ong
while until the dates were ripe, and after they were gathered sickness
still continued. The amount of heat those dates required before they
turned yellow and soft, and their skins began to crinkle faintly, was
extraordinary. For weeks and weeks they remained hard and green, though
exposed to the fiercest heat of the sun. Pomegranates, in the same way,
hung for months before their skins turned to that beautiful deep
mahogany hue of the ripe fruit.

[Illustration: ON THE SHATT-EL-ARAB NEAR BASRA.]

On a particular day at the end of June one might have fancied a crisis
had been reached. Curiously enough, by the irony of coincidence, the
Reuters of that day contained the news that it had been stated in
Parliament that, in the interests of the public, no statement would be
made about the state of affairs in Mesopotamia.

That night it was rumoured that Verdun had fallen....

The gift of a large fleet of motor ambulances presented by the cinema
people at home was a great boon, for urgent cases could be transported
to hospital rapidly, instead of jolting over the plain in bullock
tongas. Unfortunately, the axles of these cars were not quite equal to
the rough work, and in a short time they were sent away to other spheres
where roads were better. The ground in our neighbourhood was so
undermined by floods that on one occasion one of these cars, standing
empty, suddenly broke through the upper crust up to its axles. A great
deal of perspiration flowed before it was extricated.

In the meanwhile the creek was full of _mahallas_ loading up equipment,
for we had received orders to go higher up-river.

VII

THE NARROWS

We left Basra when the Arabs, and the Indian troops, were celebrating
the Mohammedan feast of Ramadhan. During the feast, which lasts a month,
night is turned into day. No food is allowed, in theory, from sunrise to
sunset. Drums beat, dogs howl, cocks crow and the revellers shout and
wail and clap their hands in long, rhythmic, staccato periods, and
explosions of powder occur under the crescent moon.

A small, double-decked, squat river boat which had been captured from
the Turks took us on board. It burned oil fuel. A single canvas awning
with many gaps in it covered the upper deck. The lower deck was nearly
taken up by engine and boiler, save for a small saloon aft, and water
tanks and a galley forward. Our strength was about 100 men with twenty
Indians belonging to the hospital, and there w