Produced by Barbara Watson, Ross Cooling, Mark Akrigg and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net ((This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)) CAUGHT BY THE TURKS BY FRANCIS YEATS-BROWN WITH PORTRAITS AND PLANS LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD 1919 [_All rights reserved_] To LADY PAUL CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. CAPTURE 1 II. A SHADOWLAND OF ARABESQUES 25 III. THE TERRIBLE TURK 42 IV. "OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION" 56 V. THE LONG DESCENT OF WASTED DAYS 75 VI. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRISON 95 VII. THE COMIC HOSPITAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE 102 VIII. OUR FIRST ESCAPE 122 IX. A CITY OF DISGUISES 140 X. RECAPTURED 159 XI. THE BLACK HOLE OF CONSTANTINOPLE 172 XII. OUR SECOND ESCAPE 198 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCHATE AT PSAMATTIA, CONSTANTINOPLE 137 THE AUTHOR AS A GERMAN GOVERNESS _facing p._ 154 THE AUTHOR AS A HUNGARIAN MECHANIC _facing p._ 170 THE SQUARE OF THE SERASKERAT, CONSTANTINOPLE 213 CAUGHT BY THE TURKS CHAPTER I CAPTURE Half an hour before dawn on November the thirteenth, 1915. . . . We were on an aerodrome by the River Tigris, below Baghdad, about to start out to cut the telegraph lines behind the Turkish position. My pilot ran his engine to free the cylinders from the cold of night, while I stowed away in the body of the machine some necklaces of gun-cotton, some wire cutters, a rifle, Verey lights, provisions, and the specially prepared map--prepared for the eventuality of its falling into the hands of the Turks--on which nothing was traced except our intended route to the telegraph lines west and north of Baghdad. Some primers, which are the explosive charges designed to detonate the gun-cotton, I carefully stowed away in another part of the machine, and with even more care--trepidation, indeed--I put into my pockets the highly explosive pencils of fulminate of mercury, which detonate the primers which detonate the gun-cotton. Then I climbed gingerly aboard, feeling rather highly charged with explosives and excitement.