Thursday, July 29, 1915. Tenedos. Yesterday I rode over to the French aerodrome, coming late for luncheon, but had coffee with about twenty French officers, all very jolly. Promised to let me fly over the Dardanelles. I went on to the Cretans in a pinewood. Their officer, a Frenchman, very keen on a show in Asia Minor.... The elder Vassilaki has been arrested. His brother saw him go by in a trawler. Am going to Mytilene, then return after three days, and leave here on Tuesday for Anzac. No news of anything happening. Tenedos is a beautiful town in its way, surrounded by windmills, with Mount Elias in the background. Its streets are narrow, picturesque and hung with vines that make them cool and shady. At the end of the town there is a very fine old Venetian fortress, but its magnificence is outside; inside it is furnished with round stone cannon-balls, ammunition for catapults. In the last war the Greeks took the island, but one day a Turkish destroyer popped her nose in. All the Greeks fled, and the Mufti and the Moslems went and pulled the Greek flag down. Then in came a Greek destroyer, and the Turkish one departed. The Mufti and the Turks were taken off to Mudros, where he and they were beaten. He narrowly missed being killed....
Friday, July 30, 1915. Tenedos. Slept very badly again. Had a letter from the O.C. Poor Onslow killed, lying on his bed by his dugout. A good fellow and a fine soldier. Aden nearly captured. I prophesied its capture in Egypt. I shall be recalled before anything happens.
The radiant air of Tenedos gave health as it did in Homeric times, and I left with the desire that others should have the same chance as myself of using that beautiful island as a hospital; but all the pictures there were not bright. Under the windmills above the shining sea there were the motionless, dark-clad, desolate Moslem women, sitting without food or shelter. Their case, it is true, was no harder than that of the thousands of Greek refugees who had been driven from their homes, but these at any rate were living amongst kindred, while the unfortunate Moslems were without help or sympathy, except that which came from their enemies, the British.
Diary. Friday, July 30, 1915. Mytilene. I left by the Greek boat yesterday. On the boat I met a man who might be useful as an interpreter, Anibal Miscu, Entrepreneur de Travaux Publiques, black as my hat, but talks English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Bulgar, Russian and something else. The boat was stopped by our trawler, No. ——, and searched for contraband of war. The Greeks were furious. I landed at Mytilene, not having slept much and feeling bad. Avani said they had tried to bribe him to allow some raisins through, and kicked up the devil of a row. He seemed to think that the raisins were dynamite. He was left guarding the raisins, all night, I believe, with his revolver.
I was given a warm welcome by Compton Mackenzie in Mytilene. He, fortunately for me, had been sent there by G.H.Q. I found several old friends—Heathcote-Smith, the Consul, whose work it would be impertinent for me to praise, and Hadkinson, whom I had last seen at my own house in England, where he was staying with me when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been murdered. Hadkinson had passed most of his life on his property in Macedonia. Of the Eastern and Southern languages he talked Greek, Italian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Serbian and Albanian. His voice was as delightful as his knowledge of Balkan ballads was wide, and his friends made him sing the endless songs of the mountaineers. His personality had carried him through experiences that would have been disastrous to most men; battles decisive in European history had raged in front of his doors, while his house had remained untouched; brigands of most of the Balkan races had crossed his farm, rarely driving off his stock, and most of the local peasantry in their misfortunes had come to him for help, for advice, doctoring or intercession. Until the European war had crashed upon the world, Hadkinson had been a good example of the fact that minorities, even when they are a minority of one, do not always suffer.
The people of Mytilene, at that time, were very pro-English, though the officials were of the faction of King Constantine. The desire I frequently heard expressed was that Great Britain should take over Mytilene, as she did the Ionian Islands, and that when Mytilene had been put in order it should be restored to Greece.
Diary. Friday, July 30, 1915. Mytilene. —— and Hadkinson have gone out with a motor-boat and a machine-gun. The Vassilakis, or some of them, have been deported, Vassilaki to Imbros and the beautiful sisters to Mudros.... It’s a blazing, burning day.
Saturday, July 31, 1915. Mytilene. A gaming-house. Moved from my first hotel to a larger and more disreputable one. Lunched with Hadkinson and Compton Mackenzie[19].... At Thasos the Greeks have arrested our agents under the orders of Gunaris. Have worked, and am feeling better.