AN ATTEMPT THAT FAILED.
Thus disappointed of two of our schemes, we looked around for other
ways and means of escape. Nobby had another of his brain-waves. In
search of dry firewood he had made several tours inside the roof of the
barracks: for the ceilings and tiled slopes were carried not by modern
trusses, but by the primitive and wasteful means of trestles resting on
enormous horizontal baulks, running across from wall to wall at close
intervals. Having entered the roof space by a trap-door in the ceiling,
it was possible to walk on these completely round the barracks, and eke
out the miserably green firewood we collected ourselves by chips and
odd ends of comparatively dry wood, left up there presumably several
decades before, while the barracks were in building.
Why not, said Nobby, disappear up there one night and leave the Turks
to infer that we had escaped, encouraging them in the belief by leaving
the bars of some window cut and forced apart? We could then wait until
the rest had left for Yozgad and slip out from the deserted barracks at
our pleasure.
There were, however, two obvious objections to this scheme. It was
hardly feasible as a means of escape for more than one or at most two
parties: the Turk might be deceived into thinking half a dozen fellows
had slipped past his sentries, but hardly twenty or more. Secondly, it
was quite conceivable that the escape of even a small party would lead
to the move being cancelled altogether: it is true it would be possible
for the stowaways to be fed in the roof by their companions below, but
the prospect of spending "three years or the duration of the war" in
that dark and musty garret took away from the otherwise considerable
attractions of the scheme.
In the end a very much modified form of the roof scheme was permitted
by a committee of senior officers, and our party of six, having been
adjudged by this committee to have the best chances of success on
account of our prearranged scheme when we reached the coast, was given
the privilege of making the attempt. As will be seen, however, it was
less an actual attempt than a waiting upon favourable circumstances
which would arise should our captors make a certain mistake. In any
country except Turkey the whole conception would have been absurd; but
we had seen enough of Turkish methods to know that there anything is
possible.
By good luck the party's preparations for escape were already far
advanced, although, apart from the move, we had not proposed starting
until June: the rains continue off and on till then, and the crops
would be in too immature a state at an earlier date.
At the cost of a good deal of time, temper, needles and thread, we
had each succeeded in making ourselves a pack: to furnish the canvas
we sacrificed our valises. Up till almost the last night, however, we
were busy repeatedly cutting off straps and sewing them on again in a
different place, in a wild endeavour to persuade our equipment to ride
with a reasonable degree of comfort.
Food was an item of vital importance in any plan of escape, and we had
decided to follow the example of Keeling's party and pin our faith
mainly to a ration of biscuits. We had also for some months past been
collecting from our parcels all tinned meat, condensed milk, and
chocolate.
We brought our biscuit-making to a fine art. One of the ground-floor
rooms had been set apart as the officers' shop for carpentry and
bootmaking--for we had long taken to making our own furniture and
repairing our own boots. Here then was started the "Bimbashi"[7]
Biscuit Department of Escapers, Limited. At one bench would be Grunt
and Johnny busily engaged in the uncongenial task of taking the stalks
off sultanas, and the pleasanter one of eating a few. At another stood
Perce with his bared forearms buried deep in a mixture of flour, sugar,
and sultanas, to which from time to time Nobby would add the requisite
quantities of water and eggs. The Old Man presided at the scales and,
weighing out the dough into lumps sufficient for twenty biscuits,
passed them on to Looney. Armed with rolling-pin, carving-knife, and
straight-edge, the latter would flatten out each lump until it filled
up the inside of a square frame which projected slightly above the
bench to which it was fixed. When a level slab had been obtained, the
ruler would be placed against marks on the frame and the slab cut five
times in one direction and four in the other. It then only remained to
transfer the twenty little slabs to boards, prick them with any fancy
pattern with a nail, and send them to be baked by one of our orderlies.
The biscuits were each about the size of a quarter-plate and half an
inch thick, and when cooked weighed five to the pound, and were as hard
as rocks. Their best testimonial was that, without being kept in tins,
they remained perfectly good for six months.
The biscuit-making concern was run regardless of expense. A pound of
flour was costing at that time two shillings, sugar ten shillings,
sultanas five; and eggs three pence apiece. (These, by the way, were
only about half of what we soon after found ourselves paying at
Yozgad.) The final cost was something like half-a-crown a biscuit.
