Presently there were cries of women heard from the attic, then there was a loud crash, and I knew that the third member of our party had fallen through the trapdoor leading to the roof.
That was the last of my freedom for the time. Thus suddenly my five weeks' scheming was ended.
Each of us was taken charge of by two policemen, who linked their arms in ours. Presently the order to march was given, and a dismal procession, consisting of two weeping women, a seedy-smart individual in a bowler hat, two youths in slippers and shirt-sleeves, and a Greek waiter, could be seen wending their way to the Central Gaol of Stamboul.
Before leaving, we had protested strongly against the treatment of the women in the house.
"But they are Turkish subjects," said the detectives.
"Anyway, they are women," we protested.
But this had little effect. Theodore and his unfortunate family were marched off behind us to the Central Gaol. I think, however, that our protest was not quite in vain, for it gave the women courage. When I last saw them, before being taken to the Chief of Police, they had dried their tears. Eventually they were released, but not, alas! until they had endured much suffering.
The Chief of Police congratulated us on being safe once more in Turkish hands.
"Yes, we are comfortably back in prison," I said with a faint smile, "and therefore there is surely no harm in giving us back the personal trifles that the detectives took from us."
"I cannot give you your papers," he said. "There is a forged passport here, amongst other things."
"Very well, do as you like about that," I said, shrugging my shoulders, "but surely my empty pocket-book and my watch might be returned."
To this he agreed, whereupon he handed me—
(a) My pocket-book, containing five pounds hidden in the lining.
(b) My watch, and a compass, which he mistook for another timepiece.
(c) My false moustache, which had been captured on my person.
I was in an agony of anxiety about this moustache. Had the police inquired at the only two hairdressers' where such things were made, they would have found that Miss Whitaker had ordered it for me only ten days before. But now it was safely in my possession again. I had the only connecting link of evidence that might incriminate Miss Whitaker in my trouser pocket, and was tearing it to shreds as I talked to the Chief of Police.
The interview passed on a note of felicitation, until the very end. After praising the smart way his men had surrounded the house, and receiving his congratulations on our escapes, just as if the whole thing was a game, we said that there was one criticism we had to make on police methods, and that was their treatment of women.
"They are Turkish subjects," snapped the Chief of Police, suddenly showing his teeth.
"They are women," we retorted, "and they are innocent. If they are maltreated——"
"I know how to manage my affairs," he said with a gasp of annoyance.
"Certainly. But if they are maltreated you will be responsible after the war."
To this he made no reply.
We were removed without further ado, and after being photographed and measured in the most approved fashion for criminals, we were taken up long flights of stairs, and across a roof, to the quarters for prisoners awaiting trial. Here we were allotted separate cells, where we were to pass the next few days in strict isolation.
To my amazement (for I knew something of Turkish prisons from a previous experience, not here recorded) these cells were scrupulously clean. A bed, a table, and a chair were in each apartment, all very firm and foursquare, as if designed to withstand any access of fury or despair on the prisoner's part. There was electric light in the ceiling, covered with wire netting. Walls and woodwork were of a neutral colour. The windows, which were barred, had a convenient arrangement for regulating the ventilation. The heavy door, which admitted no sound, was provided with a sliding hatch, which could be opened by the warders at will for purposes of investigation. Everything was hideously efficient.
Turkey is a country of surprises, but I was not prepared for this. I would have preferred something more picturesque. One's mind, after the testing climax of recapture, craves for new doses of excitement.
The brain of a criminal, after he has been apprehended, must be a turmoil of thought. He curses his stupidity, or his luck, or his associates. He longs to explain and defend himself. Instead of this, he is left in silence in a drab room, with no company but his thoughts.
My own thoughts were most unpleasant. I had failed miserably and innocent people were suffering as the result.
After five weeks of effort I was farther than ever from escape. Worse than all, Miss Whitaker was in danger. Never again shall I pass such dismal hours. I see myself now, seated on that solid chair with head on arms, bent over that efficient table. A prisoner's heart must soon turn to stone.
But although our surroundings were inhuman, one of our gaolers had a generous heart. He opened the slot in my door merely to say he was sorry about it all, and that the women were all right. It is little actions such as these that so often light the darkest hours of life. The man was a European Turk.
It was urgently necessary to communicate with my fellow-prisoners, in order to arrange to tell the same story. My friend next door solved the problem by bawling up through his barred window at the top of his voice that he would leave a note for me in the wash-place.
"Right you are!" I howled in answer, and instantly the slot of my door opened, and I had to explain that I was singing.
Already, interest was beginning to creep back into one's life. I found the note in the wash-place, read it secretly, thought over my answer, and transcribed the message on to a cigarette paper. Having no writing material, I used the end of a match dipped into an ink prepared from tobacco juice and ash. By these simple means we established a regular means of communication and before forty-eight hours of our strict seclusion had elapsed we were all three in possession of a complete, circumstantial, and fictitious account of our adventures prior to capture.
When not engaged on reminiscences, I was generally pacing my cell, or trying to invent some new form of exercise to keep myself fit. But at times energy failed and one felt inclined to gnash one's teeth at the futility of it all.
One day, when I was feeling inclined to gnash my teeth, the slot in my door was furtively withdrawn, and, instead of a gaoler, a very comely vision appeared at the observation hatch. A pair of laughing black eyes were looking in on me. She wrinkled her nose, and laughed. I jumped up, thinking I was dreaming, and hoping that the dream would continue. At the same moment something dropped on to my floor. Then the trap door was softly shut to.
I found a tiny stump of lead pencil. That was proof of the reality of my vision.
