CHAPTER V

THE BERLIN-BAGDAD RAILWAY--AND THE AEROPLANES THAT NEVER FLEW

A soldier out of the combat is not necessarily a soldier _hors de combat_.

Ambition often translates a great dream into great achievement. Misapplied ambition often loses the benefits of such achievement.

Four thousand miles of dislike, distrust, and disorganization separate Berlin from Bagdad. Four thousand miles of friendship, and (except for one short distance) continuous railway communication join London to Bagdad.

All of which diverse and disconnected statements shall be linked together in the tale of the Tunnel, the Tommies, and the Aeroplanes that Never Flew.

* * * * *

Before the train left Damascus two more prisoners joined the party--W., who had been in hospital at Nazareth for five months, and P., recently captured in the Jordan valley.

Made desperate by our failure to escape, we were ready to try without forethought any impossible plan that was suggested between halts, as we journeyed toward Aleppo. H. and I decided, if the train slowed down, to jump from it and make for the mountains. Then, at evening, we would find the German aerodrome and try to steal a machine, chancing such possible odds as alert sentries, well-guarded hangars, and empty petrol-tanks. Once aboard the aeroplane we could fly southeastward to the Palestine front. But the train continued at a speed which made any leap from it impossible, so that we abandoned the scheme.

Two rather better opportunities were provided by the officer in charge of our guards, a young Turk who was fanatical and unbelievably stupid. The party occupied two compartments, one containing three prisoners, the officer, and a Turkish soldier, and the other the remaining four prisoners, a corporal, and a third guard. The officer paid us not the least attention, whether to guard against a possible escape, to provide us with food, or even to count his prisoners from time to time. At sunset he turned eastward and murmured his prayers, and at odd moments throughout the day, with head on breast, he muttered what I supposed to be passages from the Koran. Nobody but Allah, Mohammed, and his fanatical little self seemed to interest him.

The fanatic had a basket of bread and dried meat for his own needs--but for his own needs only. After ten hours of foodlessness we stopped awhile at Homs, and in broken Arabic we demanded food. He pointed to a man on the platform who was selling bread and hard-boiled eggs, and resumed his meditation. We left the train without hindrance, and mingled with the people who surrounded the hawker. Two of us, at least, could have slipped away, with the crowd as screen. But the nearest point on the coast was far distant, and, with neither compass nor a supply of food, to make the attempt in our uniforms would have been madness.

On this station I got into conversation with a Maronite woman, who talked of the dreadful conditions in her native province of Lebanon. The crops had been commandeered, the cedars and the fruit trees cut down by the Turks for fuel, the people systematically starved. Already thirty per cent. of Lebanon's pre-war population had died of destitution, she declared, including her father and her two children.

"The people of Lebanon perish, and neither God nor anybody else helps us." This in a tone of dull hopelessness, as if she were beyond even despair. And even as she said it, many a consignment of Syrian and Anatolian grain was _en route_ for Germany.

The second chance came at Hamah, where we halted at dusk for half an hour. A little restaurant faced our compartment, and, still being hungry, we made for it. The Turkish officer ordered us to stop, while a guard, running from the train, clutched at H.'s arm. H. shook him off, like a horse shaking off a fly, said "_mungaree_" (his version of the Arabic for food) and proceeded toward the restaurant. The young officer continued to protest, but, when we took not the slightest notice, he joined us at the buffet, where, for the price of three dollars, one could buy a plate of goat's meat and beans, with bread and coffee. Afterward, while the Turk went outside with four of our number, H., M., and I stayed behind to buy bread.

When we returned to the platform not a guard was in sight. Moreover, our train had shunted backward. To reach it we should have to walk fifty yards. Ahead of us we could see the little fanatic, stupidly unconscious as ever of our location, walking between the rails with the remainder of the party.

"You're the linguist," said H. to me. "Hop back quickly and buy all the grub you can find. Get enough to last us to the coast."

"Twelve loaves of bread, some hard-boiled eggs, and some raisins," I demanded of the waiter in the buffet.

He disappeared into the back room. I waited, uncomfortable under the curious glances at my faded uniform.

"A German aviator," I heard one man tell his woman companion; at which I was much relieved, although scarcely pleased.

