The Secrets of a Kuttite Part 5

Kut-el-Amara, January 26th, 1916.

The relieving force under General Aylmer has been unsuccessful in its efforts to dislodge the Turks entrenched on the right bank of the river some fourteen miles from the position of Essin, where we defeated them in September last when the Turkish strength was greater than it is now.

Our relieving force suffered severe loss, and had very bad weather to contend against. More reinforcements are on the way up river, and I confidently expect to be relieved some day during the first half of the month of February.

I desire all ranks to know why I decided to make a stand at Kut during the retirement from Ctesiphon. It was because, as long as we hold Kut, the Turks cannot get their ships, barges, stores, and munitions past this, and so cannot move down to attack Amarah, and thus we are holding up the whole of the Turkish advance.

It also gives time for our reinforcements to come up from Basrah, and so restore success to our arms. It gives time to our allies the Russians, who are now overrunning Persia, to move towards Baghdad, which a large force is now doing.

I had a personal message from General Baratoff in command of the Russian Expeditionary Force in Persia the other day, telling me of his admiration of what you men of the Sixth Division, and troops attached, have done in the past two months, and telling me of his own progress on the road from Kermanshah towards Baghdad.

By standing at Kut I maintain the territory we have won in the past year at the expense of much blood, beginning with your glorious victory at Shaiba; and thus we maintain the campaign as a glorious one instead of letting disaster pursue its course to Amarah, and perhaps beyond. I have ample food for eighty-four days, and that is not counting the 3,000 animals which can be eaten. When I defended Chitral, some twenty years ago, we lived well on atta and horseflesh, ...

but, as I repeat above, I expect confidently to be relieved in the first half of the month of February. Our duty stands out plain and simple. It is our duty to our Empire, to our beloved King and Country, to stand here and hold up the Turkish advance as we are doing now; and with the help of all, heart and soul with me, together we will make this defence to be remembered in history as a glorious one. All in England and in India are watching us now, and are proud of the splendid courage and devotion you have shown; and I tell you, let all remember the glorious defence of Plevna, for that is in my mind. I am absolutely calm and confident as to the result. The Turk, though very good behind a trench, is of little value in the attack; they have tried it once, and their losses in one night, in their attempt on the fort, were 2,000 alone; they have already had very heavy losses from General Aylmer's musketry and guns, and I have no doubt they have had enough.

I want to tell you all now that when I was ordered to advance on Ctesiphon I officially demanded an Army Corps, or at least two Divisions, to do the task successfully, having pointed out the grave danger of attempting to do this with one Division only. I had done my duty: you know the result, and, whether I was right or not, your names will go down to history as the heroes of Ctesiphon, for heroes you proved yourselves to be in that battle. I, perhaps, by right should not have told you of the above, but I feel I owe it to all of you to speak straight and openly and take you into my confidence, for G.o.d knows I felt our heavy losses and the sufferings of my poor wounded and shall remember it as long as I live. No general I know of has been more loyally obeyed and served than I have been in command of the Sixth Division.

These words are long, I am afraid, but I speak straight from the heart, and you will see that I have thrown officialdom overboard. We will succeed, mark my words, but save your ammunition as if it were gold.

(Sd.) CHARLES TOWNSHEND, Major-General, Commanding Sixth Division.

I grow sleepy. Two nights ago we had a disaster I have not recorded. The flood burst a _bund_ adjacent to us, and surplus flood water travelling fast swept across the battery carrying along with it the revetments and emplacements.

The soft side of the trenches collapsed with a sickening thud, and in places filled right in. I was awakened by the sound of trickling water pouring down the earthen steps of my dug-out.

It overflooded the _bund_ which I had taken the precaution to build between the battery trench and my cavern. On climbing out I saw that the whole plain was a reach of water.

