DJEMAL PACHA, ONE OF THE TRIUMVIRATE WHOSE A.D.C.,ISMID BEY, MET ME SECRETLY IN STAMBOUL
TheChef de Renseignementof the Ottoman Bank was agreeable. In fact, the bank would have made largely on the transaction, and, while helping us by ready money, and saving the Home Government over 100 per cent. on the exchange, have kept it out of Germany's hands, and would not have got any meantime advantage, as repayment of the loan would have been delayed until after the war. Every one was most enthusiastic. Senior officers at Brusa were willing to support the scheme, but the Turks wanted General Townshend's signature. We drafted a letter from our prison asking for his support and approval, and, if possible, to enlist the sympathies of the Dutch Embassy where English cheques were paid only at market rate, British officers getting about one-third to a quarter value (exchange was 500 at the armistice). The general frequently dined in Stamboul, and had a launch at his disposal, so I was informed by a Turkish naval officer, who had been with him for some time, and although no doubt considerably watched, would have many more opportunities than any one else.
After considerable trouble I managed to get a letter through to the general, with a covering one to be given to him at a dinner in Pera. The reply was long in forthcoming, and was most disappointing.
General Townshend wrote through his A.D.C., pointing out that the Turks weren't philanthropists, and if the scheme had been thought practicable it would have been tried before. Still, one must suppose the general knows best, as he dines out frequently and sees quite an amount of Stamboul personages.
I understand from de Nari, however, that General Townshend is more stalked than stalking. In a small photo of the general, with his A.D.C., Mrs. Forkheimer, and a young Austrian lady, taken on the rocks at Principo, we saw the first of our general for years. He looked extraordinarily fit and well. Some weeks later I passed him in Galata with an officer, and he looked exceptionally fit then. We envied him his opportunities, even if he were closely watched. Of one thing I was certain, that he either did not or could not know of the appalling sufferings and mortality of his division.
About this time I received a kind letter from Lord Islington in reply to the letter I had sent in the water-bottle. It contained, to my joy, the signal I had asked him to put if the letter was ever received and dealt with, and contained also some personal inquiries about my health. This letter landedme in for another inquiry, which I survived all right. In fact, I pointed out that it was known in London I had been neglected, and so I was allowed to visit Dr. König again and extend my visit to the baths. The German doctor was now quite angry with the Turks. I got my bi-weekly bath at Pera, and built up a regular visit to certain places. De Nari and I were now well acquainted. He was a very able and strenuous worker, and although keen on Turkish affairs, and fond of Turks even to the point of being hand in glove with the Union and Progress party, he was a keen and loyal Italian from all I saw of him.
Politics progressed rapidly. The second German offensive was well under way. So successful was it that, according to de Nari, my chance of going home on a special embassy grew less. The Turk in victory does not do himself bare justice. He revives instincts from his uplands in Central Asia. The Germans would be in Paris in two weeks, and Turkey would have back Egypt! etc., etc.
This man, de Nari, was a type to admire. An adventurer, brave, fearless, able, far-seeing, yet with much of the gambler in his nature, he belonged to the strain of Italy's brightest history. I remember one day having left the posta downstairs, and I came up by another door. De Nari's tall figure entered the room where a piano and 'cello lay amongst his papers and plots. He pulled his small black beard, and said with an anxious sigh, "Eh, bien! Un jour plus!"
I noticed a revolver in his hip pocket. This man had just been to a meeting with the chief spirits of the Union and Progress Committee, and had had to talk around the big heavy Telaat.
Apart from our political moves I tried to the very best of my powers to persuade him to get d'Arici out of prison. But d'Arici's machiavellian spirit had so many ramifications that I think he was commonly feared by all parties. I knew him, however, as a brave and reliable man once one understood his code. He was still within measurable distance of death, yet he dared to give me written information to carry outside. This would have completed the noose, and I was fully conscious of it when I carried the packet around. In fact, the day I took it I had resolved that at any cost I wouldn't allow the posta to get it.
GENERAL TOWNSHEND ON HIS ISLAND (PRINCIPO) WITH VISITORS
Great days. De Nari brought me messages from this Turk and that. I told nothing, but waited. I felt that with a very little the Turks could be persuaded to give in, and said I was ready to take their suggestions and to promise to return to captivity if nothing happened. But against all that the set Government party wanted, or that the Union and Progress wanted, was the solid rebellious faction without a head, some against the Germans, some against the cost of living, some for the old regime, some for Bouharneddin, and some for the new party. Turkey in faith and tradition is too disciplined to be Bolshevik. Otherwise her rebellious factions would have united and hurled out the war cabinet in twenty-four hours. It was on one of these factions I had stumbled through the old Arab in the prison. Their scheme had now grown to blowing up Bilijik Viaduct, thus stopping the German offensive against Baghdad, a wholesale slaughter in Stamboul (d'Arici and I resolved how in this case we would floor postas and escape in their kit), and the opening of the Dardanelles. The police were seething with disaffection. The garrison at the Dardanelles had quarrelled with the Germans there, and a hundred or so of the latter had become casualties. This was confirmed from several sources. We began to hope for a sortie of the Dardanelles Turkish Garrison. But the success of the German offensive nullified this. Then came more quarrelling about the Black Sea Russian Fleet. The Turks insisted on taking it from the Germans. The latter had long since altered their cry from Berlin to Baghdad into Baku-Bokhara, and here got at loggerheads with the Turkish advertised programme. Turkish finance was in a deplorable state. Everything pointed to peace. But the German management that had kept Turkey in so long was efficient beyond words. A little opening, a little altering of the disposition of troops, and Turkey was out. Such was the state of Stamboul in May, 1918. I went to tea on more than one occasion at my friend Forkheimer's home. We talked Cambridge and the phenomenon of war as if we had been back among the cloistral stillnesses beside the Cam. He told me frankly what state Austria was in.
In the middle of all this political welter I was suddenly summoned to the court-martial. Arrived there one morning with my guard, I was shown into a passage, and the first person's head I saw among those peering around the corner was Castell's. He was heavily guarded. The place swarmedwith sentries and spies. By making several requests in English and French I soon found no one there understood these languages. A little kitten had been playing in the room. I enticed it to come and talked to it and played with it with a piece of string. The Turks all became most interested, and thus talking to the little kitten I informed Castell exactly as to the stage of the case, and what was not known. I told him that it was my opinion nothing was known of the actual attempt, and that he must give guarded answers and evade every question that might divulge this. Our procedure was to avoid implicating the restaurant, who had had little or nothing directly to do with us. This I had purposely arranged beforehand. Also I wanted our stories to agree in evasion, as it was useless for me to evade one question, if he did not.
