Part 24 (1/2)

Lloyd George as soon as he should reach Allied territory.

Next day the Ministry tried to send him out of Turkey by aeroplane, but failed because all aircraft was in the hands of the Germans. It was agreed that he should receive special pa.s.sports and proceed, via Smyrna, to either Chios or Mudros.

After the dinner party of the sixteenth events moved rapidly toward an armistice. The Vali of Smyrna caused a sensation two days later by stating openly, in the _Journal d'Orient_, that peace negotiations were in progress and that the Germans would have to go. Later in the day he again met Colonel Newcombe at the Tokatlian Hotel, and discussed the best means of approaching England for an armistice. By now the escaped colonel was going about Constantinople quite openly, although Yeats-Brown and Paul remained more or less in hiding.

Meanwhile, General Townshend, who was still a prisoner on Prinkipo Island, had also sent a memorandum to the Government. A Turkish armistice commission was formed, and he was asked by the Grand Vizier to accompany the delegates who were about to leave the country; which he did. It was arranged that Colonel Newcombe would follow in a few days' time.

On his last night in Constantinople Colonel Newcombe went by appointment to the terrace of the deserted British Emba.s.sy, and there met Captain Yeats-Brown, who had slipped past the police into the Emba.s.sy grounds. It was a meeting that neither of them will ever forget. Below was the Golden Horn, s.h.i.+mmering in the moonlight, and across its waters Stamboul showed up dimly, quiet and apparently asleep. But the watchers on the Emba.s.sy terrace knew that the city might stir from slumber at any moment; for the Phanar was bristling with machine guns, St. Sophia was an armed camp, and, more terrible than all, people were starving in the streets. The waning sickle moon that rode above Stamboul seemed the symbol of the Turks' waning dominion over Christian peoples. Very soon the Crescent would go down.

Very soon the Union Jack would float from the Emba.s.sy's barren flagstaff. Very soon Pera would be decked with banners, and an Allied fleet would proclaim an end to the nightmare of famine and oppression.

Next day Colonel Newcombe, who had been handed civilian pa.s.sports by the Minister of the Interior, travelled from Constantinople to Smyrna.

Finally he left Turkey, as a special adviser, in the company of Raouf Bey, the new Minister of Marine. The party put to sea in a trawler, and were picked up by H.M.S. _Liverpool_. They were taken to Mudros, where the British Admiral Commander-in-Chief and General Townshend were already negotiating with the Turkish delegates.

Up to the very end the Young Turk leaders hoped to hold the real, if not the ostensible, control in Constantinople. Captain Yeats-Brown was told by a politician that ”n.o.body but Talaat could possibly manage Turkey,” and that ”the English, if they come, would be well advised to deal with the Committee of Union and Progress, as there is no other real party in the country. They not only have all the money, but all the brains and energy as well.” Which last statement was nearly true.

But when it came to saying that Talaat was one of the dominant brains of the century, and comparable as a statesman only to Lloyd George, the disguised British officer could not help smiling and suggesting: ”Surely Talaat is not indispensable? If he goes, another ex-telegraphist may arise, as good as he!”

This the members of the Committee of Union and Progress regarded as near-blasphemy; but the fact that all the Young Turk leaders were self-made men, with little knowledge of the science and history of modern government, was one of the causes why Von w.a.n.genheim, Von Bernstorff, and other emissaries of German Imperialism were able, for four years, to inspire a policy of Turkey for the Germans.

The sudden _volte face_ of the Turkish press, the announcement of the armistice terms, the flight of the three chief criminals (Talaat, Enver, and Djemal Pashas), and the downfall of the swaggering Germans brought great joy to the miserable populace of Constantinople. They vented their feelings in delirious enthusiasm over some released prisoners who visited Pera, wearing their carefully h.o.a.rded khaki uniforms.

The curtain was down, the sordid tragedy of oppression and corruption was over. The new era opened in the mist of a November morning, with the long, low lines of an Allied fleet steaming very slowly past the Iles des Princes toward the Bosphorus.

