THE THIRD AND FOURTH FAILURES
"The clothes of the Capitaine Sir Paul," demanded with triumphant
satisfaction Zikki Bey, the one-eyed Turkish officer at Psamatia
prison. "The Capitaine Sir Paul needs the clothes he left here, because
he finds that his Arab dress is unsuitable for the Ministry of War
prison."
For the past two days we had heard rumours of Paul's recapture. Yet
Zikki Bey's unwelcome confirmation, as he broke in upon a bridge party
one evening, was a shock to us. The cards were abandoned as we prepared
clothes and food to be sent to whatever cell of the infamous "Black
Hole of Constantinople" Paul might have been taken, still dressed in
the Arab disguise in which he tried to reach the Gulf of Enos.
The bad news was an especial blow to four of us--White, Fulton, Stone,
and myself--for we ourselves were preparing to bolt within a few days.
Others regarded it more philosophically. Among the party was a certain
Colonel who deprecated attempts to escape, because they reacted on
one's fellow-prisoners. He also contended that it was impossible for a
Britisher to escape from Turkey.
"I knew it, I knew it," he now said; "they've nabbed Paul, and soon
they'll nab Yeats-Brown."
A few days later, having heard that certain others were ready to flit,
the Colonel delivered an ultimatum. Already the restrictions at
Psamatia were severe, because of the disappearance of Paul and
Yeats-Brown. If others went, he contended, life would not be worth
living, especially for middle-aged colonels who had prepared medical
histories of well-imagined ailments and were hoping to see their names
on the list of prisoners to be exchanged as unfit.
"After the war I'll heng, draw, and quarter the next fellow who clears
off from Psamatia while I'm here," he told Fulton, Stone, and myself,
slapping a knee that rested on the garden wall. "A successful escape
can't be done in Turkey, and it's futile to try."
Five days later four of us did clear off from Psamatia. The war is over
long since; but for some reason or other we remain unhenged, undrawn,
and unquartered. As for the pronouncement that to escape from Turkey
was impossible, within six weeks no less than ten men proved the
contrary.
White and I had been at Psamatia for ten days. Although expeditions to
Stamboul were now forbidden, we managed to go there three times, on the
pretence of seeing a dentist. We visited Theodore, and through him
received from Mr. S. about three hundred Turkish pounds in return for
foolscap-paper cheques.
After very careful consideration we had chosen the plan of crossing the
Black Sea as stowaways, in preference to that of trusting John Willie
the Bosnian aviator to fly us out of the country. Since his sudden
disappearance from the hospital we had heard no definite word of him;
unless, indeed, a rumour that a Bosnian officer was in the Ministry of
War Prison as a political suspect applied to him.
Moreover, he either failed to give us the signal that he was ready, or
gave it otherwise than according to plan. On the Sunday morning
preceding the first date of the rendezvous outside San Stefano
aerodrome he was to have flown over Psamatia on a Nieuport scout and
performed stunts to attract our attention. An aeroplane did fly over
Psamatia, and even looped the loop several times; but it was a big
two-seater instead of a little Nieuport. Under the circumstances we
decided not to risk losing the comparative certainty of a slow journey
to freedom via Russia for the dubious uncertainty of a quick flight to
Mudros.
Fulton and Stone were glad enough to inherit our arrangements with John
Willie, and to take the chance of meeting him at San Stefano. Now that
Paul was captured they were at a loose end, for if he had succeeded
they would have followed in his footsteps by joining the second party
that was to make for the Gulf of Enos. I gave them my map of the
aerodrome, showing the place of rendezvous, and also a non-committal
note, scribbled in German, which would explain their identity if they
met the Bosnian.
For White and myself a passage on the tramp steamer _Batoum_ was
definitely arranged. Prince Avaloff had shown himself to be a
too-talkative intermediary; but White met a more useful man in one
Lieutenant Vladimir Stepanovitch Wilkowsky, a Polish aviator whom he
had known at Afion-kara-Hissar, and who was also planning an early
escape. Unlike us, the Russians were still allowed into Stamboul with
their guards. Having placated his own particular guard with a bribe,
Wilkowsky often crossed the Golden Horn alone. Several times he met
Titoff, the _Batoum's_ chief engineer, in cafés at Galata; and finally,
after much bargaining, completed arrangements whereby White and I were
to travel as stowaways. He himself was also planning an escape to
Odessa.
