They next turned on my companion. Hill had made no attempt to put his clothes on again; he was sitting on the grass mournfully reading his Bible. When ordered to dress he murmured something about clothes being a mockery and a snare, and went on reading. He refused to dress and there seemed no prospect of our moving on that day.
Then Sabit raised his hands to heaven and prayed to Allah to deliver him from these two infidels, who were undoubtedly in league with the devil.
While this affecting little scene was being enacted at the roadside, a carriage passed us. It had a bagful of bread slung to the axle. The bag must have had a hole in it, because when at last we moved on, we came upon a loaf or a biscuit every few hundred yards for some distance. The sentries got out and collected them—the bread was fresh and they were much delighted. In my rôle of general manager of the universe I took all the credit.
“There,” I said. “You take our money and it rains bread.”
Bekir and Sabit, who had an uneasy belief in our magic powers, did not know what to make of it. They had not noticed the carriage.
At Angora, where we arrived on May 1st, we had to wait six days for a train. In accordance with Spook’s orders we were taken to a hotel instead of to the prisoners’ camp. Bekir and Sabit were by now in such a state of nerves that when, as occasionally happened, either of the two was left alone with us he always sat in the doorway, clinging to his rifle in a position that looked very much like “ready to run.” One day when Sabit (who was if anything the more nervous of the two), was keeping the gate in this way, I happened to require some tobacco. My tobacco jar where I kept my reserve stock was made of two eighteen-pounder cartridge cases, my sole memento of the siege of Kut. How Sabit had missed seeing it before I do not know—perhaps Bekir had searched the portion of my kit in which it lay. Sabit watched me suspiciously from the doorway as I rummaged amongst my bedding and when I drew out the shell case he jumped to his feet with a yell, grabbed it from me and stood with it clasped in both hands. He was shivering with fright and kept crying “Bomba, bomba, bomba,” over and over again in a terror-stricken voice. He looked as if he expected the “bomb” to explode at any moment, and he certainly did not know what to do with it now he had got it.
It took a long time to explain matters in my broken Turkish, but after much persuasion he very carefully opened the lid, and finding only tobacco where he expected to see high explosive, he fell a-trembling more than ever, as does a man who has just escaped some great danger. But this was the finishing touch to his nerves. He and Bekir insisted henceforward on having extra help to guard us, and fetched in King Cole (a Yozgad sentry who happened to be on leave in Angora) to help them.
Before we left Angora the Afion party arrived from Yozgad, and we were able to do one of their number—Lieut. Gallup—a good turn. During the journey we had noticed a pair of new valise straps round the Pimple’s luggage. They were made of first-class leather with good solid brass buckles, the whole finish being obviously English. Now we knew that Gallup had been expecting a pair of valise straps from home, and that the parcel which should have contained them had never turned up. We decided that these must be the missing straps, and that we would try to get them returned to their owner, so one day at Angora I began to twist my coat-button.
“Sir!” Moïse was all attention as usual.
“If you want to find this treasure you will have to learn to be honest.”