I shouted to my orderly. We seized spades and shovels and filled in. This kept out further water which was still rising. The men were similarly engaged. One dug-out was close to the main trench and only supported by a tiny wall of earth which collapsed when wet. Trench and dug-out then ceased to exist. It was a pathetic sight to see the men, eight to a detachment, diving in five feet of mud and water for their belongings, some of their friends holding up the roof of their dug-out with poles. No bunnies flooded out ever felt more "out" of it than the men of my section. I had all their clothes dried as best as our scanty firewood could do it, some hot tea made for them, and their spare kit put into my dug-out. All night long the fight continued. My floor was two feet under water. In the gun-pits it came up to the breech-blocks of the guns, some of which had collapsed through their planks which had sunk into the mud. This I had foreseen weeks before. In fact, I had drawn up a simple scheme for putting in each gun-pit a foundation of filled ammunition zinc linings, then the planks, and on top the bricks from the brick kilns close by. There were a great quant.i.ty of these. My Major, however, possibly for some good reasons of his own, thought this unnecessary, and I was not permitted to go on with it. To-night, as I lay in my dug-out after hours of useless battling with the floods and in endeavouring to get the guns into action, I felt glad that my scheme had proved well-justified, for the ammunition pit which I had made as an experiment was the only dry part of the battery. We had the greatest difficulty in endeavouring to traverse the guns. After getting the wheels level we found every movement of the trail brought it off the scanty planking, and our many targets required considerable traversing. We reinforced the telephone compartment but the mess was feet deep in water. About two dug-outs remained more or less habitable, and in these the men crept while a few still went on trying to retrieve lost kit.

"'Ere, Bill, 'old me 'and, while I reach for this boot."

The next moment oaths followed as the unfortunate pair fell in owing to the bank collapsing. Gaspings in the dark indicated where the unfortunates were. "'Ere I tell yer!

Take me 'and! That ain't me blanky 'and. That's me blanky foot."

In the morning a most deplorable sight met our eyes.

The trenches were unrecognizable, and from six feet had become in places only two feet deep. We had to go into action with the guns in this state and had to depress the gun to get the sh.e.l.l home into the breech without wetting it. Then we elevated the gun. After hours of bailing and bunding we reduced the water in the gun-pits to about eighteen inches, but two guns were still out of action. We now put all hands on making a bunded wall right around the battery, and on this we worked for two days and nights. On this second night I went to Kut and had dinner with "c.o.c.kie." We dined on horse and dahl peas quite satisfiedly. My way home was in the pitch dark. Myriads of starlings were screaming and wheeling in the sky. On the plain the high yelping chorus of jackals arose over the steady crack, crack of the enemy's snipers.

Beneath all as an accompaniment was the rippling music of the running floods.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REMAINS OF MY (76 R.F.A.) BATTERY-POSITION ON THE MAIDAN.

THE GUN ENPLACEMENTS AND DUG-OUTS ARE STILL DISCERNIBLE]

From a reminiscent I got into a prophetic mood, and then I suddenly found myself tumbled headlong over some obstacle on the _maidan_. The trenches were for the most part eighteen inches deep in mud and water, and apart from the discomfort took hours to negotiate, and I had leave only until 10 p.m.

from the battery. One therefore walked on top. I found I had stumbled over a horse that had no doubt strayed and been sniped. His four feet turned skywards. As I got up, the moon appeared and played full on his ghastly head with bared gums and teeth. a.s.suring myself, from an inspection of his hoofs that he wasn't of my battery, I moved along and got into quite an amount of rifle fire. I ran and ran until I almost fell again over Number 2 gun emplacement.

Two large saddles, a limber pole, and packal very much known to me, located my tiny boarded bed staked into the wet earth.

Everything is wet. I must stop smoking this drenched Arab cigarette. These are like small spills filled with bad tobacco dust and invariably burn one's clothes. Last night again the rain came! The tackle did not work.

Streams poured on to my head and chest. I lit the tiny rope that floats in my dubbin tin. I lit my pipe that had belonged to Colonel Courtenay, my good friend, now resting among the date palms. This tobacco burns well. I listened to the roar of the four sectors of heaven all raining. Heaven, earth, and the waters under the earth, all rained. A raining world, in the centre my dug-out, a beleaguered town, a Turkish rampart.

Outside the desert, and somewhere across it home, home, home! One searched oneself to see if one could do ought else, but ever returned to the sound of the rain.... It was at this moment that I bethought me of Timon....

