CHAPTER XII SPRING--PLOTS TO ESCAPE--BETRAYAL--ESCAPE OF OTHERS--I AM SENT TO STAMBOUL FOR HOSPITAL

In this diary, notwithstanding it has been written in the greatest secrecy and kept hidden, I have nevertheless refrained from including any mention of a subject that in my latter days in Kastamuni engaged almost all my attention, i.e. escape. Besides being an unnecessary risk, it would have been unfair to those concerned. I am adding a note from Brusa.

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After our first winter in Kastamuni, the warmth of April stirred our blood to respond to the call of spring. I decided to try every human device to get away.

The Turks asked us to give our parole not to escape. A keen controversy sprang up in our midst. From the point of view of some officers it meant a few more privileges and less punishment, and escape was almost impossible anyway they said.

Some senior officers were for giving orders forbidding the whole camp individually to escape. Others, including myself, considered this a private matter for the person concerned. I refused my parole, and was down in a black list of the Turks. It meant extra convoy and less privileges, but we asked for, and were given, no facilities for escaping than what we could make.

In the town some months before I had got to know a Russian "runner," Kantimaroff by name, who was interned in Kastamuni, but secretly in touch with the Russians. For a heavy bribe he got me news of the Black Sea coast only some forty kilometres to the north. So careful was I with Kantimaroff that outside the Turkish baths I spoke to him only once, and then in a shop.

It would take many chapters to set down all the many changes of programme of increased and diminishing hope according as the octroi posts between us and the ranges were changed, or as the Black Sea patrol scoured this coast for fishing-boats. Sometimes vigilance was so increased as to terrify any one against helping us at all. This took months.

At last, by great good fortune, I discovered a Greek outlaw, on whose head the Turks had put a price. He was in hiding, and wanted to get away to Russia. He was in need of money, and, provided he did not run too much risk, would meet us at the Black Sea's edge, and take us with him.

Kantimaroff, who was practically free in Kastamuni, sent him again and again to the coast, or said he did. The scheme looked rosy enough. The main road to Ineboli was heavily guarded, as was that to Samsun.

But between them was a track over the mountains known only to a few. It led to a sacked village halfway to the coast. Here, formerly, the Greek had lived. It was within ten miles of the sea, and in case the coast were too crowded one might rendezvous here in caves.

The boat problem was the most serious. All these had been collected or destroyed by the German and Turkish authorities, and only a few licensed ones were allowed at all. They were simply not to be had for any money. The nearest coast of Russia lay only 250 miles away.

The Greek, however, after collecting a considerable amount of money for his trips to and from the coast, announced that he had bought a boat, tested it, and buried it in the sand near a creek. There were oars, but no sail. It was while waiting for the return of the Greek on this occasion that Captain Ellis of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry asked to accompany me, and Lieutenant Sweet of the Gurkhas also decided to come. We had every detail ready, our kit and disguises and stores and compass, and wanted to start that night. But Kantimaroff said he could not agree to this. Suspicion might fall on him. He must be given a few days to perfect his schemes. It was now June, and the moon was rising too early. A later rising about 11 p.m., while leaving us obscured in getting out of the town, would enable us to negotiate the hills and rocky detours we proposed to make, as quickly as possible. So we decided to wait. In the meantime I reserved for myself the supreme luxury of breaking bounds to test the feasibility of this part of our programme. Just after dinner, when the other officers were settling down to bridge, and before the postas had put on their all-important "night" bearing, for at night they were extra vigilant, I side-tracked the sentry downstairs and hid in the woodshed. After waiting half an hour for exchange of guard I got a tiny window open and hopped out into our back-yard. I had to wait another hour before I could close it behind me. Then I went through the yard, over a roof-top and a high wall, and found myself half stunned at the bottom of the wall on a side street, with some sleepy Turks near by going to prayer.

