Chapter VI: The Last Days of Kut--Sickness--Death--Surrender (1)

_March 28th._--It is a quiet day. On the right bank there is some movement of the enemy downstream. Convoys of camels and mules trekked from Shamrun camp over the Shat-el-hai to the Turkish depôts below.

We are all eagerly awaiting news of our preparation for the big show, and there is much debating as to what would be the best plan of attack.

_3 p.m._--There is considerable Turkish activity all around, and reinforcements are probably being pushed down below, for the enemy knows quite well that we are on our last legs and that a big attempt will be made to relieve us.

The river is gradually falling, and one 4·7 has been towed back into position, but the other is still under-water.

A bombardment is proceeding downstream, probably the shelling of Sunaiyat, the formidable position of the enemy on the left bank, a series of trenches on a tiny front of 400 yards between a marsh and a river. In this position the enemy is so deep down and has such excellent cover that the place has so far baffled every attempt to take it. Not the least difficulty is that the intervening ground, which every storming party must cross, is wet as a bog. This has, of course, been worked by the Turks. On the right bank Gorringe seems to have pushed on almost level of Sunaiyat, and, with a little more success, enfilade of the Sunaiyat position should be possible.

According to rumour, the plan of attack roughly may be as follows:--

One division will probably have the task of holding Sunaiyat forces while the other two divisions push up through Beit Aessa, whence our 6-inch guns should enfilade the Sunaiyat position. The line of advance would probably make for Dujaila Redoubt which would be taken on by our big guns and the bridge at O destroyed to prevent escape of the enemy to other bank. One division would then have a large part of the Turkish force hemmed in on the Essin ridge right bank, and the other division crossing into Kut by a bridge to be erected by us would swing around past the Fort to prevent the remaining enemy forces on the left bank from getting away. It will be either a dismal failure or brilliant success, and much at this belated hour must depend upon the floods.

_March 29th._--A beautiful day and quite hot. We have been unmolested except for some shells on the Fort. I have finished "Septimus," by W. Locke. Septimus is a delightful chap, and would make much fun for us if he were here.

Then we played chess, and I visited Pas Nip on my way around the trenches. He returned and lunched with us. I have managed to get a tin of gooseberry jam at ten rupees, one tin of milk twelve rupees, 1½ lbs. of atta for fifteen rupees.

I held another inspection of the native drivers among whom scurvy has increased. They still refuse to eat horseflesh.

Don Juan has turned from a dark black to a burned brown. That, possibly, is his way of turning grey! I gather him some grass every possible day.

_March 30th._--It has been a day of the most perfect tranquillity, and as I couldn't sleep for this confounded backache I was up for the dawn. I climbed up to the observation post and looked around on a lovely earth. I mean it. The very wretchedness and misery of the floods, and the broken palm grove, and the disfigured earth, were all woven into the most bewitching harmony by sheets of silver and bars of golden sunlight. It was hard to realize it was a scene of war, that those receding terraces were trenches filled with armed Turks. I am beginning to think that, after all, the Garden of Eden could have been very beautiful--at any rate in the dawn, for then it is a country of long shadows and persuasive lights. This morning the drooping palm fronds patterned the water and the wide plain. There was gold and green in every patch of grass. As for the rest of the earth, it was all a wonderful and faithful mirror, for in the lucent waters of the ever-growing flood one saw the moving images of clouds and wild fowl. Down below there was not a breath, but high above a gentle breeze from the west caught some fleecy islets of the sky and washed them out into the great blue sea. To-night the geography of the sky has changed. There are no islets, there is no movement. But across the whole western quarter of the sky the clouds have formed an ethereal beach of white-ribbed sands that reach around the world, and form the shores of a wide dark ocean that is lit by flashing stars.

To-night I should like to be Peter Pan in an obedient cutter and sail there far and wide. Jolly runs I could have, and how very easy to find my way about safely with all those splendid lights and beacons. And being Peter Pan I should know them all.

An ominous buzz recalls me to things nearer at hand. The room has been invaded by mosquitoes. Already the flies are an abominable nuisance in the daytime, and cockroaches are plentiful.

Last night the _Sumana_ was strafed again, and Tudway has been toiling all the evening at her defences.

This morning I paid the men and did some office work, and brought the war diary up to date. After that I found time to try a longer walk around our first line, but felt too seedy to go into the Fort. I heard that the sickness is rapidly increasing, and the condition of the troops is so bad that the chief dread of the whole routine is the marching to and from the trenches. This being so, regiments are now allowed to remain out there permanently. In one Indian regiment man after man has simply sunk down in his tracks and died through want of food. And an extraordinary number of soldiers wretchedly ill won't report sick, partly through a horror of entering the crowded and unhappy hospitals, and also from a sense of duty. Among the men there is, of course, a good deal of ragging and general barracking about our not being relieved, but their spirit and patience and trust in their general is truly magnificent. No soldier, I truly believe, could wish for a more splendid loyalty from his rank and file than these men, the European troops, at any rate, feel and show in a hundred ways for their "Alphonse." They get little news but of disappointments, still they go about their duties with a step unsteady and painfully slow, and at every fresh misfortune they joke and smile.

