In one carriage there were a son and a daughter of Mr. AB., pastor in the city of BO.
The very day that we reached S., Friday, the Armenians of the place were being arrested. Their documentary permits for travel were taken from our companions and never returned to them. They were told by the Police that they had inquired from Constantinople about them and were awaiting orders. Mr. DD. and Mr. CC. called on the Chief (Mudir) of the Police in S., and had interviews, but to no effect. The Mudir questioned DD. on his citizenship; how was it possible for a man born in Turkey to become an American subject? Three days after our arrival, CC.and DD. were taken away at night from the hotel, and sent off with other leading Armenians of S. in carriages—hands tied. They were sent along the road towards TT. and T. Carriages were hired for a distance of four hours, as far as a lake four hours’ journey from S. The driver who took our friends, a man from X. who had driven Mrs. MM. to S., told me that “those men were finished off on the way”; he was not allowed to see the dead,
but the zaptieh told him. He was sure that all those sent off were robbed on the way!
Peasants told my friend—a medical man in the military hospital at S.—that places near their villages, close to the scene of our incident with the chettis, were all blood-stained.
The drivers said they wished they had never seen the like of what they saw. One Albanian in S. boasted in the café of how he had killed 50 Armenians.
The railway stations between S. and Isnik were full of women, children and men—Armenians driven from their homes and waiting for an opportunity to enter the train. They were conveyed in goods trains—packed in like sheep. It was a pitiful, heart-breaking sight.
It seems that there was a prohibition against speaking to them. Near Isnik, in one of the wagons, I saw AC., a man from X. employed in the school at AD. I ventured to call his name as our train passed by, but could not attract his attention. Immediately the Turk near me asked me whether I was an Armenian. There was no Armenian in our train.
Turkish soldiers from T. and its villages told me at VV., on our way to S., that all the villages in their region were emptied—all the men killed. I asked them about the women; “God alone knows,” was their reply.
I saw a carriage (araba) loaded with spades, shovels, etc., in front of the police headquarters in S. They were all covered up, but one could distinguish then what they were. Then a policeman started to ride off. During the loading, people were not allowed to look on. As I was passing by at that moment, and dared to glance in that direction, I was given a terrible blow by the police officer.
The Kaimakam and the commandant of the gendarmes at X. told me repeatedly that they were only tools; they had to carry out the orders given them. No Armenian is to be left. Old or young, blind or lame, or disabled—all had to go away, without any exception being granted.[[135]]