Back Aa

Escaping Club

<hr style="width: 65%;" />[284] <h2>CHAPTER III</h2> <h3>TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE</h3> From this point onwards I don't intend to attempt to give a day-to-day account of my sojourn in Turkey. I will try to recall only those few events which seem to me of special interest, and confine myself, as I have done with few exceptions throughout this book, to those events of which I was an eye-witness. For there never was such a country for rumors and stories as Turkey, where few can read and news is passed from mouth to mouth. I stayed for two or three nights in the hotel at Aleppo, and while there was visited by a representative of an embassy—Dutch, I think—which had charge of British interests in those parts. I asked for shoes, socks, vest, pants, and a bath—particularly for a bath. He sent me some nondescript but most welcome articles of clothing, together with bright red Turkish slippers of the genuine Aleppo brand, which I still treasure. The bath was a much more difficult business. He advised me most strongly against the public baths, in which, he said, one was much more likely to catch typhoid than get clean, and as for a bath in the hotel, such a thing simply wasn't done. He was a Greek, I[285] think, and seemed to find it difficult to sympathize with my desire. I stuck to my point, however, with obstinacy, although I knew I was already beyond the stage when a bath could cleanse me. When he left me he gave instructions in the hotel that I was to have a tub of warm water. What a request! The hotel was shocked, and most properly refused to countenance such an outrage on its premises. I waited for an hour or two in my dormitory, for there were half a dozen beds in the room, and Turkish officers used to drop in at odd hours for a sleep; but as no bath appeared, I started to forage for one. There was no sentry to be seen, and I made my way into the backyard, commandeered a bucket, and amidst universal protest went back with a pail of water to my room. Then, in the middle of the floor, watched the while through the half-open door by the outraged members of the hotel staff, I proceeded to wash myself section by section. It was as I had suspected. A bath in cold water was precious little use to me. But how could it be otherwise, since for the last fortnight I had been in close contact with people who live year in and year out covered with lice? It is disgusting to have to refer to these things, but it is not possible to appreciate life in Turkey unless one realizes that ninety-nine out of every hundred people one meets are crawling with these loathsome vermin. I was told one very good tip, which is to "keep them on the move." The louse lives and multiplies inside the shirt or vest and next the skin. The scheme is to put on your shirt inside out. Then he has to make his way back again to the inside, and just before he has got comfortably settled[286] down you turn your shirt back again and "keep him on the move." Of course it is considered rather eccentric to change your shirt inside out every day or two instead of every month or two, but I disregarded this and, I must own, found the method most efficacious. They were lean, owing to too much exercise and too little nourishment, and it certainly interfered to some extent with breeding. I apologize for the foregoing, and will try to keep off the subject in future. When one is condemned to be unclean with these pests, one can either shudder with disgust and shame, or try to laugh. The journey from Aleppo to Constantinople lasted a fortnight or more, and I traveled the whole way in company with Jews. Just before this, orders had been issued for the arrest of all the Jews in Palestine, whatever position they might hold. This was a result, I believe, of our declaration that after the war Palestine should once more be the national home of the Jewish race. Very many of the best doctors in the Turkish army are Jews; many of these posts in the censor's office and in the commissariat department where efficiency is necessary, but the hope of honor small, were held by Jews. They were all arrested, on no charge whatsoever, and dispatched under armed guards to Constantinople, being treated, in some cases, on the same footing as prisoners-of-war—in other cases as spies or rebels. There was one officer who traveled part of the way with me. He was filled with shame and bitterness at his treatment. He had fought at Gallipoli and most of the battles in Palestine. He had been twice wounded, twice decorated by the Turks, and once by the[287] Germans with the Iron Cross, and now he was returning as a suspect, with a sentry with a fixed bayonet at his heels whenever he moved. They had made a rebel of an efficient servant, for he prayed night and day for the downfall of the Turks. The Jew with whom I traveled most of the time had been for some years in the censor's office at Haifa on the Palestine coast. He was an inoffensive, clever, and kind little fellow, and I last caught