We miss very much all communication with the outside world. The generals get a few letters and papers by aeroplane, but no one else. The other day, however, our mess bombardier received one from an enterprising brother who directed the letter to General Townshend, and enclosed the letter to his brother inside. He tells me his brother is a seaman in a Royal Indian Mail boat, and is a very up-to-date sort of chap. I should just think so!

_March 31st._--The weather has broken and once more the steady downpour has made Kut into a mild sort of Venice. We have no gondolas it is true, but if our _bund_ goes we can make shift with rafts.

The _Sumana_ got badly shelled last evening. One shell went through the awning and crashed through the main stop-valve over the boiler, missing the funnel and boiler by an inch or two. That would have been irreparable. As it is things are quite serious with her. Great volumes of steam escaped, no doubt to the huge delight of the Turkish gunners. Great consternation prevailed at headquarters, and Tudway was immediately reminded---much to his disgust--of the "example set by Beresford on the Nile when he repaired his boiler under fire." Tudway is not the sort of fellow who needs any example.

I went on board this morning and saw the damage done. The old boat has simply been shot through and through. We drew up a scheme for using shields of gun wagons spread out over the awning to lend additional protection. As we sprinted over the planks back to the shore, the Turks at Snipers' Nest were evidently waiting for us, and a hail of bullets flew by. We found cover by some millstones, and after a few minutes' rest took to our heels for the remaining stretch. We are hoping to get a valve up from below by aeroplane.

Native rations, except for meal, have ceased altogether. This may induce them to eat horse. There is nothing against it now as they have the full permission of the Chief Mullahs in India. The horses are on 4 lbs. of bran and 12 lbs. of grass cut by fatigue parties off the _maidan_. It keeps them going, and that is all. The young animals are merely drawing on their constitution.

I am deeply sorry to hear that poor Woods has gone. He was the subaltern I have mentioned before as having got the Military Cross for bravery at the Fort on December 24th, when he lost his arm. He was a jovial fellow, and a very good sort. We have had many a gossip together at the hospital. He died from jaundice. It is very, very unfortunate, as his arm was quite well, and he was back on light duty. The truth is our condition is so low that anything carries us off. We are all very glad he died happily.

_April 1st._--A terrific thunderstorm swamped everything last night. The place was alive with electricity, and flashings kept me awake for hours.

Most of our heavy bombardment trenches are full of water, and I have had fatigue parties on all day baling them out and shifting the horses.

A rumour has it that the Russians are in the Pushtikus, the distant range just to the eastward. I consider this a pathetic rumour, and I'm more interested in what Shackleton is doing at the South Pole.

To-night we had a meagre portion of fish which one of my drivers caught in the river. We pay him well and he buys atta for himself and his pals.

Square-Peg sleeps most of the day, and represents the three of us in collecting a daily account of Cockie's doings. There is no one, I am given to understand, sorrier that Cockie was hit than General "G. B.," who happens to be next door to him. The hospital, I was yesterday informed by an inmate slow to anger and of great mercy, consists of two factions, those that do not love Cockie and those who can't hear him. I hope he doesn't mind my writing this. I have sent him fish and fowl, and for my pains he sent me back inquiries as to why I hadn't done so before. Bah! Cockie can be so rude if you don't always do sufficient homage--and then I'm so forgetful in these matters. Not a man in the garrison has risen to-day to an April fool's joke--not one!

_April 2nd._--We tried some green weed or other the Sepoys gathered on the _maidan_. Boiled and eaten with a little salad oil that Tudway fished out from heaven knows where, it seemed quite palatable. After all, as he says, all we want is something of a gluey nature to keep our souls stuck on to us.

A delightful little mess is ours. There is none cheerier in Kut. Picture a long bare wooden table, the other end piled up with war diaries, books, papers, pipes, and empty bottles, revolvers and field-glasses, we three at this end. Tudway is much senior to me, but insists that I preside. So I have the camp armchair, and he the other, which has very short legs so that he often seems to be talking under the table. It has also paralysis in the right arm, so that it is necessary to be very careful in leaning that way. Now and then, usually once a night, Tudway forgets, or perhaps he likes doing it, for he simply bowls over sideways, and by dint of repeated practice can now do so while clutching at the bread or joint en route. Sometimes he does it in the middle of a sentence, which he nevertheless completes leisurely on the floor as becomes an imperturbable sailor.

Square-Peg opposite has a high wooden chair, and is getting up a pose for the Woolsack, which I understand he will one day adorn.

My position is strategically a difficult one, for the other two acting in conjunction can at a pinch remove the victuals beyond my reach towards the other end of the table, and my rum--when we do raise a peg--is in constant danger until consumed. Square-Peg, whose pseudonym has nothing whatever to do with a drink, is extraordinarily forgetful in this way at times, and has been known in the course of an excellent story to drink all my rum and half of Tudway's. But I've an excellent memory, and the next rum night--possibly weeks after--Square-Peg goes short.

