Caught by the Turks Part 9

Then there pa.s.sed an archaic ox-cart, creaking down the road slowly, as it has creaked down the ages, from the night of Time. It was drawn by a white heifer, whose shoulders strained against the yoke, for it was a heavy cart. But she went forward willingly, resignedly. Work was her portion. She would live and die under the yoke. She licked her cool muzzle, dusted flies with her neat tail, and looked forward with wistful eyes that seemed to see beyond her working world, to some ultimate haven for the quiet workers. Somewhere she would find rest at last. To my feverish imagination that white heifer symbolised the pathos of all the driven souls who go forward unquestioning to destiny.

And the soldier with his pack was a type also of voiceless millions who carry the burden of our civilisation.

We stagger on, under the bludgeonings of chance, and but rarely lift our eyes to the dawn, although a daily miracle is there. Someone conducts the orient-rite, regardless of the lives of men, which come sweeping on, on the tide of war, to end in foam and froth. Yet from this stir of hate and heroism some purpose must surely rise. From the travail of the trenches some meaning will be born.

I saw things thus, through images and symbols. Across the vast inanity of that waiting time, streaks of vision used to flash, like distant summer lightning. Impermanent, but beautiful to me, they lit a fair horizon. Else, all was dark.

To call this time a death in life seems an overstatement, but if my experiences in Turkey had any mental value at all, it was just this: to teach me how to die. A curtain had come down on consciousness when I was captured. Since then I only lived in the Before and After of captivity.

My old self was finished. I saw it in clear but disjunct pictures of recollection: pig-sticking, sailing, dining, dancing, or on the road to Messines one hard November night when feet froze in stirrups and horses slipped and struck blue lights from the cobbles. And my new self awaited the moment of freedom. It still stirred in the womb of war.

Even so, in my belief, do the souls of our comrades lost consider their lives on earth and look back on their time of trial with interest and regret. Discarnate, they cannot achieve their desires, yet they long to manifest again in the world of men. With level and unclouded eyes they consider the incidents of mortality, and find in them a Purpose to continue. There is work for them in the world through many lives, and love, which will meet and re-meet its love. And so at last, drawn by duty and affection, those who have woven their lives in the tapestry of our time will one day take up the threads again.

CHAPTER VII

THE COMIC HOSPITAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE

The one bulwark against morbidity was hope of an escape. Only by getting away, or at any rate making an attempt, could I justify my continued existence, when so many good men were dying in the world outside--and at our own doors.

Now certain spies, as I have told, were constantly on the look-out for officers likely to give trouble to our custodians. The Commandant, I knew, suspected me of wanting to escape, owing to my general eagerness for exercise. I thought, therefore, that if I could induce him to believe that I was ready to dream away my days at Afion-kara-hissar, I should have established that confidence in my character which is the basis of all success. I consequently purchased some two pounds of a certain dark and viscous drug, wrapped in a cabbage leaf. With a sort of theatrical secrecy (for even in Turkey Mrs. Grundy has her say), I proceeded to prepare the stuff by boiling it for two hours in a copper saucepan. I did this on a day when one of the Turkish staff came to the house to distribute letters. Naturally the smell attracted notice. I made flimsy excuses to account for it.

After distilling the decoction, filtering, and then boiling it down to the consistency of treacle, the first phase of my little plan was ended. One of the Turkish staff, a certain Cypriote youth, had become thoroughly interested in my proceedings.

I showed him, under vows of secrecy which I knew he would not keep, the stage property I had bought, consisting of two bamboo pipes, a lamp, a terra-cotta bowl, some darning needles, and the "treacle" in a jampot.

Fortunately the most of these implements I had obtained second-hand from a real opium-smoker, so that they did not look too new. Also I had read de Quincey and Claude Farrere. After discussing the subject at length, the Cypriote suggested that we might smoke together one evening. I agreed with alacrity.

One night after lock-up, therefore, I slipped out of my house, with my paraphernalia hidden under my overcoat. A specially bribed Turkish sentry brought me to a silent, shuttered house in a side street. Here the door was opened by an evil-looking harridan, who showed me upstairs to a thickly carpeted room, strewn with cushions, on which my host was lying. The blinds were drawn and only the glimmer of a little green lamp lit the wreaths of whitish smoke which curled down from the low ceiling.

