The Secrets of a Kuttite Part 6

There is quite a deal of sniping. A bullet whinged off a limber a few minutes ago. My candles are finished and I don't like sitting alone in a dug-out on a foggy evening without any sort of light. It suggests being buried alive.

A shocking report is to hand concerning Don Juan.

During the last two days he has taken advantage of the cold weather to eat three successive blankets, four jhuals, and his companion's head-collar. I suggest turning him loose in the dismantled hospital camp on the _maidan_, now a wilderness dotted with rotten tents. Some horses have commenced to eat their tails and are not above snapping at their mates' tails if they get a chance. It's great fun watching them all on the qui vive sparring for an opening to attack one another's tail, or cover, or head collar. Don has even gnawed his wooden peg to chips and swallowed most of them.

_February 16th._--This morning we had a heavy artillery duel. Fritz, the Turkish planist, flew over several times but did not bomb. He is evidently observing. His plane proved to be an old pattern Morane and is certainly very fast.

I have been for a little walk in the trenches. I felt awfully groggy and returned to R. L. Stevenson's "Silverado Squatters," which rings so very true even in a Mesopotamian dug-out. In this volume Robert Louis, without the addition of the terrible occurrences so dear to the sensational writer, and so rare to the lives of most of us, has left the beauty of simplicity unadorned.

_February 17th._--Fritz flew back this afternoon and dropped bombs on the town. The one nearest to us was 300 yards towards the 4-inch guns. One bomb fell in our horse lines in Kut, just missing several drivers in a harness room, and taking the adjoining room completely. Everything therein was wrecked, but the effect of a bomb is very local. They are as yet only 30-pounders, all of which along with some larger ones, 100-pounders, were captured from us on a barge in Ascot week. Ascot week represents the temporal series from Ctesiphon to Kut. The pa.s.sing overhead of Fritz's Morane we view with feelings compatible with our universal conception of him as the Destroying Angel. All deeply detest his tricks and d.a.m.n him most devoutly, and I have heard many say that to be bombed by an aeroplane is the worst experience in the field. Not in the trenches, for there one is comparatively safe unless it pitches to a yard. Who doesn't take many more risks motoring? But when one's duty requires one to move about a battery in action, the fire of which is a perfect target to the plane hovering overhead, or to move about Kut or the horse lines, it is a considerably smaller joke. For the most part the dug-outs are entirely unproof against bombs, or, of course, a direct hit by a sh.e.l.l. The town quarters of the regiment on relief from the trenches are dug-outs covered with canvas or straw _tatti_-work and three or four inches of soil. The only safe place is in these Arab houses of two floors.

The roof explodes the bomb which wrecks the upper room and possibly the first floor if not very substantial. Now an S & T walla sprinting for cover is considered, not being a combatant, quite in order, but an infantry officer not so. As for an artillery officer, he is supposed to be so used to high explosives that if the table and everything thereon blows up while he is drinking his cup of coffee, he must nevertheless not take the cup from his lips until he has drained it dry.

The first indication of his visit comes from the alarm gong which hangs near the river front observation post. All eyes strain skyward and a little black speck scarce distinguishable from a bird dots the blue sky. It approaches, and our improvised air-gun, a 13-pounder worked on a circular traverse at a high angle, has a pot at it. This gun was set up by Major Harvey, R.F.A., our adjutant, a most efficient gunnery expert from s...o...b..ryness. He worked out the mathematics, too, with schemes of ranging in the two planes, perpendicular and horizontal. A little white puff of cloud appears near the plane and one hears the report. Then another shot is fired and the plane mounts or swerves and still comes on. His propellers and engine are heard quite distinctly as he gets within range. A fierce burst of rifle fire and the still sharper maxim gun's staccato music is the signal for all to take cover. One sees him now directly over the Gurkha regiment's bivouacs, and hears a faint hissing noise as of rapidly spinning propellers. The hissing increases for several seconds until it becomes quite loud and terminates with a crashing explosion. One bomb has dropped. The air is full of other hissing things in various stages of their careers.

A creepy feeling suggests that the bomb with its tiny propellers rapidly spinning, is going to pitch on the top of one's head and blot one out of existence, like stamping out an ant.

