The Project Gutenberg eBook, Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom, by Maurice Andrew Brackenreed Johnston and Kenneth Darlaston Yearsley

Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom

From a photo taken at Famagusta, Cyprus, by Lieut. E. F. McAlpine, H.L.I.
(attached Royal Scots).
THE SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE PARTY, WITH SOME CAPTURED TROPHIES.
Left to right—standing: Captains J. H. Harris, F. R. Ellis, A. B. Haig, Commander A. D. Cochrane, D.S.O., R.N., Captains V. S. Clarke and M. A. B. Johnston.
Seated: Captains R. A. P. Grant, M.C., and K. D. Yearsley.

Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom

BY
Captain M. A. B. JOHNSTON, r.g.a.
AND
Captain K. D. YEARSLEY, r.e.

William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1919

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TO THE
Reverend HAROLD SPOONER, C.F.,
FELLOW-PRISONER OF WAR
IN TURKEY.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom.

PRISONER OF WAR.

When you've halted after marching till you feel you do not care
What may happen, for you can't march any more,
And the order comes to "Fall in" and to march you know not where,
Then thank God you're not a prisoner of war.
When you're fighting in the trenches ankle-deep in mud and slush,
With the north wind cutting through you keen and raw,
While the second hand ticks slowly till it's time to make the rush,
Then thank God you're not a prisoner of war.

When the order's "Up and at 'em" and the blood beats through your head,
When the dead are falling round you by the score,
And when all you think and all you feel and all you see is red,
Then thank God you're not a prisoner of war.
When you're fighting in the desert where the heat waves never stop,
And you've never known what thirst has been before,
Though you'd sell your soul for water and you know there's not a drop,
Then thank God you're not a prisoner of war.
We've been handed down a birthright which the bards of ages sing,
From the days of Agincourt and long before,
That a Briton owns no master save his God and save his king,
But you find a third when prisoner of war.
It's a feeling right inside you, and it never lets you go,
That you haven't been allowed to pay your score:
You may still be hale and hearty, but you're missing all the show.
What offers for the job? Prisoner of war.
M. A. B. J.
Written in Kastamoni,
1916.

CHAPTER I.
KASTAMONI AND CHANGRI.

"Il n'y a pas trois officiers." Such was the memorable epigram by which Sherif Bey, Turkish Captain of the Prisoners-of-War Guard at Kăstamōni, and a man regardless of detail, announced to us that four officers, whose escape has been described in 'Blackwood's Magazine,'[1] had got safely away from the camp. Those of us who knew that the attempt was being made were anxiously waiting for news. To others it came as a great surprise. Captain[2] Keeling, in his story mentioned above, does not, for obvious reasons, name any one who helped them. Now it does not matter.

Officers sang loudly and long to prevent the nearest sentry from hearing the noise of rusty nails being pulled out of a door not many feet away from him, though hidden from view. More metaphorical dust was thrown in this wretched man's eyes and ears by the incorrigible James, who during these critical moments described to him, in very inadequate Turkish, but with a sense of humour equal to any occasion, the working parts of a petrol motor-engine. Another helper was an orderly, Gunner Prosser, R.F.A., a remarkable man with a passion for wandering about in the dark. The thought of spending a quiet night sleeping in his prisoners' quarters was repellent to him. As far as we could make out, he never missed a night's prowl. A fez, a false beard, and a civilian overcoat were the only "props" he used. This was undoubtedly the man to help Keeling's party out of the town, for the by-streets were better known to Prosser in the dark than they were to other prisoners by daylight. Accordingly, he led the four officers out of Kastamoni. Some one, however, must have seen and suspected them, for less than three-quarters of an hour after their start the alarm was given. Shots were fired and the camp suddenly bristled with sentries. Through this cordon Prosser had to get back to his quarters. A Turkish sergeant, into whom he ran full tilt, was knocked over backwards. Followed by revolver shots from the angry chaouse, Prosser darted up one side street, doubled on his tracks by another, and by his own private entrance reached his quarters in safety. Here he disposed of his beard and fez, shaved off his moustache in the dark, and got into bed. When a few minutes later Captain Sherif Bey came round to feel the hearts of all the orderlies, Prosser could hardly be roused from an innocent sleep, and his steady heart-beats allayed all suspicion as to the part he had played.

From a sketch by Major F. S. Barker, R.E.
AN OLD BRIDGE AT KASTAMONI.

The effect of the escape of these four officers on our camp was considerable. We were confined to our houses without any exercise for ten days; sentries were more than trebled on the principle of locking the stable door. This, however, did not affect Prosser, who took his nightly walks as usual. Our commandant, Colonel Fettah Bey, was dismissed in disgrace and replaced by a Sami Bey, whose rank corresponded with that of a brigadier-general. Now came rumours of the closing down of the camp at Kastamoni and a move to Changri (pronounced Chŭngri)—a mere village about eighty miles due south of us.

Keeling's party escaped on August 8, 1917. Each day that followed, Sherif Bey brought official news of their capture in different parts of Asia Minor. One was reminded of Mark Twain's stolen white elephant. The marching powers of the four officers must have been phenomenal: sometimes they covered hundreds of miles in a few hours. Confined to our houses, we amused ourselves taking bets with the Turkish sentries, who were convinced that the fugitives would be brought back to Kastamoni within a week. In their opinion those who had escaped were madmen. What could be more delightful than the life they were running away from,—one could sit in a chair all day quietly smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, far away from the detested war—assuredly they were quite mad! Now it was unwise to bet, because when we lost we paid up, and when the Turks lost they did not feel in any way bound to do so. Our first commandant, Colonel Tewfik Bey, betted heavily on the war ending before Christmas 1916. He went on the doubling system. On losing his bet he deferred payment and doubled his bet for a later date, till by the time he lost his job as commandant he had mortgaged most of Turkey.

One half of the prisoners at Kastamoni moved to Changri on September 27, 1917, the other half about ten days later. Three weeks before the departure of the first party we were told to be ready to move in a few days' time. Preparations were made, rooms dismantled, and home-made beds, tables, and chairs pulled to bits for convenience of transport; kit and crockery were packed, and all of us were living in a state of refined discomfort, when we were told that the move had been postponed, owing to lack of available mules and carts. Some of us set to work to rebuild beds and chairs, others resigned themselves to fate and were content to sleep on the floor and sit on boxes. If we remember aright, there were two postponements.

At last the day of leaving Kastamoni really did arrive. We had been promised so many carts and so many mules and had made our arrangements accordingly. At the last moment we were told that fewer carts and mules had rolled up. This meant leaving something behind, or marching the whole way—one decided for oneself. Many of us marched every step to Changri. Our departure took place at 1 P.M., and a weird procession we must have looked—carts and mules loaded high with all manner of furniture, stoves and stove-pipes sticking out in all directions.

The poor Greeks of the town were very sad to see us go. The Rev. Harold Spooner, through the Greek priest, had been able from time to time to distribute to these destitute people fair sums of money supplied by voluntary subscription among the prisoners. In addition to this, families of little children used to be fed daily by some messes, and so we were able, in a small way, to relieve the want of a few unhappy Christians. Before we left Kastamoni, the Padre showed us a letter which he had received from the head Greek priest, thanking us for having helped the poor. We had, he said, kept families together, and young girls from going on the streets, and he assured us that it would be the privilege of the Greek community to look after the small graveyard we had made for the six officers and men who had died while we were there.

By 2 P.M. we were clear of Kastamoni. The change of camp would be a great break in the monotony of our existence, and for the time being we were happy. The journey was to take four days. At night we halted near water at a suitable camping-ground by the roadside, and in the early morning started off again. A healthy life and a great holiday for us. For the first two days the scenery was magnificent, as we crossed the forest-covered Hilgas range, but as we approached our destination the country became more and more barren. On the fourth day, coming over a crest, we saw the village of Changri built at the foot of a steep and bare hill. We went through the village, and a mile beyond us stood our future home.

A dirty-looking, two-storied square building it was, surrounded on three sides by level fields edged with a few willows. On the west the ground rose a little to the main Angora road. Close to the barracks were sixty graves, which looked fairly new. This gave a bad impression of the place at the start. On entering, we were too dumfounded to speak, and here it may be added that it took a lot to dumfound us. The square inside the buildings was full of sheep and goats, and the ground was consequently filthy. The lower-storey rooms, which were to be our mess-rooms, had been used for cattle, and the cellar pointed out to us as our kitchen was at least a foot deep in manure. Only one wing of the barracks had window panes, and these were composed of small bits of glass rudely fitted together. Truly a depressing place.

Many of us elected to sleep that night in the square in preference to the filthier barrack rooms. The sanitary arrangements were beyond words. The next morning we set to work cleaning up, but it was weeks before the place was habitable. Another great inconvenience was that for many days drinking-water had to be fetched in buckets from the village over a mile away; but for this the Turks finally provided a water-cart.

It was at Changri that most of the twenty-five officers who escaped from Yozgad on August 7, 1918, made up their parties. Our party, only six at that time, consisted of—

Captain A. B. Haig, 24th Punjabis;
Captain R. A. P. Grant, 112th Infantry;
Captain V. S. Clarke, 2nd Batt. Royal West Kent Regiment;
Captain J. H. Harris, 1/4 Hampshire Territorials;

and the two authors. Throughout the remainder of our narrative these six will be denoted by their respective nicknames: Old Man, Grunt, Nobby, Perce, Johnny, and Looney.

Roughly speaking, there were four alternative directions open to us.[3] Northwards to the Black Sea, a distance of 100 miles; eastwards to the Russian front, 250 to 350 miles; to the Mediterranean, 300 miles southward, or 400 miles westward. Compared to the others the distance to the Black Sea was small, but outweighing this advantage was the fact that Keeling's party had got away in that direction, and the coast would be carefully guarded if another escape took place. The position of the Russian front, so far as we knew, was anything up to 350 miles away, and the country to the east of us was very mountainous. In addition, an escape in that direction would entail getting through the Turkish fighting lines, which we thought would prove very difficult. The Salt Desert, at least 150 miles across, frightened us off thinking of the southern route. The remaining one was westward: it was the longest distance to go, it is true, but for this very reason we hoped the Turks would not suspect us of trying it. The valleys ran in the direction we should be travelling, and if we did reach the coast, it was possible that we might get in touch with one of the islands in Allied hands.

Having made up our minds, we sent code messages home to find out which would be the best island to make for in the following early summer. We also asked for reduced maps to cover our route from Changri to the selected island, and requested that a look-out should be kept from it in case we signalled from the coast.

Shortly after we had made our decision the question of giving parole cropped up. To any one who gave it the Turks offered a better camp and more liberty. It was a question for each to decide for himself, and we did so. On the 22nd November 1917, therefore, seventy-seven officers went off to Geddos. It was very sad parting from many good friends, and when the last cart disappeared round the spur of the hill, one turned away wondering if one would ever see them again. There were still forty-four officers and about twenty-eight orderlies in Changri. These officers were moved into the north wing of the barracks, and there they remained for the next four and a half months. At this period we had a great financial crisis—none of us had any money, prices were very high, and it came to tightening our belts a little. Our long and badly-built barrack rooms were very draughty, and as we had no money there was not much likelihood of getting firewood. Some cheerful Turk kindly told us that the winter at Changri was intensely cold, and that the temperature often fell below zero. Altogether the prospect for the next few months was anything but pleasant.

During our most depressed moments, however, we could always raise a smile over the thought that we were "The honoured guests of Turkey." Enver Pasha himself had told us so at Mosul, where we halted on our four-hundred-mile march across the desert, after the fall of Kut-el-Amara.[4] So it must have been true.

At the time we write this unscrupulous adventurer, Enver—a man of magnetic personality and untiring in his energy to further his personal schemes—has but lately fled to Caucasia. He is a young man, and having held a position of highest authority in Turkey for some years, presumably a rich one. Doubtless he will lead a happy and prosperous existence for many years to come.

There are thousands of sad hearts in England and in the Indian Empire to-day, and hundreds of thousands in Turkey itself, as a result of the utter disregard for human life entertained by this man and a few of his colleagues. Of the massacre of Armenians we will not speak, although we have seen their dead bodies, and although we have met their little children dying of starvation on the roadsides, and have passed by their silent villages; but we should fail in our duty to the men of the British Empire who died in captivity in Turkey did we not appeal for a stern justice to be meted out to the men responsible for their dying.

It may perhaps be said with truth that it was no studied cruelty on the part of the Turkish authorities that caused the death of so many brave men who had given themselves to the work of their country: yet with equal truth it may be said, that it was the vilest form of apathy and of wanton neglect. Where the taking of a little trouble by the high officials at Constantinople would have saved the lives of thousands of British and Indian soldiers, that trouble was never taken. Weak with starvation, and sick with fever and dysentery (we speak of the men of Kut), they were made to march five hundred miles in the burning heat across waterless deserts, without regular or sufficient rations and without transport—in many cases without boots, which had been exchanged for a few mouthfuls of food or a drink of water.

