THE BERLIN-BAGDAD RAILWAY--AND THE AEROPLANES THAT NEVER FLEW
A soldier out of the combat is not necessarily a soldier _hors de
combat_.
Ambition often translates a great dream into great achievement.
Misapplied ambition often loses the benefits of such achievement.
Four thousand miles of dislike, distrust, and disorganization separate
Berlin from Bagdad. Four thousand miles of friendship, and (except for
one short distance) continuous railway communication join London to
Bagdad.
All of which diverse and disconnected statements shall be linked
together in the tale of the Tunnel, the Tommies, and the Aeroplanes
that Never Flew.
* * * * *
Before the train left Damascus two more prisoners joined the party--W.,
who had been in hospital at Nazareth for five months, and P., recently
captured in the Jordan valley.
Made desperate by our failure to escape, we were ready to try without
forethought any impossible plan that was suggested between halts, as we
journeyed toward Aleppo. H. and I decided, if the train slowed down, to
jump from it and make for the mountains. Then, at evening, we would
find the German aerodrome and try to steal a machine, chancing such
possible odds as alert sentries, well-guarded hangars, and empty
petrol-tanks. Once aboard the aeroplane we could fly southeastward to
the Palestine front. But the train continued at a speed which made any
leap from it impossible, so that we abandoned the scheme.
Two rather better opportunities were provided by the officer in charge
of our guards, a young Turk who was fanatical and unbelievably stupid.
The party occupied two compartments, one containing three prisoners,
the officer, and a Turkish soldier, and the other the remaining four
prisoners, a corporal, and a third guard. The officer paid us not the
least attention, whether to guard against a possible escape, to provide
us with food, or even to count his prisoners from time to time. At
sunset he turned eastward and murmured his prayers, and at odd moments
throughout the day, with head on breast, he muttered what I supposed to
be passages from the Koran. Nobody but Allah, Mohammed, and his
fanatical little self seemed to interest him.
The fanatic had a basket of bread and dried meat for his own needs--but
for his own needs only. After ten hours of foodlessness we stopped
awhile at Homs, and in broken Arabic we demanded food. He pointed to a
man on the platform who was selling bread and hard-boiled eggs, and
resumed his meditation. We left the train without hindrance, and
mingled with the people who surrounded the hawker. Two of us, at least,
could have slipped away, with the crowd as screen. But the nearest
point on the coast was far distant, and, with neither compass nor a
supply of food, to make the attempt in our uniforms would have been
madness.
On this station I got into conversation with a Maronite woman, who
talked of the dreadful conditions in her native province of Lebanon.
The crops had been commandeered, the cedars and the fruit trees cut
down by the Turks for fuel, the people systematically starved. Already
thirty per cent. of Lebanon's pre-war population had died of
destitution, she declared, including her father and her two children.
"The people of Lebanon perish, and neither God nor anybody else helps
us." This in a tone of dull hopelessness, as if she were beyond even
despair. And even as she said it, many a consignment of Syrian and
Anatolian grain was _en route_ for Germany.
The second chance came at Hamah, where we halted at dusk for half an
hour. A little restaurant faced our compartment, and, still being
hungry, we made for it. The Turkish officer ordered us to stop, while a
guard, running from the train, clutched at H.'s arm. H. shook him off,
like a horse shaking off a fly, said "_mungaree_" (his version of the
Arabic for food) and proceeded toward the restaurant. The young officer
continued to protest, but, when we took not the slightest notice, he
joined us at the buffet, where, for the price of three dollars, one
could buy a plate of goat's meat and beans, with bread and coffee.
Afterward, while the Turk went outside with four of our number, H., M.,
and I stayed behind to buy bread.
When we returned to the platform not a guard was in sight. Moreover,
our train had shunted backward. To reach it we should have to walk
fifty yards. Ahead of us we could see the little fanatic, stupidly
unconscious as ever of our location, walking between the rails with the
remainder of the party.
"You're the linguist," said H. to me. "Hop back quickly and buy all the
grub you can find. Get enough to last us to the coast."
"Twelve loaves of bread, some hard-boiled eggs, and some raisins," I
demanded of the waiter in the buffet.
He disappeared into the back room. I waited, uncomfortable under the
curious glances at my faded uniform.
"A German aviator," I heard one man tell his woman companion; at which
I was much relieved, although scarcely pleased.
