CHAPTER VIII

OFF TO PERSIA

Au revoir to Bagdad--The forts on the frontier--Customs house for the dead--A land of desolation and death--A city of the past--An underground mess--Methods of rifle thieves.

It was not until the beginning of April (1918) that the intermittent rainfall practically ceased, and allowed a contingent of the weatherbound Dunsterville party to turn their faces towards Hamadan, where our General and his small force were said to be in dire straits.

The advanced base near Baqubah on the Diala River, north-east of Bagdad, where some of our unit were under canvas, was a quagmire; and the road beyond the Persian frontier was reported to be impassable for man, motor, or animal transport. But four consecutive days of fine weather effected a transformation. The heat of the sun converted the liquid mud of the plains into half-baked clay, and the road itself showed a hard crust upon its surface.

No time was lost in setting out for Persia. The force from the advanced base began its march at daylight on April 5. Baggage and transport were cut down to the lowest possible limits, and General {75} Byron and I moved ahead of the column in a Ford van.

On the first night we reached the headquarters of General Thompson, commanding the 14th Division operating on the Diala. Next morning, the weather still promising fair, we were off betimes, and, in spite of road difficulties, at ten o'clock reached the Motor Transport Depot at Khaniquin, the last town on the Turkish side. After a brief halt to enable us to swop our somewhat war-worn car for a more efficient one, we started again, and, within an hour of pulling up at Khaniquin, had crossed the frontier into Persia.

As we approached the boundary of the crumbling Ottoman Empire at this point, the road wound round a low hill. On an eminence above stood a tumble-down martello tower which once had held a Turkish guard; and on a corresponding height on the other side were the ruins of a Persian fort. From these vantage points the two Asiatic Empires, both now crumbling in decay, had for centuries jealously watched each other, quarrelling over a mile or two of disputed territory with all the vehemence of their Oriental blood.

Near Khaniquin, on the Turkish side, we saw what had once been the Quarantine and Customs Stations. It was here that the corpse caravans, coming from the interior of Persia and bound for Kerbela, one of the holy places of the Shi'ite sect, halted and paid Customs dues. It is the pious wish of every Persian {76} to be buried at Kerbela, near the shrine of Hossain the Martyr. The town is in the Vilayet of Bagdad, and in pre-war days the Turks derived a very handsome revenue from tolls levied on dead Persians who were being transported to their last resting-place beside the waters of the Euphrates. It was a gruesome but lucrative traffic for the living, whether Customs officials or muleteers. These caravans of dead, by reason of the absence of anything approaching proper hygienic precautions, probably also carried with them into Asiatic Turkey a varied assortment of endemic diseases. When Persians whose testamentary dispositions earmarked them for the last pilgrimage to Kerbela died, they were buried for a year. At the end of this period they were exhumed, enveloped in coarse sacking, lashed two by two on the back of a mule, and carried to their new resting-place, accompanied by bands of sorrowing friends and relatives.

We were now well over the frontier, and found ourselves in a land of desolation and death. Our way lay past ruined and deserted villages, many of the inhabitants of which had been blotted out by famine. Beyond a few Persian road guards in British pay, or an occasional native labour corps road-making under the protection of a detachment of Indian Infantry, the country seemed destitute of life. On the other side of the frontier I had heard a good deal as to the appalling economic conditions of Persia, and of the shortage of food; but now, {77} brought face to face with the terrible reality, I understood for the first time its full significance.

Men and women, shrivelled and huddled heaps of stricken humanity, lay dead in the public ways, their stiffened fingers still clutching a bunch of grass plucked from the roadside, or a few roots torn up from the fields with which they had sought to lessen the tortures of death from starvation. At other times a gaunt, haggard figure, bearing some resemblance to a human being, would crawl on all fours across the roadway in front of the approaching car, and with signs rather than speech plead for a crust of bread. Hard indeed would be the heart that could refuse such an appeal! So overboard went our ration supply of army biscuit, bit by bit, on this our first day in the hungry land of the Shah!

At Kasr-i-Shirin, where we made a short halt, we were soon surrounded by a starving multitude asking for food. One poor woman with a baby in her arms begged us to save her child. We gave her half a tin of potted meat and some biscuits, for which she called down the blessing of Allah on our heads. Her maternal solicitude was touching, for, although it was evident that she was suffering from extreme hunger, no food passed her lips until her baby had been supplied.