The mischievous feeling of a schoolboy breaking bounds for the first time was nothing to mine, although I had been out on previous occasions. This time I felt that the first step of the escape was feasible. I wandered around the town in a fez and old clothes, shuffling a pair of dilapidated shoes À la Turque, and coughing steadily. This because I had disguised my face with a scarf as if I had a severe cold in the head. I found out where the postas were, and where not, and after more than one narrow squeak got back over the wall with the greatest difficulty, pulling a part of it down in doing so. Some days later, as the plan was being held up, it was necessary for me to get out again. This time I slipped out in the afternoon in uniform with a basket of purchases, ostensibly from the bazaar. Now, sometimes our postas lagged behind us in the town so that an officer walking apparently alone was no uncommon sight. It worked beautifully. On being seen alone with the purchases I imagined our own postas would think I had outdistanced or lost my posta, and on this occasion I merely walked boldly past all our sentries and into the front door of our house. They were suspicious the second time. Not a word of all this I said to any one. Experience was dearly bought and precious.

Two days before we were to start I heard that somehow or other Kantimaroff had been approached by a party from the Lower House, and anxious to reap a double harvest, he had, it appeared, taken money from them and divulged about the boat. At this time any intercourse between the houses was difficult, and I endeavoured to communicate with Keeling, who was organizing the other escape. Ellis was less watched than I was and asked the other party not to touch Kantimaroff who was, it appeared, heavily suspected. We agreed to give each other notice of our "bunk" so as to arrange to go the same night. So soon as one party got away the other would have little chance.

I now met Vicomte d'Arici, the Italian songster that had lately come to Kastamuni, and who resided with the Italian interned. I met him secretly in the castle above our house, and he helped me with information considerably. I found also that he was a political prisoner, and had done an amount of political work before the war, and knew people I knew in Berlin and on the Continent. He was a light-hearted and plucky fellow, and except that it wouldn't suit him, would have come himself. He told me to beware of Kantimaroff, who was on the point of betraying us to the Turks. The Greek seemed straight enough, and wanted to see us.

Later I took Ellis, and we both had a night "rehearsal." Being two helped matters at the wall. We improved our disguise, and even gave lights to unsuspecting Turks.

On the way back, however, we took a wrong corner and ran into the arms of a sentry who challenged us. Ellis tried to answer in Turkish, which was fatal. The sentry was obdurate. He had hold of us lightly by the sleeve. Pushing some liras into his hand we disengaged ourselves and took to our heels, scrambled over the wall, and got back into bed by inches ahead of the search party.

The next morning, to our secret amusement, and the wonder of the camp, a certain major, who had given his parole, and who used to walk about proudly without any postas at all, was suspected by the Turks with having been "out at night." The variations of the rumour were highly interesting. Who were the two out? Every one good humouredly accused every one else, and quite a number of officers decided to get out as it now appeared that it could be done.

I supplied the other escape party with particulars of the brigands with Cowi Bey in the valleys between us and the sea. If one could get to them the chances were that for a ransom they would assist one across the Black Sea with the extreme chance of getting knocked on the head for one's boots. I was now secretly informed by d'Arici that I was heavily suspected. This made inter-communication between houses most difficult. Sweet who was in the Lower House decided to start with the other party, and Captain Ellis and Lieutenant Taylor, I.A.R., who were in my house, to come with me. We got everything ready, and on an evening in the third week in July, we waited in our room ready to start with all our disguises and equipment ready. At the last moment I got an urgent message that Kantimaroff's house was picketed by police, and the Greek had run away in fright to a house near by. We made one more desperate effort to go and join him and make our plans after getting out. I sent urgent messages to Lieutenant Keeling through our trusty Sergeant Britain not to try to see Kantimaroff openly, as he was suspected. However, that day he and two members of the other party went up to the Russians in the street, with the consequence that I got a chit on a paper bag saying the Greek had fled, and he was in danger of his life and that, for the money we had given him, he could not do more than give us all the information he had. The same night a posta was delegated to watch me, and every half-hour he came to my bed. We waited for an opportunity. None came. And our escape, which had offered a most excellent chance of success, went "phut" accordingly.

The other party duly informed us that they intended to start. Three weeks afterwards they did. The posta had just left me about eleven, when we heard a shot. Some excitement occurred down below, and postas swarmed up to our house to see if I was there. Search parties were out all night.

