The Secrets of a Kuttite Part 26

CHAPTER X

WINTER--OUR "SELF-MADE" ORCHESTRA

_February 1st, 1917._--Four months have gone. As I write the earth is white with feet of snow. It is a white world, the roofs no longer brown, the trees no longer green, for even those few trees, like pines that have not shed their verdure, have donned the white raiment of winter's carnival. Snow! This pure and G.o.dly element, silent and secretive, the _avant-courrier_ of the Ultimate, of Things doomed, one day to be reclaimed by the once again triumphant elements when, from the dome of the universe, the last white great snow sheets shall fall, fall, fall--and this universe, once again locked in the ice-grip of the Snow G.o.d, shall drive forward mysteriously on its lonely way--lonely for it shall have been separated from Life, and the Spirit, Man, will have gone.

As I look out on the undulating expanse terraced down to me from the mountain horizon to the northward, I am for a minute tempted to believe that the Great Snow Deluge has really come, and I alone am awake to behold it. But looking still closer I see tiny windows peeping out from their white frames, and I know the bees within that human hive are having their winter sleep. With an effort I trace among the smothered definition of the buildings, the snowed-up roads and alleys, and rising above it all I see, scattered over the town, the white upright minarets of the mosques. Kastamuni in wintertime is a picturesque Turkish town, and has a character all its own. The streets are deserted, but on the hill-path white-mottled figures move slowly upwards. It is the hour of prayer, and the _muezzin_ has just begun to swell out in icy circles from the minarets, reaching out to the hearts of the prayerful, and calling them to communion with Allah. _La illaha, illa la._ There is but one G.o.d, and that is G.o.d. From how many thousands of mosques, and for how many millions of the followers of the prophet does the _muezzin_ cry at this hour?

And so I, too, find my silence unlocked after all these months and am at last persuaded to throw off the coma that has been stealing over us body and soul, that has buried beneath its snow-drift our intentions one by one, and I am tempted to jot down a few more notes to my reminiscences.

Sometimes, as the other day, we are allowed to take down the bob-sleighs we have made to a hill about a mile away, and pretend we are schoolboys again. After s...o...b..lling the starters and getting s...o...b..lled ourselves, we shot down the slope or over the bank, as the case occurred, and once or twice we collided, but no one got seriously hurt. The hard toiling uphill again, pulling the sleigh, proved how unfit we were. On the way home we religiously s...o...b..lled every fowl we pa.s.sed, and the roads are full of them. The days are dreadfully dreary, and it is only these events that seem to lighten the monotonous gloom. Firewood is very scarce and expensive, and only on rare occasions do we have a fire worth anything. If we do by chance have wood it is often wet, and the wretched tin stoves choke the place with smoke.

I half decided to have a stove in my bedroom, but, besides that being fearfully small, the trouble is to get wood, which comes in tiny donkey loads at fict.i.tious prices. So we lie in bed under the clothes, and with the intense cold sleep steals over us. There is the same difficulty in getting kerosene, now five shillings a bottle, and what one gets either goes out, or splutters until you kick it out. We hibernate, therefore. Once or twice it has been so cold that I have gone down to the kitchen and sat by the smoke heap there. This is very popular these days.

Letters are turning up more regularly. I am delighted to have at last heard from home and several friends all over the world, including the brilliant author of "Problems of Philosophy." He has very kindly sent me some books and recommends me to see Schiller on "Grumps." I also heard from Wallace, from whom I have not heard for years and years, and to whom I wrote in Kut along with people in the neglected recesses of my memory, but the letter, of course, was never sent. It must be eleven years since he and I sat on the golden sand of a green-vestured island in that silvery sea around Auckland--smoking our pipes as we lay on our backs, and filling in with a wish what we wanted to complete the scene. I remember wanting the suitable girl, but he wanted books and debate. In between are my world travels, and Cambridge, and Germany, and now I've been running about in a war, and he, since a professor in Princetown, writes to condole with me at being out of the war so early!