The waiter could supply only three small loaves and a dozen eggs; and
with these tied in a bundle I returned to H. and M.
The military guard of the station was at the farther end of the
platform. To avoid him we had to walk along the line, in the direction
of our own train. We intended to dodge behind some waiting trucks about
twenty yards ahead, slip over the siding in which they stood, and so to
open country.
Then, as we were moving up the line, the adventure was made impossible.
Two of the guards came running toward us. We continued calmly in their
direction, so that they showed no suspicions, and evidently thought we
were alone as a result of misunderstanding.
"_Saa-seda_," said H., blandly, as he offered them cigarettes; and this
greeting disposed of whatever doubts they may have had. Yet the state
of fright into which our absence plunged the Turkish officer had the
effect of a shower-bath upon him. He roused himself from the torpor of
unintelligent disregard; and for the rest of the journey we were never
allowed outside the carriage.
Thus, once again, a mad plan fell through at the outset; for with no
guide, no compass, no water, and the necessity of buying more food, the
odds would have been a hundred to one against our reaching the coast.
And even if we had reached the coast it was improbable that we should
have found a sailing-boat waiting to be stolen.
At Aleppo we came upon some Indian prisoners. We were trudging along
the hot, uneven road from the railway station when three white-turbaned
figures in khaki saluted, from the balcony of a hospital. One of them
placed a crutch under his left armpit as he stood to attention. This
simple salute warmed the heart, with its reminder that we were not
altogether outcasts. We returned it with gusto; as did a passing German
officer, who thought it was meant for him.
We were taken to an hotel where transient Turkish officers halted on
their way to Palestine and Mesopotamia. Fresh from the failure to
escape from Damascus, we were not surprised at never being allowed to
leave the building. Indeed, I was astonished at not being sent to some
prison, and presumed--rightly, as it turned out--that punishment must
be waiting for us farther down the line. For the rest, we spent several
by no means uncomfortable days at Aleppo, helped thereto by
sight-seeing from the balcony.
The market-place fronting the street corner below was used as a food
bazaar. Each evening Arab and Syrian hucksters arrived with flat
barrows, or erected rickety stalls. Then, from baskets and panniers,
they produced their wares, which they laid out for inspection--loaves
of bread, bowls of soured milk, basins of stew, cooked potatoes,
roasted meats, vegetables, cakes, nuts, or lengths of flexible candy.
Some of them roasted meat or vegetables over metal bars placed across a
charcoal fire.
As the crowd began to gather the policemen circulated among the
vendors, looking for such as had not paid police _baksheesh_ for their
pitch. Having found a victim the gendarme would lead him around the
corner to settle accounts. Afterward the stall-keeper was at liberty to
trade for the rest of the evening. Any who could not or would not pay
were hustled from the market-place.
Then, until about midnight, was acted a succession of minor comedies,
amusing or pathetic. Trial by taste was evidently the custom; and since
Allah had provided hands and mouths, why use forks and spoons?
Intending buyers dug their fingers into the steaming dishes, pulled out
a chunk of meat or a potato, and chewed reflectively. Then they either
purchased or passed on to the next stall, while somebody else stuffed a
hand into the dish. I traced a few men and women who, by tasting meat
at one stall, potato at another, and bread at a third, must have eaten
quite a meal for nothing. This was rare, however, for the hucksters had
an instinct for _bona fide_ buyers, and kicks for such as were not.
Over there is a seller of vegetables who has dodged his police dues,
apparently because his ready cash is insufficient. A gendarme
approaches, whereupon he picks up his basket, with the wooden box on
which it rests, and fades into the crowd. When the policeman has gone
he reappears and resumes business. Twice more must he shut up shop, for
a quarter of an hour at a time. Finally his takings allow him to pay
the bribe. His wife guards the stall while he confers with the
policeman round the corner. He reappears, and, no longer obliged to
shun overmuch attention cries his wares loudly and does a roaring
trade.
The candy-barrows are mostly kept by small boys comically dignified in
apron and fez. Useless to think that their youth makes them easy game,
for they are sharp as pawnbrokers, and can tell in the fraction of a
second a bad note or coin. Most of them seem to have a working
arrangement with some gendarme whereby if an adult tries to swindle
they shriek invectives. The gendarme then strolls toward the stall, and
the would-be cheat wishes he hadn't.
