THE TERRIBLE TURK
One draws a long breath thinking of those days of Mosul. But bad as our
case was, it was as nothing compared with that of the men.
Some two hundred of them lived in a cellar below our quarters, through
scenes of misery, and in an atmosphere of death which no one can
conceive who does not know the methods of the Turk. Even to me, as I
write in England, that Mosul prison begins to seem inconceivable.
Huddled together on the damp flag-stones of the cellar, our men died at
the rate of four or five a week. Although the majority were suffering
from dysentery they not only could not secure medical attention, but
were not even allowed out of their cells for any purpose whatever. Their
pitiable state can be better imagined than described. Many went mad
under our eyes. Deprived of food, light, exercise, and sometimes even
drinking water, the condition of our sick and starving men was literally
too terrible for words.
It is useless, however, to pile horror on horror. Sixty per cent. of
these men are dead, and this fact speaks for itself. No re-statement
can strengthen, and no excuse can palliate, the case against the Turks.
Our men in this particular instance were killed by the cynical brutality
of Abdul Ghani Bey, the commandant of Mosul, and his acquiescent staff.
There is an idea that "the Turks treated their own soldiers no better
than our prisoners"; but this is a fallacy--at any rate with regard to
hell-hounds such as Abdul Ghani Bey. He took an especial pleasure in
inflicting the torments of thirst, hunger, and dirt upon the miserable
beings under his care. Animals, in another country, would have been kept
cleaner and better fed.
Never shall I forget the arrival in January 1915 of a party of English
prisoners from Baghdad. About two hundred and fifty men, who had been
captured on barges just before the siege of Kut, had been taken first to
Baghdad and thence by forced marches to Kirkuk, a mountain town on the
borders of the Turko-Persian frontier. Why they were ever sent to Kirkuk
I do not know, unless indeed it was thought that the sight of prisoners
suitably starved would re-assure the population regarding the qualities
of the redoubtable English soldier. After being exhibited to the
population of Kirkuk our men continued their journey, through the bitter
cold of the mountains, barefoot and in rags, arriving at last at Mosul
shortly after the New Year. Only eighty men then remained out of the
original two hundred and fifty, but although their numbers had dwindled
their courage had not diminished.
First there marched into our barrack square some sixty of our soldiers
in column of route. They were erect and correct as if they were marching
to a king's parade. Surely so strange a column will never be seen again.
All were sick, and the most were sick to death. Some were barefoot, some
had marched two hundred miles in carpet slippers, some were in
shirt-sleeves, and all were in rags; one man only wore a great-coat, and
he possessed no stitch of clothing beneath it. But through all adversity
they held their heads high among the heathen, and carried themselves
with the courage of a day "that knows not death." Silently they filed
into the already crowded cellar, out of our sight, and many never issued
again into the light of the sun.
After these sixty men had disappeared the stragglers began to stagger
in. One man, delirious, led a donkey on which the dead body of his
friend was tied face downwards. After unstrapping the corpse he fell in
a heap beside it. Dysentery cases wandered in and collapsed in groups on
the parade ground. An Indian soldier, who had contracted lockjaw, kept
making piteous signs to his mouth, and looking up to the verandah, where
we stood surrounded by guards. But no one came to relieve those
sufferers, dying by inches under our eyes.
That night we managed, by bribing the guards, to have smuggled upstairs
to us at tea-time two non-commissioned officers from among the new
arrivals. Needless to say, we spent all our money (which was little
enough in all conscience) in providing as good a fare as possible, and
our famished guests devoured the honey and clotted cream we had to
offer. Then one of them suddenly fainted. When he had somewhat recovered
he had to be secretly conveyed below, and that was the end of the
party--the saddest at which I have ever assisted. The officer who
carried the sick man down spent several hours afterwards in removing
vermin from his own clothes, for lice leave the moribund, and this poor
boy died within a few days.
Sometimes, when our pay was given us, or there occurred an opportunity
to bribe our guard, it was our heart-breaking duty to decide which of
the men we should attempt to save, by smuggling money to them out of the
slender funds at our disposal, and which of their number, from cruel
necessity, were too near their end to warrant an attempt to save.
