Several months earlier Lieutenant-Colonel Newcombe, D.S.O., R.E., had been imprisoned in the Turkish Ministry of War, while awaiting court-martial for an attempted escape. After his acquittal, owing to lack of evidence, he was allowed into the city with the prison interpreter. In a Pera tea-shop he met Mlle. "X", a Franco-Greek lady of Entente sympathies, who offered to help him in any way possible. A secret correspondence followed; and when Colonel Newcombe was sent to the prison camp at Broussa, Mlle. "X", with her maid, followed him. She stayed at a small hotel, on the pretence of taking the sulphur baths for which Broussa was famous. Several meetings took place, including a rendezvous at the house of the local Austrian Consul, whose daughters were school-fellows of Mlle. "X." The final interview at Broussa was when Colonel Newcombe, having obtained the clothes of an Arab _imam_,[2] disguised himself in this dress and slipped out of camp unobserved. He walked to the hotel, and there the scheme of escape was definitely arranged. He then returned, and by climbing over a wall, got back into the prison house without being seen. [2] Priest. Mlle. "X" left Broussa for Constantinople. On the way she stopped at Mudania (the port of Broussa) to bargain with two Greek boatmen, who agreed to take the British officer across the Sea of Marmora. From Constantinople she had a letter smuggled to Broussa, explaining how the boatmen might be recognized. Having read the letter Colonel Newcombe again disguised himself as an Arab, and at dusk slipped away from the prison house, while another officer-prisoner distracted the guards' attention by running in the opposite direction. He walked all night by moonlight, and reached Mudania next morning. Having found the Greeks, and paid a hundred dollars for the hire of their boat, he put to sea with them. A strong wind raged, so that he was fourteen hours on the Sea of Marmora, living during this time on bread and raisins. Finally he reached Constantinople and went to the house of Mlle. "X"'s parents. Like White and myself, Colonel Newcombe planned to go to Russia. He, also, had his fill of adventure. Once, he remained safely hidden in Miss Whittaker's house while the police were searching it for Yeats-Brown and Paul. He wrote several anti-German proclamations for distribution among the Turkish soldiers, and concocted a letter to the Turkish army commanders, advising them to refuse further service unless a new ministry were formed. But the Turco-German débâcle in the Near East, of which General Allenby's victories in Palestine and the Bulgarian surrender were the beginnings, made him abandon this work for something more important. Soon he found himself drawn into the very centre of the vortex of plotting that swirled around the Sultan, the Cabinet, and the Sublime Porte.