I am carver and taster, both useful functions in a siege. Tudway likes it thin, but with Square-Peg it is necessary to cut it thick. After the third helping Square-Peg has to carve for himself. We inaugurated that last week. If by accident the horse is extra tough, and Square-Peg gets splashed, he gets four helpings, but Tudway does not, for he can take cover under the table.

As regards the vegetables, "Sparrow-grass" and potato meal _or_ beetroot and rice, I divide, and we all cut cards for first pick. There is always plenty of horse, but vegetables are a great delicacy. Tudway and I conspire to do Square-Peg out of his greens so as to keep him up to the scratch in procuring or in "pinching" vegetables from the garden of which he is C.O. It works admirably, and I am only sorry his small pockets necessitate his making several trips. On wet days we have "encore" in the vegetables, for then he wears a top coat with big pockets. He refuses to do so on fine days as he says it looks suspicious. If we have an issue of a spoonful of sugar I barter it for milk, and the date juice, when we get it, is measured out with a spoon.

For pudding we have kabobs, fried flour and fat, two each, and we cut for choice. An excellent idea which we have lately followed is to get the fat off a horse--there is very little now, poor things--and render it into dripping, which is quite excellent. I have sometimes waited for hours to get this from the butchery. While we had sardines our bombardier produced a savoury with toast, but that is long ago. Instead we have coffee, which is mostly ground-up roots, plus liquorice powder, if you're not careful in buying. The date juice goes into the coffee, but Square-Peg complains that he can't "feel it that way," so he drinks his like a liqueur. I prefer bad tea, as the coffee is generally atrocious, but Tudway likes it for the sake of "the smell." I provide the tobacco out of the funds, and sometimes have been diligent enough to make cigarettes, which are better than those the Arabs make, by screwing up the paper like a lollipop, pouring the tobacco in and twisting the top end up. The latter cigarettes require great art in smoking. One has to lie back in one's chair and point the cigarette to the roof so as to prevent the baccy emptying out of the cigarette into one's coffee.

This is the hour sacred to us. We exchange rumours or invent them. We pool all our gossip into a common heap which becomes the altar of another day's hope. We avoid all matters of misfortune or suffering. We have mutually and tacitly barred the subject of Home. But when the smoke cloud above the remains of our sorry banquet grows dense from the pipes of three excellent smokers, we lapse into silence, and see in the moving mists sweet fantasies far away. If we were Germans we would, I have no doubt, sing "Home, Sweet Home" in parts, and shake hands, and shed tears in unison. But we are merely Englishmen, and if anyone were to sing five notes of that song he would get slung out for making a brutal assault on our hearts. So instead we merely smoke on and on, and the jackals' chorus grows less and less as memories drift about among the wisps and wraiths of this strange fog-land. We are glad we are here. We have no tears to give, but although we know it not, in the heart of us each is a prayer.

_April 3rd._--It is four months to-day since the Sixth Division on its last legs entered Kut-el-Amara, expecting relief to be here in three weeks, a month, possibly six weeks.

Inscrutable are the ways of Allah!

This afternoon a fierce thunderstorm broke over Kut, and hailstones larger than pigeons' eggs rattled upon us with the sharp music of musketry. One should be quite sufficient to knock a fellow out if it got him bare-headed. Afterwards it turned to rain, which we fear may delay the next battle for Kut. We hear that the enemy is making every effort to hold up the relieving force down below, or delay us, for the short time beyond which the garrison cannot now hold out.

I am feeling very seedy again to-day, what with this enteritis and rheumatics and jaundice. So is Tudway, to whom I have given various opium pills and camphoradine. I am, however, lucky so far to have escaped the severe form of enteritis which many others have had. It is a deadly and horrible thing enough, accompanied by violent pains in the abdomen, and vomiting. To be sure I have had the former for so many weeks that I am used to it, and we often say we can scarcely remember the time when we hadn't these infernal pains. "A brandy flip, my dear fellow, is the one and only for it," our medical friend says, and smiles. Ho! for a brandy flip. In the Arctic circle the two seasons are light and dark, and in India dry and wet, and in Kut when one has stomach ache and when one hasn't.

It is said that a certain cavalry regiment has at last unanimously rescinded the rule that it is bad form for any officer of the regiment not to be fit. Most of us have been put down for sick leave at once when the relief occurs. The India list is the most cheerful phrase one hears. Tudway has asked me to go downstream with him on the _Sumana_, and proposes a grand progression down to Basra and to pass H.M.S. _Clio_, his parent boat, when we get there. I am quite intoxicated with the notion. And truly the sight of the _Sumana_ ripped and torn through and through by shell and bullet, with her shotted funnel and her smashed cabins and her twisted bridge, and her white ensign that soiled and tattered bunting, the finest flag in all the world, still fluttering in the stern--would be a sight for the gods. But then I've had nothing whatever to do with the _Sumana_, so I must prefer to be ashore. I see it all exactly, her grey dirty form with the black patches where shells have shifted her paint, and near the path of that Windy Lizzie that crashed through the bridge, the redoubtable countenance of our friend Tudway, the youthful commander and preserver of this eloquent trophy. The _Clio_, of course, salutes her diminutive sister, and ah, those terrible and honest cheers! An awful moment for Tudway I admit.... But at twelve o'clock that night he will have indigenous metamorphosis!

