The Turk cannot understand how a man by shutting himself in an office and writing on pieces of paper can cause all the trains to run to time and armies to be equipped or fed. It is beyond his intelligence, and he can but wonder. The English, French, Germans, and Americans not only have these wonderful powers, but in a scrap they fight like the devil. In the Greek and the Armenian the Turk recognizes this same power of organization, at closer quarters this time, for the Greek and Armenian rob and out-manœuvre him in his own bazaar. This is intolerable to him, for he knows he is a better man than they are in a fight. If he meets them in the open with a sword instead of a pen they will go on their knees to him and squeal for mercy. This strikes me as pretty reasonable from a Turkish point of view. The Turks' commercial methods are rather crude: "Let some one else make money, then murder him and take it." If we stop them from murdering Armenians, the Turks will starve.
On arriving at Constantinople we crossed to the European side. Our escort, as I might have expected, then spent several hours, to my intense annoyance, wandering about the streets, not having the faintest idea of where to go or what to do. At length, after many weary waits, and after an interview with Enver's chief executioner and torturer, who looked a real devil, I parted company with my escort (I think the relief was mutual) and found myself in the great military prison. I was put into a room with two flying men from the Mesopotamia front and an Italian count, who expected to be hanged every day for spying, but was most cheerful nevertheless. The room was about 9 feet square, but as it had four beds in it, there was not much room to walk about. However, as far as I am concerned, I have no complaint to make of my treatment at Constantinople. It was a blessed relief to be left in peace after that train journey, and we were quite decently fed. The Dutch embassy sent me in clean clothes and bedding, for which may they ever be blessed! Also I had a Turkish bath in the town, and by burning my old clothes got rid of the lice. But if we, considering that we were prisoners-of-war, were tolerably comfortable in that place, there were many poor devils who were not. Every day we were allowed an hour's exercise in the prison yard, a not unpleasant sunny place where there was ample room for walking exercise. From here there was a perfectly gorgeous view of Pera and the Golden Horn. Our room was on the second floor, and, as we passed through the lower portions to reach the yard, starving, ragged, lice-covered wretches yammered at us from behind bars. Turkish military criminals, we believed they were. Poor devils! A friend of mine, an officer and usually a truthful man, who had been imprisoned in a different part of this building, swore to me that Thursday was torture day, and every Thursday he used to hear the shrieks of the victims. I believe him myself.
After a week in this prison nearly all the British prisoners were moved to Psamatia. I was very pleased to come across Lee and Austin once more. They gave an amusing account of the court of inquiry which was held at Afule after my escape. They had made the journey in comparative comfort, having come across Kemal Bey, the military governor of El Karak, who had been so good to us when we were first captured. He was once more extremely good to them, but took a gloomy view of what would happen to me if I were recaptured. Why I was not punished for my escape I have never found out for certain.
At Psamatia I found means to send a private and uncensored letter to my people. Even in these days I think it as well to draw a veil over the methods employed to this end. It was not a route by which military information could be sent. To this letter I added a note to my bankers telling them to cash my cheques drawn under my assumed name of A. J. Everard. If I had known the Turks as I know them now, I should have realized that such a precaution was unnecessary. They usually recorded our names phonetically, in Turkish characters, and to the last expressed surprise and incredulity when a prisoner stated that his name was the same as his father's name. Of course the difference between Christian names and surnames was quite beyond them, and it was useless to attempt to explain.
During the ten rather interesting days which we spent at Psamatia we visited St. Sophia and explored the old town. A small bribe enabled one to wander with the sentry almost where one would on the European side, and to buy in the bazaars a number of small things which greatly added to the comfort of our lives. At the end of that time nearly all of us were moved to camps in the interior. Half a dozen other officers and myself, after a three days' train journey, arrived once more at Afion-Kara-Hissar, which I had passed through three weeks before on the way up to Constantinople. It is here that the Smyrna line joins the Constantinople-Bagdad railway, and it was here that I remained for the next six months, till about a fortnight before the Armistice.
Others have already written of the life in prison camps in Turkey, and I shall not attempt any description. We lived in houses which once had belonged to Armenians. The Armenians had been "removed"—in nine cases out of ten a Turkish euphemism for murdered. The houses were quite bare of all furniture, most of them were in an advanced state of dilapidation, and they were all very dirty and overrun with bugs.
The first thing that every prisoner must do is to buy himself tools and wood and string, and make himself a suite of furniture, and then open the first battle in an almost ceaseless warfare against the bugs. One officer of the merchant service in former days said that he was too hard an old sea dog to be worried by bugs—he would just disregard them. After a few weeks he was very weak and pale. His bed was brought out of doors, and boiling water poured into the crevices, and a vast quantity of well-fed bugs were discovered who had been draining him of blood.
We bought our food in the bazaar, and our menu was very simple and monotonous. However much I ate I never seemed to get any nourishment out of it, and all the time felt weak and ill. For money we cashed cheques at the rate of 13 lira for £10. As a lira was worth about two shillings at pre-war prices, living, in spite of its simplicity, was most expensive. To help us out, officers were given an allowance from the Dutch Embassy of 18 lira a month.
We passed our time, like all prisoners-of-war, working, reading (for there was a good library), carpentering, writing and acting plays, and towards the end, when we had matters more our own way, playing hockey or cricket.
It is hard to compare my Turkish with my German experiences as a prisoner. The whole position was so very different. It must be remembered that I only speak of a Turkish prison camp as I saw it—that is to say, during the seven months which preceded the Armistice. If we compare Afion with Clausthal, which in 1916 was one of the best camps in Germany, I think there is no doubt whatever that any man would have preferred to be a prisoner in the German camp. We had more freedom in Afion, but that was more than counterbalanced by the fact that we lived in Germany in close proximity to civilization. Our letters and parcels came regularly and quickly, and only those who have been prisoners can understand what that means. When, however, I think of Fort 9, Ingolstadt, in comparison with Afion, I find that I look back on the German prison almost with pleasure—certainly with pride—while I loathe to write or think of the Turkish camp where there were no real hardships, at any rate whilst I was there.