We were all confined to our house. Next day I heard that at the last minute the escape was nearly nipped in the bud at the start. This was prevented by our old Bombardier Prosser, who did servant down there. One of the party forgot his watch, and actually sent the bombardier, who was showing them out, back for it. A posta accosted him. He knocked the posta down, and rushing up to his room, shaved his moustache off and got into bed. They had him out and listened to his heart to see, as they did on such occasions, if it was still beating quickly. This would have meant he had just been out.

We remained under "bund" without incident. Hourly reports came that the other party had been captured. But they didn't return. The following notice appeared posted up next day and signed by the commandant.

"Possession of the offensives have been taken. Other officers are requested not to escape, and will be surely shot in bunking. Officers offensive in this fashion, giving their parole, are informed they must be fired at in any case. All are requested to be happy. Do not take rotten advantage of your old postas for God sake. This is final notice before shooting. Let the special one note."

I was voted the special one in my house.

We heard a rumour that the party while trying to avoid the bandits in making for the coast had actually struck the main band, and after getting away, tried to pass off as Germans. They were discovered. I have no wonder—and a letter written by an officer, amateur at Turkish, was taken.

Clumsy as the start was, they have done well, and we all wish them the very best of luck.

So the days dragged on and the nights stood still. Once more summer was over. Once more it seemed we were entering the long stretch of autumn that led into the terrors of winter, with its cold, and scarcity of food that our slender means could not negotiate. But through the nights and days always, always, there was the same range of hills dividing us from the sea. In the first days of September there suddenly appeared in Kastamuni a tall Turkish Mir Ali (full colonel), named Zia Bey, the inspecting officer of the Government. He came to hear our complaints. His visit last year had been hailed with great glee, but we had since learned that these events were shorn of possibilities of increase of liberty. He came, no doubt, to inquire about the escape. We were still heavily under "bund," and so he visited each house. He had a pleasant appearance, was very quiet, and extraordinarily polite, but he did nothing. We stood around his chair while our spokesman told of our petty troubles, the large ones we knew it useless to recount, so we asked for fresh air and money and leave for our British servants to go to the pump without a posta as they were few and we were often thirsty. He noted our points, but promised nothing except one or two.

I heard him ask which was I, and I could see I was still under heavy suspicion about escaping, although my eyelids were so swollen that I could not see at all out of one eye, and only indifferently out of the other. But I was not so blind that I could not see that Zia was the polite type of lazy Turk that in the heart of him has fear. I said nothing of the scheme that evolved itself as we all sat together. It was fatal to hand over one's embassy to another. When he had gone I wrote a letter to him.

My assets were that I had really been very ill from the effects of a shell contusion in my spine for a very long time. Of this I could show nothing except in two places, the vertebrÆ were parted and irregular, and one had since grown nearer. If one could refer to anything so damnable as captivity being blighted, I might say that bruise has blighted mine. Of the untold hours that I lie awake waiting, waiting, for the roof, sky, and earth to stop pulsating to the pulsation in my spine, no one can ever know. But the eye trouble, originally strain from shell-shock and from grit, is now only bad conjunctivitis, although it looks awfully serious. As first violin of our band my bandaged eye, and, later, my absence, had been conspicuous enough to the Turks. Moreover, I had recently received word from the late Lord Grey and a letter from some friends at the Foreign Office. In one letter a kind inquiry existed about my health, noting the special treatment our enemy prisoners were getting in cases like mine in London, and saying medicine and glasses were being sent me to save my eyes in the meantime. On this I made my case without threatening the Turk, but indicating that they had become aware of my case in London. That I had been so neglected my eyes were imperilled, and that whatever had happened in the past the inspecting officer, at all events, now had the opportunity of giving me in Stamboul the treatment that the Turks got in our best hospitals.

