World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, Turkish
The greatest delight of Konia, from our point of view, was an hotel near
the station, to which we were allowed to go for meals. This was run by a
Frenchwoman, who was kindness itself, and could not do enough for us.
Few of us will forget the delights of her omelets or the hot baths in a
real long bath, the first we had seen since leaving India.
The journey next day was more comfortable, as we had more room. After
spending another night in the train, we arrived in the morning at Afion
Kara Hissar, where a good number of Gallipoli prisoners were interned.
In the evening, we reached Eski Chehir, the junction for the Angora
line. Here all our Mohammedan servants were taken from us. We were
conducted a little way into the town to the houses where a number of
Indian Mohammedan officers, who had come along with the first party,
were living. They seemed to have fared pretty well, and certainly had
very good quarters. They were very glad to see us, and we anxiously
inquired after their experiences by the way.
Up to this point we had fondly imagined that Angora would be the end of
our journey, but just before starting in the evening we were told that
another ten days by road lay in front of us after reaching Angora. We
were packed tight in the train, and rumbled on slowly through the night,
arriving at Angora at eleven o'clock next day. Our kit was left to be
brought in carts, while we were marched through the town to a big
building over a mile beyond. This had been built as an Agricultural
College, but latterly used as a Military School. Here we found the
first party of officers, whom we had last seen at Shamran camp. They
seemed to have had a much more unpleasant journey than we had; whether
it was because they had most of the staff officers amongst them, or had
adopted the plan of telling every Turk and interpreter exactly what they
thought of them, certain it is that they were not enjoying life, and
when we arrived had not been allowed outside the building for two whole
days.
We had bidden farewell to Phil May with great delight at Eski Chehir,
and had since then been in charge of a much pleasanter officer. Thanks
to his efforts, we succeeded in getting permission to stay out of doors
to cook and to go down to a neighbouring stream to bathe in the evening.
We felt that the first party really owed us a great debt of gratitude in
thus providing them with an opportunity of washing and getting a little
fresh air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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