After the attack had begun, shiploads of these same men returned wounded, and arrived in our hospital in an indescribably pitiable condition. There were no stretchers, and the wounded were left to shift for themselves, relying on charity and the providence of Allah. The blind led the blind, the halt helped the lame. Later, wounded Anatolian soldiers began also to arrive, and their plight was no less wretched than that of the Arabs, though their behaviour was incomparably better. One could not help admiring their stoicism in the face of terrible and often unnecessary suffering. The utter lack of system in dealing with casualties was hardly more remarkable than the fortitude of the casualties themselves. When a proclamation was read to the sufferers in our hospital, announcing the success of the Turkish arms at Ctesiphon, the wounded seemed to forget their pain and the dying acquired a new lease of life. I actually saw a man with a mortal wound in the head, who a few minutes previously had been choking and literally at his last gasp, rally all his forces to utter thanks to God, and then die. Never for a moment had we thought that the attack on Ctesiphon could fail. The odds, we knew, were heavily against us, but we firmly believed that General Townshend would achieve the impossible. That he did not do so was not his fault nor the fault of the gallant men he led. But this is a record of my personal experiences only, and I will spare the reader all the long reflections and alternations of anxiety and hope which held our thoughts while the guns boomed down the Tigris and the fate of Baghdad--and our fate--was poised in the balance. At six o'clock one morning we were suddenly awakened and told that we must leave for Mosul immediately. By every possible means in our power we delayed the start, thinking our troops might come at any moment. But the Turkish sergeant who commanded our escort had definite orders that we were to be out of the city by nine o'clock. We drove in a carriage through mean streets, attracting no attention, for now the Baghdadis realised their danger. Before leaving, our sergeant paid a visit to his house, in order to collect his kit, leaving us at the door, guarded by four soldiers. His sisters came down to see him off and (being of progressive tendencies, I suppose) they were not veiled. It were crime indeed to have hidden such lustrous eyes and skin so fair. CHAPTER II A SHADOWLAND OF ARABESQUES Some breath of reality, some call from the outer world of freedom came to us from the presence of these girls. They seemed the first real people I had seen in my captivity, femininity incarnate, human beings in a shadow-land of arabesques. They were happy and healthy and somehow outside the insanities of our world. For a moment they gazed at us in awe, and for another moment in complete sympathy: then they retired with little squeaks of laughter and busied themselves with their brother's baggage.