Part 5 (1/2)
Constant and unexpected checks break the swing that counts so much for comfort on a long march; hurrying on to make up for lost ground, stumbling in rough places, belated units pus.h.i.+ng past to the front, whispered but heated arguments with staff officers, all threaten the calm of a peaceful evening and also that of a well-balanced mind. Many a soldier sadly misses his pipe, which, of course, may not be lit on a night march; but to me a greater loss is the silence of those other pipes, for the sound of the bagpipes will stir up a thousand memories in a Highland regiment, and nothing helps a column of weary foot-soldiers so well as pipe-music, backed by the beat of drum. This march was neither better nor worse than its fellows, and we had covered some fourteen miles before we halted at dawn. Then we lay down, gnawed a biscuit, tasted the precious water in our bottles, and waited for what news airmen would bring of the enemy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Course Of The Baghdad Railway.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Different Types In Mesopotamia.]
The day is not wasted on which one has seen the sun rise--perhaps some of us changed the old saying, and felt the day would be well spent for him who saw the sun set,--for in war, however sure the victory, so also is the toll of killed and wounded, and the attack of an enemy entrenched in this country, as bare and open as the African veld, is done readily, gladly, but not without losses; and the time one thinks of these is not in the charge, not in the advance, but in the empty period of waiting beforehand. The needle p.r.i.c.ks before, not during, the race. ”Remember only the happy hours,” and if the most glorious hour in life is the hour of victory in battle, so are the hours preceding battle among the most depressing. I confess, as we sat there idle in the chill dawn, my mind was filled not only with the hope of victory and captured trenches, but with memories of past scenes in France and Mesopotamia, and of a strip of ground the evening after Magersfontein, each battlefield dotted with little groups of men lying rigid, each marked with lines of motionless forms.
Action quickly dispels such thoughts, and we all welcomed the definite news that was at last brought of the enemy, and our orders for a farther advance. One brigade was immediately sent forward on the east side of the railway in order to press back the advanced parties of the enemy on their main position, some six miles north of our present halting place. A brave sight it is to see a brigade deploying for action. Even though the scarlet doublet has given place to the khaki jacket, though no pipes sound and no colours are unfurled, the spirit still remains; the spirit that in old days led the British line to victory still fills these little columns scattered at wide intervals over the plain, these little columns of Englishmen, Highlanders, Indians, and Gurkhas. The brigade pushed forward for a mile or two without opposition, then little puffs of white smoke bursting in the air showed that the Turk had opened the battle with salvoes of shrapnel; the little columns quickly spread out into thin lines, and our batteries trotted forward and were soon themselves engaged in action. So far the scene had been clear in every detail, but now as the day advanced, the dust from advancing batteries, the smoke and mirage, formed a fog of war that telephones and signallers could only in part dispel.
The mirage in Mesopotamia does not so much hide as distort the truth.
The enemy are seldom altogether hidden from view, the trouble is rather to tell whether one is observing a cavalry patrol or an infantry regiment, or if the object moving forward is not in reality a sandhill or a bunch of reeds. The mirage here has certainly a strange power of apparently raising objects above the ground-level. I remember well from a camp near Falahiyah the Sinn Banks, which are perhaps thirty feet above the plain, were quite invisible in the clear morning air, but about noon they were easy to distinguish as a cloudy wall swaying to and fro in the distant haze. Nor shall I forget the instance of an officer who once a.s.sured me he had observed five Arab hors.e.m.e.n within a mile of our column: we rode forward, and soon the five shadowy hors.e.m.e.n gave place to five black crows hopping about by the edge of the Suwaicha marsh. But the most curious illusion I have seen in this way was looking towards the Pusht-i-Kuh hills across the marsh from San-i-yat. The foothills, some thirty miles distant, had sometimes the appearance of ending in abrupt white cliffs such as one sees at Dover. The cause of this was a great number of dead fish which had been stranded as the marsh receded, and their white bellies, a mile away, gave the appearance of white cliffs to the base of the Persian hills, which in reality slope very gradually down to the level of the Tigris valley.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Arab Girl Labourers.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Barber.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Was.h.i.+ng Clothes.]
So in Mesopotamian battles, little can be trusted that is seen, and to gain information of the enemy commanders are bound to rely on reports by aeroplane, messengers, and telephones.
The battle now before us was to be fought over ground typical of the Tigris valley and the desert into which it merges. There are no hills, trees, or any distinguis.h.i.+ng features, but the strip nearest the river, varying from one to several miles in breadth, is cultivated and intersected with irrigation channels, some six feet, some six inches, in width and depth. These are invaluable as cover to troops on the defensive, and almost impa.s.sable to transport carts. It was here the enemy had expected us, and was holding numerous trenches between the river and the railway; but our commanders wisely waited till their information was complete, and then decided to make our main attack on the enemy's extreme right, some six miles from the river. The ground in this part is a wide open desert, bare and level except for a few low sandhills; but in the dips and hollows below the sandhills the khaki-coloured desert changes into a thick growth of fresh green gra.s.s, dotted with countless daisies and dandelions, and a little white flower resembling alyssum giving a sweet smell to all the countryside. Some five miles beyond our halting-place a definite ridge runs east and west across the railway, and ends in a low sugar-loaf hill about forty feet high. This ridge was reported to be entrenched and held by the Turk, and this ridge we were ordered to attack and capture.
Our first brigade had moved forward on the east side of the railway, but had been eventually held up mainly by enfilade artillery fire coming from positions stretching nearer to the river than to the railway. The whole brigade was now lying stretched out in extended order some three thousand yards ahead of us, with the left regiment touching the railway embankment. Our brigade had followed for some miles in their tracks, but was now ordered to cross to the western side of the railway by a small culvert and form up for the main attack some three or four miles south of the enemy's position. This was done without difficulty, the third brigade of our Division being held in support on our left rear.
After the orders and dispositions had been explained to every man, magazines were charged, and the Highland regiment deployed into attack formation in four lines of half-platoons in file. A battalion of Gurkhas was deployed on our left, and the third battalion of the brigade was formed up in rear of the Gurkhas. The main attack was thus to be delivered on a narrow front of five hundred yards, the machine-gun company being held in readiness to support the a.s.saulting battalions as occasion offered. The first-line transport with the reserve ammunition halted near the culvert through which we had crossed the railway, but both our reserve ammunition and our Aide Post were brought forward as the attack developed.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Indian Cavalry Watering At Arab Village.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Landing Stores At Arab Village.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Bund Built To Keep Back The Marsh At Falahiyah.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Liquorice Factory, Kut.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The River At Kut.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Drawing Water At Kut.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: View From The Kut Minaret Towards The Hai.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Kut.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Progress Is Being Made At Kut, It Now Has Its Munic.i.p.ality.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Townshend's Trenches, Kut.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Looking Towards Kut.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Kut Minaret.]