Countless excuses to leave my cell, and voluminous correspondence with the pencil's aid eventuallyenabled me to find out that she was an Armenian girl, awaiting trial, who took a deep interest in us. At great risk to herself, she had provided the three of us with writing instruments. Except for a brief glimpse, and a mumbled word, I was never able to thank her, however, owing to circumstances beyond our control.
On the fourth day we were transferred to the Military Prison in the Square of the Seraskerat.
As usual in Turkey, our move was sudden and unexpected. That morning, on complaining at mid-day that I had as yet received no food, I was told thatinshallah—if God pleased—it would arrive in due course.
Instead of a belated breakfast, however, aposseof policemen arrived, and we started on our journeys again: my friends still in their shirt-sleeves and slippers, and myself still in my bowler hat, although I did not now wear it so rakishly.
But we were fairly cheery. We had learnt (no matter how) that the females of Theodore's family would soon be released, and that Theodore himself, although still in duress, would not suffer any extreme fate. Also, it was by now fairly obvious that Miss Whitaker would not be apprehended, as sufficient evidence was not obtainable against her. She had covered her tracks too well. All things considered, there was no cause for depression.
But waiting is hungry work. That afternoon still saw us, fretful and unfed, waiting outside the officeof Djevad Bey, the Military Commandant of Constantinople.
At last I was taken into an ornate room, where I had my first talk with this redoubtable individual, who was popularly supposed to be the hangman of the Young Turks. Anyone less like an executioner I have never seen. He was plump, well-dressed, with humorous grey eyes. He wore long, rather well-fitting boots, and smoked his cigarettes from a long amber holder. He also had a long amber moustache, which was being trained Kaiser-wise.
I stood before him at attention.
"About this forged passport," he began—"do gentlemen in your country forge each other's signatures?"
"It is not usual," I admitted.
"Then you, as an English gentleman, surely did not counterfeit my writing?"
"Oh no! I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing."
"Then how do you account for this passport being in your possession?"
I remained silent.
"Who forged it?" he insisted.
"May I look?" said I. "Is that really your signature?"
"It is indeed. With it you could easily have got out of the country."
"What an idiot I was not to use it!" I said with quite unfeigned annoyance.
"You were!" he laughed—"they would have passed you straight through the Customs on seeing this."
I felt very faint at this moment, and staggered against the table. But I recovered after an instant. I quite forget his next few remarks, but I know that I committed myself to a story that I had bought the passport from a man in a restaurant whom I could not now recognise.
"But where have you been living all these weeks?" he asked.
"I was living in the ruins near the Fatih mosque," I said glibly—"and I used to lunch and dine at various cafés in the city, a different one every day. It was in one of these places that I bought the passport."
Djevad Bey considered this statement for a moment. There was a nasty look in his eye when he spoke again.
"I shall never rest until I know who it is who can forge my signature so well," he said—"and until I know, I am afraid you will be very uncomfortable, for by law you are in the position of a common malefactor."
"By law I am in the position of a prisoner of war," I answered—"and as such, I am liable to a fortnight's simple imprisonment, for attempting to escape. The Turkish Government signed this agreement only a few months ago with the British representatives at Berne."
"A man who forges another's name is not an officer, but a forger," he said meaningly.
"Say what you like, and do what you like," Ianswered—"I am in your power. But one thing I ask, and that is, that if you punish me, you should liberate the innocent Theodore and his family. True, we were found in their house, but——"
"I cannot believe what you say," said Djevad Bey thoughtfully.
There was a pause. Then:
"Come, as man to man, won't you tell me who forged that passport?"
"You have just called me a liar," said I. "That ends the matter."
And with an all-is-over-between-us air I left the room, feeling dizzy and uncomfortable.
It was then four o'clock in the afternoon, and I had not yet eaten. I did not feel at all amused at the prospect of the Military Prison.
I was taken downstairs into the darkness, on entering this inferno of the damned of Enver Pasha. There were cries and shouts down there, and men scrambling for food, and other men who looked like wild animals, behind bars. A swarthy custodian took my name, and I then proceeded, down a long corridor, until my escort reached an iron portal such as Dante imagined long ago.
Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate. . . .The gates had clanged behind me, and I was in a long, low room below ground level, airless, ill-lit, filthy with tomato skins and bits of bread. Well-fed rats were scurrying amongst the garbage, and badly-fedprisoners were pacing the room forlornly, or twiddling their thumbs, or scratching themselves, or gnawing crusts of bread.
They gathered round me, clamouring for news and cigarettes. In less than no time they had picked my pockets. They had no more morals than monkeys. Poor devils! who could blame them, living as they did down there, where no rumours are heard of the outside world, except the cries of beaten men and the dull sound of wood on flesh?
"What are you in for?" they asked me.
"Forgery," said I, not to be outdone by any desperado present.
One man, however, confessed to murder, having cut a small boy's throat a few months before. With him I could not compete. But the most of us were fraudulent contractors, spies, petty swindlers and the like. Our morals, as I have said, were practicallynil. Yet I noticed that a Jew lived quite apart, and was shunned by everybody. By trade he was a brigand, but this was no slur on his character as a criminal: the failing that had led to ostracism was that he pilfered the other prisoners' tomatoes. That was really beyond a joke. . . .
One of my newly found friends took me to a bed, consisting of two planks on an iron frame, which he said I could have for my very, very own. He also gave me a piece of bread and some water. On beginningto eat I at once realised how hungry I was, and inquired how I should obtain further nourishment.
"Luxuries are very difficult to obtain," he said; "how much money have you got?"
"Twenty-five piastres,[9]" I answered.
He pulled a long face.
"That won't go far. But every evening at eight a boy comes round with the scraps left over from the Officers' Restaurant. Otherwise you will live on bread and tomatoes."
"What about bedding?" I asked, to change the subject.
