Part 15

_Diary._ General Gillman gave B. and me luncheon. Then B. and I rode out to the camp of the 18th Division, where I found Brownrigg, now become a Colonel, with malaria. I congratulated and condoled. I asked if we could get into the front trench, and Colonel Hillard said it was unhealthy. B. said that didn’t matter, and I asked exactly how unhealthy. Hillard said there were no communication trenches and we should be under machine-gun fire at 80 yards. No rations were being sent up till nightfall, but still, of course, if we wanted to go, we could. B. was passionately anxious to go; I was not. We walked down a shallow communication trench, which we soon had to leave, because of the water, and then across the open to a beastly place called Crofton’s Post, an observation post in the flat land, with a few sandbags and mud walls. They had dug a kind of shelter about 6 feet deep below it. It stood about 20 feet high. The Turks were eight to nine hundred yards away. We passed other observation posts, these simply a ladder rising from the flat land, and men like flies on it. It’s incredible that the Turks leave these places standing or that they allow people to walk about in the open in the way in which they do. Coming out, we passed a lot of quail and partridge and some jolly wild flowers, but also the smells of the battlefield.

After we had been at Crofton’s Post a little while, a furious bombardment of the Turks by us began. I cursed myself for not having asked what the plans of the afternoon were going to be. B. was delighted. Shells rushed over our heads from all sides. I heard the scream of two premature bursts just by us. They raised filthy, great columns of heaving smoke. It was a wonderful picture; the radiant and brilliant light of the afternoon, the desert out by the river, the gleam of the gun flashes and the smouldering smoke columns.

The Gurkhas fought very well two nights ago, they said here. They used up all their ammunition and what Turkish rifles they could get and then they fought with kukris. At one place an unfortunate mistake happened. We mistook the Indians for Turks, and we bombarded each other.

We went back almost deafened by our own guns, B. reluctant to leave. I expected a heavy Turkish return bombardment every minute, which would have been unpleasant without any cover, but beyond the ticking of a machine-gun nothing happened. Found General Maude having tea. His casualties have been heavy--nineteen officers killed and wounded in the last ten days, simply trench work, no attacks. He said it was putting a very heavy strain on the new army.

The more I see of this foul country, the more convinced I am that we are a seafaring people, lured to disaster by this river. The River Tigris has been a disaster and a delusion to us. These lines are untenable without two railways, one across to Nasriyah and the other up to Bagdad. At the present moment, we can be cut off if the river falls or if they manage to put in guns anywhere down the river and sink a couple of our boats, or even one, in the narrows, and so block the channel. We have got no policy. We came here and we saw the Tigris and we said: “This is as good as the sea, and up we will go,” and now it will dry up and we shall get left.

Lawrence arrived at Wadi on Wednesday. Had some talk with him; I am very glad to see him. Got a letter from John Kennaway yesterday--he is down at Sheikh Saad--asking me to go there. I can get no news about Bobby Palmer. Am afraid there is no doubt; he must be killed; am very sad for his people.

_Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916._ _H.M.S. “Greenfly.”_ A curious morning, with the whole of Pusht i Kuh standing blue and clear. The last two foreigners who visited that place were given the choice of embracing Islam or of being pushed over the precipice. They chose the precipice.

Yesterday morning we attacked. The 19th Brigade, the Black Watch, the 20th and the 28th. We took two trenches, but were driven back to our own. I was sent post-haste to H.Q. for news. There was a great sand-storm and men and artillery going through it like phantoms. Overhead it was lurid. One could hardly breathe for the sand. High columns of it rushed across the desert. The repulse looks as if the end’s very close. I came back to the Admiral and was sent back again. This time they said there was a truce, and if the Admiral would give permission, I was to go to the front at once. I came back and found the Admiral and went on shore. I got a horse and rode up to the front as fast as I could, passing many dead and wounded. I went to General Younghusband and asked if I could be of any use to him. He said the truce was ending. The Turks had pushed out white flags, which was decent of them. We had done the same. A Staff officer came in to say that the Turks were taking our kit, and he wanted to fire on them. I was anxious we should not do so without giving warning.

