At Laji I’m lucky getting a place on one of the two hospital ships. Too lucky, according to some of the other blokes who make their feelings plain as I help Jarvis up the gangplank. They think I’m swinging the lead. The truth is, Jarvis has got feverish and can hardly walk, and we benefit from being among the last to arrive on the quay: they’re filling up the corners, they see an officer in a bad way, and a chap in a position to help out, and they wave us on. There’s a second wave arriving from Ctesiphon, worse off than us, and they’re having to cram them aboard whatever boats and barges they can lay their hands on. Some of these boats are having cargo and animals taken off so the wounded can be piled on in their place—no preparations of any sort.
So at the time, yes, it feels lucky. We’ve already spent the night on the outskirts of Laji and the last couple of hours on the quayside, and it’s mayhem, what with the backwash of the battle and several hundred stinking, jabbering, shoving locals like jackals round a kill. I’m glad I’ve got Jarvis draped over me for a bit of protection. This isn’t something I’d say often but if my hands were free and my head was up I’d be tempted to take a swing. I swear I hate these people more than I hate the Turks. My opinion for what it’s worth is: the Turks are just the opposition; these bastards are the enemy.
As I say, we’re among the last. It’s absolutely jam-packed on board, but I manage to push through a little way, and then stand between Jarvis and the rail, so he can slither down on to the deck without getting trampled.
I crouch down for a moment. ‘How’s it going, sir?’
His mouth’s all dry and cracked and I have to bend over and put my ear up against it before I can hear him say: ‘Thirsty.’ Now there’s a surprise.
‘I’ll see what I can do, sir. Once we’re under way.’
He nods. No fuss. He’s a patient patient.
The fact is I’ve got a little water left in my bottle, but it’s going to be like gold dust on this trip and there will be plenty of men on board this tub a lot more desperate than Jarvis. An opportunity to do favours never does any harm. Canny does it, Ashe.
When we cast off—that’s a good moment, a real relief. When the big old rope falls into the water, I can’t hear the splash because of the hubbub, but the ripples spread out and we can feel the boat come to life; the engine starting to drone, the plates creaking, the swell of the murky river underneath us. The last thing I notice on that crowded quay is an Arab wearing a Sam Browne round his middle over his djellaba, and holding a pith helmet upside down in the crook of his arm. I don’t suppose he can see me, not separately, we’re one big floating audience to him, but as we’re pulling away he hawks and spits into the helmet, a great big gob. Then he holds the helmet up above his head like a trophy—him and his pals think that’s very funny, they’re cackling fit to bust, and he offers it round so the toe-rags can all can have a good spit.
What I don’t know is that leaving Laji is going to be the best thing about our river cruise, by a long chalk. Less than an hour later and I’m thinking come back, Laji, all is forgiven. Give me a go at that spittoon.
If I ever thought I was fortunate getting on to this floating midden, I don’t now. Those blokes who were barracking earlier would be laughing like drains if they could see this lot.
I don’t know who was doing the sums, but they got them wrong, as usual. They threw thousands of us at the Turks, but they never reckoned on the Turks being any good. This all goes to show how wrong they were. Ours is the second boat, so it’s probably the worst crowded. I hope so, or the other one—let alone all the small craft—doesn’t bear thinking about.
They must have started by putting the really bad cases below decks, and run out of room. Just glancing round where we are, aside from what you might call the regulation stuff, I can see a man with his guts on show, one with the top of his head missing like a soft-boiled egg, and another with a leg that’s just pulp from the knee down. There’s no cover up here, it’s white-hot, the flies are feasting. The stench is enough to make you vomit now, plenty of men are. And the rest. With no room to move, the poor sods have to get rid of whatever it is exactly where they are. All that stuff that comes out of us, that usually stays hidden . . . Jarvis is a fastidious bloke, and there’s nothing to lie on. I weaken, and give him a mouthful of water, but hiding it as best I can.
It’s like a tonic, he comes round almost at once, and says: ‘Help me up, Ashe, can you?’
‘Sir.’
I get an arm under his armpit and he staggers to his feet, using his other hand to prop him up on the rails. He’s green at the gills, but he steadies.