Now Timon was a wee green frog that came to me some days ago from out the deluge. I fed him on many things, and he couldn't escape over the line of my dug-out. Him I watched and addressed on more than one occasion, and our talk found common history. [My notes here are broken, but I find them continued with an address to Timon before going to bed, written probably an hour before the procession of mule carts wound their way out to the Fort with rations, as I frequently smoked in the rain near my doorway until they pa.s.sed, somewhere about 9.30 p.m. They were my signal for sleep----]

"And so, Timon, thou tiny frog, now shalt thou hear more of thy long history. Before Daly's Theatre or America was, before 'dry land was or ever the sea,' before there even roamed a Brighton bather along the sh.o.r.e, nay even before the forests themselves had appeared, thou wert. That, wee frog, was long, long ago to us men. It was in the twilight days when this round earth beneath our feet had just rolled out of primeval Night, and upon her still hung the shadows of Tehom which is Chaos. Then all was still, there were no forests, and no birds sang. In that deeper silence was only the whispering of racing stars and the humming of the spheres.

A great symphony was that, the lullaby of the earth's infancy.

After a long time and many changes, came the marsh reeds and the squashy moss plants that did for vegetation. It was all bog, wee frog--all. No wonder thy eyes grow big with wonder. And somewhere in that great marsh that covered the world was thy first great ancestor born. G.o.d knows what freakish fancy of a frolicsome couple in that distant Walpurgis night brought _him_ forth. He was a salamander and he had the world to splash and croak in. Thou hast a question?

Ah! Yes to be sure there were many insects and pulpy sedge for thy meat and vegetable. Wouldst have been there, my Timon? Well! and then alongside the salamanders came toads, and these multiplied and filled the world with noise.

Such was the first chorus that arose from the dank, dark reeds--ten billion million jumping, diving, frolicsome little fellows, all lifting their voices in one tremendous croak--croak--croak--croak in perpetual chorus. Then was thy ancestor, the salamander, the largest animal or moving thing.

But in time the water receded and shrubs grew, then themselves fell and sank deep down to form the coal beds of other ages. That was the coal plant. And then small trees appeared, later forests, and great beasts hung therefrom or walked beneath. But thy line remains distinct. Ages flew by and then I found thee, Timon, in my trench.

"Thou listenest intently as if thou rememberest it all.

Canst hear the voice of thine ancient father still echoing adown Time's corridors? 'Tis a great thought, is it not, my Timon, that the earth, being a female, possessed herself of many-coloured draperies and the moving fancies of ten thousand hues, and man, that extraordinary biped, then appeared, and invented locomotives and whistles and violins and guns. Truly we are large frogs equipped with ancient instincts. Imagine thine ancient ancestors in the primeval swamp ahorseback on tiny horses, or standing boldly up to their guns from which they shot fire at other obstinate frogs.

It's a lovely idea is it not? Of course at the first shot there had doubtless been a tremendous plop and a universal view of disappearing hind feet, but they would have got accustomed to it as have we. Thou hast forgotten. Man never knew.

But the earth hath a memory long and sad, and it is said that she longs for the ancient stillness and turns yearly more cold.

And one day when the sun no longer warmeth her glaciers and frozen seas she will return to that cold contemplation of the eternal problem from which she was diverted to watch the careering antics of man. A mere wraith of memory will she retain of tiny bleached bones gripped once again in the eternal snows--the last relics of that small and daring race of unaccountable beings. And then the wraith will be closed over by the mists, and Night shall descend once more. Thou, Timon, and I, will be what Thomas Atkins calls 'done in.'

Hast still a smile? 'Tis well! 'Tis very well. Thou art a game little devil, and altogether the queerest little cus I've ever come across. So! Thou wishest a stroll after our long talk. Bravo, thy profile is absolutely wreathed in smiles.

That was a right merry little hop. I wish dearly that I could teach thee to dance. Thou would'st make Gaby blush, and she is no small fish at the game. Now what in the name of the Seven G.o.ds art thou at, poking thy head in that fashion?

Thou shalt to supper and bed. Here are three flies and a squashed worm. Fill thy small green belly and sleep. _Pax_, I say, _vobisc.u.m_. For thou also wert made by G.o.d."

_February 13th._--I have had a half cup of milk. This morning I awoke feeling abominably seedy with sharp pains across the small of my back, awful head and wretchedly feverish. Devereux and I are suffering from dysentery, as, in one form or another, are many others. This complaint in its mildest form is diarrhoea which becomes colitis, which becomes dysentery, which turns sometimes to cholera. The doctors shake their heads and say: "Diet." They might as well recommend a sea trip. But of course they are right.

Some fellows in their unwillingness to enter hospital stuff down dozens of leaden opium pills, various powders, much castor oil with chlorodyne and camphoradyne in between.