He ought to congratulate me on my luck in staying in it so long. But then, of course, he can't know anything about Kut yet.

It seems I have been reported dead in Kut, and again on the trek, and in England they are only just hearing to the contrary. What an unnecessary suspense for one's people!

Mine have been magnificent, even throughout the long period of tragic rumour.

About my other friends at Cambridge, and in the regiment, and in France, I never hear a word.

Parcels have arrived, thank Heaven, from several friends.

Sir Thomas Mackenzie has been a perfect trump, and the most wonderful and thoughtful parcels from a very kind heart in Australia. The first three or four have arrived. My dear old friends, the Pallisers, remember me faithfully. And Lord Grey, not forgetting the lonely subaltern in the middle of Asia who once held forth on Imperial affairs sketched out by the cloistered lawns of the Cam, has sent me kind messages and a fortnightly parcel. One's emotions of thankfulness and grat.i.tude are infinite. I feel it is my duty to buck up every ounce possible when one of the busiest and most over-worked men in England, in indifferent health, too, finds time to think of a worthless subaltern like me. My Camberley friends also have sent me some parcels, and some wonderful letters. These momentous things happen only once in a while, but when they do they tell us that somewhere beyond these snow-bound mountains are English hearts that are glad we are come through so far, which means they know we have tried and are chiefly sorry we are chained because we can't try again.

Some few books have also arrived from time to time, but only old ones are allowed through, though sometimes we manage to conceal one or two. This, however, is very difficult, as all parcels have to be opened before the Turkish authorities.

We have formed a library, and the indefatigable librarian, Herepath, who catalogues the books and _shikars_ every one a moment overdue, caused us infinite delight months ago by placing in the library most of Kipling's works which he had miraculously brought through with him from Kut. We devour anything in the reading line, especially now, as bridge has fallen off.

None of the many books sent to me have turned up so far, and have probably been intercepted at Constantinople, whither even those that do arrive here have to be sent back for censorship.

No games outside except an occasional soccer match are played now as the ground is too hard. One highly interesting tournament was, however, recently completed. Eight soccer teams partic.i.p.ated, and we ran two bookies on the field. I have not played since Christmas Day when, in getting down to a forward rush, I had several giants on top of me and twisted my knee badly. Just before this, however, as left three-quarter in a match against the Lower House I scored one of the hardest tries since I was a boy. One can't run much these days, but I did it diving for the line as a nailed fist left four ruddy tracks from my neck down my back. Even then we lost the match by two goals to a goal and a try. I came to the conclusion that my conceit was excusable.

Christmas pa.s.sed quietly enough. We consumed a tremendous amount of cognac and mastik, and anything else going, regardless of price, and for a few hours we quite took charge of things. There was a concert of sorts with a few banjo items and a farce at the end which was more ridiculous than funny, but it served as well.

On Christmas Eve we eluded the postas, and about midnight, while trying to correct my bearings for the house, for I had somehow got downhill, I saw a figure of him we call the Admiral (a naval paymaster), who evidently having wearied of trying to discipline his legs had given it up and was crawling vigorously on all fours in the dark. The sight of this white figure crawling mysteriously along in the darkness, believing himself un.o.bserved, made me shout with laughter. The Admiral put on a huge spurt when he heard it!

But the feature of Christmas was the children's party we gave by special leave of the kaimakam. For days we had been cooking tartlets and cakes and macaroons. They knew it was on, and before breakfast a big crowd of children and mothers had acc.u.mulated near our alley-way. We took our long table and spread upon it "our events," as we called them, including apples and special quant.i.ties of milk and nuts.

