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Updated: May 29, 2025
Still, I made up my mind that as long as the major wished it and would wire for permission I would stay a few days longer on the chance of the attack continuing. On the morning of the 3d we moved camp to the far side of the Tauq Chai bridge.
The next town of importance was a ramshackle mud-walled affair called Tauq, twenty miles beyond, on the far side of a river known as the Tauq Chai. The leading cars pursued to within sight of the town and came in for a good deal of shelling. The Turks we captured were in far poorer shape than those we had recently taken on the Euphrates front.
Upon drawing near, a fine-looking, white-bearded Arab rode up on a small gray mare. He said that he was the head man of the town; that he hated the Turks, and would like to be of any assistance possible to us. I asked him if the enemy had evacuated Tauq. He replied that they had. I then asked him if he were positive about it. He offered to accompany us to prove it.
Throughout the occupied area Turkish currency also circulated, but the native invariably preferred to be paid in Indian. Curiously enough, even on entering towns like Tauq, we found the inhabitants eager for payment in rupees. I was told that in the money market in Baghdad a British advance would be heralded by a slump in Turkish exchange.
Curiously enough, even those natives whom we had taken along with us on several reconnaissances as guides could not be trusted to give an opinion as to the feasibility of a proposed route. We experienced no little trouble in following our guides to the bridge, although we afterward discovered a good road that cut off from the main trail about half-way between Tuz and Tauq.
Our plunge in the Tauq Chai took its place among these. In the late afternoon we drove back to Tuz. Our camp there was anything but cheerful, for swarms of starving townsfolk hovered on the outskirts ready to pounce on any refuse that the men threw away. Discarded tin cans were cleaned out until the insides shone like mirrors.
Two days later the orders for which we had been waiting came through. We were to march upon a town called Taza Khurmatli, lying fifteen miles beyond Tauq and ten short of Kirkuk. If we met with no opposition there we were to push straight on. From all we could hear Taza was occupied only by cavalry, which would probably fall back without contesting our advance.
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