But a new Kut, a British Kut, a town of tents and wooden huts and galvanized iron buildings, has sprung into being three miles below the tottering walls of Turkish Kut, and about two miles from Townshend's advanced trench line. In British Kut there are rough wooden piers, hastily built, it is true, where the river steamers moor, few attempting the difficult passage from Kut to Bagdad. Kut is also an important railway junction, for the troops bound up river were disembarked here, and stepped from the steamer deck into the waiting troop-trains. We went up river in a motor launch, General Byron, Major Newcombe, Captain Eve, and myself, to visit Townshend's famous stronghold. It was with a feeling of emotion that we disembarked at the old stone pier of Kut, and made our way along its broken unpaved streets, past its crumbling wall, to the centre of the town. The route led through the main business centre--it could hardly be called a bazaar--where merchants and money-changers plied {45} their trades, and a blind beggar in rags sat under the lee of a wall, with the sun shining full on his sightless eye-sockets, droning a supplication for alms. The wave of red war had passed and repassed over Kut, leaving it scorched and maimed. Turk and Briton had fought for supremacy round and about it, but that was more than a year ago, and Kut now dozed sleepily in the hot afternoon sun, beginning already to forget the past and, with the calm philosophic indifference of the East, accepting as a predestined part of its daily life the Standard of Britain which had replaced the Crescent of the Turk. The Arab policemen who guarded its unkempt streets were serving their new masters faithfully, and those we passed, spick and span in spotless khaki and tarbooshes, by their alert and soldierly bearing gave unmistakable evidence of having graduated from the school of that efficient, exacting, and most conscientious of mortals, the British drill instructor. Presently, guided by a Staff Officer from the base headquarters, we came to the house of the Hero of Kut. It was an unpretentious dwelling, flat-roofed, and built of sun-dried bricks, with nothing much to distinguish it from its hundreds of neighbours. Descending a steep flight of steps, we came to the Serdab or underground apartment common to most Mesopotamian houses, where the occupants hide for shelter during the hottest hours of the blistering summer day. The room was bare of adornment--a few chairs, a divan, and a table covered with official {46} papers--that was all. It was now the home of the local Political Officer, but it had changed little, if any, since its former illustrious occupant walked out of it and up those stone steps--his proud spirit unbroken, his heart heavy, but his courage undimmed--to pass a captive into the hands of the Turks.