DAMASCUS--AND THE SECOND FAILURE
Nazareth and Damascus are wonderful names; and apart from historical
values each, with the country around it, stands for exceptional beauty.
A journey from Nazareth to Damascus, therefore, "gives of the most
finest pleasure"; as the Greek guard of a Turkish train assured us in
his "most finest" English. But if you wish to see Syria at its best,
travel otherwise than as a prisoner, sitting in a dirty cattle-truck
and surrounded by Turkish guards, whose natural odour gives by no means
of the most finest pleasure.
Such were the conditions under which we--four Australian officers and
myself--came to Damascus. All the way from Nazareth we were guarded
closely as a secret meeting of the Peace Conference. Only three weeks
earlier Major Evans had escaped from Afuleh and walked forty miles
before he was recaptured; so that in our case more than ordinary
precautions were taken.
We drove down the steep hill from Nazareth in three rickety carts. Each
of the first two contained a pair of prisoners and a pair of guards,
with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets; but H., whose giant height and
strength the Turks respected, had a cart and two guards all to himself.
At Afuleh we sat until nightfall in a mud hut, with the local
population gazing and chattering through the open door, as if we had
been strange animals.
We welcomed the change to a covered cattle-truck on the railway, away
from prying Turks and Arabs. In this truck, with coats serving as
pillows, we lay on the filthy floor throughout the night, while the
train jolted eastward over the badly kept track. Whenever I looked at
the half-open shutter I met the alert eyes of a guard, whose business
it was to prevent us from jumping into the darkness.
The next day we passed in playing poker, in looking at the wild hills
of Samaria, and, by juggling with the few French words he could
understand, in trying to tell the Arab officer in charge of us how
contented were the Arab population in those parts of Palestine, Arabia,
and Mesopotamia occupied by the British.
This man, like most of the Syrian Arabs, showed himself well-disposed
to prisoners. He presented us with bread and hard-boiled eggs, bought
with his own money, and refused to take payment. As always, no food had
been provided by the military authorities.
So we jogged on, with many a halt, across the Jordan and round and up
the winding tracks in the hill country beyond it. We stopped for an
hour at Deraa, where a Turkish doctor with pleasant manners and a dirty
hypodermic needle visited the truck. Having assured us that cholera was
very prevalent in the British army, he proceeded to inoculate us, so
that we might have no chance of taking the disease to Damascus. As a
matter of fact, the British army in Palestine was entirely free from
cholera, while Damascus, as we afterward learned, was full of it.
Fortunately, nothing worse than sore chests resulted from the use of
his rusty, unsterilized needle.
Then, just before sunset, we rounded a bend at the bottom of a hill and
came upon Damascus; and forgetful of captivity and cattle-trucks and
guards and their attendant smells, I held my breath for the beauty of
it. Away to the north stretched a belt of grainland vivid in browns and
greens. Beyond was a wooded area reaching to the lower slopes of the
mountain range that extends from Lebanon to Damascus. Down the lower
slopes of one of the most easterly mountains flow the sources of
Pharpar and Abana, the twin rivers. The streams twist downward until
they lose themselves in a detached part of the old town, perched
several hundred feet above the rest of the city.
Farther below is Damascus itself--a maze of flat buildings, squat
mosques, and minaret spires, all in gray-white, as if sprinkled with
the powder of time, and now smudged with faint rose by the sinking
sunlight. Eastward and southeastward stretches the great desert that
leads to the sites of Babylon and Nineveh, to Bagdad, to Persia, to the
beginnings of human history.
In Damascus, as I knew from intelligence officers of the Palestine
army, were many friends of the British. Nearly all the population, in
fact, were secretly anti-Turk and anti-German. Could we make use of
these sentiments in planning an escape? What experiences and adventures
awaited us in this oldest standing city of the world, that was famous
in the days of Abraham, very famous in the days of Haroun-al-Raschid,
and still famous in the days of Woodrow Wilson?
The first few of these experiences were by no means pleasant.
Surrounded by the gleaming bayonets and eyes of the guards, who were
clearly anxious lest we should disappear in the fading light, we were
hustled from the railway to the police station, and locked in a tiny
room for four hours.
