The Secrets of a Kuttite Part 4

Firing continued intermittently all day, and while on duty at the guns pending any renewal of the attack, I inspected the Christmas decorations of the men's dug-outs.

Above ground we saw merely the several sandbagged emplacements of the guns among the long gra.s.s and fruit trees, with six ominous muzzles peering through the revetments, and ammunition awaiting ready near the pits, the limbers drawn up snugly in rear for protection. Below, the communication trench ran into and through the dug-out of each gun detachment. The men had made those comfortable by letting into the wall ammunition boxes as receptacles for their smokes and spare kit. Rush curtains hung over the entrance, and matting purchased from the bazaar was on the ground. To-night decorations of palm-leaves were spread out gaily on all sides, and the artistic talent of the various subsections had competed in producing coloured texts: "G.o.d bless our Mud Home," "Merry Xmas and plenty of Turks,"

"Excursions to Kut on Boxing Day." One humorist had hung up a sock without a foot, and suspended a large bucket underneath to catch his gifts.

Our mess secretary, Captain Baylay, an officer of much resourcefulness in cooking and making shift, arranged an excellent plum-and-date duff for the men.

Several alarms were given through the night, and we stood by our guns hour after hour. However, nothing much happened, as the Turks had evidently had enough. Orders came for me to proceed to the serai, River-Front Artillery observation post, and to be ready to open fire, if necessary, at daybreak, and to have my telephone wire already laid. This entailed getting up early, so after an hour's rest without sleeping, I set off with my telephonist. We laid the wire accordingly, direct on to our own brigade headquarters, through the palm grove to the serai. Dawn found me among the sandbags and _debris_ of the dismantled heavy gunners'

observation post, looking around on the vast plain, seemingly quiet and deserted and divided by the great broad sheets of the Tigris. Gradually the darkness rolled away. The soft glow of approaching day climbed up in the eastern sky. Ray after ray stole across the water-dotted plain and revealed to me the coloured minaret of Kut silvered in the dawn, emerging from the night. The outlines of Kut followed, our defences, river craft, the palm groves, a few Arab goats grazing out on the Babylonian plain. Less than fifty miles from the scene of my Christmas morning once arose the Babylon of the Ancient world, and her chariots coursed all around this vicinity.

Babylon has gone. For thousands of years her memory has slept wrapt in the silence of oblivion except for the pa.s.sing of Arab or Turkish heel. Perhaps the war is to see this ancient land once again awakened by England to life and a new destiny.

Wild geese and duck were the first to stir. Buffalo far down stream followed. Then small dots began to move along the black lines. They were the heads of Turkish soldiery moving along their trenches.

Suddenly a rifle fusillade broke out, and bullets ripped into my sandbags, and some flew just over. I moved my telescope, for the light of the sun was on it. At the same time one, two, three, four small white fleecy puffs appeared away to the north-west. Immediately after one heard the report. Before the sh.e.l.ls had reached us my message was through to the brigade. "Target 'S' opened fire. Bearing so-and-so, new position." Our guns engaged them. Other targets opened, and the morning entertainment began. I was joined by the garrison gunners, Lieutenants Lowndes and Johnston, who took me down later to a wonderfully good breakfast.

I was relieved at lunch, and finding my way back to the battery slept a little before having to stand by for action again. In the evening I had permission to go into Kut to attend a Christmas dinner at the Sixth Divisional Ammunition Column given by "c.o.c.kie" R.F.A. It was dark when I left the battery, and rifle fire became lively. The communication trench, however, had progressed considerably, and one went most of the way under cover. I overtook some stretcher parties bearing wounded men from the first line. Arrived at the D.A.C. I found a most cheerful entertainment in progress. A long decorated table seating a dozen guests was full of good things. We commenced with a gin concoction of considerable potentialities. There was Tigre Creme, Turques Diablees, Nour Eddin Entree, Donkey a la lamb, Alphonse pouding. I sat between c.o.c.kie and Major Henley of Dwarka memory. The Navy, Indian Cavalry, Flying Corps, and the Oxford Regiment and West Kents were also represented. A limited supply of whisky was available, and with such a good fellowship we abandoned ourselves to a joyful evening. Anyone hearing our shouts of laughter would not have imagined we were in a siege.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF KUT DURING SIEGE]