"Bedding!" he said, looking at me as if I was a perfect idiot. "Do you mean to say you have come here without any bedding?"
I admitted I had, but felt too exhausted to explain.
One was utterly lost in that dungeon. Even when the war ended, would one be found? I doubted it. Yet as I would naturally never reveal the forger's name, it seemed unlikely that I would get out. . . . Then I thought of my companions. I imagined them happily together, in some place where one could see the sky. . . . As for me, I might languish down here for ever. Obviously something should be done.
But what? I rose (rather hastily, for on looking between the planks of my bed, I noticed that the crack was entirely filled with battalions of board beasts inline, waiting for a night attack), and began to pace our narrow and nasty apartment. A group of prisoners were cooking some pitiful mess by the window. Four others played poker with a very greasy pack. One was twiddling his thumbs very fast, and I suddenly recollected that he had been twiddling his thumbs very fast half an hour ago, when I had first seen him. The lonely Jew was removing lice from the seams of his coat, and throwing his quarry airily about the room.
Then I noticed that besides ourselves, there were other prisoners even more unfortunate. There had been so much to see in my new surroundings that I had not noticed the people in chains. . . . One side of our room opened out on to some half-dozen cubicles, each of which contained a prisoner in chains. These cells had no light or ventilation. They measured six feet in length by four in breadth. In solitude and obscurity, fettered by wrist and ankle to shackles that weighed a hundredweight, human beings lived there—and are still living for aught I know—for months and even years, until death released them. These men were ravenous and verminous, but they had by no means lost their hope and faith. I shall never hear the hymn—
"Thy rule, O Christ, begin,Break with Thine iron rodThe tyrannies of sin . . ."
"Thy rule, O Christ, begin,Break with Thine iron rodThe tyrannies of sin . . ."
without remembering that an Armenian lad said those words to me, lying in chains in one of these cells.With another prisoner, a Greek, who had endured eleven months of this torture, I also had some speech.
"Yes, the war will be over soon," he said. "My God, how good this cigarette of yours tastes! I haven't touched tobacco for a month. But be careful. The sentries must not see you speaking to me."
"Yes, the chains were bad at first," he continued when the sentry's back was turned, "but one gets used to anything in time. And I have had time enough. It takes a lot to kill a healthy man. Before I came in here I used to be strong and well. I used to ride two hours every day, on my own horses. Now my horses have gone to feed the Turkish Army and I can hardly drag my chains as far as the water-tap. But God is great. . . ."
God is great!Allahu akbar!
I determined to get away from that dungeon at all costs, if for no other reason than because I had to survive to write about it.
I went to the big gate, and tried to bluff the sentry to let me go to see the Commandant. But a clean face and a full stomach are practically necessary to adébonnaireappearance. When one is scrubby and starved it is almost impossible to succeed in "wangling." I stared at the sentry through my eyeglass, and I offered him my twenty-five piastres as if I had plenty morebaksheeshto give to a good boy, but I utterly and dismally failed to impress him.
"Yok, yok, yok," he said, looking at me as one might look at an orang-outang that has
DO NOT IRRITATE THIS ANIMAL
written over its cage.
I gibbered in impotent rage, and then went and put my head under a tap.
A little later, while I was drying my head with my handkerchief, I saw some barbers come to the big gate. They stood there, clapping and clacking their strops. Instantly, my fellow-prisoners rushed to the gate as if they had heard the beating of the wings of some angel of deliverance. This was apparently the occasion of their weekly shave, when egress to the corridor was permitted, the barbers naturally not wishing to go inside our loathsome room.
Taking this tide in the affairs of men at the flood, I found it led on to fortune. I was in the corridor with six other prisoners, and a barber confronted me with a razor in his hand. He whetted his steel expectantly, but I would have none of him, and seized a passing official by the arm.
He was a dog-collar gentleman.
A dog-collar gentleman, I must explain, is Authority Incarnate. On his swelling chest he wears a crescent tablet of brass, with the one wordQuanuninscribed thereon.Quanunmeans "law," and the wearer of this badge is responsible for public decorum ofevery kind. If a Turkish officer be seen drinking alcohol in uniform, or playing cards, or flirting, or talking disrespectfully of the Germans, or indulging in any other prohibited amusement, he is instantly arrested by the dog-collar gentleman, and brought to prison. In his official capacity, the dog-collar gentleman is one of the most important personages in Turkey: policeman, pussfoot and prude in one.
"There is some mistake," I said excitedly. "I am a British officer, and have been put in a room with criminals."
"You a British officer?" said the dog-collar man incredulously.
"A captain of cavalry," said I, slipping him the twenty-five piastre note.
"Pekke, Effendim," he answered. "Very good, sir, I will see what can be done."
I had burnt my boats now.
About ten minutes later, just as I was flatly refusing to either be shaved or to return through the gate, a sergeant-major and a squad of soldiers arrived and bore me off to the Prison Commandant.
Here I caught sight of my two companions, and was able to fling them a few words through the "Yok, yok" of the sentries. They also had been separated, and put amongst criminals. Their lot had been no different to mine.
"A slight mistake has occurred," said the Prison Commandant to me, "but now you shall have one ofthe best rooms in the prison. Only I am afraid you will be alone there, until after your trial."
Of course I did not believe him, but I was glad that I was to be alone.
I was taken to a room on the upper floor, furnished with a bed and blanket, and with a window opening on to a corridor, where people were always passing. The Commandant had spoken the truth. It was quite a good room, as prison apartments go, and the traffic of the corridor amused me.
At nine o'clock that night I was able to get a dish of haricot beans, my first meal of the day.
Then I settled down to a month of solitary confinement.
