Part 1 (2/2)
General Chorus: (repeatedly, with pa.s.sion).
”Aller, Oller, Aller!
Oh, Aller, Oller, Aller!
Aller, Oller Oo!”
Bully beef came along in the afternoon, and we had landed with full water-bottles, for drinking water was unavailable. Towards evening some double-roofed tents were run up. The men settled down in the empty sheds alongside the creek. We got to bed in a thunderstorm--a vivid zigzag banging affair that circled round most of the night. The rain turned the ground into something beyond description as regards its slippery properties. Only a native donkey can keep footing in such ground. There is no road metal available in Mesopotamia. It is a stoneless place. The frogs trumpeted in chorus all night; packs of dogs or jackals swept about in droves, once at full pelt through our tent, like devils of the storm. It was nightmarish, but sleep brought that wonderful balancing force that sometimes clothes itself in dreams, and steeps the spirit in all that is lacking. Just before falling asleep I reflected that Adam and Eve might well have been excused in such a country.
II
BASRA
We reached Mesopotamia when the hot weather was beginning. The campaign to relieve Kut was at its height, and the wounded and sick were coming down river in thousands. Apart from these there were big reinforcement camps on Makina Plain, and all around us the daily sick rate was rapidly increasing, and men straight from England, unused to hot climates, were being sent in big batches off the incoming transports. There was very little ice to be had, and so far as we were concerned there were no fans, electric or otherwise, with which to ventilate the sheds.
The urgency of the situation demanded that we should open what wards we could for the reception of sick and wounded at once. We had no nurses, partly because there was no accommodation for them. Four sheds alongside the creek were got in order. Iron bedsteads draped in white, mosquito nets resembling bridal veils, bedside tables, and cupboards arranged themselves in rows. An immense hammering and shouting filled the stifling air. The sheds began to look moderately inviting--neat and clean, smelling faintly of antiseptics which smelt better than the things in the creek. At first about fifty beds were put into each shed; in a short time beds were crowded into every available corner of the clearing. Fresh sheds were being erected by natives. Since the ground was undermined by marsh, the sheds had to be built on piles driven six feet into the spongy soil. There was only one pile driver, which resembled a cross-section of a lamp post, and was worked by a fatigue party of wild-haired Indian troops from Afghanistan regions. One would have thought from their flas.h.i.+ng eyes when the pile driver crashed home that they played a secret game in which each imagined his bitterest enemy was in the place of the pile.
The problem of water arose at once. There was no general water supply at that time, and each unit had to solve its own problem. Our supply had to come from the creek, which was thick and turbid and contained a mult.i.tude of unsavoury things. At first it was sedimented with alum, which precipitated the suspended matter in a gelatinous ma.s.s, and the clear fluid was chlorinated with bleaching powder. There is only one consolation in drinking well chlorinated water. You know that it contains nothing except chlorine. With whisky it forms a mixture that it is difficult to describe. After a time two tanks were put in order and arranged on brick furnaces, and from a third tank water that had been allowed to settle was run off and boiled. These were satisfactory.
An hour's exposure of the boiling water in jars of porous clay--chatties--made it decently cool. Chatties of great size were procured from the bazaar and placed outside each ward. Nowadays water comes in pipes from the Shatt-el-Arab, being taken from the middle layer, which is clearest. The best water comes from the Euphrates, which joins the yellow Tigris at Kurna about forty miles above Basra. It sends down a tributary which flows into the Tigris a few miles above Basra.
From here water could have been conveyed in pipes. But the scheme was thought unnecessarily elaborate and costly.
It must be remembered that in a place like Mesopotamia water is the main problem. A clear, clean, pure water supply means an incalculable saving of life. A dirty supply may mean the failure of the campaign. In order to get good water for troops nothing should be neglected or overlooked, and no kind of compromise should be permitted. There is perhaps not a single act in war more criminal and more worthy of death than to allow troops to muddle along and get what water they can, under local arrangements, when a pure central supply is possible.
Sick Tommies in tropical climates appreciate soda water. At first we were told to get our supply from a native in the bazaar at Ashar. The problem at this time did not concern the soda water but the bottles.
There was a great shortage of soda water bottles in Mesopotamia. Breaks and bursts were frequent, and it seemed impossible to import any new ones, and they cost about sixpence each. Our hospital was situated at a considerable distance from the town. We were not allowed a motor launch, and the roads were often impa.s.sable for bullock tongas, owing to the floods which were then prevalent. Soda water was therefore fetched by _belum_. You were poled down the creek to the river, and rowed through the maze of traffic to Ashar creek. Turning out of the broad swift river, up the noisy creek you came on the river-side cafes, built on piles and filled with splenetic-eyed Arabs sipping coffee and various coloured sweet drinks. A cheap gramophone playing a thin Eastern music, may be sounding. The conversation is animated and guttural, constantly interspersed with that hollow, metallic rasp that is like the noise of an engine exhaust. The town is of white mud and stone, with wooden balconies painted a vivid blue, and flat roofs. A minaret rises behind it with a blue-tiled extremity supporting the upraised hand and crescent. The streets are narrow and airless. In the shops are a ma.s.s of articles of all descriptions: tinned stuff, tobacco, clocks, hair-oil, cheap jewellery, odd bottles of doubtful wine, scent, rugs, copper vessels, sweets, sauces, pickles. Innumerable flies surround everything.