Finally, just before midnight, the police led us to Baranki Barracks, a
large building used as a prison for military criminals. Tired, hungry,
and disconsolate, we fell asleep on the bare bedsteads of the room
assigned to us.
But not for long. It must have been about two hours later when I awoke,
tingling all over and vaguely uncomfortable. To my surprise I saw that
C. was standing by his bed, and, by the light of my candle, was
stabbing at it. M. sat up suddenly, scratched himself, and swore softly
in a series of magnificent Australian oaths. R., who had not undressed,
still slumbered.
_Ouch!_ More sharp stingings came from my legs and arms. Bugs, and
swarms of them!
In the prison at Nazareth I had lived with scores of the little red
brutes so common in the Near East; but here there were hundreds. They
were crawling down the wall, falling on the floor, and biting every bit
of flesh left exposed. I lit a candle and found dozens on my bed.
Lying on the floor having proved to be as impossible as lying on the
bed, I went to the window and looked into the night, thinking of the
one matter that interested me in those days--escape. Across the road
was a large camp bordered on the left by a meadow and on the right by
one of the seven streams of Damascus. Straight ahead, weirdly colossal
in the moonlight, were two great mountains. Beyond them, I knew, the
great desert stretched through hundreds of miles to Mesopotamia. I was
aware just how far the British Mesopotamian army had arrived on the way
from Bagdad to Mosul; but even if we were lucky enough to find a guide
who could smuggle us into an eastward-moving caravan it would be almost
impossible to make a détour around the Turkish army; and in any case we
should be dependent on the help of Kurds or Mesopotamian Arabs, who are
much less estimable than the Arabs of Syria and Arabia. No, that plan
was not feasible.
I considered the suggestion of C.--that we should make our way to the
coast, hiding in the daytime and walking only at nights, and then,
arrived at Acre or Tyre, or some such seaport, commandeer a
sailing-boat and make for Cyprus or Jaffa. For this plan, also, the
difficulties would be many and serious. Such few boats as were still
serviceable would be well guarded. Even if we managed to steal one of
them, it would have to be towed into deep water by swimmers, which was
scarcely practicable in the darkness. In any case, a walk to the coast
from Damascus must cover many nights. A guide would be essential, as
otherwise we could buy no bread on the journey, since none of us spoke
Arabic. And a guide would cost a deal of money, of which we had little.
My scheme of getting into touch with the secret caravans, by means of
which Arabs and Armenians were slipping southward from Damascus to
Akaba, still seemed the best. But here, again, money would be needed,
besides a reliable intermediary. Money we might obtain by smuggling a
letter to the Spanish consul, who had taken charge of British interests
in Damascus. As for an intermediary, we should have to trust the gods
to give us one from among the guards.
Whatever we did would have to be done quickly, for we should not be
long in Damascus. By the time I had reached this conclusion I was tired
enough to fall asleep despite the bugs.
The morning toilet included a ceremony that every prisoner in Turkey
found it necessary to perform after travelling on the railway--a
careful hunt for lice in our clothes. The search was productive, and
led to talk of the plague of typhus which was being spread all over
Turkey by these vermin.
For the rest of the morning nothing happened, except a short visit from
the commandant. By now, having eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, we
were irritable with hunger. I made known this fact to the commandant,
who promised that we should feed at midday.
With him came a little interpreter, with bent shoulders, a greasy face,
and an absurdly long nose. Here, I thought, is a possible intermediary;
and I asked him to return later. During the afternoon he entered softly
and announced:
"I am George, interpreter of English. I am friend of English, honest to
God."
George was a native of Beyrout, part Syrian, part Greek, part Jew, and
wholly scoundrel. Were I writing fiction I should call him a
Syro-Phoenician, which is an impressive term but means nothing; but as
George really happened, I can only describe him as a Levantine mongrel.
Some time or other in his chequered life he spent three months in
America, where he learned to say "Honest to God" quite well, and to
speak a queer jargon of Anglo-American quite badly. By reason of this
accomplishment he became interpreter of English at Baranki Barracks.
However, since he spoke French much better than he tried to speak
English, conversation with him was possible. He had the Levantine habit
of using "_mon cher_" in every alternate sentence when speaking French;
and this he applied to his English by saying "my dear" on the least
provocation.
M., who could not speak French, asked him to smuggle a letter to the
Spanish consul.
