CHAPTER VII

IN THE SHADOW OF THE BLACK ROCK

Moored under a willow tree, we were clearing what was left of the cold chicken and salad from the middle of a punt. I filled the Chambertin bottle with water and dropped it overboard. It plashed and sank noiselessly to the bottom of the Thames. From the far side of our island came the metallic strains of a gramophone, made less blatant by the soft atmosphere of the river. A passing punt-pole clacked, rose from the surface, stabbed the water and clacked again. Flies danced from the hot sunlight into the shade of the willow, and hovered over the remains of our lunch. I composed the cushions and lay down, opposite Phyllis.

But the cushions became harder and harder, and the breeze merged gradually into a stuffy, dark oppressiveness. I opened my eyes, and sat up. The head cushion, it appeared, was a sackful of kit, my white flannels were a uniform in creased and dirtied khaki, Phyllis was Alfonso the Turkish guard, and the Thames the military baths at Afion-kara-Hissar, in the centre of Anatolia.

Some ragged Turks arrived through the stone passage that led to the hot room, and began undressing. Cuthbert was talking to the bath attendant, while Alfonso lay opposite me and snored. H. and W. also snored in dissonant notes. R. was sorting out his kit. The rest of the party still slumbered silently, stretched out in twisted attitudes on the stone floor.

Then I remembered how we were dragged from the train in the early hours of the morning, and had wandered through the streets of Afion-kara-Hissar, looking for the prison camp. Finding it closed to night arrivals, Cuthbert and Alfonso led us to the Madrissah _hammam_, in the courtyard of a mosque. Weary with want of sleep and the hardships of a long journey, we had slept for several hours on the floor of the outer bath-room.

Only R. had risked taking off his boots; and these had evidently disappeared, for as he searched his loud curses echoed from the domed roof. As was to be expected, all the Turks in the room disclaimed volubly any knowledge of the missing boots, so that when we moved to the prisoners' camp R. clattered along the streets in a pair of wooden sandals borrowed from the bath attendant.

A Turkish officer met us at the barrier which divided the street of prison-houses from the rest of the town, and sent us to meet the British adjutant of the camp. Cuthbert and Alfonso waved a good-humoured farewell and disappeared. With them they took our cooking pots--although we did not discover this fact until later in the day. By that time they had left Afion-kara-Hissar. We swore long and loud at the memory of the two guards, for in those days any sort of a cooking utensil was in Turkey worth at least two pounds.

Passing up the narrow street we were greeted by groups of weirdly clothed Britishers. Some wore torn and creased uniforms and a civilian cap or a much-dented billycock; some a military hat and ill-fitting suits of shoddy mufti; some were in khaki shorts surmounted by shirts of violent colours open at the neck; some wore heavy boots, some wore bedroom slippers, some wore sandals.

Many of them were survivors of the Kut-el-Amara garrison and had been prisoners in Turkey for two and a half years. Their uniforms had long since become scarecrow relics of better days, since when they had depended for clothing on the supplies forwarded by the Dutch Legation at Constantinople. The productions of the Turkish tailors and shirt-makers, as issued to the prisoners at Afion, were entertaining but rather anarchic.

Afion-kara-Hissar contained the largest prison-camp in Turkey, although there were others at Yozgad, Broussa and Geddós--the last-named being for the fifty or sixty of his Majesty's officers who had been persuaded to give parole not to attempt an escape. When the first batch of British officers arrived at Afion the Turks turned some Armenian families out of their homes, confiscated the furniture, and told the captives from the Dardanelles and Mesopotamia that they were to live in the empty houses.

"Beds? Furniture?" said the commandant. "We have none, and it is impossible to supply any."

"Food?" he said in reply to another demand. "It is well known that all British officers are rich. You have money enough to buy food for yourselves."

