THE FALL OF KUT
April 29th, 1916
Crack me the last bottle of date-juice
And hand me some leaves of the lime—
For to-day falls Kut-el-Amarah,
And for us, God knows, it's time.
We're only a siege-battered army,
And most of us bones and skin;
And we thought that our troubles were over;
But we find they only begin.
For five months the might of the Turk
Tried to take this tiny Kut.
Now he says that we are devils—
And we know that he can loot.
We thrashed him at Shaiba and Kurna,
At Amarah we bluffed him to flight,
At Essin we grappled and threw him—
How we swore when he left in the night!
That gave us Kut-el-Amarah
Where runs in the Shat-el-Hai.
'Tis the key to Mesopotamia,
And surrounded by Arab canaille.
We were now a conquering army,
And we fought well and ate well and drank;
And though he'd retreated to Baghdad,
We followed for military swank.
The march was a long one and thirsty,
Still we thought of the Baghdad goal—
Till the Turk barred our way at Ctesiphon,
Thrice our force and entrenched like a mole.
But Townshend saw it all swiftly—
To him were all our wins due.
"I'll not fight without reinforcements—
There's my communications, too."
Now, it's a trick they have in the Army,
To ask you "What's absurd?"
So unsupported, Charlie T.
He took them—at their word.
"It's a risk, and I'm not for it;
But if fight it's got to be,
We'll fight like the Sixth Division,"
Quoth our General, Charlie T.
We found his flank and joined battle,
And held with a frontal attack.
Stormed his first line—he vacated his second,
Was reinforced, and we had to fall back.
A third of our force on the field;
But the Turk had suffered much more.
We knew that the game was up,
So retired with the honours of war.
Then came the wild hordes of Islam,
Hot-footed upon our track.
They caught us at Um-al-Tabul,
But in the open we flung them back.
Mars surely was in his chariot,
And smiled at Townshend then;
And Charles made good to the God of War,
And snatched from the grave dead men.
We hurled him back and held him,
And got our transport through—
It was a glorious gunner's show—
But that's 'twixt me and you.
For forty hours we marched on,
The nights were fearfully cold.
Men hungered and fainting, and men
That slept as they walked, I'm told.
But Townshend got us to Kut,
And the remnants stumbled in.
And Hunger and Death stared from our eyes,
But we counted it all a win.
We dug down deep and quickly—
Next day they were all around,
And our planes flew away to the southward.
We were alone and battle bound.
We fought them from the trenches—
We came to blows in the Fort.
We fought them and we fought the floods—
And then the food ran short.
Relief had been expected
In two weeks, or four, at the most.
So we starved, or we died by the hundred;
But we stuck each man to his post.
All this time the enemy, vengeful,
That ringed us tightly round,
Swept us with shell and rifle fire
That followed us underground.
Our front line gazed into the blue,
Where Formless Things rode by,
And followed the wake of sound and heard
Them burst in the old Serai.
Or sometimes it was the Hospital,
And sometimes anywhere,
And later came planes that bombed us—
'Twas only luck served you there.
So the months went by, and we ate husks,
Chupatties, and mule, and weeds.
We'd Divisional Orders for breakfast,
And ribs of the silent steeds.
And still the Relief kept coming—
The Staff nominated the day.
Twenty times they fixed it for certain,
And each time explained the delay.
So we swallowed disappointments,
Tommy only groused his share;
But one sad day the floods came,
And Destiny seemed unfair.
The trenches filled with water,
And the plain showed scarce a sod,
And we slithered and waded, or murmured—
"On top, for the love of God!"
And many's the unfortunate devil
Fell to the sniper's shot
Through "chancing his arm" in the open;
But the others heeded it not.
Once again, on that waste of waters,
I gaze from the gun-pit floor,
Where Tanks and I kept vigil
Through each hour of the twenty-four.
I see the maidan silvered
With waters in the dawn—
Dark lines of distant parapets.
Fresh earth against the morn,
With files of khaki turbans
Moving forward to relief—
I see the busy shovel,
Hear the cursings underneath.
Farther still, beyond the sand-hills,
The trenches of our foe,
Seeming silent and deserted—
But I know that they're below
In lines on lines encircling
Us, north, south, east, and west—
And if my glasses tell me true,
They're reinforcing for the test.