"My dear," he replied, "I take it with lots of happiness. My officer
shall not know the letter, I guess."
The Spanish consul replied by return, and next day we were each
presented with twenty Turkish pounds--about sixty dollars at the then
rate of exchange. This rather annoyed the Turkish commandant, who had
himself given us seven Turkish pounds each, being our first month's pay
as captive officers.
With four hundred dollars between us we were now in a much better
position to prepare a scheme of escape. I decided to plumb the depths
of George's "I am a friend of English, honest to God." We should have
to take him with us, if possible, for if we left him behind he would be
suspected and the Turks might frighten him into betraying us.
An opportunity came that same evening. George had been telling of the
starvation in Damascus, of the deaths from destitution all over Syria,
of the hangings without trial, of the general discontent, of the
terrible conditions of his own imprisonment for sixty days, because he
had been suspected of spying for the King of the Hedjaz.
"Wouldn't you like," said M., "to be away from this nightmare of a life
and in a peaceful country like Egypt?"
"I guess yes, my dear," said George. "But I desire to quit the East and
live among English."
"Well," said C., "I could find you a comfortable job in Australia."
"Very obliged. I take your address and write when war shall finish."
"That's no good. None of us may be alive when the war is over. How
would you like to take the job now?"
"What can you desire to say, my dear?"
There was an awkward pause. We were shy of carrying the matter further;
for chance-met Levantines, like politicians, do not as a rule inspire
confidence.
Yet it had to be done. I continued the conversation in French, George's
weird English not being a good medium for the discussion of secrets.
"If," I promised, "you help us to escape and come with us, we will give
you not only money, but a job for life in Australia."
George's face whitened suddenly, and for the rest of that evening his
hands shook with excitement.
"There is nothing I wish so much, _mon cher_" he said, "as to escape to
the British. But it is very difficult and would need much money. Also I
have so little courage."
George went into the corridor to see if the guard showed suspicions.
But the sentry--a black Sudanese--was sitting on the floor, gazing at
and thinking of nothing, after his usual stupid fashion.
George returned, and for half an hour we discussed and rediscussed
possibilities. He pronounced the scheme of walking to the coast in a
series of night marches, and then stealing a boat, to be impossible.
The idea of joining a caravan to Akaba he judged more hopeful, but that
would mean hiding in Damascus until the next party was ready to start.
Hiding in Damascus would be not only highly dangerous but highly
expensive. Anyhow, the Armenians who organized the secret caravans must
be shy of adding immensely to their risks by taking British officers,
and if they did take such risks they would expect to receive more ready
money than we possessed.
George was silent for several moments, and then announced that he would
try to find an Arab, from among his acquaintances, who would lead us to
Deraa, and thence through the mountains to the Dead Sea regions. For
this also, he pointed out, money would be necessary--and gold, not
paper. We could change our paper notes only at the rate of four and a
half paper pounds for one in gold; and the sum obtained by this means
would be too little.
"But," I pointed out, "if we go below the Dead Sea to the country
occupied by the Hedjaz army, we can get gold enough. Haven't you heard
of the gold at 'X', of a certain Arab emir and of certain British
officers?"
"_Mon cher_, I have heard a lot of this gold, and so have many of the
Bedouins around here. But perhaps I shall not be able to convince my
friend that you could obtain money from it."
I gave George arguments enough to convince his friend, and made him
swear by his professed Christianity that he would keep secret our
conversation. Soon afterward he left us, still trembling with
excitement.
Full of renewed hope, I looked out of the window into the Eastern
evening, and speculated on what the god of chance might do for us. To
be effective he would have to do a lot. There was, for example, the
Austrian sentry whom I could see below, leaning against a motor lorry.
If he were about, on whatever night we fixed for our escape, how could
we climb down to the ground unobserved? The window itself offered no
difficulties, for it was above the street and on the first floor, so
that a few bedclothes tied together would suffice to lower a man out of
the barracks.
Then, while I was still watching the sentry, a different god
intervened. A hooded girl sidled up to him, and after looking around to
see that nobody was watching, he crossed the road, and disappeared with
her into the meadow to the left of the camp. An omen, I thought. If, on
escape-night, chance spirited away obstacles as easily as that, all
would be well.