sight of him in the most unpleasant section of the Constantinople jail. Poor fellow! I am afraid he found me a bad traveling companion. He was all for conciliation, and advocated judicious bribery to increase our comforts, while I was as irritable and unreasonable as only a tired, ill, and disappointed man can be. In the early days of the war there was only one bad road, which zigzagged through the Taurus Mountains. Later, the Germans organized an efficient motor lorry service with German drivers and mechanics, for machinery of any sort is quite beyond Turkish intelligence. When we passed through, the narrow gauge railway had been working for some time and they were making good progress with the broad gauge line, which would improve enormously the Turkish efficiency on the Mesopotamia and Palestine fronts. Thousands of men were working in the cuttings and widening the tunnels. In particular, I remember one great bridge, with four huge stone pillars rising 200 to 300 feet from a gorge below. It seemed a marvel of engineering in that wild land. It was three parts finished, and I believe the whole line was completed[288] just about the time of the Armistice. It must have been not the least of the many bitter blows this war has brought to Germany, that after so much labor, ingenuity, and money expended on the Bagdad line, they abandoned the work to their enemies at the moment of its successful conclusion. We traveled through the Taurus in open trucks on the narrow gauge line, and on the passengers an incessant shower of sparks descended from the engine, which burnt wood, as do nearly all engines between Mecca and Constantinople. The scenery is wild and wonderful. Great peaks, grim and ragged with straggling pine trees, tower to the clouds, while the train crawls round the edge of precipices where a stone dropped from the carriage window would fall a sheer thousand feet or more into the gorge below. At one point on the journey over the Taurus the line passes through an extremely long tunnel, where all passengers would inevitably have been asphyxiated by our wood-burning engine. Owing no doubt to the fact that Germans and not Turks were in charge, this had been foreseen, and steam-containing engines, much on the principle of the thermos flask, had been substituted. They had no boilers or furnaces, but were filled up with sufficient steam before each journey. I met many of our men on the way through. They were wonderfully cheerful and optimistic, and many had an amused and pitying tolerance for the inefficiencies of the Turk, though when one had heard their tales, one[289] realized that they were just survivors and that 75 per cent. had died under the treatment. To live with the Turk one must laugh at him, for otherwise one would go mad with rage. They complained of malaria and lack of food. Incredible as it may seem, many of them occupied posts of considerable responsibility, being in charge of power stations and repair depots on the route. On the whole, the Germans whom they had met had treated them well. There were certain damnable exceptions: no mitigating circumstance could here be pleaded, for calculated and intentional brutality and not national inefficiency was here the cause. A moderately civilized Turk was once accused by an English officer of allowing English prisoners under him to die in thousands. "We treated your men," answered the Turk, "exactly as we treated our own soldiers." Exactly! The food and treatment that will kill Turkish peasants by tens will kill Europeans by thousands. As well expect a bulldog to thrive on a jackal's fare. With the German rank and file, the motor drivers and mechanics, our men made friends quickly. They had a common bond of friendship—hatred and contempt for the Turk. At one station where our train was standing after dark a man entered my carriage. I was alone for the moment; for my guard, who irritated me beyond endurance, being stupid even for a Turk, and who only kept strict watch on me every other day and never at night, had gone in search of food. The man had on a very dirty but German-looking uniform, and surprised me when he[290] addressed me in good English. He was an English Tommy and asked me if I would like some food in his mess. He was spare man on one of the German lorries, and his fellows would be delighted to see me. It was only a couple of hundred yards away. In a small dark hut, by the light of a candle, four German motor drivers and an English Tommy offered me hospitality, and I have never met more generous or cheery hosts. Our Tommy seemed on excellent terms with them, and swore to me that they were topping good fellows. We cursed the Turks together, swopped yarns, whilst partaking of most excellent German rations—tea, soup, German army bread, cheese, and butter. I went back to my carriage feeling much cheered and once more in possession of my temper. Only for a moment, however, for my blithering fool of a Turkish guard, who was hunting wildly for me under the seat, grabbed me as I entered