"Tudway!" I exclaim, "you no longer have the inches of a god. Can't you stand up?"

"Donsh wansh stansh up. If you'd hads many cockstailsh I've had couldn't either."

Perhaps!

_April 4th._--A heavy bombardment downstream continued for hours this morning. The rain has ceased and the soaken earth is steaming under a bright hot sun.

Reports from the hospital are to the effect that Cockie's temperament "has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." His delusions include a notion that he still commands the column. To dispel the latter delusion it is necessary for one to cancel quite a number of his orders.

Dorking has evolved quite a number of literary ideas since my leaving the battery. He has read the letters of "Dorothy to Temple" which I recommended to him, and quite enjoyed them. In fact he says he would not have minded marrying Dorothy himself. Now I wonder what Dorothy would have had to say about Dorking--I wonder.

I hear on very reliable authority that the plane, our own plane, dropped yesterday a packet which was supposed to be a stop-valve for the _Sumana_. The valve, however, went off on the _maidan_, and in fact proved to be a three-pound bomb. To-day another plane dropped another supposed valve which turned out to be a gear-box for an L boat.

Very facetious of them, I'm sure, but Tudway calls it an indifferent joke.

A mild artillery duel wound up the day's events.

_April 5th._--To-day we have had a strenuous Shikar after food. We raised a half-pound of dirty dates which we boiled into jam; also two rupees worth of chupattis and hard, white, mealy flat-jacks--they are eight in number, a two-pound tin of barley which will make an exciting porridge.

We visited the officers' hospital which is full again to overflowing with dysentery, jaundice, and malaria cases. The doctors have put me on diet of one egg and cup of milk daily, which commodities are only procurable on special certificates, and rarely. The mess bombardier draws these.

"I 'ear, sir, that this 'ere milk is sometimes 'uman and sometimes donkey's. I 'ope as you won't drink it, sir."

"To save one's life, bombardier, one may have to eat anything," I told him. Then I heard him in sad conference with the mess cook.

"Gawd! It's 'ot 'uman milk, Bill. An' 'e ain't 'ad no milk for ages. It'll knock 'im hover like 'ot punch."

"Wen you live in Kut," said Bill, "you 'ave to do az Gawd's hancient people do."

_10 p.m._--Cheerful news at last! Early this morning Gorringe bombarded and smashed through the Turkish lines above Hannay, and five lines of trenches have been taken. He is consolidating his position before advancing on Essin. It does not seem clear on which bank this success was.

At 8 p.m. this evening the heavy firing recommenced. Square-Peg and I restrained our enthusiasm by a long game of chess. The news has cheered up every one immeasurably. It is the most hopeful night for months.

_April 6th._--Downstream a terrific bombardment went on intermittently for hours. We are on six ounces of bread to-day and are almost on to our emergency rations, which can be made to spin out for three days.

The _Sumana_ is going over to Woolpress to bring over reliefs. I had arranged with Tudway to have a starlight excursion there and see something of these strangers, but headquarters disapproved.

Green cress has been issued from the gardens, and every effort is made to save every crumb. The sick and those in hospital are worst off, as hospital comforts like cornflour and Mellins' Food have long since gone.

It is a beautiful day, but the river came up during the night and beat all previous records of the siege by two inches. How very close the relieving force has driven things. Altogether the situation, as Punch said of the man dangling from the drag rope of a balloon, is most interesting.

I have made inventories of ammunition and wagons, lines and horse-lines of the 6th D.A.C., as I am officially returned to my battery pending the relief of Kut. I hope to enter on the next page that the siege has been lifted.

_April 7th._--There is a lull in the operations downstream. How we hate lulls. A lull is a divine leg-pull. The word "lull" has an odious sound!

Gunner Graoul has returned to me from the battery apropos of my re-transfer to my original battery, and Amir Bux has returned to duty. There are a good many things to fix up in the ammunition column, so I am remaining in my comfortable billet here unless wanted for urgent duty at the battery--pending relief. I am so weak that my legs collapsed on the ladder, and I find a long staff better than a walking-stick.

We killed one of our two emergency fowls, which we boiled, and I found the broth delicious. Graoul called it "'en brorth."

The river has risen seriously and is now a good three feet deep all over the plain in front of the _bunds_. General Gorringe has had hard work to bund the river down below and has evidently met with flood difficulties already.

There is an ominous whisper about a "wireless" which is not being made known.

Other and wilder rumours, obviously untrue, are in quick circulation. The men, poor fellows, are keenly on edge for news. There are many merely remaining alive to hear that Kut is saved. They all know the end is now in sight and the coma of the past months is over. We are like restless bees in swarming time.

_April 8th._--A quiet day! Some few shells wandered into the town and a steady stream of sniping indicated that the enemy had probably withdrawn many men for reinforcements downstream. Woolpress is a complete island. In fact a part of it had to be abandoned yesterday, and last night the _Sumana_ brought a large part of its garrison back. As a last resort one regiment will remain there to hold the Woolpress buildings only.

