A GREEK WAITRESS, A GERMAN BEERHOUSE, A TURKISH POLICEMAN, AND A
RUSSIAN SHIP
At half-past eleven of a scorching morning every Britisher at Psamatia
marched away from the prison-house. As a result of the furore that
followed White's escape, twenty-four hours earlier, the Turks were
sending us into the interior of Anatolia. About fifty Tommies, with a
detachment of guards, left first; and we--the fifteen officer
prisoners--followed twenty yards behind them. In the rear was the
Turkish officer in charge, with a screen of six guards, who showed
fixed bayonets, loaded rifles, and smiling ferocity.
Three of us--Fulton, Stone, and myself--had made up our minds to slip
away, or if needs be dash away, before the party entrained at Haidar
Pasha, on the Asiatic shore of the Sea of Marmora. The Turkish officer
rather expected somebody to make an attempt, but knew not whom to
suspect in particular. A little deduction might have told him, for,
except F., the "do-or-die trio"--as the others had named us--were the
only officers wearing civilian clothes, and one would as easily have
suspected F. of an ambition to become the Sultan's chief eunuch as of
an ambition to escape.
Some of the Tommies were disabled or still sick. As they trudged
through the hot streets, oppressed by heavy packages and the relentless
heat, their backs bent lower and lower and they began to straggle.
Finally one man fainted. While he was being carried into the shade the
officers obtained permission to relieve the weakest Tommies of their
kits. Yet again, the Turks ought to have discovered the escape party,
for the others saw to it that Fulton, Stone, and I should not be
burdened with the parcels.
Meanwhile, the mid-day heat grew more intense, and the Tommies more
exhausted. It became necessary, every half mile or so, to rest for a
few minutes on the shady side of the street.
The "do-or-die trio" looked to these halts for their opportunity; but
always the guards hemmed us in too closely for any chance of a
break-away. A combined effort seemed impossible, so that the three of
us accepted the maxim of each man for himself. Even to talk with each
other on the march was imprudent, for earnest conversation, like
earnest looks, must have attracted attention.
The first move was made by Fulton. We had halted on a narrow pavement,
in the suburb of Yeni-Kapou. There followed a short interval of
lounging repose, during which we sipped at water-bottles, while the
Turkish officer did his best to fraternize. Turning round casually, in
a search for possible opportunities, I saw Fulton sliding into a little
booth of a shop, and then, with head bent over the counter, looking at
postcards. As far as I could gather none of the guards had noticed him.
He killed time by calling for more and ever more postcards.
Five minutes later the order to continue was given. We rose and
arranged our packs, while Ms. stood in front of the shop window, so as
to hide Fulton. But a Turkish sergeant counted us, and finding our
number short by one, became excited and aggressive as he wandered
around and checked his figures. Fulton's discovery was then inevitable.
He made the best of things, when observed through the window, by
choosing and paying for several postcards and leaving the shop
indifferently, as if he had entered it with no ulterior purpose. The
Turkish officer looked his suspicion, but made no comments.
Stone's turn came next. At Koum-kapou we rested below the wall of an
old palace. When, as he thought, nobody was looking, Stone slipped
through a side-entrance and sat down against a doorway in the left-hand
corner of the courtyard. A guard darted after him, and dragged him back
to us. The Turkish officer saw the commotion and wanted explanations;
whereupon Stone complained that although he went into the courtyard
merely to find shelter from the sun the guard had hustled him rudely.
The watchful guard was reprimanded for want of politeness.
We passed from Koum-kapou to Stamboul, where crowds of befezzed men and
veiled women gathered at every crossing to gaze their dull-eyed
curiosity. Here, in the mazed streets of the Turkish quarter, I again
petitioned Providence for some sort of a diversion, under cover of
which we might run. But nothing happened. The guards surrounded us as
if we had been wayward pigs being driven to the slaughter-house, and
handled their bayonets suggestively.
At one point we could see the Maritza, down a side turning. We moved
along the tram-lines toward the big bridge. Then, after a moment's
delay at the toll-gate, we passed over the Golden Horn.
Three-quarters of the way across the bridge the Turkish sergeant
leading us switched the column-head to some steps descending to the
ferry stage for the Haidar Pasha steamboats. The Tommies were placed at
one end of the wooden stage, with a separate group of guards, while the
Turkish officer, who since the beginning of the journey had shown a
desire to make himself pleasant, took the officer-prisoners into a
little café for cooling drinks. We talked idly to the Greek waitress
who served us; but at the moment I was too preoccupied to notice
anything about her, except that she was plump and obliging.
