Caught by the Turks Part 5

That night I made my plans, and when summoned to the office next day I was armed with three doc.u.ments. The first was a private letter of thanks to Baron Mumm for his generous and kindly loan. The second was a suggestion that the International Red Cross should immediately send out a commission to look after our prisoners at Mosul. And the third was a detailed list of articles required by our men, with appropriate comments. Items such as this figured on the list:

Soap, for two hundred men, as they had been unable to wash for months.

Kerosene tins, to hold drinking-water, which was denied to our prisoners.

Blankets, as over 50 per cent. had no covering at all.

These screeds startled the company greatly. The Consul stared and the commandant glared, for the one hated fuss and the other hated me. I was delightfully unpopular, but when an Amba.s.sador telegraphs in Turkey, the provinces lend a respectful ear. My voice, crying in the wilderness, must needs be heard.

Summoning an interpreter, the commandant demanded whether I had any cause for complaint; whereupon the following curious three-cornered conversation took place--so far as I could understand the Turkish part:

"The men must be moved to better quarters," said I. "Until this is arranged nothing can be done."

"He says nothing can be done," echoed the interpreter.

"Then of what does he complain?" asked the commandant.

"The very beasts in my country are better cared for," I said. "Our men are dying of hunger and cold."

"He says the men are dying of cold," said the interpreter, shivering at his temerity in mentioning the matter.

"The weather is not my fault," grumbled the commandant, "perhaps it will be better to-morrow. Yes, _yarin_."

And so on. Talk was hopeless, but before leaving I gave the German Consul to understand that he now shared with Abdul Ghani Bey the responsibility for our treatment. To his credit, be it said, the commandant was removed shortly after our departure.

Two days after this interview we were moved from Mosul, where our presence was becoming irksome no doubt. Before leaving I left all my fortunate money, except five pounds, with the Consul, asking him to form a fund (which I hoped would be supplemented later by the Red Cross) for sick prisoners. Twelve months later this money was returned to me in full, but I fancy that it had done its work in the meanwhile.

On the day before our journey I went shopping with the Imperial _kava.s.s_ aforesaid, and it was a most pompous and pleasant excursion. Although I wore sandshoes and tattered garments, what with my eyegla.s.s, and the gorgeous German individual, dressed like a Bond Street _commissionaire_, who carried my parcels and did my bargaining, I think we made a great impression upon the good burgesses of Mosul.

We threaded our way among Kurds with seven pistols at their belts, and Arabs hung with bandoliers, and astonishing Circa.s.sians with whiskers and swords. Almost every male swaggered about heavily armed, but a blow on their bristling midriff would have staggered any one of them. Their bark, I should think, is worse than their bite.

After a Turkish bath, where I graciously entertained the company with coffee, we strolled round the transport square, where we chaffered hotly for carriages to take us to Aleppo.

The material results of the morning were:

Some food and tobacco for the men staying behind.

Rations for ourselves, consisting of an amorphous ma.s.s of dates, cigarettes, conical loaves of sugar, candles, and a heap of unleavened bread.

Carriages for our conveyance to Aleppo.

But the moral effect of our excursion was greater far. I sowed broadcast the seeds of disaffection to Abdul Ghani Bey. To the tobacconist I said that the English, Germans, Turks, and all the nations of the earth, while differing in other matters, had agreed he was a worm to be crushed under the heel of civilisation. To the grocer I repeated the story. To the fruiterer I said his doom was nigh, and to the baker and candlestick maker that his hour had come.

Everyone agreed. _Conspuez le commandant_ was the general opinion.

"In good old Abdul Hamid's days," they said, "such devil's sp.a.w.n would not have been allowed to live."

It was a matter of minutes before rumours of his downfall were rife throughout the city.

Next day he came to see us off, bow-legs, whip, and scowl and all. He stood stockily, watching us drive away, and then turned and spat. But the taste of us was not to be thus easily dispelled. He will remember us, I hope, to his dying day. May that day be soon!

CHAPTER IV

"OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION. . . ."

We had left a sad party of prisoners behind us, alas! but we had done what little we could for them. Confined as we had been, their sufferings had only added to our own. The best hope for them lay in the German Consul. He could do more, if he wished, than we could have achieved for all our wishes. Nothing could have been more hopeless than our position at Mosul. But now at least there was the open road before us, and hope, and health.

The desert air is magnificent. The untamed winds seemed to blow through every fibre of one's being, and clear away the cobwebs of captivity. The swinging sun, the great s.p.a.ces of sand, the continuous exercise, and the lean diet of dates and bread, produce a feeling of perfect health.

Indeed, after a day or two I began to feel much too well to be a prisoner. Under the desert stars one thought of the lights of London.

Perversely, instead of being grateful for the unfettered grandeur of one's surroundings, one thought regretfully of the crowded hours one spends among civilised peoples. And, oh, how tired I was of seeing nothing but men! One of the worst features of captivity is that it is generally a story without a heroine.

