The Secrets of a Kuttite Part 20

_May 7th._--I am lying in a very shaky condition in the overcrowded officers' hospital in Kut. This is due to temperature of a 104 from malaria, also dysentery, and mild enteritis, apart from my bruise. Many ages seem to have pa.s.sed since my last entry. We had understood that the Turks would make a formal entrance into Kut. Instead, some time after lunch, I heard wild yelling in the streets. Arabs armed with dozens of crescent flags danced and cheered some Turkish hors.e.m.e.n that rode along a street known as Regent Street.

Then, suddenly, wild yells and scuffling came from the wall upstairs on our tiny roof, and over this wall separating the adjoining houses I saw crowds of wild bearded men in the most unkempt condition conceivable, armed with rifles and bayonets. With loud shouts and cries they pa.s.sed over our kit, yelling out "Kirich" (sword). One seized mine and tried to open my kit. They were very excited. At the same moment our front door was knocked in, and Square-Peg's effects were similarly wanted. Looting of the mess and of our mess servants followed. They seized the bombardier's coat which was hanging on a nail. He objected, and got hammered with rifle b.u.t.ts until I intervened. It looked like a general scuffle. I went outside and found a diminutive officer who spoke German, was extraordinarily polite, and evidently much elated. He came in and restored some small degree of order by requesting his men, in fact he pleaded with them rather than ordered them. I took my sword from the Turkish soldier and handed it to this officer. At this he was most moved. Square-Peg went into the hospital near by for orders. There, also, it seemed events had taken unexpected turns, and looting had begun. We were ordered in at once.

While he was away I had kept the officer with me, and we went about the street stopping similar scenes. When we returned a few moments later we heard our bombardier had been unmercifully beaten by Turks for trying to retain his boots. The Turkish officers did not mind much when this was reported. We got some sepoys to carry our kit, or rather the remains of it, and as I left the tiny courtyard the last thing I saw was poor Don Juan's black tail hanging on a nail on the post in the sun to dry. I wanted it for a souvenir of a trusty friend, but there was not a second to be lost. In the street the Arabs were all hostile to us. Turks full of loot raced up and down. We met officers whose rings had been taken and pockets emptied.

The padre's wrist-watch and personal effects were taken.

In hospital, Square-Peg and I lay on our valises on the ground of the tiny yard, as the hospital was overflowing and officers kept still arriving. Sir Charles Melliss came shortly after.

He had a bed beside mine near the doorway, and I thought looked very ill. His little white dog was beside him and all around him were sick and dying officers. Nothing I can say could measure my grat.i.tude and admiration for Major Aylen, the C.O. officers' hospital. While living on the hardest and most severe of diet himself he has gone from minute to minute with only one thought--for his charge. He is everywhere, and in adversity his industry, patience, and hopefulness are all we have left. If I am to be fortunate enough to survive this ordeal I shall have him to thank.

Tudway turned up as arranged for the evening meal.

We pooled our flour and had _Chuppatis_, one-fourth of which we gave to Holmes my orderly. We lay on blankets on the ground and smoked the lime-leaves, and Tudway said good-bye.

After leaving us in the morning he had returned to the _Sumana_ to find a party of Turks had been sent over to seize her, taking everything on board, including the whole of his kit. His men had been put off. Remonstrations were useless. At the last moment the G.O.C. was not permitted to go downstream, and so we lost the _Sumana_ intact to the Turks. Naturally her able and devoted commander felt sore about this. He announced his intention to go upstream with some other brigade, and I said good-bye to a very pleasant companion.

The hospital had already been looted several times by Turks. The night was hot. One heard the moans of the enteritis patients and the tramp of troops all night long.

In the early dawn some Turkish troops entered past the sentry, whom they ignored. I had slept in my boots and hidden all my loose kit, but they commenced to seize what they wanted from others. One took General Melliss' boots from under his bed and another his shoes, and made off, notwithstanding the general's loud protests. Sir Charles jumped out of the bed and followed them. A scuffle ensued in the street. The general reappeared, and put on his cap and jacket showing his rank and decorations, and then returned to the fray. The soldier, however, seized him by the throat, and the general, in a highly indignant frame of mind, and looking very dishevelled, returned and got leave to go to General Townshend, which he did in his socks. While he was gone more Turks swarmed in and robbed patients who were too ill to move, taking shoes, razors, mirrors, knives, and anything they fancied.

Our C.O., Major Aylen, in a tremendous rage seized the sentry and pointed to his red-cross badge and the flag of the hospital. Although his not knowing a word of the language made things worse, there could be no mistaking his meaning as he pointed to the looters and our red-cross flag. A group of Turks, some junior officers, stood looking on, merely interested spectators. Half an hour later a Turkish officer appeared from headquarters in a frenzy. He had evidently been severely reprimanded. He kicked the sentry and struck him repeatedly in the face. After this for some hours looting was less frequent, but later recommenced.

