CHAPTER XI
A PUBLIC MEETING AT OUCHAK—HOSPITALITY—A SACRED RITE
At Ouchak, I frankly declined to spend another night in a luggage train. I admired the Turks’ resourcefulness in coping with the extremely limited service of trains—the women inside a luggage-van and the men on the roof. I do not regret the fact that I have probably endured even more discomfort than other European visitors to Angora, since I have attempted and achieved more. But for the moment it seemed really essential to pause and rest.
We were told they had only one private train car on this side of the break in the line, which had been reserved for the Minister of Finance, whom we should probably soon meet. Engines were terribly “short,” and most of the trains had been burnt by Greeks.
The Governor drove us to the house of one of the wealthiest men in the town, once the headquarters of King Constantine. Our host proved to be a mere lad of twenty, who was nevertheless directing a large carpet factory which had partially escaped destruction, with considerable efficiency and skill.
Thanking us with graceful dignity for the honour of our visit, he gave immediate direction for our reception in his noble guest-chamber. He apologised for the bareness of rooms, rifled by Greeks; but, in my judgment, the rich and wonderful carpets were furniture enough.
As M. Kemal Pasha had taken over the house from King Constantine, our host asked me, in joke, whose “bed” I would choose! I naturally at once replied M. Kemal’s. “Ah no,” said he, “you must not decide without seeing both.”
Being always afraid of air-raids, the Greek sovereign had taken an underground suite, certainly arranged with great taste and every attention to creature comfort. Lit and heated by electricity, the arrangements closely resembled a German trench. M. Kemal Pasha had slept on the first, or top, floor, and as I like to think, under my white satin covering, worked with irises. It was a proud moment for our host—that I should occupy a bed already honoured by M. Kemal!
I told him how at Gerbervilliers Sœur Julie once let me sleep in a bed previously occupied by Cardinal X., and even conferred on me the supreme honour of using his Eminence’s sheet! That “last touch,” said my host, he, “unfortunately, could not repeat. The Pasha’s sheets!—well, they were not here.”
We soon sat down with the Governor, the Mayor, and other “notables,” to a well-cooked meal of Turkish delicacies, supervised by our host himself. My only criticism of Turkish dishes is based on their “fattening” qualities, and the pleasure in flavours which tempt one to over-eat.
More “notables” appeared for an afternoon reception, in strange and picturesque costumes: Deputies, hodjas, and judges. How I longed to borrow that judge’s saxe-blue silk robe for a dressing-gown; but, knowing that he would “give” me anything for which I expressed a fancy, my honour sternly forbade the request! Everyone had left their shoes on the mat, and sat in their stockinged feet. My muddy boots were a disgrace.
They all talked Nationalism, overjoyed by the recent victories and, I cannot deny, bitter against Great Britain.
I was invited to a big “Nationalist” meeting, to be held that night at the Young Men’s Club, and was only too glad to have the chance of answering the questions I knew they would want to put. It is always wise to encourage our critics to air their grievances.
We were conducted up a rickety staircase to a large room thick with smoke. The men were all wearing kalpaks, and evidently puzzled at first by the “Englishwoman in their midst.” Some of them smiled, others plainly showed their surprise, and others just stared.
After the cheik had opened the meeting in a very few words, our host rose to explain my presence. He told them that I had come to Angora entirely on my own responsibility, because, though our authorities called it “brink of war,” I wanted to convince the Turks that we should not have war.
Then, with the Governor as my interpreter, I begged them “to believe that Mr. Lloyd George’s policy was not the policy of the English people. He had only followed Gladstone in this matter, and he had been led astray by M. Venizelos. No other Englishman would make war on Turkey, and we, the people, were therefore determined upon his fall.”
“Inch Allah,” cried the people.
Then I said that “whether our Conservatives or Labour men followed Mr. Lloyd George, it would make no difference to them. Both parties are all for peace. I was not Turkey’s only friend in Great Britain. We who knew were all hard at work for peace.”
It was a strange meeting! Did the Governor really translate what the men actually said? Some were obviously filled with anger, though “saura-saura and Mr. Lloyd George” was all I could catch. The Governor interpreted, “The speaker does not approve of Mr. Lloyd George’s policy.”
“Nor do I,” I replied, which made them all laugh heartily.
“In any case,” I concluded, “there is not going to be war. It is contrary to all reason, and we have been enemies long enough! We are going to be great friends now.”
I answered a host of questions, which, however, the Governor had softened in his interpretation to avoid hurting my feelings.
Finally my host invited the audience to express their appreciation of the visit from an Englishwoman, who had persisted, against such terrible odds, in coming to give them so much “news” from Great Britain; and the old wooden roofs echoed to their cheers and clapping.
Maybe the British Government would scarcely have approved our meeting; but there are many people in England who take a different view; and as I told the people, “I had been seven years on the French front (a real slice out of one’s life) and I knew what war meant. I will not believe our men are going to be led to war again. However our politicians may talk, whatever hysteria may be printed in the Press, we have sound, practical reasons for friendship. There is nothing in the Nationalist Pact to which Great Britain can seriously object; nothing, certainly, to justify the shedding of blood on either side.”