Something of the iron of Cromwell enters one's mind as one writes of
these things. If we forget our dead, the East will not forget our shame.
Sentiment must not interfere with justice. Abdul Ghani Bey, who shed our
prisoners' blood, must pay the penalty. He is the embodiment of a
certain type--perhaps not a very common type--of Turk, but common or
not, he is one of the men responsible for the terrible death-rate among
our soldiers. A short description of him, therefore, will not be out of
place.
He was a small man, this tiny Tamerlane, with a limp, and a scowl, and
bandy legs. His sombre, wizened face seemed to light with pleasure at
scenes of cruelty and despair. He insulted the old, and struck the weak,
and delighted in the tears of women and the cries of children. This is
not hyperbole. I have seen him stump through a crowd of Armenian widows
and their offspring, and after striking some with his whip, he pushed
down a woman into the gutter who held a baby at her breast. I have seen
him pass down the ranks of Arab deserters, lashing one in the face,
kicking another, and knocking down a third. I have seen him wipe his
boots on the beard of an old Arab he had felled, and spur him in the
face. I hope he has already been hanged, because only the hangman's cord
could remove his atavistic cruelty.
His subordinates went in deadly fear of him, and while it was extremely
difficult to help our men, it was practically impossible to help
ourselves at all in the matter of escape. Yet escape was doubly urgent
now, to bring news of our condition to the outer world.
After much thought I decided that a certain wall-eyed interpreter who
came occasionally to buy us food was the most promising person to
approach. My friend and I laid our plans carefully. After a judicious
tip, and some hints as to our great importance in our own country, we
evinced a desire to have private lessons with him in Arabic, enlarging
at the same time upon the great career that a person like himself might
have had, had he been serving the English and not the Turks. Gradually
we led round to the subject of escape. At first we talked generalities
in whispers, and he was distinctly shy of doing anything of which the
dear commandant would not approve; but eventually, softly and
distinctly, and with a confidence that I did not feel, I made a
momentous proposal to him, nothing less than that he could help us to
escape. He winced as if my remark was hardly proper, and fixed me with a
single, thunder-struck eye. Then he quavered:
"This is very sudden!"
We could not help laughing.
"This is no jesting matter," he said. "I will be killed if I am caught."
"But you won't get caught. With the best horses in Arabia and a guide
like you. . . ."
"Hush, hush! I must think it over."
For several days he preserved a tantalising silence, alternately raising
our hopes by a wink from his wonderful eye, and then dashing them to the
ground by a blank stare.
We lived in a torment of hope deferred.
But time passed more easily now. The nights took on a new complexion,
flushed by the hope of freedom. From our little window I could see
across a courtyard to a patch of river. Beyond it, immense and magical
under the starlight, were the ruins of former civilisation--the mounds
of Nineveh, the tomb of Jonah, and the rolling downs that lead to the
mountains of Kurdistan. To those mountains my fancy went. If sleep did
not come, then there were enthralling adventures to be lived in those
mountains, adventures of the texture of dreams, yet tinged with a
certain prospective of reality. . . . We had bought revolvers, our
horses were ready, we had bribed our guard. We rode far and fast, with
our wall-eyed friend as guide. By evening we were in a great
forest. . . .
But reality proved a poor attendant on romance. A sordid question of
money was our stumbling-block, and a high enterprise was crippled--not
for the first or last time--by want of cash. We had already given the
interpreter five pounds (which represented so much bread taken out of
our mouths), but now he stated that further funds were indispensable to
arrange preliminaries. This seemed reasonable, for arms and horses could
not be secured on credit in Mosul. Unfortunately, however, funds were
not available. We could not, in decency, borrow from other prisoners to
help us in our escape. At this juncture our guide, philosopher, and
friend lost--or embezzled--a five-pound note that had been entrusted to
him by another prisoner to buy us food. Whether he lost it carelessly or
criminally I am not prepared to state, but the fact remains he lost it.
