THE COMIC HOSPITAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
The one bulwark against morbidity was hope of an escape. Only by getting
away, or at any rate making an attempt, could I justify my continued
existence, when so many good men were dying in the world outside--and at
our own doors.
Now certain spies, as I have told, were constantly on the look-out for
officers likely to give trouble to our custodians. The Commandant, I
knew, suspected me of wanting to escape, owing to my general eagerness
for exercise. I thought, therefore, that if I could induce him to
believe that I was ready to dream away my days at Afion-kara-hissar, I
should have established that confidence in my character which is the
basis of all success. I consequently purchased some two pounds of a
certain dark and viscous drug, wrapped in a cabbage leaf. With a sort of
theatrical secrecy (for even in Turkey Mrs. Grundy has her say), I
proceeded to prepare the stuff by boiling it for two hours in a copper
saucepan. I did this on a day when one of the Turkish staff came to the
house to distribute letters. Naturally the smell attracted notice. I
made flimsy excuses to account for it.
After distilling the decoction, filtering, and then boiling it down to
the consistency of treacle, the first phase of my little plan was
ended. One of the Turkish staff, a certain Cypriote youth, had become
thoroughly interested in my proceedings.
I showed him, under vows of secrecy which I knew he would not keep, the
stage property I had bought, consisting of two bamboo pipes, a lamp, a
terra-cotta bowl, some darning needles, and the "treacle" in a jampot.
Fortunately the most of these implements I had obtained second-hand from
a real opium-smoker, so that they did not look too new. Also I had read
de Quincey and Claude Farrere. After discussing the subject at length,
the Cypriote suggested that we might smoke together one evening. I
agreed with alacrity.
One night after lock-up, therefore, I slipped out of my house, with my
paraphernalia hidden under my overcoat. A specially bribed Turkish
sentry brought me to a silent, shuttered house in a side street. Here
the door was opened by an evil-looking harridan, who showed me upstairs
to a thickly carpeted room, strewn with cushions, on which my host was
lying. The blinds were drawn and only the glimmer of a little green lamp
lit the wreaths of whitish smoke which curled down from the low ceiling.
The fumes stang my palate and thrilled me with expectancy. I could
taste, rather than smell, that strange savour of opium which fascinates
its devotees.
I lay down, in the semi-darkness, on a sofa beside my host. After some
general conversation, I showed him my pipes and needles, but he said
that for that evening I should only smoke the opium of his brewing.
"It is a joy to have found a fellow-spirit," I sighed. "When one has
opium one wants nothing more."
"How many pipes do you smoke a day?" he asked.
"Fifty," I said boldly, adding, "when I am in practice."
"That is nothing," said the Cypriote. "I smoke a hundred. Come, let us
begin. Time is empty, except for opium."
"But who will prepare our pipes?" I asked.
"We will do that ourselves," he answered.
"I can't," I had to admit. "I--I am used to an attendant, who hands me
my pipes already cooked."
"There is no one here," he said, "except an ugly old woman. But I will
show you myself. Half the pleasure is lost if another hand prepares the
precious fluid. See, you take a drop of opium--so--on the point of the
needle, and holding it over the flame of the lamp, you turn and turn it
gently until it swells and expands and glows with its hidden life. From
a black drop it changes to a glowing bubble of crimson. Then you cool it
again, moulding and pressing it back to a little pellet upon the glass
of the lampshade. Then again you cook it, and again you cool it. Only
experience can tell when it is ready to smoke. It is an art, like other
arts. I would rather cook opium than write a poem. It is even better
than money. Now you take your pipe and, heating the little hole through
which the opium is smoked, so that it will stick, you thrust your
needle--so--into the hole, and then withdraw it again, leaving the
pellet of perfect peace behind. And now, lying on your left side, with
your head well back amongst the cushions, you hold your pipe over the
flame and draw in a long and grateful breath. In and in you
breathe. . . ."
I watched him take a deep draught of the drug, and then lie back among
the cushions with heavy-lidded eyes. For a full half-minute he remained
silent and dreaming, then expelled the thick white smoke with a sigh of
bliss.
