Caught by the Turks

by Francis Yeats-Brown

My pilot ran his engine to free the cylinders from the cold of night, while I stowed away in the body of the machine some necklaces of gun-cotton, some wire cutters, a rifle, Verey lights, provisions, and the specially prepared map—prepared for the eventuality of its falling into the hands of the Turks—on which nothing was traced except our intended route to the telegraph lines west and north of Baghdad. Some primers, which are the explosive charges designed to detonate the gun-cotton, I carefully stowed away in another part of the machine, and with even more care—trepidation, indeed—I put into my pockets the highly explosive pencils of fulminate of mercury, which detonate the primers which detonate the gun-cotton.

Then I climbed gingerly aboard, feeling rather highly charged with explosives and excitement.

For some time the pilot continued to run his engine and watch the revolution meter. The warmer the engine became, the colder I got, for the prelude to adventure is always a chilly business. Unlike the engine, I did not warm to my work during those waiting moments. At last, however, the pilot waved his hand to give the signal to stand clear, and we slid away on the flight that was to be our last for many a day. The exhaust gases of our engine lit the darkness behind me with a ring of fire. I looked back as we taxied down the aerodrome, and saw the mechanics melting away to their morning tea. Only one figure remained, a young pilot in a black and yellow fur coat, who had left his warm bed to wish us luck. For a moment I saw him standing there, framed in flame, looking after us regretfully. Then I saw him no more, and later they told me (but it was not true) that he had died at Ctesiphon.

We rose over the tents of our camp at Aziziah, all silver and still in the half-light, and headed for the Turkish outposts at El Kutunieh. Their bivouac fires mounted straight to heaven. It was a calm and cloudless dawn, ideal weather for the business we had been sent out to do.

At all costs, we had been told, the telegraphic communications west and north of Baghdad must be cut that day. Von der Goltz and a German battery of quick-firing guns were hasting down from Mosul to help their stricken ally, and reinforcements of the best Anatolian troops, magnificently equipped and organised by the Germans, were on their way from Gallipoli, whence they came flushed with the confidence of success.

Our attack on Ctesiphon was imminent. It was a matter of moments whether the Turkish reinforcements would arrive in time. Delay and confusion in the Turkish rear would have helped us greatly, and the moral and material advantage of cutting communications between Nur-ed-Din, the vacillating Commander-in-Chief defending Baghdad, and Von der Goltz, the veteran of victories, was obvious and unquestionable. But could we do it in an old Maurice Farman biplane?

Desperate needs need desperate measures. The attempt to take Baghdad was desperate—futile perhaps—and contrary to the advice of the great soldier who led the attack in the glorious but unsuccessful action of Ctesiphon. And so also, in a small way, ours was a desperate mission. Our machine could carry neither oil nor petrol enough for the journey, and special arrangements had to be made for carrying spare tins of lubricant and fuel. With these we were to refill at our first halt. While I was destroying the telegraph line, my pilot was to replenish the tanks of his machine. According to the map this should have been feasible, for the telegraph lines at the place we had selected for our demolition ran through a blank desert, two miles from the nearest track. That the map was wrong we did not know.

All seemed quite hopeful therefore. We had got off "according to plan," and the engine was running beautifully.

It was stimulating to see the stir of El Kutunieh as we sailed over the Turks at a thousand feet. They ran to take cover from the bombs which had so often greeted them at sunrise; but for once we sailed placidly on, having other fish to fry, and left them to the pleasures of anticipation. Far behind us a few puffs from their ridiculous apology for an anti-aircraft gun blossomed like sudden flowers and then melted in the sunlight above the world. Below, in the desert, it was still dark. Men were rubbing their eyes in El Kutunieh and cursing us.

But for us day had dawned. As we rose, there rose behind us a round cheerful sun, whose rays caught our trail and spangled it with light, and danced in my eyes as I looked back through the propeller, and lit up the celluloid floor of the nacelle as if to help me see my implements. That dawn was jubilant with hope—I felt inclined to dance. And I sang from sheer exhilaration—a sort of swan song (as I see it now) before captivity. The desert seemed barren no longer. Transmuted by the sunrise those "miles and miles of nothing at all" became a limitless expanse where all the kingdoms of the world were spread out before our eyes. Away to the east the Tigris wound like a snake among the sands; to westward, a huddle of houses and date-palms with an occasional gleam from the gold domes of Kazimain, lay the city of the Arabian Nights, where Haroun al Raschid once reigned, and where now there is hope his spirit may reign again. Baghdad nestled among its date-palms, with little wisps of cloud still shrouding its sleep, all unconscious of the great demonstration it was to give before noon to two forlorn and captive airmen. To the north lay the Great Desert with a hint of violet hills on the far horizon. To the south also lay the Great Desert, with no feature on its yellow face save the scar of some irrigation cut made in the twilight time of history.