Neither Santel nor anybody else tried again to interrogate us at Nazareth; and two days later we were told to prepare for a journey to Damascus.
C. had been discussing the chances of escaping by boat; and when Jean Willi paid me a farewell visit I asked him if a journey from Damascus to the coast would be difficult.
"Very difficult indeed under the conditions of which you are thinking." Then, after a pause, "But I will tell you something interesting, since you will probably be kept in Damascus for about a fortnight. The Armenians run secret caravans from Damascus to Akaba."
"Thank you. That's very interesting, indeed." And it was; for Akaba, at the northeastern extremity of the Red Sea, was the base of the Arab army cooperating with the British.
Jean Willi would not listen to thanks, when he said good-bye. I gave him my London address, in the sincere hope of being able to pay back in part the good deeds I owed him.
I left Nazareth under much better conditions than I entered it. Accompanied by an Arab pseudo-spy, I had arrived half crazed by weakness, pain, and disaster, with a damaged leg and a swollen face, and possessing neither hope nor a hat. I was leaving it in the company of fellow-officers, with my mind and leg and face normal again, and having not only a German hat but renewed hopes of escape, summed up in Jean Willi's hint:
"The Armenians run secret caravans from Damascus to Akaba."
CHAPTER IV
DAMASCUS—AND THE SECOND FAILURE