From my old observation post to-day, which I climbed with great difficulty, I looked on a very changed scene. The whole country is a series of huge lakes with tiny green patches between. The enemy has had to abandon his lines around Woolpress. In front of our first line tiny waves on this tiny ocean lap against our preserving _bunds_. In fact, Kut is an island!

_3 p.m._--Gorringe has wired to say "all's well." "Advance continues!"

Once more with Micawber it is permitted to us to hope.

_April 9th._--Shells, expletives, and suspense fell into Kut in unusual quantities. We are on the edge of a volcano. Who could keep a diary while sitting on the edge of a volcano? The gods, those humorous birds, have just flown over Kut on a tour of inspection. We can almost--as John Bright did not say--hear the _flapping_ of their wings.

_April 10th._--Poor Don Juan has taken his last hedge! I have hitherto managed to extend his reprieve, but to-day the order came. I gathered him a last feed of grass myself. He salaamed most vigorously as I had taught him. The chargers have been kept to the last. His companions stood by him trembling as the quick shot despatched one after another. Not so he! now and then he stamped, but otherwise stood perfectly still. I asked the N.C.O. to be careful that his first bullet was effective and to tell me when it was over. I kissed Don on the cheek "good-bye." He turned to watch me go. Shortly after they brought me his black tail, as I asked for a souvenir. Strange as it may seem we ate his heart and kidneys for dinner, as they are now reserved for owners. I am sure he would have preferred that I, rather than another, should do so.

He carried me faithfully, and died like a sahib. In the garrison I had no better friend. Being so he shall have this entry to himself.

_April 11th._--Two paramount budgets of especial interest and importance reached us first thing this morning. One was that Cockie was annoyed with us for eating our own fowl, the other being from Sir Percy Lake to the effect that Gorringe cannot possibly be present here for the 15th, but will have great pleasure in doing so by the 21st instant. With the help of God and the strength derived from having eaten the hen, we hope to survive the first budget. To this end Square-Peg and Tudway and I immediately slaughtered the second hen and sent a polite message of this information to Cockie with a promise to reserve for him the head and feet. Tudway has been in shrieks of laughter all day, and mounted guard over the hen himself. To be sure I intended to reserve for him half of my portion, but the others voted this treachery, as they think Cockie has done very well lately with hospital rations of fish and eggs. Cockie still consumes slabs of horse, the size of a slab being about that of the ordinary Nelson's 7_d._ edition.

The news from Sir Percy Lake is serious enough. Our men are now dying by the score and their condition is reduced to the last degree, many being scarce able to walk. It is not merely rations that they require, but sick comforts.

General Townshend has issued these communiqués to the troops--

* * * * *

Kut-el-Amara, April 10th, 1916.

"The result of the attack of the Relief Force on the Turks entrenched in the Sannaiyat position is that the Relief Force has not as yet won its way through, but is entrenched close up to the Turks in places some 200 to 300 yards distant. General Gorringe wired me last night that he was consolidating his position, as close to the enemy's trenches as he can get, with the intention of attacking again. He had had some difficulty with the flood which he had remedied. I have no other details. However, you will see that I must not run any risk over the date calculated to which our rations would last, namely April 15th, as you will all understand well that digging means delay, though General Gorringe does not say so. I am compelled, therefore, to make an appeal to you all to make a determined effort to eke out our scanty means, so that I can hold out for certain till our comrades arrive, and I know I shall not appeal to you in vain.

"I have, then, to reduce the rations to five ounces of meal for all ranks, British and Indian. In this way I can hold out till April 21st if it becomes necessary. I do not think it will become necessary, but it is my duty to take all precautions in my power. I am very sorry I can no longer favour the Indian soldiers in the matter of meal, but there is no possibility of doing so now. It must be remembered that there is plenty of horseflesh which they have been authorized by their religious leaders to eat.

"In my communiqué to you on January 26th I told you that our duty stood out plain and simple: it was to stand here and hold up the Turkish advance on the Tigris, working heart and soul together; and I expressed the hope that we would make this defence to be remembered in history as a glorious one, and I asked you in this connection to remember the defence of Plevna, which was longer than that even of Ladysmith.

"Well, you have nobly carried out your mission, you have nobly answered the trust and appeal I put to you. The whole British Empire, let me tell you, is ringing now with our defence of Kut. You will all be proud to say one day, 'I was one of the garrison of Kut,' and as for Plevna and Ladysmith, we have beaten them also. Whatever happens now, we have done our duty. In my report of the defence of this place, which has now been telegraphed to headquarters, I said that it was not possible in dispatches to mention every one, but I could safely say that every individual in this force had done his duty to his King and Country. I was absolutely calm and confident, as I told you on January 26th, of the ultimate result, and I am confident now, I ask you all, comrades of all ranks, British and Indian, to help me now in this food question."

(Sd.) CHARLES TOWNSHEND, Major-General, Commanding the Garrison at Kut.

