We had a better breakfast, and being allowed to see the now isolated patients, I went among the men's quarters and found them in a shocking state. About thirty had died there. They had money which had been given them by the Red Cross people at Aleppo. In the course of the day the German colonel turned up and walked into Fauad in true Prussian style, the result being that carts were provided for us—four to a cart, with kit, and, happy to the point of shouting, we clambered into them. Two officers having to walk an inquiry was made as to who had taken a cart for two only instead of for four. Although they were asked they admitted nothing until a tally of each cart being taken it was found that two officers had bagged one cart to themselves so that they could lie stretched out. This meant others walking. Without carts we must have left half our number behind.
The Turkish method of driving a cart is to gallop 200 yards and then crawl. At 2 a.m. we stopped three-quarters of the way up and, without unpacking our valises, slept on the ground. Before dawn we were away again, and every one had to walk except those crippled with sprained ankles and so on. I found it a most dreadful climb in my condition. I was trembling through weakness, and the well-belaboured mules went at a very fast walk up the steep gradient, so that I had to hustle to keep up. Deep ravines fell away from the road, but the hills were not high enough to grow the mountain fir. Other scrub and dwarf pines grew thickly. We walked for two and a half hours, the perspiration dripping from our clothes. I was in acute pain for some of the time with ravages of old complaints. There were plenty of clear, running streams from springs, and at each of these we soused our hands and heads in the cool water. We walked up the steep inclines. Near the top the wretched drivers galloped away to prevent our getting in, but I caught a belated one after going a mile farther, while some still toddled away astern. The driver tried to turn me out, but his mules required most of his attention, so I stayed up.
The whole trip was to be about twenty-four miles. These mountains were being pierced by tunnels, as yet only recently begun from the western slope, a switchback ride being nothing to it. Without brakes of any kind, but only trusting to the collars and pole chain of the mules, the drivers, with loud shouts, galloped their animals down; now and again a wheel going over the edge of the ravine or the pole fetching up in the cutting, or in the back of some fellow sitting in the rear of the cart ahead. The carts were the usual four-wheeled, groggy thing we had got used to. Several times our cart got away, we tipping another cart over into a hole, and on another occasion we raced to pass another at awful speed before reaching a narrow corner. We did it by inches, but hit the corner, the second cart getting its pole into the kit I sat on, and hoisting me feet uppermost into the air. One collision happened, injuring a mule, smashing a cart, and just missing Colonel Cummings, who said things in English to all whom it might concern. As it was, his servant was sent flying over the khud.
We arrived at the village of Hassan Beyli at 8.30 a.m. It nestled in a pretty little wooded valley among orchards clustering on the adjoining slopes. As we passed through the main street I noticed that all the houses were closed with shutters. We learned that their Armenian tenants had been butchered à la Turque. We waited in the sun, and were moved here and there, each time dragging our kits with us. I was waiting beside mine in a stony field when suddenly I felt extremely dizzy and faint with a feeling of nausea. I had to abandon my kit, and I plodded over to some shelter, where I lay down, and a cold perspiration broke out all over my body, and I experienced the pains and vomitings of the enteritis attack in Kut. At this moment the English padre appeared, and suggested that to think one's self well is to be well. Here I said something distressing, so he said. I am sure he meant well. I had not felt so wretchedly sick since Kut fell, and the doctor told me that evening that the chlorodyne I had taken possibly prevented a collapse. We were on the verge of cholera. In the evening after a sleep I gathered some sticks and carried a little water, while the padre was meditating. Then while our orderly made the stew and coffee I strolled away to the stream and bathed. I dallied there quite a long time.
In the half light we had "dinner." The padre returned from his soliloquy in a most obviously exemplary and virtuous mood. Oh, to be able to accumulate virtue on such an occasion like a shilling gas meter, and without warning, turn it on, even if an hour after it has all gone. I suggest taps affixed to the person with little black letters on ivory thereon to the effect: "HUMILITY," "BALM," "PRECEPT," "PATIENCE," "MARTYRDOM," "ADVICE—On—Off." Hummerbug annotated him. I encouraged both. I liked it.
