e landscape is dotted with them from 8 a.m. till 11 and
again from 3 to 4: so that any random spot would give one much the
same shooting as we had at the Kimberley dams. An officer on board
told me that when he was here two months ago, a brother officer had
killed fifty to his own gun: and a Punjabi subaltern got twenty-one
with five shots.

We reached here about 2 p.m. This place is only about forty-five miles
from A. as the crow flies, but by river it takes sixteen hours, and
with various halts and delays it took us just twenty-four. We only ran
on to one mud-bank. The effect was curious. The ship and the port
barge stopped dead though without any shock. The starboard barge
missed the mud and went on, snapping the hawsers and iron cables
uniting us. The only visible sign of the bank was an eddying of the
current over it: it was right in midstream.

This is a most desolate place. Apart from the village with its few
palms and gardens there seems not to be a blade of vegetation within
sight. To the N.E. the Persian hills are only fifteen miles away. They
have still a little snow (did I mention that the storm which gave us
rain at A. had capped these hills with a fine snow mantle?)

Here we found "D" Co., which got stranded here when "A" Co. got stuck
in C. We are about forty-five or fifty miles from C. as the crow
flies, and the guns can be heard quite plainly: but things have been
very quiet the last few days. There is an enemy force of 2,000 about
ten miles from here, but how long they and the ones at C. will wait
remains to be seen.

We know nothing of our own movements yet and I couldn't mention them
if we did. We have been put into a different brigade, but the
brigadier has not been appointed yet. The number of the brigade equals
that of the ungrateful lepers or the bean-rows which Yeats intended
to plant at Innisfree. We are independent of any division.

A mysterious Reuter has come through about conscription. As it quotes
the _Westminster_ as saying Asquith has decided on it, I'm inclined to
believe it: but it goes on to talk obscurely of possible resignations
and a general election.

This may catch the same mail as my letter to Mamma from A.

_P.S._ Please tell Mamma that just as we were embarking, the S. and T.
delivered me two packages, which turned out to be the long-lost blue
jerseys. So there is hope for the fishing rods yet.

* * * * *

_Monday_, January 10, 1915.