Part 7

Next to various small tradesmen with whom I used to gossip, drink coffee, and play dominoes, my best Arab friend was Abdul Kader Pasha, a striking old man who had been a faithful ally to the British through thick and thin. The dinners at his house on the river-bank were feasts such as one reads of in ancient history. Course succeeded course without any definite plan; any one of them would have made a large and delicious meal in itself. True to Arab custom, the son of the house never sat down at table with his father, although before and after dinner he talked and smoked with us.

I had a number of good friends among the Armenians. There was not one of them but had some near relation, frequently a parent or a brother or sister, still among the Turks. Sometimes they knew them to be dead, more frequently they could only hope that such was the case and there was no further suffering to be endured. Many of these Armenians belonged to prominent families, numbering among their members men who had held the most important government posts in Constantinople. The secretary of the treasury was almost invariably an Armenian, for the race outstrips the Jews in its money touch.

With one family I dined quite often--the usual interminable Oriental feast varying only from the Arab or Turkish dinners in a few special national dishes. All, excepting the aged grandmother, spoke French, and the daughters had a thorough grounding in the literature. Such English books as they knew they had read in French translations. The house was attractively furnished, with really beautiful rugs and old silverware. The younger generation played bridge, and the girls were always well dressed in European fashion. Whence the clothes came was a mystery, for nothing could have been brought in since the war, and even in ante-bellum days foreign clothes of that grade could never have been stocked but must have been imported in individual orders. The evenings were thoroughly enjoyable, for everything was in such marked contrast to our every-day life. It must be remembered that these few Armenians were the only women with whom we could talk and laugh in Occidental fashion.

By far the best-informed and cleverest Arab was Père Anastase. He was a Catholic, and under the supervision of the Political Department edited the local Arab paper. All his life he had worked building up a library--gathering rare books throughout Syria and Mesopotamia. He was himself an author of no small reputation. Just before the British took Baghdad the Germans pillaged his collection, sending the more valuable books to Constantinople and Berlin, and turning the rest over to the populace. The soldiers made great bonfires of many--others found their way to the bazaars, where he was later able to repurchase some of them. When talking of the sacking of his house, Père Anastase would work himself into a white heat of fury and his eyes would flash as he bitterly cursed the vandals who had destroyed his treasures.

It was in Baghdad that I first ran into Major E.B. Soane, whose Through Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise is a classic. Soane was born in southern France, his mother French and his father English. The latter walked across the United States from ocean to ocean in the early forties, so Soane came by his roving, adventurous spirit naturally. When still but little more than a boy he went out to work in the Anglo-Persian Bank, and immediately interested himself in the language and literature of the country. Some of his holidays he spent in the British Museum translating and cataloguing Persian manuscripts. Becoming interested in the Kurds, he spent a number of years among them, learning their languages and customs and joining in their raids.

As soon as we got a foothold in the Kurdish Hills, Soane was sent up to administer the captured territory. His headquarters were at Khanikin, twenty-five miles from Kizil Robat and but a short distance from the Persian frontier. One morning during the time that I was stationed in that district I motored over to see him. It was a glorious day. The cloud effects were most beautiful, towering in billows of white above the snow peaks, against a background of deepest blue. The road wound in and out among the barren foot-hills until suddenly as I topped a rise I saw right below a great clump of palm-trees, with houses showing through here and there--the whole divided by a lovely river bestridden by an old seven-arch bridge. I picked my way through the narrow streets, scattering ragged Kurds right and left; past part of the covered bazaar, until I came to a house with a large courtyard, thronged with a motley array of Kurdish irregulars, armed with every sort of weapon. It was there that Soane administered his stern but practical justice, for he thoroughly understood how to handle these men.

The district had suffered fearfully, for it had been occupied in turn by Turk and Russian, and then Turk again, before we took it over, and the unfortunate natives had been pillaged and robbed mercilessly. Thousands starved to death. When I was at Deli Abbas ghastly bands of ragged skeletons would come through to us begging food and work. Soane turned a large khan on the outskirts of the town into a poorhouse, and here he lodged the starving women and children that drifted in from all over Kurdistan. It was a fearful assemblage of scarecrows. As they got better he selected women from among them to whom he turned over the administration of the khan. They divided the unfortunates in gangs, and supervised the issue of dates on which they were fed. Such as were physically able were employed in cleaning the town. The Kurds are a fine, self-respecting race and it was easy to understand Soane's enthusiasm for them.

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In Baghdad you lived either in the cellars or on the housetops. The former were called serdabs. A large chimney, cowled to face the prevailing wind, served for ventilation, and on the hottest days one was cool and comfortable. We slept on the roofs, and often dined there, too. Since the town was the General Headquarters of the Expeditionary Force, one was always sure to meet many friends. A comfortable and well-run officers' club was installed, as well as warrant officers' and enlisted men's clubs.

Occasionally race meetings were planned and the various divisions would send representatives. Frank Wooton, the well-known jockey, was a despatch-rider, and usually succeeded in getting leave enough to allow him to ride some general's horses. An Arab race formed part of the programme. Once a wild tribesman who had secured a handsome lead almost lost the race by taking off his cloak and waving it round his head as he gave ear-piercing shouts of triumph. The Arab riding second was less emotional and attended better to the business in hand, but his horse was not quite good enough to make the difference.

