Sick Tommies in tropical climates appreciate soda water. At first we were told to get our supply from a native in the bazaar at Ashar. The problem at this time did not concern the soda water but the bottles. There was a great shortage of soda water bottles in Mesopotamia. Breaks and bursts were frequent, and it seemed impossible to import any new ones, and they cost about sixpence each. Our hospital was situated at a considerable distance from the town. We were not allowed a motor launch, and the roads were often impassable for bullock tongas, owing to the floods which were then prevalent. Soda water was therefore fetched by _belum_. You were poled down the creek to the river, and rowed through the maze of traffic to Ashar creek. Turning out of the broad swift river, up the noisy creek you came on the river-side cafes, built on piles and filled with splenetic-eyed Arabs sipping coffee and various coloured sweet drinks. A cheap gramophone playing a thin Eastern music, may be sounding. The conversation is animated and guttural, constantly interspersed with that hollow, metallic rasp that is like the noise of an engine exhaust. The town is of white mud and stone, with wooden balconies painted a vivid blue, and flat roofs. A minaret rises behind it with a blue-tiled extremity supporting the upraised hand and crescent. The streets are narrow and airless. In the shops are a mass of articles of all descriptions: tinned stuff, tobacco, clocks, hair-oil, cheap jewellery, odd bottles of doubtful wine, scent, rugs, copper vessels, sweets, sauces, pickles. Innumerable flies surround everything. On much of the tinned stuff were very old labels. No man of experience up-country in India will touch tinned stuff of that description. The soda water factory was in a small courtyard. There was a big green gasometer of carbon dioxide, a glittering brass-bound pump and a filling apparatus. Three tubs were on the floor containing a blue, a red and a clear fluid. These, said the Arab proprietor, were English disinfectants in which the bottles were rinsed. Here you waited until your bottles were refilled, at one anna (one penny) each. This represented a profit of 1,200 per cent. The water which was used for filling them was taken from the centre of the Tigris. Ice was obtained elsewhere, made from an ammonia plant, in bars two feet by six inches. The necessity for ice was imperative, but it could only be supplied in small quantities then. These native plants were mostly taken over by the military as time went on. A single bad heat-stroke case would often use up the whole day's supply to the hospital. That was why ice was an imperative necessity. It meant so many lives saved. In India ice is manufactured by machines in quantity wherever it is required. [Illustration: A CONVOY OF SICK AND WOUNDED.]