I think I may claim to write of this torture, which exists not only in Turkey but through the prisons of the civilised world, with some expert knowledge. I use the word "torture" because it is nothing less. Solitary confinement is a punishment as barbarous and as senseless as the thumbscrew or the rack: more so indeed, for it is better to kill the body than to maim the mind. The spirit of man is more than his poor flesh; the war has reminded us of that. And if it has also reminded us that our prison systems are archaic, so much the better for the world.
At times, in gaol, a tide of pity rose in me for all life created that is caged by man.
Take a felon at one end of the scale, and a canary at the other. The felon is imprisoned for twenty years.For twenty years, less some small remission for good conduct, an abnormal brain lives in abnormal surroundings, where hope dies, and ideals fail. He has sinned against society, and therefore society murders his mind. Corporal and capital punishment, I have come to believe, are saner than the cruelties, immeasurable by "the world's coarse thumb and finger," suffered by the mind of man in solitary confinement or the common gaol. The sentimentalist who shudders at the cat and gallows forgets the worse, slow, hidden horrors that pass unseen in the felon's brain. Perhaps the sentimentalist does not realise them. Perhaps also the old lady who keeps a canary does not realise the feelings of her pet. She may think she is protecting it from the birds and beasts outside. But I feel now that I know what the canary feels. . . . However, it is difficult to argue about questions involving imagination.
I lived on hope, chiefly, during the days that followed. With nothing to read, no cutting instrument of any sort, no washing arrangements, and no one to speak to, the time passed hideously. I used to gaze at my watch sometimes, appalled at the slow passage of time. The second-hand had a horrible fascination for me. It simply crawled round its dial and each instant, between the jerks of the little hand, the precious moments of my youth were passing, beyond recall. Madness lay that way. If I had been a real criminal, I wondered, would I have repented?Unquestionably the answer was, "No!" Solitary confinement would have made me a permanent enemy of society.
There were no smiles and soap in that Military Prison, no scissors, no sanitation. There was nothing human or clean about it. Nothing but destruction will rid it of its vermin, or scour it of its taint of disease and death.
Perhaps the lack of scissors was the amenity of life whose absence I most deplored. Try to do without a cutting instrument for a month, and you will realise why it was that some sort of cutting edge was the first need of primitive man and remains a prime necessity to-day.
However, as a matter of fact, I did not remain a whole month without a cutting edge. Before a fortnight had elapsed I had bettered my position in many ways. I had secured a knife (which I stole from the restaurant), a wash-basin (sent from the Embassy), and pencil and paper from a friendly clerk. With these writing instruments I used to correspond voluminously with the other British prisoners, by various privy methods.
I had a regular routine for my days now. Early mornings were devoted to walking briskly up and down my room in various gaits—the sailor's roll, for instance, and the Napoleonic stride, and the deportment of various of my acquaintances. During this time I avoided thinking, but generally imagined some incident in which I took a distinguished part. In theforenoon I played games, such as throwing my soap to the ceiling and catching it again, or juggling with cigarettes, both lighted and unlighted. The afternoon generally passed in sleep, but the evening and nights were bad. It was then that the second hand of my watch began to exert its fascination. The electric light bulb, however, could occasionally be tampered with, and on these occasions there was always the hope that the sentries would get a shock in putting it right. Also I found amusement in my watch chain, which I made into an absorbing puzzle.
But, curiously enough, I found it impossible to write anything, except lengthy letters.
A real prisoner in a well-constituted prison does not enjoy his days any more than I did. On the other hand, he knows how long his sentence is going to last, whereas in my case I was confined during Djevad Bey's pleasure, or the duration of the war, and each day brought me nearer nothing—except insanity.
One evening, however, an Imperial Son-in-law entered my room, and lit my life with a certain interest. His father, who was a Court official, had betrothed him to a princess, and he had consequently assumed the title of Damad, or Son-in-law. This youth had had a remarkable career. While still a guileless lad, scarcely broke from the harem, he had used his revolver so injudiciously that he had seriously damaged one of the Imperial apartments, besides killing the elderly Colonel at whom he was aiming.Enver Pasha had of course himself a weakness for this sort of thing, but still, to save appearances, the Damad had to be punished. He was therefore condemned to three months' confinement in the Military Prison. Although nominally in residence there, he used, however, to leave prison every Friday to attend the Sultan's Selamlik, and only return on Monday night. Moreover, he not only thoroughly amused himself during his protracted week-ends, he also squeezed every bit of pleasure possible out of his prison days. Life was a lemon, which he sucked with grace. He was free to wander where he wished in the prison, and to eat and drink what he liked. The best of everything was good enough for the Damad. Grapes came for him from the Sultan's garden, and a faithful negro slave was always at his heels.
The Damad had rather charming manners. He knocked politely before entering my cell.
"Excuse my interrupting," he said, "but——"
"You are not interrupting me at all," I answered, getting up from my bed. "I do wish you would stop and talk. Have a cigarette? I haven't talked to anyone for a fortnight."
"I am so sorry, but I daren't talk to you. That is a pleasure to come. I wanted to borrow something, that's all. And, I say, will you allow me to offer you one of my cigarettes—they're the Sultan's brand, you know. Better take the box. Well, I saw you with an eyeglass through the window in thepassage. Will you lend it me to appear at the next Selamlik?"
I was delighted, and said so. To my sorrow, the Damad instantly took his departure.
"Smuggle me in something to read," I said, as he left with profuse apologies for his hurry.
He nodded, and his long left eyelash flickered.
Next day his little nigger boy, when the sentry's back was turned, popped about twenty leaflets into my window. I seized them avidly, and found that they were the astounding adventures of Nat Pinkerton in French. Never have my eyes rested so gleefully on a printed page. I consumed them cautiously, else I should have gorged myself with excitement at a single sitting. Like an epicure, I made them last, by always breaking off at the critical juncture of the great detective's affairs. From that moment my life flowed in more agreeable channels.