with a cry of triumph. From the Taurus to Constantinople, about a ten days' journey, we traveled in very dirty and extremely crowded second-class carriages, and all that time we had to sleep sitting up while I longed above anything in this world to lie down, for I was very tired, and my bones ached with sitting. The coach next to ours was occupied by a German general and his retinue. Some of the smart young A.D.C.'s condescended to speak to me once or twice; and once, when we had been traveling a week together, the general sent one of them to me with food. I thanked him, but refused it, saying I had sufficient money to buy what I needed. The haughty and insolent attitude of those Germans[291] towards their Turkish allies gave me the greatest pleasure from every point of view. I was no longer surprised that the Turks hated the Germans. Success and efficiency was the Germans' only claim to respect, and when the débâcle came small mercy was shown by the Turks to starving and beaten German battalions and none to stragglers. After the victory of Allenby in Palestine, trains full of starving Germans came through Afion Hissar, with hundreds clinging to the roofs and buffers and not daring to get down to beg or buy food, for fear either of being murdered or of losing their places on the train. They actually sent a message to the English prisoners-of-war in the town of Afion, asking for safe conduct to buy food. I had left the prison camp by that time, but I believe the Germans were told that if a good party came they would be quite safe. Of course by that time, October 1918, English officers took no further notice of their Turkish sentries and wandered about where they would. The whole position was Gilbertian beyond the wildest dreams of that genius. During the four years that the Teuton was lord in Asia Minor, whenever a German saw a Turk in close proximity he kicked him, either metaphorically or actually, usually the latter, and the Turk submitted—partly because he admired the German efficiency and fighting powers, but chiefly because he had to. "He who would sup with the devil needs a long spoon," and it's precious little soup the Turk got out of that unholy alliance. The Turk cannot understand how a man by shutting himself in an office and writing on pieces of paper can[292] cause all the trains to run to time and armies to be equipped or fed. It is beyond his intelligence, and he can but wonder. The English, French, Germans, and Americans not only have these wonderful powers, but in a scrap they fight like the devil. In the Greek and the Armenian the Turk recognizes this same power of organization, at closer quarters this time, for the Greek and Armenian rob and out-man&oelig;uvre him in his own bazaar. This is intolerable to him, for he knows he is a better man than they are in a fight. If he meets them in the open with a sword instead of a pen they will go on their knees to him and squeal for mercy. This strikes me as pretty reasonable from a Turkish point of view. The Turks' commercial methods are rather crude: "Let some one else make money, then murder him and take it." If we stop them from murdering Armenians, the Turks will starve. On arriving at Constantinople we crossed to the European side. Our escort, as I might have expected, then spent several hours, to my intense annoyance, wandering about the streets, not having the faintest idea of where to go or what to do. At length, after many weary waits, and after an interview with Enver's chief executioner and torturer, who looked a real devil, I parted company with my escort (I think the relief was mutual) and found myself in the great military prison. I was put into a room with two flying men from the Mesopotamia front and an Italian count, who expected to be hanged every day for spying, but was most cheerful nevertheless. The room was about 9 feet square, but as it had four beds in it, there was not much room to walk about. However,[293] as far as I am concerned, I have no complaint to make of my treatment at Constantinople. It was a blessed relief to be left in peace after that train journey, and we were quite decently fed. The Dutch embassy sent me in clean clothes and bedding, for which may they ever be blessed! Also I had a Turkish bath in the town, and by burning my old clothes got rid of the lice. But if we, considering that we were prisoners-of-war, were tolerably comfortable in that place, there were many poor devils who were not. Every day we were allowed an hour's exercise in the prison yard, a not unpleasant sunny place where there was ample room for walking exercise. From here there was a perfectly gorgeous view of Pera and the Golden Horn. Our room was on the second floor, and, as we passed through the lower portions to reach the yard, starving, ragged, lice-covered wretches yammered at us from behind bars. Turkish military criminals, we believed they were. Poor devils! A friend of mine, an officer and usually a truthful man, who had been imprisoned in a different part of this