We officers, who had not such a long march as the men, and who were given a little money and some transport, thought ourselves in a bad way. But what of the men who had none? There were no medical arrangements, and those who could not march fell by the desert paths and died. The official White Book gives the number 65 as the percentage of deaths amongst British soldier prisoners taken at Kut, a figure which speaks for itself.

It is a law of the world's civilisation that if a man take the life of another, except in actual warfare, he must pay forfeit with his own life. Take away bribery and corruption and that law holds good in Turkey. Now when a soldier is taken prisoner he ceases to be an active enemy, and the country of his captors is as responsible for his welfare as for that of her own citizens. What if that country so fails to grasp the responsibility that its prisoners are allowed to die by neglect? Should not its rulers be taught such a lesson that it would be impossible for those of future generations to forget it?

It is not enough to obtain evidence of a cruel corporal at that prisoners' camp, or of a bestial commandant at this, and to think that by punishing them we have avenged our dead. These men are underlings. The men we must punish first are those few in high authority, who, by an inattention to their obvious duty, have made it possible for their menials to be guilty of worse than murder.

We pride ourselves on the fact that we are citizens of the most just country of the world. Let us see to it that justice is not starved.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "An Escape from Turkey in Asia," by Captain E. H. Keeling. 'Blackwood's Magazine,' May 1918.

[2] Now Lieutenant-Colonel.

[3] Vide map at end of volume.

[4] "Kut," correctly pronounced, rhymes with "put."

CHAPTER II.
FIRST PLANS FOR ESCAPE.

With the departure of the party for Geddos, the camp at Changri did what little they could to render the long bare barrack rooms somewhat more endurable as winter quarters. Each room was about 80 feet in length, and consisted of a central passage bordered on either side by a row of ugly timber posts supporting the roof. Between the passage and a row of lockers which ran along the walls were raised platforms, affording about six feet of useful width. Each platform was divided in two by a single partition half-way along the room. Viewed from one end the general effect resembled that of stables, to which use indeed all the lower rooms had been put previous to our arrival. Each length of platform was allotted to a group of three or four officers, who were then at liberty to beautify their new homes as ingenuity might suggest. Planks were hard to come by, so for the most part old valises, blankets, and curtains were strung from post to post to screen the "rooms" from the passage, and thereby gain for the occupants a little privacy.

As the severity of the winter increased, caulking floor-boards became a profitable occupation, for an icy draught now swept up through the gaping cracks. By the time the financial difficulties to which we have referred were at an end, it was no longer possible to obtain in the bazaar a sufficient quantity of firewood for anything except our kitchen stoves. It was not, however, until snow was lying deep upon the ground that Sami Bey could be prevailed upon to let us cut down a few of the neighbouring willow-trees, for which it need hardly be said we had to pay heavily. Apart from the exercise thus obtained—and it was good exercise carrying the wood into the barracks—an odd visit or two to the bazaar, and a few hours' tobogganing as a concession on Christmas Day, were the only occasions on which we saw the outside of our dwelling-place for three long months. Nor was there anything in the way of comfort within. The number of trees allotted to us was small, and the daily wood ration we allowed ourselves only sufficed to keep the stoves going in our rooms for a few hours each day. The fuel, moreover, being green, was difficult to keep alight, so that we spent many hours that winter blowing at the doors of stoves; and the stoker on duty had to give the fire his undivided attention if he wished to avoid the sarcastic comments of his chilled companions. It was a special treat reserved for Sundays to have our stoves burning for an hour in the afternoon. For over a month the temperature remained night and day below freezing-point, and the thermometer on one occasion registered thirty-six degrees of frost.

An officer who used to fill up an old beer-bottle with hot water to warm his feet when he got into bed, found one morning that it had slipped away from his feet and had already begun to freeze, although still under the clothes!

But enough of the miseries of that winter: in spite of such unfavourable conditions, the camp was a cheerful one. We were all good friends, and united in our determination not to knuckle under to the Turk. Our senior officer, Colonel A. Moore, of the 66th Punjabis, was largely instrumental in making our lot an easier one. This he did by fighting our many battles against an unreasonable and apathetic commandant, and in all our schemes for escape he gave us his sound advice and ready support.

Compared to his two predecessors, this commandant, Sami Bey, was a very difficult person from whom to "wangle" anything. Although he could lay claim to no greater efficiency for his task of commanding a prisoner-of-war camp than they, he made himself very obnoxious to us by his policy of pure obstruction. If we applied for any sort of concession, however reasonable, he safeguarded himself by saying he would have to wire to Constantinople for orders, and of course no orders ever came. With the two commandants we had had in Kastamoni, a threat by our own senior officer to report any matter under discussion to the Turkish Headquarters was enough to make him give in over any reasonable request without further ado. Sami, however, would look the question up in his Regulations. On one occasion we bombarded him from every quarter with demands to be allowed to go out tobogganing. Finally the answer came back: "The Regulations do not mention the word 'toboggan'; therefore, I cannot allow you to do so." Even the Turk, then, though he uses sand instead of blotting-paper, has his office "red tape"!

The average Turkish officer is an ignoramus, and the following story of Sami Bey will serve to show that he was no exception to the rule. At the time that the German gun "Big Bertha" was bombarding Paris at long range, he was very proud to produce a picture of it in a German paper. It was one of those semi-bird's-eye views, showing Paris in the left-hand bottom corner, and along the top the Straits of Dover and the English Channel. The gun was about half-way down the right-hand edge, and the curved trajectory of the shell was shown by a dotted line from the moment it left the muzzle to the moment when it entered Paris. To a British officer to whom he was showing the picture, Sami explained at great length how the shell passed through St Quentin, Cambrai, Douai, up to one of the Channel ports, and then down again viâ Amiens, until it finally arrived at its destination in Paris and exploded! This Turkish brigadier-general believed this to be a solemn fact, and his "ignorant" British hearer was polite enough not to undeceive him.

Ours claimed to have been the first party formed with a view to escape, but it was not long before there were several others, and it became evident that some plan would have to be devised by which a large number might hope to make their way out of the barracks fairly simultaneously. Since these had been designed for Turkish soldiers, every window was already barred. But we were in addition a camp of suspects, who had refused to give their parole; so at night, in addition to sentries being posted at every corner, visiting patrols went round the building at frequent intervals. Three or four fellows, of course, might cut the bars of a window and slip through, but hardly five or six parties.

At this moment an old magazine came into our hands containing an article which described how thirty or forty Federal officers had escaped from a Confederate prison by means of a tunnel. This was at once recognised as the ideal solution of our problem if only we could find a suitable outlet and the means of disposing of the earth.

While the general plan was still under discussion, we were reinforced by the arrival of three officers from Geddos. They had refused to give their parole in spite of the Turks' threat that they would be moved to Changri if they did not change their minds. Here then they arrived one cold December morning, looking very racy in their check overcoats, supplied to them by the Dutch Legation. These coats were doubtless the last word in Constantinople fashions, and in the shop windows had probably been marked "Très civilisé," for it is the highest ambition of the Turk to be considered civilised.

Nothing hurts his feelings more than to be the object of ridicule on account of any lack of up-to-dateness, as the following story will serve to illustrate. While we were at Kastamoni, a chimney in one of the houses occupied by the prisoners of war caught fire, and, with a great flourish of trumpets, the town fire-brigade was called out to extinguish the conflagration. Let not the reader, however, picture to himself even the most obsolete of horsed fire-engines. In this town, with a pre-war population of something like 25,000 souls, and with houses almost entirely built of timber, dependence in the event of a fire was placed on what can best be described as a diminutive tank carried on a stretcher, and provided with a small pump worked by a lever, seesaw fashion. The tank was kept filled by buckets replenished at the nearest spring. The sight of two men in shabby uniform solemnly oscillating the lever by the handle at either end, and of the feeble trickle of water which resulted at the nozzle of the hose, was too much for the sense of humour of the British officers who happened to be present at the time. At this moment the commandant, then one Tewfik Bey, appeared on the scene. Horrified at such ill-timed levity on the part of the onlookers, he seized upon a major standing by and had him escorted to his room, there to be confined till Tewfik's anger should abate. To the Turk this tank was the latest thing in fire-engines.

To carry the story to its happy ending, we may add that, after three days of confinement, the major addressed a letter to H.E. Enver Pasha through the commandant, which ran somewhat as follows:—

"Sir,—I have the honour to report that, owing to the close confinement in which I have been kept, my health has now entirely broken down. I therefore request that, with a view to providing some slight possibility of recovery, I may be allowed to go to England on one month's sick leave, and that as far as the port of embarkation I may be accompanied by posta[5] 'Ginger,' as he alone in all Turkey really understands my temperament.—I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient prisoner of war,

X."

Whether this letter ever reached His Excellency we shall probably never know. From our knowledge of the Turk's total lack of humour, however, we should say that it is more than probable that Tewfik Bey solemnly forwarded it on through the proper channel. That no answer was received proves nothing; for it is a matter of years to get a reply to an application like this from the authorities at Constantinople, and the letter was only written three years ago. At least it had this good effect, that the major was released from confinement forthwith.

But we must return to our real subject. Amongst the three officers from Geddos was one Tweedledum, so named from a certain rotundity of figure, which even the scanty provisions said to be obtainable there had failed to reduce. From his lips we first heard of the wonderful capabilities of the Handley-Page passenger aeroplane. Such machines, he said, could carry fifteen to sixteen passengers, and three of them had recently flown from England to Mudros, with only one intermediate landing in Italy. A pilot of one of them had been a prisoner with him at Geddos. A few evenings later Nobby had a great brain-wave; fetching a 'Pears' Annual,' he turned up the maps of Europe and Asia Minor, and, after a few hurried measurements, unfolded to his stable companions, Perce and Looney, what was afterwards known as the "aeroplane scheme." These three had, with much expense and trouble, managed to collect enough planks for a real wooden partition to their "room," and it was behind this screen that this and many another devilish plot was hatched.

Briefly, Nobby's idea was for a flight of five or six Handley-Pages to be sent from Cyprus, swoop down on Changri, and pick up the whole camp, both officers and men—and Sami too. We should, of course, have to take over the barracks from our guards, but this should be easily effected by a coup de main, and probably without having to resort to bloodshed. At first the idea appeared a trifle fantastic, for after being cut off from the outside world for two whole years it took time for us to assimilate the wonderful advance of aeronautical science which the scheme assumed; but given that Tweedledum's statement was correct, the scheme was feasible, and we soon took up the question seriously. Our representative of the R.F.C. pronounced the surrounding fields practicable landing grounds; a committee confirmed the possibility of taking over the barracks by surprise; and the whole scheme, illustrated by a small sketch of the vicinity, was soon on its way home.

We were fortunate in having a method of sending secret information without much risk of detection. The censorship of our letters, like most things in Turkey, was not very efficient. Looney's brother in England was the inventor of the secret means. The first code which he devised consisted merely of diminutive gaps between pairs of letters in an apparently ordinary communication. That there was a message contained was indicated to the addressee by the writer adding after his signature his address as "Codin House, Thislet Terrace."[6] The exact nature of the code then had to be discovered by guess-work. After two letters had been received, Nobby noticed the gaps, and the clue was discovered. By stringing together all the letters preceding the gaps, one obtained the concealed message.

The way thus opened, more effective means of communication could be developed. One of these was to send out messages written on a slip of paper, wrapped up in silver tissue and then inserted in a full tube of tooth-paste. As parcels, however, took anything from eight months to over a year to reach the camp, the value of the news contained was considerably diminished. Moreover, this method was not available for sending news from Turkey to England.

The final method was simple, yet perfectly effective for smuggling news into a country such as Turkey. It consisted of pasting together two thin post-cards, the gummed portion being confined to a border of about an inch in width round the edges. The central rectangle so left ungummed was available for the secret message, which was written very small on the two inner faces of the cards before they were stuck together. Further space for writing was obtainable by adding another slip of paper of the size of the rectangle, and including this within the cards when gumming them up. After being pressed, the final post-card was trimmed so as to leave no sign of the join. The position of the rectangle containing the message was indicated on the address side by at first two lines, and later by the smallest possible dots at the corners. Well over a score of such cards must have passed from England into Turkey, and more than half that number in the reverse direction, without discovery ever being made by our captors. In the camp, to avoid the risk of being overheard talking about "split post-cards" by one of the interpreters, these cards were known as "bananas"—an apt name, as you had to skin them to get at the real fruit inside!

This explains the method by which it was possible to suggest the aeroplane scheme to the home authorities.

Unfortunately it used to take at least four months to receive a reply to a letter. For this reason we could not afford to wait until a definite date was communicated to us, so we ourselves named the first fifteen days of May as suitable for us, and agreed, from 6 to 8 A.M. on each of these days, to remain in a state of instant readiness to seize the barracks should an aeroplane appear. For the sake of secrecy, the details of the coup de main itself were left to be worked out by a small committee, and the report spread amongst the rest of the camp that the scheme had been dropped. The true state of affairs would not be divulged until a few days before the first of May.

