None of our party could lay any special claim to be sentimental but, standing there in the narrow underground room with its hallowed associations, where a very gallant British General, the foe without and disease and hunger within--he, too, alas! another victim of high-placed incompetency--planned and schemed during those dark days of the siege to break the throttling grip of the Turk, we felt we were upon holy ground, and every one of us, moved by a common emotion, raised our hands to our caps in salute. It was our tribute of admiration and respect for Townshend and his heroes--for the men who perished so nobly, no less than for their comrades maimed and broken who survived the fall of Kut, many of them, unhappily, only to pass anew through the gate of suffering and to end their lives as prisoners in the hands of a brutal, ungenerous enemy to whom honour and compassion are meaningless terms. It was not every day that the Turks could boast such a victory as Kut, or that they found themselves with a British General and a starving British force surrendering to their arms. Short-lived as was their triumph, they lost no time in celebrating it by setting up a commemorative monument. This stands on the {47} Tigris' bank close to British Kut and the landing pier, and is in the form of an obelisk of unhewn stone on a plinth of corresponding material fenced in by an iron railing. A few obsolete cannon, the muzzles facing outwards, are grouped round the base of the monument. An inscription in Turkish records the fall of Kut and the capture of Townshend and his men which, it recounts, was accomplished by the grace of Allah and the prowess of the besieging Turkish Army. The next stage of our journey from Kut to Bagdad was a short one. A night in a troop-train, and sunrise the following morning saw us being dumped down at Hinaida Camp on the outskirts of the City of the Caliphs. {48} CHAPTER VI BAGDAD Arabian nights and motor-cars--The old and the new in Bagdad--"Noah's dinghy"--Bible history illustrated--At a famous tomb-mosque. Who has not heard and read of Bagdad, of its former glory and its greatness? I set foot in it for the first time on March 20th, 1918, the day after the arrival of our little party at Hinaida Transit Camp on the left bank of the Tigris.