Eastern Nights - and Flights Part 21

The second and third engineers--Feodor Mozny and Josef Koratkov--were among the few of our shipmates who could not be cla.s.sified as rogues.

They transgressed only to the innocuous extent of smuggling moneyed stowaways and contraband goods. They, also, showed White and myself many kindnesses; as did the second engineer's wife, who voyaged with her husband. Several evenings she spent in the heat of the frowsy little engine room, washing our only underclothes, while we sat in Josef's cabin, clad in nothing but the tunic and trousers of our Russian-sailor disguises.

We wore these disguises for the benefit of visitors to the _Batoum_, and not to throw dust in the eyes of the crew. That was needless, for, except the captain, every man belonging to the ship soon knew of us.

The marvel was that with so many people privy to the secret it never leaked to the Turkish police. In pro-Entente circles ash.o.r.e our presence on the _Batoum_ was widely known and widely discussed; and I count it a debt to Providence that the news was not carried to the Ministry of War by one of the city's many police spies. The crew were unlikely to betray us knowingly, for every man of them must have been concerned in something which might wither in the strong light of a police investigation. Besides, they were tolerant of the British, while disliking the Turks even more than they disliked the Germans.

The captain--a white-bearded, bent-backed Greek of about eighty--seemed incompetent, and well on the way to senile decay, but withal harmless.

This voyage was to be his last before enforced retirement. He was as wax in the cunning hands of t.i.toff, who kept from him the knowledge that two escaped Britishers were aboard. Had he known he would have either insisted on our removal, or--more probably--demanded a large share of the pa.s.sage money. It was easy to keep the ancient in ignorance, for apparently he knew less than anybody else of what happened on his vessel. t.i.toff a.s.sured us that should the captain see us in our disguise of Russian sailors he would remain unsuspicious if we took care not to speak. His declining mind had become too feeble to remember off-hand even the number of the crew; and much less could he remember their faces. Once I brushed by him closely, outside Kulman's cabin. He pa.s.sed without a glance at me, looking on the ground and muttering into his beard.

The crew was a dubious mixture. Many--in particular the firemen--had been Bolsheviki until Austro-German forces landed at Odessa and Sevastopol and temporarily crushed Bolshevism in South Russia. Other ex-members of the bourgeoisie, but unable to make a living on land under present conditions, had become temporary seamen by the grace of friends connected with the shipping company that owned the _Batoum_.

There was also a bright youth named Viktor, who, until the Bolshevist revolution, was a student. His father, a lawyer, had been killed in the rioting at Kieff that accompanied the Soviet rise to power; and the son, to keep himself alive, now swabbed the decks of a tramp steamer and submitted to being kicked by sailors and corrupted by Michael Ivanovitch t.i.toff. Viktor spoke French and German, and was therefore much in request as interpreter when the ship's officers bargained with their stowaways or invested in contraband consignments, or when one of them brought on board some cosmopolitan wench from Pera or Galata.

Our most interesting shipmate on the _Batoum_ was perhaps Bolshevik Bill the Greaser. One afternoon when White, dressed in sailor's clothes, was helping to paint the ship's side, a hard-faced giant in overalls approached him, produced a Russian-French grammar, and asked for a lesson. So far as his slight knowledge of French and slighter knowledge of Russian allowed, White did his best to comply. Thereafter the greaser became a close friend, following us round the deck in the evening, visiting us at odd hours during the day-time, and bringing us figs.

Like most of the greasers and firemen he was a Bolshevik. He was not a bloodthirsty Bolshevik, however, but one who, according to his own limited and crude conceptions of universal equality, wanted plenty of wealth, plenty of happiness, plenty of vodka for all. He was especially eloquent and brotherly when drunk.

Others of the Bolsheviki were idealists of a more exterminative type.

Once, when White was playing cards with some firemen in the engine room, the talk swung to the Russian Revolution. A lean man, who until then had been too busy drinking to speak, began to describe the mutiny in the Baltic Fleet, of which he had been a sailor. In his intensity he seemed to live again through the horrors of it, as with gloating gesture he described how unpopular officers had been thrown into the sea with weights tied to their feet.