Meanwhile the flat, gray houses whitened in the light of the young
moon, and the river Abana radiated soft shimmerings. In this respect,
also, chance should favour us. About a week later, when we hoped to
leave, the moon would not rise until after midnight; so that darkness
would help us to slip from the barracks, and moonlight would help us as
we moved across open country. Just then my meditations were chased away
by a fantastic, far-away sound. Somewhere in the maze of streets a
wheezy barrel organ was playing--playing _Funiculì, Funiculà_! How a
barrel organ found itself in Damascus, and in war-time Damascus, I did
not try to guess. All I knew, or wanted to know, was that across the
warm, sensitive night air there floated the lively old tune: and if you
are away from Europe take it from me that nothing will bring you to the
back streets of London, of Paris, of Naples as quickly as a barrel
organ playing _Funiculì, Funiculà_. For long after the barrel organ had
become silent, and only the moonlight and the stillness remained, I was
back in England.
Late next morning George burst into the room, with a beaming face and a
palpable desire for news telling.
"_Mon cher_," he said to me, "I have found a Druse who will guide you.
He knows about the gold, and although not quite sure, he thinks he can
trust you, as British officers, to see that he gets paid. He demands
two hundred pounds in gold when you reach 'X', and fifty pounds in
paper now, for the hire of horses."
I was overjoyed at this new prospect of a road to liberty; but when I
had translated George's French for the benefit of the Australians, M.
counselled caution.
"I don't like the sound of that fifty pounds down," he said. "Tell him
we won't pay anything until we're outside Damascus and have the
horses."
We decided that unless we conformed to the custom of always beating
down a bargain-adversary, the Druse would think we could be blackmailed
for any amount of money. He might even regard too ready an acceptance
of his terms as evidence that we did not mean to pay on arrival at "X."
Finally, we told George to place the following terms before the
Druse--one hundred pounds in gold on arrival, and fifty pounds paper
when we were on horse-back and away from Damascus. For the present,
nothing. As for George himself, he should receive fifty English pounds
when we reached safety and his job in Australia.
Next day George returned from the bazaar with the reply that the Druse
would be satisfied with one hundred and twenty-five pounds in gold at
"X," and agreed to leave the question of ready money for the horses
until we were out of Damascus. He demanded another twenty pounds,
paper, however, for the man who was to bring back the horses after we
had ridden to the mountains at Deraa. To these terms we agreed, as the
withdrawal of the demand for money in advance evidenced the genuine
intentions of the Druse.
"The Druse desires to spot you," said George, breaking into English.
"To-morrow an officer will lead you to public baths. When I say to make
attention, observe a man who carry yellow _burnous_ and robe."
And so it happened. We had our bath, and, escorted by a Greek doctor in
the Turkish army, with several guards and George the inevitable, we
walked through the hot streets toward the bazaar.
"Honest to God!" said George suddenly--for it had been agreed that this
phrase should signal the presence of the Druse.
I searched the crowd of Arabs gathered in the road at the corner of a
narrow turning, and had no difficulty in picking out, right in the
foreground, a tall, fierce-moustached man, with yellow robe and yellow
head-dress. One hand rested on the bone butt of a long pistol stuck
through his sash, and with the other he fingered the two rings round
his _burnous_. He looked at us long and intently, especially at H.,
with his six feet four inches of magnificent physique; then backed into
the growing crowd and disappeared.
"Don't look to behind you, my dear," said George, whose inability to
control himself had again blanched his face, "or my officer observe."
That walk to and from the big _hammam_ in the centre of Damascus is
perhaps the most vivid of my memories of the city. Wherever we passed,
a mass of Arabs and nondescripts surged around us, until the road was
blocked and our guards had to clear the way forcibly. Bargaining at the
stalls was suspended as we moved through the long, covered-in bazaar,
with its carpets and prayer rugs, its blood-sausages, its necklaces in
amber, turquoise, and jade, its beautiful silks and tawdry cottons, its
copper work, its old swords and pistols, its dirty, second-hand
clothes--all laid out haphazard for inspection. Once, when we entered a
shop, the crowd that collected before it was so large that the guards
took us outside by a back door.