It was my turn now, and not without some dismay (although curiosity was
probably a stronger emotion) I accepted a pipe of his preparing. I
inhaled in and in--I choked a little--and then lay back with a
dreaminess that was not simulated, for it had made me feel giddy.
"You prepare a most perfect pipe," I coughed through the acrid fumes.
But I had realised immediately that I had not an opium temperament. In
all I smoked ten small pipes that first evening, without feeling any ill
effects beyond a heavy lassitude, which lasted all through the following
day. I was disappointed and disgusted by the experience. The beautiful
dreams are a myth. So also is the deadly fascination of the drug. I
loathed it more each time I tasted it.
Yet those nights I lay on a sofa, _couche a gauche_ as opium-smokers
say, weaving a tissue of deceit into the grey-white clouds encircling
us, will always remain one of the most curious memories of my life. The
couches, the needles and the pipes, the pin-point pupils and wicked
profile of my host, as he leaned over the green glimmer of the lamp
which burnt to the god to whom his heart was given, and the growth of
that god in him, as pipe followed pipe to stir his consciousness, and
the beatitude that lit his features, as he looked up from amidst the
cushions to that dream-world of subtle smoke, to be seen only with
narrowed eyes, where princes of the poppies reign: this had a glamour
against the drab setting of captivity which I will neither deny nor
excuse. I was doing something practical once more. Instead of reading
philosophy or playing chess, I was engaged in a human game, whose stake
was freedom.
A measure of success attended my efforts, for I learnt from the
Cypriote, in the course of subsequent visits to his house, that if I
wished for a holiday to Constantinople it would not be difficult to
arrange.
I think we were both playing a double game.
We both tried to make the other talk, he with the idea of getting
information about the camp and I in the hope of picking up some hint as
to where to hide in Constantinople. But card-sharpers might as well have
tried to fleece each other by the three card trick. His knowledge of
Constantinople seemed to be _nil_, while the information he got out of
me would not have filled his opium pipe. After these excursions I used
sometimes to wonder whether I was not wasting my time and health. But
time is cheap in captivity, and as to health, I used to counteract the
opium by counter-orgies of exercises. In the early mornings I skipped
and bathed in secret, but in the daytime I tottered wanly about the
streets, and whenever I saw the Cypriote I told him that I craved for
_confiture_: this being our name for opium.
In my condition it was an easy matter to be sent to the doctor. I told
him various astonishing stories about my health, chiefly culled from a
French medical work which I found in the waiting-room of his house.
Within a month I was transferred to Haidar Pasha Hospital, near
Constantinople. Had I been in brutal health, the operation to my nose
which was the ostensible reason of my departure would not have been
considered necessary. But I had been removed from the category of
suspects, and was now considered an amiable invalid.
* * * * *
The guard on my northward journey was more like a sick attendant than a
sentry. I showed him some opium pills, which I declared were delicious
to take. He evinced the greatest interest, and I was able to prevail on
him to swallow two or three as an experiment. Unfortunately, after he
had taken them, I discovered they contained nothing more exciting than
cascara. They did not send him to sleep at all.
We arrived at Haidar Pasha without incident. Before being admitted, my
effects were searched, and stored away, but being by that time
accustomed to searches, I was able to hide, upon my person, a variety
of things that would be useful in an escape, notably a compass, and a
complete set of maps of Constantinople and its surroundings.
Captain Sir Robert Paul, with whom I had discussed plans at
Afion-kara-hissar, was already installed in hospital, where he was being
treated for an aural complaint. His friendship was an inestimable
stand-by through the months that followed. Through scenes of farce and
tragedy he was always the same feckless and fearless spirit. In success,
as in adversity, he kept an equal mien. Without him, the most amusing
chapters in my life would not have happened, and if I write "_I_" in the
pages which follow, it is only because Robin, as I shall hereafter call
him, has not been consulted about this record of our days together.
Owing to circumstances beyond our control, the full responsibility for
this story must be mine. The seas divide us. I cannot ask his help, or
solicit his approval.