The committee's plan was this. There were at Changri 47 officers and 28 orderlies—a total force of 75 unarmed men with which to take over the barracks. Our guard, all told, numbered 70 men. At any one time during daylight there were seven Turkish sentries on duty: one outside each corner of the barracks, one inside the square which had an open staircase at each corner, one at the arched entrance in the centre of the north face, while the seventh stood guard over the commandant's office. This was a room in the upper storey over the archway and facing on to the square.

On each side of the commandant's office, therefore, were the barrack rooms inhabited by the British officers, and to go from one side to the other it was necessary to pass the sentry standing at his post on the landing in between. From here a flight of steps gave on to the road through the main archway; on the other side of this again, and facing the stairs, was the door of the ground-floor barrack room used by our guard. This room was similar to those in the upper storey already described, and we found out by looking through a hole made for the purpose in the floor of the room above, and by casual visits when we wanted an escort for the bazaar, that the rifles of the occupants were kept in a row of racks on either side of the central passage-way.

By 6 A.M. on each morning of the first fifteen days of May every one was to be dressed, but those who had no specific job to do were to get back into bed again in case suspicion should be caused in the mind of any one who happened to come round. The aeroplanes, if they came, would arrive from the south. Two look-out parties of three, therefore, were to be at their posts by 6 A.M., one in the officers' mess in the S.E., and the other in the Padre's room next to the chapel in the S.W. corner of the barracks.

The staircases at these two corners of the square were to be watched by two officers told off for the purpose, one in each half of the north wing. When the look-outs in the south wing had either distinctly heard or seen an aeroplane, they were to come to their staircase and start walking down it into the square. Our look-outs in the north wing would warn the others in their rooms to get ready, and the officer who had the honour of doing verger to the Padre, and who used to ring a handbell before services, would run down the north-eastern staircase and walk diagonally across the square towards the chapel, ringing the bell for exactly thirty seconds.

The stopping of the bell was to be the signal for simultaneous action. The sentry on the landing could be easily disposed of by three officers; most of the rest were to run down certain staircases, cross the archway, dash into the barrack room and get hold of all the rifles, a small party at the same moment tackling the sentry at the main entrance.

On seeing the rush through the archway the look-out parties from the south wing would overpower the sentry in the square. The arms belonging to the three sentries and one other rifle were to be immediately taken to the corners of the barracks and the outside sentries covered. The orderlies, under an officer, would meanwhile form up in the square as a reserve.

Surprise was to be our greatest ally, and we hoped that, within a minute of the bell stopping, the barracks would be in our hands.

Having herded our Turkish guard into a big cellar and locked them in, we would then signal to the aeroplanes that the barracks were in our possession by laying out sheets in the square; while small picquets, armed with Turkish rifles and ammunition, would see to it that the aeroplanes on landing would be unmolested from the village. We are still convinced that the plan would have succeeded.

Even those in the know, however, put little faith in the probability of the aeroplane scheme being carried out, realising that the machines necessary for such an enterprise were not likely to be available from the main battle-fronts. Preparations, therefore, continued for working out our own salvation, as though this plan for outside help had not entered our heads. With the first signs of spring the tunnel scheme began to take concrete form.

As already mentioned in the description of the barracks, the ground to the west rose gently up to the Angora road. In this slope was a shallow, cup-like depression at a distance of forty yards from the building. If only a convenient point for starting a tunnel could be found in the nearest wall, the cup would form an ideal spot for breaking through to the surface. A night reconnaissance was made in the downstairs room on the western side of the barracks. As a result of this there seemed a likelihood that under the whole of the platform in this room we should find a hollow space varying from one to three feet in depth. If the surmise were correct and a tunnel could be run out from here, there would be no difficulty in getting rid of all the excavated earth into this hollow space. Unfortunately the lower room, though not in use, was kept locked.

It was discovered, however, that the walls of the barracks consisted of an outer and inner casing, each a foot thick, and built of large sun-dried bricks, the space between being filled up with a mixture of rubble, mortar, and earth, and a few larger stones. This was in the bottom storey. Above that the construction of the wall changed to two thicknesses of lath and plaster attached to either side of a timber framing, and the thickness of the wall diminished to only nine inches. The total width of the wall below was five feet; therefore the lockers in the upper room were immediately above the rubble core of the heavier wall. It would thus be possible to get down through the lockers and sink a shaft through the rubble to a trifle below the level of the ground, and from there to break through the inner casing and come into the empty space below the ground-floor.

Work was commenced in the middle of February 1918. For the next few weeks an officer was usually to be seen lolling about at either end of the first-floor rooms, and, on the approach of an interpreter or other intruder, would stroll leisurely down the passage, whistling the latest ragtime melody.

Within the room all would now be silent; but when the coast was again clear there could perhaps be seen in the barrack room a pair of weird figures, strangely garbed and white with dust. Somewhere in the line of lockers was the entrance to the shaft-head. The locker doors being only a foot square were too small to admit a man, and so the top planks at the place where we wished to work had been levered up and fitted with hinges to form a larger entrance. To give additional room inside, the partition between two consecutive lockers was also removed; the floor of one locker and the joists supporting the platform at this point were then cut away, and we were free to commence the shaft.

For this job six officers were chosen, of whom three belonged to our escape party. The six were divided into three reliefs, and each worked for two hours at a time. The hole was of necessity only just large enough for one man to work there, so of the pair one did the digging, while his partner, when the shaft had progressed a little, sat inside the locker at the top of the hole. When actually at work, the time went quickly enough; but sitting in the locker was very wearisome, as one's only duties were to pass on the alarm when the ragtime was whistled, and from time to time to draw up by a rope the small sacks filled by the digger. When all the available sacks were full, work was stopped, and the two would emerge from the locker. The sacks of rubbish were then carried a few yards along the room and emptied into a space underneath some planks which had been loosened in the platform. At the end of their relief, the two would go off to change their clothes, leaving the work to be continued by the next pair.

During the time spent in the locker, one of the six learnt 'Omar Khayyám' by heart. Reading a book was almost impossible owing to the lack of light; even if it had been permissible, in view of the risk of the reader becoming so interested as to miss the signal of the alarm. 'Omar,' however, was a different thing. A verse could be read line by line at the streak of light entering by a chink in one of the ill-fitting locker doors, and then committed to memory—not a very engrossing task, but it helped to pass the time.

The working kit was a light one: a shirt and "shorts," sand-shoes, and a Balaclava cap. Round his mouth the digger usually tied a handkerchief, so as not to swallow his peck of dust at one time, while the cap prevented his hair and ears getting quite full of rubbish.

Let us work for one relief. You are dressed for the occasion. The tools, consisting of two chisels, are at the bottom of the hole, which is, say, twelve feet deep. A couple of candles and a box of matches is all you need take with you. It is your turn to dig. You get into the locker and climb down the rope-ladder as quickly as possible, but you must take care not to touch the outer casing of the wall as you go, or you may find yourself staring at an astonished sentry outside: there are already a few holes in the wall through which daylight can be seen.

The candle lighted, you have a look round: but this is absurd! No one has done any work since you were down there yesterday morning. That beastly stone in the corner looks as tightly embedded in the mortar as it was then. You bend down to pick up a chisel and you bump your head against a projecting brick. You try to sit down, but there is not enough room to sit and work at the same time. You try kneeling, but it can't be done. After twisting your limbs in a hitherto undreamt-of fashion you begin to chip away at the mortar round your old friend. Nothing seems to happen; then suddenly your candle falls down and goes out, leaving your chamber of little ease in Stygian darkness.

You think you hear your partner say "Stop!" and you look up just in time to get your eyes full of grit, for he has merely shifted his legs, which are dangling above you. After untying yourself you relight the candle and again get down to the stone. You pick and scrape and prise, and then as the chisel slips you bark your knuckles; and so you go on. All sense of time is lost, and your one thought is to get that stone out. Now it moves. You work with redoubled energy, with the result that you break into a profuse perspiration. How you hate that stone! Finally up it comes when you don't expect it, and the bruise at the back of your head is nothing compared to the joy of the victor, which is equally yours.

The rock is too big, however, to go into a sack, so you shut your eyes and whisper to your partner above you. He then lets down an old canvas bath kept in the locker for this purpose. The periphery of the bath is attached to a rope by several cords, the resulting appearance as it is lowered towards you being that of an inverted parachute. The stone is difficult to lift and your feet are very much in the way, but in the end the load is ready. There is not enough room in the shaft for the stone and the bath to be pulled up past your body, so you climb up the ladder and help your partner to haul. This done, work is resumed. A small sack is filled with bits of mortar picked away from round the stone, and this too is pulled up the shaft, but the sack being small you need not leave the hole.

Now your partner tells you that it is time for the next shift. You leave the chisels in an obvious place, blow out the candle, and climb to the locker. Here your partner is tapping gently against the door. If your look-out says "All safe!" you push open the lid and emerge. The big stone is hastily carried to an empty locker and the rubbish from the sack disposed of as already described. The plank in the platform is replaced, the bath and sack returned to the locker, the lid closed, and the place once more assumes its normal aspect.

You then nip along to the nearest inhabited room, where you find your relief waiting for you. One of these two is almost certain to greet you with the words: "I suppose you got that stone in the corner out straight away. I practically finished it off last night. It only wanted a heave or two." It is useless to point out that, had it not been for the masterly manner in which you had worked, the stone would still be firmly embedded there. You merely bide your time, certain that within a few days you will be in a position to make a similar remark to him.

Work was now being carried on continuously throughout the day. Besides the diggers, there were 24 officers who took their turn as look-outs. It was not possible to keep the work going at night, for from time to time the sentries outside would patrol this wing of the barracks. In the daytime, when they approached the point where we were at work, our look-outs could stop the diggers, but this would have been impossible after dark. Moreover, light from a candle would then have been visible from outside through the cracks in the outer casing.

At this stage our plans received a rude shock. We were suddenly informed that we were to be moved to the Prisoner-of-War Camp at Yozgad (pronounced Useguard), eighty miles south-east of us. We were to be ready, said Sami Bey, to start within a week. After our experience of the departure from Kastamoni, we came to the conclusion it might equally well be a month before the necessary transport was collected. We determined, therefore, to push on with the tunnel at high pressure, and if necessary to bring it out to the surface short of the spot originally intended, and then one dark night to make a bolt for it. So the work went on.

For the first three feet of the shaft we had found merely loose rubble and stones easily excavated, for the next thirteen we had had to dig out stones embedded in very hard mortar. Here we progressed only a few inches a day. Below this there was solid concrete. Every few feet we came to wooden ties holding the inner and outer casings together; but fortunately these were on one side of the hole, and we did not have to cut through them.

At the time the move was announced we were at a depth of 16 feet, just entering the concrete. Here we were below the level of the lower storey, so we broke through the inner casing into the space beneath the platform. We now found, to our disgust, that the ground was on an average barely a foot below the joists, and the surface, being composed of dust which had been falling for eighty years between the boards of a Turkish barrack-room floor, was very unpleasant.

Our disappointment, however, was counteracted by a stroke of good luck. At each end of the barrack room above there was an alcove, and we found beneath the nearer of the two alcoves an empty space 8 feet by 6 by 5. In this we could dispose of a good deal of the spoil from the tunnel. To get rid of the rest we should have to make a main burrow below the floor, filling up the remaining space on either side between the ground and the floor, and eventually packing the burrow itself with earth excavated from the mine. Should this again not suffice, the surplus earth would have to be pulled up by way of the shaft, and distributed under the boards of the upper-room platform. All that now remained for us to do before actually starting on the tunnel itself was to sink a secondary shaft about 6 feet deep, so as to get below the level of the concrete foundations. After this we could strike horizontally towards the Angora road.

The method of moving about in the confined space was that employed by the caterpillar that loops its back, draws its hind legs under it, and then advances with its forefeet; and we found it a slow means of locomotion. The burrow to the hollow under the alcove was completed, and another in the opposite direction to the farther alcove was well on its way when we started to work on the second shaft. Three feet down we came to water. It was a great blow to us; and although with unlimited time at our disposal the difficulty might have been overcome, under present circumstances we had to consider ourselves defeated in that direction, especially as we heard, a few days later, that transport was already on its way from Angora.

The early move would also, of course, upset the aeroplane scheme, and we sincerely hoped that the authorities at home would hear that we had left Changri in time to prevent aeroplanes being sent. Although the scheme sent to them had provided somewhat for this contingency by arranging that the aeroplanes were not to land till they saw the special signal from us, it was not pleasant to think that we might be the cause of risk to valuable pilots and machines, and all to no purpose. Apart from the move, however, it eventually turned out that the scheme could not be entertained at home, as in April and May 1918 every available machine was being urgently required for making things unpleasant for the Germans behind the main battle-front.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] = soldier.

[6] = code in this letter.

CHAPTER III.
AN ATTEMPT THAT FAILED.

