War in the Garden of Eden

ission. Some said that we were to break through and establish connection with General Allenby's forces in Palestine. While I know nothing about it authoritatively, it is certain that if the

nd it would have been entirely practical to cro

e process, but we managed to get as far as Bakuba by evening. The river was rising in one of its periodical floods and we found that the pontoon bridge had been cut half an hour before our arrival. No one could predict how long the flood would last, but the river r

ordered some lamb kababs roasted. The meat is cut in pellets, spitted on rods six or eight inches long, and lain over the glowing charcoal embers. In the shop there are long tables with benches beside them. The customer spreads his former purchases, and when his kababs are ready he eat

ve tea with him. He took us to his tent, where everything was ready, for he apparently always met the two trains that passed through daily. Poor fellow, he was only a little over twenty, and desperately lonely and homesick. Many of the young officers who were wounded in France were sent to India with the idea that they could be tra

n was in revolt. We were ordered to send a section there immediately, so Lieutenant Ballingal's was chosen, while the rest of us left next morning with the balance of the battery for Hit. The first part of the route lay across the desert to Falujah, a prosperous agricultural town on the Euphrates. Rail-head lies just beyond

for five thousand years and are responsible for the town being a centre of boat manufacture. With the bitumen, the gufas and mahelas are "pitched without and within," in the identical manner in which we are told that the ark was built. The jars in which the women of the town draw water from the river, instead of being of copper or earthenware as elsewhere, are here made of pitched wicker-work. The smell of the boiling bitumen and the sulphur springs is trying to a stranger, a

eel on the

were assembled. Our camp was close to a Turkish hospital. There were two great crescents and stars laid out for a signal to warn our aeroplanes not to drop bombs. One of the crescents was made of turf and the other of limestone. The batteries took turns in making the reconnaissances, in the course of which they would come in for a good deal of shelling. The road was un

t thick-walled and well-fortified houses. The entire island was one great palm-grove, with pomegranates, apricots, figs, orange-trees, and grape-vines growing beneath the palms. The grass at the foot of the trees was dotted with blue and pink flowers. Here and there were fields of spring wheat. The water-ditches which irrigated the island were filled by

it happened, we came close to making the blunder he had anticipated, for we started to advance down to the river along the bank of a nullah which would have taken us to Khan Baghdadi instead of eight or ten miles above it, as we wished. I think it was our aeroplanes that set us straight. I was in charge of the tenders with supplies and spares, and spent most of the time in the leading Napier lorry. Occasionally I slipped into an armored car to go off somewhere on a separate mission. The Turks had doubtless anticipated a flanking movement and kept shelling us to a certain extent, but we could hear that they were occupying themselves chiefly with the straight attacking force. By afternoon we had turned in toward the river and our cavalry was soon engaged. The country was too broken for the cars to get in any really effective work. By nigh

es. Their intrenching tools and medical supplies were of Austrian manufacture, as were also the rolling kitchens. These last were of an exceedingly practical design. While we were taking stock of our capture we got word that Khan Baghdadi had been occupied and a good number of prisoners taken. We were instructed to press on and take Haditha, thirty miles above Kha

ovels of Sienkiewicz or Erckmann-Chatrian. The road was littered with equipment of every sort, disabled pack-animals, and dead or dying Turks. It was hard to see the wounded withering in the increasing heat-the dead were better off. We reached the heights overlooking Haditha to find that the garrison was in full retreat. Most of it had left the night before. Those remaining opened fire upon us, but in a half-hearted way, that was not calculated to inflict much loss. Many of the inhabitants of the town lived in burrow

e the Turks could destroy it, and cross over to bivouac on the far side. The road was in fair shape. Many of the small bridges were of recent construction. We soon found that our map was exceedingly inaccurate. Our aeroplanes were

enlisted men he was not so considerate, but I am inclined to think that it was because he was not accustomed to bother his head much about his own rank and file, so it never occurred to him to consider ours. The Turkish private would thrive on what was starvation issue to our men. The attitude of many of the Turkish officers was amusing, if exasperating. They seemed to take it for granted that they would be treated with every consideration due an honored guest. They would complain bitterly about not being supplied with coffee, although at the time we might be totally without it ourselves and far from any source of supply. The Germ

over the wounded to them. All night long they journeyed back and forth tran

r months when the roads were so deep in mud as to be all but impassable. Instead of being distant from Ana the eight miles that we had measured on the map, we found that we were seventeen, but we made it without any serious hindrance. The town was most attractive, embowered in gardens which skirt the river's edge for a distance o

pent most of his life in Hungary and had been given this post only a few months previous to our advance. From the prisoners we had taken at Haditha we had extracted conflicting estimates as to the time when Colonel Tennant, the commander of our air forces, had been sent on, and from those we took at Ana we received equally varying accounts. The cars had been ordered to push on in search

ould draw a thousand gallons. I emptied the trucks and loaded them with such of the wounded as could stand the jolting they were bound to receive because of the speed at which I must travel. I also took a few of the more important prisoners, among them the governor of Ana. He was a cultivated middle-aged man who spoke no Arabic but quite good French. It was mid-afternoon when we started, and I hadn't the most remote idea where I would find a sufficient quantity of petrol. During the run

o was guarding it had been instructed to allow none of it to be used for automobiles. He showed his desire to co-operate and his ability to read the spirit rather than the letter of a command by letting me load my