From the pudding I drew a lucky coin, a brand new half rupee, which I am keeping as a mascot. A sweepstake on the date of relief was opened, Lowfield January 1st, Highfield (which I drew) the 31st. So optimistic were we on immediate relief that I was offered for it only four annas. We had a miniature game of football in the tiny quadrangle to terminate proceedings, and at ten o'clock, in joyful frame of mind, I struck out in the pitch-dark night for the palm grove. I missed my way again and again before getting the trench, and finally found the many turnings so bewildering without a light that I got up on top and followed the river-front once more as I had on joining the battery. A faint moon emerged, and the Turkish snipers followed me along. Several shots striking the wall alongside me I went inside it at the first breach and came across a dismantled tent behind which dark forms moved stealthily. On looking to see what it was, I found several jackals and pie-dogs mangling a horse that had strayed and been sniped. They sprang out with most dreadful yells. This commotion was heard across the river, and the Turks turned a machine-gun on. I lay quiet in the wood for some time listening to the rain and the bullets in the palms.

It was a most ghostly spot--what with dead horses and mules, dismantled tents, graves, cast clothing, and sh.e.l.l-stricken trees. At this minute I became aware that I was not alone, a feeling one can very well have on such occasions. And I watched a certain shadow move by inches along the ground.

It had been hiding behind a tree, and I imagine had been following me some little distance. There were from time to time rumours that the Turks sent Arab spies into Kut to pick off stray people in the hope of getting any plans. With my c.o.c.ked Webley in my hand I called out. It proved to be an Arab who took to his heels and vanished like a wraith. He had probably been salvaging. I reached my dug-out very tired an hour later and found all the battery asleep. An order required me to stand by from four to six, so I slept with my boots on. At four I went around the battery and had the men standing to, which means awake and dressed ready for action but resting. Nothing happened. At dawn I was told to get my kit and report for duty at the Fort as Observation Officer to the Tenth Field Artillery Brigade, the other officer having been wounded the preceding day. Slinging a few things together to be brought along by my servant, I walked the two miles of trenches to the Fort, which I entered for the first time.

It proved to be a mud-walled enclosure of about seven acres with a few bastions extending beyond. The garrison of the Fort were all underground and dug in. In fact, the place was a network of communication trenches, dug-outs, or store-pits. It was an easy target for the Turkish artillery, and sh.e.l.ls of all sizes kept leisurely arriving from all sides, and at this close range we hadn't any warning report of the Turks'

guns, besides which, grenades and bombs were slung or fired over the wall indiscriminately into any part of the Fort. In the centre an observation mound of bags of _atta_ (flour), some fifteen feet high, commanded quite an extensive view over the walls on to the plain beyond. One could see three-fourths of the horizon and a very good view of Turkish activities upstream.

This observation post was frequently a mark for the Turkish machine-guns, and one had to run the gauntlet in getting up to it by making a sudden bolt, and frequently a r-r-r-rip of bullets into the flour-bags followed. Sometimes, generally during the firing of a series, the Turk ranged several machine-guns and small pounders on to the post.

Besides myself there was an observer for the heavy guns.

When registering we seized the most favourable hour of the day for the minimum of mirage, usually just after sunrise or before sunset. As the artillery duel became general, one had to range on several targets in succession and sometimes two simultaneously. When one was too preoccupied the services of the machine-gun officer were utilized. Although not trained for artillery observation, and talking of "degrees over" or "short," which frequently puzzled the gunners, he nevertheless had a good eye for a bursting sh.e.l.l. He was a big-game shot endowed with a large imagination and a bad memory, as he constantly varied the same story, but what one lost in veracity one derived in entertainment. I liked especially to get into the "stack," as we called it, at dawn, and watch the shadows lifting over the plain and the wild duck and fowl flying away to their feeding-grounds.

On one such early occasion, after a heavy "strafe" the night before, I had no sooner entered the "stack" than two or three of the several bullets. .h.i.tting the bags came through and struck the inside wall. We placed another bag or two on the spot, and then in the afternoon a bullet came through between another officer and me. We could not understand why this had happened, as the "stack" had frequently been subjected to the heaviest Maxim fire, and if there had been any flaw we must have been riddled several times. Late at night, before the moon was up, I climbed on to the bags from the outside and found that the machine-gun fire had cut grooves into two sacks and the flour had run out on to the ground, making an excellent mark, and what was worse, the outside bags were three parts empty, allowing the bullets to come through the second.

The long tedious hours of the day were diverted by the Volunteer Battery Section firing at any target that offered.

Other things failing, a basket ferry at near range was engaged, and excellent sport it made, the Arabs or Turks ducking out of it into the river. A small mountain gun called Funny Teddy was ubiquitous, appearing on all sides. He was extremely annoying to us, and once several guns were turned on to him.

