Part 37 (1/2)
One letter was to Lord Islington, and contained, besides a _precis_ of information I had been asked to send from the senior officer of the prison camp, a statement by me of the condition of the men, and their treatment since the trek. I gave some information on the high cost of living, and the great difficulty of keeping oneself alive without cas.h.i.+ng many cheques at a worthless exchange.
I had heard of a convention recently signed between England and Turkey at Berne about prisoners, and quoted some glaring cases of maltreatment which, as one of the original arrivals in Stamboul from provincial camps, I was in a position to know about. I sent also a few other matters of information about the state of Turkey. I prefaced all my letters with a statement, ”I alone am responsible for statements therein, which are unknown to the bearer of the packet.” I did this in case the letter was found.
I had scarcely got it away when I was sent to Harbiay Hospital for treatment. I had now left Kastamuni some ten weeks without receiving any medical treatment, except for one visit to a place called Tash Kushla, where a doctor examined my eyes, and said I was to be exchanged. Even in spite of my distrust, gradually a gleam of hope found its way into my mind, and grew to huge dimensions. I was afterwards coldly informed, however, that his actual written report was merely that Turkish eye treatment was preferable to German, and I was not to be allowed to go to German specialists!
At Harbiay I was put in a room with a half-mad Russian, who had been shot in the head, and some poor old Russian grey-headed men--sailors, I think--who smoked and cried most of the night. Here I had no food for thirty-six hours, and then only watery soup. We were not allowed to leave the room, and the postas were unusually brutal. The director of the hospital, who had been most kind to me at our first interview, offered to send me diet and books, and even medicine, and to attend to me himself--all of which I doubted.
After about four days I was sent to a Turk, and an old savage he was, who said if G.o.d willed I would get right. Then a German doctor examined me, but was most aggressive and rude, and seemingly angry at being asked to diagnose an Englishman, and muttered something about this. He prescribed some special injection for my eyes. Then we were lined up, and were all dosed by a filthy Turk out of the same squirt, whatever our eye trouble was. This was a mistake, it appeared afterwards.
The next day, having hidden my trousers under my bed when I arrived (they always take away all one's kit on entering hospital) the guard was sent to get them. I put them on nevertheless, and then demanded to see the Director. It took all day to await my chance, but when the posta was off the _qui vive_ I ran along in my trousers and a blue overall of the hospital towards his office. It was a huge building, and I got lost, but it was fatal to turn, so I went on through numerous corridors with an increasing train of postas at my heels, and finally fetched up in what appeared to be an ante-chamber of the Director's wife. The postas stopped short and peered in at the door. I apologized to the Turkish lady, who was arguing with some Armenian maids. She asked why I was running away from the postas. I a.s.sured her I was doing nothing of the kind, but I was merely running to the Director. She was tickled by my having trousers, and asked how I had managed it. I explained that the Director had given me a standing invitation to his office for any request and that I had hidden my trousers to be able to do so. She rebuked me for breaking rules, and asked me what I could possibly want. I said I wanted to give some urgent information to the Chef d'Hopital. Finally, she conducted me to him.
He heard me coming, and I saw his face over the posta's shoulder quite enraged and savage, and he said I was not to enter.
It was spoken in Turkish. I had, however, already entered! His face changed in a second, and he was the crafty Director, professed huge surprise at my statement that I had had no food and had not been allowed out of the room, or to cash cheques, or to receive any attention, and that I wanted to return to the garrison at Psamatia. He promised to remedy all things at once, and to send me ”ee yemek”
(good food) at that very moment. I extracted a promise to depart next day. How I loathed the place! The Russians alone made it unbearable, poor fellows. They seemed on the verge of suicide in that great empty room with hundreds of beds in it. Nothing else happened for two days except that a Turkish doctor came and injected some serum into my eyes, which he said was to happen three times a day. The Director himself came round next day, and tried to pretend he was busy, when I went for him. I made myself such a nuisance, and torpedoed his dignity so successfully, that he finally unmasked, and I knew him for the cruel, lying, and crafty type of Turk, veneered with excellent manners, but a brute at heart.
It was the same fellow, as far as I can remember, who refused a dying Russian officer's daily request for permission to have one or two of his friends from Psamatia to see him in order to make his will and provide for his wife and children. I had been in Psamatia when our Russian friend (Roussine) had daily asked for this from their end. Their letters were never answered, but were destroyed by the old commandant, as were the dying man's by the Director. He died. When he had been dead some days the Director sent to Psamatia a kind request to the officer to come and talk to his friend, with private directions that they were to be told the man had just died when they came.
Anyway, by the end of the third day after the ”torpedoing,”
my patience was at an end. I had learned, after many weeks, how difficult it was to get out of a hospital once one was in. After more scenes I left in the evening in an _arabana_, bearing a letter in Turkish, saying I had been excellently treated and had received the best attention possible. On arrival at Psamatia my little sad room seemed heaven again. I was alone, and the groaning of the Russians was somewhere away.
The new commandant was haughty and somewhat Germanic, but I found him a much better fellow, and straight.
He did what he promised. He heard my complaints about the men, and rectified their pay and provisions, he got us money, and sent me, on one occasion, a Polish book to read--which tickled me. I found he meant well, and decided to cultivate his good graces, which I did in German. He had had four years in Berlin, but sided against us in the war. Anyway, he let me go to see Dr. Konig, a German eye specialist from the _Goeben_, at a marine hospital around the harbour. _En route_, the posta with me led me across the station, and in the crowd I went to ascertain how to get a ticket, and found they would have issued one to me right enough. Vesikas (pa.s.sports), etc., were necessary, however, for the train, which went only so far as San Stefano!
