The Secrets of a Kuttite Part 36

There were, besides himself, six survivors of my battery. I spoke to some of the men. Their sufferings last winter had been awful in the Taurus, and even here at No. 12, Angora.

They had lived in holes in the ground, without kit or cover, working from sunrise to sunset on the roads. Their food was a mixture of wheat and water, and sometimes bones. One called it Chorba. At the end of their meagre reserve strength they fell ill. Some were then thrashed. Others were left to die, and in some cases did not receive even bread-and-soup rations unless their friends earned this for them by working overtime. Here also the deaths had been so numerous that the survivors kept themselves going by the dead men's parcels which a German commandant caused to be distributed now and then. The stories of the men having been compelled to eat various kinds of vermin found on them was verified beyond shadow of doubt. This was the Turkish method of keeping down typhus. It was, however, impossible for our poor lads, in the appalling conditions under which they lived, to keep themselves clean. There had been several mutinies, and often unsuccessful escapes, also with disastrous consequences.

I heard a ghastly rumour of some sick British soldiers suspected of having cholera being deliberately murdered with a dark serum with which they were inoculated, and from which almost no one was known to recover, death usually following within two or three hours. I cannot vouch for this being true, so record the fact as it stands. There are very many Turkish officers who would scorn to do this. On the other hand, there is the cla.s.s of official like the _Vali_, promoted to Angora _Vilayet_, when his predecessor refused to countenance a wholesale ma.s.sacre of Armenians in 1916. This enterprising gentleman picked his troops, and then, firing half the Armenian quarter, drove the other half into it. I heard the most terrible stories of fanatical Turks bursting in upon a family at their evening meal. The men and old women and children were first killed. The young and prettiest girls were promised life, but were spared only for a night or two. One heard of cases where a busy _Askar_ in the middle of the carnage maimed a girl to prevent her getting away.

We thought Angora was very changed. So were several of the Armenian villages a few marches out of Angora where we had bought milk and fruit on our outward journey. They were now deserted. Weeds grew above the walls and in the burned floors. Here and there a vine or vegetable told of the swift and terrible change. Still Armenians go about in Angora, having daily affairs with the Turks. A consuming fire of black impotent hate is in their hearts. And because it is impotent the Armenian has by destiny become treacherous. Fatteh and I talked German on many things; and after whistling the "Merry Widow" out of tune for another hour, he fell asleep.

We reached Eski Chehir in early morning and found our Choush quite willing to be reasonable, if we did him well. We went to the hotel opposite, had a meal, slept, and then walked to the town with our guard. Some loud and rather disreputable women, Armenian and Jewish Levantines, I think, were in the hotel. They were in some theatrical show, or had been.

Greenwood and I described them as performing women. We travelled on again that night with Fatteh Bey and our guard.

Fatteh promised many things for us in Constantinople, but being pensioned off, seemed doubtful of his ground.

The carriages were packed with travellers, including a great number of children with mothers. They carried household effects. One heard they were Armenians or Greeks whose husbands were dead, and they were off to some new town.

We heard a confirmation that the big terminus station of the Baghdad line on the Asiatic side of Constantinople, Haidah Pacha, had been blown up two or three days previously.

After a pleasant run round Ismid Gulf we got to Ismid, a large town with railway works. There in the silvery waters of the Marmora we beheld Principo, Halki, and the other islands, their bronze green shimmering in the bright sunshine.

A few sails were on the sea, the sea, the sea! Never shall I forget the thrill we both had as, for the first time, after ages in tiny mud dug-outs, flat plains, and a taunting confinement behind a high range, we saw, a few yards off us, the sparkling drops glistening as they fell from the tiny waves of the Marmora.

The sky darkened as we stopped at a place called Kadakeuy.

We now heard Haidah Pacha was in ruins, as a well-directed plot had arranged that a huge consignment of petrol should be fired. The flames prevented a train-load of ammunition from being removed. This went off, playing havoc all around. Missiles had been thrown into the adjoining districts.