For their escapes Keeling and his companions had decided, if
questioned, to say that they were a German survey party, and for this
purpose had forged a letter purporting to come from the commandant of
the Angora Division, and ordering all whom it might concern to help
them in every way. They had written to say this letter had been of the
greatest assistance to them. As we were going in a different direction,
we thought that the same story would serve again. Grunt, being the best
Turkish scholar of the party, accordingly drafted a suitable legend in
a crisp style such as might be expected to emanate from Enver Pasha's
pen; while Johnny, aided by infinite patience and a bit of blue carbon
paper, set to work and produced a faithful imitation of an office stamp
found on a Turkish receipt. We hoped that the elaborated lettering of
such a crest would be as little intelligible to the average Ottoman as
it was to ourselves, but as a matter of interest decided to show the
original to our Greek interpreter and casually ask its meaning. It was
as well we did so, for it was the stamp of the Prisoners-of-War Camp,
Changri.
After this unfortunate set-back, our pair put their heads together, and
finally evolved a design of their own, bearing the inscription: "Office
of the Ministry of War, Stamboul."
All this time, of course, we were subjecting ourselves to a course of
rigorous training--football, running in the early mornings, Müller's
exercises, and cold baths. We spent half the day walking round and
round the exercise-field, wearing waistcoats weighing twenty pounds.
These, if disclosed from under the coat, would have reminded any one
but a Turkish observer of one of those advertisements of a well-known
firm of tyre-makers; for each waistcoat was lined with a series of
cloth tubes filled with sand.
Nobby, who detested sewing more than any of us, went to the trouble of
making a practice rucksack holding sixty pounds of earth. The whole of
our last few weeks at Changri, one may say, were spent by the party in
preparing for the escape in one way or another.
On the evening of the 10th April 1918 the cart transport for our
journey drove into the barrack square and there parked for the night.
Orders came from the commandant that we were to start next day, so we
decided that before we went to bed our preparations should be completed.
A light ladder was made by which to climb up into the roof;
drinking-water was taken up in buckets and hidden there; a window-frame
in the east wing was prepared so that the iron bars could be withdrawn;
and we made certain, by going through a list, that our packs contained
all that we had decided to take. The latter were then unpacked and they
and their contents placed in two boxes, each of which had a false
bottom. Here were concealed our most incriminating and at the same time
our most precious aids to escape: our maps, helio-mirrors, fezes, and
compasses. The boxes were then locked, strongly bound with rope, and
labelled very appropriately, "Trek Stores."
For the work on hand that night the occasion was an excellent one.
Every one was busy packing, having left this unpleasant duty till the
carts actually arrived. There was a lot of noise being made--to wit, a
blend of singing and sawing; and when at 1 A.M. we could at
last go to bed, there was still much activity around us.
Next morning we showed ourselves as much as possible, and took care to
find an opportunity of talking to the two camp interpreters. It was
conceivable that they might take our names in the barracks as usual
each morning, and the commandant, being satisfied that every one was
present, might omit to call roll when the move actually took place;
or alternately, in the excitement of the moment, there might be no
roll-call whatsoever.
On one or other of these possibilities depended the success of the
modified scheme, which stipulated that until the carts were definitely
on the move we were not to hide ourselves in the roof. Should the party
go off without a roll-call, we were allowed to leave ourselves behind.
If, on the other hand, roll was called, we had to turn up for it. This
explains the necessity for the two boxes of "Trek Stores": if we were
left behind, these could be quickly taken up into the roof; and if roll
should be called, we could hastily, and without losing our valuable
escape outfit, join the carts, carrying two boxes apparently containing
food only.
After loading up our own carts with the rest of our kit in case the
scheme miscarried, we took these boxes into the mess-room at the S.E.
corner of the barracks; and as the time of departure drew near, went
there ourselves and sat round a few bits of bread and an empty jam-pot.
Our excellent friend H---- promised to come and warn us should there be
a call over.
From the windows facing south could be seen the Angora road, and this
we watched eagerly. The barracks were quite quiet. After many minutes
a loaded cart appeared on the road followed by another. Our hopes
began to rise. The one-in-a-thousand chance might yet come off. There
were more carts moving on the road now, but to our disappointment they
suddenly stopped.
A few seconds later H---- dashed in. They were calling the roll. We
carried the boxes outside, there to be met by several officers who had
come back, so they said, to collect some firewood for the journey, but
really to make our late appearance as unsuspicious as possible. No
wonder we were as happy at Changri as it was possible to be, having
men like these for our companions.
