We continued to walk toward Stamboul, each of my arms now being held tightly. Several times I heard the guards mention Theodore, so that I was not surprised when they led me into a small café near the quay (the Maritza restaurant being then out of bounds for prisoners), where one of them stayed with me while the other fetched the Greek waiter to act as interpreter.
"First," said Theodore after he had listened to the guards' story, "you must give parole for the rest of the day."
I agreed readily enough; and over pots of beer—I only met one Mohammedan guard whose religious principles prevented him from accepting alcoholic drink in a secluded spot—the party became more amiable. The Turks' object in fetching Theodore was that he might explain to me a story which would saddle them with a minimum of blame for White's escape. If I corroborated this yarn they would agree not to mention my own misdeeds to the commandant at Psamatia. Again I accepted.
We discussed and amended the story, which in its final form was divided into four parts—(1) a train collision; (2) a shock that knocked the four of us over and separated guards from prisoners; (3) the confusion; (4) the discovery that White had disappeared, unknown to the rest of the party.
Through Theodore I now offered the guards fifty Turkish pounds if they would turn their backs and let me walk out alone. They refused regretfully, saying that to lose two prisoners in one day would be as much as their lives were worth. They reminded me of my promise, and we left the café for the dentist's surgery, where I was obliged to allow a perfectly sound tooth to be stopped.
Back at Psamatia I found all the prisoners shut up in their rooms. The Turkish commandant was raving with rage. As we entered the arched doorway he rushed from his office, and boxed the guards' ears. They bore it without a sound, comforted no doubt by the six Turkish pounds which each of them had concealed in his clothing.
We told our separate but corroborative tales, how we had been knocked over by the shock and missed White in the confusion. White was queer in the head, I explained; and it was possible that having been further unbalanced by the collision he wandered away, not knowing where he was going. The commandant, ready to clutch at anything that might save his official knuckles from a rapping, affected to take the suggestion seriously, and embodied it in his report. He affected to hope that White would recover memory and senses, and return of his own free will.
Later that evening the commandant, after telephonic communication with the Ministry of War, ordered all the British prisoners to prepare for a journey into Anatolia on the following day. With Fulton and Stone, who returned from their visit to the optician without having had a chance to escape, I conferred on how we could get clear in the short time left to us.
Fulton and Stone planned to leave the prison-house during the night, but I decided to wait until morning. They wanted to leave Constantinople for San Stefano, whereas I wanted to remain in the city; and if I escaped before dawn I should have nowhere to spend the night hours, and so lay myself open to the curiosity of gendarmes. In any case, I was uncertain whether or not my parole, given to the guards, ought to extend till midnight.
The three of us occupied the same bedroom. A small window from the adjoining lavatory opened on to a drainpipe. It was decided that Fulton should climb up this pipe to the roof, until he was firmly established on the gutter. Stone would hand him a rope and their boots, and then himself climb the drainpipe. They would crawl along a succession of roofs, keeping in the shadow, until they reached the top of a house about fifty yards distant, which overlooked a side street outside the camp sentries' range of vision. Having fastened the rope to a chimney or to some other stable object, they could let themselves down to the road when it was conveniently deserted, with the boots slung round their necks. They planned to tramp the fifteen miles to San Stefano during the night, leaving Constantinople via the gate at Yedi-kuli.