"Devouring time, blunt though the lion's paws." . . . I suddenly understood Shakespeare's meaning afresh. Time had dulled the clawing of regret.
I had failed to escape, it is true, but there was always hope. Things were getting better. The women had been released. Thémistoclé only awaited a formal trial. My own condition had improved. I had been moved from my solitary confinement, just when I had secured a Bible, and a large tin of Keating's, wherewith to combat the devils of captivity. But any change is better than none at all, I thought. Themortal hunger for companionship is strong, and my new room, besides containing an officer, also enjoyed an excellent and varied view.
After a few days' experience of my new room-mate, however, who was a Bulgarian Bolshevik, I began to pine for solitude again. A more unmitigated Tishbite I have never seen, but fortunately he was smaller than I. When I found him washing his feet in my basin one night, I smote him, hip and thigh.
That Bulgarian has coloured my whole view of the Balkans. The less said about him, the better.
One day about thirty British officers arrived from the camp at Yuzgad, whence they had escaped and been recaptured on the occasion when Commander Cochrane and his gallant band of seven marched four hundred and fifty miles to freedom. All the party who arrived in the Military Prison were in uniform, and in excellent spirits. They were like a breath of fresh air in that sordid place. On being put into three rooms, these thirty brave men and true at once demanded beds to sleep on. In due time the beds arrived, in the usual condition of beds in that place. They might have been so many Stilton cheeses. Our thirty prisoners, despite the protest of the guards, carried out their couches into the passage, and lit two Primus stoves. Over these stoves they proceeded to pass the component parts of each bed, so that its occupants were utterly exterminated.
Imagine the scene. A dismal corridor, a flaming stove, Turkish sentries protesting with Hercules in khaki, cleansing the Augean stable. . . . But protests were useless. The smell of burnt bugs mingled with the other contaminations of the prison. Our officers had done in little what civilisation will one day do at large throughout that land.
A British officer, going to the feeding place, looked into a window which gave on to my room. But I was kept strictly apart from my fellows, and the sentry consequently tried to drag the officer away.
"Leave me alone, you son of Belial!" said he. "Isn't a window meant to look through?"
Windows in that prison were certainly not meant to look through.
From my new eyrie I had a composite view of startling contrasts. Down below, some soldiers were living in a verandah, behind wooden bars. Anything more animal than their life it would be impossible to conceive. Every afternoon at three o'clock a parade of handcuffed men were marshalled two by two, and then pushed into these dens. Beyond them lay the city of Stamboul with its clustered cupolas and nine-trellised alley-ways. And beyond the city were the blue waters of the Marmora.
Then there was the window in the passage through which the British officer had observed me. This gaveme a view of the rank and fashion of the prison, so that I knew who was being tried, who received visitors, and so on.
And directly opposite me, in another face of the building, was yet another window, with curtains drawn. That was the window of the Hall of Justice. Directly under my perch, but rather too far to jump, were some telegraph lines which might possibly have provided a means of escape. Sentries used to watch me carefully, whenever I looked at these telegraph lines. I was considered a dangerous, indeed a desperate character, and my every movement was regarded with apprehension. Not only was no one (except now the Bulgarian) allowed to speak to me, but I was not even permitted to look at anything, or anyone, for long, without being bidden to desist. Whatever I did, in fact, I was told not to do.
Eventually I made a scene.
The immediate cause of the row was that I had a glimpse of a sitting in the Hall of Justice. I had often wondered what passed there, for at times faint screams used to hint of the infamies that passed behind those curtains.
One day I saw.
The Hall of Justice is a fine room, with a lordly sweep of view over the city and the sea. Why anyone chose such a situation as a torture chamber I do not know. But there it was. There was something dramatic about the beautiful prospect and the bestialpeople who sat with their backs turned to it, interrogating the Armenians.
"Every prospect pleases and only man is vile."
"Every prospect pleases and only man is vile."
Very vile were the two Turkish officers, judges I suppose, who sat smoking cigarettes, while an old Armenian woman and her son stood before them to be tried. What passed I could not hear, but evidently her answers were not satisfactory, for presently the policeman who stood behind her kicked her violently, so that her head jerked back and her arms flung forward, and she was sent tottering towards the judges' table. Then the policeman took a stick as thick as a man's wrist, and began to beat her over the head and shoulders. Her son meanwhile had fallen on his knees and was crawling about the room, dragging his chains, and supplicating first the judges and then the policeman. He was imploring them, no doubt, to have pity on his mother's age and weakness.
She fell down in a faint. The policeman kicked her in the face, and then prodded her with a stick until she rose.
I wish the people who are ready to "let the Turk manage his own country" could have seen that savage pantomime.
I tried to get out to stop it, but was driven back with bayonets.
Djevad Bey, the Military Commandant of Constantinople, with a resplendent retinue, arrived one dayto inspect us. With his long cigarette-holder, and long shiny boots, he swaggered round, followed byormulustaff officers and diligent clerks and pompous gentlemen in dog-collars. Everywhere around him was dirt, disease, destitution, and despair. But Djevad Bey in his shiny boots "cared for none of these things." He was himself, with his medals and moustaches, and that was enough.
"What more do you want,effendi?" he asked me after I had made a few casual complaints (for it was useless to take him seriously). "You have one of the most beautiful views in Europe from the garden."
"But I am not allowed into the garden."
"Have a little patience,mon cher," said he. "It is rather crowded with older prisoners now. But in a little time perhaps, when I have discovered the name of that forger . . ."