After the meeting we drove back to our comfortable quarters, and talked long into the night over tea and cigarettes. Too tired to sleep, I told my host if once I dozed off there would be no waking me “this side of anytime,” so I “let myself go” upon the glories of old England and the fine traditions of our race—a subject my present companions were still perfectly ready to applaud.
We passed on to America and her big Press. To their taste, British journalism is “just dry bones—without a breath of life.” They must have something picturesque, unrestrained by any considerations of taste or possible hurt to the feelings of those concerned.
I told them of the strange pride with which an American dared to boast of an “interview” with King Constantine. “His Majesty,” as the reporter had written, “without asking me even to sit down, drew from his pocket a handsome case and helped himself to a cigarette. He naturally did not offer one to me.”
Constantine was, naturally, infuriated by the sarcastic implication, and denied the “interview” altogether. The “man from the States” promptly started an “action” against him, and withdrew it, once he had thus secured far more publicity (which means dollars) than all the “interviews” he might have secured with deposed royalties, would ever have brought his way.
A lady compatriot of his, in the same spirit, once claimed to have secured an “interview” with M. Kemal Pasha, and wrote that “he smoked Player’s cigarettes.” When I told her friend that this was certainly untrue, he said: “What matters! It was good copy.”
I was not, however, altogether surprised to learn that this “impression” of Constantine was, most probably, quite true. All kinds of similar stories were in circulation about the dead monarch, but the Turkish officers were of opinion that, though as commander-in-chief he certainly appeared to live underground, there was little he could be expected to achieve with the army at his command. To be fearless is a commandant’s first duty, and for that quality they were as ready to praise the fallen Djémal and Enver as M. Kemal Pasha himself. With all his faults and mistakes, none could accuse Enver of fear.
My “lady’s maid” on this occasion proved to be a picturesque young woman, dressed in very bright colours, wearing her hair in two long plaits enclosed in a gay scarf. With the pleasant zeal of her race, she squandered the whole contents of a beautiful Eastern water-jug in “pouring them over my hands,” a process which used up all the water long before I felt clean! And not even grease and eau-de-Cologne would drive off half the effects of these terrible days from my face. It was a case for Turkish baths. And Nazafer, my little maid, proved so timid and gentle a hairdresser that I had to use some English “force” in this direction when she had left me for the night.
Yet words cannot express the delight of this welcome change to all the luxuries of civilisation. A blazing wood fire, a hot bottle, and the generous supply of white satin cushions worked in a lovely iris design on my vast, picturesque bed!
If the dogs outside could only accept their grievances with the silent dignity of the East! As I peep through my lattice windows over the half-ruined city, now bathed in the silver light of the new moon, I can only marvel again that we hear scarcely a murmur from these suffering people in their terrible distress. What do we want with this mutilated country for which they are ready to die?
Here is the tale of a patriot that outstrips the wildest imagination to have conceived. A certain woman, so poor that she had but one miserable garment to protect her starving babe, catches sight of some “munitions” that are lying near her, exposed to the cold! She does not hesitate a moment, but lifting her poor child’s only covering, carefully wraps it round the “instruments of war.” Maybe the good God will send me another child,” she whispered; “at all costs, my country must be saved!”
How dare we attempt to hamper these people’s freedom, bought at so dear a price? Surely the future is theirs to shape as they will.
When the morning is well advanced, and the sun is streaming upon me through scarlet lace curtains, I am at last awakened from dreams of burning cities to the alarms of war. Downstairs, sad and bewildered faces almost convince me that actual hostilities have begun. But I am now fully awake, and still refuse to believe.
“It is absolute nonsense,” I insist on telling them. “My country is your friend.”
But even the optimism of our host had been shaken by the pessimist newspaper reports. They all knew, however, that, if it was war, I should stay with them, and they would allow me to nurse our own “men.”... It was not the “men” who would make war; and I gladly repeated their high tributes to the fine soldierly qualities of the Turk, in startling contrast to most Germans!
Our host himself superintended the preparation of my breakfast tray—eggs and butter, honey and jam, fruits and cheese.
“You have sent me a grocer’s shop,” I exclaimed to him later, but he waived aside my gratitude with a casual, “Don’t mention it.”
I reminded him that he had promised I should see “madame” and the baby. “Could not she share our meal?” He said she was tired and really preferred to rest. Was the excuse diplomatic?
He told me that almost immediately after their marriage (about a year and a half ago, when she was only seventeen), they had “escaped” to Rhodes, and it was only too likely their brief experience of home—such as war had left them—would be once more cruelly interrupted. She, unfortunately, did not speak French, but I could easily read in her large, pathetic, dark eyes the excuses she strove to offer for what would never have struck me as “inadequate” hospitality.
I tried to convey my deep sympathy to her husband. “You seem like a couple of dear children,” I said, “just eager to make us all happy.”
“Every Turk,” he replied gravely, “must marry young. The country needs children.”