You may think that it was not worth our while to have taken so much
trouble for so small a chance, yet you probably take a ticket in the
Derby Sweep. It was, we admit, a small chance, but the prize was a
great one, so we were unwilling to let it slip by. Although a roll-call
was held, we heard afterwards that it was only as an afterthought on
the part of Sami Bey, and despite our disappointment after coming so
near to success, we had at least the satisfaction of finding that our
late arrival caused no suspicion in the minds of our captors. After a
little difficulty in finding carts which were not too overloaded to
take our two precious boxes, our party was soon marching southwards
with the rest of the prisoners.
Although the direct distance from Changri to Yozgad, as the crow flies,
is barely 80 miles, the only road open to our wheeled transport was
that which runs by way of Angora: our march was then about 100 miles
longer. For the first sixty, that is to say to Angora, the country was
familiar to us, as we had marched along this route in the opposite
direction on the way to our first camp, Kastamoni, nearly two years
before. It was impossible, unfortunately, to induce our commandant to
say beforehand each day where would be the halts for the midday meal
and the next night; in fact, he did not know himself, as this was
a matter to be fought out with his brother officer in charge of the
transport. In other respects this march, like that from Kastamoni, was
a pleasing innovation after the monotony of our long confinement. After
the first few hours the escort wearied of their primary keenness, and
allowed us to march pretty well at our own pace, except for occasional
halts to allow the carts to come up. In fact, precautions against
escaping _en route_ were unexpectedly lax. On the very first day, for
instance, it was not until after dark that we halted for the night,
and a dozen officers might easily have slipped away from a party which
went to the river a few hundred yards distant to fetch water: roll-call
was not held until we marched off next morning. We had agreed amongst
ourselves, however, that we would now wait until we reached Yozgad,
and could contrive some plan by which all parties might once more have
an equal chance of escaping. It was for this reason that the above and
later opportunities to make off while on trek were allowed to slip by.
Half-way to Angora we came to the village of Kalijik, where we were
offered billets in the local jail, already well peopled with Turkish
criminals. On our refusing this offer, we were housed for the night in
an empty building on the edge of the village.
We reached Angora four days after leaving Changri, and were
accommodated in up-to-date buildings, designed by Germans as a
hospital, but since used as Turkish barracks. Luckily the particular
house in which we were billeted had not as yet been used by Turks.
During our two days here, we were allowed very fair liberty in visiting
the bazaars, the shops of which, after our six months at Changri,
appeared almost magnificent in the profusion of their wares.
In one of these Nobby espied a pair of real Goerz field-glasses.
Telling his companion to lure away the _posta_ who escorted them,
he entered the shop, and succeeded in purchasing the glasses, and a
schoolboy's satchel in which to conceal them, for about £18--a tall
price, and yet, if the prices of other things had been in no higher
proportion to their real value, living in Turkey would have been
comparatively cheap. In the end these glasses were of inestimable value
to our party.
While we were in Angora some of us went to see Sherif Bey, whose
propensity for epigram was touched upon in the opening words of our
story. As second-in-command he had accompanied us in our move from
Kastamoni to Changri. There he had been perpetually at loggerheads
with our new, as indeed he had been with our two former, commandants.
Having eventually relinquished his ambition of superseding Sami Bey,
he had recently accepted the less remunerative post of commandant
of the British rank-and-file prisoners in the Angora district. Some
of the men whom we succeeded in meeting had certain complaints to
make against their previous commandant. A deputation of officers,
therefore, waited upon his successor, who received them with a show of
great friendliness, and assured them that under his benevolent sway
such things as the looting of parcels would be impossible. Whether he
fulfilled his promises we are not yet in a position to say; the fact
remains that he treated very badly the five officers who stayed behind
a few extra days for dental and medical treatment, asserting that they
had only stopped in Angora with a view to escape.
Moreover, there were at this very time under Sherif Bey's orders
two submarine officers who had been sent from the camp at
Afion-Kara-Hissar, and were to join our convoy when it went on to
Yozgad. Since their arrival in Angora a week before, they had been
confined to the only hotel and had not once been allowed to visit
the bazaar. One of the two was Lieut.-Commander A. D. Cochrane (now
Commander Cochrane, D.S.O.), who was destined to play the leading
rôle in the eventual escape of our particular party. The other was
Lieut.-Commander S----. These two had, with one other naval officer,
attempted to escape from the camp at Kara-Hissar, but had been
recaptured when within sight of the sea; they had since spent ten
months in a common Turkish jail.
