and nothing else. None of these things would have been here otherwise. It was a tremendous business and Busra was the warehouse and workshop. Time meant something now. Immense bands of Indian and Egyptian laborers were working at top speed on roads, railroads, and wharves. Other bands were unloading stores from the ocean boats, and piling them up in great huge pyramids. Here and there a motor lorrie or a Ford ambulance was sending up a cloud of dust as it tore over the desert, while at the transport stations were hundreds more, with their drivers awaiting orders to get on with a job. Not a moment must be lost. Kut-el-Amara must be taken.

PREPARING FOR THE CAMPAIGN

Busra, with its river district of Ashar, lay on the west bank of the river. The many flat-roofed Turkish buildings were now converted into billets or offices of the British Army. Where had stood soft couches for the idle Pasha, now stood tables with typewriters going at newspaper office speed. Where had been Turkish gardens, now were piles of cut stone for roads, brought from overseas. There were signs of the intrigue of the days of peace. Materials for the Berlin-Bagdad railway were piled as they had been left by the Teuton railway engineers. A canal, near the town, was bridged for the small British army railway by rails, "made in Berlin," marked "Busra." Immense as were the preparations we knew that each unit of troops, each stock of stores, each conveyance, machine, building, and improvement was to have its share, large or small, in the great campaign which must be successful because everything was ready.

When the heat of late summer mid-day had passed and it was safe to expose ourselves, carefully, to the rays of the sun, we examined more minutely the warehouse and workshop of this big business of war. Busra's buildings looked as they had always looked but their lazy inmates had gone. Officers and men must be billeted, and a warehouse needs many hands and many heads. On the flat roofs camp-cots and blankets reigned supreme. Electric wires. followed the roads through the town. On the door casings signs of G.H.Q., D.S. & T., E.S.O., D. L. of C., A.Q.M. G., D.O.S., D.M.S. and many other offices of greater and of less importance had taken the place of Arabian coffee-shop signs and of star-and-crescent door knockers. Even

in the bazaars the wants of the British soldiers were crowding out the shops of native goods. The Turkish barracks were crowded with British troops, the small river and canal boats which served as taxis were taken almost entirely by English patrons. Most of the townspeople had left their ordinary merchant business and were working for the men in khaki. Beyond the town were the camps and dumps, hospital huts and wharves, animal enclosures and transport machines, newly made roads and land developments. A hasty inspection of cities of tents was all we could make before night was upon us. It was getting dark, and the sentries were posted. We were stopped abruptly by one with "Halt! Who goes there?" 'Friend" came the answer. "Pass friend, all is well," was the quick response. Some Scotchmen were passing the post with us and one them, more proud of his highland kilts than the rest, asked, "Do ye no ken hoo Fritz ud look in ilka kilts?" The sentry thought more than he said.

With the night returned the East, and as we lay in our little tent, the jackals' barks and camels' grunts alone broke the stillness of the night.

THE FIRST CASUALTIES

It was a cold crisp evening in December, one of the coldest days of the year, though still above freezing, when a paddle boat landed at the casualty dock, and sent off the wounded on stretchers. With their uniforms spattered with blood, and rough field dressings on their wounds they were brought into the hospital huts. They were the first wounded of the campaign. Some of them, young boys of nineteen or twenty, had gone over the top for the first time. One of them was sitting up on his stretcher and seemed quite happy.

"Good evening, Chum," I said. "Where d'ye cop it?"

With a broad grin he turned and said, "Aw, I copped it fair, not 'alf-A blinkin bit o' shell in me thigh."

But he smiled when he said it. A few hours later I found him sitting on his bed, wiggling his five toes to show he could use the leg he still had. Another boatload came next day. They were a game lot. Yes, they had done their bit, but were willing to take more if there was more coming to them. Some of the operations were worse than wounds, but they went to them all like men. We had a celebration in

one of the wards. A piece of shell was taken from one of the men's legs. With the iron scrap were a button and a piece of a watch that had come from the clothes of the comrade on his right. "Good Christmas present, that," he said as he thought of the approaching day of days.