The waiter could supply only three small loaves and a dozen eggs; and with these tied in a bundle I returned to H. and M.

The military guard of the station was at the farther end of the platform. To avoid him we had to walk along the line, in the direction of our own train. We intended to dodge behind some waiting trucks about twenty yards ahead, slip over the siding in which they stood, and so to open country.

Then, as we were moving up the line, the adventure was made impossible. Two of the guards came running toward us. We continued calmly in their direction, so that they showed no suspicions, and evidently thought we were alone as a result of misunderstanding.

"_Saa-seda_," said H., blandly, as he offered them cigarettes; and this greeting disposed of whatever doubts they may have had. Yet the state of fright into which our absence plunged the Turkish officer had the effect of a shower-bath upon him. He roused himself from the torpor of unintelligent disregard; and for the rest of the journey we were never allowed outside the carriage.

Thus, once again, a mad plan fell through at the outset; for with no guide, no compass, no water, and the necessity of buying more food, the odds would have been a hundred to one against our reaching the coast. And even if we had reached the coast it was improbable that we should have found a sailing-boat waiting to be stolen.

At Aleppo we came upon some Indian prisoners. We were trudging along the hot, uneven road from the railway station when three white-turbaned figures in khaki saluted, from the balcony of a hospital. One of them placed a crutch under his left armpit as he stood to attention. This simple salute warmed the heart, with its reminder that we were not altogether outcasts. We returned it with gusto; as did a passing German officer, who thought it was meant for him.

We were taken to an hotel where transient Turkish officers halted on their way to Palestine and Mesopotamia. Fresh from the failure to escape from Damascus, we were not surprised at never being allowed to leave the building. Indeed, I was astonished at not being sent to some prison, and presumed--rightly, as it turned out--that punishment must be waiting for us farther down the line. For the rest, we spent several by no means uncomfortable days at Aleppo, helped thereto by sight-seeing from the balcony.

The market-place fronting the street corner below was used as a food bazaar. Each evening Arab and Syrian hucksters arrived with flat barrows, or erected rickety stalls. Then, from baskets and panniers, they produced their wares, which they laid out for inspection--loaves of bread, bowls of soured milk, basins of stew, cooked potatoes, roasted meats, vegetables, cakes, nuts, or lengths of flexible candy. Some of them roasted meat or vegetables over metal bars placed across a charcoal fire.

As the crowd began to gather the policemen circulated among the vendors, looking for such as had not paid police _baksheesh_ for their pitch. Having found a victim the gendarme would lead him around the corner to settle accounts. Afterward the stall-keeper was at liberty to trade for the rest of the evening. Any who could not or would not pay were hustled from the market-place.

Then, until about midnight, was acted a succession of minor comedies, amusing or pathetic. Trial by taste was evidently the custom; and since Allah had provided hands and mouths, why use forks and spoons? Intending buyers dug their fingers into the steaming dishes, pulled out a chunk of meat or a potato, and chewed reflectively. Then they either purchased or passed on to the next stall, while somebody else stuffed a hand into the dish. I traced a few men and women who, by tasting meat at one stall, potato at another, and bread at a third, must have eaten quite a meal for nothing. This was rare, however, for the hucksters had an instinct for _bona fide_ buyers, and kicks for such as were not.

Over there is a seller of vegetables who has dodged his police dues, apparently because his ready cash is insufficient. A gendarme approaches, whereupon he picks up his basket, with the wooden box on which it rests, and fades into the crowd. When the policeman has gone he reappears and resumes business. Twice more must he shut up shop, for a quarter of an hour at a time. Finally his takings allow him to pay the bribe. His wife guards the stall while he confers with the policeman round the corner. He reappears, and, no longer obliged to shun overmuch attention cries his wares loudly and does a roaring trade.

The candy-barrows are mostly kept by small boys comically dignified in apron and fez. Useless to think that their youth makes them easy game, for they are sharp as pawnbrokers, and can tell in the fraction of a second a bad note or coin. Most of them seem to have a working arrangement with some gendarme whereby if an adult tries to swindle they shriek invectives. The gendarme then strolls toward the stall, and the would-be cheat wishes he hadn't.