One or two seedy ruffians hang around the rim of the crowd, awaiting
the chance of some petty villainy. Presently, out of the crush comes a
little Syrian girl, carrying a bowl of milk. A much-moustached,
dirty-robed Arab follows her into the entrance of a narrow street where
he suddenly grabs the milk, drinks it, pushes the bowl back into her
hands, and strides away. The little girl attracts a certain amount of
attention by shrilling her protests; but the wolfish milk-drinker has
vanished. A gendarme spectator makes no pretence at interference, not
having been bribed to protect stray children.
Soon afterward a similar outrage is perpetrated by a similar ruffian,
who snatches a chunk of meat from an old woman's basin of stew. In this
case retribution comes swiftly and suitably. The Man who Grabs Meat has
failed to notice that the weak old woman is attended by a strong young
man, who has lagged behind to talk to a friend. The strong young man
leaps at the thief, kicks him in the stomach--hard, knocks him down
when he doubles up helplessly, and proceeds to beat him. The old woman
shrieks her venom. The gendarme is much amused.
Through the changing crowd pass the drink-sellers, clanging a brass cup
against a brass can, but neither washing nor rinsing the cup after
somebody has drunk from it. From time to time a stall-keeper slips away
for a glass of _árak_ in the near-by café, while a wife or a friend
guards his barrow.
Between eleven o'clock and midnight most of the traders run out of
stock. They pack up their kit, and before leaving bargain with each
other for an exchange of surplus foodstuffs for personal use--two
loaves for a dish of vegetables, a can of milk for three slices of
meat. The streets empty, the cries cease, the gendarmes disappear with
their _baksheesh_; and we retire to join the little things that hop and
crawl in our bed.
Always there was something to distract us. A Mohammedan official of the
Indian Postal Service, for example, provided much interest. With only a
fez differentiating his uniform from that of most native officers of
the Indian Army, we accepted him at first as a fellow-prisoner. But
when, at table, he asked leading questions about the Palestine
operations, H. winked at me and fingered his lips as a signal. We took
the hint, and answered vaguely.
"Don't like the look of the little blighter," said H., after dinner;
"let's watch him."
He was worth watching. Every day, we found, he walked about the streets
of Aleppo without a guard. Moreover, he was living by himself in a
comfortable room. While this exceptional treatment of a prisoner did
not prove treachery, the circumstantial evidence was fairly damning. We
became as unopened clams when he talked to us.
This was the right attitude, for later, when at a concentration camp,
we heard of an Indian official who was an out-and-out traitor.
Sometimes he was at full liberty in Constantinople, sometimes he talked
in railway trains to newly captured prisoners, sometimes he talked with
them in hospitals. Once, at a hospital at Mosul, he was placed next to
a wounded officer taken in a recent battle. His assumed complaint was
influenza. Yet he was given full diet, and his temperature remained
normal, while he lay in bed and asked questions about the Mesopotamian
campaign.
A prisoner of war in the Orient, far more than the traveller, senses
the spirit of his surroundings. Temporarily he is of the Orient. Of
necessity his captors regard him as somebody more intimate than the
transient Westerner who, while moving freely among them, lives
according to Western custom and tradition; and of necessity the man who
is in the power of Easterns, and forced to live according to Eastern
customs, is more likely to realize the mental attitude whereby the
crooked road is chosen in preference to the straight, to-morrow never
comes, anything unexpected may happen at any time, and--to repeat an
illustration of my friend Jean Willi the dragoman--a man may get
married in the morning, and be a solitary fugitive for his life in the
evening.
So it was with us. The continuity of impressions and experiences
reacted on me till I forgot to remember that I was an ordinary
Englishman, and became as fatalistic and unsurprised as the Turks and
Arabs themselves. Somewhere or other, I knew, we should be punished for
having wanted to escape. Of what the punishment might consist we
guessed nothing, except that it would probably find us quite
unprepared. Meanwhile, it was of absorbing interest to sit on the
balcony at Aleppo, and watch the crowd in the bazaar.
On leaving Aleppo we knew neither the next stage of the journey nor our
ultimate destination; and we were content that it should be so, for a
future that is certain to be unpleasant is better indefinite than
definite.
This time our escort consisted of two gendarmes and two soldiers. First
we were herded into a third-class compartment, windowless and filthy.
