Chapter IX: Life in Kastamuni--The First Summer, 1916

_July 31st._--Yesterday was two months since leaving Baghdad, a journey I shall always associate with sorrow and fortitude. It was already a trail of dead and dying from other columns, and we freshened it up with contributions of our own. But time flies. It is already three months since we left Kut. During that time I cannot recall one Turkish promise that they have kept. This is a performance, but for us to have so far survived it and also their indifference, is an achievement.

After a time we hope news will leak through, but at present there is none. We are to be allowed a German-inspired daily written in French and published in Stamboul, called the _Hillal_. According to it fighting still proceeds in France in the same old zone, while in Mesopotamia the front is near Amara--which one doubts. It is almost two years since the war started. Great movements in the national life of most European nations seem to be merging into international. With peace, I believe fresh and wonderful Gulf Streams will circulate in the new political world that must arise.

_August 1st._--I have met Haig of the 24th, whom I knew at Hyderabad, and whom I saw last in the retirement. We have so far almost no liberty, not being allowed to go even to the second part of the house. But we understand this will change very soon. Once a week we are permitted to go to the Turkish bath, and once a week to the bazaar, where the prices are exorbitant. Butter or honey is 30 piastres an oke, or 2_s._ 6_d._ a pound, sugar 40 to 50 piastres, or 4_s._ 6_d._ a pound, and tea, bad tea at that, 10_s._ a pound. There is little else to be had, and clothing is a fictitious price. However, one's credit in the bazaar is practically unlimited. The shopkeepers prefer to trust us rather than their own people, and take cheques rather than paper money. Medicines are more or less unprocurable.

_5 p.m._--Turned in with rising fever. Several officers in our house have been down with it already, and I hoped I was to have escaped. A strong physical reaction has set in with many of our column, and all sorts of sicknesses are going about. For one thing, we have practically starved for half a year, and now these fatty foods of the Turks rather try one's weakened digestion. We negotiate huge quantities of fresh milk and lebon.

_August 2nd._--Lieut. Locke died in the Turkish hospital last night, and, as a result, a scare started among the Turkish officials. One of their doctors came around to see all those in bed, and I was ordered, much against my will, to the Turkish hospital. They don't understand malaria at all, or that, for colitis, the only thing to do is to diet. And, from what we hear, the last place for diet is a Turkish hospital. However, one is in the hands of these interpreters, and for the most part they are lying, frightened, Greek or Armenian knaves. Ours required me to leave everything--even mere requisites--and set out for the hospital a "few moments away." Extraordinarily weak, I shambled off and followed him on a considerable trek, for a sick man, all around the town. Then he bolted for his dinner, leaving me in charge of the soldier, who, poor chap, couldn't read his papers. On arriving at the place we were refused admittance, and there was no one there to read the admission paper. A wait of hours I spent by sitting out on the roadside in the hot sun, near a café; a delightful occupation for a man shivering with ague and with a temperature of 103°. Then I discovered a patient who spoke some French, and he got the only Turkish orderly there to show me a bed. I was taken to the bed whereon poor Locke had just died from enteritis and dysentery. They had not even removed the sheets. How I loathed the Turks at that moment. However, I was so tired that I got into bed. In the same room were three Turkish civilians, and two British officers I found next door.

No one appeared. I had left my room in the morning, but by night I had only succeeded in getting some water. By evening the ague had gone, and I wanted some nourishment, and set to prowl around the place to get it. I had plenty of violent scenes, but did not succeed in finding the pantry. I began to believe that I had come to a huge automatic healing establishment where by a series of Christian Scientific brain waves one imagined oneself fed and convalescent. I heard that Locke had been left unattended in his house, after request, four or five days before he was even inspected by the Turkish doctor, and then, on his moving to this hospital, had a reception similar to mine. He died the same evening as he entered.