I terrified my interpreter into giving this application to Zia Bey himself, as I could not trust Sheriff Bey. This I did by showing him another letter to be delivered by another source that night to Zia Bey, showing that as had happened in previous cases applications were not allowed to reach him. Ananias, as we called him, took my letter to Zia Bey. The next morning I was summoned to the office. They led me down. Several fat Turks stuck oily thumbs into my eyes. The local doctor had to say what my complaint was, and although they admitted that under him my eyes had got worse, and he would not accept further responsibility, they allowed him to say what the trouble was. It developed into a hot discussion. I refused, point blank, to be diagnosed by a doctor who wasn't a specialist. Had they no specialists? Finally they produced a file of letters to me and extracts and bad reports on "qatcheor" (escaping). They asked me if I was willing to go to Angora for examination. Now I loathed this place above all, but it was en route to Constantinople. Here I made the most important move of my captivity. Lieutenant Greenwood, with a smashed shoulder from football, aggravated by an old wound in Kut, was a dead certainty to go. I refused unless I could go with him. They agreed.

On my return the whole camp was discussing "Mousley." How the devil had he worked it! What a fool he was to go to Angora! Others said I was going to escape en route or at Constantinople. I was told I was leaving the next day.

Oh, the delicious whirl of life again as I felt the first unloosening of the chains. Only three officers at long intervals have gone over the mountains from our camp to Constantinople. Here in this basin by the Black Sea, buried from the world, and far away from the great issue, one has been left alone with one's inactivity, one's interrupted career, the unaccepted portion of one's sacrifice, and has too much time for morbidity. But now, to-day, the sun shines on Kastamuni as it never did. The postas are more than kind. The castle alone is green. I may be off to an indifferent fate, but I am off. Munro our lightning carpenter has justified his reputation.

"A box, righto! This cupboard just it. Oh yes, about twenty minutes." So he did. He kicked the lid off, closed the sides, braced the back, and altered the hinges, and as we looked there appeared the box good and strong. I have packed a heavy accumulation of stores as belated parcels have recently started to arrive in exciting quantities.

I have given away all my spare kit to my former companions. In fact, with my good joy, I couldn't auction anything. Every one has been very kind and given me odds and ends for the journey, and the doctor has sent up special packages of emergencies en route. I am told I am to leave at dawn, but we are still under bund, and I can neither visit the other houses nor see Greenwood to make a bandobast for the journey. It will mean our carrying two of some things and nothing of others. The Round Table gave me a very lively dinner. My box is ready with all my worldly possessions, including my manuscript packed in below. I tried to get a false bottom made to my box, but with the wood this is not possible in time, although I expect a search, but rely on their previous permission given to me to work at these.

Angora.—We arrived here last night on foot in a battered, lame, halting and blind condition in the dark. I must set down how our gay cavalcade that left Kastamuni early on September 3rd dwindled away to this. After my last entry I did not leave the following morning, but waited in terrible tension lest they should cancel the arrangement. But the delay was the worst. One horse had just had a foal, and a substitute could not be found. Another horse had gone sick and had no shoes. The arabana or wagon was to cost us twenty liras. This we refused to pay out of our funds, but told them to cut it out of our pay. As a matter of fact, and by a miracle, we got off paying, as, of course, we ought. They found an old vehicle in some yard and put the commandant's bodyguard on to it. They nailed up the wheels, put on a cover, and in the early dawn Ananias, the interpreter, burst into my room screaming "Haidee." This was the day after my last entry. Sergeant Britain, our very estimable N.C.O., and another took my box and kettles downhill to the commandant. Here I was made to sign my pay sheet. Then, suddenly, Sheriff Bey entered the room, closed the door and demanded to see all in my pockets. I had to produce them. He took from me my private papers, including addresses, dates of remittances received, numbers of cheques cashed, and private accounts. Also my manuscript music in part. Then, tragedy of tragedies, he demanded on my word of honour if I had anything else written. One was by this time fairly sick of giving one's word on nothing, but there was no way out. I told him, however, that I had had permission to work on my book, and on a law study, that I had given much time and thought to this, that they knew in England I was working at it, and that I would show him all I had if he promised to give it me back on my assurance that it contained nothing against the Turk or of military or political importance. His glee on receiving a large book of manuscript was unbounded. The interpreter read parts of this to him, anecdotes of captivity, of the campaign and other selections on problems of the new International State or Society. He assured me on his sworn word of honour I should have them back at once after the censor had seen them if they contained no plans of Turkish Forts, and in any case on the signing of peace. (I subsequently heard my book was found torn up in his office.) In vain I begged for them. He felt that at last he had me at a disadvantage. I appealed to Zia Bey. He was all politeness, and gave orders my name should be carefully and legibly written on the book. But my heart sank as I thought of the fate of such things on former occasions, and of the many many hours I had worked at it.