Already, before we arrived, unwashed and unkempt peasants had crowded
into it; so that our party of eleven was able to occupy seven seats
only. One of the gendarmes, who could murder French, advised us never
to place our few belongings out of reach.
"Or," said he, "we meet darkness and--_pouf!_--everything vanish."
We liked the looks of neither the carriage nor the fellow-passengers,
and thought how much more pleasant a goods truck would be. R. and I
persuaded a gendarme to take us to the office of the station commandant
in the hope of being allotted different quarters. The commandant was
polite, but pretended that he could offer nothing better.
Then, as we passed along the platform, I saw a clean, covered-in truck,
with a few German soldiers inside it. One man leaned idly against the
entrance, and him I asked politely if, since there was so much room to
spare, they could lend us a corner.
"_Ausgeschlossen!_" he growled. "_Wir wollen keine Englander._"
We were about to move on, when--"_Was gibt's?_" called a Feldwebel as
he stepped from the truck.
I explained that seven British officers, two of them wounded, longed
for floor-space, so that they would not be herded with odorous Turks.
"Perhaps we can manage it," said the Feldwebel.
"What's Paris like now?" he asked suddenly, and went on to explain that
before the war he was a bank clerk there. With one eye on the space in
the truck, I admitted to having lived for a time on the _rive gauche_,
discussed peace-time and war-time Paris, and even--for one will put up
with a lot to avoid travelling in a Turkish third-class
carriage--listened patiently to the German's reminiscences of a love
affair with a French singer.
This patience was rewarded. He took a referendum of his five
companions; and all, except the surly brute to whom I had first spoken,
agreed to cede half the truck. The Feldwebel asked permission of a
German major to ask us inside, and the major agreed.
"But only because you happen to be fellow-Europeans," he explained,
"while the Turks are not."
A small bribe to the gendarme, and we moved thankfully from the Turkish
compartment. There was room enough for all, prisoners and guards, to
lie on the floor of the truck, so that by comparison we travelled _de
luxe_. The Germans were friendly; and the Feldwebel, after I had
pretended to be interested in more tales of his _affaires de coeur_,
offered us a supply of tea, with the loan of a spirit-stove for boiling
it.
So, with poker and talk, we travelled across Asia Minor. On three of
the next four evenings a certain amount of excitement was produced by
Turkish soldiers' attempts to desert when the train halted. They ran
toward the hills, sometimes fired upon and sometimes chased. Several
were captured, several got away and went to swell the huge total of
brigands.
In that part of 1918 the number of brigands all over Turkey was
enormous. Hundreds of thousands deserted from the army, and of these
scores of thousands took to the mountains and wild places, there to
become robbers. Travelling on foot, on horseback, or on donkey-back
across Anatolia was unsafe in the highest degree. In every fastness one
would be certain to meet a band of armed ruffians, destitute and
utterly merciless, who would cheerfully kill for the sake of a pair of
boots or a shirt. More than a few German soldiers who had walked a mile
or two from the beaten track were killed by brigands. Many of the
gendarmes sent to deal with the robber band were found dead, with their
heads battered in. Many others were hand-and-glove with them and gave
information of possible plunder. Sometimes a gang would descend on a
village, kill a few inhabitants as a warning to the others, and proceed
to steal everything worth the stealing before they retired.
We detrained on the eastern side of the Taurus Mountains and were
transferred to the narrow-gauge line that traversed the Taurus tunnel
before the broad-gauge railway was completed. For eight hours, on a
swaying little train with miniature engine, we moved through the
tunnel's half-light, with an occasional interval of sunlight at gaps
between the mountains.
The great Taurus tunnel was the solution of the worst obstacle to the
Berlin-Bagdad Railway. With Serbia overrun and Bulgaria and Turkey as
Germany's puppets, the line from Berlin to Constantinople was
straightforward. Already in 1915 the Anatolian Railway linked
Constantinople to Konia. At the eastern end of the Berlin-Bagdad chain
the line from Bagdad--once Turkey should have regained it--could be
extended across the desert to Mosul; and the stretch of country from
Mosul to Aleppo would offer no difficulties. Between Konia and the line
from Aleppo, however, was the natural barrier of the Taurus Mountains.