Square-Peg's interpreter was next found on the roof of the hospital. He was kicked down head foremost, and dragged off to be hung. This was the unfortunate man who had brought us vegetables and supplies from the Arabs. Officially interpreter to Square-Peg who was fire-brigade officer, he had asked us about escaping, and hoped to disguise himself as a Eurasian from the Volunteer Battery. A Baghdadi by nationality he said he had lived in Calcutta. He had been with our force, and was no doubt betrayed by the pro-Turk Arabs in the town. Sa.s.soon, our other interpreter and a well-known figure in Kut, has also, I hear, been hung with his legs broken, for he had been so thrashed and tortured that he jumped off the roof to kill himself. The friendly Sheik and family have met a similar fate. One now sees the Turk at close quarters.

To crown all, the disastrous news has come that, despite most elaborate a.s.surances to the effect that the garrison would be conveyed upstream in barges, the men have been ordered to march to Baghdad with kit through this fearful heat. They have no rations except the coa.r.s.e black Turkish biscuit. Officers have not been allowed to accompany them and their guards are mostly Kurdish rank and file, the most barbarous savages in this country. In some cases there are no Turkish officers, but merely Turkish sergeants or privates in charge of our prisoners. We are all many stages past indignation.

The Turkish promises at the surrender were too much relied upon. General Townshend, we hear, has already left for Constantinople by a special steamer and car, and is permitted to travel _en prince_. I can believe already the prophecy of the reverend father that surrender would mean a trail of dead. Most of our troops left Kut on the 29th or next day for Shamrun, ten miles up-river. We had eaten our last rations on the 28th, and supplies were expected immediately from our captors. However, they sent us nothing for four days, and only black biscuit then. Everything must be bought from the Arab bazar--after the Turks have taken what they want. Some stores and letters have gone upstream from down below, but so far nothing has arrived for the lonely hospital here filled with wounded and sick and dying. Nothing, except for a few gifts Major Aylen brought us from the hospital ship and a few cigars from the padre.

_May 9th._--The Turkish authorities seem determined not to send any British officer back if it can be helped. More than one who was rejected by the Turkish medical officer as not sufficiently ill to warrant exchange has succ.u.mbed. A poor fellow in the next ward who has been groaning for days died yesterday. One is not likely to recover on Turkish biscuits at this stage. I was ordered by Colonel Brown-Mason, our P.M.O., to translate for the Turkish doctor who knew German and a little French. This I did for several officers, but we were all rejected, although about six of us had been told we were certain to go. Four were selected in all, by no means the worse of the cases, while men with legs in splints, smashed thighs, and shot backs, one of whom could not sit or stand up, were rejected. Kut was deserted and lone. General Aylmer, we heard, had retired to Amarah.

We expect to leave every day for Baghdad. How the men have fared we don't know, but from time to time terrible stories reach us.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL TOWNSHEND A PRISONER, WITH KHALIL PACHA, OUR CAPTOR (RIGHT), AT BAGHDAD AFTER KUT FELL]

_June 1st._--I am writing from Baghdad in what is supposed to be the hospital, but is actually an empty house commanded by a Turkish dug-out cavalry captain, quite a well-meaning old fellow, but not much use to any one sick, and very strict.

After many false alarms we were moved from Kut in a hospital boat, which proved to be the ill-fated _Julna_. I was carried on a stretcher which the Turks tried to loot as I pa.s.sed. On my way I saw looting on every side. Our Indian troops lay like rows of skeletons. Their food and boots were taken from them by their own guards. A few cases of looting have been admonished, but no general measures taken. On more than one occasion the officer whose aid was requested merely asked the Turkish Askar to return the loot. Our kit was searched, and I lost my tiny camera and some excellent photos taken of Aziziyeh on the evacuation, showing our army retreating and the Turkish army advancing. Other photos were of the field artillery in action at Ummal Tabul, and some excellent ones of interesting corners in Kut, dug-outs, battery positions, shelters, and our inner life below--rare photos that, unfortunately, can never be replaced.

We were packed on the deck of the _Julna_, which had been captured practically intact, one engine working perfectly and one screw. Every yard had a bullet hole. We called this the Death Ship, as on it were all the remnants of the sick.

Men were dying as they came aboard. Brigadier-General G. B. Smith was senior officer, but Colonel Brown-Mason, P.M.O., was in charge. We carried a few sentries. As we moved upstream past the palm grove, scene after scene in a tussle of five months became again vivid. Then the Turkish crescent, floating from the Serai in place of our Union Jack, was shut out from our eyes by the bend of the river, and we realized a little more that Kut and the siege were back history, and we prisoners in a relentless captivity....