The fumes stang my palate and thrilled me with expectancy. I could taste, rather than smell, that strange savour of opium which fascinates its devotees.

I lay down, in the semi-darkness, on a sofa beside my host. After some general conversation, I showed him my pipes and needles, but he said that for that evening I should only smoke the opium of his brewing.

"It is a joy to have found a fellow-spirit," I sighed. "When one has opium one wants nothing more."

"How many pipes do you smoke a day?" he asked.

"Fifty," I said boldly, adding, "when I am in practice."

"That is nothing," said the Cypriote. "I smoke a hundred. Come, let us begin. Time is empty, except for opium."

"But who will prepare our pipes?" I asked.

"We will do that ourselves," he answered.

"I can't," I had to admit. "I--I am used to an attendant, who hands me my pipes already cooked."

"There is no one here," he said, "except an ugly old woman. But I will show you myself. Half the pleasure is lost if another hand prepares the precious fluid. See, you take a drop of opium--so--on the point of the needle, and holding it over the flame of the lamp, you turn and turn it gently until it swells and expands and glows with its hidden life. From a black drop it changes to a glowing bubble of crimson. Then you cool it again, moulding and pressing it back to a little pellet upon the gla.s.s of the lampshade. Then again you cook it, and again you cool it. Only experience can tell when it is ready to smoke. It is an art, like other arts. I would rather cook opium than write a poem. It is even better than money. Now you take your pipe and, heating the little hole through which the opium is smoked, so that it will stick, you thrust your needle--so--into the hole, and then withdraw it again, leaving the pellet of perfect peace behind. And now, lying on your left side, with your head well back amongst the cushions, you hold your pipe over the flame and draw in a long and grateful breath. In and in you breathe. . . ."

I watched him take a deep draught of the drug, and then lie back among the cushions with heavy-lidded eyes. For a full half-minute he remained silent and dreaming, then expelled the thick white smoke with a sigh of bliss.

It was my turn now, and not without some dismay (although curiosity was probably a stronger emotion) I accepted a pipe of his preparing. I inhaled in and in--I choked a little--and then lay back with a dreaminess that was not simulated, for it had made me feel giddy.

"You prepare a most perfect pipe," I coughed through the acrid fumes.

But I had realised immediately that I had not an opium temperament. In all I smoked ten small pipes that first evening, without feeling any ill effects beyond a heavy la.s.situde, which lasted all through the following day. I was disappointed and disgusted by the experience. The beautiful dreams are a myth. So also is the deadly fascination of the drug. I loathed it more each time I tasted it.

Yet those nights I lay on a sofa, _couche a gauche_ as opium-smokers say, weaving a tissue of deceit into the grey-white clouds encircling us, will always remain one of the most curious memories of my life. The couches, the needles and the pipes, the pin-point pupils and wicked profile of my host, as he leaned over the green glimmer of the lamp which burnt to the G.o.d to whom his heart was given, and the growth of that G.o.d in him, as pipe followed pipe to stir his consciousness, and the beat.i.tude that lit his features, as he looked up from amidst the cushions to that dream-world of subtle smoke, to be seen only with narrowed eyes, where princes of the poppies reign: this had a glamour against the drab setting of captivity which I will neither deny nor excuse. I was doing something practical once more. Instead of reading philosophy or playing chess, I was engaged in a human game, whose stake was freedom.

A measure of success attended my efforts, for I learnt from the Cypriote, in the course of subsequent visits to his house, that if I wished for a holiday to Constantinople it would not be difficult to arrange.

I think we were both playing a double game.

We both tried to make the other talk, he with the idea of getting information about the camp and I in the hope of picking up some hint as to where to hide in Constantinople. But card-sharpers might as well have tried to fleece each other by the three card trick. His knowledge of Constantinople seemed to be _nil_, while the information he got out of me would not have filled his opium pipe. After these excursions I used sometimes to wonder whether I was not wasting my time and health. But time is cheap in captivity, and as to health, I used to counteract the opium by counter-orgies of exercises. In the early mornings I skipped and bathed in secret, but in the daytime I tottered wanly about the streets, and whenever I saw the Cypriote I told him that I craved for _confiture_: this being our name for opium.