Zikki Bey warned us that everybody at Psamatia would be sent into
Anatolia very shortly. White, Fulton, Stone, and I went into
conference, and decided to forestall the removal by making our dash two
days later, on August the twenty-first. This suited Fulton and Stone,
for it would bring them to the period named by the Bosnian aviator. As
for White and myself, a hiding-place in Pera, where we could remain
until the _Batoum_ sailed, had been arranged by Titoff. A Russian
civilian was to conceal us; and, after giving our guards the slip, we
were to meet him by appointment at a beerhouse in the Rue de Galata.
On the morning of July the twenty-first all four of us left Psamatia by
the ten o'clock train on the little suburban railway that runs between
Stamboul and San Stefano. It would be less difficult to dodge the
guards if we were in two parties, so Fulton and Stone chose an optician
as their excuse for a trip to Stamboul, while White and I were to visit
our old friend the dentist. Our real destination was the beerhouse in
the Rue de Galata, that of the other pair being the small wood outside
San Stefano.
We split up into twos as the train steamed up, Fulton's farewell being
"Good-bye, old man. See you in the Ministry of War to-morrow!" He and
Stone went into a compartment near the engine, while White and I chose
the rear end of the train. All of us hoped to lose our guards among the
crowd at Stamboul station.
Ten minutes before we should have reached Stamboul station the god of
coincidence sent an extraordinary opportunity. Just beyond Koum-kapou
the train rounded a sharp corner, and ran into some empty trucks that
were stationary on the line. There was a succession of clangs, a
violent shock, and many a jolt and jar, mingled with screams, gasps,
and frightened confusion.
One of the two guards with White and I fell on to an iron platform
between two carriages. The other, unfortunately, kept both his balance
and his head. I was standing a yard in front of him, behind White.
"Now's our chance. I'm off." said White as he pushed his way through
the struggling passengers to the farther end of the compartment. I
began to follow, but seeing that the guard was already suspicious of
White's movements, I slowed down, and pretended to pacify a nervous
woman, thus blocking the guard's advance and allowing White more room.
"He's after you," I called, as White turned his head.
In the confusion White misunderstood these words as "I'm with you."
Thinking that I was ready to follow him, he edged his way to the steps
at the far end of the compartment. The guard, meanwhile, shouted a
warning to his companion, who had picked himself up and left the train.
This second guard ran toward White along the railway embankment.
White was wearing a cap. In his inside pocket he had a felt hat, his
idea being to change headgear in a crowd, so that the guards, looking
for a man with a cap, would fail to notice him. I now saw him fling the
cap under the carriage, jam the felt hat on his head, descend from the
train and jump down the embankment. The guard with me yelled, while the
second Turkish soldier leaped down the embankment, clutched at White,
and almost caught him.
White dodged clear, and the last I saw of him that day was as he raced
down a narrow, winding street, pulling and pushing out of his way the
Turks and Greeks who streamed in the opposite direction, towards the
scene of the collision. Close behind him the guard gave chase, while
commanding passers-by to stop the British prisoner.
I jumped down the embankment, partly in a desperate attempt to elude
the other guard, and partly to create a diversion for White. At the
bottom of the slope I twisted an ankle and fell. My guard dropped on
top of me. We scrambled to our feet, myself unstable on the weak ankle,
and the Turk clutching my right arm with both his hands. Under the
circumstances it was useless to struggle. I remained quiet, while the
guard called to his aid a passing soldier.
I stood at the bottom of the embankment, gripped painfully by the two
Turks. The moments that followed were indescribably bitter. White was
probably at liberty, with the glorious prospect of a successful escape.
I had failed, for the third time since capture, and was probably booked
for a cell under the Turkish Ministry of War. My one consolation, my
one hope, was in the wads of money distributed among various parts of
my clothing. These would provide a chance to bribe the guards into
silence, leaving me free for another attempt before the British
prisoners at Psamatia were moved to Anatolia.
The three of us remained thus for ten minutes, an unregarded island in
the sea of people that surged round the derailed coaches. The shaken
passengers were climbing down the slope, the new arrivals were climbing
up it to see the wreckage. A few yards away first aid was being
administered to an injured woman.
Presently I saw Fulton and Stone, with their guards approaching from
the front of the train. They stopped short on seeing me held by two
soldiers. I shook my head and signalled them not to come any nearer,
whereupon they turned away.
The guard who had chased White returned, alternately cursing and
invoking the wrath of Allah on all Englishmen. In his anger he took off
his cloth hat, threw it on the ground, shook his fist at me, and said,
"English very bad!"