Not long after we left we ran into a couple of armored cars that had been detailed to bring the rescued aviators back, after they had been reoutfitted and supplied as far as our limited resources would permit. During the halt I found that my sergeant had produced from somewhere or other an emergency rum ration which he was issuing. An old-army, experienced sergeant always managed to hold over a re

her loops riveted to its sides. On long runs the tool-boxes on either side of the well formed convenient seats. When the car became engaged the crew would get inside, pulling the steel doors shut. The slits through which the driver and the man next him looked could be made still smaller when the firing was heavy, and the peep-holes at either side and in the rear had slides which could be closed. The largest aperture was that around the tube of the gun. Splinters of lead came in continuously, and sometimes chance directed a bullet to an opening. One of our drivers

a confused jumble of Jewish and Armenian merchants that had taken refuge within. Some of them had left Ana on their way to Aleppo before the news of the fall of Khan Baghdadi had reached the town. Others had been despatched by the Turks when the news of our advance arrived. All had been to a greater or lesser degree plundered by the Arabs. Most of the baggage animals had been run off, and the merchants were powerless to mo

. They had some of the stolen camels and were laden down with plunder. Two of our cars made a fruitless attempt to

ies, and when one of the tires blew out I waited behind to replace it. The armored cars had quite a start and we raced along to catch them. In my hurry I failed to notice that they had left the road in pursuit of a troop of cavalry, so when we sighted a large square building of the sort the Turks use as barracks, I made sure that the cars had been there before me. We drove up to the door and I jumped out and shoved it open. In the yard were some infantry and a few cavalry. I had only my stick-my Web

ld Great Britain free their country, and would she make it an independent state?" There was a definite limit to the number of prisoners we could manage to carry back, but I offered the doctor to include him. His answer was to go to h

ran it down. It may well be that it was concealed in a ravine near the road a few yards from where we passed. Just short of a town called Abu Kemal we caught three Germans. The

rescent"

to handle in spite of the weight of the armor-plate. We each took great pride in the car in which we generally rode. All had names. In the Fourteenth one section had "Silver Dart" and "Silver Ghost" and another "Gray Ter

ad captured. These contained much information about the Arab situation, and through them it was all but proved that the German was the direct instigator of the murder of the political officer at Nejef. An amusing sidelight was thrown in the letters addressed by Arab sheiks throug

ourselves went back to the camp which we had occupied near the bridge the night before entering Ana. During the afternoon Major Edye, a political officer, turned up, travelling alone with an Arab attendant. He pitched his camp, consisting of a saddle and blanket, close beside us. He was an extraordinarily interesting man, with a great gift fo

which the dump had been destroyed. He took an escort of armored cars, and as I was the only one in the batteries who could speak Arabic, my services were requisitioned. As we approached the town the rattle of the small-arms ammunition sounded like a Fourth of July celebration. The general noticed that I had a kodak and asked me to go out

face. The houses within a fair radius had been riddled, but the natives had taken our warning and no one had been killed. After a cup of coffee in a lovely garden on th

but it availed us little when a veritable hurricane blew up at midnight. I was washed out from under my car, but before dark I had marked down a deserted hut, and thither I groped

oiling torrent. When we crossed over, it was as dry as a bone. A heavy lorry on which an anti-aircraft gun was mounted had been swirled a

m either bank. We ferried across in barges. The native method was simpler. They inflated goatskins, removed their clothes, which they had fastened in a bundle on top of their heads, and with one hand on the goatskin they paddled and drifted over. By starting

ns on the large shovel-spoon that they use for that purpose. The representative village worthies impressed me greatly. The desert Arabs are always held to be vastly superior to their kinsmen of the town, and it is undoubtedly true as a general rule; nevertheless, the el

shoes. The supply of reading-matter had fallen very low. I had only Disraeli's Tancred, about which I found myself unable to share Lady Burton's feelings, and a French account of a voyage from Baghdad to Aleppo in 1808. The author, Louis Jacques Rousseau, a cousin of the great Jean Jacques, belonged to a family of noted Orientalists. Born in Persia, and married to the daughter of the Dut

and I received orders to return to Baghdad. The rain had brought about a change in the desert since we

ht and sunshine make no

buildings and the ce

s and changes, as the

the bushland they are

hioned. There were poppies, dwarf daisies, expanses of buttercups, forget-me-nots, and diminutive red flowers whose name I did not

1

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