He had, it appeared, been transported to Angora, and had been kept under the closest confinement there, until one day, when he was informed he was to go to the war prison at Stamboul for court-martial for assisting British officers to escape. He was thus dreadfully in the dark, and had an idea the whole scheme was out. The other officer had kept inside the margin of my statement, and I intended Castell to do the same.
While keeping strictly to the truth in any statement, I intended to block and confuse their prosecution as much as possible. I now ordered Castell to abandon a scheme for hiding his identity which he had made months before. He was from Smyrna, and very little proof of his identity seemed forthcoming. He had intended taking the name of a British officer who had died on the trek. This was to save his neck, if imperilled, as he had some doubts whether, in spite of his British nationality, the Turks would not hang him without further ado as a Turkish subject. Much of Turkish justice depended on the state of the German offensive, which now seemed to have partly fizzled out. The Turks appeared to know it was the last bolt.
I was taken into a room with even more officials present than before. The court arose and bowed, and I saluted them. They gave me cigarettes, and inquired of my bath. I thanked them, and pointed out that this happened to be a bath day. An old judge smiled amusedly, as if I had already been orderedto be shot and tendered a petition for reprieve on account of its being my bath day.
They took particulars, and, showing me the letter, asked many questions at once. I informed the court, through Ali Bey, that I would do my best not to waste these gentlemen's time if they first allowed me to ask a question or two. After some discussion they agreed. Pointing to the letter, I asked if this, and this alone, was the only matter in issue, and if all questions and answers were to be concerned with it, or did they want to go into Gelal Bey's inquiry, and many other letters I had written? They looked puzzled, and would not commit themselves. However, after an hour of futile questioning about something or other in the letter, I gave them all kinds of contradictory statements and meetings with other persons, and about a dozen plans of escape, as if I were keen on making a clean breast of all my delinquencies. This they took down letter by letter, and, of course, actually found out on cross-examining me that these things related to other letters and other individuals, and led us into most interesting sidelights about our earlier letters to Bach Pacha, and Heaven knows what, but did not advance the case in hand. At last, mopping their brows—it was a hot day, and we had been at it over two hours—they said very severely that the trial was only concerned with the attempt to escape, and with the particular letter. This eased my conscience, as it cut out the actual attempt, and confined matters to the Black Sea affair. Except when they grew tired (I sympathized with them), they were quite pleasant, and my eyes pouring with water, an old colonel examined them, and went into an account of how his eyes had been similar once in the Caucasus. This I made lead to a digression on the war in the Caucasus and German propaganda there. (Germans were in hospital at Haida Pacha, with bad eyes, had they come from there?) We got on to the French Front, and the whole court crowded around to hear my opinion of the situation there.... I quoted the generals from Brusa, that they predicted an early dislocation of the German push. We got on to politics, and, later in the afternoon, after a most enjoyable day, marred only by the proximity of certain questions to embarrassing ones, I had managed to explain that the letter had been sent to Castell, c/o. the Embassy, as I didn't know his address. I had first seen him in church holdingthe plate. I didn't say where I had last seen him, which had been in the boat. Also I managed to save Doust, who had been a starter in the original scheme, although his name wasn't mentioned, by not answering, saying it was not decided as to who would go, but we had left a place for a spare passenger. As a matter of fact, one officer had changed his mind at the last moment. The Turks got to this point before at Psamatia, but instead of sending for officers concerned, they sent for Lieutenant Galloway, an officer who had given his parole, and was sunning himself pleasantly at the parole camp at Gedos. But as it was merely his travelling a few miles against a chance of Doust's neck, we three in the know were inwardly conscience easy.
The Turks congratulated me on my statement and one called me ashaitan(devil) to his colleague. I was to return to Brusa shortly, provided I answered the most important question. What matter? said I. Having answered so many, what was one extra for so great a boon? In fact, if they offered to return me to England I wouldn't mind repeating the whole performance. They clapped me on the shoulder, and then, amid a deathly silence, asked me to explain how it was the rope was actually seen down the wall. (They had evidently mixed up the occasion.) I said if they would produce the person who saw it I would endeavour to extract the reason from him, the wisdom of putting down a rope to escape when the plan had not only not been delivered, but, on the contrary, discovered.
This answer delighted the old judge, who said I wasbirinji(first-class), and wouldn't have me hectored further. I have forgotten to record that early in the trial they had admitted that Fauad, the interpreter, had played a most villainous game, that the letter had never been to the censor, that he had stamped it, taken it to a post-office to have a post-mark put on it, and then, tearing it open, had reappeared with it days later, saying it had cost him so many hundreds of pounds, etc. I now congratulated myself on having been so circumspective about the case, and that my opinions and theory had been so extraordinarily correct.
A door opened, and then, after some shuffling, question two was put to some one: "Do you know who this is?" A screen was suddenly moved, and there I saw Castell, lookingwhite and scared. They had got very little out of me as to our meetings, etc., and I had said that he was the man who took the plate round in church, and had been unknown to me before, and that I had been informed that he was anxious to escape.
He looked helpless at being asked who I was, but the screen was hardly removed, whenIsaid aloud for Castell to hear, "Why, that's the man at the church; I didn't know him before then." The court jumped up, and guards came over to seize me; I hadn't been meant to speak, as they had intended asking Castell who I was, etc. But the opportunity was too good to be missed. Castell was much relieved at this satisfactory announcement, showing how little the court-martial had progressed with the escape proceedings. The old judge roared with delight, and altogether we were quite entertained.
The proceedings had not stated what offence had been committed, although it seemed to embrace:—
(1) My intention to escape with news, general spying, and "undermining the fidelity of Turkish guards" (?).
(2) Castell's guilt in helping me to escape. He was technically a civil prisoner himself.
(3) Fauad's guilt as a Turkish posta. He was wearing uniform.
It began by my informing them these were not offences for which an officer, who had refused his parole, could be punished. It ended by my giving a general tirade on international law as regards prisoners of war, and showing that there were certain acts from which a prisoner of war could be restrained from committing, but for which he could not legally be punished. For instance, I might be much more useful to my country as a prisoner propagandist, and that with a sufficient audience of postas I might start a revolution. They were amused at this, and asked me what, from my point of view, would be a remedy for this? I suggested exchanging me!
I had been asked by Gelal Bey to pay for the replacement of two of Fauad's teeth that I had knocked out. I agreed willingly, and now suggested that I would like him to carry this souvenir of his treachery. The court, however, said they would not require this, provided I did not regard him as a Turkish soldier, although he was in uniform.
They shook hands with me. I had much cause to be thankful that the inquiry had been so unsuccessful in finding out more.
