f conflicting rumours, we heard that
Kut had fallen. As a nation we take reverses with consummate coolness.
Whatever one thought inwardly, work went on as usual, and in the men's
lines there was very little comment. Up to the last moment Rumour was
optimistic. She spread a most mysterious yarn about the ship that tried
to escape Turkish vigilance and get to Kut with supplies. It was, she
said, full of gold. For what purpose she did not specify, but it sounded
promising. This was her last fling. After that she changed her mask and
looked ugly. Forty thousand Arabs were mustering at Kuweit. German
cruisers were in the Persian Gulf, sinking shipping right and left. The
Turks were coming down on Nasireyah in tremendous force. Trouble was
brewing at Shaiba. In the last respect she proved correct, though the
trouble was not great. At Shaiba, which lies about twenty miles west of
Basra across the plain, a remarkable battle was fought in the April of
the year before. A Turkish force of twelve thousand regulars and thirty
odd guns, with numerous Arabs, was routed at an extreme and critical
moment, it is said, owing to a mistake. The mistake, for once, was on
the part of the Turks. Fighting had been very severe. We had no reserves
and things were looking black. Numerous Arab tribesmen who had remained
as neutral spectators were beginning to take it into their heads that we
were losing, and that only means one thing to them. It means they at
once join forces with the victorious side, and add their ghastly
devilry to the general merriment. The Turks, under Suleiman Askari, had
been certain of victory. Victory would have meant the evacuation of
Basra, if not of Mesopotamia. So sure had the Turks been that they had
struck a medal for the occasion, celebrating the triumph of the capture
of Basra. Our men found sacks full of these cheap aluminum badges in the
Turkish trenches, and they were sold afterwards in the bazaar at Basra
by the thousand. But the Turks never wore them, for, at the most extreme
and critical moment, across the plain there came a swirling column of
dust, a flashing of wheels, and a thundering of hoofs. The sight was too
much for the Turks. Another battery, or even a whole brigade of
artillery, after those three exhausting days of fighting, was not worth
waiting for. So they rose from their trenches and began to flee, and
the Arabs, changing their minds with incredible swiftness, fell on them
in the rear and cut and s