Part 2 (1/2)

Only fifteen miles to the south. And the coast was fifteen miles to the west. The coast? Why, a friend of mine, after he was forced to land in the sea, had effected a marvellous escape by hiding among the sand-dunes during the daytime, and during the night alternately swimming, walking, and rolling through the shallow water on the fringe of the sands, until he had pa.s.sed the Turkish trench-line. Only fifteen miles; and from aerial observation I knew that the country between Tul-Keran and the sea was more or less flat.

I resolved that when my leg allowed me to walk, I would somehow leave the hospital early one night, try to reach the sh.o.r.e before dawn, hide during the following day, and then run or swim to the British out-posts.

CHAPTER II

THE FLIGHT THAT FAILED

Tul-Keran hospital was altogether beastly. After my head had been shaved until it looked like a door-k.n.o.b, I was taken to a sheetless, dirty-blanketed bed, in an overcrowded ward that reeked of unwashed flesh. The beds were so close that one had to climb into them from the foot.

On my right was a Syrian doctor with a smashed leg; and on my left, not two feet away, was a young Turkish officer with aggravated syphilis, who groaned and complained all day long. When not in pain he read pamphlets, which had been distributed to all the patients, explaining just how England had shamefully attacked the peace-loving Turks and Germans without warning.

The two windows were both broken, and through them the scorching sun of Samaria poured all day long. Tul-Keran, being in low-lying country, is infested throughout the hot summer by legions of flies. In the hospital they settled in swarms on beds, faces, food, hands, and arms, and flew at random from one diseased patient to another. At night they gave place to hordes of mosquitoes, which pounced upon and bit every particle of a man's body left exposed. The sole relief, by day or by night, was to hide one's head under the filthy blankets; and then the closeness and the reek made one gasp for breath.

But worst of all was my intense agony of mind. As I lay in bed, I thought of my squadron going through its daily round a few miles southwest of me; of my last air fight, and whether I might not have avoided capture by adopting different tactics; of what the sinister word ”missing” would convey to various people in England and France; of whether I was destined to spend months or years in captivity; and of the general beastliness of everything. Above all, I railed, uselessly and illogically, against Fate.

The Austrian Staff in the hospital offered whatever kindnesses they could, and treated me rather better than they treated the Turks. Each morning the doctor brought the Vienna _Reichspost_, and, after a pa.s.sing glance at my distorted features (I was known as ”the Englishman with the face”), stayed to chat for several minutes. He was charming and decorative, with his light blue uniform, his curled moustache, and his medals; but I never once saw him give medical attention to patients beyond ordering medicine or saying invariably that each man was progressing wonderfully well.

A good-hearted but race-proud Austrian priest often stopped by my bedside for a friendly argument. He performed several services for me, such as changing Egyptian notes almost at their full value, instead of at the ruinous rate of exchange offered by Turkish banks and traders.

He was, however, a rabid hater in one connection--he could find no words bad enough for the Czechs and other subject-races of Austria-Hungary. To him it seemed a crime that they should be discontented with the suppression of racial sentiments and inst.i.tutions, and should agitate for self-expression.

”They must either be loyal to us or cease to exist,” he said.

Once I mentioned inadvertently that I had met Masaryk in London and admired him; and that was the end of my friendly relations with this otherwise kind-hearted padre, who afterward was polite but distant.

One morning there came a German officer, very tall, very correct, and wearing the badge of an observer in the German Flying Corps. He clicked his heels, bowed from the waist upward, and inquired: ”Hauptmann Bott?”

I admitted to the name and rank, whereupon the visitor introduced himself as Oberleutnant Wolff, the man whose shots had punctured my petrol tank and brought my machine down in the mountains.

Having apologized for the state of my face, he offered to drop over some British aerodrome a letter announcing that I was alive and would like some clothes. In accordance with the polite relations between British and German aviators in Palestine, I was visited by several other flying officers, each of whom--out of pure kindness of heart as I thought--made the same suggestion.

When I had written the note, and addressed it to ”British Air Force, Palestine,” I was told that it could not be sent unless I addressed it by name to my late squadron commander, giving the number of the squadron and the situation of the aerodrome--all of which would have been highly useful information. I refused to write such an address, and said I would do without my kit.

The stipulation must have been a bluff, however, for Oberleutnant Wolff finally took the original letter, and dropped it upon the British aerodrome at Ramleh, which was well known to them.

Every few days British aeroplanes flew low over Tul-Keran, and bombed either the railway station or local encampments. When this happened Turks and Arabs would scurry from the road while the anti-aircraft guns were firing, and all our orderlies would disappear until the bombardment had ended. Soon after Oberleutnant Wolff's last visit an aeroplane, instead of making for the railway, hovered above a large meadow used as a landing ground, and dropped what must have looked like an enormous bomb. It whirled down slowly, by reason of long streamers attached to the head of it. It did not explode, and the aeroplane left without troubling Tul-Keran any further.

The ”bomb” was a sack containing kit for myself and Major Evans (captured three weeks earlier) which a British pilot had risked his neck to bring. A German Unteroffizier opened it before me. He searched nearly everything--boots, underclothes, and trousers, and actually ripped open the lining of a tunic in a hunt for hidden papers. But what he did not find, and I did, was a tiny slip of tissue, sewn into the corner of a collar, with this message scribbled on it: ”Dear Bottle--so glad you're alive. Never say die. Dine with me at the Savoy when we meet after the war. The Babe.”

Six months later (before the end of the war), when I had escaped from Turkey, I did dine with ”The Babe”; but at Floca's, in Salonika, and not the Savoy.

The kit was very welcome, for I had been flying in my s.h.i.+rt-sleeves when shot down; but still more welcome was the knowledge that people at home would know that I lived. With this worry removed I now had a clearer mind for preparing an escape. Moreover, my leg was feeling stronger every day, so that I hoped to make the attempt soon.

While thinking over my plan one morning I was interrupted by a soft-spoken sentence in French from the Syrian doctor with the smashed leg:

”_M. le Capitaine_, both of us would like to be away from these Turks.”

At the time I did not know to what a state of revolt the Syrians had been brought by misery and oppression; and in any case it seemed unwise to let a stranger know that I hoped to escape.

”Naturally,” I replied, ”I should like to be out of the hands of the Turks, although I suppose they will keep me till the end of the war.