I now returned to prison pending trial of the others. Castell was moved near me. This meant he was acquitted. A day or two afterwards the state of our rooms was so unsanitary that we feared an outbreak of fever. Castell left for hospital with typhus, and another man died. The smell from the drains and lavatories was overpowering. We were between this and the stench from the prisoners in the cellars beneath our window.
Colonel Newcombe now went sick. His skin broke out into a fiery rash, which increased, and he felt unwell. I tried daily for three or four days to get some one to see him, but the commandant took no notice. At last one doctor came and said it was merely bug-bites. By dint of perseverance we got another Turkish doctor who ordered him to hospital, it being actually smallpox. The colonel went off very depressed at our dividing, as we had all sorts of plans on foot for an escape from Brusa. He hoped, however, to get to the hospital where his lady friends might be permitted to visit him.
D'Arici and I now got down to work. I collected a complete compendium of news about the state of Turkey, statistics of the army, shipping, transport, exchange, loans, and especially inside politics. Dissensions between party and party were increasing daily, and now that the offensive, wonderful as it had been, was held up, the Turks on all sides were for peace. Yet the official hold continued.
By intelligence of this nature, carefully corroborated and up to date, I hoped to be able to render some service to our authorities when, as I fully believed, we should come to enter Stamboul. As yet no Turk can believe this will happen.
The others were sent to Afion. I continued on for a week or two. D'Arici and I had made great progress with our Intelligence. I loved to listen to his adventures and travels and his light-hearted view of life, including as it had for him great danger, varying discomfort, and uncertain rewards. Yet whether on a duel or trying to raise the wind, the artist was not far beneath, and he often treated us to selections from grand opera. His voice was an excellent baritone of great purity and power.
With the other officers removed, I was now more free, and got into touch with two well-known English Levantines, Hadkinson, father and son, who were in the next room to ours. The former was a fine type of manhood, white-haired, and approaching seventy-five. They had been confined for over eighteen months as suspects in spying at Smyrna for our fleet. Young Hadkinson, the son, was muchau fait, and helped me gather many facts about the course of Turkish politics during the war, and the many factions working secretly for the overthrow of Enver. We hatched all kinds of plots, and finally adopted a scheme fitting in with the old Arab's, by which a certain Turk was to be sent to Brusa to act as our messenger to and from Stamboul (it was only six hours' journey). Thus we could perfect our scheme. There are parts of these schemes and plots which it may be early to publish, but one startling proposition was for a certain powerful faction to open the Dardanelles to our fleet by a revolution among the Fort garrisons. It was amusing to think of me, a prisoner, carrying answers from and to Turkish generals at the head of many thousands of Turks in all the services, for a conspiracy to open the Dardanelles. Nor was this so unfeasible as it appeared. The army of the Dardanelles was anti-Enver. It was the Union and Progress Party alone that prevented every move. The movement wanted money, and was going to commence with a general massacre of the Turkish Cabinet. At this stage I left for Brusa again, the capital where many prominent Turks even then were in hiding!
Arrived I found my room next General Delamain had been pounced upon, and I took up my quarters with the other officers at a building known as the American School, in a garden high up above the town. Here some of the senior officers from other camps had arrived. They included Colonel Lethbridge, Colonel Lodge, Colonel Broke-Smith, who for a time had commanded the 10th Field Artillery Brigade in Kut. He was just the same cheery good fellow as when I had first seen him under fire, wearing a tam-o'-shanter in his bivouac at Azizie, seated alongside his slowly dwindling "peg." He grew more interesting as he got into the night, and the more interesting he grew the nearer his nose sank towards his glass resting always on the table. About 4 a.m., towards the end of his anecdotes, his nose generally peeped over the rim.
I was severely watched, and not allowed much freedom. We had less restrictions in some ways, and some officers were actually allowed to fish. Most of us took to making rods and lines and flies. General Smith, easily the best fisherman there, made most beautiful flies, some of which he gave me.
Major Hibbert and I shared a primitive rod I had brought back from Stamboul. I was allowed to go fishing once by mistake. Postasshikaredme so severely that I had little fishing, but my brother officers were most sporting and kind in not minding a little inconvenience. They, too, however, went not to fish so much as to get a walk three miles outside the limits tramped over for so long.
We went to see the football twice a week, and on theseoccasions General Delamain and I sometimes exchanged political notes on Europe. The third offensive had begun, but changed immediately into a counter-offensive. I shared a room with a Major Julius, a staff officer of considerable reputation in India. It is significant that from some meagre news of cavalry and artillery movement on the French front, he calmly and deliberately prophesied that the great day had come, and an offensive would follow. It did. In a few days we had got Peronne, and went on and on.
Colonel Newcombe arrived two weeks after me, and now came to my house. We worked letters to Stamboul, and I kept privately in touch with de Nari. This was expensive, as we paid a person's passage weekly, there and back, with a reward. The colonel now proceeded to lose his heart to the young lady who had nursed him in hospital.
Communication to Stamboul from Brusa remained difficult, owing to the risk. Forkheimer had kindly written a note to the Consul at Brusa, and through this channel I managed, once or twice, to get communication through to de Nari about money and news, although I did not send any intelligence matter through this channel, as being unfair to the other side; and in fact I promised to that effect. The Consul's daughters were most sporting and kind. We met them, on occasion, in the bazaar, and Greenwood, who had now turned up at Brusa, and who had made much progress as a disciple, frequently did sleight of hand tricks over a basket of apples in some one's stall with one of them, thus getting a note through about Embassy money or something. I managed to get letters through to Forkheimer to recover for me a medical certificate which Dr. König had formerly written me, but which had gone astray, except one piece perfectly undecipherable.
A Committee of Prisoners' Exchange now arrived, and we all fortified ourselves with statements of our cases. I knew they would prevent my going for political reasons, unless and until de Nari's schemes were ready.
More and more I saw only too clearly how all other schemes and policies came back to the U. & P.'s programme. That notorious party, bad as it was, remained the one strong faction with anything like a programme or that knew what it wanted. It retained the reins of government merely because everything outside it was vacillating, indefinite, inarticulate; because thepolicy of parties that revolved around it was either tyrannized by intrigue or hampered by personal jealousies. And so these parties made no progress towards translating their general ideals into realities, but vaporized over their respective watchwords. For instance, the Itihad or Union faction was for bridging the artificial distinction of Young and Old Turk. They wanted a Turkey for all Turks. Another faction, rather a lesser circle enclosed by the last, was the Peace and Salvation Society which was for immediate cessation of hostilities, abandoning the scimitar for the wheels of industry and general social development. These dreamed of the Prince Subaheddine and wanted his recall. The Prince had had to leave Turkey at the peril of his life, and after doing useful work for us in Greece went to Switzerland. He seems an idealist of good intentions, and with a love of his country, but, unless under the shelter of our guns, to lack both the vigour, nerve and determination necessary to cope with such as Enver a soldier of fortune, Telaat a promoted telegraph clerk, Djemal a throwback to the primitive Tartar, all enjoying a snatched executive authority at the point of a revolver. There had been with me in the prison in Stamboul a Turkish major brought up for appropriating goods. From him I learned something of the appalling nature of the corruption in Turkey. Take Giahid Bey, for example, who was appointed to stop profiteering. He merely steered profits into his own pocket and that of Enver & Co. I heard from a first-hand source that on the second sack of Erzerum, property worth three million liras was divided between the triumvirate and remains invested in various countries against an international finance débacle later on.