The hospital at Haidar Pasha was the most delightfully casual place
imaginable. One wandered into one's ward in a Turkish nightshirt, and
wandered out again at will, the only limits to peregrination being the
boundaries of the hospital and one's own rather fantastic dress. Unless
one asked loudly and insistently for medicines or attendance, no one
dreamed of doing anything at all in the way of treatment. The only
attention the patients received was to be turned out of the hospital
when they were either dead or restored to health. Under the latter
category a crowd of invalids came every day, who were generally ejected
just before noon, clamouring loudly for their mid-day meal, and the
unexpended portion of their day's ration. Of deaths in hospital I
witnessed only one, although scores occurred during my stay. One evening
an Armenian officer was brought into my ward with severe wounds in the
head, due to a prematurely exploded bomb. He was laid flat on a bed, and
instantly proceeded to choke. No one came near him. It seemed obvious to
me that if he was propped up by pillows he would be able to breathe. But
no one propped him up. I suggested to the hospital orderly that this
should be done, and he said, "Yarin." And "yarin" the poor officer died
of lack of breath. How sick men survived is a mystery to me, because
they were never attended to, unless strong enough to scream. Screaming,
however, is a habit to which the Turkish patient is not averse. He does
not believe in the stoical repression of feeling. Strong and brave men
will bellow like bulls while their wounds are being dressed. Unless,
indeed, one makes a fuss, no one will believe one is being hurt. I have
seen mutton-fisted dressers tearing off bandages by main force, while
some unfortunate patient with a stoical tradition sweats with agony and
bites his lips in silence.
But although the Turk cries out, he is by no means a coward under the
knife. His stern and simple faith seems to help him here. There is
something very fine about a good Moslem's readiness for death. No man
who knows the religion, or has lived intimately among its adherents, can
fail to give it reverence. Before God all men are equal, and when one
walks about in a nightshirt, one begins to realise this fundamental
truth. There was a great friendliness in that hospital, and a cordiality
that coloured the otherwise sordid surroundings. Poor jettison of the
war, broken with fighting, or rotten with disease, or shamming sick, we
forgathered in the corridors, or in the garden, with no thought for the
external advantages of rank and fortune.
Matches at that time had practically disappeared from Turkey, and
whenever one issued from the ward with a cigarette between one's lips,
one was beset by invalids in search of a light. Who lit the original
vestal fire I do not know, but I am sure it was never extinguished in
that hospital. Patients smoked and talked all night.
We took our part with pleasure in this picnic life. Robin, with
remarkable skill, had contrived to smuggle in various forbidden bottles,
which contributed greatly to our popularity. One drink especially, from
its innocuous appearance and stimulating properties, found great favour
amongst the patients. It was known as "Iran," and consisted of equal
parts of sour milk and brandy. A teetotaller might safely be seen with a
long glass of creamy-looking fluid, yet Omar Khayyam himself would not
have despised a jug of it. Imbibing this, we used to hold polyglot
pow-wows with the patients, in French, German, Arabic, Italian, and
Turkish. Sugar and tea from our parcels also did much to promote
cordiality.
The recent explosion in Haidar Pasha station, which blew out all the
windows of our (adjacent) hospital, and the first British air raid of
1918 were frequent topics of discussion. With regard to these events we
invented a beautiful lie, namely, that the station explosions were the
result of bombardment by a new type of submarine we possessed, but that,
_per contra_, the first air raid, which did no damage, was not carried
out by British aircraft at all. We proved by assorted arguments in
various languages that the bombs on Constantinople had come from German
aeroplanes, the raid being a display of Hun frightfulness, to show what
would happen if Turkish allegiance wavered over the thorny question of
the disposal of the Black Sea fleet. Nothing was too improbable to be
true in Constantinople, and nothing indeed was too absurd to be
possible. Enver Pasha had made a monopoly in milk, and a corner in
velvet. The new Sultan was intriguing for the downfall of the Young
Turks. The funds of the Committee of Union and Progress had been sent to
Switzerland, where a Turkish pound purchased thirteen francs of Swiss
security, or half its face value. Fortunes were won and lost on the
meteoric fluctuations of paper money. A lunatic inmate of the hospital
(formerly a Smyrniote financier, driven to despair by the press gang)
told me that he could make a million on the bourse if they only set him
free for a few hours, and I daresay he was right. Anything might have
happened during those summer days. Secret presses were engaged in
printing broadsheets of revolution. The nearer the Germans got to Paris,
the more persistent were the stories of their defeat. The air was
electric with rumours. The story about German aeroplanes bombing
Constantinople, which we had started in jest, was retailed to us later,
in all earnestness, and with every detail to give it probability.
