The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad Part 3

One evening stands out by its beauty and unconscious greatness. It happened thus. Remember how young many were, and it is small wonder if depression came at times. After the trying trench warfare before Kut had come the rush to Baghdad, a period of strain and tremendous effort.

We had been fighting and marching continuously for 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 fought level with us, and day by day those sullen lines were strengthening. We had barely six thousand men to throw at them. So one night talk became discontented, and some one wished some reinforcement could be with us from the immense armies which our papers bragged were being trained at home. Then another--G.A.

or Fowke--replied:

Oh that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work to-day!

Swiftly that immortal scene, of the English spirit facing great odds invincibly, followed, pa.s.sage racing after pa.s.sage.

G.o.d's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more!

It was an electric spark. I never heard poetry, or literature at all, mentioned save this once. But all were eager and speaking, for all had read _Henry V._ When the lines were reached,

Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart,

laughter cleansed every spirit present of fear, and the shadow of fear, misgiving. Nothing less grimly humorous than the notion of such an offer 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, could have made so complete a purgation. Comedy took upon herself the office of Tragedy. When voices could rise above the laughter, they went on:

His pa.s.sport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse.

'Movement-orders down the line and ration-indents,' was the emendation.

We would not die in that man's company That fears his fellowship to die with us.

And Fowke's voice towered to an ecstasy of sarcasm as he a.s.sured his unbelieving hearers that

Gentlemen in England, now abed, Shall think themselves accursed they were not here.

As a Turkish attack was considered possible, every morning we stood-to for that 'witching hour,' immediately before dawn, which is usually selected for 'hopping the parapet.' The brigades reconnoitred, and exchanged shots with enemy pickets. Fritz came, of course. Then the 19th Brigade went on, and took up a position two miles in front behind the Median Wall, of which more hereafter. The battle preparations went busily forward.

Our camp was strewn with pebbles, an old shingle-beach, for we were on the ancient edges of the sea, before the river had built up Iraq.[6]

The stones at Beled had been the first signs that we were off the alluvial plain. South of Baghdad it was reported that a reward of 100 would be paid (by whom I never heard) to the finder of any sort of stone. And now, after our long sojourn in stoneless lands, these pebbles were a temptation, and there was a deal of surrept.i.tious 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 parade of the troops before breakfast, and could inquire genially, 'Have you had a good stand-to?' Fowke asked the wastes in a soaring falsetto, 'Why do the heathen rage?' And he was returned question for question, with 'Why do you keep laughing at me with those big, blue eyes?' Then the camp would rock with song as we fell to shaving and, after, breakfast.

The superst.i.tions which old experience had justified waxed strong as the days went by. When McInerney marked out a quoits-court and Charles Copeman dug a mess--these officers found their amus.e.m.e.nt in singular ways, and would have been hurt had any one attempted 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 sweating blood than the regiments asked each other, 'Have you dug a mess yet? Has the padre put in services?' Two of us went down with colitis--possibly the Sumaikchah waters were not even yet done with--and Fowke, as they left us, profaned Royal Harry's words:

He which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart.

For all this, Shakespeare had a share in the storming of Istabulat, as will be seen; as the ghost of Bishop Adhemar, who had died at Antioch, was said to have gone before G.o.dfrey of Boulogne's scaling-ladder when the Crusaders took Jerusalem. ('Thank G.o.d!' said they. 'He was not frustrate of his vows.')

On Friday rain came, and Charles Copeman, who had, as already indicated, a pa.s.sion for digging--caught, perchance, in boyhood from his father's s.e.xton--dug a funk-hole from the enemy sh.e.l.l-fire.

McInerney helped him. Now this was not an ordinary funk-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-G.o.ds laughed in their bitter little minds as they saw. Among the rest, Sowter and I dug a hole, dug deeply, widely, with much laughter and joyfulness. And to us, as the afternoon wore towards evening, came the C.O., and, after watching us for a few minutes, told us that we marched in an hour.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] 'Two and a Half Years in Mesopotamia,' _Blackwood's Magazine_ March, 1916.

[6] South Mesopotamia; north is Jezireh.