Take Jemal, the Governor of Stamboul (Commandant de la Place), formerly Enver's A.D.C., a man in whose hands rested the lives of practically all the political prisoners of Turkey. Not one spark of justice remains to such. Not only had he to fulfil the mandates of the triumvirate, but, outside that, he utilized every opportunity for his own advancement. That is possible in Stamboul probably more than anywhere in Europe, not even excepting Russia. To seek advancement at the expense of the public weal and justice, it is only necessary to enter the arena of intrigue boldly, and, armed with the possession of as many facts as possible of other intrigues, bya general compromise of blackmail, to retain this advancement. Added to which there is the difficulty of foreign policy, left as a most tangled legacy of personal intrigue by Abdul Hamid. The problem of Russia, Turkey's external fear both for Constantinople and her eastern flank, of the Balkans with their vulture propensities awaiting the fall of Turkey, and the necessity of Turkey having at least one friend in Europe, are a sufficient handful without the increased embarrassment she gets from internal questions like that of the Armenians and the Arabs. And over all these problems, without and within, mined like high explosives around every important structure of the State, there is usually flung the shadow of some daring ambassador presiding by intrigue and threat of application of the match. Wangenheim was such a one.
One heard it said on every hand that our ambassadorial representation before the war was so weak that it flung Turkey into the arms of Germany. There must be some truth in this from the universality of its utterance, and yet imagine to what state a country, as seething with intrigue and corruption as is Turkey, must be reduced by being bombarded with the courtship of the leading Powers?
The third German offensive now became our offensive, and once more the tide of battle ended in our favour. Once more on the French front we redug our trenches among the earlier dead. We seemed still far from getting back to England. The exchange that should have happened two years before has been held up partly by the instigation of Germany, and partly by the weakness of our own delegates on the Prisoner of War Committee in Switzerland, two or three years before. Eighteen months after Turkish prisoners in Egypt had got their treatment agreed upon, we were leftin statu quo, and when we saw for the first time the regulations to which both England and Turkey were bound, there were outbursts of indignation on every hand. If our representatives on the Prisoner of War Committee had included some efficient soldier, who had known, by practical dealings, the methods and delays and subterfuges of the Turks, we would have had some safeguards, and it would not have been possible to keep British officers in underground typhus cells for nine months, awaiting trial for an offence of escaping, the penalty of which was only two weeks, and the inspection of camps wouldnot have been a farce. For instance, a list was allowed to be presented by the Turks saying all camps had no complaints, when we had not even been visited up to date (July, 1918).
At times I have imagined that the lot of imprisonment, such as ours, must have a purifying influence and help one to see beneath the surface of the passing show into the deeper, eternal currents that flow along translucently below.
Sometimes, if rarely, I had managed to entice my posta above Brusa town and from a hill beheld the rising beauty of Olympus. Going to my bath on one occasion in the hot month of August, I was too tired and seedy to get there in time, and so, sitting down by the roadside where the more fortunate were allowed to walk daily, I wrote these lines—
SONNETCAPTIVITY
One day I sought a tree beside the roadSad, dusty road, well known of captive feet—My mind obedient but my heart with heatRebelled pulsating 'gainst the captor's goad.So my tired eyes closed on the 'foreign field'That reached around me to the starlight's verge,One brief respite from weary years to urgeMe to forget—and see some good concealed.But skyward then scarred deep with ages longI saw Olympus and his shoulders strongRise o'er the patterned destinies of all the yearsMarked with God's finger by the will of Heaven—Tracks men shall tread, with only Time for leaven—That we might see with eyes keen after tears.
Brusa, July 16th, 1918.
But these moments were few, and the pressure of existence and shikar for food and money, and general bandobast of plots and plans and pots and pans engrossed much attention. The Austrian Consul's house I visited for a few seconds through the posta confusing it with the council offices. I usually arranged not to go to the house, but after I had built up a system Colonel Newcombe over used it. His young lady friend, who had nursed him in Stamboul, came on a visit toBrusa, and rendezvoused him once too often here. They confused him with me and I got punishment for both. This left Colonel Newcombe free still to carry on our plans, although he was very averse to letting me pay his penalty. Any other proceeding was, of course, futile for both of us.
We had several plans, all of which failed. Then we decided to get back to Stamboul once again. So changed was the political outlook for Turkey that escape from there was now much easier, and to live in hiding was possible. He arranged to get there by the help of this young lady.
The exchange selections of officers were made and remade, and finally all kinds of people were put down including one colonel who was hard of hearing, which he described as gun deafness. He managed to be deaf while his examination was on, but forgot not to hear when they said he was to go. We all did this more or less. However, I realized the board was all a hoax and insisted on going back to Stamboul for treatment to my spine, as there was no specialist in Brusa. By dint of great persistence I managed this. An interpreter, Zia Effendi, from the American College, Smyrna, I found deeply versed in politics, and although he was not reliable, was undoubtedly in touch with some movements and was useful to a degree.
It was now August, 1918. The faster the Germans went back, the more the German alliance was criticized and the Government openly attacked. A financial panic occurred in Stamboul. Jealousies raged over the Doubrouja, half of which Germany gave to Bulgaria leaving the rest in abeyance. And Turkey wanted the Maritza even if Bulgaria had the half of the Doubrouja. Germany used this fact as a bribe. Then trouble commenced over Batum. Germany, in seizing Odessa, indicated her independence of Turkey on her way to the East. Popular feeling, that had only wanted a leading motive, now became articulate over this. Feeling ran high. Telaat went to Berlin, collecting souvenirs and welcomes from Bulgaria and Austriaen route. There, as had been expected, Turkish claims were admitted after a theatrical tussle put up by Germany, on the condition that Turkey remained in the war.
In the meantime Bulgaria began to plot to be the first rat from the sinking ship. The first rat has the best chance.