After some delay we got our scanty kit on a ferry. The boxes had not arrived. They contained our all. From the paddle steamer we beheld a thunderstorm burst over Stamboul.

The minarets stood out above the streaks of yellow and electric blue. Altogether I thought it a most impressive and magnificent city, with all the beauty and pa.s.sion and mystery of Turner. From the close quarters of Galata bridge it appeared less delightful. We said good-bye to Fatteh. It was now nearly sunset. Our Choush, who had been quite pleasant hitherto, grew obstreperous. We were bandied about from barracks to barracks, deserted empty buildings that made a tired and sick traveller faint. He wouldn't allow us to get any food. We drew nourishment from the strange sights and a few pleasant ones, such as the dainty progression of Turkish ladies. They were sombrely but prettily apparelled from head to foot in the prescribed Mussalman dress, an overmantle from the forehead thrown back and hanging over the shoulders as a cape. For the most part their carriage was excellent. The better-looking ones were more or less unveiled.

As it grew dark we grew hungrier. We were tired and sick, and in pain, hungry, cold, and thirsty. In this state to have to sit hour after hour in an _arabana_, with the fees amounting up to the last paper notes in one's pocket, while one's guard goes off to drink or gets lost, left in his absence to the unkind caprice of a pa.s.sing soldier, is the lot of a prisoner of war. Some time after dark we halted at an Armenian church, now our new commandant's office. The locality was called Psamatia. Here was more delay. A doll-faced and heavily-scented Turkish subaltern at last appeared, and after administering ridiculous questions, left us to some vicious-looking postas, who led us away. Our _arabana_ took us on another half-mile, and stopped at a tall, gloomy building behind heavy, tall iron railings. We crossed a tiny yard behind them about forty feet by fifteen. The gate was double locked and guarded by sentries. We groped in the dark, up flights of stairs, through the empty house, and reached a room where was an iron bedstead and a filthy mattress. Here we were left.

After a moment or two some white-faced pyjamad figures came to us, and proved to be Russian prisoners from Salakamish, prisoners already for three years! One, Roussine by name, we liked better than the rest. We drank their tea, almost water, but it was hot, and we talked of news. Roussine was inclined to be Bolshevist, and as Russia was now collapsing, we held decided opinions on it. We ate some raisins brought all the way from Kastamuni, and I remember well with what solemnity on this sad night of disillusionment, I regarded those raisins. This, then, was the Stamboul of rest and peace, of clean sheets, of fresh flowers, medical attention, and delightfully prepared meals handed to me by some Byronian Stamboulie! A garret empty save for rats and bugs! No food, no water, only the selfsame raisins. We still said we were glad to have left Kastamuni, but, all the same, they made us almost homesick for that we had left behind.

This was the first night. Others were precisely similar.

No one came, no one cared. The third day we got black bread. Water that had flowed intermittently from a single pipe now ceased. The commandant had been once to see us in the dark. I complained to him. He was one of the worst type of Turks I have met, a sullen, ignorant, hopeless brute.

He said _peckee_ (very good) once or twice and withdrew, his tin sword clinking down the ghosty stairs.

We wondered how long this would last.

PART III STAMBOUL AND BRUSA

CHAPTER XIII

PSAMATIA (STAMBOUL)--STARVATION AND NEGLECT IN HOSPITAL AND GARRISON--PLOTS TO ESCAPE BY THE BOSPHORUS--I ORGANIZE ESCAPE FROM PSAMATIA THROUGH THE HEART OF STAMBOUL--STORM AND WRECK ON SEA OF MARMORA--RETURN

Sentries stood on the stairway to keep us from talking to some Russian soldiers herded like animals down below.

We had not noticed them the first night, as they had been on fatigue. On occasion one might go downstairs to walk on the tiny stone courtyard. From near our room the stairs led upwards to a large garret from where one looked over Stamboul. The view of the city from here was excellent.

The many minarets flanking an expansive sea stood out against the sun. One idea was predominant--the idea that seldom if ever left us--Escape! The walls were high. Guards marched ceaselessly to and fro below.