We discussed the possibility of the Turks’ letting Townshend and his men come out with the honours of war, to be on parole till peace. I said that I could see no _quid pro quo_, and even if one existed, we, here, could not use it, because of our ignorance of the Russian situation.... The General said that the water had narrowed our front to 300 yards across which to attack. The Turkish trenches were half-full of water and many of our men fell and got their rifles filled with mud. The Turks attacked again at once. He said there were not many troops who would do that when a brigade like the 19th had been through them. There’s very little left of the 19th; beautiful men they were. I have talked to a lot of them these last days. I rode back on a horse that was always falling down. In the evening I crossed the river with the Admiral and rode up to the front with Beach. There was shelling going on, but nothing came near. The river was gorgeous in the sunset. Overhead the sand-grouse flew. We talked about the future.... It seems to me that if we have got to retreat 130 miles it’s less bad for prestige to do it in one go. The Politicals’ point of view is that you should not retreat at all, but that, of course, has got to depend on military considerations. The Soldiers’ point of view is that you should not do your retreat in one go, because you do not kill so many of the enemy as if you fall back from one position to another; but then, I suppose, that cuts both ways. None of these soldiers have had any decorations since the beginning of the war. One of them said to me it made them unhappy, because they felt that they hadn’t done their duty. It’s an infernal shame. I asked the man who had said this if he had any leave. He said: “Not much! I should have lost my job.” That would have been quite a pleasure to a lot of men....

Lawrence has gone and got fever; Nunn also has it. The atmosphere makes shooting difficult. Yesterday the Turks shot quite a lot at a mirage, splashing their bullets about in the Suwekki marsh. We often do the same. Curiously enough, I believe that we won the battle of Shaiba by virtue of a mirage. We saw a lot of Turks marching up against our position, and fired at them; these Turks were phantoms of men miles away; but it happened to be the only road by which they could bring up their ammunition, and our firing prevented that. To-night the _Julnar_ goes up the river on her journey. She has less speed than they thought.

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For various reasons I have barely mentioned the _Julnar_ until now, though she had been very much in our thoughts. The _Julnar_ was a river boat, and for some days past she had been preparing to set out upon her splendid, tragic mission. In her lay the last hope of General Townshend and his gallant force. Her freight was food, intended to prolong the resistance of the garrison until the relieving force was sufficiently strong to drive back the Turks and enter Kut. The writer of this diary has many heroic pictures in his mind, but no more heroic picture and no more glowing memory than the little _Julnar_ steaming slowly up the flaming Tigris to meet the Turkish Army and her fate. Her Captains were Lieut. Firman, R.N. and Lieut.-Comdr. Cowley, R.N.V.R., of Lynch’s Company, who had spent a long life in navigating the River Tigris.

When Admiral Wemyss called for volunteers, every man volunteered, for what was practically certain death. Lieut. Firman and Lieut.-Comdr. Cowley were both killed, and both received posthumous V.C.’s.

* * * * *

_Diary. April 23rd._ _H.M.S. “Greenfly.”_ We are alongside the _Mantis_. I am sleeping in Firman’s cabin. He is down-stream, but he comes up to-night. Many men badly wounded yesterday, but all as cheerful as could be; one man with three bullets in his stomach, full of talk and oaths. Fifteen of the Dorsets have died in the nearest hospital and have been buried close by.

