No more was heard of this incident; but with some “big” men it would not have been allowed to end there.
I admit that a warning should have reached the captain; but Turks are proverbially careless about official details. It was just bad luck, too, that some petty officer was not the first to land, who could have borne the indignity without loss of prestige, and “arranged” matters for his chief; but if we must appoint our “best” men to such a post, someone smaller should be sent in advance to spy out the land. Friction is bound to occur between our experienced officers, statesmen, or diplomats (above all, if their sense of humour is not very keen) and the primitive Anatolians of young Turkey. We should, surely, have been well advised in this matter to follow the French way of employing “middle men” for a time.
I love the casual freedom of Turkish customs, which will suffer a train to be kept waiting for my private comfort; but the characteristic may be extremely trying on another occasion. Every virtue has its pet vice!
When I visited Turkey after the Balkan war our steamer somehow “missed” the mouth of the bay, and no one remembered the exact position of the mines! As a matter of fact, the Senegal was blown to atoms only a few days ahead, and our own escape was pure luck. There was considerable alarm on board, and I was once more filled with gratitude for my own small share of the fatalism of the Turk!
On this occasion, for my own private benefit, I could also have wished that our captain had been a “smaller” man, or one less scrupulously compact of duty. When I admitted that I had really come on board in search of a British flag, no matter how torn and tattered, he only looked at me as though I were mad.
“You don’t seem to know much about the inner workings of the navy,” was all he said.
“One does not bother about the ‘inner workings’ of anything one loves,” I answered.
So with the gravest courtesy he explained to me that a new flag could not possibly be obtained until the “tattered” one had been handed over to H.Q. Nevertheless I believe that a French, Italian, or even an American, captain would have contrived some means of acceding to my request.
As it happens, I once saw the man off his guard. He was playing the host to a beautiful Englishwoman and her French husband, his neighbours on their own yacht, and no one could have seemed more naturally genial and light-hearted, with his really delightful sense of humour. Is it necessary for a uniform to conceal all traces of humanity? Why could not the world see the man’s best side in the officer? The strictest sense of “fair play,” combined with great patience, will work even better with the Turks when added to a generous supply of smiles and wit.