The scene at the race-course was a gay one. The color was chiefly contributed by the Jewesses who wore their hooded silk cloaks of lively hue--green or pink or yellow. The only crowd that I saw to vie with it was one which watched the prisoners taken at Ramadie march through the town. Turkish propaganda, circulated in the bazaars, gave out that instead of taking the prisoners we claimed, we had in reality suffered a defeat, and it was decided that the sight of the captive Turks would have a salutary effect upon the townsmen. Looking down from a housetop the red fezzes and the gay-colored abas made the crowd look like a vast field of poppies.

When I was at Samarra an amusing incident took place in connection with a number of officers' wives who were captured at Ramadie. The army commander didn't wish to ship them off to India and Burma with their husbands, so he sent them up to Samarra with instructions that they be returned across the lines to the Turks. After many aeroplane messages were exchanged it was agreed that we should leave them at a designated hill and that the Turks would later come for them. Meanwhile we had arranged quarters for them, trying to do everything in a manner that would be in harmony with the Turkish convenances. When the wives were escorted forth to be turned back to their countrymen, they were all weeping bitterly. Whether it was that the Turk in his casual manner decided that one day was as good as another, or whether he felt that he had no particular use for these particular women, we never knew, but at all events twenty-four hours later one of our patrols came upon the prisoners still forlornly waiting. We shipped them back to Baghdad.

Occasionally I would go to one of the Arab theatres. The plays were generally burlesques, for the Arab has a keen sense of humor and greatly appreciates a joke. Most of the puns were too involved for me to follow, but there was always a certain amount of slap-stick comedy that could be readily understood. Then there was dancing--as a whole monotonous and mediocre; but there was one old man who was a remarkable performer, and would have been appreciated on any stage in the world. The topical songs invariably amused me--they were so universal in spirit. The chorus of one which was a great hit ran: "Haido, haido, rahweni passak!" "I say, I say, show me your pass." There had been much trouble with spies and every one was required to provide himself with a certificate of good conduct and to show it on demand. It was to this that the song referred.

Captain C.G. Lloyd was my companion on many rambles among the natives. He had been stationed in Burma and India for many years, and was a good Persian scholar. Like every one who has knocked about to any extent among native peoples, his career had not been lacking in incident. I remember on one occasion asking him why it was that he never joined me in a cup of coffee when we stopped at a coffee-house. He replied that he had always been wary of coffee since a man with him was poisoned by a cup which was intended for him.

I always looked forward to a trip to Baghdad, for it gave me a chance to mingle in a totally different life from that which daily surrounded me, and temporarily, at least, forget about the war in which the world was plunged. Still, the morning set to leave invariably found me equally glad to shove off once more into the great expanses of the desert.

VII

THE ATTACK ON THE PERSIAN FRONT

When I reached headquarters after the attack on the Euphrates front, I was expecting to hear that my transfer to France had gone through and receive orders to proceed thither immediately. It had always been my intention to try to join the American army once it began to take a real part in the war, and for some time past I had been casting about in my mind for the best method to carry out my plans. When affairs looked so very black for the Allied forces in March and April, 1918, I decided that France was the place where every one, who could by any possibility manage it, should be. General Gillman, the chief of staff, had on more than one occasion shown himself a good friend, and I determined to once more task his kindness. He said that he thought he could arrange for my transfer to France, and that once there I could work out the best way of getting into the American army.

Everything went well, and I was daily expecting my orders, when Major Thompson, who commanded the brigade of armored cars, sent for me and told me that an advance was being planned on the Kurdish front. Only two batteries were to be taken--the Eighth and the Thirteenth--but he said that he would like to have me go along in command of the supply-train. Of course I jumped at the chance, as the attack promised to be most interesting.

We were told to be ready to move on an hour's notice. For several days the weather held us back. The rain, helped out by the melting snow from the mountains, caused the rivers to rise in flood. The Tigris rose sixteen feet in a night. The lower bridge was broken and washed away. Everything possible was done to reinforce the upper bridge, but it was hourly expected to give way under the strain of the whirling yellow waters. The old Arab rivermen said that they could tell by the color just which of the tributaries were in spate. When they saw or thought they saw a new admixture, they would shake their heads and say: "Such and such a river is now also in flood--the Tigris will rise still further."

On the night of April 24 we at length got our orders and at six o'clock the following morning we set out, prepared to run through to Ain Leilah. The country was indeed changed since I passed through six weeks before. The desert had blossomed. We ran through miles and miles of clover; the sweet smell seemed so wholesomely American, recalling home and family, and the meadows of Long Island. The brilliant red poppies were more in keeping with the country; and we passed by Indian cavalry reinforcements with the scarlet flowers stuck in their black hair and twined in the head-stalls of the horses.

