barges to do it in. So they selected 10 a.m., put 150 men into an open
barge, gave them no breakfast, and left them in the barge two hours to
move them 600 yards, and an hour unloading baggage afterwards! Result,
out of my forty-nine, three heat-strokes on the spot, and four more sick
the next day.

We left Basra on the 30th. It took us two-and-a-half days to do the
130 miles up here, against a strong wind and current. The Regiment has
moved here from Nasiriyah. This place is 130 miles North of Basra and
120 South of Kut-el-Amarah (always known as Kut). As to our movements,
the only kind of information I can give you would be something like
this. There are fifteen thousand blanks, according to trustworthy
reports, at blank. We have blank brigades and our troops are blanking
at blank which is two-thirds of the way from here to blank; and I
think our intention is to blank with all our three blanks as soon as
possible, but this blank is remaining on lines of communications here
for the present. Not very interesting is it? So I won't reel off any
more.

From the little scraps of news that have come through, it looks as if
the Balkans were going to be the centre of excitement. If Bulgaria has
agreed to let the Germans through as I suspect she has, I'd bet on
both Greece and Roumania joining the Allies.

* * * * *


AMARAH.

_September 4th_, 1915.