After my unsuccessful shikar for food through the great building I returned in no amiable mood, and it was then that the humorous gods held high council, and, remembering my opinion on Angora bugs, provided a little joke for themselves afresh. These new bugs were for shock tactics. There was no artillery preparation or demonstration from flank battalions, but suddenly I was awakened from a doze by bitings in fifty places. Leaping out of bed I gathered them up in threes and fours. Tearing my clothes off I caught the rear files before they could get to cover. Undismayed, they renewed the attack as soon as I again tried to sleep. This became too ridiculous. Finally, my language attracted a crowd of laughing Turks, and one informed me in French that the hospital was famous for bugs. The pillow and mattress I discovered to be their first line, but their reserve lines were in the wooden frieze. "Ye gods!" I thought, "this is too much. Here am I starving and curing myself and doing my best to smile over it when I'm expected to put up a regular hunt!" I slung the mattress away and, seizing some clothes from a wardrobe outside, with the orderly hanging on to me the while, remade the bed. Still on they came. I decided that if I were Napoleon I would change the Turkish crescent to a bug passant, with that half-comical grin the lions passant have, the near fore paw in the air and face screwed around at you. I collapsed towards dawn with sheer irritation. But in my sleep on they came, on from every wall, from every point of the horizon, from the sky, from beyond the confines of the universe--I myself was becoming a bug--when I awoke with a roar, and saw the Turkish orderly standing beside me grinning. I gave him cigarettes for appreciating a situation I no longer could myself, and he taught me some more Turkish "Zorari yok" (never mind), and "Yawash" (gently).

I awaited the dawn with an increasing hunger, having now devoured about a handful of lump sugar I had put into my pocket as an emergency ration. The hours crawled by until eleven, when the visiting doctor came.

Now, by this time I had begun to find out a thing or two about the Turk. Unless you ask, he never does anything; if you do, he merely promises he will. Your only chance is to be demonstrative and impress him. This fellow was a robust, bouncing, overfed, callous, perpetual-smile-sort-of-fellow. Waiting until he wished me good morning, I leaped clean out of bed, with a frightful roar that brought a dozen people into the room, and showed him pints of blood--mine and the bugs'--all over the wall, bed, mattress, etc., etc. Then I cursed the place in German, in English, and terrible French, and applied my word, "fenner," vigorously, ending up my objecting to my treatment with gestures, etc., etc. For the first minute or two he laughed, and then he sat down and mopped his forehead and explained he came only once a day, and without an order from him it might have been risky to give me any food, etc. He wrote out a beautiful diet sheet, and sent me some medicine for the colitis. This did me good, certainly, but I waited all day for the milk and cornflour and soup. At five o'clock one small cup of the weakest imaginable tea arrived. Nothing else. It now appeared that an order by the doctor on one day did not take effect until the following day, as they had to send out for supplies. I was really terribly ravenous. That evening, about 8 p.m., when two orderlies brought round a trench table filled with loaves of bread and plates of soup, I waited until they were gone a second and seized a loaf, which I plunged in the soup, and returned to my bed, where I devoured most of it. The other Turks in the room, I believe, informed the orderly, who searched for the remainder of the loaf in my bag; but we had a wrestle for it, and while he sent out for a posta, I finished it. Later he appeared, laughing, and took some more cigarettes.

The situation developed along these lines until the next morning, when the doctor came again. This time I was coldly indignant, and showed him a letter of complaint to the American Ambassador at Stamboul, and requiring to be sent back to my house. The result was he put me on an enormous diet at once of bread and buffalo meat that would have killed any Englishman, certainly a siege-battered, starved, feverish, colitis-stricken sick man. I distributed my rations among the two officers next door, one of whom was a most congenial person, named Fox--an officer I didn't know in Kut, as he had been in Woolpress most of the time. We had long discussions on Turks and bugs. The next morning another doctor came, and, seeing my diet sheet full, evidently thought the Turkish commissariat couldn't stand this, and discharged me from hospital.

The medicine had done me some good, but otherwise I was weaker on leaving the hospital than entering it. Fox and I trekked back. How glad we were to get out of it! I had expected an interesting girl in a purdah to look after me, and all kinds of delicacies. One learns apace in these days. On the way we passed Captain Martin, I.M.S., recently arrived, and he sympathized with us, and promised us that in future he would look after us all. I was very glad to regain my room once more. Another small party of relicts had arrived from Angora, amongst whom were Blind Hookey, who was at the Christmas dinner in Kut, and Young Lacy, whom I had left at Samarra. He had had great luck. When he was quit of the fever he had managed to join a small party and was driven the whole way. Our column, including as it did the native officers, and travelling in the wake of the whole division, seems to have had probably the worst time of any, and certainly one saw most of the tragedy of the trek. Our whole house is now pretty full.