M. Kemal Pasha entirely confirmed the curious impressions that this household could not fail to produce on any visitor from Europe. It almost made one think of Turkey as the social Antipodes. In England so many women are now doing men’s work, in addition to their own. Here we see men working for both sexes. I have no doubt the sweet little lady had “prepared” everything in advance, but when we arrived, she felt it becoming to disappear! It was our host, again, whom I had surprised in the midst of his ministrations for a most excellent lunch!
The afternoon was spent in driving about the pillaged city, visiting our host’s carpet-factory and a number of weaving-looms in private houses. It is a privilege, indeed, to see all these treasures of beauty shaping before one’s eyes. It must, I think, be a great relief for the “tired in mind” to “get busy” about mechanical work. One’s fingers soon turn into machines, weaving the wool in and out of the frame, cutting the pile, the whole process of creating those wonderful Eastern “floorings” we all admire. The making of even “high art” goods must rest the nerves, like the “perpetual motion” of my Scotch mother’s knitting needles!
In the distance the cemetery looked like a large field, glaring with poppies and cornflowers that it was puzzling to find so late in this cold climate. As we approached, however, the picturesque scene proved to come from dyed wool left to dry on the tombstones, which were, themselves, of a turban-like shape.
In the market we were astonished to find how quickly trade had recovered, almost to pre-war activity, since my last visit. Somehow they have discovered tools and wood to patch up booths for the old business.
I told my companions I “hoped the people would soon be given material to rebuild the whole town, that Europe would send money in admiring recognition of their ‘already proven’ ability to help themselves.”
It seemed almost a “confessional” for me, as the officers and municipal authorities, the deputies and the hodjas, plied me with question after question, because they knew I would tell them all I could, and speak the truth!
They brought me photographs—of cities in ruins, of mutilated and disfigured human beings!—unfortunately too primitive for reproduction, but no less invaluable as documentary evidence, almost too ghastly for man to “look on and live”!
We drove also to the aviation ground and were shown what the officer in charge had contrived to make of the cannon left by Greeks. Though everything was systematically hacked to pieces, it had been all “put together again” by the Turks with astonishing patience and perseverance.
Naturally proud of his work, and delighted to tell us how it had all been managed, the officer, fortunately, quite forgot I was English. He was telling us that he found a few French 75’s, but that most of the guns were howitzers. Suddenly realising the need for caution, or rather courtesy, he burst out: “Cannon, Lloyd George,” and won from us all the most grateful and laughing applause.
I was further especially pleased with his outspoken pride in the Turkish women aviators, of whom his own wife had been one. All honour to them—from that Jeanne d’Arc of Turkey, Halidé Hanoum, to every woman who had unloaded munitions from the boats and “done her bit” in the factories!
He told us how women had watched for ships bringing munitions as for angels of deliverance. How they toiled at the unloading and bore their burdens with uncomplaining zeal. No man must lift a finger for work that could possibly be undertaken by women. As M. Kemal Pasha says: “The women have done their part in saving the country, they must have their share in governing it.”
It has always been supposed that France supplied most of these munitions. But the Turks paid us £5,000 sterling (at the present rate of exchange) for a load of their own munitions that we had “picked up,” and they bought arms from the English officers in Constantinople. Further supplies, of course, were obtained from Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and, incredible as it may seem, from the Greeks themselves. Turkey bought arms wherever she could, and set herself the grim task of readjustment.
Meanwhile, the Governor had been telegraphing for us in all directions all day, for news of a train to take us on our way. All the services, of course, were disorganised, and the line cut—a message from Smyrna to Kassaba might take twelve days! We would not worry, or hope!
At about 9.30, we hear of another luggage train! It is not a long journey from Ouchak to Afioun-Karahissar. We are now well supplied with food and candles, a dilapidated deck-chair has been dug out for me, and the cheik’s brilliant conversation will “make history” of the night.
I had managed to have a few words with our host’s wife before we left the house. Her husband translating, she thanked me again and again for my visit, and then, asking me to excuse her going to see an ailing brother, she sailed away with her little babe in her arms. As she turned smiling on us from the big gateway, I could not resist blowing a kiss to the child-like and pathetic figure she made—for all the world like a schoolgirl and her doll!
Towards evening, as we were preparing to leave our host, I caught sight of a few tears rolling down his cheeks. Like an Englishman, he quickly brushed them aside, and turned to me with a smile.
What had I said, or done? We had been skating on thin ice all the time. I would never deliberately hurt anyone’s feelings, but I cannot resist a joke, and, in a foreign language, there is danger of misunderstanding.
I found a chance of asking the cheik to tell me frankly if I had unwittingly given any offence, for which I would be only too eager to tender my sincere regret and apology. But he explained: Our host’s brother-in-law had died during the night, and, not wishing to disturb our entertainment, his wife had bravely set out alone to attend the funeral.
So even the most intimate domestic sorrow was not permitted to interrupt our enjoyment; the intrusion, as it must be felt, of an unknown woman from an enemy land!
I have never met, even in Turkey, such a fine spirit of hospitality. My tears could not be kept back. Here was a mere lad heaping coals of fire on my head. Again and again the words sternly echoed in my brain: “These things should never have been.”