CUTHBERT, ALFONSO, AND A MUD VILLAGE
If, at midnight, you were comfortably asleep in a railway carriage, and
some Turkish guards dragged you out of it and led you along a puddled
track to a mud village in the most god-forsaken part of Anatolia, while
the skies rained their damnedest on you and your one spare shirt, you
might be annoyed. Possibly you would cry: "To hell with the Turks!"
Such, at any rate, was H.'s comment, shouted at intervals every few
seconds, while we watched the train move Constantinople-ward, leaving
us at a small village called Alukeeshla.
Cuthbert and Alfonso (as we named the two soldiers who brought us from
Bosanti) had told us we were going to Afion-kara-Hissar. So we went to
Alukeeshla. Being unable to read or write, they failed to notice that
the composite ticket given them for seven prisoners and two guards was
valid only as far as this village. Their surprise was therefore as
great as ours when the conductor turned the whole party out of the
train. Certainly, said he, while reading a paper produced by Cuthbert,
we were bound for Afion-kara-Hissar; but, according to these written
instructions, there was to be an indefinite halt at Alukeeshla. It was
typical of Turkish official methods--guards not knowing what must be
done with the prisoners under their charge.
Cuthbert woke the sleepers, and began throwing luggage on to the
platform. In his flurry he dropped a kit-bag on W.'s badly wounded arm.
The sight of W. in pain, following upon our many discomforts and
annoyances, sent H. berserk. "To hell with the Turks!" he yelled, then
stepped one pace backward, swung a long leg, and shot his size eleven
foot at Cuthbert. The kick lifted the greasy little guard from the
floor, and sent him hurtling through the door of the compartment,
outside of which he fell on all fours.
Far from showing resentment he was obviously cowed. Having picked
himself up he asked us, humbly enough, to leave the train. Not wishing
to make a bad situation worse by inviting violence, we complied, while
trying to soothe H., who continued to consign all Turks to flaming
perdition. Evidently Cuthbert and Alfonso thought they had to deal with
a madman, and kept out of his way.
Nobody in Alukeeshla had heard of our existence; and no quarters, of
course, had been allotted. The wretchedness of our midnight search in a
mud village for somewhere to rest was so complete as to be humorous;
and as we trudged through the rain and the darkness, and fell into the
deep puddles that filled every hole in the narrow, badly kept street,
we laughed from sheer misery, so that the guards must have thought we
were now all mad.
We disturbed the inmates of four hovels before finding the two-roomed
building that served as gendarmerie headquarters. Clearly, the
policeman whom Cuthbert then roused from his sleep on the floor of the
front room disliked us, and above all disliked going out into the
night. After grumbling and protesting for five minutes he lit a
lantern, scowled his ugliest, and led the party through more puddles to
a barn. With many a creak the door of it was unlocked by means of a
rusty key.
Three sorry scarecrows rose up and blinked at the lantern, then sank
down again resignedly. The atmosphere was indescribably musty and
dusty. Revolting garbage of every species covered the earthen floor.
The wooden walls were clotted with dirt: something with wings could be
heard flitting about near the high roof. The three prostrate scarecrows
were disgusting, not because of their rags and their filth, but because
of their general suggestion of bestiality.
"The prison," explained the gendarme grandiloquently, as he waved his
hand and moved toward the door.
Now Cuthbert and Alfonso shared our indignation at the dumping of
British officers into such a place, for it would be their duty to stay
with the said officers. They protested volubly, but the gendarme
shrugged his shoulders, and said not a word as he half opened the door.
Thereupon H., still far from calm, grabbed his shoulder, spun him
backward, and began explaining the situation in lurid Australian.
An inspiration was given me by the sight of W.'s bald head. W.,
although a second lieutenant, was a very old man--in the neighbourhood
of forty, I believe. He looked venerable enough to be a temperance
lecturer, although as a matter of fact he was a first-rate fellow.
Knowing the Turkish reverence for the higher military ranks, I pointed
to the bald patch on his head and said, "kaimakam!" (colonel), then
indicated the unpleasant surroundings as if in protest against the
indignity of putting a colonel in such a place.
The policeman, already in fear of H.'s violence, was obviously of
opinion that a _kaimakam_, even an English one, should have better
quarters. With a "_haidee-git!_" to the guards he led us back into the
rain, and so to the gendarmerie. There he woke the police officer and
explained our presence. Fortunately the officer was too drowsy to read
our papers for proof of the presence of a _kaimakam_. Finally, at his
orders, the gendarme took us to a room on the first floor of a
two-story mud building. It was dirty and utterly bare; but there, at
any rate, we had privacy. We laid out claims to floor-space and fell
asleep, while Alfonso remained on guard by the door.