Among the prisoner officers was a sea captain. Greenwood and I consorted with him. Our plan was through the local restaurant, a wretched hovel, whither we were allowed once about every three days for a meal of Kariwannah (vegetable soup). We offered heavy bribes for oars. It meant going over the high roofs with the hope finally of getting down, seizing a boat, and trying the Bosphorus disguised, getting out to the Black Sea before the dawn, or trying a long walk to Rumania on the chance of something turning up _en route_.

But a few days after we arrived some Rumanian prisoners escaped from a working party. All boats were drawn up, and only the heavy ones allowed on the seash.o.r.e. Guards were redoubled. Our hopes diminished.

We watched from our desolate room all day long to get acquainted with the movement of ships and trains. The Balkan Express pa.s.sed near our house, but every point was guarded. We were somewhat weak and ill, but waited for our chance. Money was a hindrance. This deterred us more than the fact that the train was heavily guarded and closely searched, and ran through Bulgaria, where prison life was even worse--or Austria, if one chanced to get there. After some ten days, we were sent to hospital, guarded by a Turkish soldier, without any papers, and were told we weren't wanted, as it was not a prisoners' hospital. At one of these Greenwood remained, but he was placed by mistake in an infectious disease ward, and when, in addition, a junior subaltern proposed the most serious alternative operations, he made himself such a nuisance that he was sent back to the prison camp.

In the meantime I wrote letters in French and German and English, which I gave to pa.s.sers-by or threw into the road, and more than one I gave to German soldiers, who were sympathetic with us. I wrote Bach Pasha himself, quoting extracts from Conventions and Parliament on reciprocity of prisoners' treatment.

The net result was the appearance, late one night, of our commandant, livid with rage and excitement. Roussine and I were playing chess by a flickering oil light, and my eyes were bandaged. He strode up and dashed the chessmen violently to the ground, and kept on touching his sword.

I am afraid his wrath was nothing to mine. I intended to impress him with the fact that we were not schoolboys, and in vigorous manner demanded why he hadn't visited us, or given us bread or water, or allowed us our boxes. Was this the hospital? Was he the commandant? Was it not a whole week since, as he rode by, we besought him through the railings for bread? I was overwrought with pain and endurance, and came very close to physical remonstration. We literally shouted him down. This brought the Russians around.

Before they had been cowed down, now they lamented loudly too. All the while the doll subaltern stood by the commandant, obeying his orders, but the sickest and sorriest object one could wish to see. Most of all, I demanded leave to see the commandant when necessary, in order to get an application read.

We were then allowed once daily to the restaurant for half an hour. Hospital attention seemed out of the question.

We made one more attempt, when the Chief of Haidah Pasha Hospital sent for us, but the Choush took us to the wrong hospital, through ignorance, and we were not allowed to explain. We gave up hope of treatment. Then Ramazan commenced, and the commandant did not appear for days together.

I was now watched, especially for letters. An amusing incident concerned a letter I sent after this to Bach Pasha, and one to the Dutch Minister. We had been so well watched that all communication seemed impossible with the outside world. For example, in the restaurant our plates were searched, and our seats also after we had left. We were not permitted to speak in any language our interpreter did not know--generally Turkish only. I had contrived to leave more than one letter in the street. If directed officially in German, I thought it probable that it would be sent on.

Bach Pasha, the German General in charge of prisoners, did not, however, prove sufficiently enthusiastic to reply. I quoted conventions and parliamentary extracts for his benefit in case we got freed. He now evidently rang the commandant up, who merely came round and ordered me not to be allowed to speak to any one. Our bread ration ceasing the following day, I wrote another letter. As I paced up and down the tiny courtyard, waiting for a German soldier to pa.s.s, the postas followed every movement. I managed, however, to have more than one conversation with Germans by pretence of declaiming aloud from a book as I walked. The difficulties were that the sentry would see a letter thrown on the path, also that no German was allowed to approach the bars if I was near them. I had managed to talk to one private from Wilmersdorf, a suburb of Berlin, a homesick lad who hated the Turks and enjoyed outwitting them. Besides, I said the letter was for his officer. I told him not to approach until I was seized. Seeing some other privates approaching in the distance, I beckoned to them with my right hand with some cigarettes, and rushed towards them. Half a dozen Turks seized my hand and the cigarettes before I had gone five yards, in order to interrupt me from communicating to the Germans approaching. They did not notice, however, that as I waved my right hand, I had placed a letter on the bars. The German from Wilmersdorf, who, instructed by me, had waited close by, dropped some cigarettes in. The postas rushed up. I saw a certain cell if the letter was still there; but it had gone.

