Part 14 (1/2)

I jumped out of bed, opened the door, seized Ibrahim round the middle, and flung him into the corridor, while he yelled with surprise. Next I sat down on the bed, and began tearing the sheets into long strips. The corporal of the guard, with another Turkish soldier, half opened the door, cautiously, and looked inside. I stared at them blankly, then got into bed and lay down quietly, facing the wall.

Ibrahim returned presently with the doctor of the day, who entered with a surprised and quizzical ”_Qu' est-ce qu'il y'a?_”

”Doctor,” I said, ”I fail to remember what I've been doing during the last five minutes. But I feel I've been through a crisis. Even now my head swims. I suffer from acute _vertige_.”

Followed a long explanation in Turkish, with gestures, from Ibrahim.

The doctor felt my pulse, which fortunately had accelerated during the calculated excitement of heaving the orderly out of the room.

”_Calmez-vous, donc_,” said the doctor. ”_Tout sera bien apres quelques semaines._” I liked the suggestion of ”some weeks,” for anything might happen in that time.

Before leaving me the doctor prescribed some sort of a bromide mixture, with calming qualities. The first performance, I felt, had been rather a success. As for the bromide mixture, I poured it out of the window during the night. The bottle was filled again in the morning.

Next day was a fitless one; and by the evening I felt that something must be done to maintain my reputation. Still knowing little of how a man with my complaints must act, I thought--wrongly, as I discovered later--that somnambulism would fit in with the general scheme of abnormality.

I stayed awake until two A.M.; and then, wearing a nights.h.i.+rt, walked woodenly into the pa.s.sage, with arms outstretched and head upheld. The guard was dozing on a bench that faced the door, and when I pa.s.sed he took not the least notice. Feeling hurt at such disregard, I turned and pa.s.sed him again, this time taking care to nudge his knee. He rubbed his eyes, shrilled an exclamation, and began running in the opposite direction. When he returned with the sergeant of the guard, a quarter of an hour later, I was in bed and apparently asleep.

During the week that followed I gave several minor performances. Soon, however, I was ousted from my single-bedded blessedness by a more worthy madman. A Turkish soldier pa.s.sed into a violent delirium, and ran down the corridor on all fours, calling out that he was a horse.

This was far more striking than anything I had imagined or attempted.

The delirious Turk was therefore confined apart in my little room while I shared a ward with four Turkish officers.

I chose melancholia for the first demonstration in the new quarters.

All day I stared at the ceiling, and answered questions with a rough ”_oui_” or ”_non_” without looking at the questioner. Then, at three A.M., when the four Turks were asleep, I picked up a medicine bottle, half filled with the bromide medicine, and flung it at the wall. It struck, tinkled, and scattered in fragments; while three of the Turkish officers woke and sat up in bed.

”Air-raid?” suggested one of them--for at that time British bombers from Mudros were visiting Constantinople on most moonlit nights.

”No, a bottle,” said another, switching on a light and pointing to the splintered gla.s.s.

He proceeded to protest angrily in Turkish, and I caught the words ”mad Englishman.” He turned off the light, and all lay down again. When the night orderly arrived he found everything quiet, and dared ask no questions for fear of disturbing the Turkish officers.

Next morning, however, the senior officer in the ward protested to the chief doctor against being submitted to disturbance and possible violence from a mentally afflicted Englishman. I was then moved into a large room where were W., R., Ms., and other officer prisoners.

To sham violence before fellow-Britishers was almost impossible, I found, even though they cooperated in casting dust into Turkish eyes. I modified the fits into starts and twitchings whenever a sudden noise coincided with the presence of a doctor. The melancholia and loss of memory I retained, for these were easy of accomplishment.

In any case I should have been obliged to become normal enough for walks outside the hospital, if my hopes were to become realities.

Staying in Constantinople when the rest of the party had returned to Anatolia was all very well, but it availed nothing unless I could get into touch with people who might help me to plan an escape.

Each Sunday morning such British officers as were not confined to bed attended service at the Crimean Memorial Church, off the Grande Rue de Pera. I wished to make use of this fact in my search for helpers.

Besides the clergyman himself there were still a few British civilians free in Constantinople, and most of them visited the church on Sunday mornings. Above all, there would be the chance of asking advice from Miss Whittaker, a very plucky and n.o.ble lady who had taken great risks upon herself in helping prisoners. Already she had managed to visit us at Gumuch Souyou, in the company of a Dutch diplomat's wife who came with official sanction.

A fortnight of fairly mild behaviour gained me permission to attend divine service. With guards keeping a yard or so behind us we walked through the Grande Rue de Pera, with its crowd of evident sympathizers, and so to the church at the bottom of a winding side street. Then, for an hour, I was in England. Even to such a constant absentee from church services as myself all England was suggested by the pretty little building, with its floor smoothly flagged in squares, its simply compact altar, its well-ordered pews, its consciously reverent congregation, its rippling organ, and--yes, by the great truths and dogmatic commonplaces that were plat.i.tudinized from its pulpit. The very sermon--dull, undistinguished, and full of the obvious levelness that one hears in any of a thousand small churches on any Sunday--brought joy unspeakable because of its a.s.sociations.

The guards, who had been standing at the back of the church with hat on head, refused to let us remain near the door when the congregation dispersed. It was inadvisable to bribe them in public; so with a friendly wave from Miss Whittaker, and sympathetic looks from unknown British civilians, we left at once. We crossed the Golden Horn to Stamboul, and lunched at our usual restaurant, where I met Pappas Effendi again.

Presently, in strolled another old acquaintance--Colonel Prince Constantine Avaloff, the Georgian. He had just arrived at Psamatia from Afion-kara-Hissar, and brought with him the latest news from that camp--the arrival of a new commandant who seemed quite pleasant, the success of the latest concert, the delivery of a batch of parcels, the increase in price of _arak_, and other of the small happenings that filled the deadly life of a prisoner of war in Turkey. For me the most interesting item of news was that Captain Tom White was to be sent to a Constantinople hospital. Although he had said nothing about escaping, I rather thought he intended to try it. If he came to Gumuch Souyou he would be a useful companion, for I knew him to be both ingenious and unafraid. Meanwhile, I revealed my own hopes to the prince, who promised to help in any way possible. He was likely to be of use, for as a result of Georgia's submission to Germany, he was now free to move about the city without a guard. I walked back to Pera light-heartedly, with an instinctive knowledge that opportunity was in the offing.

A tousled scarecrow of a man was sitting up in a hitherto empty bed as we reentered the prisoners' ward of the hospital. His long, untrimmed hair hung over an unwashed neck, his cheeks were sunken, his hands were clasped over the bedclothes that covered his s.h.i.+ns. He never looked at us, but with an expression of the most unswerving austerity continued to read a book that lay open on his knees. As I pa.s.sed I saw, from the ruling and paragraphing of the pages, that it must be a copy of the Bible.

I looked round for enlightenment, only to find myself face to face with an even stranger figure. In a bed opposite the scarecrow sat a man whose face was unnaturally white. The young forehead was divided and sub-divided by deep wrinkles; a golden beard tufted from the chin; the head was covered by a too-large fez made of white linen. He grinned and waved an arm toward the Turkish orderly; but when we looked at him, he shrank back in apparent affright, then hid under the bedclothes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Captain T. W. White, Australian Flying Corps, who accompanied Captain Alan Bott in the 1,000 mile Odyssey to Freedom, starting from Constantinople. The clothes are the disguise worn by Captain White in Constantinople.]