_August 7th._--Malaria returned. The ague was more severe this time. Quinine we have at last procured in small quantities at the rate of five piastres a cachet, which means that one's malaria medicine bill will be fifteen shillings daily. A cold snap in the weather has sent several others here down with malaria. Kastamuni is said to have a cold winter, so we hope to get this fever quite out of our system. It is raining steadily--the first rain since arriving here.

We have no books as yet, but it is to be hoped the Turks will allow them to come through later on. I have finished the Bible--a complete reading now since Baghdad. What a vigorous teacher is St. Paul. No mundane considerations seemed to prevent his putting the true value on this transient existence, and from that probably sprang the facility with which he decided always for the Lord.

_August 17th._--The mornings continue fine and sunny, but in the afternoons a sharp, shadowy wind springs up, and the evenings are quite cold. We are anxiously awaiting the parcels waylaid in Stamboul. The fever has largely gone, but muscular rheumatism has taken its place. No one hears from or is allowed to write to Yozgad or Kara Hissa.

The Turks here seem to have already settled on their plan of campaign, which is to make us get into debt at huge prices, which already are increasing. I am, however, assuming a sublime indifference to money matters. The financial anxiety of the trek was enough, and I have a long score to pay off against the Turk in this respect, so once in his debt he will have to facilitate our getting our money from home, or else receive cheques.

_August 22nd._--On the 18th I attempted a long walk, permission having been obtained for a party of us to go. The direction led me over hills towards some pine woods--a considerable climb for those in our condition. An extraordinary phenomenon common to almost all Kut people, young and old--but more especially to the young who had starved on account of enteritis troubles--is their sudden huge girth expansion. One's figure protrudes like any Turk's. The fatty foods and weak state of the stomach are said to be the cause of this.

Still, with fixed determination, the walk party pushed on, blowing and perspiring. One remembered one's duty to get fit. At the pine woods one longed to be alone for an hour--a forgotten pleasure--but we were marshalled like geese. It is a pleasant spot of young pines and pleasantly murmuring grassy glades, strewn in places with pine needles, that gave additional exercise by making one fight for a foothold. Through the opening in the pine wood one saw the mountainous horizon that ringed us round. Kastamuni was out of sight somewhere beneath us.

The next day I actually turned out to rugger for our house, as left wing three-quarter. The delight after all one's sickness in feeling one's legs really attempting to run was so encouraging that one Brabazon and I, for dinner, divided a bottle of German beer. This is to become a custom. We played three spells of ten minutes each, and quite enough too--with a ball stuffed with wool, as we had no bladder. Kastamuni is totally hilly, and the footer ground over a mile away, is uneven and stony, but the best we can get. Correct collaring is barred, but we go croppers just the same. On Sunday we went bazaaring, and were allowed to attend church at 6.30, when we sang hymns from memory. The text was: "You are sons of God." We hope to make a little chapel here, by and by.

Hailstones as large as hazel nuts, but not so large as in Kut, made merry music yesterday over the town. The streets then become drains and gutters, as they are intended to. Besides being an economy, it cleans the streets.

What a quaint town this is! All water is drawn from springs or wells. There are no lights of any kind, except, possibly, some faint glimmer burning from a police station. There are no trams or much vehicular traffic, donkeys being the chief transit. In the early morning one hears the ancient Biblical solid-wheeled oxen cart groaning on its turning axle beneath the weight of a huge tree trunk brought in for firewood. At night the distant tinkling of bells sometimes reaches one as the goats come back. And, later still, over the sheets of darkness in deep, pulsing waves, like the voice of a dark and mysteriously moving spirit, floats the muezzin, which is taken up from mosque to mosque until the whole town echoes with the cry.

I have had some rough chessmen made out of bits of wood, and am settling down to discipline my mind again to some sort of methodical thinking. One feels that some such effort as this stands between us and oblivion.

_September 1st._--I am feeling very much better than I have since those awful floods came in Kut that left me legacies of rheumatics, and Heaven knows what else. We play rugger three times weekly, and eat huge teas. One of us makes cakes, another carpenters, another makes jam, and yet another has started tailoring. My present hobby is to get fit and clean my windows and "bazaar." I am putting on flesh, or rather, fat, and must be now a half stone more in weight. But my digestion is still weak, nerves bad, and a periodical pain from my spine.

