Carry On! A Story of the Fight for Bagdad

by Herbert Strang

He thought of sending a messenger into the British lines with a note relating what had happened and explaining that he could scarcely hope to carry on more than a few days longer. But reflecting that it would take the man several days to reach his destination, even with the best of luck, and that unless the relieving force had already started by then it could hardly arrive in time, he gave up the idea. If he had been able to overhear the counsels of the Turkish officers he would have found his worst fears realised. The destruction of the guns and the capture of Major Burckhardt had infuriated General Eisenstein, who had dispatched a German officer from his staff to conduct the operations, with more field-guns.

For some days the enemy's activity was limited to sniping, and to pushing forward the walls along the island section of the causeway. The Arabs could do little to impede them. The work was done at night, with the assistance of kelaks, and always under cover of as many troops as could be concentrated on the causeway and the kelaks on either side. An attempt to attack the wall-builders must inevitably be outflanked. Nor could another gap, nearer the island, be made in the causeway. The enemy was always on the alert, and working parties of Arabs would only have been destroyed.

Day by day Burnet saw the walls approaching the bridgehead. Provisions, in spite of the most careful rationing, were running low; and another action like the last would exhaust his stock of ammunition.

The walls had been pushed to within fifty yards of the bridgehead when, early one morning, the garrison was startled by the sound of an exploding shell. It had burst on the embankment a few yards below the emplacement from which the machine-gun had repelled the last attack: the enemy was clearly ranging on that spot. The Arabs showed signs of nervousness, but were reassured by the broad smiles upon the faces of the two machine-gunners. Burnet's first precaution after the late action had been to change the position of the gun. Two new emplacements, well masked, had been prepared within a short distance of each other and connected by a shallow trench. Before a second shell fell, Sturge and Jackson, assisted by a party of Arabs, had removed the gun from the threatened position to another about twenty yards away. But Burnet realised that bombardment was the beginning of the end.

To avoid useless loss of men, he withdrew the garrison from the bridgehead. The defences, consisting only of piles of loose stones and rubble, while effective against bullets, must soon be knocked to pieces by shells, even from field-guns, and would prove only a death-trap to men congregated behind them. He had reason to be thankful for the precautions he had taken when the enemy, after sending shell after shell into the vacant emplacement until it was thoroughly demolished, got to work on the bridgehead. Some twenty rounds reduced this, the first line of defence, to a mere rubbish heap.

Fortunately the enemy did not suspect the existence of the main trench which had been dug in the rear, and was masked by the embankment on the shore of the island. Having destroyed the bridgehead, the Turkish gunners began to search the embankment methodically, dropping shells at every few yards along the front. The embankment, consisting of deep and closely packed mud, could not be broken down by the light shells from field-guns; but the bombardment would have played havoc with the defenders if, as the Turks no doubt supposed, they were extended behind it.

As soon as their intentions became clear, Burnet withdrew the machine-gun from the second emplacement to the third, which was well retired from the shore and beyond the enemy's immediate objective. This precaution turned out to be unnecessary, or at least premature, for the bombardment was limited to about two hundred yards on each side of the bridgehead. Seeing that the second emplacement was outside the enemy's present zone of fire, Burnet had the machine-gun quickly restored to its former position.

Hitherto the Arabs had not fired a single shot in answer to the bombardment. Not a man of the enemy was in sight, and the guns were far away on the mainland, completely hidden. The Arabs, at first alarmed by the deafening explosions and the devastating effects of the shells, had begun to recover tone when they saw that the damage was mainly material. A few of them had been hit by flying splinters of stone, but their injuries were light, and none had been killed.

At last the bombardment of the embankment ceased. A few moments later shells began to fall on the ruined buildings in the centre of the island. Anticipating this, Burnet had told the small body of Arabs whom he was holding there in reserve what to do, and they, with Rejeb, had already taken refuge in the deep underground chambers.

Immediately after the enemy's fire was lifted, a strong force of Turks rushed along the causeway, being protected by the walls until they came to the open stretch of some fifty yards. A few succeeded in reaching the demolished bridgehead; the rest were caught by the fire of the machine-gun from its new emplacement. The attack was too costly to be maintained; the survivors were recalled; and during the confusion and disorganisation due to this unexpected check a party of Arabs crept down to the ruins of the bridgehead, and after a short, sharp fight killed or captured the handful of Turks who had penetrated so far. Two Arabs escorted the prisoners to the rear; the others, at Burnet's orders, took cover behind the remains of the defences, to hold them if possible against infantry attack, but to retreat if they were again shelled.