'Tis moonlight, and they're sleeping,
The detachments of my guns—
Here, just behind the limber,
These best of England's sons.
For the dug-outs are now flooded,
Washed by this muddy sea—
The gun-wheels half in water,
The breech-blocks scarcely free.
And parapets and sandbags,
Our trenches fallen, too—
There's room for ammunition,
But not for me or you.
Once more, from the mouth of my dug-out,
I smoke the leaves of the lime—
Sort the destinies of my shells,
"Percussion" and also "time."
There's a light in the telephone dug-out—
I think I'll have a peep,
For I'm half expecting a message—
Maybe the Bombardier's asleep.
Asleep! in the arms of Hunger;
But I'll report him not,
Though I "rounded" him well for his slackness,
And returned to my watery lot.
Past sheets of wintry moonlight
I see the drooping palm,
And the ribboned edge of the Tigris,
Dreaming of Eden's calm.
Hard by, in ghastly stillness,
His four feet toward the moon,
I see the corpse of a stricken horse,
Death-knelled by the shrapnel-tune.
A broken wagon there yonder—
A topee adrift in the flood—
Its owner was strafed in the trenches,
There's the case of the shell in the mud.
I hear the belated mule-carts
A-rumbling on to the Fort
Under the cover of night—
For so their provisions were brought.
I hear the jackals' chorus,
Athirst for expected prey,
Where the Arab tribes lie sleeping,
Patiently awaiting "the day."
Enough! these things are over,
The moon is on the wane,
And the palm-fronds' festooned shadows
I ne'er shall see again.
For Kut at last is fallen,
And more men have to die—
Our flag is down, and the Crescent
Waves o'er the old Serai.
God grant to us, now captives—
Who at Death's gate boldly dare
Boast we haven't succumbed to battle—
Grant us this fervent prayer—
That in our future cheerless,
We yet shall know o'er Kut
Our avengers see the Union Jack—
Tramp the Crescent underfoot.
To that, then, drink from this date-juice,
And fill up your pipe with the lime.
We have fought till the Great Gong sounded—
Till the Referee called out—"Time!"
Sparkling Moselle.
(11)
THE SILK GAUNTLET
Or, How we Escaped from Kastamuni
By "A Kuttite."
I. The Ship.
The Kastamuni Kuttites Klearout Kompany was immediately launched in accordance with the advertised prospectus in Smoke, and the plans proceeded apace. Silently and secretly the airship was constructed in the Rabbit Warrens of the Lower House under the supervision of Captains Tipton and Wells. The design, one of the simplest, consisted in the usual vast air-chambers, and underneath a reinforced carrier named the Raft guaranteed to contain two hundred men. Beneath that ran the main shaft—a street tube bought at long intervals in parts from the bazaar, and to it were fitted some beechwood propellers, a special patent by Parsnip, and made by Bamptarius and Munrati. As no engine was available, the motor power was derived from treadles arranged in pairs on either side of the main-screw shaft, and fitted thereto by bevelled cogs turning in teethed collars along the screw. In other words, twenty old bicycle pedals and cranks had been stuck on to bevelled cogged collars along the shaft, and when pedalled vigorously by twenty stalwart officers, it was calculated by the designers that a speed of at least thirty knots would be attained. A secret trial was out of the question, but so great was the faith of every one in the abilities of our members of the R.F.C. that parole was recalled in small batches so as not to occasion suspicion. Then one day an excited whisper spread from mouth to mouth. Although officers lounged about as usual, and even played footer, or smoked and read, the hearts of all beat high with hope, and in every eye was the old look one remembers on the evening of our intended debouch from Kut. The whisper was, "To-night's the night."
II. The Escape.
There was no moon—only a faint starlight that seemed to intensify the darkness. At 2 a.m. strange figures, some hatless, all bootless, and some in pyjamas, flitted swiftly and noiselessly through the empty streets. The rendezvous was the large stone mosque in the grassy plot to the right flank beneath Mr. Smoke's window, which had been selected as the most suitable place for fitting the "Homeward Bound" together. At this rendezvous the committee had been working on it since midnight, and when the others arrived the "airship" rode proudly in the air tethered to the minaret by a cable. I am now writing on board, and the blue sea is far beneath us....