Meanwhile Newcombe's plan to escape to Stamboul wasdifficult owing to the extra posta in the garden. This was due to the Consular affair. He disguised himself as an Arab, and, except that he walked as if in Regent Street, did not make a bad one. The plans he left largely to me. On my suggestion he kept to his bed for some days beforehand on pretence of being ill. Then, on the night, I rushed down to one posta and sent him off with a letter to the commandant. The other was suspicious, but after some scene I managed to cajole this fellow, Abdul Khadir by name, whom we all detested, and made my peace with him. Sincere acting was necessary as we heard the cracks of a tile, and I knew Newcombe would be caught if Abdul went another yard. I shook him by both hands and prevented him from going, telling him that now I had forgiven him. This was true. The man was a sneak in many ways and I took delight in thinking how I was enabling Newcombe to get away even as we spoke, and that it was this posta of all who should be on guard. Then Greenwood and I decoyed with several drinks of mastik, the curious people, including a colonel, who wanted to see Newcombe. I lay in Colonel Newcombe's bed at night. The next day I told the old Turkish officer in charge of the place that Newcombe did not want to see any one, which was probably true. (He was by this time well on his way to Stamboul.) I then got into his bed knowing the Turk, being suspicious, would come. Greenwood made me look like Newcombe's figure. Meals, half-eaten, lay by the bedside. I had eaten them so as not to let even the orderlies know. I heard the door open and the Turk peep in. A few groans sent him out again.
The next night we had much to do with keeping abreast of the general curiosity. But it was essential to give him a good start. Then, the following morning, I took in to Colonel Lethbridge, our C.O., a letter of explanation that Colonel Newcombe had left with me for the purpose.
Of all people it was I who was delegated to tell the Turk. In as many words I merely said the Colonel had fled. The old Turk screamed with rage and terror, seized his sword, put on his fez and jacket, and, forgetting his trousers, rushed outside screaming to his postas and looking under every bush.
This continued at intervals all day. We all were locked up, but this only lasted a day or two. A few days later I got permission to go to Haida Pasha Hospital in Constantinople,and heard privately that Newcombe had arrived in Stamboul, and was in hiding through the assistance of his lady friend. Meeting General Delamain on the football ground, I said that I believed this was myHeimkehr, or in other words, that in any case hostilities were near an end. He thought so too. I listened to him on the military situation in France and Bulgaria and we discussed the emergence of new political formations in Europe, the new distribution of the balance of power necessitated by the hiatus of Russia, of the Balkans, possibly of Austria.
We talked of the tendency of small movements to merge into large, of the awakening of similar thought in all men, of chaos revolving around chaos that could not become cosmos before the centre of political gravity were ascertained, and equilibrium adjusted once more. Looking back on captivity one felt that the change in one had become spiritual even more than physical. The pattern of destiny stood out very plainly for us all.
We said "Good-bye," and that night my brother officers gave me an awfully good send off, and Colonel Broke-Smith produced an extra bottle of mastik. I had a long talk with our senior officer, Colonel Lethbridge of the Oxfords, whose quiet, restful attitude was still undisturbed. I left before the dawn in an arabana, some of my friends coming to the wagon. I felt certain this was the last occasion of my departing from Brusa.
Except for one old Jew and a very pretty daughter on board the boat, the voyage was without incident. She sat by me, and after waiting an hour I managed to put a letter into her pocket when the posta turned away. She was to deliver it to Colonel Newcombe. Much depended on this.
We arrived at Galata Bridge, and this time, different from the last, excited crowds were reading news of the victorious arms of the Entente.Le Journal d'Orientspoke out plainly and bitterly against Germany, and was for a separate peace at once. Everything had changed.
I was hustled to Haida Pasha Hospital and went through the same performance as of old, having my clothes taken from me with all my kit and food I had brought with me, and spending the first night in a bathroom. The noise was maddening and I could not sleep.
The whole hospital talked of one, Jones, an officer of the Volunteer Battery whose guns I had brought back from the front line in Kut, at night, on a momentous occasion. I had heard before that he had pretended he was mad so enthusiastically, that he had gone mad in fact. He was now here hating Englishmen hard, and in fact it was dangerous for him to meet them. Most of the Turks said he was mad. I woke after a troubled sleep to the startling announcement by a Turk, from an adjoining bed, that during my sleep Jones had been standing over me silently for a long time. The repetition of this got on my nerves. He wouldn't sleep in the same room with an Englishman, so I moved to a large ward, where I was quite alone.
In the middle of the night I saw a ghoulish figure, wearing a large, black mantle and with stark, staring eyes, stalking me from bed to bed. With all the uncanny anticipation of one's every movement that usually happens only in a nightmare he divined my every move, for I also tried to get to the door. Then I started to talk German. At this an attendant came for him. I breathed freely as he left. I thought what a pity it was after all my experiences to meet my end from a mad fellow-prisoner. After this he fled on seeing me, although I kept up the German identity. Then I got a note written to me from him, a veritable mad document assuring me he hated the English and that he feared I was going to kill him. This arrived just after I had met him in daylight. He wore a black overall, a yard of which he had picked into threads, which his busy fingers did incessantly. His hair was long, he wore a beard, and his white, sunken cheeks gave him a ghastly appearance.
I had wished him a polite "Good evening" in Turkish, and then the note had arrived. I replied to it in German, and he replied again that he didn't know German, and if I didn't promise not to kill him he would kill himself. We met alone, and, in an extraordinary way, with some postas looking on, I discovered Jones to be quite sane.
It is a wonderful story. I refer only casually to it here. From this moment we acted consistently when together, he pretending he hated all of us except me, and at periods even me, if postas were difficult. He had had a most lonely time for months. The strain had been awful. He had heard ofmy adventures and regretted, he said, that we had not been together in a camp to try some escape. He told me of his long story, commencing with spiritualistic séances at Yozgad, which the commandant attended, and how he had almost persuaded the commandant to take him to the Black Sea in search of treasure, the whereabouts the spook had revealed to Jones. The fate of the Turk before the treasure was found seemed to have promised to be a watery grave or bondage. That fizzled out, and then he and another subaltern named Hill, also pretending he was mad, acted with such persistence that they were finally sent for medical treatment to Stamboul. On the way they were spied on and Jones, besides pulling out all his teeth, had, with Hill, pretended to hang himself, kicking off from a table as they heard the guard entering. This, he explained, was necessary to convince the Turk. They had arrived in Stamboul a few months before. On the preceding Monday Hill had left on exchange and Jones, who had had to act he didn't want to go to England as he was a Turk, had either overdone it or else one or two Turkish doctors believed him more or less sane. There can be little doubt that more than one medical officer and possibly the commandant of the hospital, saw through Jones' pretence, excellent as it was.
