Eastern Nights - and Flights Part 2

Only fifteen miles to the south. And the coast was fifteen miles to the west. The coast? Why, a friend of mine, after he was forced to land in the sea, had effected a marvellous escape by hiding among the sand-dunes during the daytime, and during the night alternately swimming, walking, and rolling through the shallow water on the fringe of the sands, until he had pa.s.sed the Turkish trench-line. Only fifteen miles; and from aerial observation I knew that the country between Tul-Keran and the sea was more or less flat.

I resolved that when my leg allowed me to walk, I would somehow leave the hospital early one night, try to reach the sh.o.r.e before dawn, hide during the following day, and then run or swim to the British out-posts.

CHAPTER II

THE FLIGHT THAT FAILED

Tul-Keran hospital was altogether beastly. After my head had been shaved until it looked like a door-k.n.o.b, I was taken to a sheetless, dirty-blanketed bed, in an overcrowded ward that reeked of unwashed flesh. The beds were so close that one had to climb into them from the foot.

On my right was a Syrian doctor with a smashed leg; and on my left, not two feet away, was a young Turkish officer with aggravated syphilis, who groaned and complained all day long. When not in pain he read pamphlets, which had been distributed to all the patients, explaining just how England had shamefully attacked the peace-loving Turks and Germans without warning.

The two windows were both broken, and through them the scorching sun of Samaria poured all day long. Tul-Keran, being in low-lying country, is infested throughout the hot summer by legions of flies. In the hospital they settled in swarms on beds, faces, food, hands, and arms, and flew at random from one diseased patient to another. At night they gave place to hordes of mosquitoes, which pounced upon and bit every particle of a man's body left exposed. The sole relief, by day or by night, was to hide one's head under the filthy blankets; and then the closeness and the reek made one gasp for breath.

But worst of all was my intense agony of mind. As I lay in bed, I thought of my squadron going through its daily round a few miles southwest of me; of my last air fight, and whether I might not have avoided capture by adopting different tactics; of what the sinister word "missing" would convey to various people in England and France; of whether I was destined to spend months or years in captivity; and of the general beastliness of everything. Above all, I railed, uselessly and illogically, against Fate.

The Austrian Staff in the hospital offered whatever kindnesses they could, and treated me rather better than they treated the Turks. Each morning the doctor brought the Vienna _Reichspost_, and, after a pa.s.sing glance at my distorted features (I was known as "the Englishman with the face"), stayed to chat for several minutes. He was charming and decorative, with his light blue uniform, his curled moustache, and his medals; but I never once saw him give medical attention to patients beyond ordering medicine or saying invariably that each man was progressing wonderfully well.

A good-hearted but race-proud Austrian priest often stopped by my bedside for a friendly argument. He performed several services for me, such as changing Egyptian notes almost at their full value, instead of at the ruinous rate of exchange offered by Turkish banks and traders.

He was, however, a rabid hater in one connection--he could find no words bad enough for the Czechs and other subject-races of Austria-Hungary. To him it seemed a crime that they should be discontented with the suppression of racial sentiments and inst.i.tutions, and should agitate for self-expression.

"They must either be loyal to us or cease to exist," he said.

Once I mentioned inadvertently that I had met Masaryk in London and admired him; and that was the end of my friendly relations with this otherwise kind-hearted padre, who afterward was polite but distant.

One morning there came a German officer, very tall, very correct, and wearing the badge of an observer in the German Flying Corps. He clicked his heels, bowed from the waist upward, and inquired: "Hauptmann Bott?"

I admitted to the name and rank, whereupon the visitor introduced himself as Oberleutnant Wolff, the man whose shots had punctured my petrol tank and brought my machine down in the mountains.

Having apologized for the state of my face, he offered to drop over some British aerodrome a letter announcing that I was alive and would like some clothes. In accordance with the polite relations between British and German aviators in Palestine, I was visited by several other flying officers, each of whom--out of pure kindness of heart as I thought--made the same suggestion.