Later we were grouped some distance to the left of the café, in a
corner of the ferry stage opposite that occupied by the Tommies. There
we remained for nearly an hour in the broiling sun, while waiting for
the steamer which was to take us from Europe to Asia. People surged on
and off the ferryboats that moored opposite us from time to time; but
never once did the guards relax enough to allow anybody to fade into
the crowd. The chances were made even more desperate by some German
soldiers, who leaned over the bridge-rails above us and watched the
changing scene.
"Our ship comes," announced the Turkish officer at last, pointing out
to sea in the direction of Prinkipo Island. In five minutes' time, I
knew, the party would be on board that steamer; and once aboard it I
should have left behind all hope of escape from captivity in Turkey.
Only five minutes! Had the gods left _no_ loop-hole?
I searched among the crowd in every direction, ready to take advantage
of the wildest and slimmest scheme that might suggest itself.
I heard Pappas Effendi and Fulton asking the Turkish officer if they
might return to fetch some kit, which had been left in the café. The
Turk nodded, and sent them away, escorted by his sergeant. I also had
left some kit, I claimed on the spur of the moment, just as Pappas
Effendi and Fulton were leaving us.
"All right," said the Turk, "follow your comrades."
In full view of the rest of the party I walked after Pappas Effendi and
Fulton, and while keeping close to the sergeant, as if to show I was
under his wing, took care to remain behind him so that he himself
should know nothing of my presence.
The little group entered the café, first Pappas Effendi and Fulton,
then the sergeant, and finally myself.
Inside the doorway was the plump waitress, who smiled affably. I stayed
near her while the other three passed to the inside room, where we had
been seated earlier. I fingered my lips warningly, and in soft-spoken
French asked where I could hide.
The waitress gave no answer, but without showing the least excitement
or even surprise, half opened a folding doorway that led to the
kitchen. I planted myself behind it, while she entered the inner room
and talked to the Turkish sergeant.
A minute later I heard the three of them--Pappas Effendi, Fulton, and
the guard--tramp past my doorway and out to the ferry stage. Just then
the arriving steamer hooted.
"Now," said this waitress-in-a-million, "they have gone, and so must
you. The Turks may come any moment, and if they find you here I shall
suffer more than you."
"Goodbye, and a million thanks," I said, fervently, and walked into the
open.
Without even turning my head to see whether the disappearance was known
I swerved to the right, and, taking great care not to attract attention
by walking in haste, passed up the long line of steps leading to the
bridge. I continued to look straight ahead, but I could sense the
presence, only a few yards away, of the German soldiers who loitered by
the railings. Fortunately, several other people were moving up or down
the steps; and dressed as I was in a civilian suit obtained from the
Dutch Legation, the Germans paid no more attention to me than to them.
I reached the pavement, and still not daring to look behind, crossed
the tram-lines to the opposite side of the bridge. Then only did I turn
round to find out whether I were followed.
Everything was normal. Not one of the idlers who lined the railings had
noticed me; the usual traffic and the usual crowds ebbed and flowed
across the bridge; the sun shone. I lit a cigarette and walked
eastward.
Having crossed the circus of streets at the Galata end of the bridge, I
turned to the right and made for the Rue de Galata. At the corner I
looked back again. To my very great relief, I found that I was still
not followed.
I was conscious of an intense exhilaration as, free at last, I rubbed
elbows with the crowd of nondescript Levantines. It was the first time
for months that I had ever walked the streets without the burden of an
oppressive consciousness that a yard or two to the rear was an animal
of a Turkish soldier. That sense of always being followed and spied
upon and menaced and held on a leash had weighed so much on my mind
that I had come to look upon a guard in the same light as an old-time
convict must have looked upon the lead ball chained to his foot. The
sense of freedom from this incubus was glorious.
I was worried about my chances of meeting the unknown Russian who had
agreed to hide White and myself. According to the plan detailed to me
some hours earlier by Vladimir Wilkowsky, he was to wait for me in a
German beerhouse from two o'clock to four. I had been unable to escape
in time for the appointment and it was now four-twenty.
Nevertheless, hoping that the Russian might have lingered over his
drink, I decided to carry out the same arrangements as if I had arrived
in time. These, I remember thinking as I strolled along the Rue de
Galata, studiously unconscious of gendarmes and soldiers, were
suggestive of a Deadwood Dick thriller, or of some sawdust melodrama at
a provincial theatre.
Having entered the beerhouse (named _Zum Neuen Welt_), I was to pass
down the main room until, on the right-hand side of it, I reached the
piano. I must seat myself at the table next to the piano, order a glass
of beer, put a cigarette behind my left ear, and look around without
showing too much anxiety.
Somewhere near me I should find a man whose left ear, also, was adorned
with a cigarette; or, if not already there he would arrive very
shortly. He would occupy the table beyond mine--that is to say, the
next but one to the piano. On no account must I speak to him in the
beerhouse, although to make his identity doubly clear he might ask for
a light, speaking in German. He would remain until I had paid my
reckoning, then pay his own, leave the _Bierhaus Zum Neuen Welt_, and
walk toward Pera.