Some Turk suggested to me, with a most confiding smile, that Jones, in pretending for so long he was mad, was actually going mad, and by the armistice would be so mad then that he would have to be exchanged!! TheChef d'Hôpital, a very decent fellow, discussed Jones at great length with me. Jones, he said, would not return because he feared a court-martial, as one mule had had a grudge against him for getting his guns in a mess at Kut, and that as I had rescued him I was the only Englishman Jones would tolerate. The commandant was quite baffled about the mule, which, on inquiry, turned out to be Colonel Maule. On the plea that I was also down for exchange, in fact had passed both examinations for this in the hospital, and that I believed I could get Jones along with me if I said I would defend him and get him off at the court martial, the commandant asked permission from headquarters for us to go. Jones continued to make himself so troublesome through the whole hospital, knocking people into wells and doing and undoing jobs, that they allowed us together on the plea that we were to concoct a defence. Joneshad already purposely written about twenty volumes of rubbish on this. He was a daring actor but not quite finished, and more than once I thought just overdid it before the commandant. Once alone over our law books, with a huge kettle of tea and some food from parcels that now were arriving, we talked of our plans and of his great loneliness for months. I knew more than he did of local politics, but he was very useful and altogether a first-rate companion.
Mademoiselle X, Colonel Newcombe's friend, now visited me in hospital with another lady who had been kind on occasion. She showed me her engagement ring, and told me how the Colonel had turned up with a basket of fish after getting across the Marmora in a fishing boat, and had gone into hiding there. He seems to have had a sporting time of it and displayed considerable daring. I had posted him pretty well up to date with news for de Nari, and I now heard he had more or less supplanted me as to going home, owing to my disinclination to support any party programme of Turks or any one else.
The next day I got out to Pera for my baths. To accomplish this takes hours of patient waiting for a chance to remind the commandant, and heavy bribery inside the hospital. I found that the city was seething with intrigue, that I was watched, that Enver and Telaat were preparing to flee, that Rahmi Bey, a clever but notorious Albanian at Smyrna, was trying to commencepourparlers. General Townshend who had, so the papers said, become Turcophile, and had frequently acknowledged his good treatment by the Turks, was now rumoured to be enthusiastic to go out with the terms of peace. His agent, the lady who had visited me in hospital, had now got more or less in touch with de Nari,i.e.my line of communications. I was sorry so many things did not seem understood by well-meaning senior officers in captivity. After some hours with my friend de Nari, the posta being outside, and reading between the lines, it appeared that certain parties were stalking Enver and Telaat, who now resigned. That these parties were stalked by General Townshend, and he, in turn, was stalked by de Nari representing the U. and P. and Italy. Some one was required to stalk him.
The U. and P. were most immensely unpopular. Marshal Izzet Pasha, a soldier of standing, became Grand Vizier afterTewfiq Pasha, the friend of England and ambassador in London before the war, had refused. But while the U. and P. was supposed to be definitely ousted from the war cabinet that has brought and kept Turkey in the war, I found that their elaborate spy system had definitely obscured the political identity of certain politicians until then. These, wearing no outward badge but secretly U. and P., now had a preponderance in the cabinet, although not a heavy one. TheJournal d'Orient(run by Carossa, the millionaire) and theAk Shamspoke out strongly for peace.
We were now on the Somme and the Bulgarians were being hammered back. The dying cries of theOsmanisher Lloyd, a blatant Prussian paper that had crowed over Stamboul all the war, were very humorous.
I went into town day after day. Regulations were relaxed, and although I had a posta, I was more free. The universal ruin that threatened seemed to invite every one to make a little backsheesh first. Day after day I saw Forkheimer, who was as kind and sporting as ever. He seemed to have no idea of the extent of the calamity that must threaten his country and Germany if, as it seemed, this was the end. He was disgusted at the state of Turkish policy and put meau courantwith much news that helped me and could not damage them. They had seen a lot.
It is now October 20th. Exchange is panicking, politics in a frightful tangle. The exchange of prisoners is hung up. Marshal d'Esperey, with British and French forces, is still thrashing the Bulgarians, who are reported likely to make peace at any moment. Other political parties here want to forestall them. Zia Bey, the interpreter from Brusa, has helped me to get in touch with the Prince Subaheddine's party, whose chief virtue is that it is opposing political profiteers.
October 21st.—I have seen Newcombe with hisfiancée, and de Nari in the Petit Champs in Pera. The colonel came out of hiding and walks about free. I have seen a note in theJournal d'Orientdescribing him as a Turcophile (at which he would be most annoyed) and saying that he had escaped to Stamboul from Brusa, and would follow General Townshend on a political mission. I now saw de Nari every day and realized one thing very surely, viz. that he stood to represent the interests of the U. and P. and particularly Italy. I sawmost of his private communications from Shefkut Pasha and Midhat Chukri Bey (the able secretary of the U. and P.). He was more than ever concerned lest thepourparlersshould get out of his hand. He engaged the ear of the U. and P. in the cabinet, yet as an Entente subject resident in Turkey during the war, his path was more or less difficult. It seemed to me he was sending Colonel Newcombe with his, de Nari's, wishes, put as representing the Turkish Cabinet. He was largely interested in Adalia, the Italian settlement, and wanted at all costs to get that for Italy. We crossed swords in a friendly way over methods, and he realized I wouldn't carry his representation, which seemed to me unofficial and unauthorized. Nevertheless, Colonel Newcombe has an excellent understanding of the position here, and he does know what few British officers know, what is in the mind of the Turks.
Turkey is outflanked. The Chatalja lines that held up the Bulgarian forces are useless against the concentration of modern artillery fire, and most Turks realize this. I knew from d'Arici who was there on the occasion of that battle, how easily the Bulgarians could have entered behind a heavy moving barrage.
October 23rd.—Townshend left a few days ago for Smyrna. De Nari assured me the public wanted to know what chance his terms had, and questioned me about the possibility of my taking other terms through after Newcombe had left on his errand. I pointed out for his sense of humour that in this way the whole remnant of the prisoners might ultimately get out of Turkey. He was a delightful man, and, with all his arduous schemings, had a large margin for laughter. I informed him that I had no desire to take through his suggestions without adding my own notes. I had now got in touch with the Prince Subaheddine's Party. They were sending a delegate to the fleet to try and get permission to send him to Switzerland for the Prince. I assured them that all their influential following would avail them nothing, but that on one condition I would get his embassy put before the fleet, and possibly take their delegate to London. Also that I was the only one who could do it. The delegate was to meet me in Smyrna in case I left first for there, which I expected to do any day with Jones.
My condition was that complete intelligence on all mattersfinancial, economical, political, naval and military be collected on the heads I gave them. The English governess of the Prince's daughter, Fatteh, unfortunately, I did not meet through posta difficulties. De Nari knew I was in touch, and hurried Colonel Newcombe off. I tried to put the latterau courant, but he was too much elated at his embassy to think of what it contained, and, after all, as he said, de Nari's party was a very real one, and a factor to be reckoned with.