It strikes a building a hundred yards off and the resounding smash of falling timber is caught up by another smash which has struck earth, a third that has landed in the hospital, scattering death all around, a fourth that has splashed small pieces of horseflesh and hair on the surrounding walls and trees.

All these are our captured bombs. A Tommy to-day observed that the Turk was flinging our bombs about as if they belonged to him. Another wag suggested Fritz was merely returning them.

_February 18th._--This afternoon we had to shoot at a gun target that was pestering the Fort, and as a consequence drew thick sh.e.l.l fire on ourselves. Sh.e.l.ls fell all around every gun.

We went to the fastest rate of fire, gun-fire, the first heavy firing for over a month. Last evening the 82nd Battery, R.F.A., had its turn when, although concealed in the palm-grove, it was bombed by the plane and shot over by three or four targets.

There were several wounded and two killed. The guns on the water front are very active. The greater attention which the Turks have paid us during the last few days suggests that something startling is doing.

_4 p.m._--I have just received orders attaching me temporarily to the ammunition column, which is practically without any officer as c.o.c.kie has several guns on the river front, and is continually up in the observation post there. I am to take charge of the column and incidentally relieve him at observation.

It is thought that the enemy may try to rush boats down the river. They could never get past our four-point-sevens in horse barges moored on the river, or the 5-inch or the 18-pounders or the 12-pounders from the Sumana. But great vigilance is necessary. The river is at least 400 yards wide.

It is quite good business getting attached to the column.

I shall be practically C.O. with all the horses and wagons and ammunition, and two guns to keep my eye on, and observing between whiles. It will mean living in a house, for which I am very thankful. Anyway, I have been moved about owing to casualties certainly as much as any other subaltern, and up till now I have been fairly fit all along.

Those early days in the brick kilns, then in the shallow trenches, then in the Fort, and especially during the floods in this battery, absorbed my fitness, and I am now a bag of pains and have lost ten pounds in weight.

I have had tea, and am already packed up. Farewell my dug-out, in which I have spent many wonderful hours and thought many strange thoughts. I am wiser at leaving than on entering thee. Timon, also my friend, thou hast earned thy freedom. Thy supper eaten, I shall put thee near the pond behind the old communication trench near the palm woods. I have no time to write an elegy upon thee. Thou camest sharply into my life and leavest it as suddenly. It is the way of the army and of life. Thou hast been a soldier's companion. Many, many are the fantasies we have indulged in, have we not? Many thoughts exchanged that could never be set on paper, oh dear, no. What better confidant than a wee green frog! Mind not thy unceremonious dismissal. My advice is to smile. When thou seest thy fly, go for him between wind and water, and smile even if thou art unsuccessful.

Joyful days and full rations I wish thee. Never think!

Farewell!

_February 19th._--Graoul removed my kit to the building in the town occupied by the 6th D.A.C. near the Minaret, where I had enjoyed my Christmas dinner. It is close to the mosque, and two minutes from the guns on the river front.

There is the usual tiny concrete square with rooms all around it, mostly occupied by the servants, and one large room with wooden shutters which was the mess. c.o.c.kie sleeps in a bas.e.m.e.nt room as being presumably safer and wishes me to share with him. But he is such an extremely exuberant and nervy companion, I have taken a small room on the first floor which has a thick wall on the side from which the sh.e.l.ls come.

Of course the doorway is also there, directly in line of the usual fire direction, and many bullets have at one time or other entered there and gone through the front wall which is quarter inch wood only. However, I have enough room for my bed, and must learn to lie close. Outside my room is a tiny promenade s.p.a.ce of the flat roof and the bas.e.m.e.nt rooms, and bounded by a low wall which stops a lot of bullets. I have often sat up there close to the wall and read while bullets cracked into the other side of it or flew overhead. Looking over this wall, one may see the deserted sh.e.l.l-ploughed ground between the battery and the palm trees that fringe the river, the river itself and the Turkish trenches beyond.

I dined with c.o.c.kie and Edmonds, who is convalescing, and enjoyed an excellent cup of coffee with tinned milk.