And with a condescending smile he passed on between ranks of sentries standing stiffly at attention, to inspect another portion of his miserable menagerie.
Ah, Djevad,mon cher, those days seem distant now! You and your popinjays have passed. . . .
[9]Five shillings.
[9]Five shillings.
The ghosts of the prisoners of the Tower, or of the Bastille, could they revisit earth, would undoubtedly have found themselves more at home in the Military Prison, Constantinople, than anywhere else in the world. The dark ages were still a matter of actuality in the dark dungeons of Constantinople in 1918. To be tried, for instance, was there considered something very up-to-date. Most prisoners were not tried, until their sentence was nearly over, when they were formally liberated.
After a month of solitary confinement, and a week of confinement with the Bulgarian, which was an even worse travail of the spirit, I received the joyful news that the preliminaries for my court-martial were almost complete.
I attended this first sitting with the thrill of a debutante going to a ball. I determined to make up arrears of talk. And I did. I began at the beginning of my life, sketched my education, and came by easy stages to my career as an officer in the Indian Cavalry. The clerk who recorded my evidence wrote for twohours without pause or intermission, but it is worthy of record that at the end of that time we had only reached the point where an officer of the Psamattia fire brigade, hearing, as I thought, a suspicious movement on the roof of the house across the street, kept a stern and steadfast gaze in our direction, while we crouched trembling under cover of the parapet. At this point the proceedings were adjourned.
But the Court had let fall a useful piece of information. Robin was back in prison, but was being kept even more secret and secluded than I.
However, love laughs at locksmiths, and it takes more than a Turkish sentry to defeat a persevering prisoner. We sighted each other in passages, we met in wash-places, we flipped notes to each other in bits of bread, or sent them by a third party concealed in cigarettes. By such means, I learnt Robin's remarkable story. . . . After being caught at Malgara, ten days after his first escape, he was taken back to the Central Gaol, where he was treated as a Turkish deserter and given nothing but black bread to eat. He thereupon went on hunger strike for three days, and alarmed the Turks by nearly dying in their hands. Later he was allowed to purchase a liberal diet, including even wine and cigars, which he declared were necessary to his health, but his constitution being enfeebled by privation, he developed alarming swellings over his face and scalp, which were probably due to some noxious ingredient of the hair-dye he had used. In this conditionhe was sent to hospital, and from hospital he escaped again. A Greek patient was his accomplice.
Giving this man ten pounds to buy a disguise with, he made an appointment with him for nine o'clock outside the German Embassy (!) and then set out on his adventures dressed in a white night-shirt. How he eluded the sentries is a mystery to me, although I inspected the place after the armistice. Patients were then saying (Turks, who are sometimes sportsmen, among them): "Here is where a British officer escaped. Thus and thus did he climb—past the sentries—along that buttress—down into the street hard by the guard-house!". . . . He arrived punctually at nine o'clock at the German Embassy, in his night-shirt. But the Greek accomplice was not there. He was at that moment drinking and dicing with Robin's money. For half an hour Robin waited for him by a tree in the shadows of a side street leading to the sea. The few people who passed him stared hard, and then moved nervously across to the other pavement. They thought he was a madman.
Robin, I think, felt he was a madman too. In his present situation and dress, detection was only a matter of time. However, chance might be kind and send him a disguise. Cold and disconsolate, he ascended the main road that led to the top of the Grand Rue de Pera, and taking his way through the traffic, dipped down into the ruins beyond. The saint who protects prisoners must have guided that tall whitefigure, that paddled across the busy town. . . . And more, once he was hiding in the ruins, the saint must have sent along the small boy who passed close to him in that lonely spot of cypresses and desolation. All-unknowing of the fate that awaited him behind the angle of the wall, the small boy strode sturdily along, thinking perhaps of the nice bran-bread and synthetic coffee that awaited him for supper. Robin pounced out of the shadow, and seized him by the scruff of the neck. . . . The victim instantly began to blubber.
"Give me all your clothes," said Robin.
"Who are you?" sobbed the little boy.
"Brigand," said Robin shortly.
This answer had the desired effect. The youth dried his tears, and divested himself of his apparel, which Robin immediately put on. The boots were much too small to wear and were returned. Still, the brigand was so satisfied with his clothes that he gave the small boy four pounds with a magnanimous gesture. Then he set out to seek his fortune, wearing a tiny fezz, and a coat whose sleeves reached half-way down his forearm. For four days he dodged about the city, never more than a few hours at one place, until, just when his strength and his funds were exhausted, he found a house to give him shelter. From here he made a plan to escape, but was recaught through treachery at the docks, and taken back to the Military Prison. Only an Ali Baba could do justice to these experiences. Alas! the best booksof adventure are just those which are never written.
Anyway we were together again, two desperadoes in dungeon, "apart but not afar."
The Damad's little nigger boy often contributed to our schemes for communication. This lad, who was in training for the position of keeper of the harem, and consequently belonged to the species that rises to eminence in Turkey, was a remarkable child. He did exactly what he liked and no one dared interfere with the little Lord Chamberlainin posse. He had an uncanny brain and uncanny strength, and I can quite understand the reliance which Turkish Pashas are wont to repose in these servants. I relied on him myself at times, and was never disappointed.
The arrival of a neutral Red Cross delegate, at about this time, did much to secure us better treatment. For over five weeks now I had not breathed fresh air, but directly the Red Cross delegate arrived I was allowed to go to the bath, escorted by two dog-collar gentlemen with revolvers and two sentries with side arms. While glad to feel I was employing so many of the Turkish Army while at my ablutions, I could not but deplore their anxiety on my behalf.
