Shortly after Christmas an Armenian turned up with a violin of sorts. I had been on the look-out for one for months. He wanted a fictitious price, and it wasn't a good one but fairly loud. The strings were on the wrong pegs, and such strings surely never existed before on any violin. The bow wanted some hair restorer badly. I tuned it up and powdered the few remaining hairs well on a lump of gummy resin, probably off a pine-tree, and then, by the smoking stove of a Turkish fire, I began to play—the first time for years and years. The room was empty but every one came up from below to see what on earth had happened. I found I had forgotten everything. After a half-hour bits of Beethoven, Raff, Dvorak and Vieuxtemps came back to me, but they wanted waltzes and marches. The end of it was they persuaded me to buy the thing. I practised assiduously for two or three hours a day for weeks and then the bow began to collapse and the strings gave out.
It was now dreadfully cold in one's room, but we managed to have some cheery evenings. Banjos made of hide stretched over tins purchased at the bazaar did quite well for an accompaniment. One of our number, Lieutenant Munro, has shown a deal of skill in cabinet making, and has turned out a 'cello which is the queerest thing in the whole world, looking rather like a dough roll squeezed considerably in the middle by a small boy until its waist threatens to go altogether. But it makes a noise. My violin is improving wonderfully, and I have found some bad strings in an Armenian shop.
In other words, my violin has grown to a band composed of two violins, a 'cello, a cracked flute, a clarionet, and banjos. The Admiral plays a little, and having unearthed another fiddle has come in as second violin. Major Davis plays the violin a little, and we are going to fossick others out. Drums are under construction, and another 'cello is to follow. Remains the music. As none has ever been seen in Kastamuni probably since the town existed, nor can be obtained anywhere or is allowed through, we have to write our own. This involves composition. There was luckily a volume of Prout's Harmony that turned up at Christmas, so one or two with leisure hours are working at it hard. We have had five practices. I never could have believed I would endure such an offensive noise, let alone help to make it! "Dreaming" and "Destiny" and "The Girl on the Film" were the first things we attempted. It was a thin stream of trickling melody followed by the weirdest of side noises!
How dreadfully cold it is, and how interminably long the winter seems! Malaria and colds have pursued us. Our boots have collapsed everywhere, and the few pairs in the bazaar cost over eight liras. Here, again, we have fallen back on ourselves, and two officers started repairing in an institution called the "Snob's Shop." They are now quite good at it, and turn out really fine work. The only leather obtainable, however, is rotten local stuff.
Other prices have risen steadily. The wretched tea available is about two liras a pound, and there is little of that. Sugar is ten shillings a pound, coffee dearer than tea, meat two shillings a pound, and wood works out at about three-pence a stick. The wonder is how all these people live. Many are pinched and haggard, and funeral processions in the snow are more frequent. The Turkish contractor at the mektub has been playing the extortionate rôle, and for weeks we have threatened to strike and had meeting after meeting. The net result has been to get the Turks' backs up against us, and it seems evident enough that the military authorities are in the financial swim with the fleecers. We have almost decided to mess ourselves—the chief objection to this being that every obstacle will be put in our way and prices will go up accordingly in the bazaar.
The other day we were allowed our permitted long walk and took the direction of the pine woods, away up the long ascent. We trod in young snow a few inches deep. It was a glorious walk with the tiny bronze pines peeping through the white sheets that stretched from horizon to horizon over hill and valley. We climbed until on a patch of upland from which the sun had ousted the snow, thousands of tiny crocuses invited us to stop and listen to their premature whispers of spring. But since then winter seems to have fastened on us another clutch of unmistakable proprietorship. On our way back we stopped at our cemetery, which has gradually grown larger since we came. Last November the survivors of the unfortunate yacht Nida reached us. She had struck a mine near Alexandretta and lost half her crew. The commander had a terribly rough trip here, and the disaster seemed to have preyed upon his mind. He died in the hospital here, poor fellow. Recently we buried a gunner orderly arrived from Angora. He had belonged to the 82nd R.F.A., and came with the last batch allowed us by the authorities as the result of continuous applications. The reports they brought of the men were simply terrible. Hundreds of them seem to have perished in the cold. The sick were allowed to die without any attention whatever. A daily loaf of bread and one blanket, and often no medical care at all, had accounted for hundreds. Whole regiments are wiped out. Father Tim and the Reverend Wright, who were recently ordered to Kara Hissah for the other officers, managed to get a line back to us to the effect that the reports about the men were true. Rumours are in the air that General Townshend has gone home on parole and is arranging for us to be exchanged or go to a neutral country. One can't hope for that. We have heard in the bazaar that Kut once more is in our hands. Thank God!