I commenced duty this morning by inspecting the horse lines. c.o.c.kie has not been near the lines for months, and the general condition of things is highly creditable to the N.C.Os. who have carried on. The horses, I find, are easily the best conditioned in Kut, but that is because they are by far the youngest, and also have not had the work of the battery horses. The wagons and harness require attention, and I have ordered inspection of each in sections. We are almost out of dubbin, which is in great demand for light. A twisted piece of rope, or wick, if possible, gives a mild, dull light.

Graoul I had to send back to the battery, which is too shorthanded to spare men. My new servant is a Punjabi Mohammedan from the lines, by name Amir Bux. He is a good, silent lad, and very attentive. This morning the aeroplane got up and then went down so we have been spared one entertainment at least.

This afternoon I spent some hours in c.o.c.kie's observation post, river front, which is a tiny sandbag affair arranged around an opening in the roof to which a ladder leads from the first floor of the heavily bricked and sandbagged building on the river bank, and some forty yards from the water. This tiny strip of land, once the wharf.a.ge, is now gra.s.s green. To cross it is certain death. The observation post is certainly the most exposed in Kut, being nearer the river front than the Heavies, and getting all the 5-inch over and shorts. The Turks are thickly entrenched on the other side of the river, and have a bee line on every brick on the water front. The two-horse artillery guns and the 18-pounders are behind emplacements just below, and are within megaphone distance from the observation post. Our telephonists are at the foot of the ladder on the first floor. The post commands a view of three quarters of the horizon, the whole of the right bank, and has artistic advantages all its own. The solitary waters of the sunlit Tigris and the misty distances between and beyond the palm trees invite one to pleasant dreams after the strenuous times of trench days, and fort days, and perpetual dug-out days.

Edmonds returned to the battery and my dug-out. He has had a delightful period of convalescence here on the balcony, and seems much more fit.

This afternoon there was quite a strafe. The Turkish snipers' nest near the mouth of the Shat-el-hai, opposite our observation station, became troublesome, and we popped a few into them from the 13-pounders. That shut them up.

Then f.a.n.n.y, the huge Turkish trench mortar near the Woolpress post we hold on the other bank, popped her bomb of 150 pounds weight towards us. The bomb comes slowly at about the pace of a falling football, and of course is quite visible. It burst about a half-minute after reaching this bank, but did no damage. Then Fritz flew over and dropped three crashing bombs on the town, and returning to the Turkish lines for more ammunition, dropped four bombs near the 104th heavy battery. We gave him a hot rifle fusillade, and our improvised anti-aircraft gun did quite well. One burst was just below and two just in front. Fritz mounted very hurriedly.

As I write, guns are rumbling downstream in a most pessimistic way. Reuter reports this campaign has been taken over by the British War Office. The reinforcing division is said to have embarked at Port Said on the 10th.

That would remove the date of relief at least to the end of March. Food may be made to stretch, but the casualty list of sick will be very high. Even now some castes will not eat horseflesh, and the Mohammedans have refused to touch it.

To-night for the first time in three months I am sleeping in pyjamas, as my only duty with the guns is to relieve c.o.c.kie.

_February 20th._--I have to-day continued inspection and altered the horse-lines in case of a flood. I also went to the first-line trenches for a walk, the second line that was, for the floods compelled us to abandon the original line. I scarcely knew the place. The trench was a fine broad pathway ten feet deep with firing platforms several feet wide where the men bivouacked and the officers had tiny mess tents. A wall or _bund_ loopholed at the top, some five or six feet high, sloped towards the Turkish position for fifteen feet. Beyond it, in patches, are the waters of the last flood. The loopholes lend this firing-line an appearance of mediaeval embattlements.

My old acquaintance, Dinwiddy, in the West Kents I found doing awfully well under awnings, but looking very thin.

This flood scheme is one of the most praiseworthy incidents in the siege of Kut. Every day the flood waters of the approaching annual floods are creeping across our front. We believe the _bund_ will save us.

It was a beautiful day, and I enjoyed my walk immensely.

At midday the sun is unpleasantly warm, and the nights are quite cold. We have all gone back to helmets, and perspired freely in the day. We hear the _avant-courriere_ of the summer.

Last night Wells of the Flying Corps came into the mess, and "re-flew over Ctesiphon." I should like to fly. He has had the bad luck to lose all the fingers of one hand while engaged manufacturing hand grenades for the trenches. The old Flying Corps has been of great a.s.sistance to us in Kut.