He was fairly well protected, but one round turned him completely over. Great joy reigned over the Fort, and word was sent into Kut. But the last message had scarcely been dispatched when he appeared behind a tent and spat out several rounds almost into the "stack" just to show his spite.

Early one morning, a few days after I had reached the Fort, I observed that the _Firefly_, formerly H.M.S., now S.A.I., was not in her accustomed spot. We usually located the ships of the Turks and reported any activity to G.H.Q. Suddenly there caught my eye something like a perpendicular stick moving at a rapid rate downstream towards Kut. Her funnel appeared immediately after. We informed Kut and a fire was opened on her from our five-inch and four-inch River Front Guns. This stopped her, but not before she had got some of her 47's into Kut. This gun, with some small supply of ammunition, was captured on the _Firefly_ and was the hardest hitting gun the Turks had.

_January 1st._--I was up a half-hour before the dawn on first spell of duty, Captain Freeland taking the second hour.

We usually took breakfast in turn. Food at the Fort I find much worse than in Kut, the distance out being accountable for that, and the special chances of getting horse-liver or kidneys, a great delicacy, quite a remote one. We live in a tremendously large dug-out, some sixteen feet by ten, the roof being spanned by great beams of wood, eight by six inches, but much too low to allow one to stand upright. The beam is already bent considerably with the great weight of some feet of soil on top, and one lies smoking on one's back staring at this beam and applying the Aristotelian axiom that just as "some planks are stronger than others, so all will break if sufficient weight be applied," and hoping a 60-pounder won't just add the difference.

I am writing alone in the observation post. The New Year has just been heralded in with a wonderful dawn. Shades of mauves and heliotrope and violet are diffused over the most extraordinary geography of floating cloud islets, continents, and seas, sailing and sailing up and away. From a belt of electric blue fringing the southern horizon down to Essin past the Tomb, and over the Eastern desert, cloud island after island has broken from its aerial moorings speeding like sailing ships across the ocean sky up past Shamrun Camp of the enemy towards Baghdad. The first streak of dawn beheld this phenomenon of smartly moving Change. How much more prophetic this than the stillness of a static dawn. As Horace says, one sees not into the future, but such a moving dawn may well be taken as an augury of big happenings in the year just born and, ultimately, let us hope, of a convergence of British destinies moving onward like these cloudlands to Baghdad. But I for one as a traveller do not believe we have yet nearly appreciated the tremendous vitality and potentiality of Germany or fully realized the great strength and solidarity she draws from her geographical centrality.

In the meantime, here am I in a siege, believing in a certain relief within a few days or two weeks if British luck holds, sitting in an observation post of many tons of _atta_ (flour) which seems to have been used for defences on all sides and no tally kept of it at all. Sitting on an _atta_ stack talking of dawns!!

_Evening._--Quite a few sh.e.l.ls fell about our dug-out, and machine-guns were turned on the stack while I was ranging on to a party of Turks working on two distant gun-emplacements.

The Turks seem to know most of the ranging is done from the Fort, and when our guns in Kut open fire the northern sector invariably strafes our observation stack. The working party we can observe quite well taking cover when the sh.e.l.l is heard coming, and immediately after the burst away go their shovels and picks again. We fired sectional salvos, and I believe did good execution, as we observed carts coming out from their hospital and some stretcher parties. The work evidently proceeded nevertheless, and this afternoon two guns in the new position opened fire on Kut. Our heavy guns, however, soon silenced them.

This afternoon I visited the battered sections of the Fort known as Seymour Bastion, still in a most dilapidated and shattered condition from the heavy a.s.sault of the 24th, and only roughly reinforced as yet with corrugated sheet iron, barbed wire, and trestles. The bombs and sh.e.l.ls have made great breaches in the wall. We went along in the dusk to the listening post and along the bastion, a corridor running out past main wall towards the Turks, and enabling the defending party to enfilade an a.s.saulting party on the outer wall. However, on the 24th, the bastion itself became the scene of a hand-to-hand struggle and it got choked with dead. It is a pity we haven't Lewis guns as they have in France, which are much lighter and more portable in case of an a.s.sault.

But when our machine-guns were out of action, bombs and bayonets and rifles held him off. The bastion, I was informed by a man of the Oxfords, was a most unhealthy spot. It proved so. As we pa.s.sed a loophole, bullets entered that one and the one ahead. The Turk here is ever alert, and he has a big tally to account for. One pa.s.ses a loophole (they are quite low and unavoidable in walking), and then waits for the rifle fire before rapidly crossing another. In one place bullets simply pour through a cavity or c.h.i.n.k in the mud wall.

