We have finished the inspections. The horse rations have fallen away to very little. We give them pieces of palm tree to gnaw at.
March 4th.—The rheumatism is much worse. It is bleak and cold in the observation post. On such an occasion the vigil is a wretchedly dull one. I'm too cold to dream. One can only psychologize viciously on the difference in point of view between a full man and an empty one. Eating maketh a satisfied man, drinking a merry man, smoking a contented man. But eating, drinking, and smoking maketh a happy man—that is, the heart of him glad.
It is not far from the truth to say I have to-day done none of these. For by eating one cannot mean half a slice of chaff bread, nor by drinking a water-coloured liquid like our siege tea, nor yet by smoking a collection of strange dried twigs and dust. Man, it has been excellently observed, cannot live by bread alone. How much less, then, can he live upon half chaff and half flour?
Far away on the edge of the western horizon I watched for hours, through my telescope, a convoy of camels, each with a tiny white dot of humanity aboard, striding away with delightful patience to the Turkish camp downstream. They were conveying stores from Shamrun, the enemy depot on the river above us.
General Smith, of former mention in these notes, has been dangerously ill in hospital, but the crisis has been passed. He contracted pneumonia on the retirement. I have been to see him. He is very full of pluck, and gave me a Times.
Tudway, R.N., dropped in for a pipe. We talked of the sea, and he spoke of the soft life on the Chinese station.
The adjutant of the Dorsets was killed while strolling in a communication trench yesterday—a chance bullet getting his heart. The D.A.A.G. is being operated on to-day with an abscess in the thigh. The facilities for operating on such cases are very modest. But nothing less than raising the siege could alleviate these matters. And in this little maelstrom of destiny here at Kut, we and our weaknesses are whirled around together. Some of us disappear in the vortex, and others continue circling around the swift walls, and may or may not be fortunate enough to so continue. But from this seething cauldron none can escape by his own effort, for we are all up against a thing greater than ourselves.
March 5th, 6th.—Shortly after daybreak, as usual, I got up, feeling awfully full of aches and unsteady. Cockie, however, being still seedy, it was necessary for me to be on duty on the observation post, so I flannelled myself up and went. I stuck it until 9 a.m., when I returned for breakfast. Our Parsee regimental doctor, from whom I required a dose of rheumatism physic, sent for a major of the Fourth Field Ambulance, who pronounced me bad enough with muscular rheumatism to have to go into hospital. I was awfully disgusted at this after holding out so long, and begged to be allowed to stay in my billet. But it was of no use. He said strict orders made it imperative, also that in hospital eggs were forthcoming. Four native bearers and a stretcher turned up shortly afterwards, much to my disgust. Anyway I walked, after fixing up for the sergeant-major to carry on.
I entered a ward too terrible for words, next bed to a most sad and awful apparition of a poor fellow who had been very ill. It was a long skin-covered skeleton with skinless ears, eyes protruding so far that one wondered how they stuck up at all, teeth on edge, legs thinner than a pick handle, and two arms like gloved broom-sticks catching frantically at various parts of his apparel where creatures of the amœbic world fled before those awful eyes. Add to this a half-insane chattering, punctuated with a periodical sharp crack as louse after louse was exploded between the creature's two thumbs, and you have the picture entitled, "A Hospital Shikar." Altogether it was a sight utterly terrible.
I thought of flight, and other things, but the hospital was small, and there was no other available room. So I wished them all good morning, and sat on the side of my bed farthest away, and having undressed got into bed as the assistant-surgeon, otherwise apothecary, directed. I had not been there for more than three minutes when the Enigma's Hindoo bearer entered. He became quickly engaged with his master in strenuous argument relating to curry, what time the Enigma ricochetted on and off the bed, and his mouth became the exhaust valve for his pent-up opinions of the world in general and his bearer in particular. I discovered later that malaria and dysentery had between them rendered him temporarily insane. He had been in the hospital for the whole of the siege, but was now slowly recovering. While he was in extremis, however, I should say from all accounts that he must have been by far the most interesting person in Kut. For many days it seems his main hobby was in trying to make his bearer precede him through a door which did not exist at the foot of his bed. Another diversion was in seating himself on the window-sill stark naked about 1 a.m. in the night and mimicking, often with ghastly relish, the sounds and noises of various members of the Turkish artillery from Windy Lizzie to Naughty Nellie, the buzzing howitzer. I believe he was quite good at the bullets, and very promising on Frolicsome Fanny, which was easy, and only required an awful noise without warning—for as I have noted Fanny's jokes sometimes held fire for minutes. But in reproducing vocally the aeroplane's 100-pound bombs he is reported as having outdone even the bomb itself. In fact his own nerves could not stand this performance, and he generally wound up the item by taking cover under his bed.