Half-way to Angora we came to the village of Kalijik, where we were offered billets in the local jail, already well peopled with Turkish criminals. On our refusing this offer, we were housed for the night in an empty building on the edge of the village.
We reached Angora four days after leaving Changri, and were accommodated in up-to-date buildings, designed by Germans as a hospital, but since used as Turkish barracks. Luckily the particular house in which we were billeted had not as yet been used by Turks. During our two days here, we were allowed very fair liberty in visiting the bazaars, the shops of which, after our six months at Changri, appeared almost magnificent in the profusion of their wares.
In one of these Nobby espied a pair of real Goerz field-glasses. Telling his companion to lure away the posta who escorted them, he entered the shop, and succeeded in purchasing the glasses, and a schoolboy's satchel in which to conceal them, for about £18—a tall price, and yet, if the prices of other things had been in no higher proportion to their real value, living in Turkey would have been comparatively cheap. In the end these glasses were of inestimable value to our party.
While we were in Angora some of us went to see Sherif Bey, whose propensity for epigram was touched upon in the opening words of our story. As second-in-command he had accompanied us in our move from Kastamoni to Changri. There he had been perpetually at loggerheads with our new, as indeed he had been with our two former, commandants. Having eventually relinquished his ambition of superseding Sami Bey, he had recently accepted the less remunerative post of commandant of the British rank-and-file prisoners in the Angora district. Some of the men whom we succeeded in meeting had certain complaints to make against their previous commandant. A deputation of officers, therefore, waited upon his successor, who received them with a show of great friendliness, and assured them that under his benevolent sway such things as the looting of parcels would be impossible. Whether he fulfilled his promises we are not yet in a position to say; the fact remains that he treated very badly the five officers who stayed behind a few extra days for dental and medical treatment, asserting that they had only stopped in Angora with a view to escape.
Moreover, there were at this very time under Sherif Bey's orders two submarine officers who had been sent from the camp at Afion-Kara-Hissar, and were to join our convoy when it went on to Yozgad. Since their arrival in Angora a week before, they had been confined to the only hotel and had not once been allowed to visit the bazaar. One of the two was Lieut.-Commander A. D. Cochrane (now Commander Cochrane, D.S.O.), who was destined to play the leading rôle in the eventual escape of our particular party. The other was Lieut.-Commander S——. These two had, with one other naval officer, attempted to escape from the camp at Kara-Hissar, but had been recaptured when within sight of the sea; they had since spent ten months in a common Turkish jail.
Lieut.-Commander S—— had also been sent to Constantinople under somewhat amusing circumstances. Whilst he was in the P.O.W. camp at Kara-Hissar an order arrived one day ordering that two officers of high birth and closely connected with the British aristocracy should be selected and sent to Constantinople. Thereupon a list was prepared of officers related to Labour Candidates, Dukes, Members of Parliament, &c. Thinking that this promised at least a jaunt in Constantinople, S—— had claimed descent from the bluest blood of England. After consideration of the rival claims, he and one other were selected. Their self-congratulations, however, were a little premature, as the commandant now informed them that the Turkish Government, having heard that their own officer prisoners in India were being badly treated, proposed taking reprisals on these two until their powerful relations in England should think fit to remedy matters on both sides.
In vain the unfortunate dupes protested that the report was obviously false, asking that further inquiries should be made before reprisals were carried into effect. The reply was that the order was Enver Pasha's and could not be questioned, but that if they agreed to go quietly to Constantinople, they would at once be led into the presence of the Generalissimo, where they could forward their protest in person. To this they had perforce to agree, but on arrival in the capital were at once flung into prison, kept in solitary confinement, and fed on bread and water. In this state they remained for some three weeks, after which the Turkish authorities discovered, as was only natural, that there had not been an atom of truth in the report upon which they had acted. By way of redress they allowed the innocent sufferers six days' absolute freedom in Constantinople, after which they were taken back to their old camp.
From Angora onwards we were escorted by parties of the local gendarmerie; of the Changri guard who had so far accompanied us only a few came on with us to Yozgad; and they, ill-trained, ill-fed, and ill-clad, were rather passengers who called for our pity than guards capable of preventing us from decamping.
The gendarmes were, for the most part, remarkably well mounted, and in charge of them was a benevolent old gentleman of the rank of bash-chaouse, or sergeant-major, who was for ever holding forth upon his friendship towards the English and his utter inability to understand why we were not fighting side by side in this war. The sergeant-major talked much to us, punctuating his remarks with "Jánom" (My dear). He was jovial, he was pleasing to look at, he was interesting. He had been through several Turkish wars, and he discussed the Great War with more intelligence than many of the Turkish officers we had met.
One day as two of us were marching beside the horse he was riding, the dear old man pointed out a deep ravine some few hundred yards to our right. His face lighted up with pride of achievement and pleasant recollection. "Do you see that ravine?" he said. "Well, there I helped to massacre 5000 Armenians. Allah be praised!"