"No officer has ever succeeded in escaping from this wonderful gaol of yours," I said to the Prison Commandant, who (in contrast to Djevad) was quite a good fellow in his way "and I don't suppose anyone ever will. Why therefore go to the trouble of guarding us soclosely? It would be a very graceful act on your part if you allowed us to go occasionally into the garden."
"Yarin, inshallah," murmured the Commandant, meaning, "To-morrow, please God."
And to-morrow, strange to say, actually arrived in about a week's time.
Perhaps a bomb raid hastened matters, by stimulating the Commandant's desire to do graceful acts before the war was over.
One of the bombs of this raid dropped in the school playground just outside the Seraskerat Square, and shattered all the windows in my passage. Fortunately all the children were away, it being Friday. No one was killed by that bomb, but a large handsome Turkish officer prisoner standing beside me in the passage, when some panes of glass beside us burst, threw himself on the floor and refused to rise again, declaring he was killed. A full ten minutes he lay, with his moustaches in the dust, surrounded by sentries. In the confusion that ensued Robin cleverly slipped over to me and we had a very useful chat.
The first and most vital thing to do, we decided, was to get into Constantinople, in order to learn how the situation really stood, and make our plans for escaping, so that in the event of our success we should be in possession of knowledge useful to the Allies.
Having settled this, we returned to our respective cells, where I witnessed a scene that, by contrast with the behaviour of the nervous Turkish officer, remindedme of the "patient deep disdain" that the East will always feel for the marvels of our age of steel. Our machines are things of a day, but the ancient needs remain. The bomb that had dropped in the playground had wrecked a large tree that stood in its centre, and hardly had its smoke cleared away before an elderly peasant appeared with a donkey and started collecting twigs and splinters for firewood. Slowly and stolidly, under that barrage-riven sky, the old man continued gathering the aftermath of the raid, before the raid was finished. Empires might crumble to the dust: he would cook his dinner with the pieces.
This bombing business "cleared the air" for us greatly, and another little incident clinched matters.
An officious sentry, who had received the usual orders about treating Robin with especial severity, so far exceeded his instructions as to slap Robin in the face when he was merely standing at the door of his room. Robin instantly knocked him down with a hook on the point of the jaw that would have sent a prizefighter to sleep, let alone aposta. There was a click of rifles and a glitter of bayonets. Sergeants were whistled for. Swords and spurs rang down the corridor. The Commandant arrived.
What seemed an awkward situation for Robin at first now turned greatly to his advantage. He demanded an apology from the Minister of War, and although he did not receive this, our treatment immediately improved. The Turkish sentry was soclearly in the wrong that the Commandant felt he should do something to placate us.
One day, Robin and I were told that we would be allowed into Constantinople to shop, provided we gave our parole not to escape while in the town.
This we immediately decided to do, and wrote a promise stating that while we could give no permanent engagement about our behaviour while guarded in prison, if we were allowed out into the town we bound ourselves to return faithfully to our quarters at a fixed time. Next day, accordingly, we dressed in the quaint apologies for clothes in our possession, and sallied out, blinking in the sunlight of the square.
Imagine our surprise when we found an escort of ten armed men, who were to accompany us to see that we kept our word. Highly incensed, we returned directly to the Commandant's office, followed by our retinue. At first the Commandant did not understand the nature of the insult he had offered to us, but eventually he agreed that a squad of soldiers was unnecessary to enforce an Englishman's promise, and he promised to send us out again on the following day, more suitably attended.
This time there were only two dog-collar gentlemen to accompany us, and although we were later joined by a third, who, I think, smelt beer and beef in the offing, we considered that this number of attendants was not unsuitable to our importance. (For a long time after escape, indeed, I was always expecting tofind a sentry at my elbow. They were very convenient for carrying parcels, and during this excursion the minions of the law actually carried back to prison our escaping gear, wrapped in harmless-looking packages.) Rope, fezzes, and maps were the articles chiefly required, and these we purchased without much difficulty in restaurants where we were known. Robin and I were adepts at this sort of thing by now. One of us had only to go over to our escort's table, and standing over them, inquire whether they preferred black beer or yellow: meanwhile the other would be "wangling" the waiter. Besides material accessories we also required certain moral support. Was it worth while to escape? Would the Bulgarians attack Constantinople? What was themoraleof the Tchatchaldja garrison? . . . . All this and much more we learnt from Miss Whitaker, whom we met (just by chance, do you think?) at tea at the Petits Champs.
We returned from our excursion highly satisfied with our prospects. That evening we thanked the Commandant warmly for our delightful day, and asked one favour more, namely that we should be allowed out regularly into the garden, in order to get the exercise necessary to our health. An hour's walk every day would greatly relieve the tension of captivity. Surely, we said, the Commandant did not intend to keep us caged like wild beasts, with a minimum of air and exercise?
Permission was granted, with the proviso that weshould not talk to other prisoners. Of all black sheep we were the blackest ones.
So we walked in the garden, and discussed plans of escape. We now had fezzes, rope, and plenty of money. On the other hand, there were so many sentries everywhere, and so many doors and barriers to get through, that the thing seemed impossible at first.
Bribery was not to be thought of. Any attempt in this direction would have sent us through the portals of the damned again, to await the end of the war in chains.
Only in the garden was there the slightest chance of success. Our chance, however, lay, as before, in the element of the unexpected.
On the far side of the garden from the prison were some iron railings, which overlooked a drop of from one hundred to two hundred feet, to a street below. These railings were spaced at just about the width of a man's head. We tested them at various points while apparently engaged in looking at the view, and made a note of the gaps most suitable to squeeze through. No one appeared to think it likely we would try to escape over a precipice. The six sentries in the garden therefore, whose sole duty it was to watch us, generally devoted their attention to seeing we did not talk to the Greek clerks who came into the restaurant to get their dinner of an evening. Beyond occasionally saying the magic word "Yok," they allowed us to do much what we liked at the other side of the garden,where our interests, they thought, could only be of an innocent nature.
