Nothing happened for days. No reply or answering signal from Doust was forthcoming. We waited anxiously. About four days before Christmas, Fauad told me quietly after our evening meal (we were eating with the commandant and his staff, raw fish chiefly and soup beans) that he had posted the letter instead of delivering it. The censor had come to him secretly that night and for £1000 would keep quiet!! I tried to take this as coolly as possible, and announced as quietly that he would be hung at any rate for carrying the letter. This was to see if he was blackmailing. When we got back to my room we had a general council with the colonel and Gardiner, a captain of the Norfolk Regiment, whom I allowed to come with us. The colonel advised not taking him as he was not much used to the East, and he couldn't talk any language but his own. But I promised to let him come as he wanted to see his wife, and he was quite enthusiastic. It was a pleasure to me to see how keen he was and I admired him much for this. However, they both thought I should see the censor, and prevent him going to the commandant. I felt more and more strongly as I thought it over, that there was something unsatisfactory about the thing. The censor would not commit himself to Fauad and us. Moreover, would Fauad post it? He was an Armenian and the Turks were against him. My friends insisted. I persisted.
For one thing I could not understand a Government censor, in a place so full of intrigues as Stamboul, playing with a noose to such an extent. But if Fauad was acting he did it well. A post-office official did visit him every day or so, but in spite of all, I could not get over the fact that Fauad had been quite cool when I had sprung it on him, that if the censor had seen it he, Fauad, would be hung. If the censor had seen it Fauad should have shivered. In the meantime I told Fauad we would pay a good sum, but not £1000, and pretending to be very frightened, showed him that we must be allowed to go to town often to get money. We would have paid a good deal even on the chance of the story being true, and intended doing so. However, I watched him carefully, and the more importunate he got, the more leave we obtained to town, where, needless to say, I strained every nerve to further and hasten our escape. We told Fauad we couldn't pay before a week, and hurried on our arrangements to get off before then. I grew more certain, day after day, that it was merely a scheme for getting money. He seemed to grow more anxious daily lest we should escape, but more, I believe, for fear he should lose the money than anything else. He tried to stop us from going to a certain bath where I had arranged a last rendezvous with Doust and Castell. At the last moment, through the innocence of some newly arrived subalterns, we nearly missed them. They wanted to go elsewhere as the bath was full—but I was undressed and through the door before they could get me back, and there I saw Doust and Castell. Fauad spied on me and followed me to the bath. I introduced him to Doust as an Armenian who would lend us the money in a few days, and thus I told a good deal of my story to Doust and Castell with Fauad not suspecting, and in fact being quite overjoyed about his money. A few moments alone when we got outside the bathroom, and our plans were ready. Fauad became rather suspicious, but I risked all.
When we got back I was greatly surprised to see a posta on the stairs and doors. The commandant knew nothing of this, but afterwards it appeared that Fauad had probably invented something vague about hearing us talking escaping, just to safeguard himself in case we went, and without divulging about the letter. This was a serious block. The stairs' posta had been taken off, and was now on again.
I had within three days to re-establish an entente with the commandant. We got ready. Our clothes we stuffed with cheese, oxo, cigarettes, and chiefly nuts and raisins. I wore my uniform under my mufti kit, as in certain quarters I wanted to pass as an interned civilian, in others as a German. I also had a fez.
By this time our plans for escape from the building were ready. The door could be opened noiselessly and on more than one occasion I got Colonel Newcombe to hold the rope while I went down to reconnoitre. I remember the exquisite feeling of being on the road outside the guard. I lay in hiding the opposite side of the wall and watched processions of people passing, the movement and change of sentries, and explored the street corners near by to see which were guarded. It was quite difficult to get back by the rope up the wall without knocking down old bricks or tiles. Doust failed me time and again on these occasions, partly through uncertainty whether to take a risk or not. As the day grew near we felt more and more our difficulty of communication. As I have said, I believe I was the first to have really a plan of escape in Kastamuni, and I can safely say that in no case of escape within my knowledge, was communication so very difficult. We had to have alternate plans.
Thus a tremendous storm burst at the entrance of the Bosphorus from the Black Sea and altered all the police arrangements. German reliefs changed the guard at the walls. I saw that the difficulty was to find an occasion when the auspices would be favourable both for getting out of my prison and getting away from Stamboul. On this account Doust promised to get me a secure place of hiding, in fact assured us both that in hulks lying in the harbour, or in quarters of Stamboul, it would be very easy and without risk to any one.
This latter consideration was my only deterrent from changing a life of wretched misery and oppression for comfort and rest, that the consequences for the unfortunate discovered sheltering us would be more than one could reasonably allow. Moreover I steadily avoided, so far as escape went, any assistance from women, let alone the kind and dear souls of the English fraternity who were in Stamboul. I considered it a selfish measure and one that no man has any right to accept from a woman unless she is professionally in the secret service. For a woman to risk the penalties of discovery in Stamboul might be a terrible ordeal. I had asked only to be shown an empty place, e.g. possible for a stowaway, and I would retrieve my own food.
In the meantime we had heard from Doust that he had suddenly decided to get married and would send, instead, a youth of about twenty, called Castell, more or less an English Levantine who could travel as a Turk or Greek, had a passport, and knew the country from Panderma to the coast. The plan had now been altered to the Dardanelles, failing which we were to make for Panderma and overland to Aivalik on the coast, thence to Mytelene.
The wind had been steadily east for days. No other craft was available except the sailer. But by leaving here, say Thursday night, and getting past the shipping zone by dawn and making the Dardanelles entrance late that (Friday) night, we should run the gauntlet through the narrow neck of Gallipoli past the unwary watchmen and lightship, and what with our capellas (Turkish officers' fezes) and a good German appearance of one of us, with a current of six knots plus the wind behind us, we thought it good enough. An hour or two later and we should be at Imbros, and pictured ourselves coming gaily along on a flood tide heading straight for our gunboats, probably attracting the fire of both our guns and the Turks'. Doust had verified that there were not very many surface mines, most, the nearest, being two feet deep. We drew about eighteen inches. Altogether it looked a most sporting chance and I can say that we enjoyed preparing our plans as much as schoolboys. The navigation was to be left to Colonel Newcombe, who made a quadrant, and to my excellent radium prismatic compass which I had retained from the retreat. Failing our reaching the Dardanelles in time, from stress of weather or other cause, we intended making for a point past Panderma, which we hoped to reach by next evening and from there march to the coast.