Yet one sensed that this interest was for the most part friendly. The
Arabs expected the British army sooner or later, and wanted the British
army. Meanwhile, they were anxious to see what manner of men were the
British officers. We were not a very impressive group, with our dirty,
much-creased uniforms. What saved us, from the point of view of
display, was the tall, upright figure and striking features of H., at
whom everyone gazed in admiration.
As we passed through the gardens on the way home an _imam_, from the
ground before a mosque, was chanting something to a small gathering. On
investigation we found a large map of Gallipoli and the Dardanelles
marked out in the soil, with hills and trenches and guns and
battleships shown on it. The _imam_ was telling the Faithful just how
the unbelievers had been driven off the peninsula by the invincible
Turkish army. This he did each afternoon, we were assured.
Everywhere was evidence of destitution, starvation, and squalor. The
streets were utterly filthy, as if they had not been cleaned for months
or years--which was probably the case. The disused tram-lines reared up
two or three feet above the worn road, so that camels, donkeys, and
pedestrians constantly tripped over them. Along the principal streets
one had to turn aside, every dozen yards or so, to avoid enormous
holes. Half-crumbled walls, huts, and houses were everywhere apparent.
The magnificent old mosque which is one of the beauties of Damascus was
decaying into decrepitude, without any attempt at support or
restoration.
As for the population, most were in rags, very few had boots, about one
half wore sandals, and the remainder went about barefooted. Yet even
the destitute Arabs were more attractive than the well-to-do Levantines
with their frock coats and brown boots and straw hats.
All the poorer Arabs and Syrians looked half starved, and we must have
passed hundreds of gaunt beggars--men, women, and children. Worst of
all were the little babies, huddled against the walls and doorways.
Ribs and bones showed through their wasted bodies, which were
indescribably thin except where the stomach, swollen out by the
moistened grain which had been their only sustenance, seemed abnormally
fat by contrast. So weak were they that they could scarcely cry their
hunger or hold out a hand in supplication. Arab mothers, themselves on
the verge of starvation, had left them, in the vain hope that Allah
would provide. And neither Allah nor anybody else took the least
notice, until they were dead. The police then removed their small
bodies for burial; and more starving mothers left more starving babies
by the roadside. The Greek doctor told me that forty such babies died
in Damascus each day.
The next few days were buoyant with expectancy. We collected raisins
and other foodstuffs, while George went backward and forward into the
city to communicate with the Druse. We now hoped to leave the barracks
without especial difficulty. The Austrian sentry below, we discovered,
remained inside the doorway after midnight, so that it would be
possible to slip down from the window without being seen or heard by
him. One night we half-hitched our blankets together as a test, and
found that they would be fully strong enough to bear even the weight of
H., if tied to an iron bedpost.
A more difficult problem was that of the guard outside our room. There
were three blacks who performed this sentry duty in turn, two Sudanese
and one Senegalese--Sambo, Jumbo, and Hobo, as we called them. Jumbo
and Hobo were intensely stupid and lazy. They spent their night watches
in dozing on the floor of the corridor. Our door being closed each
night, conditions would be ideal if either of them were there on
escape-evening.
Sambo was more alert. He had been a postal messenger at Khartoum, and
as such spoke a certain amount of English. When Turkey entered the war,
he told us, he had been travelling to Mecca on a pilgrimage, and the
Turks conscripted him. Twice he had been in prison, once because he
attempted to desert, and once because an Arab prisoner whom he was
guarding, escaped. Apparently he had learned a lesson from this latter
misfortune, for he never slept when on sentry duty. Obviously, if he
were outside our door on _the_ evening, we should have to find some
means of dealing with him. We sent George to buy chloroform, but he
returned with the news that none could be found in Damascus. Thereupon
we made a gag with a piece of pants and a chunk of rubber, to be used
on Sambo if necessary.
Then, with these preliminary arrangements settled, they tumbled down
like a house of cards. We were moved to a room on the north side of the
building, so that a number of arrested Turkish officers might be put
into our larger apartment. Our first thought, on entering the new
quarters, was for the window. Ten thousand curses! It looked on to an
open courtyard. Two sentries promenaded the yard, which was surrounded
by a brick wall.
"My dear," said George when he next visited us, "the business is lost.
It is by all means impossible to quit window without observation from
Turks."