Thus disappointed of two of our schemes, we looked around for other ways and means of escape. Nobby had another of his brain-waves. In search of dry firewood he had made several tours inside the roof of the barracks: for the ceilings and tiled slopes were carried not by modern trusses, but by the primitive and wasteful means of trestles resting on enormous horizontal baulks, running across from wall to wall at close intervals. Having entered the roof space by a trap-door in the ceiling, it was possible to walk on these completely round the barracks, and eke out the miserably green firewood we collected ourselves by chips and odd ends of comparatively dry wood, left up there presumably several decades before, while the barracks were in building.

Why not, said Nobby, disappear up there one night and leave the Turks to infer that we had escaped, encouraging them in the belief by leaving the bars of some window cut and forced apart? We could then wait until the rest had left for Yozgad and slip out from the deserted barracks at our pleasure.

There were, however, two obvious objections to this scheme. It was hardly feasible as a means of escape for more than one or at most two parties: the Turk might be deceived into thinking half a dozen fellows had slipped past his sentries, but hardly twenty or more. Secondly, it was quite conceivable that the escape of even a small party would lead to the move being cancelled altogether: it is true it would be possible for the stowaways to be fed in the roof by their companions below, but the prospect of spending "three years or the duration of the war" in that dark and musty garret took away from the otherwise considerable attractions of the scheme.

In the end a very much modified form of the roof scheme was permitted by a committee of senior officers, and our party of six, having been adjudged by this committee to have the best chances of success on account of our prearranged scheme when we reached the coast, was given the privilege of making the attempt. As will be seen, however, it was less an actual attempt than a waiting upon favourable circumstances which would arise should our captors make a certain mistake. In any country except Turkey the whole conception would have been absurd; but we had seen enough of Turkish methods to know that there anything is possible.

By good luck the party's preparations for escape were already far advanced, although, apart from the move, we had not proposed starting until June: the rains continue off and on till then, and the crops would be in too immature a state at an earlier date.

At the cost of a good deal of time, temper, needles and thread, we had each succeeded in making ourselves a pack: to furnish the canvas we sacrificed our valises. Up till almost the last night, however, we were busy repeatedly cutting off straps and sewing them on again in a different place, in a wild endeavour to persuade our equipment to ride with a reasonable degree of comfort.

Food was an item of vital importance in any plan of escape, and we had decided to follow the example of Keeling's party and pin our faith mainly to a ration of biscuits. We had also for some months past been collecting from our parcels all tinned meat, condensed milk, and chocolate.

We brought our biscuit-making to a fine art. One of the ground-floor rooms had been set apart as the officers' shop for carpentry and bootmaking—for we had long taken to making our own furniture and repairing our own boots. Here then was started the "Bimbashi"[7] Biscuit Department of Escapers, Limited. At one bench would be Grunt and Johnny busily engaged in the uncongenial task of taking the stalks off sultanas, and the pleasanter one of eating a few. At another stood Perce with his bared forearms buried deep in a mixture of flour, sugar, and sultanas, to which from time to time Nobby would add the requisite quantities of water and eggs. The Old Man presided at the scales and, weighing out the dough into lumps sufficient for twenty biscuits, passed them on to Looney. Armed with rolling-pin, carving-knife, and straight-edge, the latter would flatten out each lump until it filled up the inside of a square frame which projected slightly above the bench to which it was fixed. When a level slab had been obtained, the ruler would be placed against marks on the frame and the slab cut five times in one direction and four in the other. It then only remained to transfer the twenty little slabs to boards, prick them with any fancy pattern with a nail, and send them to be baked by one of our orderlies. The biscuits were each about the size of a quarter-plate and half an inch thick, and when cooked weighed five to the pound, and were as hard as rocks. Their best testimonial was that, without being kept in tins, they remained perfectly good for six months.

The biscuit-making concern was run regardless of expense. A pound of flour was costing at that time two shillings, sugar ten shillings, sultanas five; and eggs three pence apiece. (These, by the way, were only about half of what we soon after found ourselves paying at Yozgad.) The final cost was something like half-a-crown a biscuit.

For their escapes Keeling and his companions had decided, if questioned, to say that they were a German survey party, and for this purpose had forged a letter purporting to come from the commandant of the Angora Division, and ordering all whom it might concern to help them in every way. They had written to say this letter had been of the greatest assistance to them. As we were going in a different direction, we thought that the same story would serve again. Grunt, being the best Turkish scholar of the party, accordingly drafted a suitable legend in a crisp style such as might be expected to emanate from Enver Pasha's pen; while Johnny, aided by infinite patience and a bit of blue carbon paper, set to work and produced a faithful imitation of an office stamp found on a Turkish receipt. We hoped that the elaborated lettering of such a crest would be as little intelligible to the average Ottoman as it was to ourselves, but as a matter of interest decided to show the original to our Greek interpreter and casually ask its meaning. It was as well we did so, for it was the stamp of the Prisoners-of-War Camp, Changri.

After this unfortunate set-back, our pair put their heads together, and finally evolved a design of their own, bearing the inscription: "Office of the Ministry of War, Stamboul."

All this time, of course, we were subjecting ourselves to a course of rigorous training—football, running in the early mornings, Müller's exercises, and cold baths. We spent half the day walking round and round the exercise-field, wearing waistcoats weighing twenty pounds. These, if disclosed from under the coat, would have reminded any one but a Turkish observer of one of those advertisements of a well-known firm of tyre-makers; for each waistcoat was lined with a series of cloth tubes filled with sand.

Nobby, who detested sewing more than any of us, went to the trouble of making a practice rucksack holding sixty pounds of earth. The whole of our last few weeks at Changri, one may say, were spent by the party in preparing for the escape in one way or another.

On the evening of the 10th April 1918 the cart transport for our journey drove into the barrack square and there parked for the night. Orders came from the commandant that we were to start next day, so we decided that before we went to bed our preparations should be completed.

A light ladder was made by which to climb up into the roof; drinking-water was taken up in buckets and hidden there; a window-frame in the east wing was prepared so that the iron bars could be withdrawn; and we made certain, by going through a list, that our packs contained all that we had decided to take. The latter were then unpacked and they and their contents placed in two boxes, each of which had a false bottom. Here were concealed our most incriminating and at the same time our most precious aids to escape: our maps, helio-mirrors, fezes, and compasses. The boxes were then locked, strongly bound with rope, and labelled very appropriately, "Trek Stores."

For the work on hand that night the occasion was an excellent one. Every one was busy packing, having left this unpleasant duty till the carts actually arrived. There was a lot of noise being made—to wit, a blend of singing and sawing; and when at 1 A.M. we could at last go to bed, there was still much activity around us.

Next morning we showed ourselves as much as possible, and took care to find an opportunity of talking to the two camp interpreters. It was conceivable that they might take our names in the barracks as usual each morning, and the commandant, being satisfied that every one was present, might omit to call roll when the move actually took place; or alternately, in the excitement of the moment, there might be no roll-call whatsoever.

On one or other of these possibilities depended the success of the modified scheme, which stipulated that until the carts were definitely on the move we were not to hide ourselves in the roof. Should the party go off without a roll-call, we were allowed to leave ourselves behind. If, on the other hand, roll was called, we had to turn up for it. This explains the necessity for the two boxes of "Trek Stores": if we were left behind, these could be quickly taken up into the roof; and if roll should be called, we could hastily, and without losing our valuable escape outfit, join the carts, carrying two boxes apparently containing food only.

After loading up our own carts with the rest of our kit in case the scheme miscarried, we took these boxes into the mess-room at the S.E. corner of the barracks; and as the time of departure drew near, went there ourselves and sat round a few bits of bread and an empty jam-pot. Our excellent friend H—— promised to come and warn us should there be a call over.

From the windows facing south could be seen the Angora road, and this we watched eagerly. The barracks were quite quiet. After many minutes a loaded cart appeared on the road followed by another. Our hopes began to rise. The one-in-a-thousand chance might yet come off. There were more carts moving on the road now, but to our disappointment they suddenly stopped.

A few seconds later H—— dashed in. They were calling the roll. We carried the boxes outside, there to be met by several officers who had come back, so they said, to collect some firewood for the journey, but really to make our late appearance as unsuspicious as possible. No wonder we were as happy at Changri as it was possible to be, having men like these for our companions.

You may think that it was not worth our while to have taken so much trouble for so small a chance, yet you probably take a ticket in the Derby Sweep. It was, we admit, a small chance, but the prize was a great one, so we were unwilling to let it slip by. Although a roll-call was held, we heard afterwards that it was only as an afterthought on the part of Sami Bey, and despite our disappointment after coming so near to success, we had at least the satisfaction of finding that our late arrival caused no suspicion in the minds of our captors. After a little difficulty in finding carts which were not too overloaded to take our two precious boxes, our party was soon marching southwards with the rest of the prisoners.

Although the direct distance from Changri to Yozgad, as the crow flies, is barely 80 miles, the only road open to our wheeled transport was that which runs by way of Angora: our march was then about 100 miles longer. For the first sixty, that is to say to Angora, the country was familiar to us, as we had marched along this route in the opposite direction on the way to our first camp, Kastamoni, nearly two years before. It was impossible, unfortunately, to induce our commandant to say beforehand each day where would be the halts for the midday meal and the next night; in fact, he did not know himself, as this was a matter to be fought out with his brother officer in charge of the transport. In other respects this march, like that from Kastamoni, was a pleasing innovation after the monotony of our long confinement. After the first few hours the escort wearied of their primary keenness, and allowed us to march pretty well at our own pace, except for occasional halts to allow the carts to come up. In fact, precautions against escaping en route were unexpectedly lax. On the very first day, for instance, it was not until after dark that we halted for the night, and a dozen officers might easily have slipped away from a party which went to the river a few hundred yards distant to fetch water: roll-call was not held until we marched off next morning. We had agreed amongst ourselves, however, that we would now wait until we reached Yozgad, and could contrive some plan by which all parties might once more have an equal chance of escaping. It was for this reason that the above and later opportunities to make off while on trek were allowed to slip by.

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!"

The 120-mile march from Angora to Yozgad occupied eight days. As usual we bivouacked each night in the open, on one occasion coming in for a tremendous thunderstorm. Our best day's march was one of thirty miles, and brought us down to the Kizil Irmak, better known to Greek scholars as the ancient river Halys. We camped on the western bank opposite the village of Kopru-Keui (= Bridge-Village), so called from the picturesque old stone bridge which here spans the largest river in Asia Minor. We were all glad of a bathe, although this was only safe close to the bank, where the water was hardly deep enough to swim in. The main stream was a swirling torrent of brown and muddy water, dashing between enormous rocks, which protected the bridge from its fury. It passed under only two of the nine arches and so onwards through a narrow gorge between high precipitous cliffs. The bridge itself, with narrow and steeply cambered roadway, and pointed arches of varying height and span, seemed almost one with the rocky cleft it spanned.

The rest of our trek to Yozgad was uneventful except for the upsetting of two carts, owing to reckless driving on the part of the Turkish Jehus.

Our last day's march began on the 24th April 1918, when we set out from a small village twelve miles from our destination. The way climbed gradually till we topped a high ridge. Over this we marched, swinging down the farther slope at a quicker step. The winding road curled round spurs and valleys, and from one such spur we obtained our first sight of the town of Yozgad.

Unprepossessing it looked lying in a valley surrounded by barren hills, a few poplars here and there, the usual timber-built houses, a few mosques.

Four months later we looked at it for the last time. We could only see a few twinkling lights to the east in a curtain of starlit darkness; but we were well content as we turned away, for we had shaken the dust of prison from our feet.

FOOTNOTE:

[7] A Turkish word meaning "Major."

CHAPTER IV.
YOZGAD CAMP.

With our arrival at Yozgad was renewed many an old friendship, dating back to the earlier days of the campaign in Mesopotamia; for, like ourselves, the majority of the eighty officers whom we found there were victims of the siege of Kut-el-Amara. A few days later about twenty officers of the original camp were transferred to Afion-Kara-Hissar, leaving us now a combined total of roughly 100 officers and 60 orderlies.

The "camp" occupied six detached houses, divided into two groups of three houses each, the one on the western, the other near the south-western limits of the town. With a single exception each house stood in its own grounds, which comprised something under an acre of garden apiece. These were in most cases planted with fruit trees, and in all cases surrounded by high stone walls. The first comers had by April 1918 converted these previously unkempt areas into flourishing vegetable gardens. For our safe custody there were on the average two sentries over each house; these had their sentry-boxes in the garden or at the entrance to the enclosure wall. There was also a post on the four-hundred-yard length of road which connected the two groups of houses.

As had been our impression on arrival, the town of Yozgad could by no manner of means be called picturesque. It is squalidly built on the steep slopes of a narrow valley, surrounded on all sides by bare and rugged hills. The larger houses, it is true, have a few fruit trees in their gardens, and tall poplars line the river bank; the country around, however, is destitute of trees except for a small pine wood on the high ridge south of the town. The camp was both higher and less accessible than any other in Turkey; for Yozgad stands some 4500 feet above sea-level, and in the heart of the rugged mountain system of Anatolia, seven days' march from the nearest railway station.