The western slopes of Kasr-i-Shirin are covered with the remains of a great city. The outline of extensive walls can be traced amidst the debris of masonry. Masses of roughly hewn sandstone strew {78} the ground. Within the ancient enclosure are heaps of tumble-down masonry, all that exists of the houses that formerly stood there. Some little distance away are traceable the ruined outlines of a splendid palace with spacious underground apartments and beautiful archways, once the residence of some Acharmenian or Sasanian monarch. The remains of a rock-hewn aqueduct, with reservoir, troughs, and stone pipes, which brought water to this city of antiquity from a distance of twelve miles, are still to be seen.

From Kasr-i-Shirin onwards there was a gradual descent to the bottom of the Pai Tak Pass. It is three miles to the top of the Pass, and there is a difference in altitude of about fifteen hundred feet. Whatever else they may be, Persians are not roadmakers. Formerly the only way to scale Pai Tak was by following a mule track which wound round the sparsely wooded slopes of the hill. But now British military engineers had done some useful spade work there; an excellent road had been built with easy gradients, and Pai Tak was negotiable for Ford cars, and even for heavily laden Peerless lorries.

The view from the top was superb. On either side of the plateau towered snow-capped mountains. We found in possession, under Colonel Mathews, a British force consisting of the 14th Hants. The Colonel himself was absent; but the officers of the battalion gave us a hearty welcome, and fixed us up with quarters for the night.

The Senjabi tribesmen round about were troublesome, {79} and their leader, Ali Akhbar Khan, incited by German propagandists, seemed bent upon coming into collision with the British. It was bitterly cold at Surkhidizeh on the top of the Pai Tak Pass, and we enjoyed the warmth and comfort of the Hants' mess quarters.

This was an underground circular apartment, cut out of the earth, into which you descended by a flight of wooden steps. The top was roofed with canvas, tent fashion.

Rifle thieves were active in the camp at Surkhidizeh. Wandering Kurdish tribesmen showed special daring in this form of enterprise. Scarcely a night passed without the Hants' Camp being raided for arms. British rifles brought enormous prices when sold to the Senjabi and other of the lawless nomads whose happy hunting-ground is the "No Man's Land" in the neighbourhood of the Turko-Persian frontier. Here a man was socially valued solely by the arms he carried. He might be in rags as far as raiment was concerned, but the possession of a .303 Lee Enfield, or a German Mauser, marked him as a man of some distinction and importance in the country, one who might be expected to do big things, and with whom it was well to be on friendly terms.

The average nomad whom I came across is not renowned for physical courage, and in daylight he will think twice before attacking even a single British soldier; yet these selfsame tribesmen would {80} unhesitatingly raid a British bivouac nightly, and face the possibility of death, in order to pilfer a couple of rifles. Rifle raiding possessed for them a kind of fascination. The raiders often failed and paid the penalty with their lives, but the attempts were never abandoned for long. One method was for a brace of snipers to fire on the sentry and on the guard, so creating a diversion. A couple of their fellows, with their bodies well oiled, naked save for a loin-cloth, and carrying each a long knife, would meanwhile crawl into the camp at a place remote from the point of disturbance, and snatch a rifle or two from beside the sleeping soldiers. If caught, they used their knives, and invariably with fatal effect. Even if detected the raiders usually got away, for in the darkness and confusion it was difficult to fire upon them without incurring the risk of hitting one of your own people.

I was aroused from a sound sleep the first night at Surkhidizeh by the noise of rifle firing, followed by an infernal hullabaloo. Unbuttoning the tent flap, and rushing into the open, I found that the rifle snatchers had been busy again. A native had wriggled through the barbed-wire enclosure and, with the silence of a Red Indian, had entered a tent occupied by men of the Hants battalion. The soldiers slept with the sling of the rifle attached to the waistbelt. Cutting through this without disturbing the owner, the thief had bolted with the weapon.

On leaving, he fell over some of the sleeping {81} occupants, who were aroused and sought to grab him, but in the darkness and confined space of the bell-tent, they missed the thief and grasped each other's throats. The sentry fired, but failed of his mark. The remainder of the guard and some Indian units also loosed off a few rounds, but without success.

The night favoured the enterprise. It was pitch dark. The raider's friends, from the cover of some dead ground in the neighbourhood, sniped the camp intermittently for the next hour or two, until everybody grew exasperated, and wished that Persia with its marauding bands, and the whole Middle East Question were sunk in the deep sea.

{82}