The next morning we were aroused at an unearthly hour, and then did not leave until quite 11.15 a.m., the intervening hours being employed by waiting in a queue to get water or being moved first this way and then that. No Turk as yet seems to know his own mind or any one else's apparently. The country around Konia is very flat and more or less bare. The Hindoo native officers remain in Konia, which should be a good spot for them, and quite healthy. Konia appears to be absolutely rebuilt and quite new. Two hours out of Konia our engine broke down. We waited four hours for another engine from Konia. I found a German doctor travelling on our train, and from him I got some colitis and cholera powders. He also was quite polite and anxious to help one. Then we passed Kala Hissar, a lonely town on the plain with a fort perched high up on a hill. Here a good many Russian, French, and British prisoners are said to be placed, but we saw nothing of any of them. We travelled all night over the plain, and it was another wretched night for sleep, as we had to take it in turns sleeping on the floor. We had by this time lost a lot of our veneer of desert sunburn, and the pallor of sickness stared out from our faces. Father Tim, our excellent Catholic padre, told me this evening that I had appeared twenty years older during the last few days. At 11, forenoon, on the 13th, we arrived at Eski Chehir, a large town on the junction of lines to Constantinople and Angora. Here, again, the want of a servant made the immediate present a tragedy of vile proportions. Thus we would get the order to move at once, no one knowing where. Everything had to be moved with you. So you gathered up water-bottle, haversack, blankets and coat, and dragged your valise over lines and other obstacles indefinitely. Then you sat on them until you had to take them back, crossing trains and piles of luggage and stores, a posta or Turkish guard at your heels with a rifle shouting, "Yallah" or "Haidee Git." We dropped Captain Booth accidentally on the way from Konia. He was asleep in a carriage which was taken off near Kala Hissar. Great excitement prevailed as to whether he would take the branch line to Smyrna and try to escape, but he turned up again later. In the meantime, Fauad Bey thrashed every Turkish official within reach.
At Eski Chehir we were allowed into an hotel restaurant place near the station and forbidden to go outside. We saw one or two Greek maidens, well on towards their prime, welcoming us with smiles, but although the first of Eve's daughters seen for a long time, one's heart did not flutter much. We were so whacked that we wanted a meal and a bed on which to sleep, sleep, sleep. So we fell to discussing what we would do at Constantinople, whither both Fauad Bey and some Germans at Konia had assured us we were being taken. The prospect of seeing this famous city and especially of seeing Europe again, and of having ambassadors and consuls to take a friendly interest in us, cheered up our tired and sad hearts. But by this time we knew the Turk well enough to doubt all things. In the meanwhile we were shut up. We had a decent meal or two at terrible prices, so we ate sparingly. Some of the senior officers had wandered too far away at Konia so Fauad said, and it was "Yesak"—forbidden. In fact, just before leaving Konia he would not allow them to recross for a final meal, but I bolted around the station over a fence, and on his seeing me I humbly pretended I wanted to ask his permission. To my surprise, he asked me if the colonel and all had returned, and on my reassuring him he took me to a restaurant and demanded meat and rolls and soup and cheese. None appearing to be ready he created such a storm in the place that the people evidently produced their own meal. Moreover, he paid and would not take any money from me; but then I have never quarrelled much with him, and he knows he is to leave us and wants a good report. I observe he is very nervous whenever I talk to a German, and asks me to talk in French if at all. French he understands a little.
At 10 p.m. the same day, as we arrived in Eski Chehir, we were again packed frightfully close into carriages, and left for where we did not know, but half expected to awake beholding the minarets of Stambul. The Mohammedan native officers had all been dropped at Eski Chehir, where from all accounts they were to be done quite well. However, after starting it proved that our destination was Angora. Our hopes fell below zero. I clambered out of the carriage and, worming my way into the luggage car, slept full length on a blanket, or almost full length. Presently, other officers filled the place up. I determined to sleep that night, and drinking half a bottle of local cognac I had luckily procured for a debt, I gave the other to the orderlies and slept. It was an uphill climb, and we went very slowly. With the dawn we met a startling rumour that some prisoners, having attempted an escape, we were all being sent on to Kastamuni, a lonely town on the edge of the hills, fringing the Black Sea, and 150 miles distant from Angora—150 miles that had to be trekked! This was just the last edge. One wondered whether the journey would ever end or whether our kind protecting gods would get tired of fathering our shattered and siege-battered systems to the terminus.
If our health had been so good as even at the beginning of the trek it would all have seemed very funny no doubt. But people's nerves were shattered and ragged and tempers raw, and our digestions quite gone.
The train climbed a gradient plain, treeless and lifeless, until 10 a.m., when we arrived at Angora, a dilapidated old town on undulating country. The station seemed the only decent building in it. We seemed to be at the end of creation. Everything was so quiet and sleepy. It is indeed a branch line and one sees no Germans or Europeans. We were hustled at once into two deep and marched half a mile to a wretched low little eating restaurant place with some sleeping rooms upstairs. Our luggage came in afterwards. Mine had been looted, I found, quite considerably, two or three times since the Aleppo change, but I don't know where. The hotel promised us a gay time, as we saw battalions of bugs skirmishing on the walls. We had marched up at a smart pace and I felt like collapsing at every step. Then we were left in the sun for hours outside the place, with the result that I was soon pouring with the perspiration of fever. Then ague succeeded. A Turk took my temperature as 102°, and left me.
Six hours afterwards I got a bed on a landing and fell into it, my temperature being over 103°.
There is no tea or coffee except the black smoky stuff. The senior officers and those first to arrive, including the padre and Hummerbug, went to another hotel somewhat better, taking the one orderly with them, so I lost the only servant who ever did a thing. No one else cared for the sick or took any notice. I had a tiny bowl of rice soup. The rest of the fatty fare I avoided. The next morning three-quarters of us had collapsed. Colitis and fever were all around, and the Turkish doctor inoculated those who were well enough to be done, for cholera, of which Angora was full. During the night a fearful itching broke out all over my body, the most maddening itching imaginable. Spots and a red flush followed. I thought I was in for scarlet fever or something. It proved to be "hives," however, and others had it at the same time in less degree. Reports from the hotel were that most of them were in bed sick also. It seemed as though we had forced ourselves on to the railways' end by will power, and then, that being over, had collapsed.
July 20th.—We are still in Angora, and are not allowed to go outside the door, while for the first day or so they objected to one's going downstairs. Sending out for supplies is also forbidden, and we are thus forced to leave ourselves to the mercy of the hotel-keeper, who, by the way he behaves, I should say is a Young Turk. Hives leaves one a mass of swellings that itch like a million chilblains, and is due, I hear, to the impoverished nature of the blood and general want of nourishment.
The time here is no rosy one, and although more comfortable than in Mosul, the trek being mostly behind us, still one's vitality is even worse.
Two days after we arrived another party that had been waylaid at Kala Hissar came along with several officers I knew, and some I didn't, Colonel Peacock amongst them. He and I and another made tea between us, and then they were moved to dingy quarters up the road, and the surplus fellows without rooms were sent also. Trembling with weakness and fever I stumbled into my clothes and found I could scarcely walk; but the Turks were demonstratively insistent, and, carrying a few things, I assisted an orderly to carry my bed and kit. We hauled it upstairs, and then another Turkish officer turned up and ordered me back as being sick. Leaving my luggage I toddled back, but that kindly-hearted cavalry giant, Captain Kirkwood, followed me with it, for which I was more grateful than I can say.