The town itself is said to have had a population before the war of some 20,000 souls. At the time of our arrival it could hardly have contained one-fifth of that number; for, shortly before the formation of the camp in July 1916, most of the Armenians had been massacred; and they had formed a large proportion of the inhabitants. Their shops had been pillaged, and whenever there was a shortage of firewood the Turks merely proceeded to pull down another of the Armenian houses, which, as usual throughout Anatolia, were largely constructed of wood. The crash of falling timber as a building was demolished was a sound so common as to pass almost unnoticed by the prisoners. Of Turkish brutality, however, we had an even more constant reminder than the sound and sight of ruined buildings; for every day there were to be seen numbers of Armenian children dying as they lay in the narrow streets, starved, emaciated, and clad in rags. For us to provide relief on the large scale required was impossible, owing both to the difficulties of obtaining money and the necessity of screening our philanthropy from the commandant and other Turkish authorities. To the credit of the Turkish soldier be it said, however, that he at any rate did not prevent us from helping these poor miserable creatures; and it was thanks to connivance on the part of our sentries and escorts that we were able towards the end of our time to give away money and bread daily in the streets.

The White Paper published in November 1918 on the subject of the Treatment of British Prisoners of War in Turkey describes the commandant of the camp at Yozgad as a "Turk of the old school—polite, honest, and silent." Silent, or, we would rather say, taciturn, Kiazim Bey undoubtedly was, for it needed many applications before an inquiry or request received an answer at all. Polite, too, for when he did vouchsafe to reply he would promise almost anything; but is it not known to those who have dealt with a Turk, albeit one of the old school, that in his estimation a promise costs nothing and involves no obligation of fulfilment? It is merely his method of temporarily soothing your feelings, and is not this of the essence of politeness? As to his honesty, if he did not loot our parcels or steal our money, he was not averse from accepting a regular commission from every shopkeeper who wished to supply his wares to the camp. Even our sentries had to bribe him before they were allowed on leave. Ten Turkish pounds, or an equivalent in kind, passed hands before a fortnight's leave was granted.

The following story can be vouched for. One of our guard, when desiring a holiday, turned up at the commandant's office, but he was out. His son, however, a boy of fourteen, was there, and to him the simple soldier gave his money to be handed on to Kiazim Bey. Such an opportunity did not often occur; so the boy spent the rest of that day gorging costly sweetmeats in the bazaar. After several days the soldier made further inquiries about his leave, and the truth was out. The story ends with a good beating for the boy and no leave for the soldier. Another of our guards used to mend boots for us, but finally gave it up, declaring openly that the commission demanded by his commandant made it no longer worth his while.

By the time of the arrival of the party from Changri, a number of so-called privileges had been granted by this polite, honest, and silent old Turk—although, it must be admitted, rather in the spirit of the unjust judge worried incessantly by the importunate widow. The most useful of these concessions was the permission to go out coursing on two days a week. The "Yozgad Hunt Club" boasted a pack of no less than three couple of "hounds." These were of a local breed, and had the shape of small and rather moth-eaten greyhounds, mostly, however, with black, or tan and white, markings. Nevertheless, they were clean and affectionate, and, thanks to the master and whips, became wonderfully good coursers. Seldom did they fail to account for at least one hare or fox between the hours of 4 and 9 A.M. each Monday and Thursday in the spring and summer of 1918.

One exception we remember was the day when the master appeared for the first time in a pink coat of local style and dye, and then we drew blank. The field themselves were dazed, so the hounds had to be excused. Some of the happiest recollections of our captivity are of those glorious early mornings in the country, far away from the ugly town which was our prison. Here for a few brief hours it was almost possible to forget that we were prisoners of war, until reminded that this was Turkey by the monotonous drawl of one of our greatest exponents of the Ottoman tongue. Wafted on the soft morning breeze as we wended our way back to bath and breakfast, would come at intervals of half a minute some such sounds as those which follow: Er ... er ... posta ... bou ... bou ... bourda ... er ... er ... aie ... der.... Such fluency almost suggested that Turkish was a simple language, instead of one of the most difficult in the world, second only, it is said, to Chinese.

Although attempts were made to play football, no suitable ground existed in or near Yozgad, and four-a-side hockey became the form of recreation which for the majority in the camp provided the best means of combining pleasure and hard exercise. Hockey was available at any time of day, as the ground was within the precincts of the camp, being in fact the lowest of a series of terraces in one of the gardens belonging to our houses. It was a bare plot, with a hard but dusty surface, and surrounded on three sides by stone walls: the area available for play was, perhaps, the length of a cricket pitch and about ten yards across, so that there was not room for more than a total of eight players.

From a sketch by Capt. E. B. Burns, E. Kent Regt.
COUNTRY KNOWN TO THE LOCAL HUNT CLUB AS "HADES."

The equipment consisted of a soft leather ball, and for each combatant a stick made from selected pieces of firewood, shaped according to fancy, subject to the finished article being passed through a 1½-inch ring. The resultant game was always fast and often furious, its only drawback as a means of training for would-be escapers being the not inconsiderable risk of losing an eye, finger, or portions of an ankle or knee. The excitement created by such matches as the old camp, Yozgad, versus the newcomers from Changri, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th teams, reached at times a pitch rarely attained in the most hotly-contested house-match at an English public school.

For those debarred for any reason from this strenuous form of exercise there were walks each evening, except on hunting days and Wednesdays. On the latter days there were, during the summer months, weekly picnics in the neighbouring pine woods, to which about 50 per cent of the camp would go.

During daylight intercommunication was allowed between the two groups of houses: nominally an escort was necessary to accompany such visitors along the intervening road, but in practice this rule was a dead letter.

So hard-won, however, had been these few privileges, that the prospect of any one attempting to escape and thereby causing their suspension was looked upon by the majority of the original camp almost with horror. And this was not altogether without reason, for some of them had gone seriously into the question of escape, and had come to the conclusion that, from so hopelessly inaccessible a spot, all attempts, at least without outside assistance, were doomed to failure. Those of us who had come from Changri, however, were not likely to give up our long-cherished hopes without a struggle, but in the meantime kept our nefarious intentions to ourselves, except for half a dozen Yozgad officers whom we knew for certain to be keen to escape. The arrival of Cochrane had more than countered the additional difficulties involved by our move from Changri to Yozgad. While at Kara-Hissar, he had arranged a scheme with the powers that be in England by which a friendly boat should remain off a certain point on the coast of the Mediterranean for a definite number of days at the end of August 1918.

Cochrane now placed this scheme at the disposal of the Changri division. There was some reluctance to give up old plans, but in the end four parties decided to take advantage of "Rendezvous X," as Cochrane's meeting-place was called—suffice to say that it was on the Adalian coast nearly due south of Kara-Hissar. Of these four parties ours was one. Our route to the island of Samos—our original scheme—would now be some 450 miles. Actually this was only 50 miles farther than to Rendezvous X, for the only feasible route to the latter was viâ Kara-Hissar, owing to the desert and mountains which would have to be crossed on a more direct route. Cochrane's scheme, however, promised an almost certain ending to the march to any one who reached the coast; whereas, even if we reached the western shore of Asia Minor, we should still have the problem of getting across to the island, and that from a coast which must inevitably be very carefully guarded.

Our six therefore decided to give up the old plan, and soon after were joined by Cochrane himself and Captain F. R. Ellis, D.C.L.I. This was a tremendous advantage to us, as Cochrane not only had the experience so hardly gained by his previous attempt, but had actually seen some of the country over which we should have to march if we succeeded in passing Kara-Hissar. It was of course impossible for him to do guide to all four parties, as large numbers marching together would be immediately tracked; so he gave what suggestions he could, and the other three parties were to make their way to the rendezvous independently.

Our party therefore numbered eight, all of whom have now been introduced to our readers. We were the largest, and may claim to have been the most representative party, including as we did one naval officer, one gunner, one sapper, one British Infantry, two Indian Army, and two Territorial officers. The other three parties making for Rendezvous X numbered in all nine officers and Gunner Prosser. Besides these there were two parties having other schemes. The first, consisting almost entirely of Yozgad officers, intended marching for the Black Sea and crossing to Russia, the full facts of whose chaotic state were not known to us at the time. There were six officers in this party. Lastly, a party of two more officers determined to set out eastward, and hoped to make their way into Persia.[8] There had been three or four other officers beside these who had seriously contemplated escape while at Changri, but who were now forced to change their mind through sickness or temporary disablements, such as crocked knees, &c.

The 26 starters—25 officers and 1 man—were scattered over five out of the six houses comprising the camp. It was necessary, therefore, for those in each house—in no case all of them members of the same party—to devise their own particular means of getting out of the camp precincts, and then for a committee composed of a representative from each party to co-ordinate their respective schemes as far as possible.

The first thing was to settle on a definite date for the attempt. As the majority were to make for Rendezvous X, to fit in with Cochrane's prearranged scheme, the date had to be later in the year than had been our idea while at Changri. It was decided that the night chosen should be the one towards the end of July most suitable as regards the moon. To enable the members of the various parties to join up at some convenient local rendezvous, and then put as great a distance as possible between themselves and Yozgad before the following dawn, the ideal was for the moon to rise an hour or so after we had all left our houses. Great credit is due to Captain T. R. Wells for correctly computing the times of rising and setting of that irregular planet. The only material available was a Nautical Almanac some four years old.

From his predictions, the 30th July was eventually fixed upon as the best night. The moon would rise about 10.30 P.M., and 9.15 was fixed upon as a suitable time for all to leave their houses—if they could. This meant all would have been present at the evening roll-call, which took place during dinner at about 7.45 P.M.; and their absence, if no alarm occurred, would not be discovered until the check taken at dawn next day.

The advent of Cochrane to our party led to a reconsideration of the whole question of the food and kit we should carry on our momentous journey. His previous experience and that of Keeling's party was that 35 lb. was about as much as one could expect to carry across country consistently with making reasonable progress. In the end, however, we found that there were so many essentials that we should have each to take about 43 lb., exclusive of the weight of packs, haversacks, &c., to carry them. The following list gives some idea of our final equipment. Each member of the party was to take the following:—

Food—

Sixty-eight biscuits, made by "Escapers Ltd.," five to the lb.

Six soft biscuits, four to the lb.

Sultanas, 4 lb.

Cheese, ½ lb.

Fresh meat (for the first two days only), ½ lb.

Rice, 2 lb.

Cocoa or Ovaltine, 1 lb.

Soup tablets (Oxo), 12 cubes.

Chocolate, 1 lb.

Tea, ¼ lb.

Salt, about 1/8 lb.

Emergency ration of chocolate, Horlick's malted milk tablets, or Brand's essence, about ½ lb.

Clothing—

Spare pair of boots, or several pairs of native sandals.

Spare shirt.

Towel.

Several pairs of socks.

Felt mufti hat or service-dress cap.

Vermin-proof belt.

Spare bootlaces.

Handkerchiefs (mostly in the form of bags round the food).

Miscellaneous—

Share of medicines, mainly in tabloid form.

One large and one small bandage.

Matches, two or more boxes, one being in a water-tight case.

Flint and slow-match cigarette lighter.

Cigarettes or tobacco, according to taste.

Soap, one piece.

String.

Mug and spoon.

Wool for repairs to socks.

Spare razor-blades.

Compass.

Clasp-knife.

Whistle.

Tooth-brush.

Comb.

Notebook and pencil.

Sixty-eight biscuits, made by "Escapers Ltd.," five to the lb.

Six soft biscuits, four to the lb.

Sultanas, 4 lb.

Cheese, ½ lb.

Fresh meat (for the first two days only), ½ lb.

Rice, 2 lb.

Cocoa or Ovaltine, 1 lb.

Soup tablets (Oxo), 12 cubes.

Chocolate, 1 lb.

Tea, ¼ lb.

Salt, about 1/8 lb.

Emergency ration of chocolate, Horlick's malted milk tablets, or Brand's essence, about ½ lb.

Spare pair of boots, or several pairs of native sandals.

Spare shirt.

Towel.

Several pairs of socks.

Felt mufti hat or service-dress cap.

Vermin-proof belt.

Spare bootlaces.

Handkerchiefs (mostly in the form of bags round the food).

Share of medicines, mainly in tabloid form.

One large and one small bandage.

Matches, two or more boxes, one being in a water-tight case.

Flint and slow-match cigarette lighter.

Cigarettes or tobacco, according to taste.

Soap, one piece.

String.

Mug and spoon.

Wool for repairs to socks.

Spare razor-blades.

Compass.

Clasp-knife.

Whistle.

Tooth-brush.

Comb.

Notebook and pencil.

In addition, the following were to be distributed in more or less equal weights among the party as a whole:—

1 pair of field-glasses.

6 skeins of ¾-inch rope.

2 boot-repair outfits.

1 housewife.

3 chargals (canvas bags for water).

