Later in the day another aeroplane flew over us likewise from the north. Our big-game friend insisted that it was a Turk. One could not see the colour, but I saw what looked like rings. General Hoghton, who came into the stack, agreed with me about it, and on its return so it proved to be. A Turkish plane has a crescent on its wings or generally the German cross. This brigadier is a most intrepid and fearless man, and is to be found everywhere at the loopholes, digging-parties, and observation posts. The Fort is merely part of his command (the 17th Brigade), but one sees much more of him than the C.O. Fort. He is a most genial and kind general and very cheerful about everything. To-day I met Colonel Lethbridge, now commanding the Oxford Regiment, and one of the few officers of that regiment to survive Ctesiphon. We had a most interesting and diverting talk on European politics in general. He is an extraordinarily well-read man and over everything he says plays the quiet light of a well-focussed intellect. We talked of Germany, where I had spent a considerable time before the war, and he asked me many questions of the French front. I hear I am the only one of the garrison who was in France in August, 1914, and only two other officers have been there at all. In fact, one notices that this Division, having come direct from India early in the war, has, for the most part, no idea of the significance of the war and of the new armies. Neither has it, or could it be expected to have, any sort of perspective of the many fronts of the war. They allow either too much or too little. They are focussed sharply on to Mesopotamia and the Sixth Division, and the perspective of the World War suffers. Moreover this front is not contiguous to any other front. But this Colonel of reserved utterance in his grave way dismissed many of the current rumours of Kut as being out of proportion, and made one feel at least how very vast and far were the ultimate issues of the war. And for listening respectfully I had a most entertaining hour and two large whiskies and water. On my way back I saw the work of the Sirmoor Sappers, a most keen and enthusiastic body of men who are never idle.
January 16th.—I am writing in an excavation of four mud walls and beneath a tiny roof of corrugated iron topped by some feet of earth. Two tiny camp chairs, a wooden table with legs driven into the earth, and two niched candles form the furniture. It is the mess of my battery, 76th R.F.A., whither I have been ordered some days since from the Fort to replace Lieut. Edmonds who was wounded while mending a telephone wire. The man accompanying him was killed outright, and Edmonds had a narrow shave, the bullet cutting a deep groove across his neck and just missing the spinal column.
Captain Baylay of the 82nd Battery relieved me at the Fort. He has about eighteen years' service and is by general admission a very good gunner, quick, resourceful, and of instant decision. Apart from the fact that I am getting back to my own battery I feel he will be more able than I am to deal with the ever-increasing responsibilities of observation officer out there, which goes pretty close to having two or three targets almost simultaneously. It will also enable the machine-gun detachment commander to devote his attention to his own particular job and incidentally to become conversant with the theory and terminology of field-gun ranging.
My battery is just behind the middle line out on a solitary position on the maidan. Unlike any other field battery we have no cover whatsoever except that of the earth. Every time a gun fires the flash is visible to every Turkish gun on the north or eastern sector. We are swept by rifle fire all around, the nearest some few hundred yards over the river, and we get all the "shorts" intended for the heavy guns at the brick kiln, five hundred yards behind us. Our Major (Lloyd) is away at the Brick Kilns from where he can observe much better than in the battery, and he messes more comfortably with C.Os. of other batteries there. The only other officer in the battery is Lieut. Devereux, my junior of a few months, who had been sent from Hyderabad before me. He has a keen sense of devotion to duty and is most conversant with every detail of horse management, harness, and guns, but less quick at figures and in making up his mind. I leave much to him, as for some months he had been a sergeant-major of M battery before coming to Hyderabad, and we owe more than one good meal to his knowledge of the Q.-M. department in Kut, and "Coffee-shop" official ropes. We live and sleep in the mess with our boots on, as we frequently go into action during the night.
The new dug-out for myself, just behind my section of guns, is almost complete. It is large and deep, and although in danger of floods, I am content. Some trestle beams from a dismantled dug-out I am using for the roof. The difficulty is to find wood of sufficient strength to support the weight of earth necessary to keep off rifle fire.
The 40-pounders we cannot compete against. For a radius of one hundred yards the battery is thick with holes which in one place have joined up and made a pond where I have counted over sixty unexploded shells. Before I came one of these arrived in the mess, having entered through feet of soil and beam and iron. The thrilled occupants had reason to be thankful that it did not explode. It has been inserted in the hole, which it fits exactly, just above the doorway, its nose pointing at the table, a standing reminder of the thinness of line described by the Circle of Destiny.
We are awfully short of firewood, only enough being available to cook one meal a day for the men, and provide hot water besides for breakfasts. Sometimes there is not even that. Theft of wood is punishable with death. The G.O.C. is loth to destroy the town. We shall, however, have to do that very soon.
News there is none, except that on January 12th General Younghusband smashed into heavy Turkish forces at Wadi, a stream coming down from the Pusht-i-Kuh mountains, and got through with the tremendous losses of four thousand. The liner Persia has been sunk by a submarine.
The patience of the garrison is beyond all praise. I can honestly say I have learned to love the character of the British soldier who has acquired the habit of doing cheerfully what he does not want to do, at the moment when he just does not want to do it. In other words, bigger than himself is the momentum of years, discipline become a habit. There are rumours that the Relieving Force has retired. The fighting, we hear, is in deep mud and must indeed be terrible.