orted him, and the memory of their great triumphs before
Kut in early 1916. Did he not wear a medal for those days? '_Pour le
merite_,' the orderly proudly told me. I begged scraps of biscuits from
men on the march, and we shared them. I expressed regret for this march
on empty stomachs. '_C'est toujours la marche_,' said the officer,
shrugging his shoulders. Truly, it must have been; a nightmare of rapid
movement and sleeplessness even for us who pursued--hammer and chase
ever since Maude broke up the Turkish lines before Kut.

As we marched I found that the Indians took us for three prisoners and
not two, I being a German officer. But when J.Y. cantered up and
hailed me, a laugh ran down the column, with the words 'Padre Sahib.'
At Samarra the first person we ran into was General Peebles, to whom I
handed over my prisoners, with a request that they should be fed.
Haughton promised to see to this. Then a pleasant thing happened. The
Turkish officer stepped quickly up to me, saluted, and held out his
hand. I saluted back, and we shook hands. They were good fellows, both
officer and orderly, and carried themselves like free men.

It was now 5 p.m. I joined the 'Tigers.' Fowke and Lowther had each
killed a snake after laying their blankets down. They gave me good
greeting. I fed and washed, then slept abundantly.

For the two Istabulat battles the official return of captures was:
Twenty officers and six hundred and sixty-seven men, one 5.9, fourteen
Krupp field-guns, two machine-guns, twelve hundred and forty rifles, a
quantity of hand-grenades, two hundred rounds of gun-ammunition, five
hundred and forty thousand rounds of rifle-ammunition, four limbers,
sixteen engines, two hundred and forty trucks, one crane, spare wheels
and other stores, two munition barges. Samarra Station was dismantled,
but the engines and trucks were there. Up to the last the Turk had
meant to keep the railhead, so the engines were only partly disabled,
boilers having been removed from some and other parts from others. By
putting parts of engines together we got a sufficiency of usable
engines. Within a fortnight we had trains running.

For the battle of the 22nd both Diggins and Lowther got M.C.'s. If it
was the former's elan which carried our wave into the enemy's guns,
the latter's judgement played a great part in extricating us without
disaster. Hasted, the alert and watchful, had already been gazetted
after the fall of Baghdad as D.S.O. H