World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, Turkish
We all felt dreadfully tired as well as thirsty. The past two nights had
told on us; and without proper sleep and sufficient food we were not in
the best trim for a third night of mountaineering. After getting back to
the track, we had to climb up the side of the ravine, which was steep
and rocky. Resting every few yards, we eventually reached the top and
turned up-stream. The point where we had descended the gully must have
been in almost the narrowest part of the gorge, and we could see that we
should have to move some way along the crest before we could get down to
the water. We were still ascending, and after continuing a little
further decided to lie down till dawn, and then trust to getting down to
the river and hiding before the country people were about. It was
hopeless to try to get down again in the dark, even had we possessed the
strength. Thirsty as we were, we got off to sleep; and, when we woke,
found it was already beginning to get light. It had got much colder and
our thirst had accordingly diminished. I had lost my cap the night
before shortly before we camped, and now luckily managed to find it on
going back a little way. We pressed on and began to descend again. It
took us at least an hour down a very steep tree-clad slope. The stones
we set rolling seemed to make a dreadful noise, but actually must have
been drowned in the roar of the torrent below. As we neared the river,
we found we were quite close to a farm; but no one was about, and we got
down without trouble. How we drank, and what a relief it was to be
beside water again! After a wash, we set about getting a meal by
preparing our wheat. It took some time to get all the husks off the
grain and longer to boil it; but it was very good and filling. Our
biscuits had numbered originally about thirty-five each, so that as we
had reckoned on a journey of a fortnight to the coast we only allowed
ourselves two and a half per day. We made cocoa, in addition to the
porridge, and went to sleep under the bushes, feeling a great deal
better than we had done for some hours. Our camp was in a most ideal
spot. Below us, the river wound down through the gorge, while the steep
slopes on each side of the valley were covered with magnificent trees.
There were a great many hazel nuts, but these were not yet ripe or we
would have gathered a large number.
Later on, we produced our razor and, one by one, for the first time
since leaving Kastamuni, made ourselves presentable. I got out the
fishing line I had brought, but had no luck, chiefly owing to there
being no worms to be seen in the soil on the river bank. The preserved
meat seemed to have little attraction for the fish, of which there were
plenty, and our biscuits were too precious to be used up in any way as
bait.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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