Anything to the discredit of their ally found currency in the Turkish
capital.
An Ottoman cadet in my ward, for instance, used to impersonate a German
officer ordering his dinner in a Turkish restaurant. He managed somehow
to convey the swagger, and the stays, and the stiff neck. Clattering his
sword behind him, he used to seat himself stiffly at a table and call
haughtily for a waiter. Then, after glaring at the menu, he used to
order--a dish of haricot beans. "Des haricots," he used to snap, with
hand on sword-hilt in the exact and invariable Prussian manner.
But to the last, the Germans were all-unconscious of what went on behind
their corseted backs. Only at the time of the armistice, when they were
pelted with rotten vegetables, did they realise that something was
amiss.
To return to our hospital. Our day began with rice and broth at six in
the morning. At nine the visiting doctor made his rounds and the
patients who needed medicines clamoured for them. Unless one made a
fuss, however, one was left in perfect peace. At midday there was more
rice and broth, with occasional lumps of meat. The afternoon was devoted
to sleep, and the evenings to exercise in the garden, or intrigue. Rice
and broth concluded the day. This sounds dull, but after two years of
prison life, the hours seemed as crowded as a London season's. To begin
with, we did not attempt to subsist on hospital fare, but commissioned
various orderlies and friends to buy us food outside. Then there was the
never-failing interest of making plans. A certain person raised our
hopes to the zenith by telling us of the possibility of a boat calling
for us at night, at a landing place just below the British cemetery. The
idea was to embark in this boat, row across to a steamer, and there
enter large sealed boxes in which we would pass the Customs up the
Bosphorus, and then make Odessa. The plan was almost complete. The
shipping people had been "squared." It only remained for us to select
the spot from which to embark. With this object in view, we reconnoitred
the British cemetery which abutted on the hospital grounds. It was then
being used as an anti-aircraft station, and when, a few days later, the
first air raid came, we saw the exact positions of the Turkish machine
guns, spitting lead at our aircraft from among the Crimean graves. This
air raid, and the atmosphere of "frightfulness" caused thereby, rather
interfered with our escape plans. First of all we were forbidden to go
near the British cemetery, and later other small privileges were
curtailed which greatly "cramped our style." For some time we could not
get in touch with the person already alluded to.
Meanwhile the arrival of our aeroplanes was a very stimulating sight.
Everyone in hospital turned out to see the show.
Crump! crump! Woof!--said the bombs.
Woo-woo-woom!--answered the Archies.
Kk-kk-kk-kk! chattered the machine guns.
"God is great," muttered the hospital staff.
"Give me a gun!" cried one of the two British officers posing as
lunatics (I have already related how they had pretended to hang
themselves). "Give me a gun," he reiterated loudly--"this is all a plot
to kill me, and I must defend myself!"
Calmly and confidently our machines sailed through the barrage, dropped
their bombs, turned to have a look at Constantinople, and then sailed
away.
The British lunatic shook his fist at them, as he was led back gibbering
to his ward. The head doctor was much concerned as to his condition.
"Every day," he told me--"some new madness takes that poor deluded
creature. Eighteen pounds were paid to him recently and he promptly tore
the notes in half and scattered them about the room. When he was asked
if he wanted anything from the Embassy he wrote for a ton of carbolic
soap, and half a ton of chocolate. On another occasion he jumped into
the hospital pond with his pipe in his mouth, declaring he was on fire.
