Colonel Newcombe now went sick. His skin broke out into a fiery rash, which increased, and he felt unwell. I tried daily for three or four days to get some one to see him, but the commandant took no notice. At last one doctor came and said it was merely bug-bites. By dint of perseverance we got another Turkish doctor who ordered him to hospital, it being actually smallpox. The colonel went off very depressed at our dividing, as we had all sorts of plans on foot for an escape from Brusa. He hoped, however, to get to the hospital where his lady friends might be permitted to visit him.

D'Arici and I now got down to work. I collected a complete compendium of news about the state of Turkey, statistics of the army, shipping, transport, exchange, loans, and especially inside politics. Dissensions between party and party were increasing daily, and now that the offensive, wonderful as it had been, was held up, the Turks on all sides were for peace. Yet the official hold continued.

By intelligence of this nature, carefully corroborated and up to date, I hoped to be able to render some service to our authorities when, as I fully believed, we should come to enter Stamboul. As yet no Turk can believe this will happen.

The others were sent to Afion. I continued on for a week or two. D'Arici and I had made great progress with our Intelligence. I loved to listen to his adventures and travels and his light-hearted view of life, including as it had for him great danger, varying discomfort, and uncertain rewards. Yet whether on a duel or trying to raise the wind, the artist was not far beneath, and he often treated us to selections from grand opera. His voice was an excellent baritone of great purity and power.

With the other officers removed, I was now more free, and got into touch with two well-known English Levantines, Hadkinson, father and son, who were in the next room to ours. The former was a fine type of manhood, white-haired, and approaching seventy-five. They had been confined for over eighteen months as suspects in spying at Smyrna for our fleet. Young Hadkinson, the son, was much au fait, and helped me gather many facts about the course of Turkish politics during the war, and the many factions working secretly for the overthrow of Enver. We hatched all kinds of plots, and finally adopted a scheme fitting in with the old Arab's, by which a certain Turk was to be sent to Brusa to act as our messenger to and from Stamboul (it was only six hours' journey). Thus we could perfect our scheme. There are parts of these schemes and plots which it may be early to publish, but one startling proposition was for a certain powerful faction to open the Dardanelles to our fleet by a revolution among the Fort garrisons. It was amusing to think of me, a prisoner, carrying answers from and to Turkish generals at the head of many thousands of Turks in all the services, for a conspiracy to open the Dardanelles. Nor was this so unfeasible as it appeared. The army of the Dardanelles was anti-Enver. It was the Union and Progress Party alone that prevented every move. The movement wanted money, and was going to commence with a general massacre of the Turkish Cabinet. At this stage I left for Brusa again, the capital where many prominent Turks even then were in hiding!

CHAPTER XV

BRUSA AGAIN—CHANGE ON WESTERN FRONT—STAMBOUL
BEFORE THE END—POLITICAL MANŒUVRING—THE PRINCE
SUBAHEDDINE—THE UNION AND PROGRESS PARTY

Arrived I found my room next General Delamain had been pounced upon, and I took up my quarters with the other officers at a building known as the American School, in a garden high up above the town. Here some of the senior officers from other camps had arrived. They included Colonel Lethbridge, Colonel Lodge, Colonel Broke-Smith, who for a time had commanded the 10th Field Artillery Brigade in Kut. He was just the same cheery good fellow as when I had first seen him under fire, wearing a tam-o'-shanter in his bivouac at Azizie, seated alongside his slowly dwindling "peg." He grew more interesting as he got into the night, and the more interesting he grew the nearer his nose sank towards his glass resting always on the table. About 4 a.m., towards the end of his anecdotes, his nose generally peeped over the rim.