All was going well at Kut. General Marshal's force was moving westward, south of Kut, while the other section of the force, under General Cobbe, was attacking the Sanniyat trenches on the northern bank. The Tigris, from Kut running almost due east, gave two distinct fronts, one on each bank. Marshes north of the river made any enveloping movement by the British in that section out of the question. But on the south side the position was different, and the blow was struck. The enemy's attention was held by our attacks on the north bank at Sanniyat while at some distance south of the river a force moved west, lengthening out its line over the River Hai, which flows due south from Kut, till the cavalry advance post was four miles west of Kut. The position changed its face from north and south to east and west. Slowly but surely the line moved nearer the Tigris, the Turks steadily falling back toward its edge. There was hard fighting to be done, and Tommy did it well.

A MERRY CHRISTMAS IN MESOPOTAMIA

Christmas came, and there was a lighthearted, happy lot of men to enjoy the songs that go round at Christmas time. Wherever it was possible an extra fine concert was got up among the men to celebrate the occasion. In one of our hospital tents queer looking performers stood on the platform of the improvised stage. Bandaged heads with slits for eyes, arms in slings, feet with ba.. ages so thick they might mean gout, brought added zest to the occasion when each man tried to do his part in the evening fun. When pieces of sweet chocolate were offered as prizes for excellence with the mouth organ or with songs, the applicants for the test came in crowds. "I can no sing bu' I wi' try," said a Scotchman who had just come from Sanniyat with a slight scrape from a stray bullet. He started off on a little Scotch ballad that sent the thoughts home to the fireside.

But there were more serious things to be thought of elsewhere. In the firing trenches were men who could not take time off to think

about Christmas. Many units had gone from our station into the trenches a few days before, and each boat brought back some of the old friends who had "stopped" something during one of the engagements that were going on so steadily. January came around, and the New Year started. The pressure against the Turkish lines south of the river became more and more earnest. Casualties were heavy on both sides. In one sector of the line a small detachment of English troops got into a tight hole, and was nearly surrounded. Help was slow in arriving. Something went wrong. Some of them thought "the beggars have let us down," but they didn't say it. They gritted their teeth, and fired till their rifles were hot. When relief came the Turks were repulsed. The little force was nearly wiped out, but they found more Turkish dead around them than they had lost.

Day after day the pressure against the Turks continued, till at last it was too great to withstand, and after nearly a month's resistance they withdrew to the northern bank, crossing in pontoons and native craft under cover of darkness. The River Hai now became the centre of activity, and convoys and wounded came quite regularly from the trenches just below the town of Kut. "We could see the place, easy. I think we'll be in in a few days," said one enthusiastic Tommy who a few hours before had been hit as he was wildly plunging on toward Kut, as though it were his responsibility to take the town. Little did he suppose that there was no intention of entering the city from that direction. It wouldn't do to disillusion him.

The 1st of February was celebrated by the bringing down of a German Fokker airplane. Now wild and marvelous exploits were following each other in quick succession. On the 2d, a section of cavalry galloped up the river twenty-five miles past Kut, and threatened to cut the Turkish line of communications with their force. On the 10th the force moving north was just across the river from Kut. The Turkish liquorice factory, "shelled till it was no longer a landmark," and the position around it fell into British hands. Five days later, in a bend of the river at Kut, the Turkish force, less fortunate than the one that got back to safety, surrendered. All day long they came out of their trenches with white flags tied to their bayonets. In one place the surrendering force outnumbered the

attacking force. They seemed happy to be taken.

"We have waited for the rain and mud to stop you," said a young Turkish officer, "but Fate willed that it should not rain.”

Now every fighting Turk was on the north bank of the river. Two days afterward the Scotchmen delivered a terrific attack on the Sanniyat position. It failed and casualties that day were heavy. It was a busy time for us in camp, but work is a pleasure when there is such response as comes from wounded men. Some of the men had smoked their last "fags, and when we found them some they were as thankful as though we had found them bags of gold. Some had no hands to hold them or light them, but when a chum stuck one into another's mouth and held a match to it a smile came over his face with a meaning that words could not express. At night the pain grew worse and the smiles less broad, but there was never a whimper. One man had "copped it" a little worse than he could stand, and was gradually approaching the time to "go west." He whispered to ask whether he might have a fag. He had it, and the lines of his face that were drawn with pain relaxed in an easy smile.

