“He said the Turks either ran from the bayonet or surrendered. The prisoners said they did not want to fight, but were forced to do so by the Germans.
“The ships are in their more or less correct position in the map, the sergeant says, as he took trouble to find out from a naval chart.”
From Malta to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Aden, and from thence to Bombay. His letters mark each point of his Odyssey. And at Alexandria he is fascinated with the movement and colour; he goes on shore and visits the shops; he parts from the delightful American lady who has been the life and soul of the ship; she whose wounded son awaits her in Cairo. At Aden, the heat striking at them from the shore prevents him from landing; an unattractive torrid spot. Here they take in a young Indian Government official, who gives an interesting detail upon his destination:
“He knew Wilcox very well, the man who was going to make the barrage on the Euphrates and Tigris, and convert Mesopotamia into the richest country in the world. Wilcox said he found all the details given in the Bible about the various depths and breadths of the rivers absolutely accurate—curious after all these centuries!”
At Bombay he has a pleasant time; a brother officer having wired to relations who take him about and show him what is most worth seeing in his short stay. He puts up at the Bombay Yacht Club, “wonderful place, like fairyland, with palms and fountains and music, with cool, quiet rooms looking out over wide and lovely views.” He goes on long drives “under trees that grow for miles and miles along the sea coast, where the graceful-moving natives in their bright colours look awfully picturesque.”
He sees the famous towers of silence where, with effective, but no doubt quite unconscious, alliteration, he describes “the ghoulish vultures sitting grimly in the glorious gold mohur trees.”
His last letter says: “I start on Sunday for Bosra.”
He believes that they will remain at Bosra, and makes little of the fact that the heat is terrible there just now.
“We will live in cool underground rooms,” he says, “and be all right!”