Frederick Brereton - On the Road to Bagdad - A Story of Townshend's Gallant Advance on the Tigris

"Certainly, Chief," Geoff told him promptly. "Each man draws his regular pay and allowances. Every one of the soldiers you see here is a free man – free to join the army or not, just as he likes. But, once he has joined, he is paid just as a man who may work as a servant in one of your camps is paid, for the British king forces service upon no man."

"Then listen further, my master. There are in my tribe perhaps a thousand men, all well found with horses, all with great knowledge of this country, and not one of whom would fail to fight if the opportunity came to him. Give them money, pay them the same amount that you pay these Indian soldiers, and find them in certain necessaries and in ammunition. Promise this, and trust your slave still further. For then he will ride out to them, and if they be not willing to return with him and join forces with these soldiers, he himself will return – whether they wish it or not – and will render himself up again to you. My master, I am a man of honour, and this thing I will do, as Allah hears me."

The suggestion made by the captured chief was one which, naturally enough, needed much consideration, and, also, the consent of higher authority; yet, so excellent did the plan seem, and so clearly was Geoff able to put it before the Intelligence Officer, that by the following morning it was adopted, and, a good horse having been handed to the chief, and weapons also, he was allowed to ride out of the camp in search of his followers.

"Of course we may, or we may not, see him back," said the Staff Officer somewhat sceptically. "You tell me, Keith, that Arabs are not to be trusted, and that is a tale I have heard often enough before. Yet I have little doubt that many of them are just as trustworthy as people in our country."

"Just!" Geoff agreed with him promptly, if not warmly, for during his short residence in Mesopotamia, when he had been with Major Joe Douglas, he had met with, and lived with, more than one tribe of Arabs, with whom he had become more than usually friendly. Moreover, he had known them to be absolutely trustworthy; and though, during this coming conflict, some might already have sided with the Turks – who were their nominal rulers – and though, as the campaign went on, it might happen that they would leave that service and join the British – for such is a habit of nomadic Arab tribes – yet that did not prove them to be utterly devoid of trust or of honour.

"If I know a man at all, sir," he said respectfully, "I know this chief, whom I was instrumental in capturing. He has given us his word of honour, and he has called upon Allah to witness the words which he has spoken. That will compel him to carry out his promises whether he wills it or not; and should it happen that his followers arrest him, and do their utmost to prevent his return, yet I feel sure that he will make every effort to come back to us."

As a matter of fact, some three days later, when the embarkation of the British Expeditionary Force was completed, and the troops had settled down in their camps beside the river, the outposts – placed well beyond the encampment – reported a large column of horsemen approaching. The information was brought to Head-quarters, and within five minutes of its arrival that same Intelligence Officer had sent a hurried message to our hero.

"Get on your horse at once, Keith," he told him, "and come along with me. This force approaching may be our friend the chief bringing in his followers or it may be an enemy force come to try conclusions with us. If I happened to be an officer in the Indian Horse I rather think I should hope for the latter, for those boys are dying for more fighting. As it is, I trust that it will be the chief, and that he'll bring with him a lot of useful fellows. Horsemen used to the country and to the tricks of the Turks will be a valuable acquisition, and we shall be able to make the most of them."

Quickly mounting the fretful Sultan, Geoff was ready within a few minutes, and, together with the Intelligence Officer, made rapid progress to the outposts. Then, fixing his glasses to his eyes, he carefully scrutinized the force approaching across the desert. A tall figure in flowing robes, riding at their head, was without doubt the chief who had given them his promise, and, having reported this fact to the Intelligence Officer, the two of them rode out to meet the cavalcade approaching. Then they led them back into the camp, and within an hour the Arabs had settled down as if they had never been anything else but a portion of the British Expeditionary Force destined to advance so far up the River Tigris.

Two days later the camp broke up, and, with a naval flotilla steaming beside them up the river, they marched on Basra, which town they occupied, after meeting with only small resistance. They were now approaching the confluence of the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and were, indeed, within striking distance of that portion of the desert which, in days long gone by, was known as the Garden of Eden, where the toil of the inhabitants then living in those parts had converted what may have been a desert in their earlier days into a smiling garden the fame of which has descended through the ages. Yet now it was a desert, a sandy, gravelly stretch of dried-up, waterless, and inhospitable desert, peopled but sparsely, and for the most part only along the actual banks of the river, where the moisture, finding its way into the soil on either side, kept it fertile, and where grew a thick belt of palms, descending past Basra to the open sea. There were marshes, too, for the River Euphrates in particular, which traverses a flat country, has changed its course through the ages on numerous occasions. Some particular course may remain open for a considerable period, and have the appearance of being the main channel, yet always there are overflows, and often enough such a main channel is silted up with the dirt and debris coming from higher parts of the desert; then the water, bursting over the low banks, and particularly the southern bank, has gouged some other channel for itself, or has widened out into broad stretches of marsh – perhaps only two feet in depth – leaving no semblance of the river channel.

"It's there, amongst the marshes, that the Turks lie hidden," the chief told Geoff that evening. "Of their numbers and of their exact positions I know nothing, yet the rumour has reached me that they are there, and that soon they will attempt to come in behind the British and attack them. It were well, my master, if some of those ships that I see floating upon the water, and in particular some of the smaller ones, were sent into the marshes. There are channels deep enough to take them, and if careful search were made it may be that the Turkish enemy would be discovered."

Geoff was not such a young soldier that he could not at once perceive the importance of the information just conveyed to him. With the knowledge he already had of Mesopotamia, he had been able to inform his friend on the Staff that, above the town of Basra, wide stretches of marsh would be discovered, which at certain seasons of the year were greatly extended by the heavy rains which fell in that part of the world. But if residence in Mesopotamia had given him some idea of the course of the rivers, of the towns and villages dotted here and there, and of the numerous peoples who inhabited that region, he could not, naturally enough, be expected to know where the Turks had disposed their forces on the outbreak of this gigantic war. Some had undoubtedly been posted towards the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab, for had not the Indian horse already had a lively brush with them? But where were the others? Higher up the river, preparing their defences and waiting for the onward march of the British forces, or sneaking in those marshes to the west of them, which spread themselves along the broken and irregular course of the River Euphrates, from a point perhaps fifty miles away to the spot where the river joined with the main channel of the Tigris? And if they were there, hidden in the swamps, perhaps camping on some piece of ground elevated sufficiently to give them a dry footing, then indeed they would be a menace to the safety of the forces invading the country. They might march down along the edge of the swampy ground, or if provided with native boats, known as bellums, might steal over the shallow waters and cut off the retreat of Geoff and his comrades.