* * * * *

This _communiqué_ is a breezy one! But we all know our General has a difficult task in communicating these repeated disappointments. The native troops are beginning to recall that the G.O.C. months ago passed his word for early relief. To a British Tommy this was what he calls "'opeful buck," but to the Sepoy it is a promise.

* * * * *

Kut-el-Amara, April 11th, 1916.

"General Sir Percy Lake, the Army Commander, wired me yesterday evening to say: 'There can be no doubt that Gorringe can in time force his way through to Kut. In consequence of yesterday's failure, however, it is certainly doubtful if he can reach you by April 15th.' This is in answer to a telegram from me yesterday morning to say that, as it appeared to me doubtful that General Gorringe would be here by the 15th, I had reluctantly still further reduced the rations so as to hold on till April 21st. I hope the Indian officers will help me now in my great need in using commonsense talk with the Indian soldiers to eat horseflesh, as the Arabs of the town are doing."

(Sd.) CHARLES TOWNSHEND, Major-General, Commanding the Garrison at Kut.

* * * * *

_April 12th._--This entry I am making with my eyes almost shut. I have had a miraculously narrow shave, and got a nasty shock and contusion since the last entry. At about 3 p.m. shells began to k-r-r-ump into the town, and the fire steadily thickened. I had just finished the war diary, and was sitting up on my bed restlessly awake with stomach pains, and Square-Peg was fast asleep by the other wall, when a high-velocity shell crashed into the room and burst. I was completely dazed by the concussion, which drove me against the wall. In fact, I was half stunned, as I was directly in line for the back-lash of the burst. I wasn't certain I wasn't hit, and my back felt queer. The room was so dark with dust and the dense yellow fumes that stank horribly that I couldn't see an inch. We were half smothered in _débris_. The walls and roof in part collapsed, letting fall dozens of bricks which had propped up some huge beams on the ceiling.

Square-Peg, who was groping about, assured me he wasn't hit, and hurrahed when he heard I was alive. However, on trying to rise, I found myself partly paralysed in my back, my spine in severe pain, and I could hardly see at all. He helped me out of the yellow gases, for I couldn't walk alone. I lay down in the mess, and after drinking some water felt better. But I am horribly shaken and suffer acute pain in whatever position I lie. In fact, last night I couldn't sleep, for every movement awoke me.

It proved to be a segment shell that had burst inside the room, and dozens of pieces were buried deep all round the walls and on the floor.

There is no luck like good luck. Tudway says it was an intended punishment for the affair of the fowl, which, nevertheless, we ate completely.

We are sleeping in the mess until the wreckage is cleared up. Major Aylen, commanding the officers' hospital, visited me, and, although there is no incision, says there is a contusion over the spine from a blow. Either a brick must have hit me, or when I was flung violently back I struck the broken bed. I am writing this in bed.

The shelling continued last evening until late, and began again early this morning. I have been severely shaken, and it was as much as I could manage, even with assistance, to get on the verandah to my old room to see how it was the shell got in. For a time I could find no sign of its entry, but in getting my servant to remove the tins of earth I saw the shell-hole. There was no doubt the two tins had been removed, and the culprit had replaced them after the shell came. We were terribly angry, and had the whole crowd of men-servants and bearers and orderlies up about it at once. The orders had been strict. I had myself made a practice of going around the place every morning. Yesterday morning they were all right. They all said they knew nothing of it, but this afternoon I discovered that a syce from the lines had gone up to the room for my saddlery about an hour before the affair and moved the tins. He was in the next room when the shell entered, and hastily replacing the tins, he bolted in fright. I threatened him with a court-martial for removing defences, etc., at which he got in an awful funk, so I let him go. He shifted them, he said, to look for a tin of saddle soap, which I don't believe, as the wooden frieze was missing. He probably had come after the firewood.

In the night we had another thunderstorm. This will assist the floods, against which Gorringe is building at a fever rate.

According to general opinion, the suspense now occasioned by this last news from Sir Percy Lake is the most severe trial of the siege. We are all rather glad than otherwise that the state of our rations must precipitate the crisis one way or the other soon. The casualties on our behalf are appalling. An extraordinary sequence of fortunate factors, such as the discovery of the mill, has enabled us to hold out months longer than ever we could have dreamed possible--and we are in as great a state of uncertainty as ever. It is true that we all try to avoid the selfish point of view of requiring Kut to be relieved at all costs. The military situation is the only one to be considered, and to that end every other consideration must be sacrificed. If it is necessary that Kut should be sacrificed to the military end, none of His Majesty's forces could be more ready for sacrifice than the Sixth Division. But when one thinks of the past months and the neglect to face the obvious military situation after Ctesiphon, one feels that the sufferings of the troops in Kut and the heavy loss of life downstream could easily have been avoided. There yet remains for us the hope that unnecessary as these sacrifices may have been, they will at least not have been made in vain.

To a soldier war may be sheer fatalism, but to a general it should be snatching victory from the knees of the gods.

