Eastern Nights - and Flights Part 8

George could not take more than three of us, as a larger number with only one guard would make even the Austrian suspicious. He refused point-blank to return to the barracks and repeat the performance, so that four of us might go. C. could not come, for personal reasons that would not allow him to let his fate remain unknown for several months.

The party, however, was still one too many. With a pack of cards we settled the delicate problem of who was to stay behind. M. cut lowest, to his bitter disappointment and my regret, for he was very plucky and resourceful.

Once more with a definite plan in view--and apparently a better one than the last--H., R., and I fixed a date for the escape. Having calculated the times of the rising and setting of the moon, and communicated with the Druse, we chose the third evening from the day of our removal to the new room.

Meanwhile, we had been treated by no means badly. A few nights of irritation accustomed us to the plague of bugs, and constant searching and washing kept our clothes fairly free from more repulsive vermin.

For the rest, we pa.s.sed the days with poker, bridge, and perfecting our plans. We could not grumble at the food, for we messed with the Turkish officers, who, while not feeding as well as German privates, never actually went hungry.

Indeed, we met with much kindness and consideration at Damascus. In every prison camp of Turkey the officers and guards took their cue from the commandant. If, as at Afion-kara-Hissar during the reign of one Muslum Bey, the commandant was a murderer, a thief, and a degenerate, unspeakable outrages were committed. If, as at Baranki Barracks, Damascus, under Mahmoud Ali Bey, the commandant was good-natured, conditions were pa.s.sable.

Some of the Turks, in fact, wanted to be too friendly. The deputy-commandant invited us into his room one evening, and, with his friends sitting around and George acting as interpreter, asked for an exposition of England's reasons for taking part in the war. For two hours I delivered myself of anti-German propaganda, though I could not tell what force remained in my arguments after they had pa.s.sed through the filter of George's curious translation. Meanwhile, the deputy-commandant looked at his finger-nails and occasionally smiled.

He was non-committal in expressing his own views; but afterward, when coffee was handed round, he declared that the talk had been of the greatest interest.

This same officer drove us one afternoon to the beautiful spot, on a high slope outside the city, where the sources of the Seven Rivers are gathered within a s.p.a.ce of fifty yards. In the scorching heat we undressed and bathed in the River Pharpar.

We had ample evidence of the widespread hatred of the Germans throughout Syria, both among civilians and soldiers. Turkish soldiers expressed the greatest dislike and envy of the Germans, and German soldiers expressed the greatest contempt for the Turks. As for the Arab officers, they were whole-heartedly pro-British. Nahed Effendi Malek, the young Arab adjutant, and his friend the Arab quartermaster often visited us when no Turkish officers were near. The pair talked the most violent sedition. The quartermaster wanted to be with his brother, a prisoner at Alexandria. The Turks knew this, and once, when in prison for several weeks as a political suspect, he had been freed only by a liberal distribution of _baksheesh_ among the military authorities.

Both he and Nahed were kept separate from their families while the Turks levied blackmail by telling them that the lives of relatives or friends would pay forfeit for any breach of loyalty. Like other officers of their race, they were now kept expressly from the fighting front, because so many Arabs had deserted to the British.

This very barracks, declared Nahed, was full of imprisoned officers whose loyalty the Turks suspected. Unless they could bribe their way to a release they might be shut up in one small room for months, unpaid, forgotten, and living on such food as their friends provided. Then, if their prayers and pet.i.tions for a trial brought about a courtmartial, they might be acquitted and graciously released; but neither reparation for the months of captivity nor military pay for the period of it would be given.

Our own room had lately been occupied by a Turkish colonel, who shot dead a fellow officer. a.s.sa.s.sination being a less serious crime than dislike of oppression, and the colonel having been an expert juggler with military supplies and funds (like so many Turkish colonels who bought command of their units as an investment in a colossal corporation of Military Graft, Incorporated), he delivered sealed envelopes to various high officers and officials, and within a week was free.

Nahed and his friend talked savagely of the hunger and misery that ravaged Syria, of the killing and imprisonment of Arab sheikhs, of their hopes of an independent Arab kingdom, of their galling helplessness against the Turks and Germans until the British arrived.

"But once let the British reach Deraa," said Nahed Effendi, "and you will hear of such an uprising as Syria and Arabia have never known,"--a prediction that was to be fulfilled in the following autumn, during General Allenby's whirlwind advance.

Sometimes, instead of confiding their wrongs and hatreds, Nahed and his friend would chant Arabian songs of love and war, or order George to translate the stories and epigrams of Haroun-al-Raschid and other Arabian notabilities. Once George subst.i.tuted a sentence of his own for the tale he should have retailed for our benefit:

"My dear, I must go to see my friend. Soon it is too late, and my officer say no. Please think of some request I perform for you."

M. laughed, as if in enjoyment at a translated story, and H., turning to Nahed, said "_kweis kateer_" ("very good")--two of the dozen Arabic words that he knew. A little later I asked for and received permission to send George to buy wine for us in the bazaar; and the mongrel interpreter with a "_Mille fois merci, mon cher_" shambled off to see the Druse.

We realized that it would be very unfortunate for little Nahed if we escaped, and we should be sorry indeed to think of him in prison on our account. But it was obvious that even if he would, he could not come with us, and we certainly dared not confide in him.