Another Flying Corps officer, Captain Winfield Smith, rigged up old engines and made our corn grinders and mills practically out of sc.r.a.p-iron.

c.o.c.kie wants me to promise to go Egyptologizing with him after the war! Fancy a mummy awakening from a silence of three to five thousand years to hear a voice like c.o.c.kie's!

Frolicsome Flossy, that very aggressive female, made four overtures to the gunners on the 47 barges. Needless to say her warm attentions met with the cold reception they merited.

I also visited the hospital to look up some sick friends.

One who was in with jaundice had a complexion like gra.s.s-green oil flung into a bowl of rich Jersey cream. The sight made one bilious. I'm not so seedy as I was, but the universal complaint still pursues me.

Don Juan is in his new lines with a native syce. He has already eaten both tails off his new companions, one of which is c.o.c.kie's charger. c.o.c.kie is furious, but seeing that Don has eaten his own tail also I don't see much for c.o.c.kie to grumble at.

Erzeroum has fallen. That may relieve the pressure here.

I have just come across Longfellow's "Daybreak," an old favourite of mine that I once heard that excellent song writer Mallison and his wife render in a most delightful manner.

One misses any music except this endless fire symphony!

_February 21st._--The eightieth day of siege. We fired at Snipers' Nest across the river, otherwise the day was very quiet except for the visit of Fritz who had evidently had sufficient taste of our anti-aircraft gun, and he flew diagonally across the town and right around to avoid it.

Upon the tiny observation station, which is scarcely large enough for two to sit down in, c.o.c.kie entertained me with antiquities. He likes to talk of empires and dynasties falling, and thousands of years gone by, and Good-G.o.d-look-at-it-all-now sort of thing. To which I always lend a careful ear, and if he ever asks me a question to see if I am attending, I say, "Good heavens! How extraordinary! Don't spoil it by interrogations.

Go on!" Not that I'm not interested in such things, far from it, but c.o.c.kie gets impatient with his inadequacy of description.

Sealed orders arrived at 10 p.m. to be opened at 4 a.m.

Something is agog! I must sleep again in breeches and field boots.

_February 22nd._--At 4 a.m. by the dusky dubbin's misty light, c.o.c.kie opened the secret orders with an air of mystery becoming an Egyptologist having the secrets of forgotten worlds beneath his thumb.

The General Staff has been hatching a scheme for some time past, and this is why I was wanted in the column so urgently.

c.o.c.kie is to remain C.R.A. of the river front artillery. I'm in command of the ammunition column. General Townshend, our G.O.C., intends to attack in two columns, Column A comprising General Melliss's 30th Brigade and one battery R.F.A.

to debouch through Redoubt A, Column B with the 17th Brigade and two batteries R.F.A. to debouch through by the Fort. The show is conditioned to take place if the Turkish forces retreat past Kut to their main camp on this bank--or if any reinforcements proceed on their way to the Turkish Essin forces downstream. The latter condition makes it appear that something should happen soon.

Some say it is a risky thing for us to move outside our position, but somehow one has every confidence in such an old campaigner as the Sixth Division. The intention is for the 16th Brigade in front of the 82nd Battalion position, to demonstrate, holding the Turks there and thus enabling Column A to move on. One section per battery (R.F.A.) will remain to cover the advance. The advance of either column must necessarily be subjected to a lively enfilade fire from across the river and by the transverse trenches rounding the Fort. Enfilade from our left, _i.e._ the right bank of the river, must be kept down by the river-front artillery. The sappers will go ahead to spring the many-rumoured mines of which I doubt the existence, as the Turks are not very up to date this way.

I have everything ready, wagons loosened up, shovels and picks on, ammunition filled, double feed in horse bags, men's rations ready for one day. The ammunition column does not move off until the last guns of the 63rd have moved clear.

So we are not harnessed up, as there will be more than doubly sufficient time when the batteries get the order to go--and it will save the horses a lot, as it may be a long waiting affair.

Our job will be to keep in touch with both columns and have a first position outside Kut only if either column advances into the open. The trip will have to be done again and again, so we shall not escape without casualties.