Tul-Keran hospital was altogether beastly. After my head had been shaved until it looked like a door-knob, I was taken to a sheetless, dirty-blanketed bed, in an overcrowded ward that reeked of unwashed flesh. The beds were so close that one had to climb into them from the foot.
On my right was a Syrian doctor with a smashed leg; and on my left, not two feet away, was a young Turkish officer with aggravated syphilis, who groaned and complained all day long. When not in pain he read pamphlets, which had been distributed to all the patients, explaining just how England had shamefully attacked the peace-loving Turks and Germans without warning.
The two windows were both broken, and through them the scorching sun of Samaria poured all day long. Tul-Keran, being in low-lying country, is infested throughout the hot summer by legions of flies. In the hospital they settled in swarms on beds, faces, food, hands, and arms, and flew at random from one diseased patient to another. At night they gave place to hordes of mosquitoes, which pounced upon and bit every particle of a man's body left exposed. The sole relief, by day or by night, was to hide one's head under the filthy blankets; and then the closeness and the reek made one gasp for breath.
But worst of all was my intense agony of mind. As I lay in bed, I thought of my squadron going through its daily round a few miles southwest of me; of my last air fight, and whether I might not have avoided capture by adopting different tactics; of what the sinister word "missing" would convey to various people in England and France; of whether I was destined to spend months or years in captivity; and of the general beastliness of everything. Above all, I railed, uselessly and illogically, against Fate.
The Austrian Staff in the hospital offered whatever kindnesses they could, and treated me rather better than they treated the Turks. Each morning the doctor brought the Vienna Reichspost, and, after a passing glance at my distorted features (I was known as "the Englishman with the face"), stayed to chat for several minutes. He was charming and decorative, with his light blue uniform, his curled moustache, and his medals; but I never once saw him give medical attention to patients beyond ordering medicine or saying invariably that each man was progressing wonderfully well.
A good-hearted but race-proud Austrian priest often stopped by my bedside for a friendly argument. He performed several services for me, such as changing Egyptian notes almost at their full value, instead of at the ruinous rate of exchange offered by Turkish banks and traders.
He was, however, a rabid hater in one connection—he could find no words bad enough for the Czechs and other subject-races of Austria-Hungary. To him it seemed a crime that they should be discontented with the suppression of racial sentiments and institutions, and should agitate for self-expression.
"They must either be loyal to us or cease to exist," he said.
Once I mentioned inadvertently that I had met Másaryk in London and admired him; and that was the end of my friendly relations with this otherwise kind-hearted padre, who afterward was polite but distant.
One morning there came a German officer, very tall, very correct, and wearing the badge of an observer in the German Flying Corps. He clicked his heels, bowed from the waist upward, and inquired: "Hauptmann Bott?"