The Russians, who had breathlessly watched the show from on top, cheered loudly. It was great fun seeing our lad return an hour later, on the opposite side of the road, and hear him shouting, ostensibly to his companion, "Richtig.

Gegeben." I had said certain things, and results could safely be expected.

Nothing happened the next day until about 8.30. By the glimmer of a fat candle the Russians and I were playing chess with some pieces I had had sent out from home. My eyes were bandaged up, and I had to peer over the board to play. We were deep in a game, trying to forget our wretched pains and hunger, when loud stamps, followed by increasing roars, approached the room. The door was kicked open, and our commandant, his face black with hate and rage, strode up to us, struck the board with his fist, and knocked things off the table. The only way to impress a Turk is with rage or fear. He had hardly struck the board when I started up, knocking and kicking the bench and chairs yards away. I rushed to the door, shut it violently, and cannoned into the fighting wax doll of a subaltern who accompanied him.

Being bandaged up I had a good excuse for going within an inch of the commandant's head. I told him things in Turkish and French, and more in English. We threatened him, showed him some official letters from England I had kept, and told him that answers were already on their way to England about his treatment of our men, and that he was in for it, whatever happened. It appeared that some kind of inquiry had been made about our ability to write letters, rather than about our cause of complaint. However, he had at least to realize that we weren't children, to be starved to death without a protest. He had evidently been well reprimanded for my having contrived to write letters. In fact, my letters had become quite a propaganda.

Russians flocked into the room, and, once started, they also developed considerable horse-power, although the poor brutes were too much kicked to say much.

The commandant ended up by mopping his head and ordering me to go to gaol. But he subsided later, and after waiting an hour in the cold, quite triumphant, I was allowed to remain in my quarters. The next day we got one loaf and some water, and were allowed to go to a filthy eating-shop "to have hoof soup!" Instead I ordered eggs at an enormous price, and, having eaten them, left it to the posta to carry on, for we were months behind in our pay, and were not allowed to cash cheques or get our Emba.s.sy moneys. This led to a wordy scene in the street, and while the row was on I got another letter off to the Dutch Minister by exchanging matchboxes with a Greek. In it were my last lira note and a letter. That night the commandant came again, and with dignity almost too terrible even to be laughed at, pointed to me with his tin sword, and ordered me to be taken away. I felt relieved.

Change is good for the soul.

We filed through the moonlight, a solemn little procession of my few goods and blanket. A posta, who had received from me heavy bribes--an awful scamp--took this opportunity of jostling me along, to ingratiate his commandant.

I arrived at the garrison, the camp office of the commandant, who, however, lived on the Asiatic side.

I was shown into a small empty room. The door was locked behind me, but after some time, fearing I would escape from the window, they unlocked it. I was not allowed out of the room for the first day. Repeated remonstrations with the posta resulted in nothing but the information that I had to call the Choush if I wanted anything. Late that night they pushed in a filthy straw mattress, ages old. Bugs fell from it as it was carried in. It swarmed with them.

Being by now fairly accustomed to them, I tried to sleep.

Their voracity, however, proved too much. I was not allowed to push it out of the door, so I put it out of the window into the street. A posta was below, and reported this. Another posta reappeared, and I gave him cigarettes for him to keep it. He tried to sleep on it, and loud roars of laughter kept me awake all night. They, also, had tried in vain.

A low-cla.s.s Armenian was now allowed to buy me food.

