THE PIONEERS OF THE REGIMENT IN SUMMER KIT.
SAMARRA.
We had achieved our task, and, as the corps commander wrote, we had made the 14th of March a red-letter day for all time in the history of the Regiment. I have told the story of these thirty hours of continuous marching and fighting from the point of view of a regimental officer. This is in battle, some say always, very limited in outlook. But certain things are shown clear. Waste of energy brings waste of life and victory thrown away. A regimental leader has, with his many other burdens, to endure the intolerable toil of taking thought, and of transmitting thought without pause into action. And those who work with him are not mere figures, not only items of a unit, but are intimate friends whose lives he must devote himself to preserve, whose lives he must be ready to sacrifice as freely as his own. It is well that we neither know nor decide the issues of life and death. There is, I think, a second meaning in the oft-quoted line of Lucretius, Nec bene promeritis capitur, nec tangitur ira. Our prayers are not attended to perhaps because of their very foolishness. I believe when we congratulate ourselves after a battle that we and our friends are still in the land of the living, that in some mysterious way there may be a counterpart on the other side of the veil—that there may be welcome and rejoicing also on behalf of those who have passed through the portals of death. Although every mother's son of us must experience a feeling of dread in stepping alone into the night that no man knows, must be filled with sorrow and move with a heavy heart when his comrades and those filled with the glory of youth and promise depart, still we can, all of us, also feel thankful for the loan of their help and strength. Two years of war, two years of living constantly in the presence of death, has brought to me, as it has brought to many, the assurance that it is well equally with those who remain here as it surely is with those who pass away. And we have no other answer to the last question ever asked by Cleek Smith. "It is only after the sun hath set that the owls of Athenae wing their flight." The following day the battalion remained at Mushaidie; a dust storm was blowing and many reports came in of the enemy returning to make a counter-attack. But his defeat had been too severe and he made no real resistance again till we encountered him a month or so later some 30 miles further north near Istabulat. Meanwhile our brigade received orders to concentrate on the Tigris at the Babi Bend, some six miles east of Mushaidie. A pleasant week of comparative rest was spent there and then, there being no signs of the enemy, we were withdrawn to our old camping ground in the palm groves, that line the river bank between Kazimain and the City of Baghdad. The re-organisation of our platoons after the recent losses was completed, and fresh equipment and clothing issued. Two companies were split up on outpost duty, but even so time was found for military training and for some visits to the City, an equal pleasure to officers and men. The Colonel was sent for to Army Headquarters, and General Maude was most complimentary to the Regiment for their great fight.