October 26th.—I have omitted to note an excellent air-raid over Stamboul, the second of two attacks in the same week. About 2 p.m. from the hospital I heard the sound of explosions in Stamboul. People were running on all sides to get a good view of the attack, and the Turkish officers of the hospital, many of whom had not seen a shot fired during the war, rushed down below to their basement floors. They came on, a flight of seven very fast machines, and were met by a steady barrage, which began at San Stephano, and continued across Stamboul.
Their bombing could be located by the white bursts. To my delight they seemed quite close to the Ministry of War. As they swept towards Pera, they bombed Galata Bridge, and the German Embassy. The sky was thick with artillery bursts, but the machines were very fast. As they circled around, keeping a beautiful line, and came towards Haida Pasha, heavy German guns opened on them vigorously. This hospital, the largest in Turkey, has a big white crescent painted on the roof, but as German artillery was close by, a mitrailleuse alongside in the Crimean Veterans' garden, and the Haida Pasha Station yard about two hundred yards off our boundary, we saw quite an amount of bombing. The hospital was spared, but a bomb got the barracks close by. The Turks in the hospital pointed with pride to a Turkish aeroplane which got up to attack our planes. It was a glorious opportunity for a spectacular event such as the Turks love.
Above the silver sea there appeared seven shivering planes, flying in formation like sand-grouse across a blue sky dotted by the white puffs of artillery fire. As the Turk arose the fire ceased. Two of our fellows detached themselves to beat him off. He came down wounded a few moments later.
A good deal of propaganda has been dropped, showingthe precise position of the Entente and Allied Armies. From all reports the bombing was not good. They got very few soldiers. One colonel was killed. But as Stamboul is heavily armed and protected, according to the development in practice of modern war it seems justifiable.
The moral effect was the most wonderful imaginable. TheChef d'Hôpitalasked our advice. For the first time in its history the sacred city of Stamboul, sheltering with all its intrigue behind the locked gates of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, is no longer inviolate, but assailable from the skies. It is ten thousand pities we did not resort to this a year before. When one realizes how slender was the official hold that kept Turkey in the war over many crises, how indifferent provincial Turkey was about entering, and how averse to continuing for the sake of Germany, one can realize how air propaganda and attacks would have brought before them the meaning of this war.
I pointed out that they had to thank the Germans for the bombing, firstly, in that she had commenced to break the rules of war, and secondly, that she was their ally. To bomb Germany it was necessary to risk hitting the Turks. The Germans—not the Turks—had used this warfare from the first. This I circulated to the Press, and it reached a good many channels, besides some prominent members of Parliament. The passions of the Turks came uppermost. The next morning I was in Pera. Many Germans had been assaulted, and more than one Turkish woman had flourished her knife at German officers.
I saw instances of sharp expression of feeling myself. The planes came again, dropping propaganda this time, and not bombing. The propaganda notified that German armies are surrendering wholesale, and we have more than reached the original point whence the great German offensive started, and are still thrusting them back; that Bulgarian armies are broken, and communication between Germany and Turkey cut; and that, unless all Germans have orders to move out of Stamboul at once, bombing will continue. I had ascertained the extreme importance and likelihood of advantage in this propaganda, and had asked a captured R.A.F. officer with me in prison months before to get it through at once. He had a code, and the first letters of new prisoners were nowexpedited. He sent it. This time public rage and dissatisfaction was more intensified than ever, and the Press was outspoken.
General Townshend's offers of mediator, as advertised by certain political parties, no one takes seriously who is acquainted with the political manœuvring of Turkish parties for position. They are prepared to use his "good graces," as they put it, just so far and no more as he can recommend leniency for them, or rather, give to the fortunate parties, successful in manœuvring for the privilege of commencingpourparlers, the chance of having first word.
Moreover, the Turks refer in the Press to their excellent treatment of the General as giving them a sort of right to expect his "good graces." One is tempted to ask, like the soldier inL'Aiglon, what about the rank and file?
It is the Entente thrust towards Nish, the rumour that we have flying columns near Lala Burgas, and that, failing a surrender, a landing will be made at Dedogatch, that is making up the Turkish mind. It is the collapse of Germany on the western front, the decision in the main theatre of war, that has crumpled up Turkey. In other words, there can be no mediation here any more than there was when Kut fell.
October 31st.—I have been too busy to write my notes. Jones and I have worked very hard for hours a day with an inexhaustible patience to try to prove his insanity. It is now admitted that he is insane and believes he is to go home to be court-martialled for some offence, and I am to take him away on the pretext of defending him. It would take many hundreds of pages to write down the history of these four weeks. I have the offer of living freely with de Nari, but I do not care to accept a semi-freedom. Nor do I want to stay here until the fleet enters, as it must. I want to get down to Smyrna. By then, if the delegate from the Prince's party arrives, I can take him to the fleet, or otherwise go alone. I became acquainted the other day with de Nari's terms and suggestions carried by Newcombe, who is to have direct communication with Turkey, but only through de Nari by a code. I have a letter from de Nari to Newcombe, saying I am also to use the code and to have access to his channel of communication, if necessary. After Colonel Newcombe hadgone, de Nari's scheme did not appear to him so rosy, and he realized how the situation was getting out of his hand.
The Germans have been pouring into Stamboul from Anatolia and Syria. I have heard of their stand alone against Allenby's forces when the Turks were demoralized and the Arabs attacked them as anti-Islam.
Conflicts are frequent between the Germans and Turks in Stamboul. The German troops are ransacking the houses, and removing everything, from locks, windows and telephones, to motor-cars and vehicles. They move about in bodies. A number of German privates besieged by some Turks near here, put up an excellent defence, fought their way to a ship, captured her, and steamed out to the Black Sea.
We were to have left to-day, but final receipts and passports were overlooked until the last moment, and Jones' was a difficult case. I wouldn't go without him. He thanked me again and again, and assured me, "Mousley, but for you I should be left here possibly weeks after the fleet enters."
Everything is excitement and disorder. Centuries of captivity are falling from me every second. I am outwardly calm, and too busy to psychologize much on the great end of this awful eternity. This may be because I am busy. But in odd moments I realize that vision in Mosul, seemingly so many millions of years ago, was true, and that given enough patience, the stream of Time must carry us away past even the most terrible moment.
Smyrna, November 4th.—Thank God! After colossal trouble and planning to bring Jones along, we were allowed to go on the evening of November 3rd, having been delayed just enough to miss the boat of several days earlier—I believe purposely.
