On the Road to Bagdad: A Story of Townshend's Gallant Advance on the Tigris

by F. S. Brereton

Whistles shrieked down the line. Officers sprang to the front of their companies, while British and Indians, helmeted and turbaned figures, leapt to their feet, and, with bayonets advanced, dashed across the space which intervened between themselves and the enemy positions. Hoarse guttural shouts left the throats of those British warriors who had come to Mesopotamia, while the higher-pitched cheers of the Indians mingled with them; and then, reserving their breath for the assault, heedless of the bullets which picked out numbers of them, and caused men to roll and bowl over, and which laid them out stark and stiff on the desert, the men went on in silence—that British silence, that dour, cold, remorseless calm which before now on many a field has scared the enemies of Great Britain. But it only lasted a few moments, until, in fact, the Turkish trenches were reached, and the men were in amongst the enemy. Yes, in amongst the enemy, for the Turks, to do them justice, had not all of them deserted their position. Many clung to their trenches with reckless bravery, and now crossed bayonets with men of the Expeditionary Force, with reeling, shouting men from the good County of Dorset, with tall, lithe, dusky sons of the race of Mahrattas, with sweltering, cursing white men, with dusky subjects of the King-Emperor who leapt at their enemies with the swift bound of a tiger. There was the crash of steel, the rattle and thud of rifle-butt coming against rifle-butt; there were yells and screams; there was the dull ugly sound of the bayonet-point as it struck some metal object—perhaps a button—and, sheering from it, went silently through its victim. There were the groans of bayoneted Turks; there was the cough of men whose chests had been transfixed, and whose lungs were flooded with blood.

It was a charge, a charge home, a charge which swept the British force into and over the enemy trenches, which hurled the Turks from their line, and which won a position for our men which, earlier in the day, the German officers had considered impregnable. Yes, German officers, white-faced sons of the Teutonic Empire, officers of the Kaiser, sent to carry his mission of world-wide conquest into Turkey in Asia, lay still and cold and white, their sightless eyes staring up at the burning sun which hung like a blazing orb above them.

It was war, this scene; and what was left when the howls and shouts of the soldiers had died down was the result of war, as it has been from earliest times, with just a few little changes and alterations which the growth of knowledge, the advance of science, and, in these latter days, the enormous increase in mechanical inventions have brought to it. Men die much in the same way, whether they be transfixed by the short stabbing sword of one of the old Roman Legionaries or by the bayonet of a British soldier; an arrow sent by a cross-bow, or by one of the old bows of England, has, or let us say had in the old days, much the same effect upon the man it struck as have bullets discharged from these-day weapons. A vital part is struck, and the man dies, and lies there, looking much the same to-day as when Roman Legions traversed this very spot in Mesopotamia.

"An ugly sight," you will say, "the horrible result of men's passions."

War? Yes, the result of war! But war not sought by King George or his people. That somewhat ghastly scene which Geoff looked upon, once the Turkish trenches had been captured, was not the doing of Great Britain, of France, of Russia, or of any of the Allies. It was the direct result of an ambitious policy fostered in Germany, a policy which had thriven and grown during forty years or more of ceaseless activity, which aimed at world dominance, and which, here in Mesopotamia, in France, in Poland, in a thousand places, was to produce the same and worse scenes—scenes of slaughter; scenes where men were robbed of their lives—young men who might have lived on and been of vast use to their own country, and would have done so, no doubt, had the Kaiser and his war lords not hatched that conspiracy to seize the whole world and bring it into the subjection of the Hohenzollerns.

Philip plumped himself down beside Geoff, and, pulling his water-bottle to the front, presented a cup of water to him. There was sweat on his brow; his face, his hands, his tunic, every part of him, was stained with sandy dust, which had been washed into little furrows on his face by the perspiration which had streamed from his forehead. He was gasping still, as was Geoff; his eyes were shining, while a glance at the young fellow showed that he was still filled with excitement.

"We got home," he told his chum, "and the Mahrattas went in like lions."

Geoff nodded, and, tossing his head back, drained the cup of water.

"Like lions!" he agreed enthusiastically. "And the Dorsets, my boy! Did you hear them? Did you hear those boys go in at the Turks? It was ter—r—if—ic! Hallo, what's that? Look over there!"

Away on the left they could see British horsemen galloping in wide circles to round up fugitives from the lines so recently vacated by the enemy, and here and there parties of troopers were cutting across the desert so as to encircle men who were striking towards their left and looked like escaping. And amongst the fleeing Turks were some who were mounted, and amongst them, no doubt, more than one German officer. Geoff had been watching them for a moment, and now had his attention attracted to a little group clear of the British horsemen just then, and appearing to have every chance of getting away safely. Of a sudden he saw a horseman burst from the group, while shots were fired as he spurred away from the others; then a couple from the group swung their horses round and set off in pursuit, careless of the fact that the fugitive was turning his mount in the direction of the British. It was an amazing sight, and drew exclamations from many.