Baghdad. I always feel glad I had that talk with him.

[Illustration: Ashar Creek.]

[Illustration: Ashar Creek.]

[Illustration: Native Bazaar, Ashar.]

[Illustration: Scenes In Basrah.]

The nights in the trenches were the busiest time not only on account
of darkness but also on account of coolness. At 9 o'clock in the
morning an inspection of rifles and kit would be held by the Company
Officers, after which the whole Company would retire to dug-outs in
the reserve front line trenches, 10 yards behind the fire trench and
then endeavour to get through the day as well as possible. The
dug-outs had not the comforts of present day dug-outs on the Western
Front. The only roof we had was sail cloth, so if a shell happened to
strike it the results were fatal. This sail cloth kept the sun off,
but the heat was terrific. Sentries only, and one officer per Company
were kept on duty during the day in the front line, where there was
not a yard of shade, the sun beat down with relentless vigour and
gradually as the day wore on the temperature would rise to 120 degrees
in the shade and 160 degrees in the sun and there was no shade. And
this was not for a day or two days but week after week. After 9
o'clock in the morning a death-like stillness would creep over
everything, both sides suffering too much to be able to add any more
suffering to each other. The stillness would be broken now and again
by the crack of a sniper's rifle and one dare not look over the
parapet. In the early mornings aeroplanes would fly over the lines but
without any great show of activity on either side; the heat kept
everything quiet. The very flies are scarce in the hottest months,
only the sandflies torment one at night, and so the day gradually
passes, and as one goes the round to see everything is in order and
one sees the men stretched out in their dug-outs, reading, trying to
sleep, very few talking and all suffering, one remembers with what
irritation one had read in a famous London daily paper, a query--why
the Mesopotamian Campaign had come to an end during the summer, why no
advance was heard of. One longed to put the writer of that article
over the parapet in the sun where within five minutes or less, he
would have his question answered. At times, on a hot parching day
lying in one's dug-out, one would hear a great flutter of wings as a
flight of cranes or wild geese flew over our lines, immediately
followed by a loud fusillade of rifle fi