Our fellow-prisoner very naturally complained to the Turks, as the
absence of this five pounds meant we could buy no food for a week.
The Turks arrested the interpreter. He grew frightened, invented a story
about the complainant having asked him to help in an escape, then
recanted, vacillated, contradicted himself, and got himself bastinadoed
for his pains.
The bastinado, I may as well here explain, is administered as follows:
the feet of the victim are bared, and his ankles are strapped to a pole.
The pole is now raised by two men to the height of their shoulders. A
third man takes a thick stick about the diameter of a man's wrist, and
strikes him on the soles of the feet. Between twenty and a hundred
strokes are administered, while the victim writhes until he faints. No
undue exertion is necessary on the part of the executioner, for even
after a gentle bastinado a man is not expected to be able to walk for
several days.
The wall-eyed interpreter was brought limping to our cell about three
days after his punishment. He was brought by Turkish officers, who
wished to hear from our own lips a denial of his story that we had been
plotting an escape.
It was a dramatic, and for me rather dreadful, moment. Indignantly and
vehemently we denied ever having asked his help. Only myself and
another, besides the interpreter, knew the truth. To the other officers
at Mosul (there were nine of us then, sharing two little cells) this
black business is only now for the first time made known. Their
indignation, therefore, was by no means counterfeit.
"The man must be mad. No one ever dreamed of escaping," I stated,
looking fixedly into the interpreter's one eye, which, while it implored
me to tell the truth, seemed to hold a certain awe for a liar greater
than himself.
"But----" he stammered, cowed by the circumstance that for once in his
life he was telling the truth.
"But what?" we demanded angrily. "Let the villain speak out. His story
is monstrous."
"Besides, we are so comfortable here," I added parenthetically.
Eventually the wretched man was led gibbering to an underground dungeon.
What happened to him afterwards I do not know. I publish this story
after careful thought, because, if he was "playing the game" by us, why
did he talk to the Turks about escape? If, on the other hand, he was a
prison spy, then his punishment is not my affair.
The treachery of the interpreter was an ill wind for everyone, for our
guards were sent away to the front (which is tantamount to a sentence of
death) and the vigilance of our new guards was greater than that of the
old. Intrigue was dead and our isolation complete.
In these circumstances it may be imagined with what excitement I
received the news that the German Consul wanted to see me in the
commandant's office. It was the first time for a fortnight that I had
left my cell.
I entered slowly, and after saluting the company present, first
generally, and then individually, I took a dignified seat after the
manner of the country. Ranged round the room were various notables of
Mosul--doctors, apothecaries, priests, and lawyers. On a dais slightly
above us sat the Consul and the commandant. For some time we kept
silence, as if to mark the importance of the occasion. Then a cigarette
was offered me by the commandant. I refused this offering, rising in my
chair and saluting him again.
At last the German Consul spoke.
He had been instructed by telegraph, he told me, to pay me the sum of
five hundred marks in gold. The money came from a friend of my father's.
I begged him to thank the generous donor, and a whole vista of
possibilities immediately rose to my mind.
The money would be given me next day, the Consul continued, and a
_kavass_ of the Imperial Government would go with me into the _bazaar_
to make any purchases I required.
This conversation took place in French, a language of which the
commandant was quite ignorant, and I saw that here was an ideal
opportunity for bringing the plight of our prisoners to light. But the
Consul, I gathered, wanted to keep on friendly terms with the Turks.
Some of the things I told him, however, made him open his eyes, and may
have made his kultured flesh creep.
"I will come again to-morrow," he said hurriedly--"you can tell me more
then."
After this he spoke in Turkish at some length to the commandant, while
the latter interjected that wonderful word _yok_ at intervals.
_Yok_, I must explain, signifies "No" in its every variation, and is
probably the most popular word in Turkish. It is crystallised
inhibition, the negation of all energy and enthusiasm, the motto of the
Ottoman Dilly and Dallys. Its only rival in the vocabulary is _yarin_,
which means "to-morrow."