After the second day of travel I was really seriously in need of a heroine, for my friend had developed high fever. If only there had been a ministering angel among our party! I did my best, but am not a nurse by nature. My friend grew so weak that he could not stand; and I began to doubt whether he would get to our journey's end.

But although no heroine came to our help, a hero did. As he happens to be a Turk, I will describe him shortly. Let us call him the Boy Scout, for he did (not one, but many) good actions every day. Out of his valise he produced a phial of brandy, tea, sugar, raisins, and some invaluable medicines. All these he pressed us to accept. He even tried to make me believe that he could spare a box of Bir-inji (first-cla.s.s) cigarettes, until I discovered he had no more for himself. At every halting place he went to search for milk for my friend. Until we had been provided for, he never attended to his own comforts. After eighty miles of travelling everyone is tired, but although the Boy Scout must have been as tired as any of us, for he rode instead of driving, and although he had no official position with regard to us, no brother officer could have been more helpful or more truly kind. From the moment of our meeting we had been attracted by each other. At times, a look or an inflection of voice will proclaim a kindred spirit in a perfect stranger. Something happens above our consciousness; soul speaks to soul perhaps. So it was with the Boy Scout. He was unknown to me when I first saw him, dark-eyed and graceful, riding a white horse like a prince in a fairy book, and we spoke no common language, but somehow we understood each other.

He was a high official, I afterwards heard, travelling incognito, and had been engaged on Intelligence work for his country in Afghanistan.

But, although an enemy in theory, he was a friend in fact. The war was far. Here in the desert we met as brothers. A finer figure of a man I have rarely seen, nor a truer gentleman. He was an ardent Young Turk, and if other Young Turks were cast in such a mould, there would be a place in the world for the race of Othman. But I have never seen another like him.

His manners were perfect, and although we discussed every subject under the sun in s.n.a.t.c.hes of French and broken bits of Persian, we always managed to avoid awkward topics such as atrocities, reprisals, and the like. He guessed, I think, that I often thought of escape, and said one day:

"I shall fully understand if you try to get away, but you will forgive me, won't you, if I use my revolver?"

I a.s.sured him I would.

"Good!" he laughed, "because I am a dead shot!"

One day we must meet again, and pick up the threads of talk.

At Ress-el-Ain we separated for a time, and my friend was carried into the train, where he lay down and took no further interest in the proceedings. I also lay down, exhausted by anxiety. I was glad to be quit of the desert. Under other conditions it might have been charming, but its glamour is invisible to a captive's eyes.

The train journey was not very interesting, except for the fact that our guard commander (excited perhaps by the approach to civilisation, or else because he was free from the restraining influence of our teetotal Boy Scout) purchased a bottle of _'araq_ and imbibed it steadily on the journey between Ress-el-Ain and Djerablisse.

_'Araq_, the reader must know, is otherwise known as _mastic_ or _douzico_, and is a colourless alcohol distilled from raisins and flavoured with aniseed, which clouds on admixture with water, and tastes like cough-mixture. It is an intoxicant without the saving grace of more generous vintages. It inebriates but does not cheer.

At Djerablisse, on the Euphrates, our guard commander supplemented the fiery _'araq_ with some equally potent German ration rum. By the time we got to Aleppo next day, he was reeking of this blend of alcohols. Not all the perfumes of Arabia could have stifled its fumes, nor all the waters of Damascus have quenched his thirst. He was besotted.

Escape would have been possible then. We had become separated from the rest of our party and were in charge of one old, sleepy, and rather friendly soldier. There seemed to be some doubt in his mind as to where we should pa.s.s the night, but we eventually arrived at a small and clean Turkish hotel, where we were told, rather mysteriously, that we should be among friends.

I looked for friends, but as everyone was asleep, it being then two o'clock in the morning, I decided to have a good night's rest before making any plans. Our dainty bedroom was too tempting to be ignored. The curtains were of Aleppo-work, in broad stripes of black and gold. The rafters were striped in black and white. The walls were dead white, the furniture dead black. Three pillows adorned our beds, of black, and of crimson, and of brilliant blue, each with a white slip covering half their length. The bed-covers were black, worked with gold dragons. It was like a room one imagines in dreams, or sees at the Russian Ballet.

After a blissful night, between sheets, and on a spring mattress, tea was brought to us in bed, and immediately afterwards, as no guards seemed to be about, I rose, greatly refreshed, and dressed in haste. My idea was to order a carriage to drive us to the sea-coast at Mersina, from which place I felt sure it would be possible to charter a boat to Cyprus.

But these hasty plans were dispelled by finding the Boy Scout waiting for me in the pa.s.sage.

"Your guard commander was ill," he explained, "so I arranged that you should be brought to this hotel, where you are my guests. And I want you to lunch with me at one o'clock."