This is to be built up to-night. The Oxfords and Norfolks are very proud of the part they took in the fight and showed me scores of dead Turks scattered all around. There were hundreds, only many have been removed by the enemy during the truce. In this heat of the day, the odour that comes to the stack from the "unburied" is at times almost overpowering.

More than one Turkish "trophy," rifle, belt, or helmet has been boldly retrieved by our men, and one sepoy has recovered no fewer than three helmets and an officer's sword.

Our frugal breakfast is rice and bully and tea. We have no b.u.t.ter nor sugar. For dinner we are to have a small ration of potatoes, fillet of horse, date and _atta_ roll, and to divide two bottles of beer the Mess has providentially saved--a very good New Year's Day meal considering one is not a Scotsman.

_Later, 7 p.m._--Dinner over. I feel in conscience bound to say it was excellent and almost half enough. I have a Burma cheroot from a very precious supply of a kind-hearted subaltern here from Burma.

_January 2nd._--The event of to-day was the arrival of an enemy aeroplane flying quite fast. It came from the Shamrun Camp and flew over taking observations, followed by a fusillade from every available rifle and machine-gun.

Later in the day another aeroplane flew over us likewise from the north. Our big-game friend insisted that it was a Turk. One could not see the colour, but I saw what looked like rings. General Hoghton, who came into the stack, agreed with me about it, and on its return so it proved to be. A Turkish plane has a crescent on its wings or generally the German cross. This brigadier is a most intrepid and fearless man, and is to be found everywhere at the loopholes, digging-parties, and observation posts. The Fort is merely part of his command (the 17th Brigade), but one sees much more of him than the C.O. Fort. He is a most genial and kind general and very cheerful about everything. To-day I met Colonel Lethbridge, now commanding the Oxford Regiment, and one of the few officers of that regiment to survive Ctesiphon. We had a most interesting and diverting talk on European politics in general. He is an extraordinarily well-read man and over everything he says plays the quiet light of a well-focussed intellect. We talked of Germany, where I had spent a considerable time before the war, and he asked me many questions of the French front. I hear I am the only one of the garrison who was in France in August, 1914, and only two other officers have been there at all. In fact, one notices that this Division, having come direct from India early in the war, has, for the most part, no idea of the significance of the war and of the new armies. Neither has it, or could it be expected to have, any sort of perspective of the many fronts of the war. They allow either too much or too little. They are focussed sharply on to Mesopotamia and the Sixth Division, and the perspective of the World War suffers. Moreover this front is not contiguous to any other front. But this Colonel of reserved utterance in his grave way dismissed many of the current rumours of Kut as being out of proportion, and made one feel at least how very vast and far were the ultimate issues of the war. And for listening respectfully I had a most entertaining hour and two large whiskies and water. On my way back I saw the work of the Sirmoor Sappers, a most keen and enthusiastic body of men who are never idle.

_January 16th._--I am writing in an excavation of four mud walls and beneath a tiny roof of corrugated iron topped by some feet of earth. Two tiny camp chairs, a wooden table with legs driven into the earth, and two niched candles form the furniture. It is the mess of my battery, 76th R.F.A., whither I have been ordered some days since from the Fort to replace Lieut. Edmonds who was wounded while mending a telephone wire. The man accompanying him was killed outright, and Edmonds had a narrow shave, the bullet cutting a deep groove across his neck and just missing the spinal column.

Captain Baylay of the 82nd Battery relieved me at the Fort.

He has about eighteen years' service and is by general admission a very good gunner, quick, resourceful, and of instant decision.

Apart from the fact that I am getting back to my own battery I feel he will be more able than I am to deal with the ever-increasing responsibilities of observation officer out there, which goes pretty close to having two or three targets almost simultaneously. It will also enable the machine-gun detachment commander to devote his attention to his own particular job and incidentally to become conversant with the theory and terminology of field-gun ranging.

My battery is just behind the middle line out on a solitary position on the _maidan_. Unlike any other field battery we have no cover whatsoever except that of the earth. Every time a gun fires the flash is visible to every Turkish gun on the north or eastern sector. We are swept by rifle fire all around, the nearest some few hundred yards over the river, and we get all the "shorts" intended for the heavy guns at the brick kiln, five hundred yards behind us. Our Major (Lloyd) is away at the Brick Kilns from where he can observe much better than in the battery, and he messes more comfortably with C.Os. of other batteries there. The only other officer in the battery is Lieut. Devereux, my junior of a few months, who had been sent from Hyderabad before me. He has a keen sense of devotion to duty and is most conversant with every detail of horse management, harness, and guns, but less quick at figures and in making up his mind. I leave much to him, as for some months he had been a sergeant-major of M battery before coming to Hyderabad, and we owe more than one good meal to his knowledge of the Q.-M. department in Kut, and "Coffee-shop" official ropes. We live and sleep in the mess with our boots on, as we frequently go into action during the night.