Our kit was put on board the wagon, a place made with our rugs for Greenwood to rest his broken shoulder, and an orderly named Mathews, who was being sent back to Angora for breaking barracks repeatedly, was to do servant for us. This was untold luxury compared with our trip to Kastamuni eighteen months before, but I was terribly depressed over my book and parts of this diary. Valuable or worthless, it stood in any case for a part of my life, and I felt as though something very close to me had been snatched away. For many months here and there I had written this. It was a history written among dying men, not of them, but of many things, and such that I can never reproduce. On many a night in winter, by a black smoky oil light bought with money saved from my tobacco or mastik money, I had worked with the flickering wick near my bandaged eyes, my two worn blankets wrapped around my legs and feet, stockings around my head and neck to keep out the paralysing cold. Outside was three feet of snow, and sleet and wind from the Russian waste blew icily over the Black Sea straight to my window. Ours was the highest and coldest house in camp, and faced the north high on the bluff above the town. And so I wrote and re-wrote until often only my writing hand remained unfrozen.

Before leaving Kastamuni we had to wait two or three hours for the gendarmes that were to accompany us. I was not allowed to visit the two shops to rectify my accounts, so carefully did they watch any one leaving lest any communication should be set up for those left behind. I went to the Lower House to say good-bye to some friends, including Square Peg, at work on law. His friend, whom we called the Count (Horwood), was most sympathetic over my book, and took me to the bar to have a last bottle of beer (so-called) that had arrived. This beer, to me so long estranged, was so good that I bucked up to a degree, and decided, as I have always tried to do since in moments of catastrophe, to merely suspend judgment and my grief. At the time it is too much deliberately not to care or to try to diminish the size of the catastrophe.

At last we were rushed off, crowds of people following us, and small boys wanting tips, and many peasants whose faces one knew were honestly grieved to lose us, and possibly our money as well. Last of all Sonia, our Sonia, who had on occasion had quite an amount to do with me, and had danced to my fiddle and carried notes for me, and decoyed the postas from my rendezvous in the castle, followed us for miles with her basket, crying bitterly. She was a case-hardened daughter of Eve, a wild little untamed savage, but pretty and entrancing and very daring. She waved to me, and threw many kisses with lightning rapidity when the gendarmes were not looking, then followed the river bank to her destiny, and we rounded a bend towards ours.

The first time in one and a half years of restriction, that seemed one and a half centuries, we wound up the eastern road back on to the plateau, and the brown roofs of "Kastamuni the Terrible" fell beneath the brow.

It was a beautifully soft morning. Our cavalcade scattered themselves out on the flanks to scour for brigands. Besides the arabanchi (driver), there was our excellent sentry Mustapha and his choush, a sergeant, from the Lower House, who was reported rather treacherous, also a wretched little officer cadet fellow named Ali, and about three or four askars and eight gendarmes mounted. We halted for lunch among some trees in a delightful glade between two hamlets. In the evening we walked to get over the jolting of the springless cart, which bumped and bounced over every rut. My travelling companion had a bad time on occasions with his fracture, although it was better than we had hoped. We reached the region of pines and ravines, and in the dusk pulled up at a grimy and dirty Serai a few miles short of the old saw-mill where we had stopped on our way out.

We were bundled into a tiny room filled with smoke and all sorts of travellers. We emptied this room after much argument, and allowed in two or three of our postas only. This was my first scrap with Ali. He was afraid, as Zia Bey had arrived at the Serai just after. Zia was off to Angora, but travelling in luxury in a landau. We had a good supper after paying huge amounts for water and firewood, and to the owner of the wretched khan or shed. The place teemed with fleas and bugs. In the early dawn we had breakfast of Cambridge sausage, biscuits, tea, and jam, from our parcels. My travelling companion likewise had a large box full of stores just arrived, and I should think ours was the best supplied caravan that ever crossed that mountain.