For hours the Australians and I sought a way out of the new difficulty,
and sought vainly, for it was George whose cunning rescued our plan
from the blind alley into which it had been driven. He would leave his
rifle at the top of the back stairway, he said, then come to our room
and usher us along the corridor, after telling the black guard that he
was taking us to an officer's room (as often happened in the evening).
Next he would recover his rifle, slip down the stairway to the Austrian
section of the barracks and, with bayonet fixed, lead us out of the
side door guarded by an Austrian sentry. The advantage of the Austrian
door was that the sentry, seeing a Turkish soldier walking out with
prisoners, would think he was taking them to the railway station, or
not think about the matter at all; whereas the Turkish guard at the
main door would have recognized George and known that something was
wrong.
George could not take more than three of us, as a larger number with
only one guard would make even the Austrian suspicious. He refused
point-blank to return to the barracks and repeat the performance, so
that four of us might go. C. could not come, for personal reasons that
would not allow him to let his fate remain unknown for several months.
The party, however, was still one too many. With a pack of cards we
settled the delicate problem of who was to stay behind. M. cut lowest,
to his bitter disappointment and my regret, for he was very plucky and
resourceful.
Once more with a definite plan in view--and apparently a better one
than the last--H., R., and I fixed a date for the escape. Having
calculated the times of the rising and setting of the moon, and
communicated with the Druse, we chose the third evening from the day of
our removal to the new room.
Meanwhile, we had been treated by no means badly. A few nights of
irritation accustomed us to the plague of bugs, and constant searching
and washing kept our clothes fairly free from more repulsive vermin.
For the rest, we passed the days with poker, bridge, and perfecting our
plans. We could not grumble at the food, for we messed with the Turkish
officers, who, while not feeding as well as German privates, never
actually went hungry.
Indeed, we met with much kindness and consideration at Damascus. In
every prison camp of Turkey the officers and guards took their cue from
the commandant. If, as at Afion-kara-Hissar during the reign of one
Muslum Bey, the commandant was a murderer, a thief, and a degenerate,
unspeakable outrages were committed. If, as at Baranki Barracks,
Damascus, under Mahmoud Ali Bey, the commandant was good-natured,
conditions were passable.
Some of the Turks, in fact, wanted to be too friendly. The
deputy-commandant invited us into his room one evening, and, with his
friends sitting around and George acting as interpreter, asked for an
exposition of England's reasons for taking part in the war. For two
hours I delivered myself of anti-German propaganda, though I could not
tell what force remained in my arguments after they had passed through
the filter of George's curious translation. Meanwhile, the
deputy-commandant looked at his finger-nails and occasionally smiled.
He was non-committal in expressing his own views; but afterward, when
coffee was handed round, he declared that the talk had been of the
greatest interest.
This same officer drove us one afternoon to the beautiful spot, on a
high slope outside the city, where the sources of the Seven Rivers are
gathered within a space of fifty yards. In the scorching heat we
undressed and bathed in the River Pharpar.
We had ample evidence of the widespread hatred of the Germans
throughout Syria, both among civilians and soldiers. Turkish soldiers
expressed the greatest dislike and envy of the Germans, and German
soldiers expressed the greatest contempt for the Turks. As for the Arab
officers, they were whole-heartedly pro-British. Nahed Effendi Malek,
the young Arab adjutant, and his friend the Arab quartermaster often
visited us when no Turkish officers were near. The pair talked the most
violent sedition. The quartermaster wanted to be with his brother, a
prisoner at Alexandria. The Turks knew this, and once, when in prison
for several weeks as a political suspect, he had been freed only by a
liberal distribution of _baksheesh_ among the military authorities.
Both he and Nahed were kept separate from their families while the
Turks levied blackmail by telling them that the lives of relatives or
friends would pay forfeit for any breach of loyalty. Like other
officers of their race, they were now kept expressly from the fighting
front, because so many Arabs had deserted to the British.
This very barracks, declared Nahed, was full of imprisoned officers
whose loyalty the Turks suspected. Unless they could bribe their way to
a release they might be shut up in one small room for months, unpaid,
forgotten, and living on such food as their friends provided. Then, if
their prayers and petitions for a trial brought about a courtmartial,
they might be acquitted and graciously released; but neither reparation
for the months of captivity nor military pay for the period of it would
be given.