May 1st.—At last the winter has gone, but it went slowly and fought a strenuous rearguard action up to quite recently. How jolly it is to have dismantled those wretched tin stoves and be able to write and read in one's room once more. Walks have been resumed, and lead us even further and further afield. Many changes have overtaken us—changes seemingly insignificant and yet to us very momentous. We started to run our own mess in February, the Turks taking away all our Turkish and Greek servants and making us rely on our own orderlies. They prove themselves more childish and more babyish every week. An inquiry was held into affairs here, and the old kaimakam was thrown out, but Sheriff Bey, the worst of all, lied his way into remaining. Our new kaimakam is a more decent fellow, speaks German, and has lived in Berlin for four years. We have had him up to dinner, and it fell to me to do all the talking to him about Berlin. He means well, and has done all he can to help us, but he is so dreadfully afraid of Sheriff Bey and his own restrictions.
The band has made great strides. I'm now first violin and leader of the "Orchestra." We have five violins, two 'cellos and a double bass, besides the drums, two clarionettes, flute, and banjo, and the Human Crochet has made commendable progress in writing out our music from bits of anything we got through the post, piano solos, and many we have had to write from memory. We perform on Saturday evenings alternately at either house. Sometimes we sound almost like a seaside band at Home!!! I long for the old Queen's Hall Concerts again. To attend even those, I would willingly forget the London Symphony or Nikisch's at the Gewandhaus in Leipsig. The band is almost the only live thing here. One pines for music. Every evening I can get (so to speak) with my violin beyond these forests and mountains. My window overlooks the town and I have quite an audience of Turkish heads listening. I am told the sound carries as far as the muezzin. These people have not heard any music in their lives, and think my crude efforts quite divine. Books arrive slowly. Swinburne has never come. But we have Shakespeare and some of Thackeray and a lot of cheap stuff.
With the advent of spring we all responded to the call and took fresh hope and formed new resolves. Amongst them I started a fortnightly paper called Smoke, the Kastamuni Punch and Tatler. In a rash moment I finally consented to the "General's" request, the General being Captain Kirkwood, our Mess-President. So far it has been a decided success. Our artist was an officer from the Lower House whose handy pen finished the cartoon and illustrated the serial and verse. The paper was not wholly given to ragging and joking, but in a serious corner we discussed aspects of Kut and the Trek and Kastamuni and the war. We also ran fictitious notes from Kara Hissa, Yozgad, Brusa (where the generals are), and "Eve" of the Tatler finally came to live in Kastamuni to cheer us up with a certain famous chaperone called "The Destroyer." The most popular article amongst our own mess was the current one called "The Oblong Table," at which we all sat—King Arthur, Sir John Happy Tight, Sir Saundontius the Good, Sir Sulphurous Blears, Sir Bedevere le Géant, Sir Leslie Bee de Canard, Sir Cliftus Smallkake, Sir Samuel Longbow, Sir Carol le Filbert, Sir Richard Oldlace, Sir Pompous Oldass, Sir Lancelot the Bard, Sir Galahad the Silent, and Sir Rufus Appletree. And we lived well up to the best traditions of the Round Table, and conversations and jests and challenges flew to and fro. But altogether it is rather a sweat, as I have to do the whole thing, and then it has to be copied out again by some one with a decent caligraphy. Great care has to be taken to keep it out of the Turks' hands.
I have also worked on a further constitutional study of the possible Society of Nations or International Body, following out constitutional developments and tendencies as revealed by the war since my pre-war work "The Place of International Law in Jurisprudence."