Mudros, Nov. 20th, 1918.—Two days ago we lunched again with the Commandant of the Base on board the Europa. The commander of the Sikh, one of the fastest T.B.D.'s in the fleet, was there also. He left Portsmouth the evening of the armistice and declared how England had gone quite mad on armistice night. It was wonderful to meet some one so fresh from home. He had now been to the fleet and returned. The entry had been magnificent. In battle line ahead it had passed through the Dardanelles, sweepers in front, without mishap through the mine-fields, although two or three sweepers had been blown up previously in sweeping and the survivors of the crew of one had just before reached Mudros. The fleet passed on to Stamboul in a solemn procession of battleships, cruisers, and light craft in line ahead reaching 16-1/8 miles. First came the British, then the French, the Italian, and Greek. The Greeks had most tactlessly hoisted huge flags but were promptly dealt with. Then a detachment went to the Bosphorus while the main fleet went to their prepared anchorage at Ismid some miles off. They are now preparing to enter the Black Sea.
I equipped Satvet with a few local luxuries and he went on board a steam yacht. At the last moment, however, owing to mines breaking away, he could not sail, and lay in harbour when Heathcote-Smith came from Mytilene en route for Stamboul to assist the Commander-in-Chief. By this time it was beginning to be realized in Stamboul what were the difficulties, and Heathcote-Smith was glad to find out all he could about partisans there, and how few people were sincere. The first Press reports were certainly misleading. Fitzmaurice, whose name was more than a terror to the Turks, ought to have been sent back at once. He had been First Secretary to the Embassy preceding hostilities, and knew a good deal of Turkish under-currents. On our entry, there was too much disposition to listen to Turks on the spot instead of sorting them out. Turkish exchange, so far from falling, is rising, and although we have landed a heavy force at the Dardanelles, the Turks seem all out for a "try-on." Heathcote-Smith left that night, but Satvet's small yacht was still weather-bound. I have definitely taken over his mission and said "Good-bye" to him.
RETURN—On the 23rd I boarded H.M.S. Rowan, an armed charge-layer captained by the ex-chief officer of the Mauretania. We were weather-bound for two days further. Then the weather suddenly cleared, although the seas were still heavy. We arrived at Malta, where I had to report to General Temple, Director Intelligence Mediterranean Naval Squadron. He gave me a through pass to press on urgently to Rome and Paris, then on to the Admiralty and Foreign Office with a letter saying I was carrying urgent despatches and required urgent passage. I took some despatches for him also. I dined that night with an officer of the Intelligence Department named Latouche, who afterwards played the piano to me in his rooms above the moonlight waters of Valetta, dotted with lights of warships. Then we saw part of La Traviata, made a final report to General Temple, and I slept in the Orontes with my despatches from Mudros and Malta, besides all Satvet's affair. A number of kind invitations reached me but I regretted I had no time to stay. One was from an old friend of Newcombe's who wanted news. I wrote to the colonel, who had evidently abandoned his mission at Mudros and gone to Egypt. I was extremely lucky in getting my passage at once, as the gunboat to have taken us had to go elsewhere. We left at dawn. It was a stormy passage. We arrived at Taranto across the barrage on the 30th, where an exceedingly kind letter and telegram from Lord Islington awaited me, congratulating me on being free and hoping to see me in a few days. At Taranto I found heavy blockage of officials, troops, and ex-prisoners of war, arriving from all quarters, all held up here in camps. Some had been here weeks.
I went on board H.M.S. Queen, where Admiral Hannay, having considered my papers, told me that he with his Staff was leaving that night for Rome direct and Paris. He offered to make room for me. We left that night about eight o'clock. A great crowd of naval and military people, both British and Italian, came to say good-bye to the admiral. I was fortunate to secure half the compartment of the King's Naval Messenger, who proved a most useful companion. His frequent journeys had acquainted him with all the stopping places and cafés. That night Admiral Hannay and several of his officers came into our coupé. We made a most excellent meal from various baskets and bottles, and they asked me an account of my travels in Turkey. I found it impossible to talk of any but the humorous side of it all, the serious history of these long, shadowy years being like night-mists over tideless marshes, silent, lifeless and secret. The admiral laughed gaily at the idea of generals getting C.B. (confined to barracks), and said I had had a most unique experience. We had quite a night of it. At dawn we were running through that delightful country of Southern Italy, of pleasant semi-wooded plains, dotted every now and then with abrupt little hills on the top of each of which stands a village crowned by an ancient castle, walled and steepled. The sight of these hilltop villages, familiar to every traveller in Italy, catching the rays of the morning sun I thought most wonderful. We ran past them for hours, dazzling like bright coins on a green carpet.
About 10 a.m. we arrived at Rome. The hotel accommodation was overcrowded. I had a bath and meal at the Continental Hotel near the station, for which I paid the best part of a sovereign. Then I visited the Excelsior Hotel with my papers, and later went to the British Embassy with some papers for Commander de Grey of the English Mission there. He had just left for England, but I enjoyed a most pleasant hour or so there in conversation with some English ladies from the mission. Rome was delightful. I drove and drove and drove to feel myself free once again. I had tea at an extraordinary little cake-shop, where pretty women like butterflies came and went. I smoked from my cab in the gardens. In the early moonlight I drove past the Coliseum, but quickly. It stood for history. I didn't want history just then. In a freakish moment I visited the Forum again. That was history to be sure. But more so it was philosophy. It invited one to peer into the Future. This spot that once ruled the world. This world now at sixes and sevens, that owned no dominion....
So far as Rome went, I quickly noticed a Bolshevist element in the Press, in the street, at the station. The nation was strung up and some were getting out of hand. In one quarter a fire appeared to be proceeding and some people obstructing the firemen, although I didn't verify what was the real cause of the violent rioting in so prominent a street.
I was now beginning to shake off the coma that had undoubtedly settled upon me. Of one thing I am sure. Rip van Winkle, after his twenty years of sleep, felt much less strange than I after my two and a half years.
The station porters were all on strike, so Major Molson and I wheeled our barrows ourselves. He also was an old Emmanuel man and going home to stand for Parliament. We travelled together on the same train as the admiral's suite. At Genoa and Turin we got in touch with soldiers returning from other fronts. The latter place was feet deep in snow, and icicles hung from the verandahs. At Modan we had to change, and in the restaurant I found myself sitting opposite a face I knew well, and was very troubled at not knowing who it was. I had forgotten much. It was a Major Murray, from one of the batteries at Hyderabad, who had been with me before leaving India. I learned from him that a good many of my friends were casualties, the survivors all over the world, and that few had counted me as alive. He had been badly knocked about by a shell himself.
We arrived at Paris in early morning and again wheeled our kit. I learned here that General Cox, to whom also I was to report, had been accidentally drowned just before. He was one of the most brilliant Intelligence Officers of the Entente, and every one was deploring his loss. He had been a close friend of Colonel Newcombe, and apart from my intelligence duties, I had looked forward to giving him an account of the colonel, who had asked me to do so the first moment possible. This was only the prelude to many rude shocks I was to get. One might say that for me the casualties had happened in one night, for I heard news now for the first time of casualties that had happened in early 1915, and casualties had been going on ever since. The first thing I saw in Le Temps was that Rostand, the great French writer, had died. Like Cyrano, he had left, so he said, to carry word of victory to the great French dead.