I was to follow him not too closely, always taking care to be separated
by a distance of at least twenty yards, so that nobody might observe
how my movements depended on his. Arrived on the fringe of Pera he
would unlock a door, leave it open, and disappear; whereupon all that
remained for me was to follow him into this retreat, where I should
find Captain White already installed.
It was four-twenty-seven when I entered the _Bierhaus Zum Neuen Welt_,
a close-atmosphered café in the Rue de Galata. The customers inside it
were few, but some of them caught my attention at once, for they
included a group of German soldiers and a Turkish officer of
gendarmerie, who was talking to a civilian. The table next to the piano
was vacant, as were those surrounding it. I sat down, casually placed a
cigarette behind my left ear, and ordered a glass of beer.
As I sipped the beer I looked around the room for the man of mystery.
Nobody paid the least attention to me. Plenty of cigarettes were held
in the hand or the mouth, but none in the cleft of the left ear.
Still with a faint hope that the Russian who was to hide me might
return, I ordered a second then a third glass of beer, and made a study
of every man present, in case one of them might be he. But nothing had
happened, and nothing continued to happen. The officer of gendarmerie
kept his back toward me, while the German soldiers grew boisterous over
repeated relays of beer, and over mandolin strummings by a red-faced
Unteroffizier. The proprietress, a German woman of an especial
corpulence, dragged her fleshy body from table to table, and finally
arrived before mine.
"You seem hot," she said in German. "You must have been walking too
fast."
"No, I have merely been out in this atrocious sun."
"German?" she asked--at which I was delighted, for it proved that my
accent, acquired many years before as a student in Munich, was not yet
too rusty to pass muster.
"No, madam, Russian," I replied, hoping hard that she could speak no
Russian.
"_So!_ Plenty of Russians come here since the Ukraine was occupied, and
the boats began to arrive from Odessa."
Now although the fat proprietress had paid such a compliment to my
German accent, I remembered the five years since I had spoken the
language continuously, and I was frightened that in any word she might
detect an English accent. I grew more and more frightened and anxious,
for it was very unlikely that the man with the cigarette would arrive
now. I looked at my watch, and found the time to be five-twenty-five.
Finally the tension of trying to think clearly while answering the
German female's questions was more than I could stand. I paid my bill,
and returned to the Rue de Galata.
By now, I judged, the guards must have discovered my escape. Probably
they were searching the streets for me; and probably the gendarmerie in
Galata, Pera, and Stamboul had been instructed to look out for a
European in a gray civilian suit and a black hat. I stopped at the
nearest outfitting shop, bought a light-gray hat, and left the black
one lying on a chair.
Deciding that the water would be safer than the land, I made my way
back to the bridge, with the intention of chartering a small boat for a
trip up the Bosphorus.
Then, crossing the open space facing the bridge, I was horrified to see
Mahmoud, one of my old guards. He revolved undecidedly and peered among
the crowd. Obviously he was looking for someone; and the odds were a
hundred to one that the someone must be me.
I edged away from him without being observed, and dodged into the fruit
bazaar among the quayside streets to right of the bridge.
This bazaar was one of the dirtiest in Constantinople. Millions of
flies drifted over and settled on the baskets of tired fruit. The very
stalls seemed ready to fall to pieces from decrepitude. The people,
vendors and buyers alike, were dusty and ragged. A few loiterers
squatted on the cobble stones and sucked orange-peel.
It was inevitable that in such a place my more or less smart Legation
suit and my newly bought hat should attract attention. A policeman, of
the "dog-collar" species, seemed particularly interested in them. I was
leaving the bazaar by a narrow street that looked as if it might lead
me to the subway station of Galata when he barred the way and said
something in Turkish, while holding out his hand expectantly.
I failed to understand most of the words, but one of
them--_vecika_--was enough. _Vecikas_ were the Turkish passports with
which every honest, or rich but dishonest, civilian had to provide
himself if he wished to remain at liberty. They might be demanded at
any time in any place by any gendarme.
Naturally I could produce no _vecika_. But I had the next best thing.
That same morning I had discussed with Vladimir Wilkowsky the
possibility of being stopped in the street by a policeman. His advice
was that if it happened I must claim to be a German officer. I
remembered being photographed in civilian clothes when at Gumuch Souyou
Hospital; and before leaving Psamatia I gave myself a useful identity
by signing one of the copies with a German name.
After searching an inside pocket, I now handed to the gendarme a
photograph which went to prove that I was "_Fritz Richter, Oberleutnant
in der Fliegertruppen_." Speaking [in fluent German, interspersed with
a few words of broken Turkish], I protested violently that I was a
German officer in mufti, and that he would get himself into trouble for
having presumed to stop a German officer. And never was I more
frightened than when uttering that bombast.