One or two seedy ruffians hang around the rim of the crowd, awaiting the chance of some petty villainy. Presently, out of the crush comes a little Syrian girl, carrying a bowl of milk. A much-moustached, dirty-robed Arab follows her into the entrance of a narrow street where he suddenly grabs the milk, drinks it, pushes the bowl back into her hands, and strides away. The little girl attracts a certain amount of attention by shrilling her protests; but the wolfish milk-drinker has vanished. A gendarme spectator makes no pretence at interference, not having been bribed to protect stray children.

Soon afterward a similar outrage is perpetrated by a similar ruffian, who snatches a chunk of meat from an old woman's basin of stew. In this case retribution comes swiftly and suitably. The Man who Grabs Meat has failed to notice that the weak old woman is attended by a strong young man, who has lagged behind to talk to a friend. The strong young man leaps at the thief, kicks him in the stomach--hard, knocks him down when he doubles up helplessly, and proceeds to beat him. The old woman shrieks her venom. The gendarme is much amused.

Through the changing crowd pass the drink-sellers, clanging a brass cup against a brass can, but neither washing nor rinsing the cup after somebody has drunk from it. From time to time a stall-keeper slips away for a glass of _árak_ in the near-by café, while a wife or a friend guards his barrow.

Between eleven o'clock and midnight most of the traders run out of stock. They pack up their kit, and before leaving bargain with each other for an exchange of surplus foodstuffs for personal use--two loaves for a dish of vegetables, a can of milk for three slices of meat. The streets empty, the cries cease, the gendarmes disappear with their _baksheesh_; and we retire to join the little things that hop and crawl in our bed.

Always there was something to distract us. A Mohammedan official of the Indian Postal Service, for example, provided much interest. With only a fez differentiating his uniform from that of most native officers of the Indian Army, we accepted him at first as a fellow-prisoner. But when, at table, he asked leading questions about the Palestine operations, H. winked at me and fingered his lips as a signal. We took the hint, and answered vaguely.

"Don't like the look of the little blighter," said H., after dinner; "let's watch him."

He was worth watching. Every day, we found, he walked about the streets of Aleppo without a guard. Moreover, he was living by himself in a comfortable room. While this exceptional treatment of a prisoner did not prove treachery, the circumstantial evidence was fairly damning. We became as unopened clams when he talked to us.

This was the right attitude, for later, when at a concentration camp, we heard of an Indian official who was an out-and-out traitor. Sometimes he was at full liberty in Constantinople, sometimes he talked in railway trains to newly captured prisoners, sometimes he talked with them in hospitals. Once, at a hospital at Mosul, he was placed next to a wounded officer taken in a recent battle. His assumed complaint was influenza. Yet he was given full diet, and his temperature remained normal, while he lay in bed and asked questions about the Mesopotamian campaign.

A prisoner of war in the Orient, far more than the traveller, senses the spirit of his surroundings. Temporarily he is of the Orient. Of necessity his captors regard him as somebody more intimate than the transient Westerner who, while moving freely among them, lives according to Western custom and tradition; and of necessity the man who is in the power of Easterns, and forced to live according to Eastern customs, is more likely to realize the mental attitude whereby the crooked road is chosen in preference to the straight, to-morrow never comes, anything unexpected may happen at any time, and--to repeat an illustration of my friend Jean Willi the dragoman--a man may get married in the morning, and be a solitary fugitive for his life in the evening.

So it was with us. The continuity of impressions and experiences reacted on me till I forgot to remember that I was an ordinary Englishman, and became as fatalistic and unsurprised as the Turks and Arabs themselves. Somewhere or other, I knew, we should be punished for having wanted to escape. Of what the punishment might consist we guessed nothing, except that it would probably find us quite unprepared. Meanwhile, it was of absorbing interest to sit on the balcony at Aleppo, and watch the crowd in the bazaar.

On leaving Aleppo we knew neither the next stage of the journey nor our ultimate destination; and we were content that it should be so, for a future that is certain to be unpleasant is better indefinite than definite.

This time our escort consisted of two gendarmes and two soldiers. First we were herded into a third-class compartment, windowless and filthy. Already, before we arrived, unwashed and unkempt peasants had crowded into it; so that our party of eleven was able to occupy seven seats only. One of the gendarmes, who could murder French, advised us never to place our few belongings out of reach.