"That was bad, very bad," protested White in his halting Russian. "If you are in power and somebody has done wrong, he should be given a fair trial and, if convicted, put in prison. But to kill men merely because you dislike them is very wrong."

"Well said!" commented Bolshevik Bill the Greaser.

"No; well meant if you like," amended the lean fireman, as he patted White on the back; "but the Meester does not understand us. We would never do such a thing to English officers. We had them as instructors and found them true friends of their men. Our officers were very different. They hit us and ignored us and treated us like animals. We shall never be permanently free until they are all dead. We must destroy their cla.s.s. Russia----"

His voice had been growing louder and more raucous. Suddenly it softened as he turned to White and said: "Meester, you know your business and we know ours. Have a fig." And the game of cards continued.

Yet, among the whole shipload of rogues, the only man who victimized us was t.i.toff, the chief engineer. When we first came aboard he demanded twelve dollars a day for food which, being stolen from the ship's supplies, cost him nothing. At the instigation of the second and third engineers we reduced the payment to six dollars a day. He bl.u.s.tered, but gave way and tried to make up the difference by cheating us over tobacco, cigarettes, newspapers, and other articles bought on sh.o.r.e. He paid twenty-five dollars for a revolver, and tried to sell it to us for thirty-five, as being the cost price.

We had left at Psamatia a store of clothes and tinned food, which was to have been smuggled on board by the Russian aviator Vladimir Wilkowsky. As the days pa.s.sed and nothing arrived we suspected Wilkowsky of having either failed or fooled us. Then, at a party in t.i.toff's cabin one evening, I saw inside a cupboard some tins of biscuits and cocoa, of the kinds that were sent to aviator prisoners in Turkey by the British Flying Services Fund. t.i.toff could not--and in any case certainly would not--have bought them in Constantinople; for English cocoa and biscuits, if obtainable at all in the shops of Pera, fetched extortionate prices.

Although the mere sight of the tins provided insufficient proof, the inference was that Wilkowsky had sent our belongings and that t.i.toff had stolen them. But we delayed investigation and accusation until we should be safely out of Turkey, and in the possession of revolvers.

Some time or other we meant to make t.i.toff suffer. Meanwhile, we were forced to wait until our moment came.

Delay followed upon heart-breaking delay, until we began to lose hope that the _Batoum_ would ever weigh anchor. In four days' time, it was promised, the cargo would arrive. Two days later the four days had stretched, elastic-wise, to ten, because a consignment of figs had not arrived from Smyrna. Then, a week afterward, a further extension of five days was reported, the Turkish merchant having failed to come to terms with the Ministry of Commerce.

It became impossible for us to remain in Kulman's cabin, which faced the captain's. The old skipper received many visitors, including Turkish officials, any one of whom might have been led by mischance to discover us. At t.i.toff's suggestion we moved to a small room on the bridge, formerly occupied by a wireless operator, in the days when the _Batoum_ was a Russian transport. The transmitter and receiver were still there, but had been out of action long since, for the Germans forbade the use of wireless by merchant craft in the Black Sea.

There we remained hidden for a succession of twelve monotonous days and nights enlivened only by British air-raids and by expeditions to the deck when sunset and twilight were past, and we could take exercise by tramping backward and forward, forward and backward, in the shadow. For the rest, we continued to study Russian, and received friendly calls from Kulman, Josef, Feodor, Viktor the Student, and Bolshevik Bill the Greaser.

t.i.toff visited us once only, when he searched for the platinum points on the Marconi transmitter. But already every morsel of platinum had been removed; and the chief engineer seemed disgusted that somebody else should have antic.i.p.ated his latest idea for profitable villainy.

The tedium of inactive waiting, of day-to-day hopes and disappointments, was as unpleasant and irritating as a blanket of damp horsehair. Our only diversion was the kaleidoscopic view from the window, while the ship swung with the tides. Not fifty yards away the Sultan's summer palace stood in white stone prominence amid the dull, squat buildings of Galata. Looking across the Bosphorus, with its heavy _dhows_, its ferryboats, its dancing _kaiks_, and its sun-glittering wavelets, we could see Seraglio Point, and, in the distance, the domed roofs and minaret spires of St. Sophia and the other great mosques of Stamboul.

