Eastern Nights - and Flights: A Record of Oriental Adventure.Bott, Alan
History
Eastern Nights - and Flights: A Record of Oriental Adventure.
Bott, Alan
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, Turkish
Wearing my suit of mufti and the felt hat which I bought on the day I
escaped, White shook hands and left me, after a reminder that if he
were captured my clothes would go to prison with him. He was far from
cheerful, for it was Friday, the thirteenth of September; and he
remembered that his capture in Mesopotamia had taken place on Friday,
the thirteenth of September, 1915.
Anxiously and uncomfortably, I waited through several hours of strained
inactivity, fearing that if White, also, were recognized at the
Prisoners' Bureau, disaster might overtake not only him, but our
benefactor Mr. S.
At six o'clock he burst into the wireless cabin with a beaming face and
the joyous announcement:
"I've seen S., and the money's not lost."
White's Friday, the thirteenth of September, had been an exciting one.
He walked into the doorway of the Prisoners of War Bureau, and speaking
in English, asked for Mr. S.
"Name?" inquired the porter.
"Mr. Henry O'Neill, from Tarsus."
"Do you know Mr. S.?"
"Why, certainly, I'm a friend of his." And White felt in his waistcoat
pocket, as if searching for a card.
"His office is on the first floor," said the porter, satisfied. "Go
straight up."
With a gulp of relief White passed up the stairway. Like myself on the
day before, he had to wait many minutes before Mr. S. was disengaged;
and like myself he was horrified to see Levy, the Jew _kavass_ who had
brought his letters and parcels to Gumuch Souyou Hospital. The _kavass_
beamed, and delivered himself of an oily greeting, but failed to
remember where he had met White.
"You speak as an Englishman," he said, after a few words of
conversation. "You are a English prisoner, not?"
"Of course I'm an English prisoner," admitted White, slapping Levy on
the back. "My guard's waiting outside."
The _kavass_ fetched a chair for White and seemed disposed to ask more
troublesome questions. Just then the visitor who had been engaged with
Mr. S. left the office, and White walked inside, praying that the
_kavass_ and the porter would not compare notes, and identify Mr. Henry
O'Neill, of Tarsus, with the British prisoner whose guard was waiting
in the street.
The door being closed White explained his real identity to Mr. S., and
offered apologies for the dangerous visit to which he had been forced
by our desperate situation.
"You needn't worry about the money," said Mr. S., "I had no chance of
paying it. I've destroyed the cheques."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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