Although White had eluded him he did not give up hope at once, but led
us through a maze of alleys and streets, peering forlornly into the
doorways of shops and houses and through the gratings of cellars.
Finally he held a conference with his companions, and determined to
take me to Koum-kapou police station. My ankle, I was glad to find, had
been ricked only slightly, and was now normal again.
"English very bad," said the man who had chased White, in the clipped
Turkish used between prisoners and guards. "We"--pointing to himself
and my own guard--"prison. Prison very bad. No food."
"Here is food for prison," I consoled him, handing over two Turkish
pounds.
The sight of money partly pacified them, and their anger cooled. Soon
they were in a fit state of mind to talk _baksheesh_, that touchstone
of the Turkish character.
I produced ten more banknotes, each of one Turkish pound. Again using
pidgin-Turkish, with many an expressive gesture, I offered them to the
guards, on condition that when we reached the police station they would
say that although White had escaped I made no attempt to do so.
The matter needed several minutes of explanation before
misunderstandings were cleared up, so that we withdrew into a side
street. The two guards needed little persuasion to make them accept.
Thereupon the third man (the soldier who helped to hold me at the
bottom of the embankment) demanded a share. To satisfy him I was forced
to produce a further sum of five Turkish pounds. He saluted and left
us.
The two guards carried on an animated talk for some time longer, and,
as far as I could understand, discussed what tale to the police would
show them in the best light. They decided, apparently, not to admit
having seen White escape and let him give them the slip, but to claim
that he vanished when we were all knocked down by the collision.
I remembered that the food supplies in my pockets might be
incriminating evidence. I had, also, a dangerous slip of paper, on
which Wilkowsky had drawn a plan of the Galata beerhouse in which I was
to meet Titoff's Russian friend. This I disposed of by tearing it into
shreds behind my back, and dropping the fragments, a few at a time, as
in a paper chase.
The packets of food were rather more difficult to lose. There was a tin
of Oxo cubes, which I flung surreptitiously on to a dust-heap. Some
sticks of bivouac chocolate I left on a convenient windowsill. The
worst problem was a small bag containing a mixture of cocoa and
grape-nuts, taken from one of White's parcels from home. I could
scarcely throw this away unobserved; and the police station was already
in sight.
A woman stood in the doorway, and gazed at us. As we brushed past her
on the narrow pavement, I took the bag from my pocket, dumped it into
her hand, and moved on without a word or a sign. When, from a few yards
ahead, I looked back, she had opened the bag and was staring in
wide-eyed surprise at the cocoa--then quite unobtainable in
Constantinople--which had fallen as from heaven.
The guards told a rambling tale to the police officer, who took notes
of their description of White and sent out three gendarmes to search
the streets for him. Afterward I was taken into an inner room and
searched. Nothing was found to brand me as a suspect. The pockets were
quite empty; and my larger banknotes--one of a hundred Turkish pounds,
one of fifty, and one of twenty-five--were undiscovered, being sewn
into suspenders and braces.
Finally, as a result of the twelve Turkish pounds' worth of good
character given me by the guards, I continued the journey to the
military dentist in Stamboul, after a guard had telephoned the news of
White's disappearance to Psamatia.
Desperate after my failure in face of White's success, I made an unwise
bolt for freedom across the ruins of a recent fire. Before the guards
had recovered from their surprise, I reached a half-demolished wall at
the far end of an open space. I shinned over the wall, and found myself
in a blind alley. Straight ahead was a house; and another building cut
off the exit to the right. To the left was a bare wall, too high to be
climbed. I turned round, walked back to meet the now furious guards,
and handed them another pound note apiece. They gasped; but a sense of
humour dissolved their rage into laughter.
We continued to walk toward Stamboul, each of my arms now being held
tightly. Several times I heard the guards mention Theodore, so that I
was not surprised when they led me into a small café near the quay (the
Maritza restaurant being then out of bounds for prisoners), where one
of them stayed with me while the other fetched the Greek waiter to act
as interpreter.
"First," said Theodore after he had listened to the guards' story, "you
must give parole for the rest of the day."
I agreed readily enough; and over pots of beer--I only met one
Mohammedan guard whose religious principles prevented him from
accepting alcoholic drink in a secluded spot--the party became more
amiable. The Turks' object in fetching Theodore was that he might
explain to me a story which would saddle them with a minimum of blame
for White's escape. If I corroborated this yarn they would agree not to
mention my own misdeeds to the commandant at Psamatia. Again I
accepted.
