Part 22 (1/2)

”I've seen S., and the money's not lost.”

White's Friday, the thirteenth of September, had been an exciting one.

He walked into the doorway of the Prisoners of War Bureau, and speaking in English, asked for Mr. S.

”Name?” inquired the porter.

”Mr. Henry O'Neill, from Tarsus.”

”Do you know Mr. S.?”

”Why, certainly, I'm a friend of his.” And White felt in his waistcoat pocket, as if searching for a card.

”His office is on the first floor,” said the porter, satisfied. ”Go straight up.”

With a gulp of relief White pa.s.sed up the stairway. Like myself on the day before, he had to wait many minutes before Mr. S. was disengaged; and like myself he was horrified to see Levy, the Jew _kava.s.s_ who had brought his letters and parcels to Gumuch Souyou Hospital. The _kava.s.s_ beamed, and delivered himself of an oily greeting, but failed to remember where he had met White.

”You speak as an Englishman,” he said, after a few words of conversation. ”You are a English prisoner, not?”

”Of course I'm an English prisoner,” admitted White, slapping Levy on the back. ”My guard's waiting outside.”

The _kava.s.s_ fetched a chair for White and seemed disposed to ask more troublesome questions. Just then the visitor who had been engaged with Mr. S. left the office, and White walked inside, praying that the _kava.s.s_ and the porter would not compare notes, and identify Mr. Henry O'Neill, of Tarsus, with the British prisoner whose guard was waiting in the street.

The door being closed White explained his real ident.i.ty to Mr. S., and offered apologies for the dangerous visit to which he had been forced by our desperate situation.

”You needn't worry about the money,” said Mr. S., ”I had no chance of paying it. I've destroyed the cheques.”

He went on to relate how, not wis.h.i.+ng to trust the Greek waiter with a large sum, he had sent a clerk to pay the banknotes into the hands of t.i.toff, at the Maritza. The clerk visited the little restaurant on the afternoon when t.i.toff waited in vain for Theodore. He dared not deliver the money there and then, for a Turk appeared to be watching the Russian engineer. When t.i.toff tired of waiting and went into the street the Turk followed, and shadowed him. The clerk, in his turn, trailed the Turkish agent un.o.btrusively. The three of them travelled in the same subway car from Galata to Pera. t.i.toff pa.s.sed into Taxim Gardens.

So did the agent and the clerk. He sat down and ordered a drink near the bandstand. The agent chose a table near him, and the clerk stationed himself within sight of both. At last, giving up hope of an opportunity to speak with t.i.toff, the clerk returned to Mr. S. and gave back the money.

Mr. S., meanwhile, had heard of the capture of Yeats-Brown, Fulton, and Stone, all of whom he had helped. He realized that he himself was in grave danger.

”I've had some sleepless nights over you fellows,” he said to White. ”I rather think I've been watched since the others were taken with Theodore, and I know your friend t.i.toff's watched. If Theodore blabs in prison, my neck will be almost as near the noose as his.”

Mr. S., very rightly, was unwilling to advance us money for the present.

”The police want you badly,” he pointed out, ”and I'm probably a suspect already over Yeats-Brown and Company. If you're grabbed in Constantinople I want to be able to say with a clear conscience that I've given you no cash since you escaped. I shall know when the _Batoum_ is due to leave, and do my best to help you on the day before she sails, when you're all but out of the wood. The difficulty will be in finding a messenger. An English lady[1] helped the fellows who were retaken, and she'd like to take you the money. But she's involved over them and the police are watching her.”

[1] Miss Whittaker.

Deeply appreciative of the great risks which Mr. S. was taking on behalf of not only us, but every prisoner who had tried to escape from Constantinople, White thanked him and left. At the top of the stairs he said good-bye to the _kava.s.s_ who knew him as a prisoner; at the front door he nodded to the porter who knew him as Mr. Henry O'Neill, of Tarsus. And so back to his role of paying guest on the _Batoum_.

With eased minds and renewed hope we continued to live in our wireless cabin, and prayed to Allah that the _Batoum_ would sail soon, and that Mr. S. would find some means of sending the money. Away in the distance we could see the citadel of the Turkish Ministry of War, in which Yeats-Brown, Fulton, and Stone were dungeoned. All Constantinople talked of the capture, and the word went round the cafes that Theodore was to be hanged as a traitor, for having helped enemy prisoners to escape.

Thereupon t.i.toff, mortally afraid for his own neck, wanted to get rid of White and me. He made our shortage of ready money an excuse for ordering us ash.o.r.e; but we claimed to have grown too fond of him to part company, and said that if we did leave the s.h.i.+p it would be to give ourselves up to the police, with the request that our friend and colleague Michael Ivanovitch t.i.toff should join us to prison. Michael Ivanovitch then protested, out of the kindness of his heart, that he would take us to Odessa whether we paid the full amount or only part of it.

So the anxious hours pa.s.sed, until at last the sickening period of delay ended with the arrival of a consignment of cargo. A succession of lighters left the quay and moored alongside us, and all day we listened with delight to the clatter and whirr of the winches as they transferred bales and barrels to the _Batoum_'s hatches. The final and infallible date of departure, announced the Turkish merchant who had chartered the s.h.i.+p for her voyage to Odessa, was September the twenty-second--four days later.

CHAPTER XIV