"Get on," growled Philip. "Here are the marshes," and bending swiftly he scraped a row of lines in the mud. "Marshes—M—there we are, and just about here, I suppose, will be the spot where our dear friend the Turk joined us."
He dug a finger deep into the mud in the midst of the patch which he had designated "marshes", and then, standing up, grinned irritatingly at Geoff.
"We know all about that," he went on. "T for Tigris, M for marshes! What next? K for Kurnah, I suppose."
"It's there—K!" said Geoff, laughing, for who could allow himself to be irritated with Philip? "K for Kurnah, and B for Basra. There's the head of the Persian Gulf, and there's Ahwaz. Now let's move up this line we call the Tigris. Perhaps a hundred miles up there is a place called Amara, from which the enemy can easily reinforce the troops they have in front of Ahwaz; there's nothing to prevent them but marshes and desert, and seeing that they've lived all their lives in such surroundings they know all about them. So the next move is there, to seize Amara, and make doubly secure that our pipe-line cannot be cut or damaged."
As a matter of fact, the sketch-map which Geoff had drawn in the mud for the edification of his chum, was not entirely complete or informative, and we hasten at this point to supplement the information he had given. Had he prolonged the line which represented the Tigris River farther to the north and west, as it bent in that direction, he would, when he had covered sufficient space to indicate perhaps another hundred miles of desert country, have come to a place called Kut-el-Amara, where at that very moment Turks were in force; and, arrived at Kut, he would no doubt have carried on the line, making it twirl and twist in many directions—for above Kut-el-Amara the Tigris winds considerably and is most difficult of navigation—to Bagdad, that city where Major Joseph Douglas had taken up his quarters, and where the onset of this huge world war had found him an alien in a nest of enemies.
Going farther, Geoff's stick would have scratched the line in an almost due southerly direction till it struck that broad patch which Philip had contemptuously designated marshes. Unknown then to the leaders of the Indian Expeditionary Force, a channel runs from Kut-el-Amara down to the head of those marshes into the midst of which Geoff and his chum had so recently ventured, and ends at a spot on the River Euphrates where that broad, sluggish, and ever-changing stream plunges into the mass of sandy and reed-covered islets which form the marshes at Nasiriyeh, where at that very moment Turks were collecting. Not, let us add, that the Indian Expeditionary Force was entirely ignorant of their situation, for, indeed, the Intelligence Branch, thanks to the capture of that fat Turkish officer, had considerable news of a force of Turks collecting at Nasiriyeh. Yet they did not know of the Kut-el-Hai, connecting Nasiriyeh and Kut-el-Amara, and therefore were not aware that the Turks could reinforce the garrison already collected at the head of the marshes, and were at that moment hastily doing so. This force, joined by numbers of Arabs and tribesmen, was even then moving down beside the marshes, following their edge, and taking advantage of the drier parts where the desert was not submerged, their objective being Shaiba, hardly ten miles to the south-west of Basra.
Information of their coming reached the Head-quarters of the division within a few hours, in fact, at the moment when Geoff and Philip were so eagerly discussing the situation, and the blare of bugles, and the stir in the camp, immediately gave occasion to Philip to demand once more of his friend: "What's up?"
"Remember that old Turk?" asked Geoff.
"Not 'arf!" grinned Philip.
"And the tale he gave us of the Turks at the head of the marshes?"