The Secrets of a Kuttite Part 18

But we _are_ grateful. When we saw the first sack come tumbling down we felt much as Elijah may have done when the ravens ministered to his wants. Of course no aeroplane has landed in Kut during the siege. That would mean very probable disaster, so close are we to the enemy's lines.

To-night at dinner (?) we were without salt again. This is the third or fourth day of an affliction a hundred times worse than having no sugar. I can recommend all doubters to try dispensing with this necessary commodity for a few days in the preparation and eating of food, and to note the result.

Square-Peg and Tudway eat no bread at all for tiffin; just meat. The utmost effort gives them a spoonful of rice every other day for dinner or boiled cress. But we go through the form of dinner, and that helps a lot. Some messes of different mind have almost dispensed with the regular meal, and merely negotiate their rations at any old time. It is just possible they miss a lot. For some of us think that the decencies and conventionalities of life go a long way. In diluted quant.i.ties they themselves supply motive power to life's wearily knocking engine. They use energy gathered from past events and help us to carry on through gaping periods of our life when nothing seems worth while; and when we are indifferent or impatient with destiny, they are the pacemakers of existence. "A rich man," says the future philosopher, "may afford to dispense with dressing for dinner, but a poor man certainly cannot."

Now there are, of course, quite a few things said beneath our nightly cloud of tobacco smoke that do not appear in this diary. It would be sacrilege in some cases, and in others, why, one never knows who may come across one's diary. Confession is the salt of life, but suppression the sugar. And does not Maeterlinck tell us that the reservoirs of thought are higher than those of speech, and the reservoirs of silence higher still?

But so far I have not heard that this has been quoted in a court of law. And to show that we are not totally devoid of artistic intentions I must record a sample of our mental gymnastics this evening. We were tilting at a few enthusiastic sentences of Robert Chambers' books.

"We are informed," I began, "that this interesting youth was sitting disconsolately awaiting his beloved, his well-shaped head in his hands. Any remarks?"

"Prig," said Tudway. "What business has a fellow to have a well-shaped head? Besides, where else could he put it except in his hands?"

"Don't be catty," said Square-Peg, "he wasn't in the navy. Why shouldn't he have a well-shaped head?"

"Probably he hadn't," I suggested mischievously. "We merely have the novelist's word for that, you know." At which they both called me an a.s.s.

"If he did have such a head, I don't see why he shouldn't put it in his hands as well as anywhere else?" ventured the senior service.

"Possibly as he was in love he was hanging on to his head, having already lost his heart." This from the future K.C.

"But if his heart was in his mouth, how----" I was shouted down.

Then we all thought hard.

"What is the point, Curly?" This to me.

"Yes! What's the matter with the sentence after all?"

added S.-P.

"Well, I can't quite say. You see she came along the corridor at midnight, we are told, and saw him, his well-shaped, etc. One doesn't like the excellent shape of his head being shoved in there. The fact, after all, was that his head was in his hands, and she surprised him, sorrowing in solitude."

"But if his head was well-shaped, why not say so?" said the truthful Tudway.

"Yes," nodded S.-P., "that may have been essential. If his head hadn't been well-shaped she mightn't have gushed all over him."

"Hang it," I broke in desperately, "I don't care if it was well-shaped or not. The word doesn't fit. Any other word or none. You see it suggests--er--something outside the matter in hand, she may as well have said his mathematical----"

They considered me beaten, and laughed horribly.

"The next is, 'her superb young figure straightened confronting the sea.' Any remarks?"

"She was playing to the gallery, of course," said S.-P., "or else she stood on a thistle."

"Don't talk rot! I'm with Curly there. 'Superb'

sw.a.n.ks it too much. There's nothing superb in the world except a destroyer at thirty knots."

"Or the action of a blood filly going through her first pacings," I prompted. This raised a yell.

"The next is, 'her skirts swung high above the delicate contour of ankle and limb.' Any remarks?"

"That's naughty," said Square-Peg. "Besides, it doesn't say which limb."

"There's no doubt about the limb," I said, "unless her arm was meant, in which case her skirts----" But an awful roar interrupted me.

"Cut out 'limb' and subst.i.tute 'leg,'" suggested Tudway.

"Worse and worse. If 'limb' suggests anatomy, 'leg'

suggests----"

"The Empire," they both screamed, and after the immoderate laughter had ceased I declared I wouldn't go on.

We refilled our pipes, but Tudway grew horribly silent.