Meals were served irregularly, for journeys from the kitchen to the wireless cabin were dependent upon the outgoings and incomings of the captain and his visitors. Whenever he or they came on the bridge we made fast the door, and crouched beneath the window.

Our supply of money continued to dwindle, until it was insufficient to pay the four hundred Turkish pounds which t.i.toff demanded as pa.s.sage money. We hesitated to approach Mr. S. once more, not wishing to involve him in our danger. Yet we had no other method of obtaining funds. Driven to the distasteful course by urgent necessity we decided to compromise by communicating with him through intermediaries, instead of visiting his office ourselves.

t.i.toff was anxious to be employed as messenger, but we shrank from placing him in a position which he might misuse to blackmail Mr. S. We therefore resumed communication with Theodore, the Greek waiter, by sending him an envelope that contained instructions for himself, and a sealed letter for Mr. S. When t.i.toff went ash.o.r.e to deliver the envelope to Theodore, Kulman accompanied him, as a check on his propensity to walk crookedly.

The pair returned with the welcome news that Mr. S. would cash our cheques in three days' time. Meanwhile, the stowaway syndicate had been offered new business. Fulton and Stone had appeared once again upon the escape-horizon, and were living in Theodore's house. Yeats-Brown, in his disguise, was paying them frequent visits. Theodore had approached t.i.toff with a proposition that on the night before the _Batoum_ sailed the three of them should join us. The chief engineer and his partners rather shied at the increased risk, but the money offered was too much for them, and they agreed to take Yeats-Brown, Fulton, and Stone.

And then, with the prospect before us of sufficient funds and three useful companions, we suffered yet another disappointment. At the time appointed for a rendezvous t.i.toff went to fetch the money which Mr. S.

was to send by Theodore. He returned with an anxious face and the announcement that the Greek waiter had disappeared. He waited vainly for more than an hour in the Maritza restaurant, where the other waiters professed to know nothing of Theodore's whereabouts.

It now seemed that not only should we be unable to pay for our pa.s.sage, but that we had lost the money paid by Mr. S. (so we surmised) in exchange for our cheques. Somewhere, we felt sure, there was roguery.

Three likely and unpleasant possibilities loomed before us. Theodore might have stolen the money and then vanished; t.i.toff might have stolen it; they might have stolen it jointly. Our one legitimate hope was that Mr. S. might not have cashed the cheques before Theodore's disappearance.

Our only chance of discovering the truth was personal investigation. On the following afternoon White, again wearing his fez and old overcoat and with his moustache darkened, rowed ash.o.r.e. He took the tram to the foot of the Golden Horn bridge, walked across to Stamboul, and entered the Maritza.

The low-roofed restaurant's appearance was as usual; but somehow the atmosphere seemed electric with suspicion. A Turkish officer of gendarmerie sat at a table near the door. Theodore was conspicuously absent.

White ordered a gla.s.s of beer, and while doing so asked for news of him. The waiter looked frightened, and left the table without a reply.

When he returned White repeated the question. He was then told:

"He has fallen with the three British officers. I pray you not to talk of it."

"But I must know," urged White, speaking in low-toned, halting French.

"I am a British officer myself"--for this waiter, also, had acted as an intermediary for prisoners. He now looked more frightened than ever, and took care to keep away from the neighbourhood of White's table.

Glancing round, White saw a Turk washing his hands in the little basin at the back of the room, while looking, slantwise but intently, at each man present in turn, but more particularly at the proprietor and the waiters.

After White's return to the _Batoum_ with the bad news we all but gave up hope of recovering the four hundred Turkish pounds; for the police would most certainly have taken whatever moneys were found on Theodore.

We had, also, to reckon with the new danger that bastinado floggings might persuade the Greek into betraying us.

Next morning's issue of the _Lloyd Ottoman_ brought detailed confirmations. Three British officers, said a _Faits Divers_ paragraph, had been concealed in the house of one Theodore Yanni, a Greek waiter employed at a restaurant in Stamboul. The police surrounded the building and discovered them. They were taken to the Ministry of War Prison with Theodore, his two sisters, and his aged mother.