"Or," said he, "we meet darkness and--_pouf!_--everything vanish."

We liked the looks of neither the carriage nor the fellow-passengers, and thought how much more pleasant a goods truck would be. R. and I persuaded a gendarme to take us to the office of the station commandant in the hope of being allotted different quarters. The commandant was polite, but pretended that he could offer nothing better.

Then, as we passed along the platform, I saw a clean, covered-in truck, with a few German soldiers inside it. One man leaned idly against the entrance, and him I asked politely if, since there was so much room to spare, they could lend us a corner.

"_Ausgeschlossen!_" he growled. "_Wir wollen keine Englander._"

We were about to move on, when--"_Was gibt's?_" called a Feldwebel as he stepped from the truck.

I explained that seven British officers, two of them wounded, longed for floor-space, so that they would not be herded with odorous Turks.

"Perhaps we can manage it," said the Feldwebel.

"What's Paris like now?" he asked suddenly, and went on to explain that before the war he was a bank clerk there. With one eye on the space in the truck, I admitted to having lived for a time on the _rive gauche_, discussed peace-time and war-time Paris, and even--for one will put up with a lot to avoid travelling in a Turkish third-class carriage--listened patiently to the German's reminiscences of a love affair with a French singer.

This patience was rewarded. He took a referendum of his five companions; and all, except the surly brute to whom I had first spoken, agreed to cede half the truck. The Feldwebel asked permission of a German major to ask us inside, and the major agreed.

"But only because you happen to be fellow-Europeans," he explained, "while the Turks are not."

A small bribe to the gendarme, and we moved thankfully from the Turkish compartment. There was room enough for all, prisoners and guards, to lie on the floor of the truck, so that by comparison we travelled _de luxe_. The Germans were friendly; and the Feldwebel, after I had pretended to be interested in more tales of his _affaires de coeur_, offered us a supply of tea, with the loan of a spirit-stove for boiling it.

So, with poker and talk, we travelled across Asia Minor. On three of the next four evenings a certain amount of excitement was produced by Turkish soldiers' attempts to desert when the train halted. They ran toward the hills, sometimes fired upon and sometimes chased. Several were captured, several got away and went to swell the huge total of brigands.

In that part of 1918 the number of brigands all over Turkey was enormous. Hundreds of thousands deserted from the army, and of these scores of thousands took to the mountains and wild places, there to become robbers. Travelling on foot, on horseback, or on donkey-back across Anatolia was unsafe in the highest degree. In every fastness one would be certain to meet a band of armed ruffians, destitute and utterly merciless, who would cheerfully kill for the sake of a pair of boots or a shirt. More than a few German soldiers who had walked a mile or two from the beaten track were killed by brigands. Many of the gendarmes sent to deal with the robber band were found dead, with their heads battered in. Many others were hand-and-glove with them and gave information of possible plunder. Sometimes a gang would descend on a village, kill a few inhabitants as a warning to the others, and proceed to steal everything worth the stealing before they retired.

We detrained on the eastern side of the Taurus Mountains and were transferred to the narrow-gauge line that traversed the Taurus tunnel before the broad-gauge railway was completed. For eight hours, on a swaying little train with miniature engine, we moved through the tunnel's half-light, with an occasional interval of sunlight at gaps between the mountains.

The great Taurus tunnel was the solution of the worst obstacle to the Berlin-Bagdad Railway. With Serbia overrun and Bulgaria and Turkey as Germany's puppets, the line from Berlin to Constantinople was straightforward. Already in 1915 the Anatolian Railway linked Constantinople to Konia. At the eastern end of the Berlin-Bagdad chain the line from Bagdad--once Turkey should have regained it--could be extended across the desert to Mosul; and the stretch of country from Mosul to Aleppo would offer no difficulties. Between Konia and the line from Aleppo, however, was the natural barrier of the Taurus Mountains.