CHAPTER XV

STOWAWAYS, INC.

t.i.toff was head of a syndicate of s.h.i.+p's officers which might have named itself ”Stowaways, Incorporated.” He was the schemer-in-chief; and the others, while disliking him heartily, were content to rely on his superior cunning. Besides ourselves the syndicate undertook to carry across the Black Sea a Greek, a Jewess (both of them wanted by the Turkish police), and four pa.s.sportless prost.i.tutes; all of whom, to the extent of some hundred dollars apiece, wished to leave Constantinople for Odessa.

Most of the crew, also, were smuggling men, women, or material across the Black Sea. The crew itself included four Russian soldiers, who had escaped from prison camps in Turkey, and were pa.s.sing themselves off as seamen. The bo'sun's particular line of business was a woman thief who had with her a heavy purse and a trunk full of property, stolen from a merchant who had been her dear friend. Katrina, the kitchen girl who brought us our food, invested in a well-to-do Turkish deserter.

As for the non-human contraband, it was stowed in every corner of the vessel--cocaine, opium, raw leather, tobacco, cognac, and quinine.

Prices were extravagant enough in Constantinople, but in Russia they were colossal. The difference in the price of drugs, for example, often amounted to hundreds per cent. The demand for cocaine as contraband was so great during the week before we actually sailed that by the end of it the chemists of Pera and Galata would sell none under 500 dollars a kilo; but in Odessa, we heard, one might dispose of it without difficulty for a thousand dollars a kilo. Even White and I became infected by the contraband craze and, with Kulman as partner, gambled successfully on a consignment of leather and so covered most of our escape expenses.

At dusk, when we left the wireless cabin and paced the shadowed portion of the deck for exercise, we often saw a rowing boat creeping toward whichever side of the _Batoum_ happened not to face the sh.o.r.e. Somebody in it would exchange low whistlings with somebody on deck--the somebody often being t.i.toff. When the boat had been made fast to the bottom of the gangway, a figure, or two figures, would climb to the deck and disappear. Sometimes they brought and left a package; sometimes it was a visitor himself--or herself--who did not depart with the rowing boat.

Besides the mystery traffic from sh.o.r.e to s.h.i.+p there was also a certain amount from s.h.i.+p to sh.o.r.e. For this the steward--a Russian Jew--was responsible. A Turkish merchant had chartered the _Batoum_ for the coming voyage, and since our many delays in sailing were the result of his haggling with government officials over the amount of _baksheesh_ to be paid for permission to export, he undertook to feed the officers and crew for as long as they remained at Constantinople. Incidentally, he unknowingly fed White and myself, besides the other stowaways and the escaped Russian soldiers. The steward ordered more provisions than were needed; and a few hours after the delivery of each consignment a boatload would be sent back to the quay and carted to the bazaars.

t.i.toff, who organized the sale, shared the proceeds with the steward.

t.i.toff's methods of graft took him into many dubious by-paths, notably those around the offices of a Greek coal dealer. After preliminary plottings, with Viktor as interpreter, he ordered a hundred tons. The coal dealer delivered ninety, the bill for a hundred was presented to the Turkish merchant, and t.i.toff and the Greek split the value of the missing ten tons. It was easy enough for the chief engineer to make good the deficit by burning ten tons more on paper than in the furnaces.

With all this illicit traffic in men and goods there were some restless half hours during the last few days of our stay in the Bosphorus.

Trouble was caused by the bo'sun's woman-thief, whose presence among us the Pera police suspected. Five times they searched for her. The bo'sun detailed a man to watch the sh.o.r.e, and whenever a police launch appeared this look-out would blow a whistle. All the stowaways then scurried to their various hiding-places.

White and I, being the most dangerous cargo, were given the safest--and certainly the dirtiest--hiding-place of all. This was in the ballast-tanks, at the very bottom of the s.h.i.+p, underneath the propeller shaft. The entrance to them was through a narrow manhole, covered by a cast-iron lid, about twenty yards down a dark pa.s.sage leading from the engine-room to the propeller.

The alarm having been given, Feodor, the second engineer, would lead us along the pa.s.sage by the light of a taper, remove some boards, raise the lid, and help us to wriggle into the black cavity below. Our feet would be covered by six inches of bilge-water while we crouched down, so as to leave him room enough to replace the iron cover and re-lay the wooden boards that hid it. Then, one at a time and with our knees squelching in the water, we crawled from tank to tank.

Half-way along the line of tanks were two that contained small mattresses, which the second engineer had placed in position for us.