The shipping included H.M.S. _Espiegle_, the _Franz Ferdinand_, and the _Karadenis_, the two latter being large steamers captured by us and used as accommodation boats, each taking a thousand men if necessary. Pending the arrival of our upstream transport I was ordered with the other officers on to the _Karadenis_ which lay in mid-stream. Some wretched-looking Turkish prisoners were aft. We little knew it at the time, but our few days on this ship or mosquito-hive were destined to be our last in even moderate comfort. Henceforth we were to be playthings of the God of War. There was a strange silence about news on this front. Some thought our army was near Azizie, over four hundred miles up river; others that we were just outside Baghdad. We were chafing to get away to our units before we got malaria. A sudden chance with a detachment of the 14th Hussars was offered to a subaltern nick-named "Fruit-salt," because "'e knows," and myself. We left on a paddle-boat called the _P.5_, a barge of horses, Don Juan among them, on either side. To get on the _P.5_ again from the horse-barges we hop over to the paddle-box and clamber on deck. Our camp beds we stretched out forward, the men, arms, and maxims arranged aft. We had a comfortable mess table set so that we could see upstream and also a good deal of the left bank. The officers of this troop of the 14th Hussars on board were all very young, very pleasant, and very keen. We sat and drank or smoked and talked, and war seemed then very far away. Or we watched a wandering tribe of Arabs trekking in the distance. The country was, of course, dead flat and except for a scrubby grass there was nothing to intercept one's eye reaching to the horizon. The river winds a lot and far away the _mahela_ sails seemed to be making over land. One thought of the Norfolk Broads. Somewhere in the early morning we passed the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris, and Ezra's tomb. (Maxim fire increasing: I must switch off here now.) _Later._--No harm occurred except the heavy sniping has knocked out some poor horses and wounded a syce and spoiled some more palms. I continue. There was also on board an excellent engineer, full of "sunny retrospect." He could talk or listen, which is like unto a horse that can gallop and walk. As he explained on inquiry, he had never married, nor had he ever avoided marriage. Altogether he was a delightful fellow for company. We passed the marshes of Kurna of an earlier engagement in this campaign, where our army had dislodged the Turk with guns mounted on planks between bellums, and whole brigades punted and poled their way up. "Forward the light bellums!" "Charge!" were the orders the commanding officers yelled on that day. Britain was always irresistible on the water! The whole affair is now called "Regatta week."