerald where the water fell. To the north it was possible to make out the arms of a semaph.o.r.e lying idle.

There was no sound in the place. The river itself flowed silently. Only the occasional deep drone of a hornet or the note of a mosquito came to the ear. The sun seemed to be drawing the land together, sucking up all the sap it contained.

As we sat and gazed at these bending and twisting Narrows the idea arose that it might be possible, by a little cutting, to do away with the worst bits and open up a straight channel. For there were two main places of obstruction, called the Devil's Elbow and Pear Drop Reach.

But it is necessary to say this with caution, for tampering with great rivers like the Tigris may cause unthought-of trouble. It upsets the natural balance of the waters.

Gradually the other convoys drew near and dropped anchor above and below the obstructing vessel. Some native troops in one of them got out on the bank and began to bathe, or wandered about looking for fuel to cook their evening meal, and towards evening a string of Arab women and children, from some remote village, came along with eggs and melons and pumpkins. In the meanwhile a kind of activity prevailed in the region of the obstruction. A tug boat appeared and ropes were stretched out to posts on the land and the water was being churned to foam by the paddles. It was said that General Y was on a convoy ahead, and General X, who was going up to replace him, was in a convoy behind us. It was possible to count seven convoys in all, and smoke columns were still rising in the south. It was not until darkness fell that the ship was pulled off, and it was too late to move on that night. So we ate our bully beef and settled down for the night. Once more our sensations were indescribable. The sand-flies were like a million little red-hot wires.

There was not a breath of air and the mules screamed and fought and gasped alongside. One hundred and fifty people packed on a small deck, round a funnel that is still burning hot, make a poor job of sleeping in such a climate.

It was the devout prayer of everyone that we might reach our destination next day and get off the ship and away from those mules. That was not to be. We reached Amara in the darkness of the evening, and anch.o.r.ed near the Rawal Pindi Hospital. Owing to a case of cholera that had developed that day on the starboard barge, we were put in quarantine, so it was necessary to unpack one's kit again and shake down for the night on deck. One of the most refractory mules kicked itself loose of its moorings and fell into the stream in the darkness. Several men risked their lives in rescuing it. One would have thought, seeing that it had been the noisiest and most vicious brute on the barge, that drowning was scarcely good enough for it. And what is a wife to think of her husband when she is told that he was drowned while gallantly attempting to rescue from the swift current of the Tigris a mule that could swim far better than he could? As no one was drowned, perhaps it is unnecessary to ask the question.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARAB BELUM ON TIGRIS.]

VIII

AMARA

We reached Amara about the middle of July. At that time there was practically nothing happening at the front, but the sickness was great.

Amara, by reason of its openness, was a little fresher than Basra, but the temperature was high. It was 125 degrees in the shade on the day following our arrival.

The white low houses line along the river front on the left bank in a more orderly fashion than at Ashar. A bridge of boats connects the two banks. This bridge, which existed before the war, swings open from the centre and lets traffic through. On the right bank a few houses were scattered amongst thick groves of palms. There is somehow a more oriental spirit at Amara than at Basra. The _belums_ are more fantastically curved, the mystery of the town more apparent, and the narrow-domed bazaar, full of dim light and vivid colour, is permeated with the spirit of the Arabian Nights. There are some cunning craftsmen in the bazaar, particularly the silver-and gold-smiths, who make exquisite inlaid work. They do this after the manner of true artists, in that they work seemingly more by a process of thought and feeling rather than with the aid of tools. For they sit on the ground with a bowl of water, a small charcoal fire, a strip of metal, and a deeply preoccupied look, and after a time the article is finished. The overlaying of silver by antimony is their particular craft. Owing to the orders they received, they soon began to charge prohibitive prices. At certain times it was possible to get egret feathers, and also astrachan--the skin of unborn lambs--in the bazaar. The old copper vessels that were sold in many of the shops were sometimes very beautiful.