_Later._--General Hoghton, commanding the 17th Brigade, entered hospital yesterday suffering from acute enteritis and dysentery. Early this morning, to the universal sorrow of the garrison, he died. It is said that the wild green grass stuff was partly the cause, and also abstinence from horseflesh, which a digestion ravaged by the siege could not stand. He was a most genial and kind general, and always cheerful. I saw quite a lot of him in the "fort" days. I was sorry to be unable to attend his funeral. A great number were present. There was no funeral party, but from the verandah I heard the piercing bugle notes of the soldier's requiem. The Last Post came thrilling and sharp from the silence of the palm grove, and was no doubt heard in the Turkish lines. A brave soldier in a soldier's grave, amidst a goodly number!

_8 p.m._--It has been a cool, breezy day, and the floods have subsided one inch. We hope the heavy rains that fell in the night won't bring them up again.

Tudway brought a rumour that good news had been received, but could not be published just yet. Has Sunnaiyat fallen? That is the question in every one's mouth. I have given my rations to the others and stuck to barley for two days. They aren't much to give, certainly--merely two small slices of bread. My shell-shock and bruise have affected my digestion, and all my nerves are in constant trembling, and my legs and arms jump and twitch.

It is a damp evening, and although I have been up only three or four hours to-day I shall get back to bed presently. At any rate it is much better than being in hospital, and one can do minor duties. Tudway is an awful brick at his job, and he is very seedy indeed.

A month or two ago three or four of men who were also at the siege of Ladysmith had a dinner. They say that the conditions there were infinitely less severe than they are here. There was only one hostile siege-gun that reached into the town; the hillsides and higher slopes were not under fire; they had some provisions, no floods, and their enemies did not include Arabs.

_April 13th._--More rain! We hear that Gorringe is awaiting the arrival of another British division, the _seventh_ in number, according to rumour, that has come into this infernal problem. Even the Twenty-first April isn't so certain now, and that must be the last day. There is practically nothing to eat. However, we are prepared for anything. Even an order for the whole garrison to undergo a fasting cure for six weeks wouldn't startle us.

The death of General Hoghton seems to have impressed every one with the ruthless passage of the God of the Siege. They are aware, a little more plainly than before, how undeviating is the course of that Relentless Spirit. Somehow one expects generals should be spared. Two others have recovered from sharp attacks of sickness, and one has been wounded.

It has been said that the soldier becomes callous. It would be more true to say that he merely becomes indifferent. But an exceptional phase of death removes the blinds from many disused windows of his mind, and he sees all too well. Such an event is the loss of this kind-hearted general, and it has given to many a higher altitude in point of view. There is the point of view of the trench and dug-out, of the hospital, of the observation post, on a roof top. There is that of an aeroplane. There is the standpoint of the overhead stars that see us as a flashing sphere. Tommy does not borrow the vantage point of a god from way beyond the farthest star, the most distant sun, to behold the universe, that gaily lighted ship of destiny travelling forward through the Seas of Time. But he has at any rate reached very far. This morning I was visited by some of my old section at the battery, and talked a time to the men, and I gave them some Arab tobacco. I find they have thought a good deal about things in general, and one was induced, to the amusement of the others, to give us what he considered a "bird's hye view" of our immediate future, which certainly didn't seem too bright. He saw Kut, a tiny spot under famine and fire, completely surrounded by hordes of the enemy, beyond them the menacing waters and fatal floods, beyond the floods the God-forsaken country of murderous Arabs,--and beyond that great and stretching continents of desert reaching thousands of miles away and ending in those strangely silent and unknown shores or losing themselves in the heart of Asia.

But fortune has smiled on us quite a deal, too. We found the grain stores at Woolpress, and the Flying Corps rigged up the mill-crusher discovered lying there. Then a large store of oil for the river steamers was utilized for fuel and lighting for all duty, and the Sappers and Flying Corps artificers made our bombs out of various charges for the howitzers and 4·7's. The aeroplanes brought us the detonators. Then the subsidence of the floods brought up the grass with which we bribed the animals to exist a little longer, while we ate their grain--and them.

The ammunition has lasted wonderfully well. We have over half of the original lot still in hand.

In truth, when one thinks how the Fighting Sixth fought its way across Mesopotamia, battling with fire and floods, thirst and heat, right up to the gate of Baghdad, and then was let down by want of supports, one has to extract thankfulness from the thought that Chance left it to the same division, alone and unreinforced, to stem the result of the turned tide. This it has done from December 1st at Um-al-Tabul until now, April 13th, a temporal avenue through sickness and death.

One is informed that if Kut had not been held, the position of the Turks would have been consolidated, and the tactical and strategical usefulness of its position with the enemy. These are the most cheerful thoughts possible in the garrison when one feels extra weary and sick.

It is not too much to say that almost no one has any misgiving as to the future. In this tiny horse-shoe panorama on the Tigris, where the destiny of Kut has pursued its dramatic evolution for the last four and a half months, the garrison awaits the ultimate development of the drama with a feeling merely of wide curiosity. Will the last scene be Tragedy, or will the people be allowed to leave the theatre feeling "comfortable," that it all came right in the end?