building, swore to me that Thursday was torture day, and every Thursday he used to hear the shrieks of the victims. I believe him myself. After a week in this prison nearly all the British prisoners were moved to Psamatia. I was very pleased to come across Lee and Austin once more. They gave an amusing account of the court of inquiry which was held at Afule after my escape. They had made the journey in comparative comfort, having come across Kemal Bey, the military governor of El Karak, who had been so good to us when we were first captured. He was once more[294] extremely good to them, but took a gloomy view of what would happen to me if I were recaptured. Why I was not punished for my escape I have never found out for certain. At Psamatia I found means to send a private and uncensored letter to my people. Even in these days I think it as well to draw a veil over the methods employed to this end. It was not a route by which military information could be sent. To this letter I added a note to my bankers telling them to cash my cheques drawn under my assumed name of A. J. Everard. If I had known the Turks as I know them now, I should have realized that such a precaution was unnecessary. They usually recorded our names phonetically, in Turkish characters, and to the last expressed surprise and incredulity when a prisoner stated that his name was the same as his father's name. Of course the difference between Christian names and surnames was quite beyond them, and it was useless to attempt to explain. During the ten rather interesting days which we spent at Psamatia we visited St. Sophia and explored the old town. A small bribe enabled one to wander with the sentry almost where one would on the European side, and to buy in the bazaars a number of small things which greatly added to the comfort of our lives. At the end of that time nearly all of us were moved to camps in the interior. Half a dozen other officers and myself, after a three days' train journey, arrived once more at Afion-Kara-Hissar, which I had passed through three weeks before on the way up to Constantinople. It is here that the Smyrna line joins[295] the Constantinople-Bagdad railway, and it was here that I remained for the next six months, till about a fortnight before the Armistice. Others have already written of the life in prison camps in Turkey, and I shall not attempt any description. We lived in houses which once had belonged to Armenians. The Armenians had been "removed"—in nine cases out of ten a Turkish euphemism for murdered. The houses were quite bare of all furniture, most of them were in an advanced state of dilapidation, and they were all very dirty and overrun with bugs. The first thing that every prisoner must do is to buy himself tools and wood and string, and make himself a suite of furniture, and then open the first battle in an almost ceaseless warfare against the bugs. One officer of the merchant service in former days said that he was too hard an old sea dog to be worried by bugs—he would just disregard them. After a few weeks he was very weak and pale. His bed was brought out of doors, and boiling water poured into the crevices, and a vast quantity of well-fed bugs were discovered who had been draining him of blood. We bought our food in the bazaar, and our menu was very simple and monotonous. However much I ate I never seemed to get any nourishment out of it, and all the time felt weak and ill. For money we cashed cheques at the rate of 13 lira for £10. As a lira was worth about two shillings at pre-war prices, living, in spite of its simplicity, was most expensive. To help us out, officers[296] were given an allowance from the Dutch Embassy of 18 lira a month. We passed our time, like all prisoners-of-war, working, reading (for there was a good library), carpentering, writing and acting plays, and towards the end, when we had matters more our own way, playing hockey or cricket. It is hard to compare my Turkish with my German experiences as a prisoner. The whole position was so very different. It must be remembered that I only speak of a Turkish prison camp as I saw it—that is to say, during the seven months which preceded the Armistice. If we compare Afion with Clausthal, which in 1916 was one of the best camps in Germany, I think there is no doubt whatever that any man would have preferred to be a prisoner in the German camp. We had more freedom in Afion, but that was more than counterbalanced by the fact that we lived in Germany in close proximity to civilization. Our letters and parcels came regularly and quickly, and only those who have been prisoners can understand what that means. When, however, I think of Fort 9, Ingolstadt, in comparison with Afion, I find that I look back on the German prison almost with pleasure—certainly with pride—while I loathe to write or think of the Turkish camp where there were no real hardships, at any rate whilst I was there. Those who had been prisoners for a long time had suffered much; and we later prisoners had some difficulty