"Yok, yok, yok," said the commandant, and I gathered that he was
displeased.
That night I made my plans, and when summoned to the office next day I
was armed with three documents. The first was a private letter of thanks
to Baron Mumm for his generous and kindly loan. The second was a
suggestion that the International Red Cross should immediately send out
a commission to look after our prisoners at Mosul. And the third was a
detailed list of articles required by our men, with appropriate
comments. Items such as this figured on the list:
Soap, for two hundred men, as they had been unable to wash for months.
Kerosene tins, to hold drinking-water, which was denied to our
prisoners.
Blankets, as over 50 per cent. had no covering at all.
These screeds startled the company greatly. The Consul stared and the
commandant glared, for the one hated fuss and the other hated me. I was
delightfully unpopular, but when an Ambassador telegraphs in Turkey, the
provinces lend a respectful ear. My voice, crying in the wilderness,
must needs be heard.
Summoning an interpreter, the commandant demanded whether I had any
cause for complaint; whereupon the following curious three-cornered
conversation took place--so far as I could understand the Turkish part:
"The men must be moved to better quarters," said I. "Until this is
arranged nothing can be done."
"He says nothing can be done," echoed the interpreter.
"Then of what does he complain?" asked the commandant.
"The very beasts in my country are better cared for," I said. "Our men
are dying of hunger and cold."
"He says the men are dying of cold," said the interpreter, shivering at
his temerity in mentioning the matter.
"The weather is not my fault," grumbled the commandant, "perhaps it will
be better to-morrow. Yes, _yarin_."
And so on. Talk was hopeless, but before leaving I gave the German
Consul to understand that he now shared with Abdul Ghani Bey the
responsibility for our treatment. To his credit, be it said, the
commandant was removed shortly after our departure.
Two days after this interview we were moved from Mosul, where our
presence was becoming irksome no doubt. Before leaving I left all my
fortunate money, except five pounds, with the Consul, asking him to form
a fund (which I hoped would be supplemented later by the Red Cross) for
sick prisoners. Twelve months later this money was returned to me in
full, but I fancy that it had done its work in the meanwhile.
On the day before our journey I went shopping with the Imperial _kavass_
aforesaid, and it was a most pompous and pleasant excursion. Although I
wore sandshoes and tattered garments, what with my eyeglass, and the
gorgeous German individual, dressed like a Bond Street _commissionaire_,
who carried my parcels and did my bargaining, I think we made a great
impression upon the good burgesses of Mosul.
We threaded our way among Kurds with seven pistols at their belts, and
Arabs hung with bandoliers, and astonishing Circassians with whiskers
and swords. Almost every male swaggered about heavily armed, but a blow
on their bristling midriff would have staggered any one of them. Their
bark, I should think, is worse than their bite.
After a Turkish bath, where I graciously entertained the company with
coffee, we strolled round the transport square, where we chaffered
hotly for carriages to take us to Aleppo.
The material results of the morning were:
Some food and tobacco for the men staying behind.
Rations for ourselves, consisting of an amorphous mass of dates,
cigarettes, conical loaves of sugar, candles, and a heap of unleavened
bread.
Carriages for our conveyance to Aleppo.
But the moral effect of our excursion was greater far. I sowed broadcast
the seeds of disaffection to Abdul Ghani Bey. To the tobacconist I said
that the English, Germans, Turks, and all the nations of the earth,
while differing in other matters, had agreed he was a worm to be crushed
under the heel of civilisation. To the grocer I repeated the story. To
the fruiterer I said his doom was nigh, and to the baker and candlestick
maker that his hour had come.
Everyone agreed. _Conspuez le commandant_ was the general opinion.
"In good old Abdul Hamid's days," they said, "such devil's spawn would
not have been allowed to live."
It was a matter of minutes before rumours of his downfall were rife
throughout the city.
Next day he came to see us off, bow-legs, whip, and scowl and all. He
stood stockily, watching us drive away, and then turned and spat. But
the taste of us was not to be thus easily dispelled. He will remember
us, I hope, to his dying day. May that day be soon!