This afternoon an Easter Service was held on board. The Padre made a good sermon three minutes long. It was a wonderful sight--the desert covered with our graves, mirages in the distance and the river glowing in the sun. At the end of the service the _Julnar_ arrived. Firman is an attractive good-looking fellow. King, whom I met last year in Alexandretta, whither he had marched from Bagdad, is also here. When Buxton told the men of the hundred to one chance of the _Julnar’s_ getting through, they volunteered to a man. Gieve waistcoats are being served out; the cannon’s sounding while they are loading the _Julnar_ and the Black Watch are playing on the bagpipes close by. Overhead go the sand-grouse, calling and the river and the desert wind are sighing. It’s all like a dream.... Even if she does get through, I don’t believe we can relieve Kut. The Turks will have time to consolidate their position and we shan’t be sent enough men from home to take them. If this attempt fails, I suppose we shall fall back to Sheikh Saad. I see three points: (1) Political. Don’t retreat. (2) Military. You’ve got to retreat, occupying as many positions as possible, in order to attrition the enemy. (3) If you do this last, you give the Turks the chance of saying they have beaten you in a number of battles. Probably retreat as little as possible is the best. A retreat may be more disastrous to us than the loss of Kut. While we hold Sheikh Saad, it’s difficult for them to outflank us on the right bank, and while we have the Vali of Pusht i Kuh with us, they ought not to be able to get to Ahwaz. One wonders if they realize the supreme importance of Basra at home and that if we no longer hold it we do not hold the Indian Ocean.

_Monday, April 24, 1916._ _H.M.S. “Dragonfly.”_ Firman came last night, and I sat next to him at dinner. The _Julnar_ could not start; she starts to-night.

I went ashore this morning and saw Leachman, then Colonel Beach. The flies are awful; one black web of them this morning; in one’s hair and eyes and mouth, in one’s bath and shaving-water, in one’s tea and in one’s towel. It’s a great nuisance being without Edward and having to do everything oneself, besides one’s work. It destroys all joy in war.

_Tuesday, April 25, 1916._ _H.M.S. “Greenfly.”_ A year ago to-day we landed at Anzac. To-day is the day of the fall of Kut, though the surrender may not be made for some time. Last night the _Julnar_ left. I saw old Cowley, an old friend. He is to pilot her. He has been thirty-three years on this river. He is a proper Englishman. He laughed and chaffed with Philip Neville and me on the _Julnar_ before starting. Firman was very glad to have got the job, and felt the responsibility. Everybody wanted to go. The sailors were moved. No cheers were allowed. They pushed off, almost stationary, into the river, that was a glory of light with the graceful mehailahs in an avenue on both sides of it, with masts and rigging a filigree against the gorgeous sunset. The faint bagpipes and the desert wind were the only music at their going.... The Admiral told me to be ready to go out at any moment. This morning Colonel Beach came aboard and told me to hold myself in readiness. He proposed going out to see the Turks with Lawrence and myself. He talked about terms. It’s a very difficult thing to get terms when one side holds all the cards. If Townshend destroys his guns, as he must, I don’t see what terms we have got. My own opinion is that Townshend would make better terms for himself with the Turks than we can get for him here. It will be difficult to stop the Arabs being shot and hung. We have got to do our best....

The _Julnar_ has grounded above the Sinn position. Nothing is known of what happened to the crew.

Wilfred Peek turned up here this afternoon, having seen John Kennaway down the stream. We have no terms to offer the Turks except money, general or local peace, or the evacuation of territory. I do not think the first is any good. We cannot offer the second because of ourselves and of Russia. The third might be all right, if it was not beyond Amarah. I hope in these negotiations we do not meet a Prussian Turk in Khalil.

After lunch I met Captain Potter. In the last attack this had happened: A corporal had gone mad and, after rolling in filth, had come down the trench with a bomb in each hand, shouting out that he was looking for the ---- Arabs. The parapet was low, about shoulder-high, and there was a good deal of shrapnel and bullets coming in. The corporal threw the bomb into the middle of the officers’ mess, killing one and wounding the Colonel, knocking Potter and the others out. They collared the corporal, who had got a madman’s strength. Then the attack followed. Potter went as soon as he recovered. They charged across 600 yards under machine-gun fire, up to their knees in mud. The Turks were in their third trench. The first and the second were filled with mud. Then the Turks ran out a white flag, which suited us very well, as it allowed our men in the Turkish trenches to get away, which otherwise they couldn’t have done. He thought the Turks did it because they wanted to bring up reinforcements. He now commands a battalion of 84, all that are left of 650 men. He said they had reached the limits of human endurance. He had three officers, including himself, left. The Black Watch had been wiped out twice, and other regiments simply annihilated. I told him that I thought there would be no more attacks. He said a Turkish prisoner, a friend of his, had said to him: “Let’s have a truce and both kill the Arabs.”