We discussed and amended the story, which in its final form was divided
into four parts--(1) a train collision; (2) a shock that knocked the
four of us over and separated guards from prisoners; (3) the confusion;
(4) the discovery that White had disappeared, unknown to the rest of
the party.
Through Theodore I now offered the guards fifty Turkish pounds if they
would turn their backs and let me walk out alone. They refused
regretfully, saying that to lose two prisoners in one day would be as
much as their lives were worth. They reminded me of my promise, and we
left the café for the dentist's surgery, where I was obliged to allow a
perfectly sound tooth to be stopped.
Back at Psamatia I found all the prisoners shut up in their rooms. The
Turkish commandant was raving with rage. As we entered the arched
doorway he rushed from his office, and boxed the guards' ears. They
bore it without a sound, comforted no doubt by the six Turkish pounds
which each of them had concealed in his clothing.
We told our separate but corroborative tales, how we had been knocked
over by the shock and missed White in the confusion. White was queer in
the head, I explained; and it was possible that having been further
unbalanced by the collision he wandered away, not knowing where he was
going. The commandant, ready to clutch at anything that might save his
official knuckles from a rapping, affected to take the suggestion
seriously, and embodied it in his report. He affected to hope that
White would recover memory and senses, and return of his own free will.
Later that evening the commandant, after telephonic communication with
the Ministry of War, ordered all the British prisoners to prepare for a
journey into Anatolia on the following day. With Fulton and Stone, who
returned from their visit to the optician without having had a chance
to escape, I conferred on how we could get clear in the short time left
to us.
Fulton and Stone planned to leave the prison-house during the night,
but I decided to wait until morning. They wanted to leave
Constantinople for San Stefano, whereas I wanted to remain in the city;
and if I escaped before dawn I should have nowhere to spend the night
hours, and so lay myself open to the curiosity of gendarmes. In any
case, I was uncertain whether or not my parole, given to the guards,
ought to extend till midnight.
The three of us occupied the same bedroom. A small window from the
adjoining lavatory opened on to a drainpipe. It was decided that Fulton
should climb up this pipe to the roof, until he was firmly established
on the gutter. Stone would hand him a rope and their boots, and then
himself climb the drainpipe. They would crawl along a succession of
roofs, keeping in the shadow, until they reached the top of a house
about fifty yards distant, which overlooked a side street outside the
camp sentries' range of vision. Having fastened the rope to a chimney
or to some other stable object, they could let themselves down to the
road when it was conveniently deserted, with the boots slung round
their necks. They planned to tramp the fifteen miles to San Stefano
during the night, leaving Constantinople via the gate at Yedi-kuli.
That evening the sentries in the yard, stimulated by White's escape,
were more alert than usual. Another drawback was the full moon, which
for some hours lit up the corner outside the window. Not until just
before midnight were conditions, in the form of shadow and an absent
guard, suitable for the adventure.
With feet covered only by a pair of thick socks Fulton climbed through
the tiny window, gripped a bend of the drainpipe, and made use of a
metal joint for foot-hold. Stone, holding the rope and the boots,
watched from the window. Fulton gripped the gutter and was beginning to
haul himself up when--_crunch!_--the top of the flimsy drainpipe was
severed from the roof by his weight, and he fell.
Instinctively he released his feet from the joint on which they had
been resting. He thus managed to land on all fours in the yard, about
fifteen feet below.
The noise, however, was startling. Stone and I expected every second
that Fulton would be discovered, but with great presence of mind he
jumped up and ran into our room, through the near-by door, before
anybody had time to investigate.
An upper window opened noisily, and from it a Turkish officer, awakened
by the sound of Fulton's fall, yelled to the guards. Within five
minutes the yard was full of a disordered commotion. An excited group
collected round the portion of the drainpipe which was lying on the
ground.
Meanwhile, Fulton and Stone had torn off their outer clothing. When
Zikki-Bey paid us a visit of suspicious inspection, the three of us
were seemingly asleep. Soon afterward the chattering and clattering in
the yard subsided. Fortunately a strong wind was blowing, and we heard
afterward that the Turks thought a violent gust must have dislodged the
drainpipe.
With nerves on edge and all our faculties keyed up, there was little
sleep for the rest of that night. Our only remaining chance was to
escape next morning, when we passed through the city on the way to the
railway station.