We slept that night until about 1 a.m., and in the darkness loaded up the carts and pushed off. All had to walk in turn to give the orderly a lift also. We drove through a pleasing country of green foothills covered by wandering pine and beech. In taking short cuts from road to road to catch up to the carts as we walked, we came across many Armenian homes smashed in and corpses half-covered with soil or flung down a hollow, where the Turk had passed. About six o'clock we met a great crowd of Armenian and Greek peasants, with old men and old grey-haired women and children carrying small bundles or articles of cooking, all herded together en route for somewhere. They were guarded by askars (soldiers). In this way they are moved from place to place, their number dwindling until all have gone. At a tiny coffee-place here we had coffee and lebon and then walked the remaining miles into Marmourie as the carts had been ordered not to wait for us. It was a long and hurried walk.
The country here looked quite pleasing to the eye. Fine terraces, fringing woods that lined the slopes of moderate hills and overlooking green valleys and splashing water-falls, seemed to ask for a hydro and golf links. We reached Marmourie about 8 o'clock, passing some Turkish soldiers en route over the Taurus, as also small ammunition transport. Every bit of their ammunition for Mesopotamia has, it seems, to go over these hills, as the other road, via Diabecca, is crossed and occupied by the Russian troops. Near the top of the Taurus we passed fittings for an aeroplane in huge cases that had come all the way from Germany. These were for service in Palestine obviously. Through some difference among the Turkish officers we were not allowed to sit in the shade at Marmourie while we awaited our train, but were made to sit along a dirty wall in the fierce sun for hours like so many convicts. We waited there in the sweltering heat, date the 8th July, from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m., drinking lebon every half-hour, which we got from a shop near by.
The train accommodation was small carriages, and the trucks were reserved for luggage. Only the orderlies were allowed in them, so we sat packed upright, and couldn't sleep a wink. The stations along this line were larger and busier than those east of the Taurus. Only once since getting into the train at Ras-el-Ain had Fauad Bey, our Turkish Commandant, helped us in the way of food. On that occasion he issued a ration of bread to every one. Here we persuaded him to send a wire to Adana to have lunch ready for us, Adana being a large town near Taurus. When we arrived at Adana at 4.30 there was great excitement on the thronged platform. Gorgeously-attired police and other petty officials buzzed about. It appeared that some Turkish officer was passing through. We jumped off and ran along on the edge of the platform, when we were told we were too wild and unkempt-looking to be seen by the high Turkish official. "Damn the high Turkish official," said we, "we want yesterday's lunch." Yes! the lunch was there all ready, but they couldn't allow us in! Moreover, we were not allowed to fill our bottles. If we had been fit I verily believe we would have taken our lunch. I was hauled back. But, getting through my train on the other side and the cordon of Turks, I got inside the enclosure unperceived, filled the bottles, brought a loaf of bread, and caught our train as it left. No! escape was useless that way. Soldiers thronged around every station. We went on our doleful way until 9 p.m., when we were pulled up short by a German coffee-shop, to which we were not permitted to go. This was Gulek bei Tarsus of St. Paul's memory.
After hauling our kits some distance we were pushed into a square tent. We fell down and slept at once. It was an awful jamb. My head was half outside the tent, and people kept walking over it as if it were a cushion. Now I don't mind sleeping in the horse lines a bit. But then horses are so sensible. They know a head when they see it. People were going in and out of the tent all night long, but I'm glad to say I got a fair amount of sleep. One or two unfortunate fellows had fever. Before the dawn I was up, and went among the thick settlement of huts to the stream, which I was threatened by the Turk sentry not to cross, but I walked over before the Turk could say anything, and started talking to some Germans there. Even to talk to a German is a passport in this benighted land, so thoroughly do they override their allies. I had a splendid dip, while others looked enviously at me from the other side. Recrossing I made the acquaintance of a spectacled German doing Y.M.C.A. work among his own troops here. He was a Biblical research student, and journeyed frequently to Tarsus, some twelve miles off. This was called Gulek bei Tarsus. Tarsus one could see in the distance. I thought of St. Paul and Cleopatra, and hoped Tarsus had more trees about it than this sandy plain, for their sakes. The German seemed a very decent sort. We discussed Berlin. He had been a visitor there once from Southern Germany. He asked if we were short of money. When we started in motor-lorries some hours later at 10 a.m. he came to my lorry and flung in a bag of several liras from Red Cross Funds. This came to about half a lira a piece. We thanked him sincerely, and he wished us good luck.
He had told me in the morning to come to his quarters, but I had no opportunity. Cholera was raging there, and the Germans had a pumping water-distillery, from which I got some extra water. I learned later that many of our troops were working at a tunnel on the slope of the Anti-Taurus mountain here, and were dying like sheep. We saw nothing of them, nor were we allowed to inquire.