Meanwhile Newcombe's plan to escape to Stamboul was difficult owing to the extra posta in the garden. This was due to the Consular affair. He disguised himself as an Arab, and, except that he walked as if in Regent Street, did not make a bad one. The plans he left largely to me. On my suggestion he kept to his bed for some days beforehand on pretence of being ill. Then, on the night, I rushed down to one posta and sent him off with a letter to the commandant. The other was suspicious, but after some scene I managed to cajole this fellow, Abdul Khadir by name, whom we all detested, and made my peace with him. Sincere acting was necessary as we heard the cracks of a tile, and I knew Newcombe would be caught if Abdul went another yard. I shook him by both hands and prevented him from going, telling him that now I had forgiven him. This was true. The man was a sneak in many ways and I took delight in thinking how I was enabling Newcombe to get away even as we spoke, and that it was this posta of all who should be on guard. Then Greenwood and I decoyed with several drinks of mastik, the curious people, including a colonel, who wanted to see Newcombe. I lay in Colonel Newcombe's bed at night. The next day I told the old Turkish officer in charge of the place that Newcombe did not want to see any one, which was probably true. (He was by this time well on his way to Stamboul.) I then got into his bed knowing the Turk, being suspicious, would come. Greenwood made me look like Newcombe's figure. Meals, half-eaten, lay by the bedside. I had eaten them so as not to let even the orderlies know. I heard the door open and the Turk peep in. A few groans sent him out again.
The next night we had much to do with keeping abreast of the general curiosity. But it was essential to give him a good start. Then, the following morning, I took in to Colonel Lethbridge, our C.O., a letter of explanation that Colonel Newcombe had left with me for the purpose.
Of all people it was I who was delegated to tell the Turk. In as many words I merely said the Colonel had fled. The old Turk screamed with rage and terror, seized his sword, put on his fez and jacket, and, forgetting his trousers, rushed outside screaming to his postas and looking under every bush.
This continued at intervals all day. We all were locked up, but this only lasted a day or two. A few days later I got permission to go to Haida Pasha Hospital in Constantinople, and heard privately that Newcombe had arrived in Stamboul, and was in hiding through the assistance of his lady friend. Meeting General Delamain on the football ground, I said that I believed this was my Heimkehr, or in other words, that in any case hostilities were near an end. He thought so too. I listened to him on the military situation in France and Bulgaria and we discussed the emergence of new political formations in Europe, the new distribution of the balance of power necessitated by the hiatus of Russia, of the Balkans, possibly of Austria.
We talked of the tendency of small movements to merge into large, of the awakening of similar thought in all men, of chaos revolving around chaos that could not become cosmos before the centre of political gravity were ascertained, and equilibrium adjusted once more. Looking back on captivity one felt that the change in one had become spiritual even more than physical. The pattern of destiny stood out very plainly for us all.
We said "Good-bye," and that night my brother officers gave me an awfully good send off, and Colonel Broke-Smith produced an extra bottle of mastik. I had a long talk with our senior officer, Colonel Lethbridge of the Oxfords, whose quiet, restful attitude was still undisturbed. I left before the dawn in an arabana, some of my friends coming to the wagon. I felt certain this was the last occasion of my departing from Brusa.
Except for one old Jew and a very pretty daughter on board the boat, the voyage was without incident. She sat by me, and after waiting an hour I managed to put a letter into her pocket when the posta turned away. She was to deliver it to Colonel Newcombe. Much depended on this.
We arrived at Galata Bridge, and this time, different from the last, excited crowds were reading news of the victorious arms of the Entente. Le Journal d'Orient spoke out plainly and bitterly against Germany, and was for a separate peace at once. Everything had changed.
I was hustled to Haida Pasha Hospital and went through the same performance as of old, having my clothes taken from me with all my kit and food I had brought with me, and spending the first night in a bathroom. The noise was maddening and I could not sleep.
The whole hospital talked of one, Jones, an officer of the Volunteer Battery whose guns I had brought back from the front line in Kut, at night, on a momentous occasion. I had heard before that he had pretended he was mad so enthusiastically, that he had gone mad in fact. He was now here hating Englishmen hard, and in fact it was dangerous for him to meet them. Most of the Turks said he was mad. I woke after a troubled sleep to the startling announcement by a Turk, from an adjoining bed, that during my sleep Jones had been standing over me silently for a long time. The repetition of this got on my nerves. He wouldn't sleep in the same room with an Englishman, so I moved to a large ward, where I was quite alone.