Map, original and copies; and enlargements from a small map.

Cardboard protractors.

"Sun compass."

Book of star charts.

Extra tea in the form of tablets.

1 aluminium "degchie" or "dixie" (cooking-pot).

1 very small adze (a carpenter's tool used in the East).

2 pocket Gillette shaving sets.

4 candles, } for giving red-light signals at

red cloth } Rendezvous X.

2 pairs of scissors.

2 iron rings, for use in the event of having to tow our kit across an unfordable river.

1 sausage of solid meat extract.

Opium.

1 bottle of "Kola" compound.

1 lb. tapioca.

Small reel of fine steel wire.

One ½-pint bottle of brandy.

Fishing tackle.

The actual clothes to be worn on starting were left to individual fancy. It was a question first of what one possessed; secondly, of what one anticipated would suit the temperatures we should meet, and best resist the wear and tear which our clothing would have to withstand. Some decided on Indian khaki drill, others on home service serge uniform; others again on a mixture of the two. One had a rainproof coat cut down and converted to a tunic, which in practice was found to answer well.

"Shorts," we knew, would be very comfortable, but unfortunately they are a peculiarly British style of garment; so they were vetoed, at any rate for wear by day. One or two, however, rendered their trousers convertible to "shorts," for use during darkness, by slitting each leg along one seam to a point above the knee, adding buttons and cutting button-holes at the correct places to enable them to be turned up and fastened, so as to leave the knees free. Most of us, however, preferred not to risk the loss of any protection against cold such as this plan involved, and eventually started off wearing trousers tied below the knee with a piece of cord, in true navvy fashion.

It was realised that we could not hope to pass for Turks by day, so no elaborate disguise was attempted. At night, however, a Turk's silhouette does not much differ, except for his headgear, from that of a European—for a Turk is not a European, even though he is allowed a bit of European soil. We accordingly decided to wear fezes, so that any one passing us at night would mistake us for Turks and ask no questions. For the daytime we would hold to our original Changri scheme of pretending to be a German survey party, and for this purpose would carry either Homburg hats or British field-service caps.

As to the best means of taking along all this kit, opinions were most diverse. The weary experiments which had been commenced whilst at Changri were continued with renewed zest at Yozgad, until by a system of trial and error each had worked his own particular idea into a more or less practical form. Our difficulties were enhanced by the necessity of concealing our experimental models from the eyes not only of brother Turk, but also of brother officers, so that all our tests were carried out in the somewhat confined space of the room cupboards. While so situated there was the risk of finding oneself shut in for half an hour if an officer not in the know came into the room to describe the events of the latest fox-hunt. Eventually the equipment of our party varied from a simple but enormous rucksack, with water-bottle slung separately, to a rather complicated arrangement by which the pack was balanced to some extent by biscuit-pouches, haversack, and water-bottle attached to the belt.

In all cases the total load carried, with water-bottles filled but chargals empty, amounted to close upon 50 lb.; of this 25¼ lb. were food, 5 lb. water-bottle, and 12 lb. accessories and spare clothing; and the remainder the weight of the equipment itself—in one case as much as 8 lb.

A few notes as to the above food and equipment may be of interest. The soft biscuits were obtained at the last moment from an officer who had intended to decamp but was prevented from so doing by a game leg. They took the place of 1½ lb. of a kind of sun-dried meat known locally as "pastomar," similar to "biltong," but seasoned with garlic. This we had bought two or three weeks previous to the date of departure, for it was not always obtainable in the bazaar. Hence it was necessary to take it while the chance offered, in spite of the unpleasantness of having to keep such evil-smelling stuff in a living-room. Its taste to any one but the garlic-loving Oriental is as disagreeable as its scent, so that it was not altogether without relief that we found at the last moment that most of the pastomar was already breeding maggots, and we replaced it with the odd six biscuits apiece.

Having read during our captivity a good deal about Arctic exploration, we had also experimented with the local pemmican, but found it would not withstand the heat. The cheeses were from home parcels, and to save weight were taken out of their tins on the last day. The same was also done with the cocoa and Ovaltine, which were then carried in bags made from handkerchiefs.

Two of the party also carried an extra pound of chocolate and some Oxo tablets, on the understanding that they were to be thrown away if the loads proved too heavy, for most of us felt that the last straw was already nearly reached.

Spare clothing was left for individuals to decide for themselves, and some carried a little thin underclothing and a "woolley" in addition to the spare shirt and socks.

The medicines comprised quinine, aspirin, cascara sagrada, Dover's powders, and iodine, these being supplied to us by our own doctors. Also some arrowroot and Ovaltine in case any one had to diet himself. We had in addition, while at Changri, managed to obtain from the local chemist about fifteen opium pills per head. Most of us further carried either boric powder or ointment for the feet. The vermin-proof belts were to be more useful as a safeguard against chill than against vermin, as in the end we on no occasion slept inside a Turkish dwelling.

With one exception, all the compasses were of the poorest description, being of the more or less toy variety with a mirror on the back. Changri, however, produced one of superior pattern, which we purchased without arousing suspicion, and attempted to make more efficient with the luminous paint off the face of an old watch, but without very lasting success.

It is not easy to make a bag of canvas which will hold water, but by dint of fine stitching and a special kind of beeswax, our naval leader succeeded in producing three chargals which did yeoman service.

The map on which we were to rely was a French one, forty years old, and on a scale of about twenty-four miles to the inch. An officer had bought it for five pounds from a Greek dentist at Kastamoni. As it happened it was not bought primarily for escape purposes, but we persuaded him to sell it to us on his leaving Changri for Geddos. In this the hill features were very indistinctly shown by vague hachuring, and even a big river such as the Kizil Irmak was in several places shown dotted, signifying not that this dried up during parts of the year, but that no one had surveyed it. An up-to-date but very small map had been received from home by means of a series of six "bananas," each containing a tiny section; but, owing to our change of plan, this showed little of our proposed route.

The "sun compass" needs some explanation. This was an invention of Captain A. B. Matthews, D.S.O., R.E., who had been a prisoner of war at Yozgad since the fall of Kut-el-Amara. Wishing to make a rough survey of the immediately surrounding country for the use of the Hunt Club, and finding that local magnetic attraction made a compass altogether unreliable, he bethought him of a simple means of utilising the sun, which in the wonderful climate of Asia Minor is rarely obscured throughout the spring, summer, or autumn. The "sun compass" consists merely of a thin wooden disc of say 5 inches diameter, with the outer edge divided into 360 degrees, and with a hole at the centre through which can be inserted a piece of stiff straight wire. A table of the sun's bearing at any hour on any day completes the instrument. In actual use the disc is held horizontally, with the graduations upwards, and the wire kept vertical and protruding above the disc. Then, by turning the latter till the shadow of the wire falls on the sun's bearing plus 180 degrees, you have the disc set to read off true bearings in any direction.

Captain Matthews was also responsible for the star charts. By means of two maps of the heavens obtained from a book on travel, published by the Royal Geographical Society, he devised from first principles a "bus" consisting of three concentric cardboard discs. By means of these it was possible, almost mechanically, to read off the bearings of the brighter stars in the main constellations for any hour and any night of the year. It was thus possible to obtain a series of charts showing on which star one should march for any required bearing, and at any particular time. We prepared them for all hours of the nights from the 1st August to the 15th September 1918. This chart-book was of value as a check on a magnetic compass by night, but assumed an elementary knowledge of at least those constellations which would be of use for the particular purpose in view.

Although it was expected that if we wished to evade recapture we should have to avoid replenishing our supplies at any villages, it was necessary to take money in case we were compelled to do so as a last resource. For this purpose a certain amount of gold and silver was essential: otherwise it was quite possible that, in payment for anything in an out-of-the-way district, the paper money would be received at its true value, namely, nothing at all. A certain amount of paper money was, however, advisable in view of the conditions we might expect if we were recaptured, as paper money was less likely to be taken away from us than gold and silver. It was decided then to start if possible with at least £2 each in gold, £30 in paper, and two medjidies (worth four shillings each) in silver. This we succeeded in collecting, thanks to being able to cash a few cheques locally: for both the gold and the silver, however, it was necessary to pay five times their face value in paper. We bought silver coins, a few at a time, from various sentries. These men thoroughly understood our desire for them when we hinted at a pretty girl in England who would look very handsome with a necklace of medjidies round her neck.

While at Changri our party had succeeded in obtaining from other officers two pukka helio-mirrors, which had escaped destruction on the fall of Kut-el-Amara. With these we had fitted up a duplex heliograph, complete with signalling key and adjusting screws. Whereas, however, for the Samos scheme it would have been invaluable, for Rendezvous X its use was more problematical; and in view of the way in which essentials had gradually mounted up, it was in the end rather reluctantly decided that the helio must go by the board, as it weighed about three pounds.

Another decision now made was that in our party we should not use violence in order to make our escape, unless it should be necessary on the coast itself to avoid throwing away a really good chance. It was recognised that if bloodshed occurred, the Turks would be quite capable of killing off the whole of our party, and possibly others, if recaptured. For this reason no attempt was made to procure firearms, though this would probably have been no more difficult than obtaining the fezes, compasses, and field-glasses.

During the four months we were at Yozgad, Grunt, being one of the best Turkish scholars in the camp, started a class for any who chose to learn Turkish. About five times a week, therefore, all the original six of our escape-party and a few others used to meet in Grunt's room for an hour's instruction. In the case of would-be escapers, the main attraction of these lessons was this: if any of us were recaptured, as some were practically certain to be, it would be possible to make oneself understood to some slight extent, and thereby perhaps alleviate the unpleasantness of prison life by being able to let our jailers know our wants. Since, also, to judge by the experience of those who had been recaptured, we should, if equally unfortunate, spend several months in the close company of some of the worst criminals in Turkey, it would be a pity not to take the opportunity of picking up a really good conversational knowledge of the language under exceptionally favourable circumstances. For this a grounding in grammar would be invaluable. Nothing else but these considerations would have induced the majority of us to attempt so difficult a task as learning even the rudiments of the Ottoman tongue.

As the time grew near for the great adventure, the last stage of our training was entered upon. Every opportunity was taken of going out hunting, although the field was limited to a total of thirty. Keenness in hockey died off, as many of us were afraid of sustaining some injury which might incapacitate us on the actual day. Running and hard walking round the garden became a regular institution in some houses; and several cupboards, if suddenly opened at almost any hour of the day and at many in the night, would have disclosed a member of an escape-party loaded up in the most extraordinary manner, and performing gymnastic exercises for the strengthening of leg and shoulder muscles. In view of the inevitable hard marching, towards the end several of the party even went so far as to soak the feet several times a day in a strong solution of alum, in the hope of hardening the feet and avoiding blisters.

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.

The week's grace was spent in perfecting all our arrangements. One refinement was to collect our own and other people's hair when cut by an officer barber, and paste it on to the outside of a cloth bag stuffed with rubbish or towels made up to about the size of a man's head. These were to be the heads of our dummies. Meanwhile we were more careful with our shopping orders, and were relieved to find suspicions in the camp dying down.

On the morning of the 31st July an officer, who was supposed to know nothing of the escape, had been called by his orderly and told, "They ain't gone after all, sir!"

FOOTNOTE:

[8] The following is a list of the officers who attempted to escape, but were unhappily all recaptured, mostly within a few days of starting, but in the case of one party not until they had been at large for eighteen days and covered over 200 miles: Major C. H. Stockley, 66th Punjabis; Captains C. Manners, 104th Rifles; A. B. Matthews, D.S.O., R.E.; E. W. Burdett and C. A. Raynor, 48th Pioneers; T. R. Wells, R.A.F.; R. O. Chamier, 110th Mahrattas; H. H. Rich, 120th Infantry; E. T. M. Patmore, Hants Regiment, T.F.; Lieutenants Tudway, R.N.; J. H. Brabazon, Connaught Rangers; A. V. Barlow, R.A.F.; H. D. Stearns, I.A.R., 117th Mahrattas; A. Macfadyen, I.A.R., 110th Mahrattas; F. S. Sheridan, I.A.R., Gurkhas; J. Dooley, I.A.R., M.T.; M. L. C. Smith, I.A.R., 7th Rajputs.

CHAPTER V.
THE FLAG FALLS.

At last the long-deferred day had dawned—the cause rather of relief than excitement to our party, after their planning and scheming for eleven long months and active preparations for as many weeks. Our only prayer now was that we should at least have a run for our money, and be spared the ignominy of being led back into the camp at Yozgad without the taste of even a few days freedom.