After a long time we chaffed him about the _Sumana_, and offered him a kabob for his thoughts.

"Ah!" he said, "it was that limb. It recalled----"

Then he stopped and actually reddened; and nothing would induce him to go on.

That set us all thinking.

We both retired to bed, and with one eye I finished the story. It is quite a good one, and tells you many other things about the call of the rain. That reminded me of an evening years ago in far-away New Zealand, when in the heart of the great silences I looked through my tent door and saw the rain on the wild river and great forests and distant mountains....

Well, I read with my half-shut eyes by the flickering dubbin tin that gave a small and ever-dwindling light, and although my eyes burned and jumped I read through to the end. And in the end Robert Chambers married them after all--those two young and ardent spirits, and together, no doubt, they looked at the night waves, and the snow on the wintry trees and at the distant stars, and heard the whisper of sweetness ineffable, the inarticulate music of the call of the rain.

And facing that last page was a bold advertis.e.m.e.nt and the picture of "Our extra guest folding bedstead--folds quite flat when not in use!"

That also was a human note, and how real! It invites us to view the deserted stage, the drabs of colour with grey torn canvas, the ghostly framework of the scenes, the tinsel robes and stifled flowers.

"Folds quite flat when not in use"--which will be quite often, as we have not many friends....

and a tiny little boy With hey ho, the wind and the rain!

A foolish thing was but a toy For the rain it raineth every day....

It's awfully late. Only millions of starlings are abroad.

I wonder if Tudway is dreaming of the limb!

_April 18th._--A terrific bombardment continued downstream from last night until early this morning. We have since heard that the Third Lah.o.r.e Division, under General Keary, after a magnificent struggle, has taken the lines of Beit Aissa, and that Turkish hordes are counter-attacking in successive waves.

Our casualties are very heavy. The large pontoons which the Turks dragged overland for a ferry downstream are now in position. Tudway was recently to have led a river attack at night in H.M.S. _Sumana_ and to have pierced or blown up the bridge. The scheme, however, was cancelled.

Arabs continue to wait around the butchery for horse bladders on which to float downstream. They are shot at by the Turks, who want them to stay on here and eat our food, or else they are killed by hostile Arabs. Every night they go down, and a little later one hears their cries from the darkness.

There are rumours that the Arab Sheik and his son, who are here with us and are badly wanted by the Turks, are to escape secretly to-night. These people know the Turk and the treatment they are likely to get for having a.s.sociated with us.

For three or four days our heavy sea-planes have brought us food, dropping each day from one half to a ton of flour and sugar in the town and as often as not into the Tigris or Turkish lines. We are grateful to our brother officers downstream for this, and realize the difficulty of getting a correct "drop"

always. I for one don't consider this at all a possible _soulagement_, as even with their best effort our tiny four-ounce ration cannot be nearly kept up. In fact, one ounce would be nearer the mark. Money is also dropped, and many coins dented in the fall go as souvenirs at double value.

_April 24th._--I have been compelled to abandon keeping my diary owing to excruciating pain in my spine from the sh.e.l.l contusion. What is wrong I can't make out, but sometimes the tiniest movement sends a sharp thrill of keenest pain through one's whole being. I think I must have struck the wall forcibly and affected the vertebrae. After lying in one position for any little time this particular spot in my spine aches with a most ravaging pulsation of neuralgia, and I find it difficult to sit upright for many minutes. On these occasions if I lie still my arms and legs shoot out at intervals with a sort of reflex action, and sometimes repeat the performance several times.

But for being much easier to-day I thank G.o.d. I have even walked a little with a stick, and the twitching is much less violent and less often. My eyes, however, are still dim, and I find it difficult to see very distinctly. To complete the list of my infirmities of the flesh the enteritis, which has continued in a mild form for three weeks, has got worse, and I find emmatine the only thing that has done any good. Here, again, I have much to be thankful for, in that I have not had the severe form as so many others have, or else with other troubles I should be on unskateable ice. My legs are shockingly thin, less than my arms were, and I can fold my skin round my legs. In fact, I might think of applying my remarks on the poor fellow at the hospital to myself. The daily egg and ounce of milk stopped days ago. We have paid Rupees 30 for a tin of milk which I have with some rice my very good friend Major Aylen sends me from the officers' hospital. He now wishes me to enter hospital, but I prefer being an out-patient.

The atmosphere there is both siegy and sick.