PART II THE TREK. KASTAMUNI

CHAPTER VII

THE THIRD CAPTIVITY--BAGHDAD--THE DESERT MARCH OF THE SICK COLUMN--WE REACH RAS-EL-AIN

The voyage was a sad and long one. There was mildewed and rotten bread that no one could touch.

It was worse than the biscuits. Other things like eggs and milk we had to buy at huge prices. At Baghailah Arabs came within a yard of our boat, and danced in ecstasy, gibing at us, and drawing their fingers across their throats indicating what they thought we deserved or were in for.

That did not trouble us much. But we tingled with anger and shame at seeing on the other bank a sad little column of British troops who had marched up from Kut being driven by a wild crowd of Kurdish hors.e.m.e.n who brandished sticks and what looked like whips. The eyes of our men stared from white faces drawn long with the suffering of a too tardy death, and they held out their hands towards our boat. As they dragged one foot after another some fell, and those with the rearguard came in for blows from cudgels and sticks. I saw one Kurd strike a British soldier who was limping along.

He reeled under the blows. We shouted out, and if ever men felt like murdering their guards we did. But that procedure was useless. We prevailed on the Turk in charge of our boat to stop and take some of the men. It seemed that half their number were a few miles ahead and the rest strewed the road to Kut. Some have been thrashed to death, some killed, and some robbed of their kit and left to be tortured by the Arabs.

I have been told by a sergeant that he saw one of the _Sumana_ crew killed instantly by a blow on the head from a stirrup iron swung by a Kurdish horseman for stopping by a road a few seconds. Men were dying of cholera and dysentery and often fell out from sheer weakness. But the remorseless Kurd, worse than the Turk, knows no excuse.

Every now and then we stopped to bury our dead. The awful disease, enteritis, a form of cholera, attacked the whole garrison with greater vigour after Kut fell, and the change of food no doubt helped this. It showed also that before surrender the garrison had drawn on its last ounce of strength.

A man turned green and foamed at the mouth. His eyes became sightless and the most terrible moans conceivable came from his inner being, a wild, terrible retching sort of vomiting moan. They died, one and all, with terrible suddenness.

One night several Indians were missing. Others reported that these have fallen overboard or jumped overboard to end their wretchedness. But more than one was probably trying to escape. Some officers played bridge and one or two chess.

In a cot close by the wasted form of a well-known major still balanced between life and death. He was a big man, but nevertheless now weighs less than a child of ten.

Then Lieutenant Tozer succ.u.mbed to enteritis after a terrible ordeal of some days. The groans of this poor fellow as he lay unconscious hour after hour stirred one to the heart.

Periodical violent vomiting succeeded, and one morning the changed and drawn face was still and the tired eyes of a ghastly green were closed. We held a tiny service below Ctesiphon, Arabs waiting around and casting longing eyes on the blanket that enclosed him. But we buried him deep, and a sheik promised to see his grave was respected. General Smith, Major Thomson, and I attended his funeral. He was a very popular and good fellow. We realized as we stood around his grave that the remorseless hand of death overshadowed us too.

I think we were ready to fight the symptoms when they should appear and ready to die quietly if it had to be. We were still cheerful but a little quieter.

The voyage up to Baghdad lasted almost two weeks, owing to our running short of petrol. A tin of this turned up here and there and the ship simply went on until this was done.

Messages and countless orders were sent. We waited day after day moored to the bank some miles from Baghdad.

The death rate was increasing. This ship seems stricken.

Then we were told we had to walk to Baghdad. Very few of us could have got there. Fortunately our resistance prevailed, although had we been the rank and file I am convinced this order would have been carried out. Finally the engineer in charge of the boat set off on a donkey for Baghdad, his legs doing a dangling jig from side to side. We were now within ten miles or so of Baghdad and the green date palms of the city were before us. Some days afterwards the Mejidieh came and took us in tow, but we made very slow headway against the current and had to tie up once more at night.

Waterways worked by a horse running up and down on an incline and hauling over a wheel a rope attached to a large skin receptacle of water was the new irrigation scheme in this district. We pa.s.sed more palm groves within high walls, and tried to think of Haroun-al-Rashid. Then minarets and the domes of mosques appeared, and we swung into view of a fine river-front of buildings less dilapidated than we had seen for many months. In going round the corner against the rapid current we had to make about eight attempts, each time resulting in our getting swung round, and to avoid the sandbanks we had to return. a.s.sisted by men on sh.o.r.e with ropes we managed this at length and drew near the bank. It was about eight o'clock at night. We pa.s.sed within a few feet of crowds of fezzed figures on the verandah cafes that stood on piles in the river on the right bank. We heard their carousals, and I remember the red line of their flaming pipes as they cried together yelling and cheering in exultation.