The 22d was a day which will be long remembered. Another attack at Sanniyat! this time a success. success. All through the day they fought. Six times the Turks counter-attacked only to be beaten back, almost destroyed. By evening two lines of trenches were in our hands. All through the night the British force on the other side of Kut was preparing to cross the river, the Turks all on the northern bank. Across the river from Kut there. was a great commotion among the British troops and, anxious to stop what might cross there, the Turks brought all the men they could spare to the scene. Nothing stirred. A little lower down a party launched party launched a pontoon, crossed and captured a Turkish trench mortar. More Turkish troops were drawn down the river. It was nearly day when quietly, mysteriously, three parties of boats started to cross the river four miles above Kut. The Turks had been drawn away. The stunt was a surprise. Three companies of English, and one of Indian troops got a foothold on the Turkish bank.

THE TURKISH RETREAT TO BAGDAD

That was the beginning of the end. A pontoon bridge fairly sprang across the river.

While it was in progress the Scotch again attacked at Sanniyat. Still trusting in their strong position, the Turks fought doggedly, despite the fact that a few miles to their rear the British were crossing the river. Perhaps they did not know. The attack was splendid and the opposition crumbled. By 4:30 in the afternoon the army was crossing the newly made bridge, built in nine hours across a river in flood 340 yards wide. That was the end. Pell-mell the Turks rushed up the river, leaving guns, stores, shells, small-arms ammunition, equipment, bridge material, tents, trench mortars strewn over the country in their wake. The story of that hasty retreat 115 miles to Bagdad with the British following, gunboats on the river, cavalry on the right, and infantry following as fast as their legs could carry them, is a melodrama in itself. A river bank strewn with war materials, guns half buried or thrown into the river, Turkish wounded, stripped and plundered by Arab "Budoos," half dead animals, struggling in a mess of harness and rope, and the Turkish force, now a disorderly mob, fleeing for Bagdad, closed in and riddled with bullets on both sides, and driven from behind. —that tells something of the scene.

CROSSING THE DIALA RIVER BY MOONLIGHT

A week's halt at Azizie gave time for the British to reorganize and prepare for the final drive. The Turks, still disorganized and demoralized, took up a position at Lajj, the site of Townshend's camp at the time in 1915 when he could sweep on no farther toward Bagdad. A day of heavy spirited attacks was all the Turks could stand this time. They evacuated the position during the night. Seven miles south of Bagdad the River Diala flows from the northeast into the Tigris. Here the Turks made their last feeble stand. To press the advantage of the Turkish retreat, boats were launched in the bright moonlight to cross the river without the aid of artillery for which registering was impossible, so swift had been the advance. Time after time volunteers entered these boats, only to be shot down and to float, in the drifting boats, down the river. Next night, behind a barrage of dust raised by a volley of shells, sixty men made the opposite bank. All that might in a natural stronghold in the bank, they held back the Turkish attacks. Next day British machine guns on the south bank, playing in front of the little position, prevented the Turks from attacking.

Next night, while the little force still held their position, the main British force silently crossed, high up, over the stream and swung round in the rear of the Turks. Another pell-mell retreat began, and there was no determined halt until the pursued Turks were twenty miles north of Bagdad.

Our paddle boat was steaming toward Bagdad. We were turning the last bend in the winding river just as the sun was rising. There through the mist we could see the shimmery City of the Caliphs. All that the wondrous tales of Bagdad had told us lay half con

cealed through that veiling mist. The domes and the minarets of the mosques, as perfect as the best in form, the clusters of palms, the fruit orchards and the old wall to keep out the hordes of "infidels," all were there, the city of Golden Domes and the Palace of Haroun-al-Raschid. We steamed nearer, the mist cleared, and there was the tumbled-down city of a Turkish Pasha. Nearer still we moved, and now there was more to be seen, barges of supplies, the paddle boats, the huge camps in the palms, and the British flags. It was the British city of Bagdad.