Lieut.-Commander S---- had also been sent to Constantinople under
somewhat amusing circumstances. Whilst he was in the P.O.W. camp at
Kara-Hissar an order arrived one day ordering that two officers of high
birth and closely connected with the British aristocracy should be
selected and sent to Constantinople. Thereupon a list was prepared of
officers related to Labour Candidates, Dukes, Members of Parliament,
&c. Thinking that this promised at least a jaunt in Constantinople,
S---- had claimed descent from the bluest blood of England. After
consideration of the rival claims, he and one other were selected.
Their self-congratulations, however, were a little premature, as the
commandant now informed them that the Turkish Government, having heard
that their own officer prisoners in India were being badly treated,
proposed taking reprisals on these two until their powerful relations
in England should think fit to remedy matters on both sides.
In vain the unfortunate dupes protested that the report was obviously
false, asking that further inquiries should be made before reprisals
were carried into effect. The reply was that the order was Enver
Pasha's and could not be questioned, but that if they agreed to go
quietly to Constantinople, they would at once be led into the presence
of the Generalissimo, where they could forward their protest in person.
To this they had perforce to agree, but on arrival in the capital were
at once flung into prison, kept in solitary confinement, and fed on
bread and water. In this state they remained for some three weeks,
after which the Turkish authorities discovered, as was only natural,
that there had not been an atom of truth in the report upon which they
had acted. By way of redress they allowed the innocent sufferers six
days' absolute freedom in Constantinople, after which they were taken
back to their old camp.
From Angora onwards we were escorted by parties of the local
gendarmerie; of the Changri guard who had so far accompanied us only
a few came on with us to Yozgad; and they, ill-trained, ill-fed, and
ill-clad, were rather passengers who called for our pity than guards
capable of preventing us from decamping.
The gendarmes were, for the most part, remarkably well mounted, and
in charge of them was a benevolent old gentleman of the rank of
_bash-chaouse_, or sergeant-major, who was for ever holding forth
upon his friendship towards the English and his utter inability
to understand why we were not fighting side by side in this war.
The sergeant-major talked much to us, punctuating his remarks with
"Jánom" (My dear). He was jovial, he was pleasing to look at, he was
interesting. He had been through several Turkish wars, and he discussed
the Great War with more intelligence than many of the Turkish officers
we had met.
One day as two of us were marching beside the horse he was riding,
the dear old man pointed out a deep ravine some few hundred yards to
our right. His face lighted up with pride of achievement and pleasant
recollection. "Do you see that ravine?" he said. "Well, there I helped
to massacre 5000 Armenians. Allah be praised!"
The 120-mile march from Angora to Yozgad occupied eight days. As usual
we bivouacked each night in the open, on one occasion coming in for a
tremendous thunderstorm. Our best day's march was one of thirty miles,
and brought us down to the Kizil Irmak, better known to Greek scholars
as the ancient river Halys. We camped on the western bank opposite
the village of Kopru-Keui (= Bridge-Village), so called from the
picturesque old stone bridge which here spans the largest river in Asia
Minor. We were all glad of a bathe, although this was only safe close
to the bank, where the water was hardly deep enough to swim in. The
main stream was a swirling torrent of brown and muddy water, dashing
between enormous rocks, which protected the bridge from its fury. It
passed under only two of the nine arches and so onwards through a
narrow gorge between high precipitous cliffs. The bridge itself, with
narrow and steeply cambered roadway, and pointed arches of varying
height and span, seemed almost one with the rocky cleft it spanned.
The rest of our trek to Yozgad was uneventful except for the upsetting
of two carts, owing to reckless driving on the part of the Turkish
Jehus.
Our last day's march began on the 24th April 1918, when we set out from
a small village twelve miles from our destination. The way climbed
gradually till we topped a high ridge. Over this we marched, swinging
down the farther slope at a quicker step. The winding road curled round
spurs and valleys, and from one such spur we obtained our first sight
of the town of Yozgad.
Unprepossessing it looked lying in a valley surrounded by barren hills,
a few poplars here and there, the usual timber-built houses, a few
mosques.
Four months later we looked at it for the last time. We could only see
a few twinkling lights to the east in a curtain of starlit darkness;
but we were well content as we turned away, for we had shaken the dust
of prison from our feet.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] A Turkish word meaning "Major."