And so it had to be. At first the British officers lived on their pay as captives; which, according to rank, was at the rate of seven to ten Turkish pounds a month. But food prices soon expanded to extraordinary proportions, while the exchange value of the Turkish pound continued to decrease. By the beginning of 1918 it was worth less than two and a half dollars; while sugar, for example, was four dollars a pound. Tea was fifty dollars a pound, and real coffee was unobtainable. Under these conditions, it became almost impossible to obtain even a bare subsistence on seven Turkish pounds a month without outside help. The Dutch Legation, therefore, supplemented each captive officer's pay to the extent of five, then fifteen, Turkish pounds a month, taken from the Red Cross funds at their disposal.

Even thus the food difficulties could not have been solved without the help of parcels from home. These arrived either seven or eight months after they left England, or never. Many were delivered only after the Turks had looted from them such articles as were scarce, including boots, clothes, and good tobacco. Letters from England needed from two to five months for transit.

The lack of furniture was overcome by amateur carpentry. With string, nails, and planks of wood each newly arrived prisoner constructed a bed, a table, and a chair. Profiteers in the bazaar naturally took advantage of the demand for wood, and, by the time of which I write, the price of it had soared to two Turkish pounds a plank.

Besides the officers there were at Afion about two hundred Tommies shut up in a Greek church. Their daily rations from the Turks were one small loaf of bad bread and one basin of thin soup. For the rest, they existed on the tinned food which they received from time to time in parcels.

As for the Russian soldiers, who were herded into the Madrissah buildings, they were literally starving, and most of them had sold part of their clothing to buy extra food. Weak and ragged, they passed the time in walking round and round the courtyard. During the bitter months of winter scores of them died from hunger and cold.

Conditions in the prison camp varied according to the character of whoever happened to be the Turkish commandant. For a time the officer in charge was one Muslum Bey, who was reported to have committed several executions for Enver Pasha during the turbulent days of the Young Turk _coup d'état_ in 1908. He was a brute, a swindler, and a degenerate, and during his reign unspeakable outrages were committed. He himself gave a Russian officer who had committed some minor offence more than a hundred strokes of the bastinado. When his arm was tired he made his sergeant-major continue the flogging until the Russian fainted. The unconscious body of the victim was then thrown into a cellar, where a part of his face was burned by contact with quick-lime.

Muslum Bey not only stole food parcels from England but made a practice of deducting part of the monthly pay which helped to procure for the British Tommies a bare existence. In addition, he made an arrangement with bazaar traders whereby a monopoly in certain articles of food came into being, so that the prisoners had to pay incredible prices, or go hungry.

It was not until the visit of a Swiss Commission that was investigating the prison-camps of Turkey that the British officers at Afion-kara-Hissar heard of Muslum Bey's worst outrage. The brutal commandant had taken great care that there should be no communication between the captive officers and the captive men, and severe punishment was inflicted if a Tommy tried to speak with a British officer whom he chanced to pass in the street. Scenting that something was wrong the officers induced members of the Swiss Commission to take with them the senior British doctor when they visited the Tommies in the Greek Church. Almost the first words that Colonel B., the doctor in question, heard on entering the building were the equivalent of "I've been outraged, sir." He then learned the story of how two British soldiers, thrown into jail for some trivial offence, had been forcibly outraged, first by the commandant and then by his sergeant-major.

The Swiss Commission itself was not immune from Muslum Bey's criminality. An Australian officer took a member of it aside, and told him the full story of the awful death-march from Kut-el-Amara, on which the captured garrison, already reduced by hunger, were forced to trek over 800 miles of desert and mountain, being left to die in the scorching sun if they fell out owing to weakness--a death-march which is responsible for the fact that less than 25 per cent. of the men captured at Kut-el-Amara are alive to-day.

"Yes, we know all about it," said the Swiss, "and we had it in our notes. But most of our papers were stolen the other day."

When I reached Afion, in May, 1918, the conditions had improved. As a result of a secret report by the senior British officer, smuggled to the headquarters at Constantinople of the Ottoman Red Crescent, Muslum Bey had been removed from his position and imprisoned. He was put on trial for his many crimes; but owing to _baksheesh_ and to political protection the sentence was but a few months' imprisonment. He had already served this period while awaiting trial, and was therefore released immediately after sentence. He went into business as a shopkeeper, and sold among other things tinned food bearing British labels--tinned food of the kind that anxious people in England and India lovingly bought and lovingly packed for their husbands, sons, and relatives who were prisoners of war.