As we approached the hills they looked less bleak--a soft green clothed the hollows, and the little oasis of Ain Leilah no longer stood out in the same marked contrast as when last I visited it. The roads were in good shape, and we reached camp at four in the afternoon. I took one of the tenders and set off to look up some old friends in the regiments near by. As I passed a group of Arabs that had just finished work on the roads, I noticed that they were playing a game that was new to me. A stake was driven into the ground, with a horsehair rope ten or twelve feet in length attached to it. An old man had hold of the end of the rope. About the stake were piled some clothes, and the Arabs were standing around in a circle just out of reach of the man with the rope. The object was to dart in and snatch up something from the heap without the old man who was on guard catching you. They were enjoying themselves hugely--the oldest graybeards behaving as if they were children--a very pleasant side of the Arab.

Our instructions were to be ready to pull out before daybreak. The mission was, as usual, a flanking one. The direct attack was to be delivered on Kara Tepe, and, if that were successful, upon Kifri. We were to intercept the arrival of reinforcements, or cut off the retreat of the garrisons, as the case might be.

In the early morning hours the country was lovely--rolling grass land "with a hint of hills behind"--miles of daisies with clusters of blood-red poppies scattered through them--and occasional hollows carpeted with a brilliant blue flower. In the river courses there were numbers of brilliantly hued birds--the gayest colors I saw in Mesopotamia with the exception of the vivid arsenic-green birds around Ana on the Euphrates. In one place I thought that the ground was covered with red flowers, but a close inspection proved it to be myriads of tiny red insects swarming on the grass stems.

Column marching is slow and wearisome, and after the sun rose the heat became intense. The dust smothered us; there was not a breath of air to rid us of it for even a moment. The miles seemed interminable. At noon we halted beside a narrow stream known as Oil River--a common name in this part of the country where oil abounds and the water is heavily impregnated with it. For drinking it was abominable--and almost spoiled the tea upon which we relied for a staple. A few miles beyond, the engineers found a suitable location to throw a bridge across the creek. The main body was halted at a place known as Umr Maidan and we were sent over the bridge to form across the main road leading from Kara Tepe back into the Turkish territory.

It was nightfall before we had effected a crossing, and we groped our way along until we came upon the road. It was impossible to do very much in the way of selecting a position, but we arranged the cars as best we could. When you were off at large in the desert you were what the army called "Out in the blue," and that was certainly our situation on the night of April 26. We all expected that we would intercept traffic going one way or the other, but the night passed without incident or excitement.

By four in the morning we were once more feeling our way along through the darkness. As it lightened we came under observation by the Turks, who started in to shell us. We learned from our aeroplanes that Kifri had been evacuated; the garrison was falling back along a road running parallel to the one on which we were, separated by eight or ten miles of broken country. By this time our cavalry had caught up with us. They pushed off across country to intercept the Turks. We attempted to do likewise but it was more difficult, and what with dodging in and out to avoid a ravine here or a hill there, we made little headway. At length we struck a road that led in approximately the direction whither we wished to go. It was already early afternoon before, upon topping a rise, we caught sight of a good-sized body of Turks marching on a road which ran along the base of a range of steep, stony hills. We put on as much speed as was possible, and headed north to try to intercept them. The cavalry were coming from the south, and while we were circling around they charged in upon the Turks. It was a stirring scene. The powerful Indians sat their horses with the utmost grace. Their drawn sabres flashed in the sun. As they came to close quarters the turbaned heads bent forward and we could hear the shouts and high-pitched cries of triumph as the riders slashed at the foe. The wounded and dead testified to their skill as swordsmen. The whole sight reminded me more of the battle books I read as a boy than anything I saw in the war. About six hundred prisoners were taken, but many of the Turks escaped to the mountains and lay among the rocks, whence they could snipe at us with impunity. They were a tenacious lot, for all next day when we were using the road below the hills they continued to shoot at us from the places whence it was impossible to dislodge them.

While the prisoners were being brought in we caught sight of one of our aeroplanes crashing. Making our way over to it we found that neither the pilot nor the observer was seriously hurt. Flying in Mesopotamia was made unusually difficult by the climatic conditions. The planes were designed for work in France and during the summer months the heat and dryness warped the propeller blades and indeed all the wooden parts. Then, too, the fine dust would get into the machinery when the aviator was taxiing for a start. Many pilots coming out from France with brilliant records met an early and untimely end because they could not realize how very different the conditions were. I remember one poor young fellow who set off on a reconnaissance without the food and water he was required by regulations to carry. He got lost and ran out of gasolene--being forced to land out in the desert. The armored cars went off in search of him, and on the second morning after he had come down they found his body near their bivouac. He had evidently got that far during the night and died of exhaustion and exposure practically within hearing. He was stripped of his clothes; whether this had been done by himself or by the tribesmen was never determined. A death of this sort always seems so much sadder than being legitimately killed in combat. The L.A.M. batteries were in close touch with the Royal Flying Corps, for when news came in that a plane was down in the desert or some part of the debatable land, we would be detailed to go out in search of the occupants. A notice printed in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Kurdish was fastened into each aeroplane informing the reader of the reward that would be paid him if the pilot were brought in safety to the British lines. This was done in case a plane got lost and was driven down out of its course among the tribesmen.