We have been to a Greek dentist (?) The awful stuff we ate in Kut played havoc with my teeth, which were in rather good condition before. This fellow proposes to crown about half of the back ones, is willing to accept a cheque, and talks frequently in French. These are his distinguishing qualities. He seems everything. Moreover, he will take a live nerve out and think nothing of it. Sometimes he pretends to kill it by pushing in small supplies of something or other which the nerve likes so much that it fattens on it, with the result that it grows so rapidly that soon one's whole body exists as an appendix of the particular nerve! The Turks looted his rooms lately. He has now, in consequence, only a rickety, straight-backed kitchen chair, two bottles, a wheel and string, and about four picks, with which he is very adept, using both ends of each. Altogether the Greeks here are a most disappointing, shifty lot. Poor Greece! where Pericles once lived, and which now exports currants--as they say.

Roumania is in the war at last. Turkey is pretty well on her last legs; but then, like her carts and donkeys, she always seems good for another few yards. With returning fitness I begin to hate, loathe, detest, and abhor this soul-smothering life. The way the Turk _in authority_ treats us, his ignorance of his own mind, his partiality for intrigue and roguery and robbery, as also the way he runs his country, proves him unworthy of Empire. The brains and finance of this country are absolutely Greek or Armenian. The Turk holds the sword, and arrears of mismanagement he puts right by a periodical massacre. He is barbarously ignorant and misinformed. The most worthy fellow is the common soldier, who has some idea of manliness and of service, but the officer and official is a double-edged scoundrel, a smiling, dishonest, lubricous sneak, and totally untrustworthy, also a bad soldier.

The Armenian I would describe as the Jew of Turkey, hence his unpopularity. He hoards money, is indifferent to the military needs or other aspect of the development of the country, except the financial one, and is not without treachery. The Greek is also more able and better educated than the Turk. With the Armenian he does the penmanship of Turkey. He supplies surveyors, artisans, architects; but he, too, cannot go straight. In fact, I would rather trust a Turkish soldier than any Greek or Armenian. Hundreds of years of oppression have dried up their springs of independent action, and the Armenian goes about in constant fear of massacre; the Greek just escapes it. They have no thought whatever of throwing off their yoke or leaving the country, although they have nothing in common with their oppressors, and their religious divergence is as wide as it can well be. They hate the Turk, yet choose to suffer. Even among the children we see the tyranny of the Turk. A diversion of ours is to watch the children playing near here. Tiny Turkish boys maltreat and bully big Greek boys and girls, who dare not retaliate.

The explanation of the sorry state of Greece and of the Greeks and Armenians here I believe to be the utter selfishness of the people and their want of public-spirited men. But, if only because they are less unenlightened than their oppressors, reform should be possible to them, and although on looking at the Greeks of the land from Aleppo to Kastamuni, they seem an indifferent lot, still they have in them the seeds of culture and the ardent wish for civilization. On this, then, I believe we can build. The Turk is an interesting study. He is half child and half savage. His predilection and habits are like those of a child. He takes offence at small things, like a child. Like a child, he responds to small favours. And Germany is the last country to take the Turk successfully under her wing. England, I believe, alone could do it. We could utilize the Turkish talent for soldiering and practical affairs, removing from their midst these over-corrupt officials and Government, whom they detest. We should win their confidence by applying rigid and accessible justice between them and the Greek and Armenian, who would find unswerving adherence to law and order unavoidable. Religious toleration we could grant, and I believe that within a few years, Turkey would settle comfortably under our influence, and learn to trust us. But as it is, the country is rotten, the habits rotten, and so many wretched corrupt Turks are in authority, that one feels inclined to sweep them all away.

_October 1st._--Loud shouting and cheering and wild stampede towards the restaurant dining-room announced that another mail had come. We all go quite mad on these occasions, and charge past postas, knocking over chairs or each other, and crowd around the table while the letters are given out.

I have heard again from home, written before Kut fell. I wonder what sort of a time they picture me having. Kut still seems to have been kept dark from everybody, and especially so the trek; but I shall always remember the great thoughtfulness and affection of our friends reaching out to our lonely life across thousands of miles of sea and land. With these letters I am among the heath of Camberley, the hills of New Zealand, and the 'buses of London, once again.