The rock stratum in the Taurus is among the hardest in the world. For
many months it resisted all ordinary drills. The German engineers
caused various special drills to be made; and then, after infinite
labour and experiment, began boring slowly through the rock. The
natural difficulties--precipices, steep slopes, chasms, and
gorges--were tremendous. Nobody who has passed through the hollowed
rock can deny that the tunnel is a magnificent piece of engineering,
especially the suspension bridge across a giant gorge on the western
slope.
Trains began running through the Taurus, along the broad-gauge line,
just before the Armistice; and the Berlin-Bagdad Railway, including
this wonderful tunnel, then became the London-Bagdad Railway. Already
the rails stretch eastward to Mosul, while the westward rails from
Bagdad are fast moving from Samarra to Mosul. These, when completed,
will be the last links in a railway chain from Boulogne to Bagdad.
When--and if--a Channel tunnel is constructed the chain will reach,
without a break, from London to Bagdad.
Throughout the war this work on the Anatolian Railway was largely done
by British and Indian soldiers, mostly from among the survivors of the
captured garrison of Kut-el-Amara. With them were a few German
technicians, some Turkish guards, and many Turkish labourers. As
workmen the Turks were hopeless, except when set to tasks that required
no intelligence; and even then they shirked. The Tommies, who were
better paid and fed by the Germans than were the prisoners working for
the Turks, established a curious ascendancy. When it suited them they
did four times the work of the Turks. They had initiative, they could
be trusted. It was not long before some of them were in charge of
Turkish gangs. Several filled positions of importance, with good
salaries and plenty of freedom.
Having left the tunnel and halted for a few hours at Belamedik, we were
met by groups of these prisoner-officials eager for news of the war.
They wore civilian clothes, furnished by the Dutch Legation at
Constantinople. Such as had clean collars and hats were greeted
respectfully with the title of _effendi_ by the Turkish labourers. One
Tommy--a Glasgow warehouseman--had charge of all the office staff, with
Greek clerks under him. Another--an Australian--was actually paymaster
of this section of the construction department. Thousands of dollars
passed through his hands each week, and the German officials trusted
him implicitly. It was an extraordinary position--British prisoners of
war, in the wildest part of Anatolia, as valued officials on the
Berlin-Bagdad Railway.
From Belamedik we proceeded to Bosanti, where, in those days, the
broad-gauge line ended and the narrow-gauge line began. There we stayed
for a night and a morning. At Bosanti, also, there was a band of
British prisoners, some of whom took us to their hut and demanded the
latest war news. At that time we had little that was good to tell. The
German drive toward Amiens and Paris was in full swing, the Italians
had been badly beaten on the Piave, the tonnage sunk by submarines was
enormous. Our one bright item of news was that thousands of Americans
were pouring into France daily. This greatly surprised the isolated
prisoners, who, from what they had been told by the Germans or had read
in the Turkish papers, thought that no American troops could have
arrived on the Western front.
Having distracted the guards' attention by giving them cocoa in a far
corner of the hut, the Tommies revealed a plan of escape. A party of
five--two Australians, two Englishmen, and a French petty officer from
a captured submarine--had built a collapsible boat. In three weeks'
time they would apply for twenty-four hours' rest from work, a
privilege allowed by the German supervisors every three months.
Carrying the boat in sections, and enough food for a fortnight, they
would then slip away and begin tramping toward the coast, near Mersina.
They expected to be walking for about ten days. Afterward they would
assemble the boat at night and put to sea, in the hope of either being
picked up by an Allied vessel or rowing to Cyprus. Five months had
passed in building the boat, the work being done inside the hut at odd
moments, sometimes by day and sometimes by night, but always with a man
on the look-out for intruders. Tools, strips of metal, and a huge sheet
of canvas had been smuggled out of the German workshops.
After making sure that the guards were unsuspicious, an Australian
lifted the tip of a plank beneath his bed, and extracted one of the
steel ribs. It was beautifully made, with folding joint in the centre
and clasp and socket at either extremity. He also produced a compass
and a revolver bought from a friendly Austrian. Both these articles
would be necessary, the compass because without it they would be unable
to follow the road, and the revolver because they would be certain to
meet brigands.
One can imagine the determination and perseverance that made possible
these long hours of secret work on the collapsible boat, during months
of designing, of filching the required materials, of odd-moment
construction under great difficulty, always with the fear of discovery.
I wish it were possible to tell of their success. About a month after
we left Bosanti they slipped away, according to plan. Carrying the boat
in sections, besides food and the oars, they walked in night marches
across the mountains and down the wild slopes fronting the coast. Three
times they met brigands, but the revolver enabled them to bluff their
way through.