The suspected cholera case proving doubtful, we were put out of quarantine next morning, and moved across the river to the site of the hospital which we were to take over. It lay round a bend in the river on the right bank above and well out of the town. To the north lay the river, to the south the desert. A large number of mud and reed huts, in long rows, stood on the plain, covering an area of about a quarter of a square mile. These were the wards. There was a sense of s.p.a.ce that was refreshing after the cramped and littered area of the clearing at Basra, with its surrounding marshes and palm groves. We officers were put in tents in a small palm and pomegranate thicket at the periphery of the hospital area. The nursing quarters were at the other end, nearer the town. These quarters were built of wood and low roofed, with a layer of mud on the top. The nurses were in many cases volunteers who had seen service in Mudros, and these had just got the Royal Red Cross Medal, equivalent to a D.S.O. Very pleased they were with it, and greatly they deserved it. Their quarters were divided by thin mud walls into narrow compartments, and they found the lack of sound-deadening properties trying. But that is a universal experience of this war--the continual overhearing of conversation, the necessity for being in a crowd, and the lack of moments of privacy. They slept out of doors, on the river front, in a wired enclosure, patrolled by a sentry. The sentries were a peculiarity of the place which distinguished it from Basra. For in that region looters came in from the desert, some from the villages and some from camps of nomad Arabs. Their great ambition was firearms. The second ambition seemed to be clothing. There must exist somewhere a complete colony of khaki-clad Arabs, of all ranks up to Staff officers, probably in some district Persia-way, in the Pashtikhu hills. They were extremely daring. They would come in at night on horseback, leave their horses out on the plain and stroll in under the sentries' noses. For many months a spirit of compromise was shown in the matter, but eventually a stronger line was taken and the Sheiks of the surrounding country were put under the penalty of a heavy fine if looting continued. Occasionally men were stabbed by these marauders, who carried long, curved knives, but the main object was looting and not killing.

It was a singular spot to find a large number of women, away up in the heart of that elemental country of fire and water and earth. But they remained untouched by any kind of pessimism, nor were they greatly interested in the campaign as a military affair. All their interest was in their work. They were a wonderful stimulus. Where a man unwittingly tended to let things slide they exhorted and energised. In details, they did not seem to show that gradual decadence that creeps imperceptibly over men when isolated and overworked. It is perhaps so subtle that it takes a woman to detect it. Women may be theoretically unscientific, but they are essential to the maintenance of the scientific spirit and practice. Naturally they suffered sickness, but not nearly so much as one might have expected; for discipline plays a tremendous part in the avoidance of sickness. It is not so much a physical factor as a moral one. It seemed possible to induce a practice of going sick very easily, and in that climate it was only necessary to permit some inner act of surrender that escapes simple definition, but resembles the lowering of a dog's tail, and one became a sick man. It was not exactly malingering.

Beyond the western boundary of the hospital, behind the officers' tents, lay an oriental garden. An oil engine and pumps at the river's edge supplied the water to it through channels. The machine was worked by an Arab who, as far as one could tell, prayed to it. In the garden, full of moist heat and splashes of colour, lived a colony of jackals, those extraordinary spirits of h.e.l.l, whose wailing and hysteria are so amazing. I do not know how Darwin would have accounted for the particular note they strike. It is probably on a level with the roaring of the lion, in that it is designed to terrify. But the jackal does not terrify by such obvious methods as the lion. He plays on your eerie, ghostly, superst.i.tious side. He brings up into the imagination the malignity and hopelessness of the d.a.m.ned. He seems to people the night with wailing horrors. To a man dying of thirst in the desert, the jackal must just give the final touch of despair that makes death and nothingness seem best. It must be strange to die, surrounded by jackals at their chthonian litanies.

Shortly after we reached Amara, the news came that Sir Victor Horsley had died. It was in a season of extreme heat, when death comes suddenly in many forms. Eighty officers attended his funeral in columns of fours, the most junior in front. He had a coffin. Wood was precious in Amara. There were some other bodies sewn up in army blankets. A long, dusty march of a mile to the cemetery, a shallow earth grave, a brief ceremony, the same for all, and a weary tramp home in the sun--that was the final picture. There is one detail to add, and that is the lovely playing of the "Last Post" over the graves. In him we lost the finest surgeon in Mesopotamia.

For many days after this we moved about as it were in a vast furnace.

The nights were broken by sand-flies. Personally, I found the only way of keeping them out was to wear socks on the feet and hands, and smear the face and neck with some kind of ointment, on which their feet slip, so that they cannot find a purchase when in the act of driving their sucking apparatus into the skin. In the morning, what with the sweat and the grease, and the tropical exhaustion, one looked like few things on earth. Oil of citronella is only of temporary use; paraffin and creosote are of little good. b.u.t.ter muslin nets are out of the question, as the heat is stifling under them. The burning of aromatic or pungent compounds is useless, and as for killing them, one might lie awake all night, scuffling and dabbing and slapping at the almost invisible forms without gaining the slightest benefit. In the day time they hide in cracks in the ground, under bits of matting or anywhere out of the sun.

Sand-fly fever is a malady that begins like influenza. One aches all over. All the side of life that is enjoyment fades away. It is impossible to smoke, or eat, or drink, or read, or talk. In Malta, where it is indigenous, a convalescence of three weeks is allowed. It was not possible to allow that in Amara. The fever lasts two or three days, coming down in two main stages. The use of opium is recommended. As regards the use of opium in Mesopotamia, it was possible to gain the idea from actual experience that it was a most valuable drug during the hot season. If limited to three drugs and no more, for work in that country, I should prefer opium, Epsom salts and quinine. The quinine that we obtained through official channels was in the form of pink tablets and came from the cinchona plantations at Darjeeling that are run by the Indian Government. These tablets are coloured pink to prevent fraudulent selling, for they are handed out to natives in malarial districts in large quant.i.ties, free of charge, and natives are not great believers in medicine. The tablets are extremely hard and insoluble.