In my condition it was an easy matter to be sent to the doctor. I told him various astonishing stories about my health, chiefly culled from a French medical work which I found in the waiting-room of his house.

Within a month I was transferred to Haidar Pasha Hospital, near Constantinople. Had I been in brutal health, the operation to my nose which was the ostensible reason of my departure would not have been considered necessary. But I had been removed from the category of suspects, and was now considered an amiable invalid.

The guard on my northward journey was more like a sick attendant than a sentry. I showed him some opium pills, which I declared were delicious to take. He evinced the greatest interest, and I was able to prevail on him to swallow two or three as an experiment. Unfortunately, after he had taken them, I discovered they contained nothing more exciting than cascara. They did not send him to sleep at all.

We arrived at Haidar Pasha without incident. Before being admitted, my effects were searched, and stored away, but being by that time accustomed to searches, I was able to hide, upon my person, a variety of things that would be useful in an escape, notably a compa.s.s, and a complete set of maps of Constantinople and its surroundings.

Captain Sir Robert Paul, with whom I had discussed plans at Afion-kara-hissar, was already installed in hospital, where he was being treated for an aural complaint. His friendship was an inestimable stand-by through the months that followed. Through scenes of farce and tragedy he was always the same f.e.c.kless and fearless spirit. In success, as in adversity, he kept an equal mien. Without him, the most amusing chapters in my life would not have happened, and if I write "_I_" in the pages which follow, it is only because Robin, as I shall hereafter call him, has not been consulted about this record of our days together.

Owing to circ.u.mstances beyond our control, the full responsibility for this story must be mine. The seas divide us. I cannot ask his help, or solicit his approval.

The hospital at Haidar Pasha was the most delightfully casual place imaginable. One wandered into one's ward in a Turkish nightshirt, and wandered out again at will, the only limits to peregrination being the boundaries of the hospital and one's own rather fantastic dress. Unless one asked loudly and insistently for medicines or attendance, no one dreamed of doing anything at all in the way of treatment. The only attention the patients received was to be turned out of the hospital when they were either dead or restored to health. Under the latter category a crowd of invalids came every day, who were generally ejected just before noon, clamouring loudly for their mid-day meal, and the unexpended portion of their day's ration. Of deaths in hospital I witnessed only one, although scores occurred during my stay. One evening an Armenian officer was brought into my ward with severe wounds in the head, due to a prematurely exploded bomb. He was laid flat on a bed, and instantly proceeded to choke. No one came near him. It seemed obvious to me that if he was propped up by pillows he would be able to breathe. But no one propped him up. I suggested to the hospital orderly that this should be done, and he said, "Yarin." And "yarin" the poor officer died of lack of breath. How sick men survived is a mystery to me, because they were never attended to, unless strong enough to scream. Screaming, however, is a habit to which the Turkish patient is not averse. He does not believe in the stoical repression of feeling. Strong and brave men will bellow like bulls while their wounds are being dressed. Unless, indeed, one makes a fuss, no one will believe one is being hurt. I have seen mutton-fisted dressers tearing off bandages by main force, while some unfortunate patient with a stoical tradition sweats with agony and bites his lips in silence.

But although the Turk cries out, he is by no means a coward under the knife. His stern and simple faith seems to help him here. There is something very fine about a good Moslem's readiness for death. No man who knows the religion, or has lived intimately among its adherents, can fail to give it reverence. Before G.o.d all men are equal, and when one walks about in a nightshirt, one begins to realise this fundamental truth. There was a great friendliness in that hospital, and a cordiality that coloured the otherwise sordid surroundings. Poor jettison of the war, broken with fighting, or rotten with disease, or shamming sick, we forgathered in the corridors, or in the garden, with no thought for the external advantages of rank and fortune.

Matches at that time had practically disappeared from Turkey, and whenever one issued from the ward with a cigarette between one's lips, one was beset by invalids in search of a light. Who lit the original vestal fire I do not know, but I am sure it was never extinguished in that hospital. Patients smoked and talked all night.