Beach says there is no question of going out to-day. I went out shooting sand-grouse.

_Wednesday, April 26, 1916._ _H.M.S. “Mantis.”_ I am writing in great haste, till the sun goes down, as the mehailahs stream past on a river of fire, in the retreat that is beginning.

The news from home is good and bad. As usual, they are desperately optimistic, but more men are coming. We must, if we can, save the Arabs with Townshend. The last telegrams in were pitiful. Townshend quotes military precedents and other campaigns, and it’s all mixed up with famine and the stinks of Kut. Wilfred Peek’s his A.D.C. I am to try and get him a safe conduct to take Townshend’s stuff up to him, also one for us. If Townshend does not make it clear that it’s a return ticket, we shall all be kept. I saw General Lake this morning. Captain Bermester, the Chief of the Staff, Neville, Dick Bevan and Miller all went off this morning. The Admiral is coming back. I have received instructions about negotiations.

_Friday, April 28, 1916._ _H.M.S. “Mantis.”_ For the last two days I have been standing by to go to Kut, constantly dressing up for it and then undressing for the heat. A wave of great heat has come and the air is black with flies. Practically no firing, though they tried to shell us yesterday and an aeroplane dropped bombs near here. We have got very little to bargain with, as far as the Turks are concerned, practically only the exchange of prisoners. The operations of this force are not to be reckoned with as a bargaining asset. We are not to retire to save Townshend. Yesterday Townshend saw Khalil at ten a.m., whom he liked. Khalil said that Townshend would have as great a reception in Turkey as Osman Pasha in Russia, but he demanded unconditional surrender, or that Townshend should march out of Kut. This last is equivalent to an unconditional surrender, and Townshend’s men are too weak. We are all sorry for them.

Yesterday morning General Lake sent for me, and talked about the Turks. I said it was quite clear to me that the Turks would procrastinate, if it was only from force of habit, and the end of that must mean unconditional surrender. General Lake was calm. He has been made responsible for things for which other people are answerable. Townshend has telegraphed to say that he has only food for two more days and that Khalil has referred to Enver for better terms.... I still think Townshend would get better terms for himself than we shall get for him. He has made a desperately gallant fight of it, and his position has not been taken. Lack of food makes him surrender, not force of arms. We, the relieving force, have been checked by the Turks, but I suppose all these men, Lake, Townshend and Nixon, will be made scapegoats. In the last telegrams Townshend warns us that the Turks may attack. He says he cannot move out, and that even if he were able to get his weak men out the Turks would not have enough tents for them or transport to Bagdad, and that there will be a terrible tragedy and that a lot of sick and wounded will die.... We are not in a position to insist on anything. One is more sorry for Townshend and his men than words can say.

_Sunday, April 30, 1916._ _H.M.S. “Mantis.”_ _The Events of Saturday_: Yesterday morning Colonel Beach came to the _Mantis_ at seven and took me off. We rode across the bridge to General Younghusband’s H.Q. Nothing that I have ever seen or dreamed of came up to the flies. They hatched out until they were almost the air. They were in myriads. The horses were half mad. The flies were mostly tiny. They rolled up in little balls when one passed one’s hand across one’s sweating face. They were on your eyelids and lashes and in your lips and nostrils. We could not speak for them, and could hardly see.