The last is an excellent drug. It's all a matter of const.i.tution, but sooner or later it's a case of hospital and injection of emmatine. A hostile aeroplane flew over to-day and dropped bombs on the town and brick kilns, evidently potting at the 5-inch guns there. A brisk rifle fire from our trenches followed it. Accounts suggest the unpopularity of this demon bird with its unhappy trick of laying, in mid-air, eggs that explode on reaching the earth. Another danger is from falling bullets fired at the place. The circuit is now complete.

We are shot at all round and from on top.

General Aylmer's forces concentrated on the 6th for a new effort in a new position. It wants two days only in which to disprove General Townshend's prophecy about the date of relief. We hear that a Division has left Egypt for here.

Every one is asking why it didn't leave months ago. Impatient questions are quite in vogue, but then we are many of us seedy and "siegy" and "dug-outish," and the end does not seem in sight. The latest news is that at Home no one knows a word of it all. We are merely "hibernating in Kut." Well, if it isn't known now it will be one day, that the siege of Kut is probably the most important and vigorous siege in modern military history.

I finished a novel to-day. It has at least made me long for England again. We are all full of longings; and the chief blessing of civilization is that it supplies the wherewithal to quieten them. Lord! for a gla.s.s of fresh milk and a jelly.

Temperature 103 and shivering. I am going to have an attempt at sleeping. Everything is very quiet. The sentry's steps beside my roof make the earth shake.

It is the seventieth day of the siege.

_February 14th._--Well, here am I again in my sleeping-bag at six minutes past eight p.m. Everything is dead quiet.

Stillness itself is throbbing with the pulsation of a very real thing. Two sections are away digging at the alternative position by the kilns which faces both ways. There is a great deal of work required to complete such emplacements for a whole battery. Besides the gun-pits and parapets and communication trenches, there are ammunition dug-outs, a telephone and battery dug-out where the battery headquarters are, officers'

mess, officers' dug-outs, men's dug-outs, cook-houses, and water dug-outs, and latrines. Then a trench and _bund_ must be made around the position to keep out rain floods.

Dorking came to see me this morning for a time. The fever has decreased but my boasted fitness seems to have deserted me for good. I believe those wretched floods did the damage. Sleeping more or less under water tells on one in weakened condition. I have no cold though, luckily. Number 3 gun's detachment has appalling coughs, and every dug-out is the same. They have two blankets, but when the dug-out gets wet they have nothing even wherewith to dry themselves.

c.o.c.kie, who rather prides himself on some rudimentary knowledge of Egyptology, sent me a perfectly undecipherable note in hieroglyphics to come and dine. At least I guessed this out. What other interest could men have in common so much at such a time? I sent a figurative reply with a linear representation of myself in bed, a procession of ancient Thebans filing out of the dug-out with fowls, snipe on toast, puddings and fruits--all untouched. I hope to be able to toddle out for a walk to-morrow.

We have laid in a stock of Arab tobacco--half branches and twigs, and make our own cigarettes. Our reserve bottle of whisky to be drunk the night of relief we have divided, as firstly the relief may never come, and secondly we may be bowled over beforehand, in which case the one concerned would lose his share. Finally, I suggested that when the relief does come we shall be sufficiently intoxicated with joy, even supposing no refreshment is with the relieving force on that fortunate day.

The Turkish aeroplane bombed us again to-day. Yesterday thirty-five people including Arabs were wounded.

The sniper fellow over the river hit a gunner in the back yesterday at the next gun. The poor fellow is mortally wounded I hear. I was at my own gun at the time and heard him sing out. He didn't fall but walked about a little, "just,"

he said, "not to let the swine know he had been lucky." We sent him to hospital and will visit him to-morrow.

How very horrible to be quite poor! Here am I longing for hot milk and b.u.t.tered toast, and instead I have a coa.r.s.e slice of black _boosa_ bread with the chaff sticking out of it--and a tiny portion of tinned cheese! But I will forget these abominations of the flesh and hope my twenty--one aches and pains won't pursue me into dreamland.

Venus, in her whitest robes, is shining resplendent over the Eastern horizon above my mud staircase.

_February 15th._--I am feeling somewhat better, thank goodness. I hear that Pars Nip, the garrison gunner sub that came out from India with us, is in hospital with dysentery.