The arrival of a neutral Red Cross delegate, at about this time, did much to secure us better treatment. For over five weeks now I had not breathed fresh air, but directly the Red Cross delegate arrived I was allowed to go to the bath, escorted by two dog-collar gentlemen with revolvers and two sentries with side arms. While glad to feel I was employing so many of the Turkish Army while at my ablutions, I could not but deplore their anxiety on my behalf. "No officer has ever succeeded in escaping from this wonderful gaol of yours," I said to the Prison Commandant, who (in contrast to Djevad) was quite a good fellow in his way "and I don't suppose anyone ever will. Why therefore go to the trouble of guarding us so closely? It would be a very graceful act on your part if you allowed us to go occasionally into the garden." "Yarin, inshallah," murmured the Commandant, meaning, "To-morrow, please God." And to-morrow, strange to say, actually arrived in about a week's time. Perhaps a bomb raid hastened matters, by stimulating the Commandant's desire to do graceful acts before the war was over. One of the bombs of this raid dropped in the school playground just outside the Seraskerat Square, and shattered all the windows in my passage. Fortunately all the children were away, it being Friday. No one was killed by that bomb, but a large handsome Turkish officer prisoner standing beside me in the passage, when some panes of glass beside us burst, threw himself on the floor and refused to rise again, declaring he was killed. A full ten minutes he lay, with his moustaches in the dust, surrounded by sentries. In the confusion that ensued Robin cleverly slipped over to me and we had a very useful chat. The first and most vital thing to do, we decided, was to get into Constantinople, in order to learn how the situation really stood, and make our plans for escaping, so that in the event of our success we should be in possession of knowledge useful to the Allies. Having settled this, we returned to our respective cells, where I witnessed a scene that, by contrast with the behaviour of the nervous Turkish officer, reminded me of the "patient deep disdain" that the East will always feel for the marvels of our age of steel. Our machines are things of a day, but the ancient needs remain. The bomb that had dropped in the playground had wrecked a large tree that stood in its centre, and hardly had its smoke cleared away before an elderly peasant appeared with a donkey and started collecting twigs and splinters for firewood. Slowly and stolidly, under that barrage-riven sky, the old man continued gathering the aftermath of the raid, before the raid was finished. Empires might crumble to the dust: he would cook his dinner with the pieces. This bombing business "cleared the air" for us greatly, and another little incident clinched matters.