While awaiting Dr. Konig, I talked to a delightful old French lady nurse, who was seventy years of age, and had not been allowed to leave. I mixed freely with German sailors from the _Goeben_, and heard of their escape from our fleet. They thought they would win the war, but seemed less confident than before for an early peace. They were all very loyal, and stuck to it that their country was well provided for, and ”sehr billig.” Konig I found a very capable and courteous officer, and quite efficient. He prescribed most carefully for my eyes, told me to avoid all glare, to follow his precautions, and I might prevent my eye trouble from becoming chronic.
He explained my blurred vision and periodical darkness as nervous exhaustion, and related it to my spine, where it had been b.u.mped by the sh.e.l.l explosion. He ordered rest and quiet, and sent me to his colleague, a nerve specialist. The net result was that I was not allowed to get the medicine as the shop recommended was not a Turk's, and I was sent to a Turkish nerve doctor, who mixed the whole thing up, and thought an operation on the eye was necessary, but, later on, said he had meant the other eye! I felt like operating on both of his.
My visit to Konig, however, was momentous in one respect. On my way back I was stopped by an Englishman in mufti, and offered cigarettes. He seemed very kind, said he was a sailor man, and, before the posta intervened, gave me his address. We had to be careful, as the posta knew some English. In short, in five minutes we had agreed to escape.
He was an interned civilian, taken at the outset of the war from his s.h.i.+p. I found out that church was the best meeting place. I hoped to further matters on my next day at the bath.
I was now allowed out once a week. I found out which bath was best for my purposes by talking to the postas. The thing was to find one near the Galata Bridge. This was, however, out of bounds. I did the next best thing. Frequent visits to the commandant's room made me acquainted with the map of Stamboul. I found a bath, both hot and cheap, in the Turkish quarter but a mere five minutes' walk from the Galata Bridge. After two trips, and working the right posta with a heavy bribe of a two-lira dinner, I was allowed to a restaurant after the bath, but only on promising not to enter any shop. I stumbled most miraculously, however, into a Greek restaurant, which afterwards became quite a favourite centre of plots and plans. I eyed the place at once as very strategic. It was some steps down from the road, and not too conspicuous. One could see without being seen.
Two tables at the far end adjoining the wall had benches behind which one could slip letters, and I arranged for cus.h.i.+ons to be placed there in which I could put letters in case the posta searched, which he did more than once. In the middle of the door at the far end was a small pigeon-hole through which the manager or his a.s.sistant shouted orders for food.
I gradually built up a disposition to order my own food. A few words were allowed. Often I went up, and, completely blocking the view, slipped in a letter. I even went to the extent of getting a message along the 'phone on the opposite side of the street by two relays--the first from me to Theodore in French, about food. It was a great dodge to get some other officer with one--_i.e._ to go in twos--and by some clear conversation with him in something the posta didn't understand, give information to Theodore the manager. In this way we often ran a four-cornered conversation. I paid heavily, but money was forthcoming from my cheques, and the Dutch Emba.s.sy's allowances came in regularly here. Letters and replies were received here from Dorst the sailor. We formed rendezvous for the church, if one could only get there. The Christmas season was approaching, and we a.s.sured Gelal Bey we wanted to go to church. We had asked very often for months, but this had been refused. However, the new commandant allowed us this on certain severe conditions.
I shall never forget how restful and glorious it seemed to get into the Crimean Memorial Church, an excellent chapel built of stone off a side road in Pera. An Englishman preached most beautifully to us, and English people sat all around; but we were not allowed to speak or sit near them, and an interpreter came to approve of the sermon. Our money was scrutinized to see if there was any writing on the notes.
I had a Burberry that I had dragged along with me on the trek, and I often changed it for one very similar, having made rents and marks similar on both. One left at the door on our entry would be subst.i.tuted for the other, with notes carefully sewn into the shoulders, underneath the lining.
On more than one occasion the crude efforts of our dear countrymen and women to communicate with us brought us within an ace of discovery and always intensified suspicions.
This often resulted in a redoubled guard or, greatest tragedy of all, a blank week, when we were not allowed out at all except along the wretched suburb of Yedi Kuhli.
But I proceed too rapidly. All this took a long time.
Time for a prisoner with experiences such as mine behind one is one terrible blank punctuated by moments that count.
There is born a patience terrible with hope. To get out on Sunday we waited and planned all through the week, arranging appearances with postas, often waiting a whole day for a chance to speak a word freely to our brother officers, only possible when a certain posta was on duty at night. How seldom all the necessary elements of a setting to a single successful transaction are present, only a prisoner can know.
But as I went homeward from that bath and restaurant and saw an avenue through that way to freedom, I felt hope once again stir within me.
In two or three weeks I had already got plans quite far advanced.
The scheme began to shape itself as follows:--
I would escape from barracks at Psamatia some Thursday night. This would give me a good start, as Friday is the Turkish Sunday, and inspections, etc., on that day are very slack; in fact, the commandant did not always come out on that day. He also lived on the Asiatic side. The first step would have been impossible while I was in the garrison itself, as besides a permanent and personal guard on me there was one beneath my window, one at the foot of the staircase, and several on the door, besides one at each street corner. By complaining of the morning sun that poured into my room, and of the noise, I got a transfer to an old building opposite, the real reason being that my small room was watched and impossible.