Meanwhile, although Muslum Bey had been given only the travesty of a punishment by the Turkish judges, instructions were sent from the Turkish War Office that life at the prison-camps of Afion-kara-Hissar was to be made more pleasant. We were, for example, allowed the run of a portion of the hillside. In cold print such a concession seems unimportant enough, but to men who had become staled and unspeakably bored by months of captivity during which their only exercise was to walk up and down a narrow street, it was a godsend. Cricket and football matches were also allowed, and two or three times a week long walks were arranged.

Members of these walking parties would study the flat plain that surrounded Afion-kara-Hissar and the succession of hill-ranges beyond it, and would dream of an escape to some point on the coast.

From this town in the centre of Anatolia, however, escape seemed an impossibility, for the nearest point of the coast was 150 miles distant, and the intervening country, wild and almost trackless, was full of brigands and starving outlaws of every description, who would cheerfully kill a chance traveller for a pair of boots, a loaf of bread, or merely for practice. In any case, a tramp to the coast must extend over at least five weeks, and it was difficult to see how food for this long period could be carried.

Several officers were carrying on a secret correspondence with friends in England by means of code, and were trying to prepare wild schemes whereby a boat was to be waiting for them at some specified part of the coastline between specified dates, or whereby an aeroplane was to pick them up during the night. Most of us gave up the idea of making a dash for freedom from Afion, and schemed to be sent to Constantinople, where the chances of success would be greater.

When a recently captured prisoner first accepted the fact that escape from Afion-kara-Hissar was impossible, and when the monotony of captivity had permeated him, he would as a rule pass through a period of melancholia and the deepest depression. A black rock--huge, gaunt, and forbidding--overshadowed the little town from its height of 2,000 feet of almost sheer precipice. For hours at a time one would stare at its bare blackness, and at the crumbling ruins of the fortress, built by the Seljak Turks, which topped the rock; and the blackness and bareness would enter into one's soul and plunge one into a swirling vortex of morbid thoughts. For me the rock was a symbol of captivity--bleak, inexorable, and unrelenting.

Yet, as a rule, the period of melancholia soon passed, and gave place to resigned acceptance of the trivial and monotonous daily round of prison life. This more or less sane view of things was only made possible by improvised distractions, by reading, and by the discussion of the thousand-and-one rumours that spread from the bazaars. Time and again it would be whispered by some Greek trader that Talaat Pasha was negotiating a separate peace and had agreed to open the Dardanelles, or that war was about to be declared between Turkey and Bulgaria as a result of the Dobrudja dispute, or that Enver Pasha had been assassinated, or that the Sultan was determined to rid himself of the Young Turk government. We knew well that these reports were untrue and scarce worth even the attention of bitter laughter; but since we wanted them to be true they would be discussed with gravity over the mess-tables until the next batch of newspapers proved their falsity.

The most useful means to forgetfulness was the camp library. Many hundreds of books were sent to the prison-camps of Turkey by various societies and individual sympathizers in England. It was at Afion-kara-Hissar that I first found the courage and concentration necessary to read through each and every consecutive volume of Gibbon. "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by the way, was probably more in demand than anything else in the library; for the state of mind induced by captivity needed something more solid and satisfying than the best yeller-seller. Great favourites, too, were books of Eastern travel and adventure--in particular the works of Burton and Lamartine, the "Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian," and Morier's "Hajji Baba." A copy of Plutarch's "Lives" also received the attention of much wear and tear. For the rest, many a time have I thanked the gods for Kipling; but never more heartily than when lying on the hillside at Afion and forgetting the Black Rock and all that it stood for in the company of Kim the lovable, Lalun the lovely, and The Man Who Would Be King.