We walked along beside the wagon up the incline. The horses were so poor that they could scarcely pull the empty wagon. The route led among pine woods and water-falls alongside a sparkling brook. I exchanged a few words with Zia, who was also walking, but he soon passed us. He had seen service in the Dardanelles and at Sivas.

Slowly we climbed, sometimes walking, sometimes riding. The great forests of fir with tiny log houses perched among the heights on every clearance, were above us as we started. By three o'clock we were on the summit above them. Al Ghaz Dhag, a fine peak, lay alongside us wreathed in mists. We were kept together, and quite an army of gendarmes convoyed us. Recently the brigands who swarmed in these hills had robbed the mails and repeatedly held up passengers for tribute.

My eyes became troublesome, and Greenwood's arm inflamed. However, we made a good halt and lunch in the summit among pines, and here met our old good Commandant, Fatteh Bey, who was storming against Enver Pasha and Sheriff Bey. He had had some difference at last with Sheriff Bey, whom he was too weak to restrain. This led to Fatteh's getting removed to Eski Chehir. He had had so many contradictory orders to go that at last he set off without them. While he was away the escape occurred, and he was interrupted at Changrai and ordered to return. Sheriff, the nominal commandant when the affair occurred, accused Fatteh of conniving. He caused Fatteh's kit to be searched secretly at Changrai, and a letter, really innocent, was found from an officer in Kastamuni to a friend at another camp. So Fatteh got in disgrace, and was now pensioned off. It was all worked by Sheriff. Fatteh told us he wanted to leave Turkey and go to England to live. Every now and then he produced a Cook's English-Turkish. He has already learned the money quite well!

That night we reached another wretched khan, and slept on the roof. We smoked a little while the drivers slept, and the gates being well secured we could not escape. Ali became obstreperous and obstinate, and wished to show his authority even in the matter of our walking or riding or getting firewood or procuring water to wash. He wants us to get it from the place where we must, of course, pay for it. But these have been wonderful days of movement, a voyage of rediscovery of the world, a passing from sleep to dreamland, from death to life.

We find very many old landmarks that we now remember perfectly to have seen on our outward trip—a lonely cabin, a path over the mountain, a deserted mill, a desolate Armenian house. Thus in moments of tragedy can the eye collect vivid impressions of things so commonplace that they are usually missed. A very hot day of trekking, followed with frequent collapsing of the horses, and more frequently of the harness, which was tied with string or rope. Periodically came a louder crash from our groaning wheels, which wobbled dreadfully, sometimes so ominously as to threaten to tip us out altogether. We were at an angle certainly of forty degrees off the perpendicular quite often, and Greenwood, being a sapper, developed a trick of making elaborate calculations as to how many more fractions we might go over, and what the momentum of our boxes packed behind our heads would be in a general roll. We were hemmed in by the ribs of the wagon's cover, and in case of accident could not move a foot. Once we actually did go over, but only tipped on to the side of the bluff, and luckily not the other way. We kept Ali in cigarettes, and gave him more than one tin of food. Fatteh and another very fat Turkish officer who accompanied him lived, I verily believe, on the same onion and melon from Kastamuni to Changrai. They ate bread and olives.

I was not altogether free from suspense lest I should be held up in Angora and not allowed to proceed to Constantinople, and I had asked Ali if Zia's letter to the medical officer at Angora really existed. He said we would both go to Constantinople, but this in the lying way of appearing pleasant the Turk has. As we had been quite good friends, I asked Fatteh in German to have a look for me. He got the letter, and said aloud that it was for us to go to Stamboul. I asked him again that night, and he admitted it was only for examination in Angora, and did not mention Stamboul! However, I saw the line. There was no need to pretend, as my eyes were really bad. More than once I had to be completely blindfolded, and sometimes lie down in the roadside.

