Lieutenant Chrystall.—“We have been doing, as you will no doubt have seen by the papers, a little fighting, and have been doing a lot of night marching on ‘operation scale,’ which means waterproof sheet, one blanket, and biscuits and bully, and out all day. Our horses at times have been forty-four hours without water, which of course is very hard. Well, we were bemoaning our fate when we were ordered out on Christmas Eve morning for an all-night show, and thinking we will never have any Christmas dinner at all. We returned to camp about 3 P.M. on Christmas Day and found a much-belated Christmas parcel awaiting us, and all your splendid parcels. We had a meal fit for a king, and we had to thank all you good people for it.”
Captain W. H. Eve—December 27.—“Personally I see no show ever for us, and am sorry I ever joined the Cavalry.... I have no delusions about it now.... I shall never get a gallop with my squadron....”
2nd Lieutenant Guy Pedder—December 30.—“We are back again in the same camp as we started out from for this show,[22] and got back just in time, as it has rained almost ever since. We are pretty comfortable in our tents, after much digging. I mean, we dig out the inside of our tents, and make a trench all round to keep the water out. You achieve three things by doing this: (1) your tent is much warmer; (2) you have much more room and do not bump your head every time you turn round; (3) you keep dry.... We can’t possibly move up again for another show until the sun comes out and dries the mud, which is ankle-deep now. (Thank goodness! I was able to buy a pair of gum-boots from our Ordnance here.) Ormrod, Hill, and Lord arrived with a draft. They marched up-country and brought us some horses which we wanted badly. One night the Arabs scored over them well. Ormrod had his gun stolen out of his tent, Hill and Lord had all their kit taken, including bedding, valises, &c., and the sentries were on duty all round and within a few yards of the spot! The Arab is a marvellous thief.... The actual Christmas parcels have not arrived yet; all the same, we had a wonderful Christmas dinner only about three miles from Kut—soup, fish, mutton, and vegetables (we got the mutton after raiding an Arab Fort on Christmas Eve), champagne, two bottles for six of us (gift from Lord Curzon, I believe), an enormous plum-pudding which I bought at the E.F.C.[23] before we left here, also there was a Christmas cake and pudding given by telegraph. There is an E.F.C. up here now, but owing to transport difficulties it runs out of everything you want very quickly; but the best thing of all is our regimental coffee-shop (the only one in Mesopotamia, I believe). Even right up here it is open again, and you can buy anything from getting soda-water bottles refilled to buying assorted chocolates.... A tremendous thunderstorm is raging as I write, and it is coming down in buckets; to-morrow the mud will be knee-deep.”
2nd Lieutenant J. O. P. Clarkson—December 30.—“Here’s a good story and true. One of our monitors had been up to an advanced position to shell the Turks, but had got heavily shelled itself. After a few days of this they tried to pull the Turks’ leg a bit. They rigged a mahailla (Arab boat) with funnels and mast to represent a monitor, towed it up during the night, and the next day put it into position, burning oily rags and brown paper to represent its being under steam. It was not shelled. They towed it up higher still. It was not shelled. The next day a notice appeared from the Turkish trenches, and it ran, “Your real monitors amuse us, but your dummy one is superb.”
Lieutenant Munster—December 30.—“Still here and still raining. There can hardly be any doubt that we shall not be moved at present, the mud is so awful. I used to think the mud at Aldershot could not be surpassed, but now I am inclined to think Mesopotamia beats it. We have to build little mud walls round our tents to keep the water out. I did not build mine deep enough, and as a result I think I had a foot and a half of water in my tent. It came just two or three inches short of the level of my bed. I woke up and saw my boots and clothes floating about.”
January 4, 1917.—“We have been in our permanent camp about ten days now, and are quite likely to be here all the winter. After the winter come the floods, and before the floods have gone down the great heat comes on, so that October, November, and December are considered to be the only fighting months of the year. This year active operations did not start until December 14th, and the Cavalry withdrew to permanent billets on December 26th.”
Captain W. H. Eve—January 17.—“I got your letter of December 3rd when we got back here to standing camp the day before yesterday. We are still all whole and flourishing, and I am very fit indeed. We left the base November 3rd.... The ‘show’ was to start on the 14th,[24] and we marched from here on the evening of the 13th. From the papers you will probably have gathered more or less what we did to start with.
“We were on the left or outer flank of the Infantry attack, away on the south. Marched all night, crossed the river Hai (nearly dry then) at dawn on the 14th; meeting with no opposition, then turned north up its western bank, and kept pace with the Infantry attack.
“Our part of the show was a success, a complete surprise to the enemy apparently, and in fact we didn’t run into any of them for some time. We had a little sniping from Arabs and a few Turk Cavalry, but no real fighting. We had a longish trek though, about twenty-six hours for our horses under saddle, as we did not get back to doss down by the river until about 9 P.M., 14th.
“The next two days we spent in reconnaissance wide on the flank, had long days for the horses, no water from morning till night (luckily cool weather), but we had no fighting, only got shelled once or twice.”