Away from the ragtime blare and rush of modern life this isolation in a small town of a semi-civilized province gave the prisoners time and opportunity to "find" themselves, so that for the first time in their lives many began to think individually, instead of accepting conventional opinions at second hand. At least one book of promise was written at Afion-kara-Hissar, and four others have found publication. Several excellent poems were born there amid a welter of verse that was deathless because lifeless. Plays, paintings, and songs were produced in profusion. One man, an Australian, made a very thorough study of the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, and could supply accurate information, without reference to a book, about every phase of the rise and fall of Babylon and Nineveh, of the Medes and Persians, of the Chaldeans and Assyrians, with the extent and location and customs of the various empires. Yet he confessed that three years earlier, at a time when he was flying in Mesopotamia, he had no more interest in Babylon than in Nashville, Tennessee.

Apart, however, from the quality of this work _pour passer le temps_, the very fact that so many should adventure into the unknown country of creative effort proved that, when away from the preoccupations of an artificial social system, even the average Englishman turned instinctively to learning and the arts.

Meanwhile, many a lively performance was given in the garden which served as open-air theatre, with plays written and songs composed by people who, before being subjected to the isolation of captivity, had occupied themselves solely with soldiering or business. Comic relief also was provided by two youthful subalterns who set up shop as earnest-minded philosophers, and on a foundation of Nietzsche, Wilde, and Shaw built a gargoyled edifice that was perverted and extravagantly young, but withal vastly entertaining.

The social life of the camp was complex. Despite the absence of the female of the species, it resembled in many ways that of a suburb in some wealthy city of the Midlands. As was to be expected among a hundred people confined in two small streets, innumerable cliques were formed, from each of which ripples of gossip spread outward until they merged into and were overwhelmed by another eddy of gossip. Starting in the morning from a small room in a wooden house an item of scandal would, by the evening, have reached every room of thirty other houses--how X. had received a pair of pyjamas for nothing from the Red Cross supply and sold them for three liras; how Y. had climbed over several roofs at night-time and, in the shadow of a chimney, met that Armenian girl with the large eyes; how Z. had begun to smoke opium. Opium, by the way, could be had in plenty. The production of it was the chief industry of Afion-kara-Hissar ("_afion_" is Turkish for "poppy," "_kara hissar_" being "black rock"). Enormous poppy-fields spread all round the town in vivid splashes of red and white.

Yet with all the trivial gossip and light scandal there was a very real sense of comradeship. If any man were sick the remainder would fall over each other in their desire to be of help. If any house were short of wood during the bitter months of winter its inmates could always borrow from such as had enough and to spare. A new prisoner, possessing no money and a minimum of clothes--as was the case with most of us--would find himself overwhelmed by loans and gifts.

When I was at Afion the camp was very much preoccupied with rumours of a forthcoming exchange of sick prisoners between Great Britain and Turkey. Scores of intrigues centred round the room of Major H., then senior medical officer among the British; for it would be his task to examine the "_unfit_" before deciding which were to be sent for further and final examinations by Turkish medical boards. Scarcely a man failed to produce an ailment. Wounds that had healed years before were bandaged and treated with unnecessary care. Limps of every description were to be seen in the street. Some claimed to be deaf. Others allowed their gray hairs to grow long, and continued to express an opinion that the old and feeble should be sent home first. Such as could produce neither old age nor some physical ailment discussed loss of memory and mental trouble.

All day long Major H. examined the claimants, smiled to himself, and compiled lists. These, I imagine, must have been subdivided something like this--(a) those who suffered from real injuries or illnesses; (b) those who were middle-aged, and had minor ailments; (c) those who were young, and had minor ailments; (d) those who might conceivably have minor ailments but could supply no visible symptoms; (e) those who had nothing the matter with them, but were good liars, and as such might convince the Turks; (f) those who were not only healthy, but bad liars.

