At the end of September, the first batch of officers was moved to Changri, and the remainder followed early in October. At Changri accommodation was provided in a dirty Turkish barrack, which, besides needing very extensive cleansing, required much glass in the windows. Shortly afterwards, two-thirds of the officers left for Gedos, a small place about a hundred miles east of Smyrna, where they were placed on parole, and given liberty to go where they pleased unguarded. The remainder stayed for some months at Changri, where they had managed to make themselves fairly comfortable, although only allowed to go out to a neighbouring field for exercise. Later, however, they were sent to Yozgad, the camp to which the first half of the Kut officers had originally been sent. CHAPTER V ESCAPE FROM KASTAMUNI Returning to events in Kastamuni, in November 1916 a little more housing accommodation had become available for us, and as a result I found myself sharing a good room with Keeling, a lieutenant in the I.A.R.O. One evening, soon afterwards, I asked him if he would make an effort with me to reach the Russians if, as we hoped, they should advance further west from their lines, which were then running due south to Erzinjan from a point a little way west of Trebizond. He replied that he had long been thinking of it, and had made a start towards preparing for such an effort by carefully preserving two 1 lb. tins of chocolate which he had received from home! At that time such a journey meant a distance of 300 miles across country from Kastamuni, and we considered it quite hopeless in view of the mountainous country to be passed. It was also obvious that any attempt to get a long distance across country would stand a much better chance if made in the summer time. It would be impossible to carry enough food and we should have to fall back on such crops, fruit and vegetables as might be ripe and obtainable. We thought April or May would be the earliest possible month. Another alternative was to get to the coast, only 38 miles as the crow flies, and then to steal a boat. This necessitated having one man in the party who knew how to sail a boat, and added a big risk in the very fact of having to launch a boat secretly and get away from a coast which as far as we could hear was well guarded.