There was rivalry between the two houses, just as there is at school, just as there was rivalry between the two separate camps at Afion two years later. But we sank it for the feast, and pooled all our resources. Before dinner we sat round braziers and absorbed much alcohol: very much: so much that one officer missed his dinner, although we shouted in his ear that the war was over. Even that he could not hear. Even the word “Peace” failed to rouse him. But he came round later, and ate a huge dinner all by himself. We had turkey, and ham, and plum-pudding, real American Embassy plum-pudding. We had also whisky. We had cigars, and port, and again whisky. Then the evening began in earnest, near the stove, all as near as possible to a wash basin full of hot rum punch. We had a concert in full swing, when the Army Corps Commander, the Commandant of Angora, the officer in charge of the prisoners, and an interpreter came in. On a chair, with his back to the door, stood the cook, and he was a noted songster who sang principally one song. I shall have to paraphrase the only line I propose to quote, but it does not lose any of its sense if reproduced as:
“Little pigs lie with their backs all bare, umph bare,” etc.
The Army Corps Commander was a dignified person. He was the swine who had locked us up. But except in his own person he loathed swine as a true Mohammedan should. All mention of the pig family, or of those good things, ham and bacon, were anathema to him. The Commandant of the Place was likewise a person of very great dignity. Some effort was made to stop the song, for these people had come on a state visit; to see their Christmas trees, perhaps. But the Army Corps Commander waved all interference aside with a superb gesture of benignity. “Let the song of welcome proceed,” he said, and these four unwanted visitors sat down in a solemn row while the song did proceed, with pigs and pantomime in every verse. Prison life in Turkey was not without occasional gleams of merriment.
What the interpreter thought I don’t know. He was an Armenian who had embraced Islam to save his skin, and he did not matter anyhow. The grandees did not wait long. We hoped to be able to “tank them up,” for very nearly all Turkish officers drink pretty heavily, despite Islam. But they were too cautious. They and the interpreter departed. But our officer remained, and he was our reward. Him we rendered completely tight. So tight that at the end he stood upon a table and sang “God save the King” in English; though, up to then, he had always denied all knowledge of English. Zaki still wanted to cut his throat, and was with difficulty restrained.
Thus passed the Christmas of 1915; and it was just as well we did not know that two more Christmases would have to pass in the same way. We all walked home to our house unaided. But the officer in charge of us slackened off his unwelcome camouflage friendship from that day, for he knew what a fool he had been.
January was very cold, and we were pleased to learn, towards the end of it, that we were all to be moved to Afion-Kara-Hissar, where the other British officers were interned. We were thoroughly sick of Angora, and of being locked up. No change was to be expected under the present Army Corps Commander, who hated us as much as we hated him. And really I don’t blame him very much looking back upon it in cold blood. British prisoners are perfect brutes to manage. If they are allowed to run things themselves, they run them very well indeed, but they also run away. If they are given much liberty they walk about as if they own the place. Not out of pride or display, but just because they actually feel as if they owned it. I felt, we each felt, as though we British owned Angora. They will never, no not ever, not even if they die, feel, or seem to feel, or pretend to feel that their captors are as good men as they, let alone that they are better. Again and again we received instructions—even now I can hardly admit ever receiving “orders” of such a kind, hence “instructions”—to salute all Turkish officers whom we met in the streets. And each time those instructions were ignored. We saluted senior officers, not those of rank equivalent to our own. If, on the other hand, British prisoners are given no liberty, they continually struggle for more, and make the lives of the Turks a burthen to them. A Turkish officer of any grade always prefers to get one of a lower grade to do his work, and to attend to his interviews for him. We never acquiesced in this for one moment. If possible we raided the senior officer’s privacy. If that was not possible, we sent his junior to fetch him. And if that failed we ruined his peace of mind by continually writing letters to him. When any outside person of importance visited us we complained bitterly of all we resented, and were not afraid. Turks don’t understand that attitude at all. Their method is to give strict orders, to have those orders obeyed in semblance, and disobeyed in private, until, in the course of time the orders lapse and become obsolete. Then the senior officer awakes from his pleasant slumber, makes a lot of new orders, and goes to sleep again. In no circumstance will he remain awake, give reasonable orders, and see to it himself that they are reasonably carried out. It is difficult for the Turk to keep his mind, his will, or whatever you like to call it, firmly and steadily opposed to the wills of others, whether prisoners, or his subordinates, or subject peoples. He simply cannot do it. His method is to be unreasonably lax for a long time, and then unreasonably severe for a short time, so that the resultant line of progression may be more or less straight. Thus, diagramatically expressed, these two lines, T for Turkish and B for British, point in the same direction, but are quite different in kind:
| T. | etc. | |
| B. | etc. |
It follows that in Turkey there are no standing orders. None, that is to say, that live long. There are files, rooms, whole houses full of dead ones. But can you call orders “standing” when they do not stand?
In a small way, this conflict between ideas of government made life troublesome for us in Turkey, and even more troublesome for the Turks. But we were a small matter. If the main facts of their history were similarly plotted as a diagram, it would be found very like my line T.: and the result is the ruination of one of the most fruitful lands on the face of the earth; the production of nothing, save only cruelty and unnaturally debased races; and the present-day collapse and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.
Although we expected to hear at any moment that we were to pack up and go to Afion, the date of our departure continued to recede. We really had some things to pack now. It is extraordinary how quickly things accumulate, even in prison. We were all anxious to go, especially the skipper, who thought Afion would not be so difficult to escape from. He was always thinking of escape, and at last did get clear away, but not until the latter half of 1918. The account of that truly great and successful adventure has been written in Blackwood’s Magazine.