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rifles, and, with the Gurkha guard, I reckoned that if we could get close to the left bank we could hold them off until the naval vessels which were shepherding the rear could get down to us. Just then there were several explosions, and we could see fairly heavy shells throwing up columns of earth just below the bend, but on which bank we could not determine. The Arab skipper collapsed over the bridge rails, but luckily the mate, a coalblack negro, probably the descendant of slaves from Zanzibar, who was at the wheel, was made of better stuff.

"I suppose you realise, George, that if these are Turkish guns, and if the channel runs close to the right bank, our numbers are up?" I remarked to the cavalry

man.

"Indeed I do, old man, only too well," was the reply.

Painfully I crawled up to the top of the deck-house, and my first look was directed towards where our army should be; there, to my joy, I discovered the source of the shells. The Territorial howitzer battery, ever friendly, had discovered our plight, and the horsemen were soon scattered.

The morning after our arrival back at Kut I woke up on board the stern-wheeler with a start, wondering if the Turks were already on us, for there was firing close to the ship. Abdul put his head in through the cabin door and said

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Naik Ram Bahadur says that there is a battle going on, and with your honour's permission he would like to take part in it." Naik Ram Bahadur would; he was the N.C.O. in charge of the guard, a bloodthirsty lad who spent most of his spare time morbidly thinking of the number of Arabs he could kill if he got the chance. I dressed quickly, and climbed up on the river bank to make inquiries. The officer in charge of the river front informed me that Arabs had been discovered looting the liquorice factory on the other bank, that he was trying to drive them out by rifle fire across the river, and had a couple of guns of the Volunteer Battery waiting to catch them when they got out in the open. I gave Ram Bahadur the range and permission to chip in, and was standing on the bank watching with amusement the Gurkhas as they solemnly loaded and fired their obsolete Nordenfelts, when a quiet voice behind us said—

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than scallywag Arabs before long."

Still on the stern-wheeler, we left Kut the day before it was invested. We were sniped, especially at night, nearly all the way down the river; indeed, it was not until we had passed Kurna that we began to feel really safe. On the morning

on which we arrived in Basra I was looking at my breakfast with disfavour, for, in addition to my boils, a strong attack of jaundice was developing.

"Rotten place Basra," I said, pushing away my plate. "Hush, your honour," was Abdul's reply. Thanks be to Allah, there are no bullets here."

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V. THE END OF ABDUL.

better, especially when his enemy had to attack over ground which was as flat and as destitute of cover as a billiard-table. Most of the time the ground was covered with mud, as slippery as butter and as sticky as glue. Our luck was also entirely out-floods and heavy rain hampered every movement.

During the first two months and no troops could do it of 1916 hopes ran high; reinforcements .were pouring in; two divisions arrived from France, which contained many famous regiments whose reputations had been enhanced amongst the Flanders mud; for the first time the skirl of the bagpipes was heard in the land. Another division came from India, and finally an allBritish one from Gallipoli, where it had made its name. There also came heavy artillery and up-to-date weapons strange to us, which for a year had been waging war equipped as for an old North-West Frontier show. It was not at first a question of could Kut be relieved-it was only a matter of when.

The old Turk, however, had not been idle either, for while our reinforcements were arriving by sea his were pouring in troop trains across that part of the Bagdad railway which had been completed. The kind of warfare was that which suited him; all that he had to do was to sit tight in his trenches,

By the middle of March it could be seen that the relief would be no light task, by April we began to realise that it was almost impossible. At first we refused to discuss the chance of failure, and then in a shamefaced way officers in the messes began to ask if it were possible that Townshend would have to be left to his fate. The end came suddenly; almost before we regimental officers knew it the old 6th Division had been made captive. To the relief force, which had done all that mortals could do, it was a bitter disappointment; to those of us who had actually laboured with the divi

sion it was in the nature of a terrible family tragedy.

By the middle of May the hot weather had returned, and with it a period of stagnation in trenches. Having been in the country for fifteen months without a break, I got a month's leave in India, and Abdul and I left for Bombay. The change from the heat, dust, and discomfort of the desert to the cool saloon of a transport, with its cleanliness, electric fans, and iced drinks was very welcome. What impressed us most, however, was, I think, the churning of the propellers in the clear depth of the open sea after crossing the bar whose thick muddy waters seemed to us so typical of Mesopotamia, and afterwards to see the clear sea-water gurgling into the bath. On several hot days before we left I had noticed that Abdul was looking his age, whatever it was, and although loth to part with him, I felt that he wasn't really up to another hot weather. I determined, however, to give him the chance, so sounded him one day as to going back with me after my leave.