The commandant or kaimakam (colonel) is a foolish and babyish fellow, and also a rogue; but I, for one, believe he has less vice in him than the other junior officer, Sheriff Bey, who is a dangerous and treacherous villain. The old kaimakam does rake up a smile when we try to be happy, and although the Tartar is often apparent, he has, on occasion, given us such a privilege as a special walk.

We are trying to erect some structure of habits wherein to dwell until God's good time allows us to get away from here. Thus we make cakes twice a week. This will last a little longer until prices become too outrageous. Which makes two events. Church and bazaar and Turkish bath make three more, total of five altogether, and these, scarcely incidents in another's life, but episodes in ours, punctuate the vacuum of time in which we roll. At 6.30 a.m. there is _chota haziri_, tea and toast, for which we have made private arrangements.

Then one smokes or sleeps again. At 9 we have breakfast of eggs and milk and butter and bread. With a posta at our heels we return to our own house, 150 yards away. Then some sleep, some play cards, some merely sit on a chair. Others of us write diaries or re-read an old book. We have lunch of fatty foods and smoke and sleep. We have tea (our own _bandobast_ again) after which there may be a walk. We all set off under a guard, and are trying to get farther afield. Once a week a long walk is allowed. On returning some of us change, even if it is to put aside one torn shirt for another or a spare jacket. But in these times I jealously guard every conventional cable that anchors one to the decent life. There is a tendency to allow the coma to steal over one's personality. This, I think, one should combat. Dinner over, we have to wait in the _mektub_, a boresome hour. We attempt bridge or chess. Back again in our room we smoke awhile and sleep. It may read nicely, but in truth, it is a sorry existence. Still, day by day, the structure grows, and who knows, in a few months we may have a palace like the pleasure dome of Kubla Khan!

The extraordinary thing is that one is so secluded. One seems on the other side of creation's wall--in the backwash of the waters. But we all know it only seems so. The stream of Time flows on, sweeping along with it great events in the changing scene from which we here are far removed. I have ever been of a restless nature, and I am told this may operate as a rest cure. One hundred and fifty miles from the nearest railway, and that far from anywhere, locked in by mountains bordering the Black Sea, cut off from papers and books and news, in a town that but awakes and sleeps, with no public institutions or even a picture theatre, one has left for a hobby only the delivery of direct interrogatories to oneself, and the supplying of answers thereto. I believe this is a supreme test of character, and may prove a strength to some and a ruination to others.

Sometimes an event overtakes us. For instance, I have been placed in "gaol" for a short time, and the incident was so funny I must set it down.

One day, while I was filling in notes of this diary, I observed one of the flimsy untied curtains was ablaze. How it started I can only conjecture. Either it blew on to the hot cigarette ash tray, or a hot part of a cigarette must have fallen down near the bed and caught in the curtain. These local cigarettes are wretched things and burn furiously, the head often falling off so that it is a common thing to find one's clothes alight. I ripped the curtain down and stamped it out. The two beds had caught, and the room filled with smoke. I stamped out the fire and doused the bed with water. As it still smouldered I flung it out of the door. And then they came, Turks, choushs, postas, Sheriff Bey, the kaimakam himself, and I began to expect the Sultan. They were very angry, a fire having occurred in the Gurkhas' quarters a few days previously. They persisted in saying I tried to burn the house down and to set fire to Kastamuni. That afternoon a sort of court-martial was made of it, and I was arraigned before the Turkish Commandant, thinking it a delightful joke. Their serious faces amused me. I told them it was an accident, that I was sorry, that I would pay the damage, and after a debate of ordinary budget length, the kaimakam decided to let me off on my paying a lira. (The curtain would have cost about ten piastres, and the bed was only singed.) Then Sheriff Bey stormed and protested for more punishment, and I was sent under an escort after handing over all my smokes and matches, to a dirty iron-barred cellar room in a house used by the kaimakam as an office. It was full of paper, and there was no bed or chair. I had no supplies at all. When I was left in peace I took a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Virginibus Puerisque" from my pocket, and sitting in a corner started to read. Presently I became aware of an eye watching me through the crack. In fact, I was just on the point of lighting up from a spare cigarette case and matches in my hip pocket. The eye changed. Still reading, I observed several peering and whispering, so taking a pencil and paper from my pocket I went through the form of writing a letter to our Foreign Minister via the American Ambassador, complaining of my treatment. Then pointing to the eye, I called for the interpreter, informing him that I wanted this letter to be shown to the kaimakam, and that even if he didn't send it I should take care that our Government took the matter up and dealt with those responsible when I was free. The result was he bolted from the room, and in ten minutes reappeared with a posta, and said I was free. Sheriff Bey met me at the top of the road, and proceeded to harangue me about wanting to frighten me only.