Besides the British there were at Afion about a hundred Russian officers; for although the peace of Brest-Litovsk had been signed and Russia was at peace with Germany, the Russian was the traditional enemy of the Turk, and none knew when war might break out between Turkey and the small states which had sprung up in the Caucasus. With no money, no Red Cross supplies, no means of communicating with their relatives, and no knowledge of whether these relatives had survived the Bolshevist terror, the Russian officers among us lived miserably, and were largely dependent upon the charity of British fellow-captives. In return they taught some of us a smattering of Russian, and helped to pass the time with their interminable but entertaining talk. They also provided a really fine choir, with Captain Korniloff, a cousin of the famous general, as one of its leading members. Besides ourselves, its audience, when the choir sang on the hillside, never failed to include the dark-haired Armenian girls--the only Armenians left in the town--who had been saved from the exodus and massacres of 1915-16 that they might serve the pleasures of Turkish officers and officials. They listened from a distance, and looked their sympathy, as we looked ours.

At the beginning of each month, when the funds arrived from Constantinople, there would be a succession of birthday parties. On these occasions the rule was relaxed whereby each prisoner must remain in his own house after seven o'clock. The Turks reverence birthdays, and by playing upon this fact permission would be obtained to celebrate in a friend's room. It was necessary to claim birthdays in rotation, for even the Turks might have disbelieved if the same prisoner had three of them in three successive months.

I shall always remember a party given on the evening of my arrival by White, an Australian aviator captured in the early days of the Mesopotamian campaign. It was my first introduction to _árak_, a kind of a tenth-rate absinthe, which, excepting some incredibly bad brandy, was then the only alcoholic stimulant to be bought in Anatolia. Finding it far stronger than it seemed, I had almost forgotten captivity and its miseries in an unreal enjoyment of the songs, the stories, and the general hilarity--hilarity which was merely a cloak for forgetfulness. And then, amid the fumes and the shouting, there recurred insistently the thought of escape. I spoke of it to the man nearest me, a short figure in a faded military overcoat, Turkish slippers, and an eyeglass.

"Not so loud," he warned. "You can't trust half these Russians. Come over into the corner."

Yeats-Brown, the speaker, began to suggest advice about how best to escape. One's only chance, he declared, was to get to Constantinople. He himself claimed nose trouble, and having cultivated the friendship of the local Turkish doctor, he was to be sent for treatment to a hospital in the capital. If I could invent some plausible ailment he would persuade the Turkish doctor to use his influence on my behalf. Meanwhile, we would have further talks and discuss plans. The great thing was to get to Constantinople.

Although I did not know it at the time there were in that bare room several men with whom, in a few weeks' time, I was to be involved in a succession of extraordinary intrigues and adventures, when we should have met again in Constantinople. There was the host himself--Captain White--who later on joined me in a thousand-mile journey, through Russia and Bulgaria, to freedom; there was Captain Yeats-Brown, who for weeks went about an enemy capital disguised as a girl; there was Paul, who was to escape three times, be recaptured twice, and finally to marry the English lady who helped him; there was Prince Constantine Avaloff, a Russian colonel, who was to help us all by acting as go-between; there was Lieutenant Vladimir Wilkowsky, a Polish aviator, whom I was to see again on the other side of the Black Sea, in German-occupied Odessa. Meanwhile, the _árak_ bottle passed round, and the songs grew louder and wilder, until daylight broke up the party and we returned to our rough, hand-made beds.

It now became my aim in life to reach Constantinople. My injuries had healed, and at a moment's notice I could produce no convincing illness. I decided, therefore, on some form of mental trouble. Yeats-Brown had already mentioned me to his friend the Turkish doctor; and I was to have been examined, when yet again the unexpected happened. It was ordered by the Ministry of War that the seven of us who left Damascus together were to be forwarded to Constantinople, presumably for interrogation.

I took with me high hopes and the addresses of various civilians in the capital who might be of help. As we entrained, and moved westward through the poppy-fields, the Black Rock--which more than ever seemed a symbol of the blackness and menace which overshadowed prisoners in this half-barbaric country--loomed gigantic and forbidding, so that we were thankful when the railway wound round a hill and shut it from sight. I vowed to myself that never again would I return to the monotonous death-in-life of the prison camp at its foot, on the fringe of the squalid town of Afion-kara-Hissar.