The rock stratum in the Taurus is among the hardest in the world. For many months it resisted all ordinary drills. The German engineers caused various special drills to be made; and then, after infinite labour and experiment, began boring slowly through the rock. The natural difficulties--precipices, steep slopes, chasms, and gorges--were tremendous. Nobody who has passed through the hollowed rock can deny that the tunnel is a magnificent piece of engineering, especially the suspension bridge across a giant gorge on the western slope.

Trains began running through the Taurus, along the broad-gauge line, just before the Armistice; and the Berlin-Bagdad Railway, including this wonderful tunnel, then became the London-Bagdad Railway. Already the rails stretch eastward to Mosul, while the westward rails from Bagdad are fast moving from Samarra to Mosul. These, when completed, will be the last links in a railway chain from Boulogne to Bagdad. When--and if--a Channel tunnel is constructed the chain will reach, without a break, from London to Bagdad.

Throughout the war this work on the Anatolian Railway was largely done by British and Indian soldiers, mostly from among the survivors of the captured garrison of Kut-el-Amara. With them were a few German technicians, some Turkish guards, and many Turkish labourers. As workmen the Turks were hopeless, except when set to tasks that required no intelligence; and even then they shirked. The Tommies, who were better paid and fed by the Germans than were the prisoners working for the Turks, established a curious ascendancy. When it suited them they did four times the work of the Turks. They had initiative, they could be trusted. It was not long before some of them were in charge of Turkish gangs. Several filled positions of importance, with good salaries and plenty of freedom.

Having left the tunnel and halted for a few hours at Belamedik, we were met by groups of these prisoner-officials eager for news of the war. They wore civilian clothes, furnished by the Dutch Legation at Constantinople. Such as had clean collars and hats were greeted respectfully with the title of _effendi_ by the Turkish labourers. One Tommy--a Glasgow warehouseman--had charge of all the office staff, with Greek clerks under him. Another--an Australian--was actually paymaster of this section of the construction department. Thousands of dollars passed through his hands each week, and the German officials trusted him implicitly. It was an extraordinary position--British prisoners of war, in the wildest part of Anatolia, as valued officials on the Berlin-Bagdad Railway.

From Belamedik we proceeded to Bosanti, where, in those days, the broad-gauge line ended and the narrow-gauge line began. There we stayed for a night and a morning. At Bosanti, also, there was a band of British prisoners, some of whom took us to their hut and demanded the latest war news. At that time we had little that was good to tell. The German drive toward Amiens and Paris was in full swing, the Italians had been badly beaten on the Piave, the tonnage sunk by submarines was enormous. Our one bright item of news was that thousands of Americans were pouring into France daily. This greatly surprised the isolated prisoners, who, from what they had been told by the Germans or had read in the Turkish papers, thought that no American troops could have arrived on the Western front.

Having distracted the guards' attention by giving them cocoa in a far corner of the hut, the Tommies revealed a plan of escape. A party of five--two Australians, two Englishmen, and a French petty officer from a captured submarine--had built a collapsible boat. In three weeks' time they would apply for twenty-four hours' rest from work, a privilege allowed by the German supervisors every three months. Carrying the boat in sections, and enough food for a fortnight, they would then slip away and begin tramping toward the coast, near Mersina. They expected to be walking for about ten days. Afterward they would assemble the boat at night and put to sea, in the hope of either being picked up by an Allied vessel or rowing to Cyprus. Five months had passed in building the boat, the work being done inside the hut at odd moments, sometimes by day and sometimes by night, but always with a man on the look-out for intruders. Tools, strips of metal, and a huge sheet of canvas had been smuggled out of the German workshops.

After making sure that the guards were unsuspicious, an Australian lifted the tip of a plank beneath his bed, and extracted one of the steel ribs. It was beautifully made, with folding joint in the centre and clasp and socket at either extremity. He also produced a compass and a revolver bought from a friendly Austrian. Both these articles would be necessary, the compass because without it they would be unable to follow the road, and the revolver because they would be certain to meet brigands.

One can imagine the determination and perseverance that made possible these long hours of secret work on the collapsible boat, during months of designing, of filching the required materials, of odd-moment construction under great difficulty, always with the fear of discovery.

I wish it were possible to tell of their success. About a month after we left Bosanti they slipped away, according to plan. Carrying the boat in sections, besides food and the oars, they walked in night marches across the mountains and down the wild slopes fronting the coast. Three times they met brigands, but the revolver enabled them to bluff their way through.

