On one occasion a notice was suddenly put up, informing us that all lights henceforth must be put out at 9.30 p.m. It was thought advisable to do so the first night; the second night, the time was about 9.45; and after that we continued to go to bed when we pleased, and were never bothered any more about it.
Owing to the tremendously high price of kerosine, Daylight Saving soon came into force, and saved us a great deal.
The sentries, on the whole, were a very good-natured lot and would never have worried us with restrictions as far as they themselves were concerned. They were mostly old men who had served in previous wars and, until called up, were living on their own small farms. One of the best of them was "Johnnie Walker," a little man who had a most extraordinary stride and could walk any of us to a standstill. We always tried to get him when going for a long walk, knowing that from personal motives he would never stop us going a good distance. Another favourite was "Ginger," a very harmless old fellow with sandy whiskers. As one went past, he would lean over and whisper confidentially: "Ginger fennah?"—Is Ginger a bad fellow? Every now and then they went to their homes on leave and came back with a few pounds of butter or a bag of wheatmeal, which they sold to us without much difficulty.
On our arrival, the only weapons the guard possessed were ancient pinfire rifles, firing a huge lump of lead. Each man had exactly two rounds in his possession. Later on some rather younger men came, armed with captured Russian rifles.
We soon managed to hire a field for football. It was very stony and by no means level, but, nevertheless, was a great acquisition. As a rule, each group of houses used it three days a week. To start with, we only had a Soccer case and no bladder. We stuffed the case with grass and played a very modified form of Rugger, where collaring was disallowed on account of the stones, and punting and place kicking forbidden in order to preserve the life of the ball. After some weeks we got some proper footballs from Constantinople, and others came eventually from home. We played matches against the other group of houses, Regulars v. Irregulars, and every other thing we could think of. Soccer Sixes caused much excitement and a local firm of bookmakers, who came into existence for the occasion, did a large business.
We could always rely on getting out somewhere every day. During the early summer we had splendid walks two days a week over the hills in the mornings. These long walks did not suit everybody, and a gentle form of meandering had to be organized for the "slugs." On one celebrated occasion, we walked out about five miles, taking our lunch, and had a very cheery picnic, but this was never allowed again, and in July 1917 all long walks were suddenly stopped, and we were barely allowed outside the boundaries of the town.
For news of the outer world, we were dependent upon the local telegrams, which the best Turkish scholars used to translate, and also upon the "Hilal," a German-run paper, printed in Constantinople. This paper, of which we used to receive the French Edition, had been started for propaganda purposes at the beginning of the war. The news was, naturally, very one-sided, but, reading between the lines, one could tell fairly well what was the position on the Western Front. In addition, we had maps, and could follow the places mentioned, when, as during the Somme offensive, the Germans, "according to our preconceived plan," took up a position some miles in rear of their last. A serial story which ran for some time in this paper was called "L'évadé de Tsingtau," and gave the adventures of a German, who having escaped from Tsingtau after the Japanese had taken it, reached America, was caught while trying to cross to Germany, spent some time in Donnington Hall, but finally succeeded in escaping, and swam off from near Tilbury to a Dutch ship lying in the river, thus getting clear away. Whether true or not, it made a wonderful story.
News carefully camouflaged in our letters from home invariably arrived safely; in fact, the Turks never troubled to censor anything in the letters we received. On the other hand, every now and then some officious creature in Constantinople would systematically cut up our long letters, which we were allowed to write twice a month, and only send on the first two and last two lines.
There were always plenty of rumours amongst the Greek shopkeepers in the bazaar. For instance, we were told the British had taken Bagdad long before they did, and our troops in Palestine were always said to be within three or four marches of Aleppo; the Russians were just outside Sivas, and Trieste had been taken by the Italians. The Turks themselves never believed these stories, and, in fact, even when the armistice was signed, many of them in country districts had not heard that Bagdad was in our possession. They received no letters from their friends at the front, no casualty lists were published, and the only news that seemed to reach them by post was a few letters from Turks we had taken to Burma as prisoners, who seemed to be very happy and contented.
The country people never showed any "hate" against us, but the authorities used to make this an excuse for curtailing our walks, saying how fanatical the village people were in the neighbourhood.