At first our idea was to get through the railings and slide down a rope into the street, but there were practical difficulties about this. Thirty fathoms of rope are impossible to conceal on one's person. Besides, we thought of a better plan.
Having got through the railings, we would climb along outside them, past the garden, and along the wall of a printing-house, where their support still continued, until we reached the main square of the Seraskerat. Here we would squeeze back through the railings (for the drop was still too difficult to negotiate) and proceed as follows: We would stroll to the centre of the square, light cigars, and then suddenly altering our demeanour, hurry back to the staff garage where the military motor-cars were kept. The sentry on guard would certainly think we were chauffeurs.
With a guttural curse or two, we would start up a car, and drive directly to the Bulgarian frontier, or Dedeagatch, as the situation dictated. If anyone attempted to stop us on the way, we had only to say, "Kreuzhimmel donnerwetter," and open out the throttle. The plan was charming in its simplicity andkolossalin conception. We already imagined ourselves arriving with full details of the Constantinople defences, in a big Mercédès car. The plan was complete. We had only to do it!
Opportunity came one twilight evening, when we two were alone in the garden, with the six sentries, all rather sleepy, and the Damad, who had just returned from a hectic week-end up the Bosphorus. He was full of stories and news which we did not want to hear. For a time he bored us to tears talking of the war, but at last conversation flagged, and we bade him a cordial good-night, making an appointment to see him again next day, which we trusted we would not be in a position to keep.
Then we edged to the far side of the garden, where the railings were. The six sleepy sentries were watching the stream of people going into the restaurant near the entrance gate. They paid no attention to us, and looked—rather sadly, I thought—at the Greeks who were coming in to have a square meal, a thing that they themselves could only dream of.
Feeling that the moment was too good to be lost, and yet somehow too good to be true, we stood by the railings, with our heads half through.
"Come on," said Robin cheerily.
I put my head through, and my flinching flesh followed a moment later. I hung over the drop and looked and listened tensely for any stir in the garden, expecting every moment to hear the clamour of sentries and the drone of bullets. But all was quiet. One sentry lit another's cigarette. A third was playing with a kitten. The others had their backs turned.
We clambered along, and reached the printing-house.We were out of sight of the sentries now, and the way seemed clear, across a patch of ivy, to a gap which would give us entrance to the main square. Once we had gained its comparative freedom, success, I felt, was certain.
But my hope was short-lived. The railings on the wall of the printing-house led past an open window, which we had not been able to see from the garden. At this window three Turks were sitting. They were officials of the printing-house no doubt, and were now engaged in discussing short drinks and the prospect of the Bosphorus. Had we interposed our bodies between them and the view, we would have been in a very unpleasant position. With one finger they could have pushed us down to the street a hundred feet below, or else detained us where we were, to wait like wingless flies until soldiers came to drag us back.
It was a horrid anti-climax, but we decided to go back. There was no alternative.
That return journey was quite hideous, for at any moment before we reached our gap a sentry might have seen us. And even if they had missed us at fifty yards (and we were a sitting shot against the sunset) we would have looked absolutely foolish and been abjectly helpless.
All went well, however. We squeezed back through the railings, and found ourselves in the prison garden again. Our attempt had failed. I felt as if someonehad suddenly flattened me out with a rolling pin. But Robin was quite undismayed.
"Our luck is in," he said—"else we would have been spotted against those railings just now. Look, it is a full moon, like the last time we escaped. I bet we succeed to-night."
"I won't take your money," I said, hugely heartened, however.
Four of our sentries were smoking sadly, and looking into the restaurant, as boys look into a cake-shop. The fifth was standing by the gold-fish pond. The sixth leaned against the railings, about eighty yards away from us, looking out towards Galata Bridge.
After hurriedly dusting ourselves, we walked straight past him. He turned and glanced at his watch, and then at us.
"Just five minutes more," we urged—"we haven't had nearly enough exercise yet."
And we continued walking round the garden, breathlessly discussing plans.
The sentry nodded and sighed, then turned again to contemplate the Golden Horn.
Our one remaining chance was to walk straight out of the gate near the restaurant, into the main square. In moments of intense stress one can sometimes grasp the psychology of a situation in a flash. We saw into the minds of the sentries, I believe. They were bored and unsuspecting. A sort of prevision came to us that we would be mistaken for Greek employees of theMinistry, and could stroll unquestioned through the gate, if we acted instantly.
It was getting dark now. We slipped into a patch of shadow, threw away our hats, and taking out the fezzes which we always carried concealed under our waistcoats, we put them on our heads. Then we strolled on.
To understand our feelings, it must be remembered that no officer has ever before succeeded in escaping from this ancient prison. The Turks prided themselves on the fact. Recently, a political suspect had made a desperate dash for liberty by the same entrance as we now approached, but he had been caught before he reached the outer square. Good men had tried—but fools rush in where angels fear to tread. And weknew, by sheer faith, that we would not be stopped.
We walked very slowly now, stopping sometimes to gesticulate, after the manner of the Mediterranean peoples. What we said I have no idea, but I think I spokestaccatoItalian, while Robin answered in Arabic imprecations. Near the gate I remember saying to him passionately in English: "For God's sake turn your trousers down," for to one's sensitive mind such an oddity of dress was certain to spell detection. This was idiotic, but my nerves were on edge.
Mingling with the Greeks who were coming out of the restaurant, we came at a very, very leisurely pace to the sentry-guarded gate. Everyone has a pass ofcourse, both to enter and to leave this gate, but season ticket holders, so to speak, are rarely asked to produce their credentials.