A Prisoner in Turkey

by John Still

After hanging fire for a very long time, the Berne Convention between Great Britain and the Sublime Porte was signed, and in the course of time copies reached Afion-Kara-Hissar.

It seemed to us to be framed so that a coach-and-four could be driven through every one of its clauses. But, we were winning the war, and a great many of its provisions were applied. It was our Magna Charta.

Under this convention a large number of prisoners were to be exchanged at once, 300 British and 700 Indians against 1,500 Turks, as far as I can remember.

Of course we all wanted to be included. We had not known how mad we were to be included until that ray of hope appeared. It seemed as though we suddenly saw ourselves as we were, as new prisoners saw us when they arrived, men grown listless and almost hopeless, with brave words on their lips and chill in their hearts. Of the 300 British we could not all hope to be, but for the others there was a further hope, for, according to the Convention, periodical medical boards were to be held, and all those suffering from any of a given list of disabilities were to be exchanged too.

There was a great deal of heart-burning, and the camp was the prey of winged rumours, most of them discouraging ones. I can scarcely bear to think of that time even now.

The Kut prisoners thought that their five months’ siege ought to be included in the period of their captivity. It was only natural that they should. But even so, we old-timers had been far longer confined than they had. Then there was the question of age, and the older of us did boast of our years, and wish inwardly that we had added to their number when first registered by the Turks. Were married men to have, other things being equal, any consideration? That was another question, and men added to the number of their children, if not of their wives.

These are but a few of the questions that troubled us.

But, in the end, the Turks ignored much of the Convention, and began to hold medical boards to sort out those who were incapacitated for further fighting.

On the 8th of August, 1918, the first board sat in Afion. There were two Turkish doctors on it, and one British, Capt. Startin, R.A.M.C. But as one of the Turks made his own decisions, and the other merely said “peki,” which means “I concur,” and as the decision went by a majority of votes, the British member did not have much chance. Still, he did succeed in steering most of the really deserving cases through, and he did his very best for all of us, seizing every slightest opportunity and displaying both diplomatic skill and doggedness to a high degree.

Of course everyone wanted to be tested. “You can’t win a lottery unless you take a ticket,” as someone put it. And when the day came, and the board assembled in a room at the Medrisseh, there was far more of us than could be got through in a day. We sat in the shade of the poplar trees, in front of the mosque, and when each officer who had been examined came out he was bombarded with questions, and surrounded by an anxious crowd. But no decisions were announced, and the British representative was sworn to secrecy, which oath he kept. How he managed to I am sure I don’t know, for the excitement was intense. British excitement, hardly admitted at all, but gnawing at the vitals, like the Spartan boy’s fox. So no one knew whether he had been passed or not, though all were agreed that the senior Turkish doctor was an unpleasant creature, jocular and offensive, and very hard to satisfy. The fact was that he knew little or nothing of his job, found difficulty in understanding the terms of reference, hated the British, and distrusted everyone in the world.