Half convinced and half browbeaten, the gendarme took the photograph,
looked at it dubiously, and consulted a Greek from among the curious
crowd that circled us. This man, it appeared, claimed to know German. I
understood little of the conversation, but as far as I could gather the
policeman asked if I really were a German officer; and the stallkeeper,
reading the signature laboriously, informed him that it proclaimed me
to be a Supreme Lieutenant of the Flying Soldiers.
"_Pek ee, effendi_," said the gendarme to me. He returned the
photograph, salaamed, and apologized. He then went away. So did I.
I returned cautiously, through a combination of side streets, to the
bridge-head, and I was much relieved to find that Mahmoud had
disappeared. From the quay I chartered a rowing-boat, ordering the
Turkish _kaiktche_ to row me up the Bosphorus.
"Are you Russian, _effendim_?" he asked.
"No, German," I replied, surlily. At that his conversational advances
ended.
The train of thought started by the word Russian led me to decide that
I had better spend the night aboard the Russian tramp steamer on which
White and I were to travel as stowaways. Vladimir Wilkowsky, in fact,
had told me to make for it if I failed to reach the hiding-place on
shore, and to ask for M. Titoff, the chief engineer. Its name, I knew,
was the _Batoum_, and most of its officers were in the conspiracy to
help us, in return for substantial consideration. I knew that the ship
was moored in the Bosphorus, but of its appearance or exact position I
had been told nothing.
"_Russky dampfschiff Batoum_," I ordered the _kaiktche_, using the
polyglot mixture which he was most likely to understand. But his
voluble jabbering and his expressive shrug showed that he, also, was
ignorant of where it lay.
"_Bosphor!_" I commanded, pointing higher up the Bosphorus and thinking
that I would find the name _Batoum_ painted on one of the five or six
ships that I could see in the distance, moored in midstream.
But having rowed some distance up the Bosphorus and already passed
Dolma Bagche Palace, I found no ship labelled _Batoum_. Most of the
craft seemed to use only numbers as distinguishing marks. What was
worse, most of them flew the German flag; although two of the masts
sported a yellow-and-blue standard which I failed to recognize.
Certainly none flew the Russian eagle.
Our only chance of finding the _Batoum_ was to ask directions. We
visited several lighters near the quay; but the _kaiktche's_ questions
to Turks and Greeks were unproductive. As a last chance I told him to
row close to a large steamer, on the deck of which I could see some
German sailors.
"Please tell me where I can find the Russian boat _Batoum_," I shouted
in German, standing up while the _kaiktche_ kept the little craft
steady with his oars.
"Don't know the _Batoum_," said a sailor. "Here there are no Russian
ships now. They've become German or Austrian."
"And those two over there?" I asked, pointing toward the vessels with
the green-and-black ensign.
"Ukrainian."
"Thanks very much," I called as we sheered off. My mistake, I realized,
had been in forgetting for the moment the existence of that
newly-made-in-Germany republic the Ukraine. Any vessel from Odessa not
flying the German or the Austrian flag would now be Ukrainian; and the
yellow-and-blue standard must be that of the Ukrainian Republic. One of
the pair flying this flag proclaimed itself to be the _Nikolaieff_. It
followed that the other, which was marked only by a number, must be the
_Batoum_.
Having made the _kaiktche_ take me to the bottom of its gangway, I
climbed to the deck. At the top of the gangway was a tall man made
noticeable by a bristling moustache and a well-pressed uniform of white
drill. Obviously he was a ship's officer, and as such he must be one of
the syndicate whom Captain White and I were bribing. If so, he would
know of Wilkowsky.
"_Russky vapor Batoum?_" I asked in pidgin-Russian.
"_Da._"
"_Monsieur Titoff?_"--pointing at him by way of enquiry into his
identity.
"_Niet; Monsieur Belaef._"
"_Droug Vladimir Ivanovitch Wilkowsky?_"
He gave me a long look, smiled, and said under his breath: "Yes,
meester."
These were the only English words known by Ivan Stepanovitch Belaef,
first mate of the Ukrainian tramp steamer _Batoum_, from Odessa. And
for the moment, at any rate, I was safe among friends.
* * * * *
At about armistice time I was hailed unexpectedly in Port Saïd by C.,
one of the British officers whom I had left behind on the ferry stage
of the Golden Horn. He himself had seen me leave the café, climb the
steps leading to the bridge, and fade into the crowd.
A few moments after my disappearance, related C., the Turkish officer
called the roll of the prisoners, before taking them to the ferryboat.
That roll-call almost led to the premature discovery of my escape; for
when the Turk said "À-lan Thòm-as Bott," _four_ people answered.