Our own room had lately been occupied by a Turkish colonel, who shot
dead a fellow officer. Assassination being a less serious crime than
dislike of oppression, and the colonel having been an expert juggler
with military supplies and funds (like so many Turkish colonels who
bought command of their units as an investment in a colossal
corporation of Military Graft, Incorporated), he delivered sealed
envelopes to various high officers and officials, and within a week was
free.
Nahed and his friend talked savagely of the hunger and misery that
ravaged Syria, of the killing and imprisonment of Arab sheikhs, of
their hopes of an independent Arab kingdom, of their galling
helplessness against the Turks and Germans until the British arrived.
"But once let the British reach Deraa," said Nahed Effendi, "and you
will hear of such an uprising as Syria and Arabia have never known,"--a
prediction that was to be fulfilled in the following autumn, during
General Allenby's whirlwind advance.
Sometimes, instead of confiding their wrongs and hatreds, Nahed and his
friend would chant Arabian songs of love and war, or order George to
translate the stories and epigrams of Haroun-al-Raschid and other
Arabian notabilities. Once George substituted a sentence of his own for
the tale he should have retailed for our benefit:
"My dear, I must go to see my friend. Soon it is too late, and my
officer say no. Please think of some request I perform for you."
M. laughed, as if in enjoyment at a translated story, and H., turning
to Nahed, said "_kweis kateer_" ("very good")--two of the dozen Arabic
words that he knew. A little later I asked for and received permission
to send George to buy wine for us in the bazaar; and the mongrel
interpreter with a "_Mille fois merci, mon cher_" shambled off to see
the Druse.
We realized that it would be very unfortunate for little Nahed if we
escaped, and we should be sorry indeed to think of him in prison on our
account. But it was obvious that even if he would, he could not come
with us, and we certainly dared not confide in him.
As I lay half awake, early on the morning of May 15th, I was conscious
that an exceptional day had dawned. But my drowsy faculties could not
produce, from the dark room of memory, a negative of what was imminent.
Then the door opened, and with a clatter of mugs and a cry of the
German word "_Milch_" there entered an Arab milkman, with his tin bowl
slung over his shoulder.
I was alert in an instant. Why, of course, we had reached escape day,
and we must buy a stock of biscuits for a journey from this dairyman,
whose privilege it was to sell us goat's milk, at five piastres a
glass, for our breakfast.
But that morning he had brought no biscuits--and this was the first of
a heart-breaking sequence of obstacles.
Throughout the day I remained in a state of high tension. Yet my
principal concern was for the lack of self-control shown by George, who
walked about with shaking knees and unsteady hands and anxious face.
"For God's sake don't show yourself like that to the Turkish officer,"
said H.
"My dear, I am not brave, and fortune never visits me." His fear was
pitiful.
"Pray for fortune then."
And George prayed, melodramatically and in all solemnity: "God what is
in heaven, take us quickly to the Arab with horses."
The thermometer of hope quicksilvered up and down every few minutes,
throughout the pregnant hours of afternoon. For the ninety-ninth time I
examined the packets of raisins, the bread, and the water bottles. For
the hundredth time I reviewed the details of our plan.
Between ten P.M. and midnight the Druse was to wait by the station,
with long headdresses which should be disguise enough for the moment,
because in the darkness a passerby could only see us as silhouetted
outlines. Soon after ten George was to take H., R., and me through the
side door, as already described, and lead us to the Druse. Then we
would slip out of Damascus to the spot where an Arab was waiting with
the horses. We must ride over the plain all night, and hide the next
day in a certain Druse village, where a hut had been prepared for us.
We could buy arms in the village. We would travel without rest
throughout the following night and just before dawn reach the mountains
outside Deraa, when the second Arab was to take back the horses.
Once in the mountains and among the Druse tribesmen an army could
scarcely retrieve us. We should run more than a little danger from the
nomads, but these might be friendly, and in any case the guide would be
our protector and mouthpiece among his fellows.
For weeks we should be trekking over the mountains and desert east of
the Turkish lines in the Jordan valley and the hardships would be very
great. Eventually we should arrive among our allies of the Hedjaz.
Having reached "X" and paid off the Druse, we could be taken on board
one of the British war ships in the Red Sea. We might well meet a
raiding party of the Emir Feisul's Bedouins near Amman, in which case
safety would come much sooner, and we might travel by aeroplane to the
British army in Palestine.