"No, your honour," he said. "I have at last made up my mind that I am too old for war, at least in that thrice accursed country. You must get a younger than I-but not too young." Here he quoted the Indian saying about the young buffalo requiring the new grass, which is about the nearest equivalent I know to our own

saying, " An old dog for a hard road."

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What will you do?" I asked him.

"I will go back to Peshawur and end my days where I can look up the Khyber. With the little money I have saved and the handsome present which I am about to receive from my kind master, I will be able to buy a little house."

His kind master had not at that time intimated his intention of giving him any present, handsome or otherwise, although, of course, he meant to, and did. We arrived in Bombay, and one evening found us at the railway station, Abdul about to proceed by the Punjab mail to Peshawur, and I to Mussoorie. His train left a quarter of an hour before mine, so that I was able to see him off. He stood on the platform with me in silence until the guard came along to close the carriage doors, and then suddenly taking both my hands in his, he placed them on his head and sobbed. I had to push him in through the door and place him in his seat, where he remained with his head bowed to his chest, crying quietly. As the train slowly drew away he made an effort, rose to his feet, and looked out of the carriage window; then, like a child who suddenly laughs in the middle of tears, the old smile came over his tear-stained face as he bravely waved me good-bye. I never saw him again.

After I returned to Mesopotamia, I received letters from him about twice a year, written in execrable English, probably by a Babu in the bazaar. At first he seemed to be happy, but as the war dragged on I imagine that he longed to be in it again. I did not leave Mesopotamia finally until April 1919, and it was some time after that before I discovered that when the third Afghan war had broken out in the spring of that year he had persuaded some officer to take him on, doubtless on the plea that he

was still under sixty. He had always wanted to go into Afghanistan again, but he never got there, for he died of pneumonia near Landi Khana at the Afghan end of the Khyber.

I cannot imagine Abdul in a Mahommedan paradise surrounded by dark-eyed houris, but I sometimes like to think of the old man sitting crosslegged amongst the spirits of some of his old cronies, wagging their heads over the various campaigns through which he wangled his way.

BENIGHTED ON THE MOOR OF RANNOCH.

BY W. J. G. F.

THIS is the story of an early adventure during the promotion of the West Highland Railway. It is a tale of how a little band of seven determined men, with plenty of confidence in themselves, a lamentable contempt for the conditions they had to face, and a sublime disregard of the adverse weather conditions, set out to cross on foot the desolate Moor of Rannoch, and, as ofttimes happens even to the unwisely bold, achieved their object. Their adventure proved in the end a delightful comedy, though it very nearly culminated in dire tragedy.

The seven gentlemen who undertook that arduous Anabasis were

"The Engineer," the moving spirit of the railway undertaking, full of dauntless determination, to the frequent neglect of a protesting body, from which the mind was singularly detached. He was then verging on forty years of age.

"The Elderly Land Agent, short, heavily built, and about sixty years of age. A townsman in appearance, equipped for the event in a high-sided felt hat and waterproof, and carrying an umbrella.

"The Major," tall, spare, well set up, and active. A typical Victorian, side whiskers, and all complete; the cheeriest

and best of companions. His age was about forty.

"The Lawyer," age about forty-two. Tall, bearded, suave, and dignified, with the precise and

perfect pronunciation peculiar to Inverness-shire, delivering his opinions with absolute finality.

"The Surveyor," the only member of the party who had already crossed the moor. He had worked his way across when taking preliminary levels for the railway. He was thirtythree years of age or thereby.

"The Assistant Engineer," a veritable gust of wind, always busy, never at rest. Ever heart, mind, and body in the job on hand, with a quaint habit of relieving his feelings in moments of stress by sweetly whistling soft harmonic cadences. He was twenty-eight years of age.

Last, but not least, "The Contractor," aged forty - one. Stout, full-blooded, and loquacious; overflowing with energy of mind, self-confidence, and the spirit of achievement. To-day he rests on his laurels, doubtless reviewing the many achievements he has attained, and perchance recalling the trials, pitfalls, and dangers that his determination has overcome; possibly not the least of these being the successful issue of his night of wandering on Ran

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