Prolonged exposure to the action of dilute mineral acids produces no effect on them. We had, for the men, quinine parades, when five grains were swallowed as a prophylactic against malaria every day. They were amusing affairs to watch--serried ranks with water-bottles, standing to attention while the sergeant dispenser walked with proper dignity down the line handing a pink tablet to each man, who gulped it spasmodically, took a draught of water and returned to attention. It reminded one of a religious ceremony, of some strange communion service. In giving the quinine in large doses it was essential to dissolve it, if any effect was aimed at. Even then it rarely produced symptoms of quinine poisoning. The home preparations were more satisfactory to use. As regards opium, it was useful, apart from sand-fly fever, in those frayed, sleepless states of mind that prolonged heat induces. The English idea that a dose of morphia or laudanum at once induces the opium habit, though very safe, is not altogether sound. Other hypnotics were usually not strong enough to give long sleep; but here, to produce an effect with hypnotics, it seemed necessary to double the dose. This may have had something to do with some deterioration in drugs caused by the big demands of the war. But I do not think it was the only explanation. Of course, for those who dreaded the use of opium, and preferred chloral or bromide, it was only necessary to glance into the tents where the Chinese carpenters slept at night. There one saw rows of comatose figures and if you cared to lift the lips from the gums of those sleepers, you would usually see a little sticky ma.s.s of opium wedged in between the teeth. That was one way of solving the problem of sand-flies and heat at night and no doubt an admirable ill.u.s.tration of the dangers of the drug. But it is possible to find ill.u.s.trations for everything.

At Amara, paratyphoid A was commonest in the troops coming down from the Front. It was not a very grave disorder, but sometimes, particularly when complicated by other factors, it was fatal. It must be remembered that many patients reached us as emaciated skeletons, in the last stage of exhaustion. Special wards were set aside for typhoid cases. Dysentery was also increasing, and wards were reserved for these cases. It was mainly what is called bacillary dysentery, for which Epsom salts is one of the best remedies. All typhoid cases, as soon as convalescent, were sent to India. That was because they often carry the germs in the intestinal tract a long time after recovery and therefore may become a source of infection. They spent on an average three months in India before returning for service. There was no place in Mesopotamia where convalescent patients could be sent with a reasonable prospect of gaining full health. About twenty miles beyond Aligarbi lie the Pashtikhu hills and there in those high alt.i.tudes a big military sanatorium might have been established. This would have saved endless transport difficulties, if a light railway had been constructed. But no doubt the military situation rendered the carrying out of such an idea impracticable. Heat-stroke in Amara was common enough, but it did not seem so fatal as at Basra. This, perhaps, was due to the air, which was drier and fresher. The supply of ice was also more adequate.

We had some unlucky spells. It is a curious thing that luck seems to enter into the matter of death rates. I mean that sometimes for two or three days at a time cases seemed to go wrong and die, on the slightest provocation. At other times, when the luck changed, the most hopeless cases would clear up. It was the same way in the operating theatre. It is the same way with everything, whether it be card playing, or business, or war, or love, or thinking, or sport. There are phases in which something seems to overshadow the scene. The direction of the current changes. For a time everything seems to go wrong. The machinery behind life, that is always helping you on, stops and reverses. And there is another aspect of the same thing which doctors sometimes see in a remarkable way. It is the occurrence of similar kinds of cases at the same time. For part of it there is the scientific explanation of infection by germs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EZRA'S TOMB.]

The Shimal was now blowing from the north-west, bringing the dust in from the desert. At times it produced a strange effect. The atmosphere became dun-coloured, thickened at places into opaque and rushing veils.

Under the pressure of the strong, hot wind the big _mahallas_, with their white sails in tense curves, careered down the river with only a streak of white foam under the prow to show they were not suspended in the air. The further bank, pale and unsubstantial, was outlined fitfully in the hurrying gloom. A kind of lividity spread over the picture, bleaching it of all colour. Everything in the wards became silted over with fine powder, and the big yellow and black hornets and the long-legged wasps that seem to have two or three pendant abdomens and are the hue of Burgundy marigolds, came hurtling through the unglazed windows to crawl, half-stunned, about the mud floors. How the ward Sisters anathematised these days! The storms provoked a feeling not unlike east winds at home. They brought out small aches and pains and one got irritable. A thunderstorm would have cleared away the effect, but the sky remained cloudless and brazen.

IX