All this while I was in such a tense and exalted state of mind that I did not sense whether the night air was warm or cold, nor whether the ground was smooth or rough. Pain, however, was a sensation that could not be buried by abnormal mental tension. My thigh throbbed relentlessly and maddeningly as I stumbled on, taking my direction as best I could from the stars.
By now the guns were silent, and people came from their hiding-places. A small band of Bedouins approached out of the dimness. I sank to the ground until they had ridden by and were on the road.
Again I began to walk; but a few minutes later I had to halt a second time. Two Turkish soldiers, their cloth helmets outlined against a tree, passed some distance to my right, whining an unmusical chant.
I staggered forward for about another hundred yards; and then, weak and half-mad with the persistent, ever-increasing ache in my thigh, I lay down in a small hollow.
The next half hour was perhaps the most bitter period through which I have lived. I should never reach the coast with my injured leg, I realized. Yet here I was, wearing but a night-shirt and a dressing-gown, and helpless in Turkish territory, only a quarter of an hour's walk from the hospital whence I had tried to escape. I could go no farther—or very little farther; and if I remained in the hollow until morning I should inevitably be caught. And if I were caught, Heaven only knows what would happen. And I suddenly realized that it was cold, and that scores of mosquitoes were biting my face, arms, and legs. And the throb, throb, throbbing in the right leg continued.
Then the crescent moon disappeared, and the dark gray light faded into a blackness that covered the crops and countryside and, above all, myself.
I felt suicidal, and remained inert for half an hour longer. Finally, I decided that my best plan was to return to the hospital and try to reenter it unobserved.
I staggered back through the darkness, and, more by luck than judgment, hit the road. Slowly and very painfully I made my way into Tul-Keran. I passed the tents and houses without taking any precaution against being stopped and questioned; but nobody took the least notice, possibly because, in the dark, my dressing-gown would look like the robe of an Arab.
I came within sight of the hospital, and found the sentry strolling aimlessly in front of it, from the main gate to the side entrance around the corner. When he had turned the corner I slipped up the pathway to the front door, which, from past observation, I knew would not be locked. I had been absent for two hours, and already the first glimmer of an eastern dawn had lassoed the countryside.
I unlatched the door, entered the passage—and found myself face to face with the Austrian night orderly. Open-eyed with wonder he stared at my dusty and dirty dressing-gown, my muddied legs and slippers; then grabbed me by the arm, and called out: "Der Englander!"