in appreciating the attitude which was adopted by most of the camp towards certain things. When I first came to the camp, escaping was looked upon almost as a crime[297] against your fellow-prisoners. One officer stated openly that he would go to considerable lengths to prevent an attempt to escape, and there were many who held he was right. There is much to be said on the side of those who took this view. Though it was childishly simple to escape from the camp, to get out of the country was considered next to impossible. On the face of it, it did seem pretty difficult. An attempt to escape brought great hardship and even danger on the rest of the camp; for the Turks had made a habit of strafing, with horrible severity, the officers of the camp from which a prisoner had escaped. This point of view, to one who had been a prisoner in Fort 9, Ingolstadt, where we lived but to escape, was hard to tolerate, and I am now convinced that this anti-escaping attitude was wrong. It seems to me to take too narrow a view of the question; quite apart from the fact, generally accepted I believe, that prisoners-of-war are inclined to deteriorate mentally and morally when they settle down to wait, in as great comfort as possible, but with a feeling of helplessness, for a peace which weekly seemed farther off. It seems to me that we owed it to our self-respect and to our position as British officers to attempt to escape, and to go on attempting to escape, in spite of all hardships. It used to amuse me sometimes to think what would have happened if the prisoners of Fort 9 could have been set down as prisoners in Afion-Kara-Hissar. They would certainly have marched out in a body and taken pot luck with the brigands. There would have been nothing to prevent them. To recapture them would have been a next to impossible task. Many brigands and deserters would[298] have joined them. In fact, I think this would have been quite a nice little diversion in Asia Minor. A hundred armed, determined, and disciplined men could have gone almost where they would and done what they chose in Asia Minor. About the time I came to Afion, a number of young lately captured officers, mainly flying men, were also brought in. Many of the older prisoners, who had suppressed their wish to escape in deference to the opinion of the majority of the camp, joined hands with the later prisoners and made preparation to escape. I know of at least twenty officers who had every intention of departing in the spring of 1918. Most of the plans were to my mind rather crude, and consisted of walking over 250 miles of almost impossible country and hoping for a boat. We were sent from England, concealed most cunningly in post cards, maps of the route to Smyrna and a method of getting out of the country from the neighborhood. Tempted by this, three stout-hearted fellows tried to walk to Smyrna—a most terrible undertaking. They met brigands, and one of them was shot, probably in the leg, and left wounded on the hills. The other two were stripped, driven from their wounded comrade with rifles, and returned to the camp in a semi-nude condition. Nothing has since been heard of the third, and to the best of my belief the Turks made no effort whatever to save him. His two companions and the senior officers of the camp did their utmost to induce the Turks to send a few men to the place where he had last been seen alive. To take a little trouble on the off-chance of saving a human life is not the[299] sort of thing that appeals to a Turk; so several prisoners offered to go on parole to the place at their own risk, which to unarmed men would have been considerable. But this was forbidden. Bribery seemed to me the one method which had a real chance of success in Turkey. An officer, whom I will call David, and I first of all opened negotiations with a Greek to be allowed to take the place of the stokers on the Smyrna train. The Greek's courage failed, however, and that fell through. Then we got into touch with the Arabs who wished to desert. They agreed to produce horses and arms; and four armed men on horseback would have had no difficulty in going anywhere. When the whole thing had been settled and it was only a question of final details and deciding the day to go, the second commission came to the camp in order to select sick officers for exchange. As there were very few, if any, sick officers left in the camp, and as the examination was a pure farce, David and I thought we should get a more comfortable journey to Smyrna by bribing the doctor. This was completely successful, and cost me £15. On the whole, I think if you went the right way about it, it was less difficult to escape successfully from Afion than from most of the German camps. <blockquote>N.B.—For a description of the life in the prison camps of Afion-Kara-Hissar, I can recommend A Prisoner in Turkey, by John Still (published by John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd.). </blockquote> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.