Here I should explain that I had promised my friend B., the sailor, to take him up into the front-line trenches. He had never been in a front trench before, and was determined to see what it was like.
Diary. General Gillman gave B. and me luncheon. Then B. and I rode out to the camp of the 18th Division, where I found Brownrigg, now become a Colonel, with malaria. I congratulated and condoled. I asked if we could get into the front trench, and Colonel Hillard said it was unhealthy. B. said that didn’t matter, and I asked exactly how unhealthy. Hillard said there were no communication trenches and we should be under machine-gun fire at 80 yards. No rations were being sent up till nightfall, but still, of course, if we wanted to go, we could. B. was passionately anxious to go; I was not. We walked down a shallow communication trench, which we soon had to leave, because of the water, and then across the open to a beastly place called Crofton’s Post, an observation post in the flat land, with a few sandbags and mud walls. They had dug a kind of shelter about 6 feet deep below it. It stood about 20 feet high. The Turks were eight to nine hundred yards away. We passed other observation posts, these simply a ladder rising from the flat land, and men like flies on it. It’s incredible that the Turks leave these places standing or that they allow people to walk about in the open in the way in which they do. Coming out, we passed a lot of quail and partridge and some jolly wild flowers, but also the smells of the battlefield.
After we had been at Crofton’s Post a little while, a furious bombardment of the Turks by us began. I cursed myself for not having asked what the plans of the afternoon were going to be. B. was delighted. Shells rushed over our heads from all sides. I heard the scream of two premature bursts just by us. They raised filthy, great columns of heaving smoke. It was a wonderful picture; the radiant and brilliant light of the afternoon, the desert out by the river, the gleam of the gun flashes and the smouldering smoke columns.
The Gurkhas fought very well two nights ago, they said here. They used up all their ammunition and what Turkish rifles they could get and then they fought with kukris. At one place an unfortunate mistake happened. We mistook the Indians for Turks, and we bombarded each other.
We went back almost deafened by our own guns, B. reluctant to leave. I expected a heavy Turkish return bombardment every minute, which would have been unpleasant without any cover, but beyond the ticking of a machine-gun nothing happened. Found General Maude having tea. His casualties have been heavy—nineteen officers killed and wounded in the last ten days, simply trench work, no attacks. He said it was putting a very heavy strain on the new army.
The more I see of this foul country, the more convinced I am that we are a seafaring people, lured to disaster by this river. The River Tigris has been a disaster and a delusion to us. These lines are untenable without two railways, one across to Nasriyah and the other up to Bagdad. At the present moment, we can be cut off if the river falls or if they manage to put in guns anywhere down the river and sink a couple of our boats, or even one, in the narrows, and so block the channel. We have got no policy. We came here and we saw the Tigris and we said: “This is as good as the sea, and up we will go,” and now it will dry up and we shall get left.
Lawrence arrived at Wadi on Wednesday. Had some talk with him; I am very glad to see him. Got a letter from John Kennaway yesterday—he is down at Sheikh Saad—asking me to go there. I can get no news about Bobby Palmer. Am afraid there is no doubt; he must be killed; am very sad for his people.
Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916. H.M.S. “Greenfly.” A curious morning, with the whole of Pusht i Kuh standing blue and clear. The last two foreigners who visited that place were given the choice of embracing Islam or of being pushed over the precipice. They chose the precipice.