When I had written the note, and addressed it to "British Air Force, Palestine," I was told that it could not be sent unless I addressed it by name to my late squadron commander, giving the number of the squadron and the situation of the aerodrome--all of which would have been highly useful information. I refused to write such an address, and said I would do without my kit.

The stipulation must have been a bluff, however, for Oberleutnant Wolff finally took the original letter, and dropped it upon the British aerodrome at Ramleh, which was well known to them.

Every few days British aeroplanes flew low over Tul-Keran, and bombed either the railway station or local encampments. When this happened Turks and Arabs would scurry from the road while the anti-aircraft guns were firing, and all our orderlies would disappear until the bombardment had ended. Soon after Oberleutnant Wolff's last visit an aeroplane, instead of making for the railway, hovered above a large meadow used as a landing ground, and dropped what must have looked like an enormous bomb. It whirled down slowly, by reason of long streamers attached to the head of it. It did not explode, and the aeroplane left without troubling Tul-Keran any further.

The "bomb" was a sack containing kit for myself and Major Evans (captured three weeks earlier) which a British pilot had risked his neck to bring. A German Unteroffizier opened it before me. He searched nearly everything--boots, underclothes, and trousers, and actually ripped open the lining of a tunic in a hunt for hidden papers. But what he did not find, and I did, was a tiny slip of tissue, sewn into the corner of a collar, with this message scribbled on it: "Dear Bottle--so glad you're alive. Never say die. Dine with me at the Savoy when we meet after the war. The Babe."

Six months later (before the end of the war), when I had escaped from Turkey, I did dine with "The Babe"; but at Floca's, in Salonika, and not the Savoy.

The kit was very welcome, for I had been flying in my s.h.i.+rt-sleeves when shot down; but still more welcome was the knowledge that people at home would know that I lived. With this worry removed I now had a clearer mind for preparing an escape. Moreover, my leg was feeling stronger every day, so that I hoped to make the attempt soon.

While thinking over my plan one morning I was interrupted by a soft-spoken sentence in French from the Syrian doctor with the smashed leg:

"_M. le Capitaine_, both of us would like to be away from these Turks."

At the time I did not know to what a state of revolt the Syrians had been brought by misery and oppression; and in any case it seemed unwise to let a stranger know that I hoped to escape.

"Naturally," I replied, "I should like to be out of the hands of the Turks, although I suppose they will keep me till the end of the war.

For me it is d.a.m.nable here. But you----"

"For you it is a thousand times better than for me," he said, with intensity, though still speaking in a low voice. "For two years I have been living among people who are half savage and wholly ignorant.

Because I am a Christian, they try to treat me like a dog. All the time I was with my infantry regiment I never knew when one of those Turkish beasts would shoot me. Nothing would be done to a Turkish soldier who did shoot me. I am certain I have remained untouched only because doctors are scarce. Several other doctors--Syrians and Jews--ran away and managed to reach the British lines; but I had no chance."

He continued to tell of the disgusting conditions which he had to share with Turkish soldiers, who lived more like animals than human beings. I happened to have met a Syrian doctor who, after escaping from the Turkish army, was practising in Alexandria; at which my bed neighbour was envious and interested. His own intention, if the Turks allowed him to go to his home at Damascus until the broken leg healed, was to slip out of the city with one of the secret caravans, and trek to Akaba, where were the Hedjaz Arabs, allied to the British. He suggested that if he and I were sent to the same hospital in Damascus we might make the attempt together.

So we talked on in the heat of the afternoon, keeping silent for long intervals so as not to excite suspicion. All this while the diseased Turk on my left, who could speak nothing but Turkish and Arabic, was moaning and tossing.

That evening, after thinking matters over, I decided that my slight chances of getting back to the British lines by swimming down the coast could scarcely be lessened, and might be improved, if I asked the Syrian for advice.

He was very sympathetic and quite unsurprised, but he did not think the possibility of success were great, because of the thousands of soldiers in the district through which I should have to pa.s.s. Nevertheless, if my leg became stronger I might possibly sc.r.a.pe through, he said. As for him, he would like enormously to come with me, but his leg made him helpless.