I dare not send him to England without an escort, for he would do
himself some injury. As to the other British lunatic, he has not spoken
for five weeks. I do not know what is to be done."
Neither did I, for I was not then aware of the patient's true condition,
and had no desire to "butt in." They had lived for several months among
the other madmen in hospital, and I thought it probable that they had
really lost their reason.
The lunatics' ward was a terrifying place. My experience of it, although
limited to a few hours, was enough to last a lifetime. In order to
secure drugs for "doping" sentries I complained of severe insomnia one
day, and was sent to the mental specialist. While waiting for him, I
noticed that one of the British lunatics was regarding me with
unblinking furious eyes, while the other was praying--apparently for the
souls of the damned. The Greek financier was singing softly to himself,
and applauding himself. There is something very alarming about madness.
One feels suddenly and closely what a narrow margin divides us from a
world of terror. Their souls stand forlornly by their bodies, knocking
at the door of intelligence.
When the mental specialist arrived, I was seized by grave alarm. What if
he should find me insane? . . .
He held up a finger, tracing patterns in the air, and told me to watch
it closely. While I watched him, he watched me.
"The moving finger writes," I thought, "and having writ . . ."
"I can see your finger perfectly," I protested nervously.
"Far from it," said the enthusiastic specialist. "You are not following
it with your eyes."
"I am--indeed I am," said I, squinting at his fat forefinger.
"I am told you cannot sleep," continued my interlocutor. "You seem to me
to be suffering from nervous exhaustion."
"A little sleeping draught . . ." I suggested.
"I ought to observe you for a few days," he answered.
"Not here?" I quavered.
"Yes, here."
"But I do not like the--other lunatics," said I, in a small voice.
Eventually, to my great delight, I was allowed to remain where I was,
and was given (as reward for the danger I had endured) several cachets
of bromide and a few tablets of trional.
I returned in triumph to my ward, and Robin and I laid our heads
together. With the drugs we now possessed it would be possible to send
our sentries to sleep when we were moved from hospital, if the person
who was making plans for us to be taken on board a Black Sea steamer
failed to communicate in time. But the question now arose as to how much
of these drugs was suitable for the Turkish constitution. The object was
to administer a sleeping draught, not a fatal dose. If we were
transferred from Haidar Pasha we knew we should be sent for a time to
the garrison camp of Psamattia (a suburb of Constantinople on the
European side) and our intention was to inveigle our attendants into
having lunch during our journey there, and ply them with Pilsener beer,
suitably prepared, until they were somnolent and unsuspicious enough to
make it feasible to bolt.
Neither the bromide nor the trional could be tasted in cocoa or coffee,
we discovered, so one evening, I regret to say, I carried out an
experiment on a wounded patient, who was otherwise quite fit, although
rather sleepless, by giving him a cachet of bromide and a tablet of
trional in a cup of cocoa. In about half an hour his eyelids began to
flicker, and he was soon sleeping like a lamb. Next morning he
complained of a slight headache. Should he chance to read these lines I
hope he will accept my apologies. _A la guerre comme a la guerre._
So now we had the beginning of a second plan, in case the box business
_via_ the Black Sea failed. But, in the event of escaping during our
journey to Psamattia, we had no very clear idea of where to hide. That
there were Greek and Jewish quarters in Galata and in Pera we knew, and
also in the northern part of Stamboul, but the chances of detection in
any of these localities were great, especially as we had no disguises at
the time. There remained a possibility of hiding in the ruins of recent
fires, but it was difficult to see how we were to live there. On the
whole the Black Sea trip seemed to offer the most favourable
opportunities of success. But to carry it out, we had to wait, and wait,
and still to wait, until we heard from our agent again. And eventually
the time came when we could wait no longer. . . .
A week or two is nothing in Turkey, but unfortunately we had attracted a
certain amount of undesirable attention in hospital by our popular
supper-parties and reputed wealth. There was also a Bulgarian nurse who
had an uncanny intuition about our intentions. She told the visiting
doctor that two other nurses were in the habit of bringing us brandy.