We passed the Hittite caves in the cliffside near Kosah river, and then reached Changrai, the halfway village. Here we were taken into another serai in the town, an empty room with hanging doors and broken windows. We ate hard, and drank bad raki hard, and slept hard. We stayed there all the next day. Here I hid a section of my papers I had not shown to Sheriff. When he pronounced his intention with regard to my book, I slung the rest of my kit back into the box in a great rage, and, of course, over the other parts of the book he had not yet seen. These I expected to lose here. I now forestalled a search by getting them sewn into some old rugs. Fatteh promised to do all sorts of things for us, but I had the usual doubts. He wishes us well, but is a Turk.

We saw the wretched little bazaar, and heard that the whole of Kastamuni camp was to be moved to some lonely barracks outside the town, so as to prevent more escapes. On the morning of our departure we walked out slowly about a mile over the fields to these barracks which lay en route. They stood alone in the plain beside what in winter was a stream, a four-sided great building of many rooms enclosing possibly an acre of ground with a pump of bad water in the centre. The rooms, or rather divisions, were large, enclosed on two sides only, and strewed with filth and litter. Sheep and goats ran from corridor to room as we went the round. Windows were broken, and doors long since burned. The building itself was fairly solid, as these go in Turkey, but altogether the change from Kastamuni to this would be a serious one for the worse. I tried very hard to get some cryptic word back to our friends in Kastamuni, so that they might put up every objection. (This I heard later never reached them, and they were told excellent quarters were awaiting them in Changrai.) My resolution to leave this part of the country increased, and I prepared to risk much, even life itself, for a change. From Changrai on our voyage was much more uncomfortable. It lay through the region of dry arid land, stony and dusty tracks, or bare rocky defiles. The horses collapsed, our guard got sick, and was reduced to Ali the choush, and Mustapha the guard. The gendarmes had turned back on emerging from the passes. Escape from here was hopeless, so barren was the land. We hoped brigands might surprise us. We hatched schemes for knocking Ali on the head and wrecking the wagon. With one good friend something might have been possible, but as it was I was half blind, in fact in the last month my eyes had become very much worse, and my companion walked with pain. So we went on. Ali, or rather Peter Pan, as we called him, with a huge revolver and tin sword grew more overbearing as the trek wore on. When we were most weary he pressed on. The fellow was congenitally a fool, and often after passing a decent camping place with shade and water, stopped on a burned-up patch. At night he stuck us into some vile khan. However, one way and another we got through. At Changrai I doctored the wheel, which was nearly off, and decided by pocketing the rivet to stop the caravan when necessary. This I did more than once. However, two marches off Angora, in the middle of some ruined and sacked villages, two wheels had got so bad that they came off, the wagon nearly going over a khud. They fixed it up with sticks and rope, and then a few miles farther the spokes fell out, two or three at a time. Just here Mustapha, who had walked the whole way, collapsed with acute ague and malaria, and shook violently on the ground. This simple soldier had come along pluckily, and often did sentry duty at night as well, after eating his bread ration that he carried. We admired him, and although tired and in pain with over-walking ourselves, we got out at once to give him a lift. Imagine our feelings when the malignant Peter Pan broke into a terrible rage, bullied, and struck his soldier for daring to ride, kicked him into going on, and took our seat himself. We had a general row, and Peter Pan struck the arabunchi. It was he and the choush against us three, but Mustapha, the patient soul of the Turkish peasant, and the best thing we had found in this country, was too good a soldier not to submit. He was fond of us, and even cursed his officer. He said he wished their officers were like ours, who considered their men a little, but no word of rebellion escaped him, and so collapsing every few moments he staggered on. Then Peter Pan half drew his sword on Greenwood and jostled him, a cripple. This was too much. I seized his arm, and in a most impressive rage told him if he drew it I would disarm him. He was speechless. It was a most colossal row. Then we sat down and refused to go, unless we could get our seats. "We are invalids, special cases en route for hospital. You have no right to sneak our seats." His defence was that he was to be an officer by and by, and if his man could ride, he could. The choush sided with him, and we had to follow, while he rode. But I showed him some letters, and swore to report him to Zia Bey, who was not far ahead. He then showed his teeth, and said his secret orders were to shikar us, and give no liberty, as I was a dangerous person whom they couldn't catch. Anyway I took good care the wagon went phut again soon, although he proposed to go on still a distance, dragging the broken wheel. Finally the whole show crashed, and he had to get out. Another driving arabana of much the same quality was commandeered, and we were wanted to move without our kit. This we wouldn't do, and smoked cigarette after cigarette on the road like disobedient schoolboys. Finally the kit was put up, and we had to walk. The choush then became very ill with what he thought was cholera, but what was evidently cold in the stomach and malaria. He was rather a coward. He asked me for medicine and prescription. I told him castor oil was a good thing, and gave him enough of this and some ginger to put him out of any future arguments. Peter Pan then had to capitulate, for he was all that was left. We walked side by side, and more than once made off as if we were escaping after water. Then he let us drive a spell, at least I drove, and the choush lay huddled up frightfully ill in the back of the wagon. His rifle lay resting on our knees, and if there had been five per cent. of chance I believe we would have risked everything. But we were pretty rocky by now.

