* * * * * [Illustration: _Photo from "Smoke"_ "THE SONG OF THE RAIN"] [Illustration: BALLAD OF THE FALL OF KUT. ("SMOKE") THIS SKETCH AS ALL OTHERS WAS DONE BY LIEUT. GALLOWAY] (10) Ballad by a bombardier on night of Fall of Kut. THE FALL OF KUT _April 29th, 1916_ Crack me the last bottle of date-juice And hand me some leaves of the lime-- For to-day falls Kut-el-Amarah, And for us, God knows, it's time. We're only a siege-battered army, And most of us bones and skin; And we thought that our troubles were over; But we find they only begin. For five months the might of the Turk Tried to take this tiny Kut. Now he says that we are devils-- And we know that he can loot. We thrashed him at Shaiba and Kurna, At Amarah we bluffed him to flight, At Essin we grappled and threw him-- How we swore when he left in the night! That gave us Kut-el-Amarah Where runs in the Shat-el-Hai. 'Tis the key to Mesopotamia, And surrounded by Arab canaille. We were now a conquering army, And we fought well and ate well and drank; And though he'd retreated to Baghdad, We followed for military swank. The march was a long one and thirsty, Still we thought of the Baghdad goal-- Till the Turk barred our way at Ctesiphon, Thrice our force and entrenched like a mole. But Townshend saw it all swiftly-- To him were all our wins due. "I'll not fight without reinforcements-- There's my communications, too." Now, it's a trick they have in the Army, To ask you "What's absurd?" So unsupported, Charlie T. He took them--at their word. "It's a risk, and I'm not for it; But if fight it's got to be, We'll fight like the Sixth Division," Quoth our General, Charlie T. We found his flank and joined battle, And held with a frontal attack. Stormed his first line--he vacated his second, Was reinforced, and we had to fall back. A third of our force on the field; But the Turk had suffered much more. We knew that the game was up, So retired with the honours of war. Then came the wild hordes of Islam, Hot-footed upon our track. They caught us at Um-al-Tabul, But in the open we flung them back. Mars surely was in his chariot, And smiled at Townshend then; And Charles made good to the God of War, And snatched from the grave dead men. We hurled him back and held him, And got our transport through-- It was a glorious gunner's show-- But that's 'twixt me and you. For forty hours we marched on, The nights were fearfully cold. Men hungered and fainting, and men That slept as they walked, I'm told.