That little room in a mud hut was the home for ten days of seven
British officers and two Turkish guards. Side by side, and with bodies
touching each other, there was just space enough for eight people to
lie on the floor. Already, when we arrived, one could sense the
presence of Cuthbert and Alfonso without seeing or hearing them; and
with each washless day their natural odour became more and more
intensive.
We had nothing to read, and--worst misfortune of all--somebody had left
our pack of playing-cards in the train. We wandered round the walls
like beasts in a cage.
Nobody in the village knew or cared why we were there, or what was to
happen to us. We could only surmise that this was the punishment for
the plot to escape from Damascus.
Cuthbert took our papers into the village on the morning after arrival,
but returned at midday with no information and many shoulder shrugs.
Although none of us knew Turkish we understood enough to realize that
if the matter of obtaining instructions were left to this stupid
illiterate we might stay in the village for ever.
A council of war decided that I, as being the linguist, and W., as
being the most imposing of us, with his bald head, his bushy moustache,
and his South African ribbons, should drag Cuthbert into the presence
of whatever officials we could find, and make ourselves a pluperfect
nuisance until we were sent away.
"Commandant!" I said, going toward the door, this word being common to
most languages.
"_Yassak!_" (forbidden) said Cuthbert, barring the way.
"Commandant! Come!" I insisted, brushing him aside.
He was ready to yell for help when Alfonso came forward as an
unexpected ally, and persuaded Cuthbert that it would be better to let
us try to clear up the situation. He led us to the station, where, with
a French-speaking Armenian in tow as interpreter, we forced our way
into the military commandant's office.
The commandant--a slight, dapper _bimbashi_--claimed to be desolated at
our unfortunate position. But what could he do? he inquired. Only
yesterday he had not heard of our existence, and then--_clack!_--we
arrived without warning in this Anatolian village. Doubtless, if we
waited a week or so, the authorities would send orders for a transfer
to some prison camp. Meanwhile, he would gladly help us in any way
possible, except give us food or allow us to take walks or move us into
a better house or, in fact, do anything that I suggested. Twenty
minutes of argument and bluster was necessary before W. and I could
even induce the soft-spoken hypocrite to telegraph to Bosanti for
instructions about our disposal.
Next day, when I took Cuthbert to the station for news, no reply had
come. Nor was there any message on the third morning. Ten o'clock of
the morning became known as "commandant time," so that on the fourth
day the guards took the visit as a matter of course, Cuthbert showing
his watch by way of reminder. The _bimbashi_, worried by our
importunities, took to dodging from his office when he saw us coming;
but always we waited until he returned, and talked insistently until he
promised to send yet another telegram. He showed surface politeness,
and never uttered threats; which in any case would have been more or
less futile, for the fighting force of the village comprised but one
police lieutenant and four gendarmes.
We had arrived hungry, and we continued hungry. The law of supply and
demand, as applied to eggs, together with the local brand of profiteer,
was the cause. On the first morning a bearded peasant visited the hut
with a basket of hard-boiled eggs, which he sold at the current rate of
two and a half piastres each. Next day, when it became known in the
village that the prisoners were buying eggs, the rate was four piastres
each. Afterward it leaped to five, and next to seven and a half
piastres. Finally, the supply of eggs all but gave out. It was then
possible to buy only one apiece every morning, whereat we became more
hungry than ever, for eggs were our mainstay.
The commandant had given reluctant permission for each prisoner to buy
one small loaf of bread a day at the military rate of two and a half
piastres a loaf. For the rest, we managed to supplement the bread and
eggs with an occasional supply of figs or raisins bought in the village
bazaar as I returned from my importuning of the military commandant.
These fruits were shown in open baskets on crazy little stalls, side by
side with stale bread, bad sausages and meat, nuts, cotton materials,
primitive haberdashery, rock-salt, rank butter, dusty milk, and the
thousand and one other articles that jostle each other in the village
bazaars of Anatolia. It being summer, myriads of flies buzzed around
and settled on the dried fruits. The figs and raisins, therefore, could
not be eaten unless washed carefully or boiled. Fortunately we
possessed a cooking pot, given by the Tommies at Bosanti; and a ruffian
who lived below us sold charcoal at the rate of ten piastres for a
quantity just sufficient to burn for half an hour.
At its best, the crowded room was so stuffy as to be oppressive. When
charcoal fumes were added to the summer closeness the atmosphere became
unbearable. Another drawback that prevented much cooking was the
scarcity of water. We were given just enough to drink; but any surplus,
for washing or boiling purposes, had to be bought. Usually one bottle
of water sufficed for the morning toilet of two of us. Cuthbert and
Alfonso remained unworried by the shortage. They never washed.