Alas! whatever the play is, it cannot be Comedy. And when one remembers the large-hearted general who has gone, and whom some few medical comforts in time might have saved, one is made aware of the stern conditions of victory!

The enemy provoked an artillery duel this afternoon, and quite a number of shells fell in the town. Rain has stopped Gorringe's attack. Every possible disposition has been made for the entry of our relieving force or co-operation with their arriving on the other bank. We can only wait.

We brought about a delightful coup this afternoon in the purchase of 2½ lbs. of bad rice for five rupees. Tudway and Square-Peg go hungry now. I don't feel the last decrease in bread so much as they, as I am too seedy to eat it, and sometimes I can scarcely see. However, I am better to-day. Some one has placed a bradawl in the dessert dish! It forms the second and last course. It is "not to be eaten" in large letters, and "may be used for making another hole in your belt." The fish have left Kut. I wonder that even the birds don't fly away....

Outside in the street, beneath my window, a decrepit Arab beggar, in a deep passionate voice, asks for alms for the love of Allah and Mahomet. It is often the first sound I hear in the morning. Later in the day the Arab children make their appearance in groups, begging and wailing piteously. Once the babes in their mothers' arms used to cry the whole day long, but the unfortunates are probably long since gone. The Arab population has been dying by the hundreds, and they look dreadfully shrunken and gaunt. A few escaped, but were shot by the Turks. They have had everything possible done for them.

It is the hour of the _muezzin_, the most peaceful of the day, for at that ancient call of prayer even the wailing and begging ceases. From the mosque near by, whose open doorway faces Mecca, I hear the high thrilling notes quivering and trembling with all the passion of the East, the high-pitched semi-tone cadences sailing afar out and cutting ever greater ripples on the bosom of the still night air like growing circles from a stone dropped into a placid pool. It is truly wonderful this immemorial custom of calling the Followers of Mahomet. The volume of sound echoing from the minaret is thrown by the _muezzin_ further and further. With extraordinary power his voice rises and falls, describing circles, arcs, and strangely winding parabolas out of the still silences of evening. It is but an appeal. He calls the world to prayer. It is more potent than the appeal of bells. In the _muezzin_ the Mussulman hears the voice of Allah.

Now the _muezzin_ is finished, and everything is so very still. I wonder if they are praying for the relief--as hard as their fellow religionists in the rest of Turkey are praying for the fall--of Kut. The odds, I fear, are against us.

I must sleep! I cannot remain awake five minutes longer. God in His wisdom made sleep the great possession. For the first essential to man is a gift of humour, and the second is the capacity for sleep. Sleep and forgetfulness! How many warriors on this dreadful planet at this fearful hour would willingly drink of Lethe and wake up on their respective battlefields when the war is over?

Eheu! I see the dark forms asleep on the snows of Russia, in the trenches of France, on the mountains of Italy, on the decks swept by the night winds of the North Sea. Who of them would not wish it?

"Nox ruit, et fuscis tellurem amplectitur alis."
"Night descends and folds the earth in her dusky wings!"

_April 14th._--Heavy firing began downstream just before the dawn. It continued till about 8 a.m.

The floods are spreading. A little rain fell during the night. Around Kut everything is extraordinarily quiet. I was very seedy during the night with violent pains and nausea, possibly the result of attempting to eat a little liver for dinner. I don't remember feeling worse. I took some opium pills at once, and Graoul came in early this morning with some hot water, which I drank. Have had two eggs sent from the hospital, and am ordered to eat nothing beside the yolk and a half cup of milk. About midday I felt quite bright again, and wrote some letters with one eye more or less closed. One's stomach these days has become an awful snob and simply won't look at anything. How fit I was until these wretched floods!

A report says that we must be fed by aeroplanes, but it seems that it will take three days in which to carry one day's provisions.

I imagine _Punch_ will have something to say on this. We shall be represented as fielding for loaves and cakes and fishes and whisky bottles, Mellins' Food, and some of us charging towards the Tigris under fire from the opposite bank and endeavouring to recover our balance on the edge as we watch the priceless articles falling into the water.

The coming of the Turkish armada down the Shat-el-hai is evidently postponed. They are possibly frightened of John Bull on the water, even if it is only the river.

The Catholic padre and Square-Peg are playing chess. The Pope in other lands is probably entering in his diary that he has had a tiring day and that Kut must fall. Not because God has forgotten it, but because the garrison has no provisions.

Equally well advised is our mess bombardier, who has invented certain rhymes which he repeats over his cooking as no soothsayer ever did.

"Hashes to hashes! Bust ter bust!
If Gorringe cawn't 'elp us the Lord Gawd must!"

_April 15th._--This was the day beyond which we were assured it was impossible to go. We are evidently out for records.

The floods are steady. They can scarcely fall. Will the Turk attack to-day? Will Gorringe?

There is a tide in the affairs of Kut
That taken at the flood will let through Gorringe--
Omitted, all the voyage of the survivors is bound on donkeys
or on camels.
On such a full sea we are now afloat
And we must chance the Tigris at the curves or down go Kut
debentures!

Shelling now is a regular thing on and off the whole day. The Arabs are preparing to flee.