And then, when already within sight of the sea, a gendarme found them.
Four of the plucky five were captured, while the fifth managed to hide
in a cleft between two rocks with the complete framework of the boat.
That night he dragged it down to the deserted part of the beach. On the
following night he pieced it together. He put to sea, and for eight
hours made a desperate effort to leave the coast. But the shoreward
currents were too strong for him, and the weak little craft drifted
back. He was recaptured, and sent to join the other adventurers in
prison.
In the morning, while waiting for our train, we watched the Tommies at
work. Six aeroplanes were on their way to Palestine, and the prisoners
were told to transfer them to the small-gauge railway. The men seemed
listless and unhasteful as they carried the machines to a secluded
siding for the reloading, but I was puzzled to find that when they
began packing the aeroplane sections on the small trucks they showed
keenness and even enthusiasm. In the distance we could see them grouped
around each truck in turn, as they worked steadily throughout the
morning.
"You always as keen in handling Hun war material?" asked H. of a burly
Londoner of the old Regulars, who strolled toward us from the siding.
"Sometimes we are, sir; sometimes we ain't."
"You couldn't have done a better morning's work in a munitions factory
at home."
"That's right. We done a good mornin's work."
"But these are _Hun_ aeroplanes, man. What the----"
"As _yew_ remark, sir, they're 'Un airerplanes. But I doubt if they'll
ever fly."
Then we guessed. He amplified the guesses with details.
"Yus; we does er bit er wreckin'--sabbertage, as yer might say. We
carry things across to that 'ere sidin', and nobody can say as we don't
bee-ave _beeyewtiful_ till we gets there. Then we open er box er two,
see what's inside, and proceed according to reggerlations. Crimernul, I
calls it....
"That 'ere sidin's useful place. Aht er the way, yer know. The Boches
don't go there. 'Course, if any Boches er near, we resoom ligitimite
operations till they've 'opped it. Turks? We don't let 'em see neither
if we can 'elp it. Wuncertwice Turkish _askas_ 've seen us at play, but
they only larf. They 'ate the 'Uns a blurry sight more'n we do. Why, I
remember when a coupler Turks '_elped_ in the good work one mornin'.
"Guns and airerplanes is 'andiest," he continued. "Yer see, when we
'ave the breech-block uv a gun it don't need long to take aht some
gadget or other, accordin' as the gunners with us sez. Airerplanes we
attack mostly on the longeerongs--those ribs o' wood that runs dahn the
length uv the body, ain't they? English pilot 'oo passed dahn the line
some months ergo giv' us the tip. 'Course, we give the other parts a
bit uv attention--wires and sechlike....
"No, it don't seem likely as those things over there'll fly fer a long
time."
It certainly didn't seem likely. Besides ripping open the fuselage
fabric and cutting some of the longerons, the Tommies had hacked at the
struts and clipped some bracing wires. They had prised open the wooden
cases, and, before replacing the covers, had snapped spars, bent
elevators and rudders, and been generally unpleasant to the planes.
Similar wrecking was being done, in greater or lesser degree, at
Belamedik and other points on the railway where prisoners were forced
to work.
The ill-treatment of those six aeroplanes at Bosanti had a peculiar
sequel. When the British entered Nazareth (the Turco-German
headquarters in Palestine) during General Allenby's final advance, they
captured most of the staff documents. Among the aviation papers was a
letter from the O.C. German Flying Corps on that front to Air
Headquarters in Germany, complaining bitterly about the bad packing and
the bad handling in transit of aeroplanes sent to Palestine. As an
instance it mentioned these very machines (my comparison of dates and
details established that point)--single-seater scouts of the Fals
type--and declared that not one of them was fit to be assembled for
flying. Enclosed was a photograph of some queer-looking débris that had
once been a wing. The protest ended with a request that the men who
packed the six craft should be punished.
Boches are Boches, but Justice is Justice; and with memories of what I
saw at Bosanti, I hope that the packers were not punished.
Having waved good-bye to these men who, though prisoners, were helping
the British armies so effectively, we passed on toward Konia. And even
as we moved westward from Bosanti the Aeroplanes That Never Would Fly
moved eastward, through the Taurus tunnel that never would be a link in
a great chain of railways from Berlin to Bagdad.