Nerve-edging irritation will ever link itself to an enforced
companionship from which there is no escape, however temporary; and
when repulsive surroundings are the milieu for such propinquity the
irritation is akin to madness. The reek, the vermin, the heat, the
hunger, the confined space, the dirt, and the depression combined to
stab our sensibilities, so that by the third day we almost hated each
other, individually and collectively.
We could obtain no brush, no soap, no broom. The little den grew
dirtier and dirtier, the floor became more and more littered, the
guards were smellier and smellier. Cramped and intensely ennuied, we
paced in criss-cross fashion around the twelve square yards of
floor-space, getting in each other's way and brooding bitterly. Of
outdoor exercise there was only the daily visit to the commandant; and
but one other man was allowed to walk to the station with me each
morning.
A word, a suggestion, or a nudge was enough to provoke loud disputes.
Every now and then heated words only stopped short of blows because all
realized that the anger had been sired, not by bad feeling, but by
disgusting circumstances, and that a fight would be utterly futile.
Worst of all, as most prisoners in Turkey must have realized, was the
galling subjection to men such as Cuthbert and Alfonso--semi-civilized,
altogether unintelligent, and regulating their actions by the crudest
of instincts and axioms.
Only one of us, old W., remained reasonable; and he had the greatest
cause for irritation. His wounded arm, which had not received proper
treatment in the Turkish hospital at Nazareth, became badly inflamed as
a result of the terrible conditions. Yet he never once complained, nor
did he take part in the constant quarrels. Looking back, I can realize
that his fine example was the sole redeeming feature of those miserable
days in the mud village.
On one point only did we all agree. "Wish some of the pretty boys who
sport their staff tabs in Cairo could be here," said H., and there
followed a chorus of hearty assent.
"How about 'X'.?" he continued, mentioning the name of one of the
rudest staff officers who ever sat in a swivel chair. The five aviators
among us grinned at the thought of having him to ourselves in the tiny
room, far away from the list of postings and from Regulations Governing
the Promotion of Officers. This happy thought almost reconciled us to
the discomfort.
Always it rained. How it rained! The yard below our window was oozy
with mud, and the veiled women who were our neighbours lifted their
robes high as they buried their thick ankles into the slush. Three of
them, with an old man, a boy, and three infants, lived in a two-roomed
hovel that faced our building. Other dwellers in their hut were a
donkey, a dog, and several hens. Two of the women took ostentatious
care to draw their _yashmaks_ closer whenever a prisoner showed himself
at the window; but the third, rather less unprepossessing than the
others, was less careful to protect her face from the gaze of the
infidels. Beyond the yard was a stretch of flat mud dotted with squat,
ugly buildings.
It was an Australian--I forget which one--who discovered by accident an
antidote for the state of unutterable boredom and depression which was
overwhelming us. He had lived in the district which for a time was the
hunting ground of the Kelly gang, and he retold the vivid melodrama, as
told to him by older people who had been spectators, of the bushranger
brothers who wore armour and robbed so successfully, daringly, and
incredibly. By the time we had listened, thrilled by wonder, to the
tale of the Kellys' last great stand against a large force of police,
with a burning house as background, what would have been another
miserable evening had passed in tense interest.
Afterward we made full use of this means to forgetfulness. Each
afternoon and evening somebody delivered himself of _choses vues_ or
_choses entendues_. H. told of his wanderings in Fiji; R. of
sheep-farming in Queensland, I was able to relate some early-war
observations on the Swiss-German frontier, in connection with German
espionage. Old W. possessed both the Queen's and King's South African
decorations, and for many years after the war in which he gained them
had served in the Cape Mounted Rifles. His yarns of diamond-field days
before Kimberley was made respectable by the De Beers monopoly, of
Mafeking and the Vaal, of the Boer tribal treks, and of early Rhodesia
filled many an empty hour in the hut at Alukeeshla.
When pre-1914 reminiscences ran dry, most phases of the war were
described from personal experience. M. and H. had fought on Gallipoli
as troopers; R. had flown in the Sinai Desert campaign; W. had been at
Ypres and Neuve Chapelle in 1915; I had flown over the Somme battles in
the days before the Royal Flying Corps had been provided with machines
designed for warfare, instead of for inherent stability coupled with
inherent unsuitability for fighting Fokkers, Halberstadts, and Rolands
on equal terms.