The Ministry of War Prison--"The Black Hole of Constantinople"! We could see the Ministry of War in the distance from the bridge of the _Batoum_, and knowing the horrors of its special punishment cells, we shuddered with sympathy for the strangely mixed party. Theodore himself, we supposed, would be hanged out of hand.

Our almost hopeless position forced us into the reckless decision to discover the truth by paying a personal visit to Mr. S. His office was in the Prisoners of War department of the Dutch Legation, where he helped to administer the British Red Cross funds.

The building was on the way to the Pet.i.ts Champs Gardens, near the Pera Palace Hotel; and there I went, in my sailor's uniform, with Kulman as companion. At the door was a multi-lingual porter, whom I had seen when, before my escape, I once bribed a guard into letting me visit the Prisoners' Bureau. I hung back, and allowed Kulman to take the lead; for I feared that, despite the Russian uniform, the porter might recognize me by certain scars on my face, the legacy of an aeroplane crash. Fortunately he could talk Russian. In answer to Kulman he said that Mr. S. was out for the rest of the day. We left, therefore, and pa.s.sed the afternoon in various cafes, where Kulman introduced me to friends as a German-speaking Lett.

Next afternoon, before starting for Pera, I was careful to make the tell-tale scars less evident by means of chalk and powder. This time we found that Mr. S. was in the Dutch Legation annexe, although engaged and busy. We walked up the stairway to the first floor and stood in the corridor outside Mr. S.'s office.

Only then did I realize the foolhardiness of the visit. Very much in evidence were two officials whom I had met as a prisoner; and I was forced to shrink behind Kulman when there pa.s.sed a Jewish _kava.s.s_ who knew me well, from having brought clothes and money when I was a hospital patient. Fortunately he went by with only a casual glance at the two men in sailors' uniform.

We waited twenty minutes, and still the man with whom Mr. S. was closeted remained in the office. Twice, speaking in French, I made application to the lady-secretary of Mr. S.; but already, before we arrived, three people had been waiting to see him, and I was told that we must wait our turn. Kulman became anxious and fidgety, especially when, looking down the stairs, he saw some Turks in the hall.

Standing near us in the corridor were two elderly Jews, who appeared to listen intently when Kulman thought fit to emphasize my uniform by addressing me in Russian. Presently one of them produced an unlighted cigarette, and, also speaking in Russian, asked me for a match. Without a word I complied, while Kulman, by himself beginning a conversation, forestalled the suspicions which would have arisen if the Jew had begun to question me. I avoided speaking to them by again visiting the lady secretary. Later, Kulman drew me aside and said that it was impossible to remain any longer with the two Russian-speaking Jews.

His nerves--and mine also, for that matter--became still more shaky when, as we pa.s.sed through the hall doorway, the porter stared hard at me and then followed us with his eyes until we turned into a side street that took us out of sight.

Although I had failed for the moment to reach Mr. S., it was imperative that one of us should see him. A new method of approach was advisable, for I believed that the porter half thought he recognized me. If I returned he would be more than ever suspicious of the scars; for everybody in the Prisoners of War Bureau had heard of my escape. The only alternative was for White to go. His disguise as Turk would be useless, as most people at the Legation spoke Turkish well, whereas he spoke it indifferently, with an accent that reeked of English vowel-sounds. We canva.s.sed various nationalities and roles, and agreed that he must accuse himself of being one of the American missionaries who were still at liberty in Turkey.

Wearing my suit of mufti and the felt hat which I bought on the day I escaped, White shook hands and left me, after a reminder that if he were captured my clothes would go to prison with him. He was far from cheerful, for it was Friday, the thirteenth of September; and he remembered that his capture in Mesopotamia had taken place on Friday, the thirteenth of September, 1915.

Anxiously and uncomfortably, I waited through several hours of strained inactivity, fearing that if White, also, were recognized at the Prisoners' Bureau, disaster might overtake not only him, but our benefactor Mr. S.

At six o'clock he burst into the wireless cabin with a beaming face and the joyous announcement: