On December 4th, the day after we entered Kut, the last boat left for down the river. On the 5th the Cavalry Brigade and S Battery left Kut for down below, as they would not be of so much importance in a siege. Before they went Major Rennie-Taylor, commanding S Battery, had lunch with us. A day later the aeroplanes flew away. Then we were decidedly alone. Bullets fell from the north. Soon they came from every direction.
The dug-out for the B.G.R.A.'s Staff was to be made out on the maidan near the brick-kilns. The General added to the plans of the Pioneers for its construction, and so the thing was built like a long grave and the poles laid cross-wise. As a traveller of some experience myself I saw that trouble was obviously ahead. I hinted that as three poles were bearing on the centre one, that was insufficient to carry the total weight. My suggestion was dispersed by an eloquent explosion on the part of my General. So it was built; and somewhere in high heaven a humorous Fate looked down and smiled. At midnight the roof that carried tons of bricks and soil collapsed without warning. It was the greatest luck we escaped without awful accident. I occupied the end farther from the entrance where General Smith slept, Garnett sleeping underneath beneath the ledge.
Luckily I was awake and, hearing the beam snap, I was out of my sleeping bag like a bullet, accidentally upsetting the General on top of Garnett. As I moved it fell in. I had taken the precaution to sleep with my head towards the entrance, else I had never escaped. For the rest of the night I shivered in the cold alongside the cook, without blankets, sleeping bag, or even jacket. All these were pinned down. In the morning when the working party came, we found that the central beam had broken and the two broken ends were forced a foot into the hard basement of my bed, just where my chest would have been. My General offered the remark: "An orderly officer is responsible for the health of his General." And remembering the mental curses I had manufactured at the time of the occurrence, and extracting further humour from having accidentally omitted to remove a stone from the part of the trench where the general had been compelled to lie, I proffered embrocation, and, being a dutiful subaltern, hid my smile. In the teeth of Turkish opposition the West Kents remade the dug-out that day. It has not collapsed yet.
To get from the dug-out to the town we had to cross a shell-swept zone. Every few yards was a splash of smoke and flame. That was, of course, at the beginning of the siege. Our dug-outs were near several brick-kilns, themselves sufficient target without our gun flashes. We had a battery of 18-pounders on one side, 5-inch on the other, and howitzers behind. So we came in for all the ranging. It was out of the question to leave any cooking utensils above ground, for they were certain to be perforated within a few moments.
A most wretched existence it was in that abominable little dug-out, but the balancing feature was our proximity to Colonel Courtenay of the 5-inch. A fountain of good-humour, ever flowing, an excellent story-teller, and a very human person. I delighted in his company. He was a very brave man, not of the defiant sort, but rather as one who has learned not to fear the inevitable. I saw him observing one day and a burst described a complete zone around him, but he went on stuffing tobacco into his pipe as if it was all November fireworks.
One evening I stood at the mouth of the dug-out giving orders. Some snipers from over the river must have seen me. A volley whistled past, one bullet cutting through the pocket of my tunic close to the hip. More extraordinary was the escape of the C.O. of the 63rd Battery, Major Broke-Smith. One morning he had a bullet through his topee and one through a pocket. In the afternoon another bullet got another pocket. Some one suggested his requiring a new outfit at an early date.
After the Cavalry Brigade had crossed our bridge of boats below the town we found it necessary to destroy it, owing to a Turkish concentration upon that side. Its demolition was the occasion of considerable excitement. We lost an officer and men on the further bank. At the last moment it was found difficult to blow the bridge up. The heavy guns could not reach it, and I set off with orders for the howitzers to blow it up—an impossible target. The nearest shell was somewhere about 50 yards off. Then General Melliss rode up across the open to see what could be done, and interviewed my General. Finally, the bridge was destroyed by a very gallant subaltern assisted by another equally plucky in the following way.
At the further end of the bridge the Turks were in strong force. When night fell, and a dark night fortunately it was, a sapper subaltern started across the bridge with a charge, fuse lighted, strapped to his back. That was to ensure the explosion taking place even if he were hit. Strange to say, he got out, planted his charge, and got back without a shot being fired at him. The Turks must have been slacking. Then the other charge was laid. Both were quite successful and the bridge totally demolished. The officers have been recommended for the V.C.[1]
I was then quite busy for a few days with communications. We were very short of thick cable, and the thin stuff was being continually broken by fatigue parties. The General, as a rule, slept a little after tiffin, and at such times I would look up Colonel Courtenay.