“The march is rather spoilt as we’ve got 300 remounts to lead, and so it just doubles the amount of work for the men; however, we drop the remounts in six days’ time at Amara.
“Yesterday it actually rained, or tried to, for 2 or 3 minutes. I haven’t put up my 80-lb. tent yet this march; it’s perfect sleeping out in the open still, as long as one has three or four blankets on one’s camp-bed, as I do.
“Dinner!
“Later. Perfect night to-night; have been for a stroll on the river promenade; very tired, so must turn in as réveillé is at 5.30 to-morrow. Boiling hot again to-day, very fit but very tired, so night-night.”
Amara, November 12.—“Just a very hurried line, as post goes at 7 to-morrow, to say I am very fit, after 150 miles; we have been just ten days getting to Amara. I have hardly marched with the Regiment at all, as each day I and one or two others have got leave to shoot independently on to the next camp; to-day, for instance, Twist, Jeffrey, and I left the last camp at eight and shot our way here, getting about fifty head. I got 5 brace of partridges, 4 couple of snipe, 5 sand-grouse, and 1 duck—a great day. We arrived here two hours after the Regiment, whom we never saw once on the way.... This seems a topping place, but we go on another six miles to-morrow and join the Brigade: how long we shall be there no one knows at present. I have enjoyed the march like anything, bar one or two nights when we struck thousands of mosquitoes. Thank goodness we have handed over all the remounts we had to bring up here and which delayed us so. The last two or three days I have been wading about in shorts after duck and snipe. It is very cold at night now, but still very hot between 12 and 3. Had a tremendous dinner to-night—soup, whole partridge and peas, boiled mutton, onion sauce and beans, tinned peaches and rice, a snipe, followed by a cigar and a bowl of cocoa.... The sand-grouse came over to-day in swarms and blackened the whole sky, most of them much too high; must turn in now as I am dead tired.”
Captain W. H. Eve—Amara—November 12.—... “To-day we have marched fifteen miles to this place and didn’t get in till about 1.30, and then went straight on to the Remount Depot and handed over the remounts—thank goodness! It’s been rather a rotten march so far, spoilt by these remounts, which have made a terrible lot of work and caused us to march very slowly, only at a walk, and it has been very hard indeed on the men and very tiring for all of us.... The flies and mosquitoes at some of our camps have been wicked. I should think this is quite a nice place [Amara], but have hardly had time to see. Our shooting has been spoilt by our being the last lot of four, and now we can only shoot with an escort, which I shall hate, so I don’t suppose we shall do very much. They say there aren’t any pig to be found till the rains, when they all get flooded out into the desert. We have been through all sorts of country, a lot very dreary dry marsh, but some very nice, like moorland, short turf and thick scrub. Hardly any just sandy desert since the first few days.
November 14.—... “We left the dirty camp at Amara at 8.30 yesterday and marched out here, about 6½ miles up-stream, just on the bend of the river. This is a really nice camp. The country is short heathy turf covered with camel thorn, but all very dry and hard now, and on the opposite bank are gardens and palm groves.... The camp is really as in peace-time, and they have trumpet-calls and all that sort of thing. There are no enemy near except Arab rifle thieves.... I suppose we shall start regular work here very soon, but we shan’t be able to do so much with the horses, as they only get 3 lb. of hay, the rest bhoosa (chopped straw), and only 10 or 11 lb. of grain—uncrushed barley and bran.... I am so cosy and comfortable in my 80-lb. tent—the same as we had in India. We have moved the whole of our tents and the mess right up on to the river bank, where all the officers now are, and we have fixed up one mess-tent with the river side of it up horizontally and open to the river, and it is very nice.... We are under orders to hold ourselves in readiness to move from to-morrow, but no orders have come, so I’m afraid we are not off yet. But a big native boat has been secured for the Brigade in which some of the heavy kit is being carried.”
| THE RIVER FRONT, AMARA |
| PONTOON BRIDGE, AMARA |
November 15.—“Away to the east you can plainly see the Persian foothills about forty miles off.
“We are all right so far for rations ourselves, getting fresh meat quite often, and a full allowance; but our unfortunate horses are now on three-quarter rations of grain only, and that uncrushed barley, and hardly any hay, with a little chopped straw in turn. We hope when the railway is finished this may be put right, but it is bad at present, and means we dare do very little with them. The railway is finished in great parts, and they hoped would be through this month. Let’s only hope so....