Bluff is the only thing, and their ignorance one's only chance. Since then, however, the kaimakam has treated me with extraordinary respect, so much so, that I have successfully refused to obey his order to pay for what I have not had, _i.e._ food in the _mektub_ for all the time I was sick. The best way to treat these Turks is to be distantly polite. Much annoyance and trouble has been caused through some officers chumming up to them, plying them with drinks, and conducting them by the arm here and there. The next day there's a row about some point of pay or privilege, and the Turk thinks himself snubbed. The net result is that the Turk, being our captor, is in much the better position to hit back. This he does vigorously, with insulting titles and notices that make life a great burden. Some of their notices posted up in the _mektub_ are screamingly funny. The following are actual samples, with spelling corrected--

* * * * *

1. "English imprisoned officers cannot only please themselves by disobeying the Turkish posta who have the order of them. Neither can they go past the posta or outside the door. In which case the posta can beat them with the stick or rough handle the officer or officers concerned."

2. "English officers ought to pay their money willingly. Why do they have the trick of deceiving the peasants and poor Turkish subjects, which is dishonest?

(Sd.) "TEUFIK, "Kaimakam."

3. "Officers cannot talk to any one except themselves, strong punishments will pursue swiftly. What is the use of pouring dirty water into the street? Surely they need not chivvy 'bints' in the bazaar, and officers educated in London could know better. When officers go for a walk in charge of a posta they shall not go to the front or the posta gets behind in which case the posta has orders to shoot or remonstrate with the culprit. Let every one pay the price in the bazaar and let them pay all their money to Usnu, the contractor, who is not a robber.

(Sd.) "TEUFIK, "Kaimakam."

4. "It has been taken to my notice that English officers never stop kicking up a shinty (shindy) in their rooms. Cards will be stopped. Let us not play cards or kick up any more shindy. You shall behave civilized."

5. "In future great supplies of liquor and cognac will not be drunk by our order as the floor of the school will go through. In which case the officers concerned cannot hold Turkish authorities responsible if they meet death. Also punishment must be given. Officers will be always tidy the room. Why choose the pig-stye? This is also a punishable affair.

(Sd.) "TEUFIK, "Commandant."

6. "Officers are allowed the bath and bazaar and footer. Why not go about properly dressed. Surely no hat or in the hand is not properly dressed. Sticks are forbidden and officers cannot walk with sticks. It is forbidden to get drunk or sing as the noise stops the sleep of neighbours. If a fire starts it goes. Therefore don't smoke in bedrooms for God sake.

(Sd.) "TEUFIK, "Commandant, "British Prisoners' Camp."

* * * * *

And so on. The explanation of these extraordinary documents is that some of the postas (bluebottles we call them) being old dug-outs, can't keep up with us when we walk, and trail out behind. The people in the town do us down at every turn, and we have to argue and bargain to get anything. In fact, we enjoy it. As regards the noise, some of us have a sing-song on every other Saturday in the _mektub_, and the Turks fear our applause may be too much for the floor. Regarding the "bints" we, not having spoken to the gentler sex from periods ranging to two years, have taught some Greek dreadnoughts to wish us good morning. The fire episode was, of course, due to me. Their Captain, Sheriff Bey, is the source of most of the trouble, and he stirs up the old kaimakam. Sheriff Bey is captain of the guard, and is at once treacherous and spiteful. To be sure he had for a time captured the ear of a few of our officers who were misled by his lubricity and perpetual smiles. He fawns upon them, defaming his own country, which he predicts will be finished in a few weeks, and has decided to leave Turkey after the war. I loathed the man more than ever on hearing him speak of his country so. They say he is spying on the kaimakam in order to get his command.

On arriving here we all hoped to get away within a few weeks, as there was rumour of an advance in the West. At present, however, the indications are, at any rate, for a winter campaign.