The poor little wretches are half-starved. For weeks previously we had given them bits of bread, so that each one of us had an "adopted" nipper. But besides our little pals--mostly Greek, but some Turks--dozens of youngsters from far and wide had turned up, some in their mothers' arms. Sam Mayo, an ex-sergeant-major, took charge and formed them into column of route, mothers and all. He did splendidly. There was much crying and yelling, but he got them in order and then made them file past. I don't think we had laughed so much for many months. Each one of us soon found himself administering milk to a monthling in one arm with half a dozen brats into one's pockets or wrestling with one's legs at the same time. Once there was a stampede set up by a "Young Turk Party" (boys of eight and upwards), and we each had to grab all the mites by a leg or an arm and hold them up out of harm's way. One or two got a bit squashed as it was. The supreme joke was when Sam was proudly showing us how to coax a tiny infant to eat a macaroon; it got so enthusiastic as to bite a half inch of his thumb nearly off. "The little devil nipped like a mongoose," yelled Sam, upsetting his second youngster into the sweet rock that stuck _en bloc_ to its head. We enjoyed ourselves as much as they.

The postas, with one or two exceptions, helped us. The poor little wretches ate and drank as if they hadn't for a week at least. Then we had a scramble among the larger children for the nuts and surplus, and when the fights had subsided gave them some piastre notes. Altogether it was a great show and made us very happy.

The people, we hear, couldn't understand at first how war veterans could worry about children. But you require to be a prisoner of war with no privilege of speaking to any one, adult or child, to understand the meaning of children. The after result was that for days and days a huge swarm of youngsters followed us everywhere we went yelling "Backsheesh"

and "Ekmek" (bread) and "Chocolate."

Shortly after Christmas an Armenian turned up with a violin of sorts. I had been on the look-out for one for months.

He wanted a fict.i.tious price, and it wasn't a good one but fairly loud. The strings were on the wrong pegs, and such strings surely never existed before on any violin. The bow wanted some hair restorer badly. I tuned it up and powdered the few remaining hairs well on a lump of gummy resin, probably off a pine-tree, and then, by the smoking stove of a Turkish fire, I began to play--the first time for years and years. The room was empty but every one came up from below to see what on earth had happened. I found I had forgotten everything.

After a half-hour bits of Beethoven, Raff, Dvorak and Vieuxtemps came back to me, but they wanted waltzes and marches. The end of it was they persuaded me to buy the thing. I practised a.s.siduously for two or three hours a day for weeks and then the bow began to collapse and the strings gave out.

It was now dreadfully cold in one's room, but we managed to have some cheery evenings. Banjos made of hide stretched over tins purchased at the bazaar did quite well for an accompaniment. One of our number, Lieutenant Munro, has shown a deal of skill in cabinet making, and has turned out a 'cello which is the queerest thing in the whole world, looking rather like a dough roll squeezed considerably in the middle by a small boy until its waist threatens to go altogether.

But it makes a noise. My violin is improving wonderfully, and I have found some bad strings in an Armenian shop.

In other words, my violin has grown to a band composed of two violins, a 'cello, a cracked flute, a clarionet, and banjos.

The Admiral plays a little, and having unearthed another fiddle has come in as second violin. Major Davis plays the violin a little, and we are going to fossick others out. Drums are under construction, and another 'cello is to follow. Remains the music. As none has ever been seen in Kastamuni probably since the town existed, nor can be obtained anywhere or is allowed through, we have to write our own. This involves composition. There was luckily a volume of Prout's Harmony that turned up at Christmas, so one or two with leisure hours are working at it hard. We have had five practices. I never could have believed I would endure such an offensive noise, let alone help to make it! "Dreaming" and "Destiny" and "The Girl on the Film" were the first things we attempted. It was a thin stream of trickling melody followed by the weirdest of side noises!

How dreadfully cold it is, and how interminably long the winter seems! Malaria and colds have pursued us. Our boots have collapsed everywhere, and the few pairs in the bazaar cost over eight liras. Here, again, we have fallen back on ourselves, and two officers started repairing in an inst.i.tution called the "Sn.o.b's Shop." They are now quite good at it, and turn out really fine work. The only leather obtainable, however, is rotten local stuff.

Other prices have risen steadily. The wretched tea available is about two liras a pound, and there is little of that.