Eventually we had to deposit the choush by the roadside near a khan. The wagon couldn't get up the hills, and so, on foot, blundering on in the dark without a guard, and almost too weak to go a step further, we at last staggered into Angora. Here we were shown into a gasthof of sorts where men and women, Turks and Jews, and mongrel Armenians all seemed mixed up in one living-room. Eventually we got rid of Peter Pan, who went to his wife.

I squared the proprietor. Mustapha, who had come along in some conveyance, was most accommodating. So when Ali returned the next morning he found us in the hotel next door, we two with Mathews our servant in one small room which I had got emptied, and Mustapha asleep outside. He said I had to go to a medical board at once, and Greenwood was for Stamboul that night.

I found several dignified Turks around a table who proposed to examine my eyes and spine. Before they did so I asked leave to tell them something. This I did in German and indifferent Turkish, but I told them certain things about their politics that made them stare, also about the responsibility of medical boards to whom a sick officer after eighteen months' neglect had been sent in a wretched conveyance 150 miles over mountains in a Turkish cart. I refused to stay in Angora, and said I wanted a diagnosis in Constantinople. It was a long competition between their disinclination to send to the capital one who had seen so much of Turkish maltreatment, and their fear. I won. In fact, I made myself such a nuisance that they had to do so. But I am certain it was only a parade of arguments that won. The Turk can't grant a straight-out request to a prisoner. But there are ways of getting him not to object to a certain thing happening.

We went to the Military Commandant of Angora for a servant, as we are in no condition to move our boxes. He is the same evil-looking old villain we remember of old. He literally spat at us and roared. I roared also, and when he ordered me out of the room I walked the other way, being blindfolded. He caught my arm rudely, but had scarcely touched it than I sprang up as if electrocuted, almost upsetting him. I told him that it was merely surprise, as Zia Bey told us no one in Turkey must touch a British officer. He snapped and snarled like a dog. We got out. I reappeared to ask him if he could let us have any of our parcels that were en route to Kastamuni. We were quite polite. But he barked that there were none. Oh yes, pardon! there were. We had seen them. He screamed that he had finished the interview. We withdrew with chuckles. To-night we had the usual appalling scenes about leaving. Eventually we got to the station, and after a score of interviews and running about the station against orders, I managed to get two seats in a carriage with Fatteh, our old commandant. One had to browbeat the officials, who said they had no orders for us unless we paid. Our boxes must come on by a slow train. Finally, weak to exhaustion, but elated at heart, we got into the stifling carriage.

En Route.—It is night, and delicious music of a train that is carrying me away, away, is in my ears. We drank two bottles of beer and a small bottle of Julienne, which we got from an Armenian at the station. I met there my excellent former acting-sergeant-major, Sergeant Graves. He looked well, and said the survivors were now more or less free, but these good times came only after all the terrible deaths and complaints. 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 class of official like the Vali, promoted to Angora Vilayet, when his predecessor refused to countenance a wholesale massacre 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 passion 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 passing 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.

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