World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, Turkish
To anyone in decent health the month we spent in the Armenian church
must have been an interesting experience. Even to me, it was not without
amusement. Imagine a plain, rather gloomy, church, built of oak and
sandstone, with a marble chancel in the east. Two rooms opened out on
either side of the altar, and there was a high gallery in the west. In
the body of the building the English camped. One of the small rooms was
taken by the French, the other we reserved for a chapel. The Russians
chiefly inhabited the space between the chancel and the altar, but the
overflow of nationalities mingled. Our soldier servants were put in the
gallery. When everyone was fitted in, there was no space to move, except
in the centre aisle. There was no place for exercise nor any
arrangements for washing or cooking. During our stay in the church two
men died of typhus, and it is extraordinary that the infection did not
spread, considering the lack of sanitation. During the first night of
the strafe, the Russians, accustomed to pogroms in their own country,
thought there was a likelihood of being massacred, and kept watch
through the small hours of the morning by clumping up and down the aisle
in their heavy boots. All night long--for I was sleepless too--I watched
these grave, bearded pessimists waiting for a death which did not come,
while the French and English slept the sleep of optimists. At last dawn
arrived, and lit the windows over the altar, and a few moments later the
sunlight crept into the northern transept. Then the Russians gave up
their vigil, dropped in their tracks, and at once began snoring in the
aisle, like great watch-dogs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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