Then we drew alongside the left bank near what we called the Water Tower. We were very hungry and ill, and alongside our dead on board many others were dying. The only visitors we had were disreputable Arabs and Turks who, as the night grew darker, swarmed on board and looted or thieved.

I define loot as open theft under threat of violence, by a captor from a captive.

In the morning we were subjected to more looting, and if one left one's kit a second it disappeared. Having to carry some of our kit as best we could, the rest was imperilled. I lost my haversack with all my knives and plates and razor and toilet kit and scanty supply of medicine like chlorodyne and quinine, of which the Turks had none. We were left in the sun in rows still without food and under the eyes of a curious crowd. We bought a few things from women hawkers.

This same major who lies here dying in this house in Baghdad was, so soon as we disembarked, left lying uncovered from the sun on a stretcher apparently unconscious and covered by thousands of flies, in fact, black with them. Now and then a wasted arm rose a few inches as if to brush them off but fell back inadequate to the task. One wondered if he were dead. Our protests as we realized he had been left there hours before we arrived were more than vehement.

One of our orderlies was finally allowed to remove him under cover from the fierce sun and to give him water. One saw British soldiers in a similar state dying of enteritis with a green ooze issuing from their lips, their mouths fixed open, in and out of which flies walked like bees entering and issuing from a hive. We were thankful to leave the ill-fated _Julna_, and personally I felt very grateful to Col. Brown-Mason, the P.M.O., our eternal friend Major Aylen (O.C. officers' hospital) and General G. B. Smith who, in the periods of long waiting, was most cheerful and encouraging.

We were split up into parties of sick in various hospitals so called. Two officers accompanied me and the sentry. We were told it was one minute's walk. Lieutenant Richardson, who had a shot back and could not stand for many seconds, had to walk. Lieutenant Forbes and I took his arms to a.s.sist him, and like three drunken men lurched forward through the bazaar. Poor Richardson collapsed several times on the way and finally fainted. It was at least a mile off, and our sentry lost his way. He was quite a decent fellow and did not object to some Armenian women who ran out with lemonade. We got a stretcher and at last arrived.

I am in a long room filled with bug and flea infested beds.

Twice a day at hours impossible to conjecture a Turk brings in youghut, a curdled milk, in a bucket which we found most uninviting but have since learnt to take, and some rice and pilaf. We have been here some days, and through talking German to the son of the old cavalry commandant, I have actually been allowed to get dressed and go to the adjacent shops to buy castor oil with some of my remaining coins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR PRISON, BAGHDAD, AS IMPROVED AFTER BRITISH OCCUPATION]

The American Consul has visited us. He is a kind man, and regrets that he has not any money left, as he gave all he could get to the first column, but he helped us with our luggage and sent along a few comforts such as tobacco and quinine. I heard that all the money at the fall of Kut was distributed among the garrison, and about three or four gold liras were to have reached me. They did not, however. I have only eighty piastres left, the balance of changing fifty rupees.

At night it is very hot and we sleep on the roofs, as does all Baghdad. Major Cotton has grown worse. On arrival here he was taken to some contagious disease hospital by mistake, and met no one who knew who he was or who could speak for him, days after he came here. His sufferings and mental anguish had been terrible away from us all. Major Aylen gave him a tablespoonful of champagne brought up secretly from the camp by another party. After this the poor fellow became more coherent and quite restful. Late that night he begged me to take him on to the balcony. Notwithstanding the pain of my back I managed to get him on the verandah.

He could not have weighed more than five stone. He said he was very grateful to feel the gentle movement of a breeze.

Next morning he was dead. Details of other similar cases I won't write about.

_May 26th._--_Cavalry Barracks, Baghdad._ I have been here some days, having decided that one could not hope to recover in an empty house, and so after a week or more there resolved on a supreme effort. We were sent to these Turkish barracks near the north gate on the _maidan_. It was no great distance but took much effort to get there. We left in the late afternoon, but owing to mistakes of the sentries, who took us to several wrong places, and to the fact that the Turkish sergeants at the barracks did not approve of our papers, we still wandered about after dark. He sent us back. This was repeated several times. We wandered round the place in the dark huddled up like sheep on the foul and stenching _maidan_ by our postas who awaited the Commandant.

Towards 10 p.m., in the dark we got up from the mud pool, which reeked of the dead horses therein and the rubbish of the city. Sick, hungry and cold we plodded up the steps to empty rooms, our means of existence being only what remained to us, that is to say, what the various parties had not looted. This meant two or three tins of milk, a little bad tea, and possibly raisins.

The chief columns of officers have already left for Mosul.