Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom

by Maurice Andrew Brackenreed Johnston; Kenneth Darlaston Yearsley

It was here that the party obtained a little war news. Of this we had had none since leaving Yozgad, and at that time the Turkish papers would have had us believe that the Germans were even then knocking at the gates of Paris. In the headman's house the war was now discussed, and the fighting powers of the various nations criticised. As for the British, they were a very rich and powerful people, and yet just look how they had been driven into the sea at Gallipoli, and how the Turks had forced them to surrender at Kut-el-Amara. The French, of course, were not good fighters, and the Americans quite untrained to arms. The actors had perforce to agree to all these statements, but their joy was great, though well hidden under a disgusted mien, when they heard that the Germans were retiring.

After this conversation came a welcome diversion. A round table like a dumb-waiter, about 9 inches in height, was brought in. With it came a large supply of chupatties, a flat plate of honey, one of cream, a bowl of sour milk, and a dish piled high with greasy wheat pilau; and following the food came the headman's son—a lad of nine. The headman beckoned our three to approach, and, sitting on their hunkers round the table, the breakfast party of seven began the meal.

The method of eating is simple, but one requires either genius or years of practice to be any good at it. Break off a piece of chupattie, quickly shape it into a shovel, scoop up as much honey or cream as possible, eat the shovel and its contents, and start again. Johnny is a novice at the game. Though ravenous for food he is an amateur: his miserable little shovels are merely damp with honey or cream when he eats them.

Mark Twain is unfortunately dead. He alone could have described how the nine-year-old boy ate: his shovels were immense, and he always took a full scoop. He was swallowing continuously, and while his right hand was feeding his mouth, his left had already shaped a new shovel. He was an expert—a record-breaker. Grunt and Nobby fared little better than Johnny, for the three had to conceal the fact that they were starving. The meal lasted not more than six minutes. Johnny reckoned he had absorbed one chupattie with a negligible quantity of honey, cream, and pilau. The boy must have eaten eight, and the greater part of everything else, and thoroughly earned the undying admiration of three Englishmen. The meal over, Nobby and Johnny put on their packs and haversacks. For a change the German scholar said they were really good Austrian packs and haversacks: perhaps the button incident had affected him.

A guide was now produced, and the Magyar rank and file went a-shopping. The packs could not possibly carry the amount of food which it had been decided to buy, so quantities were cut down, and finally the two returned to the headman's house, each carrying a load of about 57 lbs. During their absence Grunt had to answer innumerable questions about his firearms.

After a short delay the three took their departure, Nobby and Johnny again clicking heels and doing a pantomime chorus salute. The distance to the remainder of the party was one and a half miles, and the path climbed steeply the whole way. The Hun officer of course marched coolly ahead, while Nobby and Johnny plodded behind, anything but cool. After going a few hundred yards they glanced behind them. As was to be expected, they were being followed. First came the beastly German-speaking man, then the Greek, and after them the headman himself on a donkey. Johnny advised Grunt to go on ahead and warn the others that we were now Magyars, and that we each had a revolver. Nobby and Johnny walked as fast as they could, but the sun was very hot and the loads very heavy for them in their weak condition. The men who were following eventually caught up with them and together they came to where the remainder of the party were camped. This gave the headman a bit of a shock, as he thought we had lied about everything, and so did not expect to see five other Magyars.

As soon as the party could get their equipment on we formed up in two ranks. Grunt made some guttural sounds, at which we "left turned" and started to march off into the blue, leaving three very puzzled men behind us. After an hour's going we halted and, seeing no one following us, had a meal of two chupatties and six raw eggs each. For the two odd ones of the fifty that had been bought we had "fingers out."

"Fingers out" was a procedure whereby all such debatable matters were decided during our escape. On the last sound of the words "Fingers up!" each member of the party held up any number of fingers he chose, subject to the maximum being four and the minimum one. Having decided beforehand at which person the counting would start, and which way round it was to go, the total number of fingers shown was added up and on whatever member of the party this number ended when counting round, that was the man. This was the sort of thing that happened: "Starting with Perce, going round right-handed, Fingers up!" Suppose the total was 19. That would mean, in our party of eight, that the man two after Perce would win the count. "Fingers out" was used only to settle who was to have the pleasant things, such as these odd eggs, or the scrapings of the cooking-pot; duties such as going on ahead to scout or going back to a spring to fetch water were undertaken by volunteers.

We were still on the wrong side of the ravine in which was the village, and inasmuch as it was dangerous to stay in a locality where we had aroused such suspicion, the ravine must be crossed. A mile farther on we discovered a possible line of descent to a ledge half-way down. The ravine was about four hundred feet deep and its sides almost precipitous.