We went into General Younghusband’s tent. The flies, for some reason, stayed outside. He put a loose net across the door of the tent. They were like a visible fever, shimmering in the burning light all round. Inside his tent you did not breathe them; outside you could not help taking them in through the nose and the mouth. We left General Younghusband and went on to the front trenches, where we met Colonel Aylsmee. There Lawrence joined us. We three then went out of the trenches with a white flag, and walked a couple of hundred yards or so ahead, where we waited, with all the battlefield smells round us. It was all a plain, with the river to the north and the place crawling with huge black beetles and singing flies, that have been feeding on the dead. After a time a couple of Turks came out. I said: “We have got a letter to Khalil.” This they wanted to take from us, but we refused to give it up, and they sent an orderly back to ask if we might come in to the Turkish lines. Meanwhile we talked amiably. One of the Turkish officers, a Cretan, had left school five years ago and had been in five wars. He reckoned that he had been in 200 attacks, not counting scraps with brigands and comitadjis. The Turks showed us their medals, and we were rather chagrined at not being able to match them, but they and we agreed that we should find the remedy for that in a future opportunity.

Several hours passed. It was very hot. I was hungry, having had no breakfast. Again they asked us to give up our letter. I said that our orders were to deliver it in person and, as soldiers, they knew what orders were, but that Colonel Beach would give the letter up if their C.O. would guarantee that we should see Khalil Pasha. This took a long time. The Turks sent for a tent. A few rifle shots went off from our lines, but Beach went back and stopped it. The Turks sent for oranges and water, and we ate and drank. We had to refill these bottles from the Tigris, and up and down the banks were a lot of dead bodies from shot-wounds and cholera. After some time they agreed to Beach’s proposal. We were blindfolded and we went in a string of hot hands to the trenches of the Turks. When it was plain going the Turk, who talked French, called: “Franchement, en avant,” and when it was bad going, over trenches, “Yavash Dikatet.” We marched a long way through these trenches, banging against men and corners, and sweating something cruel. Beyond the trenches we went for half an hour, while my handkerchief became a wet string across my eyes. Then we met Bekir Sami Bey. He was a very fine man and very jolly, something between an athlete and old King Cole. He lavished hospitality upon us, coffee and yoghurt, and begged us to say if there was anything more he could get us, while we sat and streamed with perspiration. He told us how he had loved England and still did. He was fierceness and friendship incarnate. He said it was all Grey’s fault, and glorified the Crimea. Why couldn’t we have stuck to that policy? Then, as we were going off, I said that he would not insist on our eyes being bandaged, showing him my taut, wet rag of a pocket-handkerchief. He shouted with laughter and said: “No, no; you have chosen soldiering, a very hard profession. You have got to wear that for miles, and you will have to ride across ditches.” Then he shook hands and patted us on the shoulder.

My eyes were bound, and I got on a horse that started bucking because of the torture of the flies. The Turk was angry and amused. I heard him laughing and swearing: “This is perfectly monstrous. Ha, ha! He’ll be off. Ha, ha! This is a reproach to us.” I was then given another horse that was not much of an improvement, and off we three went with a Turkish officer, Ali Shefket, and a guard. Lawrence had hurt his knee and could not ride. He got off and walked, a Turkish officer being left with him. Colonel Beach and I went on. Then our eyes were unbound, though as a matter of fact this was against the orders I had heard given. The Turk Ali Shefket and I talked. He knew no French. He said to me: “Formerly the Arabs would not take our bank-notes; now they take them. Once upon a time they would not take medjids; two days ago they took them. To what do you put that down?” I knew he meant the fall of Kut, but it was not said maliciously. I said that I put it down to the beautiful character of the marsh Arabs, “yerli bourda beule” (here the native are thus). He laughed and agreed. We passed formidable herds of horses and mules, our road a sand-track. The escort rode ahead of us. The heat was very great, but we galloped. The Turks we met thought that we were prisoners. They saluted sometimes at strict attention, sometimes with a grin, and later our Indians were told in return to salute the Turkish officers, who looked at them as black as thunder.