The new dug-out for myself, just behind my section of guns, is almost complete. It is large and deep, and although in danger of floods, I am content. Some trestle beams from a dismantled dug-out I am using for the roof. The difficulty is to find wood of sufficient strength to support the weight of earth necessary to keep off rifle fire.

The 40-pounders we cannot compete against. For a radius of one hundred yards the battery is thick with holes which in one place have joined up and made a pond where I have counted over sixty unexploded sh.e.l.ls. Before I came one of these arrived in the mess, having entered through feet of soil and beam and iron. The thrilled occupants had reason to be thankful that it did not explode. It has been inserted in the hole, which it fits exactly, just above the doorway, its nose pointing at the table, a standing reminder of the thinness of line described by the Circle of Destiny.

We are awfully short of firewood, only enough being available to cook one meal a day for the men, and provide hot water besides for breakfasts. Sometimes there is not even that. Theft of wood is punishable with death. The G.O.C.

is loth to destroy the town. We shall, however, have to do that very soon.

News there is none, except that on January 12th General Younghusband smashed into heavy Turkish forces at Wadi, a stream coming down from the Pusht-i-Kuh mountains, and got through with the tremendous losses of four thousand.

The liner _Persia_ has been sunk by a submarine.

The patience of the garrison is beyond all praise. I can honestly say I have learned to love the character of the British soldier who has acquired the habit of doing cheerfully what he does not want to do, at the moment when he just does not want to do it. In other words, bigger than himself is the momentum of years, discipline become a habit. There are rumours that the Relieving Force has retired. The fighting, we hear, is in deep mud and must indeed be terrible.

CHAPTER IV

RELIEF DELAYED--FLOODS--LIFE DURING THE SIEGE

_January 21st._--A black-letter day for Kut in general and myself in particular. About 6 a.m. in the pitch-dark, the water burst into our front line by Redoubt D and flooded the trenches up to one's neck. All the careful and dogged efforts of our sappers could not stop it.

Lately the weather has been what an undergraduate would call the last edge. On the 17th it poured. In fact the heavens opened and lakes of water tumbled down. It has kept this up on and off ever since. To-day we have had to abandon our first line from Redoubt B to the river on the north-west sector, and the line now falls back at a tangent.

The salient at the Fort has been kept with the greatest difficulty; but the enemy on the flooded sector has had to go back likewise.

It was a queer sight to see them all running over the top where we had previously seen only their pickaxes and caps. Our casualties from rifle fire during this movement were not so many as his. We sh.e.l.led his ragged ma.s.ses with great glee. A mile or more of silver water now surrounds this part of the line. As to food, we have eaten up some very tough bullocks, and I much prefer donkey to mule. We are down to horse in a day or so. The floods have put our meagre fires out, and for dinner we had half-raw donkey, red gravy, and half-cooked rice with some date stuff that made me feel like an alarm clock just set off.

_January 26th._--The weather gets worse. I am in my new dug-out, cold and shivery. In fact my lower half is almost without feeling. The water percolates from the four sides and from the roofs in several streams. This I have diverted into buckets and ammunition boxes by means of pipes and waterproofs strung up with any available tackle. The various sounds of water falling into its several receptacles remind one of fishing in the rain by a cliff-side.

Our trenches are half full of water, and as we have no change of dry kit we run the gauntlet along the battery to the mess. It is difficult in the dark to get along, and of course no light is permitted, as every day some one pays the penalty of chancing it. One runs low and slides along the mud. In the day a heavy fire is invariably opened. But one just gets through in time. I can tell where I am by the sound of my boots in the water. Once I slipped down with my megaphone, and when I found it a second later it was pinked with two holes from a bullet.

To-day General Townshend has issued a lengthy communique dealing with the failure of General Aylmer to get through, and predicting relief by the middle of February, but noting our last day of resistance under reduced rations as reaching to about April 15th excluding horse rations. We are, however, beginning to see how vital a part the floods play in every movement of troops. Here in this dug-out, streaming with tiny rivulets and squelchy underfoot, one feels rather than sees the plainness of the issue between the Turks and us--our advance of four miles with four thousand casualties, a rumour of repulse with as many more, a sequence of Turkish trenches similar, floods rising, etc., etc.