Exquisite joy and suspense of that last night! I had seen Gelal Bey recently in Stamboul, and he spoke kindly to me. It brought my terrible Psamatia days back, and I fled. Jones and I arrived at the quay by Galata Bridge in the afternoon with a guard. I got leave to take farewell of de Nari. Before the boat left I was overjoyed to see aboard d'Arici, who had been freed a few days before, and had sought me everywhere. With all his delightful light-heartedness he expressed his profound gratitude for the services I had done him. He gave me advice, very useful, about Rahmi Bey, the prominent ex-Governor of Smyrna, to whom I had a letter from de Nari, and who was leaving by the same boat. A sharp and polished Oriental, he appeared to me, but well equipped with cunning and Eastern dalliance. Ali Bey, who had been sympathetic at my court-martial, was there also to say farewell, and bid me back to Stamboul as soon as possible. We all drank German beer obtained in the saloon at a lira a bottle.
I met Hadkinson the son, of prison memories, having heard much news about his plans from d'Arici. He was also travelling to Smyrna. I procured for Jones and myself a tiny double-berth cabin, where he was permitted to ceaseplaying he was mad, poor fellow! and we had a glorious meal of tinned meats, and cake and tea.
We saw the last of Stamboul from the deck after our affectionate farewells were over, when we had got under way. As the blanket of Night wrapped Stamboul from our view, we saw disappear first the outlines of the great mosques, and then the minarets. It was still too close to watch.... We adjourned to our cabin with a pipe each and a brandy, luxury of luxuries! Jones and I sat side by side on the bunk, listening to the splash of waves outside the porthole. We went on deck. Far away in our wake a few lights flickered upon the waves. It was Stamboul: the City of the Eternities, the Beautiful, the Terrible.
Jones was a philosopher. We were silent, or swore beneath our breath.
I left him to see Rahmi, who had sent me a message. We had a long conversation in French. For some reason he did not want to talk English. He believed Turkey would do best if given great chances. He admitted they were finished. All depended on England. He would assist me in getting away if he could.
Hadkinson and I then made some plans. He was a man of forty, had lived in Smyrna all his life, would also help me to get away, and, in fact, contribute himself to the information I had. He had also got in touch with Satvet Lutfi, the friend and confidential adviser of the Prince Subaheddine, the patron of the Peace and Salvation Society, who was to leave Stamboul in two days' time, and had not already left, as I had heard.
We planned deep into the night, then Jones and I slept.
We awoke lying alongside the jetty among the rocky hills of Panderma. I took Jones on to a train for which we waited an hour or two. He still acted all he could that he was mad, and would, until he got on board, so he said. We got into a crowded carriage, and after a journey lasting all day, reached Smyrna the next morning without mishap from bandits, who had been stopping many trains and holding prominent citizens to ransom. The country was uncultivated, and had been left to run wild. The people remaining were Turks and Greeks. At Smyrna the Dutch Consulate assisted and gave us money. One batch of prisoners had left that morning, and another would leave in two or three days.
Jones and I found apartments along the bay where General Melliss had been. The generals had come straight from Brusa here, and some already had departed. I had got the local operator to repair the wireless station that had been closed down for years. We got into touch with one Commander Heathcote-Smith, formerly Consul at Smyrna, now at Mytilene, and through him we got into communication with the fleet at Mudros. For permission to use this wireless I found de Nari's letter very useful. Mr. Whitall offered me a launch, which, however, would have meant getting to Mytilene, and no further.
The moments of waiting for the reply to our wireless were exquisite. At last, in direct touch with the outside world! Newcombe had been hung up for days here, and had left a few hours only before we arrived. Our wireless answer said that a gunboat was to arrive, and I would then be enabled to get in touch with naval circles direct. That day, Hadkinson invited us out to his father's suburban villa perched high on a hill overlooking a wonderful harbour. One or two officers were here I had known in Kut. They had found their way to Smyrna unassisted in the general chaos.
That afternoon the Monitor 29 entered Smyrna. The once familiar grey of England's Navy—for us a very strange sight indeed—filled us with feelings indescribable. Her two 6-inch guns were elevated. She was spick and span. As the blue uniforms appeared we beheld our first sight as free men. We went on board for a moment. I learned that the captain had very strict instructions that no one was to leave Smyrna without orders. He was there to stand by. He would go to the vacant British Consulate.
I returned at a more leisurely moment, hours later, and in the wardroom had my first respectable whisky. The officers were inordinately kind to all of us, told us news for the twentieth time, and gave us of their best. One of them, a Mr. Underwood, I found knew some friends of mine. He came to dine with Jones and me in the town.
That night a telegram reached us from Constantinople that Satvet Lutfi Bey—the personal friend and secretary of the Prince Subaheddine before the war, during most of which he had been in various prisons, and now hoped to rejoin the Prince and to bring him back as the light of Turkey—wouldarrive at dawn. Satvet had collected first-rate matters of intelligence from the actual sources, and owing to the duplicity of the police, had got first-hand information of all descriptions.
Before the dawn Hadkinson and I went together to see Lutfi. Our postas we had now shaken off for good. We refused to recognize them. Satvet was a well-bred, well-dressed Turk. His quietness and pale face impressed me. He was a serious and earnest man. We took him along to the Military Governor, who turned out to be Nureddin Pasha, the general who had unsuccessfully tried to take Kut early in the siege. He was delighted to meet me, and delayed a whole queue of Turks and Greeks who were waiting to see him while he described to me what happened on December 25th, 1915. I got his permission to leave the harbour with Satvet. Armed with this I saw Commander Dixon of the Monitor 29 at the Consulate. Dixon was a typical naval officer, physically and mentally robust. He literally pulled me to pieces and my intentions, or as much as he could get out of me, and finally allowed me to send some wireless messages to Mudros, and, if satisfactory replies were forthcoming, to send us there himself. He came to tea with us that night, and told us the reply had come, and that it was fixed that we should leave at dawn in a captured Turkish gunboat manned by officers and crew off the M. 29.
Commander Dixon was a most entertaining and entertainable person. He was delighted to get away from Mudros, which he described as "Fleet, fleet, fleet, with bare hills all around." I was very elated as this was my last night in Turkey. We crowded around the piano and sang glees and songs. I drove back with Dixon to the Consulate to get some directions. As we went along, the town stood at attention, so great was the prestige of the fleet even through this diminutive representative, the monitor.
The scene when the M. 29 entered was one of the greatest enthusiasm imaginable. Crowds jammed the quays and waited there hours. All around the ship the sea was black with boats loaded with people anxious for a glimpse. The Greeks, however, seized the opportunity of getting their own back on the Turk, and made attacks largely unprovoked. They hoisted huge Greek flags over many public buildings, including the hotel where Commander Dixon was staying. This led to blows, and it looked like a general riot.