Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom

by Maurice Andrew Brackenreed Johnston; Kenneth Darlaston Yearsley

At the same time efforts were made to build up the stamina necessary for a 400-mile march by eating the most nourishing foods obtainable, irrespective of the fact that the price of any food seemed to go up as the cube of its body-building value. To give one instance, sugar at this time cost a sovereign the pound.

It was almost inevitable that, with so many preparations in progress, the secret of our intentions should leak out in the camp; and once suspicions were aroused many of our actions would go to confirm them. Thus it came about that a few days before the 30th July, the whole of the camp at Yozgad knew pretty well that attempts to escape were on foot; the shopping lists for the Changri division were alone enough to have set people talking. Everybody wanted bootlaces, straps, hobnails, rope, &c., in prodigious quantities. Unfortunately the Turks also appeared to have got wind of it. For the last week of July, sentries were visited and awakened with unheard-of frequency. Even the commandant himself occasionally visited the different houses after dark. In the case of one house, an extra sentry was suddenly posted in the garden.

However, our preparations went quietly on; our "hosts" might have nothing really definite to go upon, and the more keen the sentries were now, the more weary they would be by the time the real day arrived. We therefore continued to make holes in walls, loosen iron bars, dig unnecessary irrigation channels in the garden, &c., &c., all as aids to egress from one house or another on the final night.

In the particular house of our original six, (Cochrane and Ellis lived in another), we had come to the conclusion that our best chance was to prepare a hole through the outer wall of the kitchen belonging to our mess. This kitchen, it is necessary to explain, was built along the high enclosure wall of the garden, and was separated from the house itself by a narrow alley-way, over which one of the sentries stood guard. Next to the kitchen in the same outhouse was a little room with one small window opening on to the alley, the entrance being viâ the kitchen itself. This second room was used as a fowl-house, and it was here that we made up our minds to prepare a hole three-quarters of the way through the outer wall. How exactly those escaping from our house were to get across into the kitchen and finish off the hole on the final night was a problem of which the solution was only settled in detail at the last moment, and we will therefore leave our readers in a similar state of suspense. The essential was that all should be present at the evening roll-call, and yet the hole must be completed and everybody be across at precisely 9.15 P.M.

So uncertain were we of the means of effecting this that we had a second alternative in case the first scheme could not be carried out. This involved getting over the wall by ladders.

A day or two before the 30th July, representatives of the various parties met once again in solemn conclave to ensure that the various plans should not clash, and a few general instructions were issued to parties with a view to obtaining as long a start as possible. Every one was to be represented in bed on the night by a dummy; boots were to be padded, likewise the ends of khud-sticks (these were a sine qua non of our equipment for night-marching); water-bottles were not to be filled because they gurgled; every man's equipment was to be finally tried on to make certain that it would not make any noise.

Lastly, a lamp-signal was arranged between houses in case any party should be caught just prior to leaving their house, for instance while completing a hole. If that signal were given, it would no longer be necessary for the other parties to wait until 9.15 before they started; on the contrary, they were advised to start away at once before the alarm reached the sentries in the other houses.

The 30th July arrived, but with it an unexpected complication. Vague news had just come through that an exchange ship was being sent out from England to fetch some of the worst cases of sick and wounded from among the British prisoners in Turkey. The boat, said the rumour, was due to arrive at some port at about the end of August, and the question therefore arose at the eleventh hour whether, if we set off now, it might not give the Turks the pretext that our Government had informed us of the visit of this vessel, and that we were making off in the hopes of getting aboard her secretly. The argument was of course, on the face of it, ridiculous, but then so is the Turk, and it would be a terrible responsibility for us if by our escape we destroyed the hopes of these poor sick and wounded men. A vote was therefore taken as to whether we would postpone the date, with the result that the motion was carried by a small majority.

This was a terrible disappointment, for it meant, we thought, another month of indecision. Moreover, there would be no hope of finding a boat still awaiting us at Rendezvous X, and it would be too late in the year for much chance of our finding crops to eat or hide in. It was the moon, however, which in the end decided that the postponement could not be for so long. On working out its time of rising, it was found that if we waited till the end of August the moon would only rise late enough to let us leave our houses at 9.15, when within four days of its disappearance. In this way we should be handicapped by having the maximum of dark, or practically dark, nights for our journey. The whole question was therefore revised in this new light, and it was decided that we must either start before the new moon came or else give up all hope of leaving in this year at all. The night 7th-8th August was then chosen. This would be a Wednesday, and the following morning a hunt-day, when the check taken at dawn was confused by the movements of thirty officers dressing in haste for the day's sport.