On much of the tinned stuff were very old labels. No man of experience up-country in India will touch tinned stuff of that description. The soda water factory was in a small courtyard. There was a big green gasometer of carbon dioxide, a glittering bra.s.s-bound pump and a filling apparatus. Three tubs were on the floor containing a blue, a red and a clear fluid. These, said the Arab proprietor, were English disinfectants in which the bottles were rinsed. Here you waited until your bottles were refilled, at one anna (one penny) each. This represented a profit of 1,200 per cent. The water which was used for filling them was taken from the centre of the Tigris. Ice was obtained elsewhere, made from an ammonia plant, in bars two feet by six inches. The necessity for ice was imperative, but it could only be supplied in small quant.i.ties then.
These native plants were mostly taken over by the military as time went on. A single bad heat-stroke case would often use up the whole day's supply to the hospital. That was why ice was an imperative necessity. It meant so many lives saved. In India ice is manufactured by machines in quant.i.ty wherever it is required.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A CONVOY OF SICK AND WOUNDED.]
After soda water, the sick Tommy requires certain delicacies in food.
Eggs and chickens and fruit and vegetables were necessary. The quartermaster soon began to lift up his voice. What with the supply and transport depots of the Indian Army and our own Army Service Corps, and the inevitable confusion of two different Army systems, he became extremely irritable. This confusion existed in every department. On the medical side, there was the British scale of field ambulances and hospitals, and this differs entirely from the Indian scale. What could have been more suitable for muddling than this? Its effects could be seen in the expression of the quartermaster.
I can see him clearly, a plump, stocky man, with arms akimbo, his helmet on the back of his head, the flesh of his face in folds of disgust with sweat pouring off him, and his once elegant waxed moustache drooping, saying in a chant: ”The man who gets me out to this ---- country again isn't born yet.” That was when the bullock tongas, after travelling over the surface of this cradle of the earth all day in search of certain supplies, returned empty. Chickens and eggs were local produce.
The natives put fancy prices on things. What we paid was supposed to be a controlled price. It must be remembered that we introduced a lot of money into the country, and entirely changed the financial standards of the Arabs. Arab coolies got tenpence a day--that is, their pay was not far short of the European Tommy. Sometimes they struck for higher wages.
It did not breed a good spirit, but it may have been the best spirit under the circ.u.mstances. It was, at times, necessary to use violence to _belumchis_, who insolently demanded absurd charges, and a certain padre gained respect by administering a severe thras.h.i.+ng to one of these rascals. When the Russians came down, one of them was obstructed for a moment by an Arab on the river bank. The Russian officer--a big fellow--picked him up and threw him into the river.
The chickens were poor. Three might weigh in the aggregate a pound and a half. The supply of eggs was limited when procured through contractors, but it was possible to obtain a few from other sources. As regards fruit, there was practically none. Potatoes were procurable in this part, but not higher up the river. Owing to the intense heat and lack of storage accommodation, vast quant.i.ties of food perished. Piles of boxes containing cigarettes, that had lain in the sun, were found to contain nothing but fine dust on being opened. It was the same way with biscuits. Potatoes rotted in millions. The whole problem was one of immense difficulty. The milk that was used was almost wholly tinned. The use of fresh milk which was tried later at Amara was not a very successful experiment. It required careful boiling, and often curdled in ma.s.s. It was then boiled in a large number of small vessels, with better results, but the supply drawn from outlying villages, and brought down by river, was never adequate, and boiled milk is not very pleasant.
Bread was baked in the neighbourhood by army bakers, and eventually, when proper ovens were made, was good. Sugar was plentiful, sandy in colour, and full of extraneous matter, but quite adequate. There was no shortage in tea. Fresh meat was a ration in Basra, but Indian cooks seemed to make a better job of it than British. It was tough and stringy and required a great deal of stewing. Rice was an occasional ration in Basra, and a daily ration higher up, where it took the place of potatoes. Lime juice, as a ration, was very uncertain. It was possible to get it in the bazaar, and the Tommy could get it at the Y.M.C.A.
huts. Of these huts it is impossible to speak too highly. The Tommy alone knows what he would have done without them. You drank, in the hot weather, amazing quant.i.ties of fluid, and lime juice and water was the usual mixture until the sun went down. One paid two s.h.i.+llings and eightpence--two rupees--for one of those long, narrow, golden bottles, with leaves and fruit moulded on their exterior. Wines and spirits could be ordered through agents in Basra from Bombay at reasonable rates.
Bombay is about five days by steamer from Basra. It was almost a universal experience to find alcohol necessary in the evening. The mind was exhausted, food was unattractive, conversation was impossible, the pa.s.sage of time immeasurably slow, and a restless irritation pervaded one until a dose of alcohol was taken. Its effect was humanising. Still, it is worth remembering that the Prophet forbade alcohol to the people of the country. But then he permitted other things.
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