He retained half the price for himself. The fellow was an absolute bounder and coward, a hypocrite at heart and a treacherous cur at all times. I can safely say he spied not only to save his skin, but at any time there seemed money in it.

I heard tick-tacking in Morse from the men's quarters in the same quadrangle. Quite an amount I made out. They wanted money, money. I tried to buzz a message or two back on the violin. Staccato notes are quite effective in their way.

I had no access to the commandant. The room was small, but the light from the window was so intense that my eyes could not stand it. I hung most of my clothes upon it. When I did not sleep, I planned and planned escape. It all seemed futile, but nevertheless one went on. I wanted, at any rate, to get outside. Five days after, a Turk drove up in a carriage to see the commandant. He seemed a man of note, and I saw the commandant bow graciously to him, and make as to kiss his hand. Giving them time to get into conversation, I forced my way past the old posta, and kicked into pieces a door of what had once been a bathroom. One had got tired of being days without water or convenience. Three or four soldiers came in, but I made as if to bolt out the back way, and then sprinted upstairs, back as if to my room, pa.s.sed it, and, in a wild, dishevelled state, burst in on the commandant.

I gave my reason to the distinguished guest, and altogether the commandant was badly rattled, for I showed a letter from an important quarter in England about our treatment, and he appeared very disturbed. I made a horrible scene by refusing to leave the room, and eventually got leave to go out for a walk around the thirty yards' beat of the yard for half an hour a day. Here, for the first time, I managed secretly to get direct speech with our men, most of whom were either totally or partially disabled. They had been collected for exchange. On each occasion, months apart, they had got as far as the station, some even on to the train, but the train so far had never gone.

They had not been paid for months. A Turkish subaltern had stolen some of their pay and faked a receipt.

Their parcels had been opened, and a one-armed sergeant, who spoke up, had been a.s.saulted by the guard. We were almost the first officers to arrive at Psamatia, and the first the men had seen for years. From them I heard details of the fall of Baghdad.

I got a letter into the Kivas' pocket about all this for the Dutch Minister, Monsieur Villebois. A few days after this a fat, beefy figure entered the door and said, "Bleiben sie ruhig." It was our new commandant, Gelal Bey. I had at least effected some good result by getting the old rascal kicked out. I can honestly say that his own postas loathed him, and said he put their soup money in his pocket. Matters improved to a degree. Some order was possible, and a minimum of freedom.

Gelal was a straight Turk, from what I saw of him, and certainly more fair. The men's complaints were heard and some were allowed a daily walk, although it was obvious my reputation was quite terrible. A raging toothache I had had for a fortnight was now mercifully righted. The other commandant had not allowed a visit to a dentist. Before this I had been fairly sick of my room, and even went so far as to try to burn the whole show down with a large box of matches which I stuffed in a rat-hole; but the fire went out, probably, I should think, extinguished by bugs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BAGHDAD CAPTURED AT LAST. GENERAL MAUDE'S ENTRY]

It was before this new commandant arrived that I commenced arrangements for sending news to England. A Sergeant Mandel, who had lost one arm at the shoulder, was to be exchanged, and I arranged for him to take it, as I thought him a likely person for exchange, but I wanted to run no risks.

He was strongly for having it put in a crutch, or sewn into the sole of his boot; but as I antic.i.p.ated a search of every particle of kit, I adopted my own plan. With my scanty money I bought candles. Having written my letter quite small and as carefully as I could with my bunged-up eyes, I rolled it up tightly in a small cylindrical shape, and making a paper mould around it, filled up the interstices with dripped fat, thus making a candle with the letter inside. This was to preserve it. I shaved it down, pushed it in a water-bottle, and ran the other candles boiling into it, thus filling the bottle two inches from the bottom. I shook it, and found it firm. The bottle was then filled up with strong tea. This was because it was not transparent, and cold tea was a usual drink--when one could get it.

I hoped this would answer, and that they would not suspect anything. Nothing rattled, and inside the water-bottle was quite dark.