We took our part with pleasure in this picnic life. Robin, with remarkable skill, had contrived to smuggle in various forbidden bottles, which contributed greatly to our popularity. One drink especially, from its innocuous appearance and stimulating properties, found great favour amongst the patients. It was known as "Iran," and consisted of equal parts of sour milk and brandy. A teetotaller might safely be seen with a long gla.s.s of creamy-looking fluid, yet Omar Khayyam himself would not have despised a jug of it. Imbibing this, we used to hold polyglot pow-wows with the patients, in French, German, Arabic, Italian, and Turkish. Sugar and tea from our parcels also did much to promote cordiality.

The recent explosion in Haidar Pasha station, which blew out all the windows of our (adjacent) hospital, and the first British air raid of 1918 were frequent topics of discussion. With regard to these events we invented a beautiful lie, namely, that the station explosions were the result of bombardment by a new type of submarine we possessed, but that, _per contra_, the first air raid, which did no damage, was not carried out by British aircraft at all. We proved by a.s.sorted arguments in various languages that the bombs on Constantinople had come from German aeroplanes, the raid being a display of Hun frightfulness, to show what would happen if Turkish allegiance wavered over the th.o.r.n.y question of the disposal of the Black Sea fleet. Nothing was too improbable to be true in Constantinople, and nothing indeed was too absurd to be possible. Enver Pasha had made a monopoly in milk, and a corner in velvet. The new Sultan was intriguing for the downfall of the Young Turks. The funds of the Committee of Union and Progress had been sent to Switzerland, where a Turkish pound purchased thirteen francs of Swiss security, or half its face value. Fortunes were won and lost on the meteoric fluctuations of paper money. A lunatic inmate of the hospital (formerly a Smyrniote financier, driven to despair by the press gang) told me that he could make a million on the bourse if they only set him free for a few hours, and I daresay he was right. Anything might have happened during those summer days. Secret presses were engaged in printing broadsheets of revolution. The nearer the Germans got to Paris, the more persistent were the stories of their defeat. The air was electric with rumours. The story about German aeroplanes bombing Constantinople, which we had started in jest, was retailed to us later, in all earnestness, and with every detail to give it probability.

Anything to the discredit of their ally found currency in the Turkish capital.

An Ottoman cadet in my ward, for instance, used to impersonate a German officer ordering his dinner in a Turkish restaurant. He managed somehow to convey the swagger, and the stays, and the stiff neck. Clattering his sword behind him, he used to seat himself stiffly at a table and call haughtily for a waiter. Then, after glaring at the menu, he used to order--a dish of haricot beans. "Des haricots," he used to snap, with hand on sword-hilt in the exact and invariable Prussian manner.

But to the last, the Germans were all-unconscious of what went on behind their corseted backs. Only at the time of the armistice, when they were pelted with rotten vegetables, did they realise that something was amiss.

To return to our hospital. Our day began with rice and broth at six in the morning. At nine the visiting doctor made his rounds and the patients who needed medicines clamoured for them. Unless one made a fuss, however, one was left in perfect peace. At midday there was more rice and broth, with occasional lumps of meat. The afternoon was devoted to sleep, and the evenings to exercise in the garden, or intrigue. Rice and broth concluded the day. This sounds dull, but after two years of prison life, the hours seemed as crowded as a London season's. To begin with, we did not attempt to subsist on hospital fare, but commissioned various orderlies and friends to buy us food outside. Then there was the never-failing interest of making plans. A certain person raised our hopes to the zenith by telling us of the possibility of a boat calling for us at night, at a landing place just below the British cemetery. The idea was to embark in this boat, row across to a steamer, and there enter large sealed boxes in which we would pa.s.s the Customs up the Bosphorus, and then make Odessa. The plan was almost complete. The shipping people had been "squared." It only remained for us to select the spot from which to embark. With this object in view, we reconnoitred the British cemetery which ab.u.t.ted on the hospital grounds. It was then being used as an anti-aircraft station, and when, a few days later, the first air raid came, we saw the exact positions of the Turkish machine guns, spitting lead at our aircraft from among the Crimean graves. This air raid, and the atmosphere of "frightfulness" caused thereby, rather interfered with our escape plans. First of all we were forbidden to go near the British cemetery, and later other small privileges were curtailed which greatly "cramped our style." For some time we could not get in touch with the person already alluded to.

Meanwhile the arrival of our aeroplanes was a very stimulating sight.

Everyone in hospital turned out to see the show.