In the bright clear atmosphere it was possible to see objects many miles distant. Ofttimes we would catch sight of a steamer away to our right or left, looking for all the world as if she were making an overland trip and was stuck fast in the middle of the waterless desert. But the seeming mystery was explained by the winding course of the river, which can only be likened to a series of figures of eight.
It took us about thirty hours to reach Amarah, which lies on both banks of the Tigris and, by reason of its position, had become an important coaling-centre on the lower part of the stream. There was an air of bustle and activity about the place, for British organization had descended upon it and rudely awakened it from the sleep of centuries. British military and native police controlled the town, and kept the more mischievous of the unruly Arab elements in order. A swing-bridge had been thrown across the river to carry vehicular traffic. River steamers were moored at the quays, taking in or discharging cargo, and Indian and Arab coolies sweated in the sun as they hurried along with great burdens on their backs.
Our way to camp led through the Bazaar, which may, I think, lay claim to be one of the filthiest and most malodorous in all the "Land of the Two Rivers." It had rained heavily the previous night, and now the unpaved roadway through the main bazaar was a foot deep in liquid mud. The average native was wholly unconcerned and, while we picked our steps carefully, mentally consigning Amarah and its abominable streets to perdition, barefooted Arab women, wearing anklets of silver, with a pendant through one nostril, and in their finest raiment, would plod contentedly through this mire as if it were a rose-bestrewn path. Tiny mites with no more clothing than a string of beads gave each other mud baths with the joy and enthusiasm of children sporting in the sea at some European watering-place.
Still, if Amarah disgusted us with its muddy streets and evil-smelling bazaars, it had some compensating advantages, amongst them its British Officers' Club. In a desert of dirt and discomfort this was a veritable oasis, with its excellent cuisine, and smoking and reading rooms provided with the latest three-months-old newspapers and magazines. It stands on the river front, and from its roof-garden a fine panorama opens at one's feet. In the foreground are the busy river and the crowded quayside, and on the opposite bank the white tents of the British camps blend with the dark green of the date-palms. Still farther beyond, as a background to the picture, is the dun-brown of the desert wastes.
A wet camp is at all times an abomination, and our first night at Amarah was not a pleasant experience. The transit camp is on a sort of peninsula, and a few hours' rain converted it into a lake of mud. We were housed in huts whose shape recalled a miniature Crystal Palace, and whose semi-circular sides and roof were thatched with palm netting. In the hut which I shared with Major Newcombe and Captain Eve, during the early hours of the morning a heavy shower poured through the roof as if it were a sieve. In the darkness there was a scramble over the muddy floor in quest of waterproof sheets and raincoats with which to set up a second line of defence for our leaky roof. Afterwards we all laughed heartily at the experience, but at the time we were inclined to be wrathful, for an unexpected and unlooked-for shower-bath in bed at 2 a.m., even on active service, may ruffle the mildest of tempers.
From Amarah to Kut we went by river, the journey occupying three days. The military-constructed railway which has since been opened does the journey in ten or twelve hours. Our steamer, No. 95, was a comfortable one of her class for Tigris river travelling. Indeed in this part of the world she would be listed as de luxe, inasmuch as she possessed cabin accommodation and actually had a bathroom. The trip itself was but a slight variation of the monotonous river journey to Amarah. There were the same flat stretches of country now and again relieved by a few palm-trees; the white tents of a British river guard, a link in this long-drawn-out line of communications; or some Arab village with its grouping of dilapidated palm-roofed huts, its barking curs, and its mud-brown naked children. Occasionally down by the banks there was a fringe of green where some native cultivator, aided by the water from an irrigation canal, was rearing a hardy spring crop.
As on its lower reaches, the river pursued a devious path across the face of the country until one grew giddy with attempting to follow its windings. The Tigris is a most impulsive stream; it obeys no will but its own, and is as erratic as any river of its size in the world. However, as Kut is approached on the up journey, it broadens out into noble proportions, swift and deep, and for a few miles behaves rationally, abandoning its geographical jazz-step over the Mesopotamian plains.
Kut—the scene of Townshend's immortal stand, with his handful of troops diminished daily by famine and disease, holding off to the last a powerful enemy—is situated at the end of a tongue of land at a point where the Tigris, taking a mighty sweep, mingles its waters with those of the Shatt el Hai.
But a new Kut, a British Kut, a town of tents and wooden huts and galvanized iron buildings, has sprung into being three miles below the tottering walls of Turkish Kut, and about two miles from Townshend's advanced trench line. In British Kut there are rough wooden piers, hastily built, it is true, where the river steamers moor, few attempting the difficult passage from Kut to Bagdad. Kut is also an important railway junction, for the troops bound up river were disembarked here, and stepped from the steamer deck into the waiting troop-trains.
We went up river in a motor launch, General Byron, Major Newcombe, Captain Eve, and myself, to visit Townshend's famous stronghold. It was with a feeling of emotion that we disembarked at the old stone pier of Kut, and made our way along its broken unpaved streets, past its crumbling wall, to the centre of the town. The route led through the main business centre—it could hardly be called a bazaar—where merchants and money-changers plied their trades, and a blind beggar in rags sat under the lee of a wall, with the sun shining full on his sightless eye-sockets, droning a supplication for alms. The wave of red war had passed and repassed over Kut, leaving it scorched and maimed. Turk and Briton had fought for supremacy round and about it, but that was more than a year ago, and Kut now dozed sleepily in the hot afternoon sun, beginning already to forget the past and, with the calm philosophic indifference of the East, accepting as a predestined part of its daily life the Standard of Britain which had replaced the Crescent of the Turk.