III

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ISTABULAT

These men, the steadfast among spears, dying, won for themselves a crown of glory that fadeth not away.--_Greek Anthology._

In the quiet light we crossed the railway, and moved up to the Median Wall, in all a march of perhaps a mile and a half. This wall was old in Xenophon's time[7]; and along its northern side his army moved, watching, and watched by, the troops of Tissaphernes, moving parallel on the other side. He speaks of it as twenty feet in breadth and one hundred feet in height. Once it was the border between a.s.syria 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 hid our movements as we crossed the plain before it. The Turk was shrapnelling the wall and its approaches, endeavouring to reply to some howitzers. These last we left on our right. As I happened to be the nearest officer, the major came up and asked me that the Leicestershires should move more to the left, in case any of his guns had a premature.

We fell silently into our places behind the wall. The artillery behind us were favoured with a certain amount of zizyph-scrub; but the wall furnished no cover but itself. Fowke, who at all times indulged in a great deal of gloomy prognostication, 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 a.s.sume that the cavalry, as well as all Higher Commands, were capable of every stupidity and of nothing but stupidity--would cut up B Company, his own, who had a certain unattractive duty a.s.signed to them on the extreme left. He also told us that the Median Wall would be sh.e.l.led to blazes, which seemed pretty probable.

The clearest figure in my memory for this hurried, stealthy evening is J.Y. Copeman, cousin of Charles. 'J.Y.'--for he never carried any graver appellation than mere initials--once a rising lawyer in Vancouver, was now our quartermaster. The gayest and most debonair figure in the division, known and popular everywhere, he was also an incredibly efficient quartermaster. Possibly the same qualities make for success in law and quartermastering. His gaiety was the mask for a most unsleeping energy and very great ability. He was once dubbed, by 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 J.Y. and Reid are my friends. With his ability J.Y. had an indomitable resolve, which made him refuse to go sick. He carried on through months of constant ill-health; sometimes he was borne on one of his own ration-carts, too unwell to walk or ride. He fed alone, but had a familiar, in the shape of a ridiculously clever and most selfish cat.

And it is J.Y. whom I remember on this eve of Istabulat--J.Y.

marshalling his carts swiftly and silently up to the wall when darkness had fallen, and J.Y. next morning scurrying them away before dawn.

A Company went on picket, B and C patrolled before our lines, D lay behind the wall. Fires were kept low. J.Y. got our blankets up to us, and we had some sleep.

Next day, the 21st, all kit was packed and on the carts by 4 a.m.

Breakfast was at 3.30; hot tea and a slice of bacon. The second line fell back. Then we clung to the wall, and waited; all but Fowke. That warrior moved off to the left with part of B Company, all carrying spades. Their task was to come out of the shelter of the wall as soon as 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 us would be sh.e.l.led into annihilation when Johnny opened on the famous wall. 'He's bound to have the exact range, for it's such a landmark. Besides, he's got German archaeologists with him, who've dug here for years and years; they know every brick. And he's been practising on it for weeks. You saw how he had it last night when we came up.'

The two actions which it is customary to call the two Battles of Istabulat were fought in positions some miles apart. The t.i.tle of Istabulat, or of Dujail River, may fitly be reserved for the first action. The action of the 22nd may then be known as that 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. The enemy were trying a new bowler, Shefket Pasha being in command, vice Kazim Karabekir Bey, who had resigned from command of their Eighteenth Corps just before Baghdad fell. We should not have supposed that this made any difference, even had we known.

The Istabulat battle has been described in print,[9] though inadequately and, in one important respect, most unfairly. That unfairness I shall correct in the next chapter. But for this first action I do not propose to do more than give an outline of the work of the two Brigades engaged, and an account of our own part in reserve.

The enemy's position was of immense strength. Old mounds made an upraised plateau, through which the Dujail Ca.n.a.l ran swiftly between steep and lofty banks. The 19th and 21st Brigades attacked in converging columns, the first thrusting right in, the second coming with an arm sweep round. Thus, both frontal and flank attacks were provided. The enemy's position was so strong, his redoubts so lofty, and the whole formidable terrain had been so entrenched and wired round that I do not believe 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 the morale of the troops against him weakened by repeated blows. In the Jebel Hamrin his calculation failed. But at Istabulat it succeeded. But, had the Turk been as he was in Sannaiyat days, two months back, we should have had a week of dreadful fighting instead of one b.l.o.o.d.y day. Holding Istabulat heights was a force estimated at seven thousand four hundred infantry and five hundred sabres, with thirty-two guns. This force, in its perfect position, we attacked with two weak brigades.