She also said we were both quite well and had never in fact been ill at
all. The latter statement was true, but the former I can only attribute
to pique, the brandy having come from other sources. However, this did
not affect the fact that we were politely but firmly told that we had
greatly benefited by our stay in hospital. This was equivalent to a
notice of dismissal. We would have to go. Thereupon we both instantly
pulled very long faces, and went to see the ear and nose specialist. He
was our one hope of being allowed to stay on.
While waiting for an interview, I had an opportunity of seeing an
eminent army surgeon at work on the Turkish soldiers. Let me preface
this description by emphasising the fact that he _was_ eminent. He was
no rough bungler, but a clever practitioner, well known for his
professional and human sympathy. This is the scene I saw.
The doctor sat on a high stool, by the window, with a round reflector
over his right eye. A glass table beside him was strewn with
instruments. A lower stool seated his victims. In his hand he held a
thing like a small glove-stretcher. Behind him two young assistants
stood, looking like choir boys who had been fighting, in their robes of
blood-stained white. The room was full of miserable shivering soldiers.
A deaf old man takes the vacant seat in front of the doctor. The
glove-stretcher darts into his ear. A question is asked. The old man
gibbers in reply. Glove-stretcher darts into the other ear. Another
question. More gibbering. Both his ears are soundly boxed, and he is
sent away. The next is a goitre case, too unpleasant for description.
Suddenly the attendants come forward, and pull off all his clothes. The
doctor removes the reflector from his right eye, and stares for a moment
at the ghastly skinny shape with a sack hanging from its throat. Then he
dictates a prescription to one of the attendants, and seizes the next
soldier. Prescription and clothes are thrown at the naked man, who walks
out shivering, holding his apparel in his arms. Meanwhile another victim
is already trembling on the stool. This man trembles so violently that
he falls down in a faint. The attendants cuff him back to consciousness.
Painfully he gets up and tries to face the instrument again. But as the
glove-stretcher is being inserted into his nostril, he turns the colour
of weak tea and again silently collapses. The doctor does not give him a
second look. One of the attendants drags his limp body to a corner,
while another patient takes the seat in front of the doctor. After a few
more cases have been examined, the two attendants return to the
unconscious man in the corner, drag him back to the doctor and hold his
lolling head to the light, while the glove-stretcher does its work. Then
he is pulled away, like a dummy from an arena, to the door of the
consulting room, where (and here I confess I expected a scene) a woman
awaited him. But she seemed to consider it all in the day's work.
Perhaps poor Willie was subject to fainting fits. . . .
I knew I would not faint, but I cannot say I took my turn on that seat
with a light heart. The surgeon was alarmingly sudden, and already the
room looked like a shambles.
* * * * *
To my relief, he used a new glove-stretcher.
"Slightly deflected septum," he pronounced, and his diagnosis was later
confirmed in London.
"I hurt my nose boxing," I explained conversationally, "and cannot now
breathe through it. I would like to stay----"
"Can't stay here." he said instantly and incisively; "no time to deal
with your case."
"But I can't breathe through my nose."
"Breathe through your mouth," he suggested kindly, but a little coldly.
Now, it is impossible to "wangle" a man who sits over you with a
reflecting mirror screwed into his right eye. I vanished with suitable
thanks.
Robin had better luck with his ear. He could have stayed on in hospital
and would very likely have been invalided back to England eventually.
But he absolutely refused to exchange the comfortable security of a
bodily affliction for the vivider joys of escape. In spite of my advice
to stay in hospital, he decided, to my great delight, that we would try
our luck together.
All hope of remaining in hospital was now at an end.
That evening at sunset we were in the garden, looking across the blue
waters of the Marmora to the mosques and minarets of old Stamboul,
flushed with the loveliest tints of pink.
It was the last evening but one of Ramazan. To-morrow the crescent of
the new moon would appear over the dome of San Sofia, as a sign to all
that the fast had ended, and the time of rejoicing come. Between that
moon and the next moon an unknown future lay before us. And whatever our
fate, it was sure to be something exciting.