After dinner the Turkish signal officer invited us to his room for
coffee. Having no legitimate excuse for declining, we chafed under his
small talk until nine o'clock. Then Nahed Effendi and the quartermaster
visited us, and again we were forced to sit still and deliver, from
time to time, in response to the translations of George, a fretful
"Yes" or "No" or "Good" or "Thank You."
Ten o'clock came and went, and two suggestions that we should retire to
bed were brushed aside by our visitors. By now the Druse would be
waiting for us outside the railway station.
Eleven o'clock arrived, and still Nahed continued to draw from his
endless store of tales and similes.
"My officer say," translated George, "that Arabian poet compare the
breasts of a fellow's beloved to--please, my dear, say you must sleep.
I shake and feel I must chuck sponge. Soon it is too late, honest to
God."
Ourselves almost desperate with annoyance, we performed a series of
lifelike yawns, and declared ourselves to be very tired. Thereupon, to
my great relief, the Arab officers withdrew, with George in attendance.
I followed to the doorway, and spoke to George when the officers had
entered their own room.
"In three minutes you must come back."
"I will try. But I have so little courage."
"Think of the job in Australia, and of the money."
"_Mon cher_, I have thought of them all day long, but my heart is
saying, _boum, boum!_ and a voice tells to me '_Quittez ça!_' But I
will come back."
He did not come back. Before George had left me, evil chance sent the
Turkish deputy-commandant along the passage for one of his rare visits
of inspection. He looked hard at us; whereupon George's overwrought
nerves snapped, and he broke down utterly.
"_Aa-ee!_" he called.
Next he grasped instinctively at my arm. Trembling visibly, he lowered
his head and waited. I backed into the doorway, while the
deputy-commandant took George to Nahed's room.
What followed we could deduce from the noises that swept the corridor.
George was bullied into a complete betrayal. We heard furious talk,
shouted orders, and the unmistakable sound of blows with the bare hand.
Nahed ran to our room, and counted us feverishly. Then came the
corporal of the guard, puzzled and scowling. Finally, six Turkish
soldiers replaced Jumbo outside the door, which Nahed locked.
Disgusted with George, disgusted with ourselves, and above all
disgusted with fate, H. and I paced up and down or lay sleepless on the
bedstead through hours of utter despair. R., the only one of us to make
a show of indifference, took a pack of cards, played patience, and said
not a word.
The door remained locked until the following mid-day, when the
commandant arrived with Nahed and George, both of whom showed
reluctance to enter.
"My officer knew," declared George, with eyes averted. "You are to
collect the clothes and go to railway. They send you to Aleppo I
guess." I noticed that one of his eyes was discoloured and swollen.
The commandant searched our kits very carefully, but confiscated
nothing, not even the store of food. Then he demanded why we had wanted
to escape, and who had been helping us.
"Tell him we refuse to say anything," H. answered. And with that he had
to be content.
Surrounded by no fewer than twelve guards, we carried our few
belongings to the railway station and entrucked for Aleppo. The
interpreter stayed with the Turkish lieutenant in charge of us until
the train left.
We took care not to look at George, but I could sense his misery and
shamefaced discomfort. At length, for the first time since the
betrayal, he showed sincerity with an agonized sentence in French,
spoken from the steps of the truck:
"I am mad with sorrow. I ask pardon."
Obviously he expected and hoped for an answer, but nobody took the
least notice. It was as if we had not heard.
"My officer has beaten me, and he will beat me again. My face is big
with hurts--see."
Still no reply. Then, faintly, as the Turkish officer called him down
from the steps: "I have so little courage. I ask pardon."
The appeal went home, and I half turned my head. But the bitterness of
betrayal was too great, and thinking that a few beatings were not
punishment enough, I could offer no comfort, and continued to ignore
him.
As the train chugged across Syria toward Aleppo, we wondered often what
our own punishment would be. But still more often I called to mind a
futile little figure with bent shoulders, a greasy face, an absurdly
long nose, and an eye that was discoloured and swollen, saying, with
despair in his voice: "I have so little courage. I ask pardon." And I
regretted not having turned my head to look George in the face and
answer him.