do: is he dead?" Adjt. "Yes: you must bury him to-morrow." Harris:
"Right o." Exit Adjt. To do Harris justice, he doesn't know the man
and thought he was still at Nasiriyah. None of the man's old Coy.
officers are here.

* * * * *

AMARAH.
_September_ 21, 1915.

TO HIS MOTHER.

The provision for the sick and wounded is on the whole fairly good
now. Six months ago it was very inadequate, too few doctors and not
enough hospital accommodation. My men who were in the Base Hospital at
Basra spoke very well of it: it had 500 men in it then, and is capable
of indefinite expansion. The serious cases are invalided to India by
the hospital ship _Madras_. It is said that 10,000 have gone back to
India in this way. It is a curious fact that the Indian troops
suffered from heat-stroke every bit as much as the British.

There are now four hospitals here (1) a big one for native troops, (2)
one for British troops which has expanded till it occupies three large
houses, (3) one for British officers, which will be used for all ranks
if the casualties next Saturday are heavy, (4) one for civilians.
There seems to be no lack of drugs or dressings or invalid foods.

* * * * *

AMARAH.
_September_ 24, 1915.

TO N.B.

Two letters from you rolled up together this mail, for both of which
many thanks.

Like everyone else you write under the cloud of Warsaw and in the
expectation of the enemy forthwith dashing back on us in the West. But
the last two months have made it much harder for him to do that soon,
if at all: and I hope the month which will pass before you get this
will have made it harder still. I found it difficult weeks ago to
explain what induced the Germans to commit themselves so deeply into
the interior of Russia so late in the season, and I came to the
conclusion that with each forward movement they had been much nearer
to enveloping and smashing the Russians than the Reuters would have
led one to suppose: and so had been lured on.

It now looks to me as if they are playing for one of two alternatives.
If Von Below can get round their right flank he will try a last
envelopment: if that flank falls back far enough to uncover Petrograd,
he will make a dash for P. But all that will mean locking up even
bigger forces in the East. Indeed it seems so reckless that I can only
account for it by supposing either that they are confident of rushing
Petrograd