The carts had scuttled away; J.Y. and his cat had stalked off through the dimness. We were shivering behind the wall. At 5 a.m. the bombardment opened. From five to seven we brought every gun to bear on the enemy. Istabulat, like the last of Sannaiyat's five battles, was an artillery battle, in the sense that the infantry, less strongly and splendidly 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 sight, the smoke rushing out with each discharge, and then swaying back with the gun's recoil. But the guns were rarely stationary long, and we soon had the unwonted experience of finding ourselves well behind our own artillery. Finally, in places our batteries were firing at almost point-blank range; the enemy was simply blasted out of his trenches.

Fowke's dust-up drew a few sh.e.l.ls; and the Turk strengthened his right to meet this new threat. But presently Fritz came over, very low and very impudent. He reported that it was only Fowke, and sheered off with a contempt quite visible from the ground. He was so low that we fired at him with rifles, vainly; then he went, and was swooping down on the Seaforths' attack and machine-gunning it.

The 19th Brigade got their first objectives with very few casualties.

But then the enemy poured a murderous fire on to them from every sort of weapon. The 21st Brigade all but accomplished their impossible task.

At a critical point a terrible misfortune occurred. 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; and a large body of Turks, who were wavering on the edge of surrender, fell back instead. The Bhopals never recovered from this disaster. The skeleton of a battalion which survived the fight was sent down the line, and its place taken by the 1st Guides from India.

Two other battalions of the 21st Brigade, the 2nd Black Watch and the 1/8th Gurkhas, crossed a plain bare of cover. They crossed at terrible cost, and scaled the all but 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 forces held, though the whole enemy front line was ours and our teeth were fixed deeply into the position. The Black Watch had lost all four company commanders, killed.

It is not possible to convey to paper the heroism and agony of this day. Mackenzie, of the Seaforths, who won the D.S.O. two months previously at Sannaiyat for valour which in any previous war would have won the V.C., was shot dead as he was offering 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 Black Watch private captured nine Turks and brought them in, himself supporting the last of the file, who was wounded. A machine-gunner, isolated when his comrades were killed or driven back, although wounded, worked his gun till we advanced again.

The artillery, as was inevitable from the role they filled, suffered.

Major the Earl of Suffolk, commanding B/56th Battery, was killed by shrapnel through the heart. He was a popular, una.s.suming man.

Lieutenant Stewart, of the same battery, was wounded. Colonel Cotter, commanding the 56th Brigade, R.F.A., was. .h.i.t in the forehead.

Lieutenant Hart's wrist was shot through. The 14th Battery had two hundred 5.9's burst round them; yet they brought up their team, one by one, and got the guns away, losing men, but no animals.

Meanwhile from the Median Wall the 'Tigers'[10] watched the fight. One could not help being reminded of the grand-stand at a football match.

Sitting on the further side and below the crest, the officers watched the Indians pushing over the plain steadily through heavy sh.e.l.ling. We saw dreadful pounding away on our left, where 5.9's plunged and burst among the trenches the Seaforths were holding. Yet even a battle grows monotonous; so in the afternoon we went down to 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 were spattered with pebbles. Thorpe, next to me, got a piece of H.E. in his coat. But we escaped a direct hit.

One sh.e.l.l pa.s.sing overhead skimmed the ridge and burst on the other side, scattering Colonel Knatchbull's kit and smashing his fishing-rod.

It killed a groom and wounded three other men, and wounded three horses so badly that they all had to be killed. It is always men on duty, holding horses or otherwise unable to escape, who pay for the curiosity of the idle.

Firing continued very heavy till dusk. In the evening I buried the man killed by the sh.e.l.l, and then went back to find the clearing-station.

Part of a padre's recognized function is to cull and purvey news. And I had many friends engaged. A couple of miles back I found the 7th British Field Ambulance, to which my own chief, A.E. Knott, was attached. The sight here was far more nerve-racking than a battlefield.

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 from the days of Agincourt or Creci, that Death, scarring so many, but forbearing to exact their uttermost, should strike down so great a name and one that is written on so many pages of our history. I knew well how many would mourn the man. I asked Knott the question of questions, 'What are our casualties?' These, one knew, must be heavy; but I was appalled by his reply, 'Sixteen hundred to one o'clock.'