Another great blessing afforded by the wireless was the publication of a short summary of Reuter's telegrams, which gave us something else to talk of other than the everlasting questions of food and the date of relief. In particular, the taking of Erzerum by the Russians cheered us up, and made us hope that the Russian force approaching Bagdad from Persia would be equally successful.
In fact, at one time the betting was said to be in favour of the Russian general, Baratoff, relieving us from the north, before our friends down-stream.
With the arrival of March, every one was full of excitement over the coming great effort of the relieving force, which was prophesied to take place on the 4th, but was actually the 8th.
Many schemes were prepared by which we were to co-operate, so that after the Turks had been started off rearwards by General Aylmer, we might hasten their departure. In most of these plans one brigade would have to play the leading rôle, and probably come in for a pretty hot time unless the Turks had become quite demoralised; much speculation arose, therefore, as to which brigade would be given this post of honour.
March 8th came and went and we realized that another gallant attempt had failed. The bombardment could be clearly heard, and at night it was easy to see the shells bursting. During the attack on the Dujailah Redoubt our friends were only seven to eight miles from us, and we could hear their rifle and machine gun-fire.
This failure was a great disappointment and we realized what it must have cost in casualties. There was only one thing for us to do, namely, carry on; so the rations were reduced again and life went on in its, by this time, mechanical round. All were still confident of being relieved, and when it became known that General Gorringe had taken over command down stream we felt sure something decisive would happen and that he would get through, if anyone could.
After every unsuccessful attempt, a Turkish envoy promptly arrived with a white flag and requested us politely to surrender. He was as courteously and consistently refused.
Rations were now down to 10 oz. of bread, this being half atta and half barley. The dates were finished and the small stocks of mess stores which had been carefully eked out were nearly finished. Still we had jam and tea and the mule wasn't at all bad. Some saccharine dropped by aeroplane gave us something sweet, and was a great blessing.
The efforts to get the Indians to eat meat at the end of February had failed. They declared that every village pundit would be against them on their return to India and that, in consequence, no one would give them their daughters to marry.
Everything possible to help religious scruples was done, and special permission obtained from the Imám at Delhi and other religious authorities; but it was no use, and not until the second week in April, when they were literally starving, did the Indian troops begin eating horse. No doubt, if they had done so earlier, we could have held out for some few days longer, but it is doubtful whether this would have sufficed for our relief.