Towards the middle of February, the Turks began sending over an aeroplane to bomb us. The pilot was a German, and knew his business too well. After his first trip, machine guns were rigged up to welcome him the next time he came and the sappers mounted a 13-pounder to fire as an anti-aircraft gun. Considering the difficulties involved and the absence of all special sighting arrangements this gun made some very fair shooting. But the only effect of all these efforts was to make Fritz, the pilot, fly higher and approach the town from a different direction. The first time he came very little damage was done; then one day a bomb demolished an Arab house, killing a number of women and children, and a second fell on the British hospital, where no less than 32 sick and wounded men were killed outright or horribly injured. The padre--the Rev. H. Spooner--told me afterwards that no sight he had witnessed at Ctesiphon could be compared to that hospital ward. Presumably Fritz was aiming at the ordnance yard next door or some of the guns on the river bank only a little further on. Had there been more room and good buildings in Kut, it would no doubt have been possible to put the hospital in a safer spot, but, as it was, no other building was available. Fritz always succeeded in eluding our aeroplanes from the Relieving Force. He had so little distance to go home, whereas they had to come up 20 miles or more. Two main observation posts were maintained, one above general headquarters in the town, and the other in the Fort. There was great rivalry between the two, and on one occasion, a large flock of sheep was definitely reported in the town as a considerable force of the enemy moving to the rear. The Fort maintained they were sheep and neither would give in. We could see every day long strings of camels on the horizon, carrying rations for the Turks from their base at Shamran above Kut down to their forces at Sanaiyat and Magassis. The usual book of words about camels informs the reader that they are liable to slip and split themselves up if allowed to travel over wet or slippery ground. In Mesopotamia, however, the camel seems not to worry at all when going over land submerged by floods, and carrying on generally under all conditions. He is a much wilder specimen than the usual Indian camel, and our experience before Ctesiphon was that he would only lie down if one of his forelegs was folded and bound up, and he was then hit on the head with a thick stick. A feature of Kut which will not be forgotten was the little chapel which our padre rigged up in one of the few remaining upper rooms of the battered Serai. This building was in an exposed position on the river bank and suffered more than any other from the Turkish shells. The padre himself was indefatigable, doing everything he possibly could in the hospitals in addition to his other duties.