Another trial of the times was the debating society, in which all things on earth were discussed in due form, with a chairman, a proposer and seconder, an opposer and his second, a butter-in, and a ribald gallery. For days afterwards I used to hear the points argued and re-debated by the orderlies in the kitchen beneath my room. And two of the officers took themselves as future Public Men so seriously that they used to practise elocution on each other, each in turn suffering himself to be addressed by the other as “Gentlemen.”
There were lectures, too, some of them very good ones. The subjects dealt with were catholic and included cocoanut-planting, Mendelism, flying, submarines, Singhalese history, Greek coins, Egyptian irrigation, and a host of other matters.
Besides these public efforts, there were men studying all manner of things in little cliques, or by themselves. One officer who knew no Arabic tapped Zaki to such good purpose that he (not Zaki) wrote an Arabic grammar. One old Australian of fifty, who had always lived, and would continue to live, in the back of beyond, studied simultaneously French, Norwegian, and Esperanto. There were teachers of mathematics, teachers of German, Tamil, Italian, Turkish and Russian. There were people teaching themselves to draw, or to play musical instruments. There were people studying law and medicine. I am sure that, at that time, we were the greatest centre of intellectual endeavour in the whole of the Turkish Empire.
In addition to the more purely intellectual occupations there were a number of really skilled carpenters, an officer who made himself an excellent little forge, where he turned out some very clever work, after having first manufactured the needful tools out of scrap steel; among them I remember a pocket-knife with various implements in it, and a stethoscope. The latter was for Bill.
Then there were cunning adorners of rooms, and still more cunning mixers of cocktails, in which a number of nauseous ingredients was made to taste good, as two negatives make an affirmative.
There were also breeders of dogs. Quite a rage there was for keeping dogs, on a quarter of an acre of land. Hilda and Gumush, the two original hounds of the Church days, presented their owners respectively with twelve and eleven puppies all in one week. At first it was very pretty to watch Bart training the young greyhounds, and teaching them to jump; he was a notable trainer of dogs. But when they all grew up, the overcrowding became intolerable. Public opinion revolted. Feelings were very deeply stirred, and people voted anti-dog or pro-dog, or pro-two-dogs, or pro or anti every possible combination and permutation of dogs. In the end the dogs were treated much as the Armenians. Some were slain, more were deported, and only three remained: Hilda, Gumush, and a funny little animal called Roger, who had a long body on the smallest legs, with the lowest gear, that I have ever seen.
In addition to dogs there were other pets: ducks, pigeons, chickens, enormous eagle-owls, a vulture, magpies, and finally a wolf. Cats were tried, but were somehow not a success.
There was also the native fauna. In my room I caught mice, voles, and shrews. Also smaller and more unpleasant creatures. Quite a feature of the spring awakening was the almost universal “bug-strafing” of beds. Our beds were all home made: a frame of pinewood, strung with thin rope, and carried on four legs. The joints and the holes where the rope passed through were the chief haunts of the foe. After breakfast, on a warm morning, officers in shirt sleeves, with kettles of boiling water and pots of Stockholm tar, might be seen carrying out that bold military measure known as a bug-strafe.
In summer I slung my bed by four ropes from the ceiling, and was fairly immune. They did not climb down the ropes, and they could not reach up from the floor, even standing on tip-toe. It was not only secure, but uncommonly comfortable.
Occasionally the Turks searched through our belongings to see if we had disguises, or diaries, or food stored for escape.