‘Thank you,’ he says. Always such a gent. Does he remember what happened out on that desert? I can’t tell. It’ll be our little secret for now.
I decide to make conversation. Besides, there’s something I need to know.
‘How far to Basra, sir—any idea?’
‘Let’s see . . .’ He closes his eyes. His eyelids are white as a woman’s, so white they’re nearly transparent.
When he opens them, though, there’s a glint there. Even he can see the joke.
‘Not that far, Ashe. About four hundred miles.’
Word comes round that the trip’s going to take five days or thereabouts. It finishes up being twice that and seems like three times.
The first night on board ship we get the first rains of the season—solid, like being under a waterfall. We, that’s a couple of the medical orderlies and me, manage to rig up a few awnings out of old tents and what have you, but five minutes of Mesopotamian rain and they’re flattened, or the rain’s collected on the canvas and starts pouring through. One thing, it rains so hard that the water gets down between the bodies and washes some of the filth away, but it doesn’t do sick and wounded men any good getting soaking wet, and by the morning when the rain eases a bit the situation’s worse than ever. The few men who still give a tinker’s fuck about the niceties, and who can scramble that far, stick their heads or their arses through the railings and pollute the water supply for our Arab friends. The railing’s soon crusted with the stuff, and we’re right next to it. But if we move, we’ll be in the thick of it, with even less air.
‘Better the devil you know,’ says Jarvis, with a grim little smile. By the standards of the other passengers he’s in clover. His foot’s not looking too bad, I’ve kept it clean and poured a bit of rum on it.
‘You’d make a lovely nurse, Ashe,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry about me, you make yourself useful.’
I do what I can, with some advice here and there from the orderlies. They tell me there’s six of them, and three doctors. For what—five hundred or more of us? They don’t care who helps, if you’ve got the use of your legs and hands you can do something. A lot of the dressings are alive with maggots, but it’s a fine judgement who gets their dressing changed. Is it worth it, for a start? And if it is, are there any dressings? To my knowledge most of the men near us never got their wounds looked at, let alone changed, for the whole ten days. Besides, I’m no Florence Nightingale, it turns me up after a while and I go back to Jarvis, who’s sitting down again, bunched up sideways against the rail like a monkey in a zoo.
‘Not good, eh?’ he asks. Or rather says.
‘No, sir.’
There’s nothing to eat, either, or nothing that I can find, and almost no water, which is worse. Plenty of the men on the deck are delirious. On the second night it gets a lot noisier before it gets quieter. We put in at Kut the following day to offload the corpses, and take on another load of wounded so the small craft can go back for more. More! It beggars belief. More screaming and yelling, more insults from the docks, but one of the orderlies and I brave the crowd and go in search of some water. We come back with two oil cans full that’s been stashed away for the military vehicles. It should be boiled, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Off we set again, and I’m not feeling too chipper myself now. I’ve got the runs and my arms, legs and head hurt like hell. What it must be like to have this and half your stomach missing I don’t know . . . better, perhaps.
Another thirty-six hours and we’re past caring, all of us. I don’t give a tinker’s about anyone, not Jarvis and certainly not the others. I don’t care very much about myself, I just want to get by. Just let the bloody boat keep going, let’s get there before we die, or so we can die in a clean bed.
I won’t go into it.
But no—there’s some sort of hoo-ha with Arabs in a boat, a lot of shouting and gesturing. Why don’t they fuck off and let us get on with it? No, we turn round and head back the way we’ve come. Three thousand Buddhoos, apparently, though don’t quote me, waiting round the bend to tear us limb from limb.
In Kut—again—there’s a bit of a clean-up operation, and a bit more water comes on board. Some sacks of rice! I don’t know which is worse, knowing there’s fuck all food on board, or knowing there’s some, and wondering if you’ll get a bit. Jarvis is worse off than me; being tall and gently reared, his body’s used to better things. I find myself wondering, cool as a cucumber, if he’ll make it.
Both of us do, God knows how. Downriver it’s so shallow the ship keeps foundering on the mud banks and we lie there sweltering till the tide or any bunch of passing locals floats us off. I don’t like to think how many dead there are lying about, the flies are starting to outnumber us.
Never mind, we’ll be in Basra by Christmas.