I managed to best Edmonds later. He conceded me a knight, but then he is a very good player.
I made another acquaintance at the hospital, one Father Tim, the Catholic padre, who called to see me to-day.
A few rounds fell into the town. We did not reply.
We are informed that the English division of which we have heard so much is coming up-river now.
Rations have been still further cut down. We get bread and meat, nothing else, and of the former merely four ounces per diem. The garrison is in a bad way. Men go staggering about, resting every now and then up against a wall. I hear that the number succumbing in the trenches is daily increasing. As for the native hospital, the sight is too appalling for words. Skin-covered skeletons crawl about or turn over to receive their scanty nourishment, but nothing else, not even shell fire, engages their attention. One sees a coma stealing over them, a coma not less relentless than the Arctic Sleep of Death in the snow. The poor devils cover up their faces with blankets or tattered turbans, and dream of Home. One told me the other day that he heard the steps of Kismet.
It is roughly estimated that this further reduction of rations will give us two to three weeks—not more.
There is every confidence in our army below. One thing, however, we dread: that is the floods, which may or may not leave sufficient time.
March 12th.—Rain fell last night and again early this morning. Then we heard the sound of distant artillery, which increased to the subdued throb of gun-fire far away. But this was drowned in the grander music of a thunderstorm. How splendid is the artillery of the gods! How majestic their salvos billowing across the heavens!
Last night we felt what we believed to be an earthquake, but which proved to be the sappers trying to dynamite fish in the river, which experiment was completely unproductive.
5 p.m.—It is still raining, which is bad for the river. I did my rounds and straightened up pay books, etc., in the office, and then played chess. I am a little better, and Amir Bux is an excellent masseur, a distinct improvement on Graoul, who used to treat my shoulders like a punch ball.