Even Alfonso contributed to the time-killing narratives. We were
discussing the war's origin, and somebody mentioned Sarajevo. "_Ya
Sarajevo!_" he said, pointing to his chest, then plunged into a
whirlpool of unintelligible talk. He knew a few German words, but
mostly he spoke in Turkish or in what was either Serbian or some
Bosnian dialect. I failed to gather whether he said he was a native of
Bosnia or had merely lived there. It was clear, however, that he had
been at Sarajevo when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was murdered, and
had seen the deed. Alfonso's excited description, containing here and
there a word I could understand, reminded me, incongruously enough, of
Marinetti's Futurist "verse," which I had heard recited by the poet
himself at a London night club in 1913. Said Alfonso:--
"_Kronprinz_--_jabber jabber jabber_--_Sarajevo_--
_Jabber jabber jabber_--_automobil_--
_Jabber_--_Pouf! pouf! pouf! pouf! pouf!_--
_Kronprinz automobil halt boum!_--
_Jabber jabber jabber_--_Kronprinz aa-ee!_--
_Damen aa-ee! aa-ee!_--_jabber jabber_--_aa-ee!_--
_Jabber jabber jabber jabber jabber jabber._"
Lifting his arm as if aiming with a revolver.
We passed a vote of thanks to Alfonso, together with a cigarette and a
fig.
The departure from the mud village was as absurd as the rest of our
experiences in it. On my ninth visit to him the commandant announced
with pride that he had arranged for us to leave by the evening train,
and that the station-master at Bosanti would leave an empty truck for
us.
Twenty minutes before the train arrived we trudged through the rain to
the station, carrying our parcels of disreputable kit. All three gates
leading to the platform were guarded by sentries, who offered to
bayonet any one who tried to pass without papers stamped by the local
gendarmerie. To each sentry in turn Cuthbert explained frantically who
we were and what the commandant had said, only to be met with an
invariable "_Yassak!_" and a fingering of the rifle.
The _bimbashi_ himself was absent, and so was the Armenian
interpreter--the only other person, apparently, who knew our orders.
Alfonso, despatched to the commandant's house, returned with the news
that he could not be found. We stood in the rain puffing at damp
cigarettes and cursing. H. returned to his old refrain, "To hell with
the Turks!", to the great wonder of the tatterdemalion men and boys
gathered round us.
When the train steamed away from Alukeeshla, taking, no doubt, the
empty truck reserved for us, we startled the guards and sentries with
yells of uncontrollable laughter.
M. and I opened next morning's visit to the _bimbashi_ with bitter
protests, but had to end it in helpless acquiescence before his suave
lies. He had given strict orders that the sentries were to let us pass,
he pretended, and they would be punished severely for their failure to
do so. Meanwhile, he was charmed that we were to accept the hospitality
of the village for one day longer. He himself would be present to see
us off by the next train that same evening.
For once the commandant kept his promise. He led us to the station
himself. But this time no accommodation had been provided for us on the
train. The trucks were full of Germans, the first- and second-class
carriages of Turkish officers, the third-class carriages of Turkish
soldiers. As it would be difficult to crowd the Turkish officers and
impossible to dislodge any Germans, the only alternative was to clear
out some of the Turkish privates.
The _bimbashi_ selected a carriage, entered it, and ordered its
occupants to descend to the platform. There were only nine of us, with
the guards, while the soldiers numbered more than forty. Yet the
_bimbashi_ turned them all out. He hurled their packs through the open
windows, and by candlelight drove them before him to the doorway. Some,
who were reluctant to leave, he struck. It was astonishing to see the
little man smacking and kicking burly brutes twice his size; though he
knew well that they would never dare to hit back.
When the carriage was quite empty he took us inside and placed us in a
corner. The Turkish rabble, swearing and grumbling, returned with their
packs and their rifles, and scowled at us as they packed themselves
into the remaining seats. The whole matter could have been arranged,
with a twentieth of the fuss, by merely moving nine Turks from one end
of the carriage to the other.
"Good?" asked the commandant, proudly, after we were seated.
"Magnificent!" I replied, while we tried hard not to let our
self-control be blown over by gusts of laughter.
"Then, au revoir, my friend."
"Adieu, mister the commandant."
He strutted down the platform; and we passed from Alukeeshla to
whatever weird experiences might be waiting for us elsewhere.
* * * * *
This chapter is but an amplification of an inscription signed by H. and
myself before we left our mud home. When passing toward Alukeeshla from
the station, take the second turning to the right beyond the
gendarmerie, then the first to the left, and enter the fifth house in a
row of buildings that stare at you from the bottom of a blind alley.
Climb some rickety stairs to the back room on the first floor, and you
may still find these words on one of the walls:
"In memory of some bad days and good yarns, spent and told in this
dirty room of this verminous hut in this God-forsaken village. To Hell
with the Turks!"