My thigh improved very rapidly, and I began to make final preparations.

Each day the Syrian and I saved pieces of bread, so that I might have a store to take with me. The supply of water would be more difficult, as I had nothing in which to carry it.

A Turkish general solved the problem for me. One morning the orderlies tidied the room feverishly until it looked almost clean, while announcing that "The Pasha" was coming. General Djouad Pasha, commanding the Turkish Eighth Army, arrived soon afterward, attended by a mixed collection of Turkish, German, and Austrian officers--each of which national groups kept itself separate, and tried to look as if it had no connection with the others. He talked amiably to the Turkish patients--amid a chorus of "Yes, Excellency," and "No, Excellency"--and more than amiably to me. Was I getting better and would I like some wine sent to me? The answer in each case was a truthful "yes."

To the doctor with the smashed leg he was abrupt and aloof when he discovered him to be a Syrian Christian; and a request to be sent home until convalescent was curtly refused.

The general left, with his ill-a.s.sorted staff elbowing each other in the doorway for precedence; and I heard the Syrian swearing softly to himself for many minutes.

From Djouad Pasha came, that same afternoon, two bottles of Moselle and a flask of eau-de-cologne, addressed to "The English guest of Turkey."

In that house of a thousand and one stenches the eau-de-cologne was as welcome as a well in a pathless desert. The Syrian and I drank the wine, leaving a little in one of the bottles to mix with the water I should take to the coast.

The only remaining preparation was as regarded clothes. I decided to wear, over a night-s.h.i.+rt, one of the smock dressing-gowns provided by the hospital. In this and a pair of slippers, and with a towel arranged as a headdress, I should not look so very different from an Arab at night-time so long as I kept moving.

Came the day when I walked without the least pain or trouble; and although I still could scarcely see with the left eye, I determined to leave without delay, as I was in danger of being moved from Tul-Keran.

I kept awake from sunset until three A.M. hoping that the Austrian night orderly would follow his usual custom of dozing; whereupon I would slip by him into the yard and thence climb a drainpipe to the wall that rimmed the hospital roof. But the orderly remained obstinately alert until it was too late for my attempt; for I should have to leave early, if I wanted to put a sufficient distance between myself and the hospital before choosing a hiding-place in which to pa.s.s the following day.

Having slept through the afternoon I again watched during the night; and again the Austrian kept awake. On the next night I fell asleep at two A.M., disappointed and almost hopeless when, for the third time, the orderly gave me no chance.

It must have been about half an hour later when I was awakened by loud reports and by the chatter of the Turks near me. Guns were firing all around the town, one of them from a field fronting the hospital. I knew that they must be anti-aircraft guns. Either Tul-Keran itself was being raided, or machines were pa.s.sing from some other place.

Inside the hospital all was disorder. Turkish patients talked excitedly, and crowded into the lower rooms. In the ward opposite mine a man who, some hours earlier, had undergone an operation, called loudly for help. The orderly himself, almost helpless from fright, ran across in answer to the cries.

Now--while everything and everybody were in confusion--or never was my chance to escape from the hospital. I rolled up my blanket and placed it under the quilt so as to give the appearance of a man asleep, donned my dressing-gown, shook hands silently with the Syrian, and went out into the yard.

Somebody pa.s.sed close by me, and entered the back door. I dodged, and locked myself in the lavatory until he was in the house. When all was quiet I went into the open yard, gripped my parcel (the bottle of water and the store of dry bread tied up in a towel) between my teeth, and began climbing up the drain pipe.

It was a more difficult task than I expected. The wall was flat, and showed few cracks that could be used as footholes. I sc.r.a.ped the skin from face, arms, and legs as I struggled upward, a few feet at a time.

At last I was high enough to touch the gutter and haul myself, with many a gasp, on to the roofs edge. While I was doing this the first disaster happened--the package fell from my mouth.