a score of cemeteries
from Sannaiyat and Es-Sinn to Bombay, who perished in that time when

the shark-tracked ships went down
To Bombay Town.

Kut will be a place of pilgrimage, and deserves to be, even among the
many shrines of this war. From Sheikh Saad to Shumran is one graveyard
and battlefield, a stretch of thirty miles, where over twenty pitched
battles took place, many being British defeats. At Kut itself
Townshend's old trenches can be traced; and in the town are broken
buildings, and, to eastward, the monument erected by the Turks. Across
the river is the Shat-el-Hai and its complicated and costly
battlefields, and the relics of the famous liquorice factory which
Townshend held, and which we took, in 1917, almost last of all. At
Shumran, above the town, is the place of the great crossing. And on the
ribs of sand, when water is low, are liquorice-stacks and lettuce-beds.

The mud-strips green with lettuce, red with stacks
Of liquorice; shattered walls, and gaping caves:
Beyond, the shifting sands; the jackal's tracks;
The dirging wind; the wilderness of graves.

The evening of September 13, the lofty Arch of Ctesiphon showed for
hours as we toiled along the winding reaches; in the first gold and
chill winds of dawn on the 14th we watched it recede. On the 18th I
reached Beled, 'The Home of the Devil,' as the Arabs call it, where the
Manchesters dragged out a panting existence, battling with dust-storms.
In the station I was shocked to see what vandalism had been at work.
The broken glass had been cleared away; in the tin shed where we had
drunk tea amid the flying shrapnel on that Easter evening new panes had
been put in; the water-tower had been replaced. With dusk I reached
Samarra, and set Keely's mind at rest on the Greek girl question.

Through October Fritz came daily, photographing. The sole rays in a
dreary protraction of existence were afforded by the Intelligence
Summaries, run by Captain Lang, a versatile and popular humorist.
Deserters reported that at a certain place the enemy's staff consisted
of only one lame Turk and one 'powerful Christian.' The 'powerful
Christian' had to do all the work, and was preparing for a hegira to
our lines. Then we had exchanged prisoners recently, sending back eight
wounded men, one having but one leg. On reaching the Turco lines, when
we offered to give these wounded a further lift of some miles, the
offer was accepted with cringing