Sugar is ten shillings a pound, coffee dearer than tea, meat two shillings a pound, and wood works out at about three-pence a stick. The wonder is how all these people live. Many are pinched and haggard, and funeral processions in the snow are more frequent. The Turkish contractor at the _mektub_ has been playing the extortionate _role_, and for weeks we have threatened to strike and had meeting after meeting.

The net result has been to get the Turks' backs up against us, and it seems evident enough that the military authorities are in the financial swim with the fleecers. We have almost decided to mess ourselves--the chief objection to this being that every obstacle will be put in our way and prices will go up accordingly in the bazaar.

The other day we were allowed our permitted long walk and took the direction of the pine woods, away up the long ascent.

We trod in young snow a few inches deep. It was a glorious walk with the tiny bronze pines peeping through the white sheets that stretched from horizon to horizon over hill and valley. We climbed until on a patch of upland from which the sun had ousted the snow, thousands of tiny crocuses invited us to stop and listen to their premature whispers of spring. But since then winter seems to have fastened on us another clutch of unmistakable proprietorship. On our way back we stopped at our cemetery, which has gradually grown larger since we came. Last November the survivors of the unfortunate yacht _Nida_ reached us. She had struck a mine near Alexandretta and lost half her crew. The commander had a terribly rough trip here, and the disaster seemed to have preyed upon his mind. He died in the hospital here, poor fellow. Recently we buried a gunner orderly arrived from Angora. He had belonged to the 82nd R.F.A., and came with the last batch allowed us by the authorities as the result of continuous applications. The reports they brought of the men were simply terrible. Hundreds of them seem to have perished in the cold. The sick were allowed to die without any attention whatever. A daily loaf of bread and one blanket, and often no medical care at all, had accounted for hundreds.

Whole regiments are wiped out. Father Tim and the Reverend Wright, who were recently ordered to Kara Hissah for the other officers, managed to get a line back to us to the effect that the reports about the men were true. Rumours are in the air that General Townshend has gone home on parole and is arranging for us to be exchanged or go to a neutral country.

One can't hope for that. We have heard in the bazaar that Kut once more is in our hands. Thank G.o.d!

_May 1st._--At last the winter has gone, but it went slowly and fought a strenuous rearguard action up to quite recently.

How jolly it is to have dismantled those wretched tin stoves and be able to write and read in one's room once more. Walks have been resumed, and lead us even further and further afield. Many changes have overtaken us--changes seemingly insignificant and yet to us very momentous. We started to run our own mess in February, the Turks taking away all our Turkish and Greek servants and making us rely on our own orderlies. They prove themselves more childish and more babyish every week. An inquiry was held into affairs here, and the old kaimakam was thrown out, but Sheriff Bey, the worst of all, lied his way into remaining. Our new kaimakam is a more decent fellow, speaks German, and has lived in Berlin for four years. We have had him up to dinner, and it fell to me to do all the talking to him about Berlin. He means well, and has done all he can to help us, but he is so dreadfully afraid of Sheriff Bey and his own restrictions.

The band has made great strides. I'm now first violin and leader of the "Orchestra." We have five violins, two 'cellos and a double ba.s.s, besides the drums, two clarionettes, flute, and banjo, and the Human Crochet has made commendable progress in writing out our music from bits of anything we got through the post, piano solos, and many we have had to write from memory. We perform on Sat.u.r.day evenings alternately at either house. Sometimes we sound almost like a seaside band at Home!!! I long for the old Queen's Hall Concerts again. To attend even those, I would willingly forget the London Symphony or Nikisch's at the Gewandhaus in Leipsig. The band is almost the only live thing here. One pines for music. Every evening I can get (so to speak) with my violin beyond these forests and mountains. My window overlooks the town and I have quite an audience of Turkish heads listening. I am told the sound carries as far as the muezzin. These people have not heard any music in their lives, and think my crude efforts quite divine. Books arrive slowly. Swinburne has never come. But we have Shakespeare and some of Thackeray and a lot of cheap stuff.