The 7th August being a Wednesday, at 11 A.M. the usual picnic party set off for the pine woods. The majority never dreamt for a moment of the intention of twenty-five officers—a quarter of all the officers in the camp—to escape that night. Their departure was the signal for feverish activity in completing preparations which, by their nature, had to be left until the last day. Such, in the house then occupied by the present writers, called Hospital House, was the screwing together of the ladders required in case an alternative scheme for getting out of the camp should prove necessary. Then there were rucksacks and haversacks to be finally made up, and the whole "Christmas Tree" to be tried on to ensure that there was no rattling. For reasons which will appear, it was necessary too for the Old Man and Looney to convey their kits across the alley into the fowl-house and there leave them concealed, the one in a blanket and the other in a box. Meanwhile, Grunt and Perce put the finishing touches to the hole commenced, as previously described, in the fowl-house wall, until daylight could be seen through every joint in the outer skin of masonry, and until it was as certain as such things could be that the remaining stones would come away easily. Watches had to be synchronised to ensure that all six parties should start simultaneously; the fresh meat for the first two days to be issued, and so on almost ad infinitum. It was at this stage that we discovered the maggots in the "pastomar" or "biltong," to which reference has already been made.

That evening, before the hour when intercommunication between houses was supposed to cease, there were many visits from well-wishers living in other houses who knew of our intentions, and last arrangements were made with our British orderlies to play their part. Doubtless they did it well. One can imagine the delight with which they would put some of our dummies to bed after our departure, and as we left we heard their efforts in the house to cover our exit with the noise of a sing-song. If no alarm occurred before daylight, they were to remove the dummies after these had served their purpose at the 4 A.M. "rounds." One orderly had also volunteered to build up the hole in the wall as soon as the house and kitchen doors were unlocked next morning.

At last all was ready, and we sat down to what, we hoped, would be our last full meal for many a day. Twenty minutes to eight came and went, the time when the onbashi, or Turkish corporal, usually took roll-call; but it was not till eight o'clock that evening that the six of the party in our house, who, with a Major A—— and the "King of Oireland," another escaper, formed the mess on the top floor, heard his footsteps on the stairs. We returned his good-night with rather more than usual gusto, and waited till he had disappeared, as his custom was, into the next room. Now was the moment. Old Man and Looney slipped out of the room and downstairs into the kitchen, the door of which, with the side-door of the house, was allowed to remain open every night until our orderlies had "washed up." These two were to go across in their shirt sleeves and carrying plates, so that, if he noticed them at all, the sentry posted over the alley separating the main building from the outhouse would naturally mistake them for orderlies. In the excitement of the moment, however, Old Man had forgotten to bring down his coat; and Looney, now safely ensconced in the fowl-house, wondered why he had not followed him across. Next minute there was a tremendous crash and a tinkle of broken crockery. The Old Man, discovering his loss, had turned back and slipped on the stairs. Nothing could have exceeded in realism this unintentional imitation of an orderly. As he picked himself up, he saw the feet of the onbashi descending the stairs above him, with the result that he lost no further time in crossing to the kitchen. Orderly M—— was sent back to fetch the missing article, which arrived in due course.

Now followed an anxious few minutes. Sometimes it happened that the onbashi would miscount an officer or man, or count one twice over, and the check would then be repeated throughout the house. We realised that if this occurred on the present night it would be necessary for Old Man and Looney to reappear from the kitchen, and for scheme No. 2 to come into operation. Incidentally their kits, then in the outhouse, would have to be brought back in the blanket and box by our orderlies. Scheme No. 2 was to leave the house, carrying ladders, through a window on the eastern side; after which would follow a ticklish crawl between two sentries forty yards apart to the garden wall nine feet in height. The bars of the window in question had been loosened and cracked by Looney, with Old Man watching the sentries' movements, during some amateur theatricals held in the house on the previous night. To our relief, however, this plan had not to be put into execution.

As was his custom, when the orderlies had finished their work, the onbashi locked the house and kitchen doors. No sooner had his footsteps died away than the advance-guard of our party set to work to complete the opening of the wall. It was now about 8.15 P.M. The work went on quickly but quietly. A few minutes only and the clear starlit sky was visible through the rapidly enlarging aperture.

Then came another anxious moment. As the two were relieving one another at the work, there suddenly appeared at the half-completed task the head of a mongrel dog. One growl or bark would suffice to draw the attention of the watchmen over the vegetable gardens outside, who did not hesitate to fire off their ancient rifles on the slightest alarm; but the dog after one look in at the hole strolled on, and the good work was resumed.

There was one large stone which seemed likely to give trouble; indeed it had almost been decided to let it remain, when it suddenly came away and crashed noisily to the ground. But the sound, if heard at all, fell on deaf ears—although it must have been at about this very time that some of the party, still in the house and overlooking the wall, saw a man standing within a score of yards from the hole.

Their work completed, Old Man and Looney proceeded to screen it from any one passing casually along, by affixing a square of canvas over the outside with "blobs" of beeswax. It now only remained to arrange for the easy withdrawal of the staple of the kitchen door, so that the latter could be opened from the outside, although padlocked; then, having donned haversack, water-bottle, and pack, to await the arrival of the remaining six from this house, four of our own and two of another party.

When Old Man and Looney had stepped off to the kitchen the other six of the second-floor mess had remained at table, talking and smoking as usual. The Turkish corporal taking roll-call reappeared from the room beyond the dining-room, and was told not to forget the "yourt" for the next day. "Yourt," a kind of junket, is a staple diet of the Turk, and most of the prisoners became very partial to it. As it was hard to come by except through the medium of a sentry, it was their custom to remind him each evening, so that he might have some faint chance of remembering about it next morning.

A few minutes later they heard the kitchen door being locked, and heaved a sigh of relief. The advance-party had had enough time to get across to the kitchen, and roll had been correctly called the first time. Major A—— in our mess, who was not escaping, had offered to watch the Upper House for the alarm-signal, and he was left sitting in the mess-room while the others set to work on various jobs. Grunt and Perce removed all obstructions to exit from the carpenter's shop door, while Nobby and Johnny took the four ladders from their hiding-place in a wood-store and tied bits of felt round the ends to deaden the sound when they should be placed against the wall. After this the ladders were taken into the cellar, whence scheme No. 2 might have to be worked. They then went upstairs to the bedroom, where their escape paraphernalia was stored. Here they hung towels and blankets over the windows, and started to dress by the light of a candle. It was a queer sight indeed. They were, at this point, joined by Sheridan, who belonged to a downstair mess, and one Pat. The latter was dresser-in-chief, and helped them on with their equipment. He was very miserable that he was not going himself, but he had a crocked knee and it would have been madness for him to think of marching over broken country by night.

He now employed spare moments repeating certain sentences that he had learnt in order to call away the sentry over the alley: on this depended the best scheme of getting out of the house. The bedroom was the one in which Old Man, Grunt, and Johnny slept, and those in the room now set to work to make up the dummies in the three beds. The heads had already been fashioned, and, with a few clothes stuffed under the blankets and the heads placed in position, the beds were soon occupied by three graceful figures in attitudes of deep repose. The small piece of towel forehead that could be seen over the edge of the blanket looked perhaps a trifle pale, but, apart from that, the beds seemed quite natural. They could not resist the temptation of calling the Major away from the mess window for a moment, just to have a look at the sleeping beauties, and he returned chuckling to his post.

Water-bottles were then partially filled with a thick paste of cocoa. Although water was not to be carried at the start, on account of the impossibility of preventing a gurgle in the water-bottle, the cocoa paste was permissible, for, being only just liquid enough to pour, it made no noise. It had been decided that morning that it would be best to leave the bedroom before 9 P.M., at which time the sentries changed. A few minutes before this hour, therefore, the six officers gave their feet a gouty appearance by tying felt padding on to their boots, and then started down to the ground-floor. On the way, Johnny turned into the orderlies' room to say good-bye, thanking them hurriedly for their help, without which the preparations for the escape would have been almost impossible. A few days later he found in the pocket of his jersey, which had been mended by an orderly belonging to the Norfolk regiment, a small piece of paper on which was written, "Good-bye, and good luck, sir.—B.," and he still has it in his possession. Going downstairs they met an officer prisoner, who, not having been admitted to the secret, nearly had a fit at the sight of six such extraordinary objects.

Grunt looked in at another orderlies' room above the exit, and asked them to blow out their lamp and make a noise. The six then crept quietly into the prearranged room, and waited breathlessly by the door.

Sentries were changed, and once again all became still. One lived every second of that waiting.

Their plan now depended on the aid of Pat. Although debarred from escaping himself, he was willing to help others to liberty at considerable risk to himself. Punctually at 9.15, the hour at which the parties in the different houses were allowed to start, Pat's clear tones could be heard calling to the sentry on the alley-way—

"Nebuchi, nebuchi, jigara dushdu." ("Sentry, sentry, I've dropped my cigarettes.")

And indeed he had: a hundred scattered about a cabbage-bed should keep the sentry busy for some time. But the wretched man nearly upset all calculations. Wearied with a quarter of an hour's duty, he was already almost asleep.

It was a moment of terrible suspense for the six officers waiting, ready loaded up with their kits, in the ground-floor room opposite to the kitchen. The door of this led on to the alley-way; normally it was disused and kept locked, but the lock had now been picked and the door could be opened in a moment.

Would the sentry hear Pat calling? And would he desert his post even if he did hear?

They had heard Pat's first sentence. No reply.

It was repeated, then again and again.

After they had heard him shouting for many hours (perhaps thirty seconds, as time is reckoned by a watch), the sentry answered.

His form was just visible as he passed by a small iron-barred window, and now was the opportunity. They could cross unobserved to the kitchen. An open door, three steps across the alley-way, a fumble with the kitchen door staple; another open door, a turn to the left, bend down or you'll knock your head off getting into the fowl-house, starlight showing in a black wall, through head first and almost on your face into long grass, and there you are—a free man.

Meanwhile Pat was no doubt explaining to the delighted old sentry from the upper window how he could have a few cigarettes himself and return the remainder next morning. We sometimes wonder whether the sentry was foolish enough to mention to his relief about the cigarettes he had been given. At the time of writing we are still ignorant how long it was before our departure was discovered.[9]

Looney and Old Man, being already on the spot, had been granted the privilege of leading through the hole, the remainder following in an order arranged by lot, since ours was not the only party represented. It so happened that the two of the other party were sandwiched between the other four of ours. This caused a temporary separation; for at the best it took an appreciable time to crawl through the wall and pick oneself up on the other side, but these two were especially slow. Grunt too had lost time when it came to his turn. Impatiently waiting to see the starry sky once more when the then broad form of Johnny should have ceased to obscure the hole, he eventually discovered that the cause of the darkness was not that Johnny had jammed, but that the canvas flap had fallen, and was covering the hole all too effectively.

Our main object at this stage was to avoid disturbing the garden chowkidars, and therefore each as he emerged lost no time in creeping along the high garden wall, and dropping down into the friendly shelter of the river bed. For all its "hundred springs"—the meaning of the name "Yozgad"—the river for the greater part of the year consisted merely of a shallow and dirty stream, not more than ten feet broad, although its banks were as many yards apart, and from five to eight feet in height. It was along this that we all turned down-stream, Johnny now taking the lead. A few days previously he had suddenly developed a passionate interest in natural history. A polite letter, in which the word "ornithological" played a great part, was written to the commandant, and Johnny was permitted to join two real naturalists in an expedition starting at 4 A.M. on our last Sunday morning at Yozgad.

These two had been at Changri with us, and knew we had intentions of escaping, so Johnny told them in which direction his party wished to start off, and this direction was now taken. Johnny counted his steps, noted landmarks which would be visible by starlight, and was able to draw a rough map of the country. All three dug at intervals for imaginary field-mice, until the sentry with them thought they were more insane than even the average Englishman, and said so. In the end, however, the strain of this great thought overpowered him and he fell asleep, giving Johnny the opportunity he required. He climbed a hill, took bearings, and was able to see our future route to within half a mile of a rugged piece of country known to the local hunt club as "Hades." On the return journey the three came back along the edge of the stream which ran past the bottom of our garden wall, and in which we have just left the six of our party.

From a sketch by Capt. E. B. Burns, E. Kent Regt.
YOZGAD CAMP FROM N.W.
A = Hospital House.
B = Upper House.
C = Position of hole made in fowl-house wall.
C——D = Course followed to river bed.
E = Market gardens.

In accordance with the plan then settled we follow the river-bed until almost clear of the most westerly houses of the town, then turn right-handed up a stony track, passing between two high walls till the track ends. A few more paces to the west and we shall be safe in the open country. These few paces, however, will be along a main road directly in front of two or three houses on the outskirts of the town, but the alternative of following the river-bed farther and then turning up would necessitate passing through vegetable gardens, which, as already mentioned, are jealously guarded.

In the event, the original plan was justified by success, although the six of us, at this time unintentionally split up into parties of four and two, passed fully in view of a man sitting on one of the verandahs overlooking the road. It was probably thanks to our fezes that we escaped detection, for other disguise we had none. It was lucky that we had taken the precaution to cover our boots with felt pads, for the ring of an Englishman's boots on a metalled road would, we know, have aroused the envy and suspicion of any Turk who heard it, accustomed as he is to the soft footfall of the country sandal or "chariq."