And then, when already within sight of the sea, a gendarme found them. Four of the plucky five were captured, while the fifth managed to hide in a cleft between two rocks with the complete framework of the boat. That night he dragged it down to the deserted part of the beach. On the following night he pieced it together. He put to sea, and for eight hours made a desperate effort to leave the coast. But the shoreward currents were too strong for him, and the weak little craft drifted back. He was recaptured, and sent to join the other adventurers in prison.

In the morning, while waiting for our train, we watched the Tommies at work. Six aeroplanes were on their way to Palestine, and the prisoners were told to transfer them to the small-gauge railway. The men seemed listless and unhasteful as they carried the machines to a secluded siding for the reloading, but I was puzzled to find that when they began packing the aeroplane sections on the small trucks they showed keenness and even enthusiasm. In the distance we could see them grouped around each truck in turn, as they worked steadily throughout the morning.

"You always as keen in handling Hun war material?" asked H. of a burly Londoner of the old Regulars, who strolled toward us from the siding.

"Sometimes we are, sir; sometimes we ain't."

"You couldn't have done a better morning's work in a munitions factory at home."

"That's right. We done a good mornin's work."

"But these are _Hun_ aeroplanes, man. What the----"

"As _yew_ remark, sir, they're 'Un airerplanes. But I doubt if they'll ever fly."

Then we guessed. He amplified the guesses with details.

"Yus; we does er bit er wreckin'--sabbertage, as yer might say. We carry things across to that 'ere sidin', and nobody can say as we don't bee-ave _beeyewtiful_ till we gets there. Then we open er box er two, see what's inside, and proceed according to reggerlations. Crimernul, I calls it....

"That 'ere sidin's useful place. Aht er the way, yer know. The Boches don't go there. 'Course, if any Boches er near, we resoom ligitimite operations till they've 'opped it. Turks? We don't let 'em see neither if we can 'elp it. Wuncertwice Turkish _askas_ 've seen us at play, but they only larf. They 'ate the 'Uns a blurry sight more'n we do. Why, I remember when a coupler Turks '_elped_ in the good work one mornin'.

"Guns and airerplanes is 'andiest," he continued. "Yer see, when we 'ave the breech-block uv a gun it don't need long to take aht some gadget or other, accordin' as the gunners with us sez. Airerplanes we attack mostly on the longeerongs--those ribs o' wood that runs dahn the length uv the body, ain't they? English pilot 'oo passed dahn the line some months ergo giv' us the tip. 'Course, we give the other parts a bit uv attention--wires and sechlike....

"No, it don't seem likely as those things over there'll fly fer a long time."

It certainly didn't seem likely. Besides ripping open the fuselage fabric and cutting some of the longerons, the Tommies had hacked at the struts and clipped some bracing wires. They had prised open the wooden cases, and, before replacing the covers, had snapped spars, bent elevators and rudders, and been generally unpleasant to the planes. Similar wrecking was being done, in greater or lesser degree, at Belamedik and other points on the railway where prisoners were forced to work.

The ill-treatment of those six aeroplanes at Bosanti had a peculiar sequel. When the British entered Nazareth (the Turco-German headquarters in Palestine) during General Allenby's final advance, they captured most of the staff documents. Among the aviation papers was a letter from the O.C. German Flying Corps on that front to Air Headquarters in Germany, complaining bitterly about the bad packing and the bad handling in transit of aeroplanes sent to Palestine. As an instance it mentioned these very machines (my comparison of dates and details established that point)--single-seater scouts of the Fals type--and declared that not one of them was fit to be assembled for flying. Enclosed was a photograph of some queer-looking débris that had once been a wing. The protest ended with a request that the men who packed the six craft should be punished.

Boches are Boches, but Justice is Justice; and with memories of what I saw at Bosanti, I hope that the packers were not punished.

Having waved good-bye to these men who, though prisoners, were helping the British armies so effectively, we passed on toward Konia. And even as we moved westward from Bosanti the Aeroplanes That Never Would Fly moved eastward, through the Taurus tunnel that never would be a link in a great chain of railways from Berlin to Bagdad.