With the advent of spring we all responded to the call and took fresh hope and formed new resolves. Amongst them I started a fortnightly paper called _Smoke_, the Kastamuni _Punch_ and _Tatler_. In a rash moment I finally consented to the "General's" request, the General being Captain Kirkwood, our Mess-President. So far it has been a decided success. Our artist was an officer from the Lower House whose handy pen finished the cartoon and ill.u.s.trated the serial and verse. The paper was not wholly given to ragging and joking, but in a serious corner we discussed aspects of Kut and the Trek and Kastamuni and the war. We also ran fict.i.tious notes from Kara Hissa, Yozgad, Brusa (where the generals are), and "Eve" of the _Tatler_ finally came to live in Kastamuni to cheer us up with a certain famous chaperone called "The Destroyer." The most popular article amongst our own mess was the current one called "The Oblong Table," at which we all sat--King Arthur, Sir John Happy Tight, Sir Saundontius the Good, Sir Sulphurous Blears, Sir Bedevere le Geant, Sir Leslie Bee de Canard, Sir Cliftus Smallkake, Sir Samuel Longbow, Sir Carol le Filbert, Sir Richard Oldlace, Sir Pompous Olda.s.s, Sir Lancelot the Bard, Sir Galahad the Silent, and Sir Rufus Appletree. And we lived well up to the best traditions of the Round Table, and conversations and jests and challenges flew to and fro. But altogether it is rather a sweat, as I have to do the whole thing, and then it has to be copied out again by some one with a decent caligraphy. Great care has to be taken to keep it out of the Turks' hands.

I have also worked on a further const.i.tutional study of the possible Society of Nations or International Body, following out const.i.tutional developments and tendencies as revealed by the war since my pre-war work "The Place of International Law in Jurisprudence."

And so what with the band and _Smoke_ and this diary and bits of French and my law work, I have plenty to do. I am only wondering how long it will be before these, too, follow the rest of our enterprises to oblivion. It is true that one's springs of action seem almost run out, and that with leading this dreary existence the iron of Kastamuni has already eaten into the souls of many. The psychology of a captive is an extraordinary one.

At night-time, when the last tremors of the muezzin have died away and all is still, we sometimes fancy we can hear the echoes of those great events that are rearranging the world, the crashing of nations in mortal combat, the battle cries of men fighting for their faith, the death cries of the fallen, above all, the cannon cacophany of the fire deluge.

And from here in the backwater of the world, without news or knowledge, our hearts go out to our countrymen on the other front, and we pray to G.o.d that we may soon be amongst them again.

CHAPTER XI

EXTRACTS AND PHOTOS FROM "SMOKE," THE KASTAMUNI "PUNCH"

_Smoke_ was the Kastamuni _Punch_, which I edited. Its existence became known to the Turks, who tried by every means to discover it. When I escaped from the prison in Stamboul, I had it around my waist. Unwilling to risk its capture in my subsequent adventures, I entrusted it to some one in Stamboul, from where it was safely recovered after the entry of the British troops. The photos are of the original copy and the extracts perpetrated by me.

(1) Letter from "Eve," whom to cheer our loneliness we transported to live amongst us in Kastamuni.

201, Curzon Street, Mayfair, May 28th, '17.

DEAR MR. SMOKE,

Such wonderful news for you. I'm to leave for Kastamuni in two days. Think of it, my dear. For Kastamuni and all of you. Almost _too_ wonderful, isn't it? You know by the time the third edition of _Smoke_ arrived home it became quite well known that you were incorporated with the _Tatler_, and, of course, you and I are naturally expected to become awfully interested in each other. Also by a marvellous bit of planning on the part of Providence at the same time Mrs. Huntingdon-East received such an extraordinarily warm-hearted letter from a Mr. Carol Manrow of Kastamuni (do you know him?), begging her to visit Kastamuni and prescribe for his (little Carol's, if you please) loneliness, and also--but I mustn't tell you too much, must I?