As I lay half awake, early on the morning of May 15th, I was conscious that an exceptional day had dawned. But my drowsy faculties could not produce, from the dark room of memory, a negative of what was imminent.

Then the door opened, and with a clatter of mugs and a cry of the German word "_Milch_" there entered an Arab milkman, with his tin bowl slung over his shoulder.

I was alert in an instant. Why, of course, we had reached escape day, and we must buy a stock of biscuits for a journey from this dairyman, whose privilege it was to sell us goat's milk, at five piastres a gla.s.s, for our breakfast.

But that morning he had brought no biscuits--and this was the first of a heart-breaking sequence of obstacles.

Throughout the day I remained in a state of high tension. Yet my princ.i.p.al concern was for the lack of self-control shown by George, who walked about with shaking knees and unsteady hands and anxious face.

"For G.o.d's sake don't show yourself like that to the Turkish officer,"

said H.

"My dear, I am not brave, and fortune never visits me." His fear was pitiful.

"Pray for fortune then."

And George prayed, melodramatically and in all solemnity: "G.o.d what is in heaven, take us quickly to the Arab with horses."

The thermometer of hope quicksilvered up and down every few minutes, throughout the pregnant hours of afternoon. For the ninety-ninth time I examined the packets of raisins, the bread, and the water bottles. For the hundredth time I reviewed the details of our plan.

Between ten P.M. and midnight the Druse was to wait by the station, with long headdresses which should be disguise enough for the moment, because in the darkness a pa.s.serby could only see us as silhouetted outlines. Soon after ten George was to take H., R., and me through the side door, as already described, and lead us to the Druse. Then we would slip out of Damascus to the spot where an Arab was waiting with the horses. We must ride over the plain all night, and hide the next day in a certain Druse village, where a hut had been prepared for us.

We could buy arms in the village. We would travel without rest throughout the following night and just before dawn reach the mountains outside Deraa, when the second Arab was to take back the horses.

Once in the mountains and among the Druse tribesmen an army could scarcely retrieve us. We should run more than a little danger from the nomads, but these might be friendly, and in any case the guide would be our protector and mouthpiece among his fellows.

For weeks we should be trekking over the mountains and desert east of the Turkish lines in the Jordan valley and the hardships would be very great. Eventually we should arrive among our allies of the Hedjaz.

Having reached "X" and paid off the Druse, we could be taken on board one of the British war ships in the Red Sea. We might well meet a raiding party of the Emir Feisul's Bedouins near Amman, in which case safety would come much sooner, and we might travel by aeroplane to the British army in Palestine.

After dinner the Turkish signal officer invited us to his room for coffee. Having no legitimate excuse for declining, we chafed under his small talk until nine o'clock. Then Nahed Effendi and the quartermaster visited us, and again we were forced to sit still and deliver, from time to time, in response to the translations of George, a fretful "Yes" or "No" or "Good" or "Thank You."

Ten o'clock came and went, and two suggestions that we should retire to bed were brushed aside by our visitors. By now the Druse would be waiting for us outside the railway station.

Eleven o'clock arrived, and still Nahed continued to draw from his endless store of tales and similes.

"My officer say," translated George, "that Arabian poet compare the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a fellow's beloved to--please, my dear, say you must sleep.

I shake and feel I must chuck sponge. Soon it is too late, honest to G.o.d."

Ourselves almost desperate with annoyance, we performed a series of lifelike yawns, and declared ourselves to be very tired. Thereupon, to my great relief, the Arab officers withdrew, with George in attendance.

I followed to the doorway, and spoke to George when the officers had entered their own room.

"In three minutes you must come back."

"I will try. But I have so little courage."

"Think of the job in Australia, and of the money."

"_Mon cher_, I have thought of them all day long, but my heart is saying, _boum, boum!_ and a voice tells to me '_Quittez ca!_' But I will come back."

He did not come back. Before George had left me, evil chance sent the Turkish deputy-commandant along the pa.s.sage for one of his rare visits of inspection. He looked hard at us; whereupon George's overwrought nerves snapped, and he broke down utterly.

"_Aa-ee!_" he called.

Next he grasped instinctively at my arm. Trembling visibly, he lowered his head and waited. I backed into the doorway, while the deputy-commandant took George to Nahed's room.

What followed we could deduce from the noises that swept the corridor.

George was bullied into a complete betrayal. We heard furious talk, shouted orders, and the unmistakable sound of blows with the bare hand.

Nahed ran to our room, and counted us feverishly. Then came the corporal of the guard, puzzled and scowling. Finally, six Turkish soldiers replaced Jumbo outside the door, which Nahed locked.

Disgusted with George, disgusted with ourselves, and above all disgusted with fate, H. and I paced up and down or lay sleepless on the bedstead through hours of utter despair. R., the only one of us to make a show of indifference, took a pack of cards, played patience, and said not a word.

The door remained locked until the following mid-day, when the commandant arrived with Nahed and George, both of whom showed reluctance to enter.

"My officer knew," declared George, with eyes averted. "You are to collect the clothes and go to railway. They send you to Aleppo I guess." I noticed that one of his eyes was discoloured and swollen.