Once comfortably clear of the town, the leading four could afford to wait for the other two to come up, and with their arrival we began to enjoy our first taste of freedom from Turkish toils. The only question to disturb us now was whether Cochrane and Ellis had got out safely from their house. So far, at any rate, there had been no sounds of an alarm. We therefore lost no time in setting off to the rendezvous, where we hoped to join up as a complete party of eight. This was to be at the bottom of the "Hades" ravine, at the point where it was crossed by the telegraph line to Angora. The distance from our houses, as the crow flies, was perhaps two miles. For this, taking into consideration the darkness of the night and the difficulty of the country, we had allowed two and a quarter hours. At 11.30 P.M., any one who had failed to appear was to be considered recaptured or lost, and those who had arrived were to go on. An absurdly liberal allowance of time you may say; but even the six whose movements we have followed, and who had the advantage of Johnny's guidance over a route reconnoitred by day, took till 11 P.M. to cover these two miles. We were experiencing, some of us for the first time, the difficulties of a night march. In addition, it was our first trial of carrying our loads, weighing nearly fifty pounds, anywhere outside a cupboard. No wonder then that our progress was slow, and at one time we began to think that we must have already crossed the line of telegraph which was to lead us down into "Hades" itself. But there it was at last, and we were soon slipping down—only too literally—into the ravine.

Our first act, after quenching our thirst, was to fill up our water-bottles. As 11.30 approached, with still no sign of Cochrane and Ellis, we began to wonder whether, perhaps, they might not have gone on to another ravine in "Hades," and be awaiting the rest of us there; so some commenced scouting around, while others remained to show their position by periodical flashes with a cigarette lighter. This was so desolate a bit of country that the flashes entailed no appreciable risk.

At 11.30 we decided to give them another quarter of an hour; to delay after that would be to jeopardise the remainder of the party, for it was already only four hours to dawn. Great, therefore, was our relief when, at the last moment of this time of grace, we saw two forms appear on the skyline, and presently heard the rattle of loose shale as they picked their way towards our flashes. So far so good; and we were soon exchanging mutual congratulations on joining up, and saying that even this one night's breath of freedom, after two and a half years' captivity, would be worth all the trouble of our preparations.

But we must go back for a moment and narrate the experiences of the late-comers in leaving their house.

This was called the Upper House, and to the east overlooked the main street below, but was separated from it by three shallow terraces, which boasted some treasured vegetables and a few fruit trees. To the north the ground fell steeply by three higher terraces to a small patch of ground enclosed by walls. It was here that we used to play the four-a-side hockey. The upper terrace on this northern face was visible to a sentry at the main gate of the Hospital House, which was on the other side of a road running along the hockey ground wall. The two remaining sides of the house abutted on tumble-down cottages, from which they were separated by a narrow alley. At the north-western and south-western corners sentries were posted.

The number of officers escaping from this house was five. The bars of a window on the side facing the main street had been cut with the aid of a steel saw, and at 9.15 P.M. the five climbed down a rope-ladder to the ground. Skirting the edge of the house at intervals of two minutes they crept quietly through the garden and reached the second of the three terraces on the north side, keeping well under the high bank. Here they passed within three yards of the sentry's box, on the top of the bank above them. Absolute silence was necessary, and this was the reason that the two had been so late in arriving at the rendezvous, for each step had to be taken with extreme care.

From a sketch by Capt. K. F. Freeland, R.A.
UPPER HOUSE, YOZGAD, FROM N.N.E.
(Winter Time.)
A = Sentry's box.
B——C = Track followed by Cochrane and Ellis.
D = Hockey ground.

The terrace a few yards beyond the sentry's box sloped down into the large market-garden to the west of the Hospital House. On the south side of this was a wall, along which they picked their way. Here, too, great caution was required. Look-out huts had to be passed within a few yards, but finally they were across the garden. A high wall had now to be climbed, but fortunately it was in bad repair and afforded good footholds.

Here Cochrane and Ellis heard voices. An old woman had seen Stockley and Rich and was wanting to know what they were doing. Our two did not wait to hear much more. Turning right, they were on the same stony track up which the first party had turned from the river-bed, and now they followed Johnny's route till they finally struck the telegraph post and arrived at "Hades."

Ellis had arrived puffing and blowing, but there was no time to be lost if we were to be at anything like a safe distance from Yozgad before dawn broke.

Five minutes before midnight, then, we started off a complete party, and were soon scrambling up the northern side of "Hades" on to the plateau above. Having left the line of telegraph poles for the sake of an easier ascent, we were unable at once to find it again. Although it had been our original intention to follow the telegraph wires as likely to lead over a passable line of country, it was decided to waste no further time in a search for them. Instead we would set off by compass and stars in a due westerly direction, and hope to pick them up again later on. The ground proved favourable: our course took us over fairly level country, a considerable portion of which was under cultivation, and for some time we were walking over stubble. Although there was no moon, our eyes rapidly accustomed themselves to the bright starlight, and hopeful progress was made, but not without occasional alarms.

The first occurred within an hour of leaving "Hades." Looney was temporarily relieving Cochrane of his task of guiding the party, when the leading six suddenly found that the other two had disappeared, and inwardly cursed them for straggling. In reality, what had happened was this: the party, moving in no regular formation, had got a little separated, when suddenly the two in the rear had seen the glowing tip of a cigarette moving obliquely towards them, and immediately afterwards descried the shadowy forms of three mounted men. Quick as thought they lay down and waited till the horsemen had passed; the rest moved on in blissful ignorance of their danger, until, on turning for the others, they too saw the cigarette and realised what had happened. Those three men were almost certainly gendarmes. Apart from this, we occasionally found ourselves coming upon little groups of huts and villages, and these entailed wasteful detours. We had, in addition, an uncomfortable feeling that we were leaving behind us a rather obvious track through the crops where yet uncut.

About 2 A.M. we once more picked up the line of telegraph poles. We were all the more glad to follow them as we saw difficult country ahead, and they were likely to lie along a practicable route. Practicable it was, but then it is practicable to reach the bottom of most slopes if you are prepared to sit down and slide; for that is what we had to do for the latter part of the descent into the steep-sided ravine, across which our telegraph line now led us. At least, however, we had the satisfaction of a much-needed drink from the crystal-clear water of a mountain stream.

Here indeed would have been an ideal hiding-place for the coming day; we could have bathed and drunk to our hearts' content, shielded both from sun and view by enormous rocks which towered above us, almost on the water's edge. But we were only seven or eight miles from Yozgad, and an hour lost now meant one to be made up later on. After a drink, then, we clambered up the farther slope, to find as we struggled on that we were once more coming into open country, with less and less prospect of a suitable hiding-place. To turn back was out of the question. The first light of dawn caught us still moving forward, and within sight of a village. The sun had not risen before men and women were on every side of us, going out to work in their fields. We came to a stream running through a grove of trees, but it was too near the village to remain there. Our freedom was to be short-lived, we thought, as we took a hurried drink and proceeded across more open country. Eventually, at 4.50, we dropped down into a tiny nullah on the open hillside. The only merit of this spot was that it was not directly visible from the village.

It was obvious that we could not hope still further to escape observation from the fields if we continued to lie there all day, so Looney went off to scout around for something better. A more hopeful nullah, with banks in places five feet high, was reported half a mile beyond the next low crest. To that therefore we moved in broad daylight, glad to find that we should at least have some water, for a muddy trickle flowed down the nullah bed. Without this the heat would have been intolerable, for, until late in the day, the banks proved too shelving to provide shade from the sun. Even with water, Turkish-bath conditions are conducive neither to sleep nor appetite. Not one of us slept a wink that day. As to the day's ration, it was with difficulty that we forced ourselves to eat a quarter of a pound of salted meat and nine ounces of home-made biscuit—not an excessive amount, even when you add to it one and a half ounces a head of chocolate, which Grunt produced from the store of extras he was voluntarily carrying.

We reckoned that we were perhaps ten miles' distance from Yozgad. After the events of the morning we entertained little hope of our whereabouts not having been reported, but we were to learn that we flattered ourselves as to the interest we aroused among the country people. The fact at least remained, that we were left undisturbed in our somewhat obvious hiding-place: the only signs of life that we saw during the day were a shepherd with his flock of sheep grazing a quarter of a mile away, and a Turkish soldier who, in the early evening, came down to our nullah a little below us, and was probably himself a deserter and so a fugitive like ourselves. Towards dusk we stood up and watched a stream of men and carts returning to their villages after the day's work in the fields.

By 7.30 all was clear, and we lost no time in making our way to the line of telegraph poles which we could see disappearing over the crest of the next rise. Alongside we found a splendid track, which we were able to follow over undulating country for several miles. Nobby was in trouble with his "chariqs"; in spite of experiments carried out for weeks beforehand he had not succeeded in getting a pair which did not now gall him in one place or another. This was serious, as he was relying on these country sandals to carry him down to the coast; strong English boots were hard to come by. On this night, after several delays as one after another of his spares was tried and rejected, he was eventually able to wear a pair lent him by Cochrane.

Twilight had now faded, and we were dependent once more on the light of the stars. The track, easily distinguishable while it kept to the telegraph poles, had begun to wind about as the country became more undulating. In a little while it could no longer be followed with any certainty. We therefore ceased to worry about the track and trusted to the telegraph to lead us towards Angora, until this too failed us, for it went too much to the north of west. We thereupon proceeded on our proper course by compass.

We had started in the evening feeling unexpectedly fresh, and it says much for our training that the first night's march had left none of us in the least bit stiff. Nevertheless the day in the hot sun and the lack of all sleep had tried us more severely than we thought, and we were now beginning to feel the effects. The idea had been to have the regulation five minutes' halt at the end of every hour's marching, but we soon found that we were taking ten minutes' rest every half-hour. We were, moreover, consumed with an appalling thirst; even at night the heat off the ground in this arid track of land was stifling, while the parched and cracked surface held out little hope of there being water in the vicinity. At 11.30 we decided we must have a long halt, in the hopes of a little sleep; two volunteers shared the watch. Shortly after midnight we marched on again considerably refreshed, the main anxiety now being for water. Two hours later we saw looming ahead a low ridge of hills, and decided to go and wait there until dawn should reveal the most likely direction for a drink. A little searching round then showed us a fair-sized stream in the next valley to the south-west: in Asia Minor, however, where there is a perennial stream, there is fairly certain to be a village or two, and so it proved in this case; but water we must have; besides, on the hillside, where we had rested till daylight, there now appeared a shepherd with his flock. Hastily gathering up our kit, we dodged up dry and rocky nullahs and over the next ridge. Once more it was broad daylight before we settled down for the day in our hiding-place, in rocky ground intersected with crevices just wide enough for a man to lie in. On the way we had to descend a steep slope covered with loose shale, and this proved a sore test for important portions of our clothing, for it was impossible to keep to one's feet.

When four of the party went to the stream below us to fill up the water-bottles, they found they were within a few hundred yards of another village, so that one visit to water had to suffice for the rest of the day. They had been seen by at least one boy who was looking after a flock of sheep near the stream.

We were lucky, however, to discover, close above our hiding-place, a tiny spring. From this, thanks to a couple of water-holes dug with the adze by Perce, it was possible to collect about a mugful of water in an hour. Cochrane now told off the party into watches by pairs; but, on watch or off, there was little or no sleep to be had. During the morning we made a fire and "brewed" some arrowroot and cocoa, and had three ounces of chocolate apiece. All of these Grunt and Ellis had carried in addition to their ordinary share of rations, and, try as we would, we found that, owing to the heat, we could not eat more than one and a half out of the ration of three biscuits allowed for that day. Of course this saved food, but it also meant the gradual exhaustion of one's strength, and no reduction in the weight to be carried next day.

Our progress on the first two nights had not been up to expectation: we reckoned that we were still within eighteen miles of Yozgad, whereas we had hoped to cover something over twelve miles a day. If we were unable to maintain our average when we were fresh and not yet pinched for food, we could hardly hope to do better after days of marching and semi-starvation. Our advance on the third night was to provide little encouragement, for we barely made good another eight miles.

Having waited until 8 P.M. before we dared to descend to the stream, we halted there in the dark for a deep drink and the refilling of our water-vessels. Half an hour later we left the valley and found ourselves in a network of hills. From these we only emerged into open country shortly before eleven o'clock, passing but one small channel of very bad water on the down-stream side of a village. Our course now lay across an arid plain, featureless except for a few village tracks and low cone-shaped hills; and we began to wonder whether dawn would not find us without water or cover, when at 2 A.M. we dropped into a patch of broken country, and decided we would rest there till daylight. As a look round then disclosed no better hiding-place, we settled down where we were for the day. The remains of an old spring were found, but it was dry. Thanks to the chargals, most of our water-bottles were still three-quarters full; but this was little enough with which to start a day in the almost tropical sun. Most of us rigged ourselves partial shelters with our towels and spare shirts, supported on khud-sticks. These, however, provided little protection against the fierce rays. But all things come to an end—even this seemingly interminable day; yet it was to be nothing compared to the night which followed.

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