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
We slept in the cabin, and at dawn descended once more to the ship's
bowels. We spent five more hours of purgatory in the ballast-tanks. The
_Batoum_ remained motionless during three of them, but the last two
were enlivened by the swish-swish of displaced water as it passed the
flanks of the vessel. Finally we heard for the last time the blessed
signal "_Signor!_"
"_Fineesh Turkey_," said Feodor, as he smiled and helped us through the
manhole. Gone was the Bosphorus, and in its place we saw the leaden
waters of the Black Sea. From the port-hole of Josef's cabin we could
distinguish many miles west of us the coastline of the country in which
White had spent three years of the most dreadful captivity.
Feodor soon left us, for he had to bring other stowaways into the light
of day. From every concealed cranny of the vessel men and women, almost
as light-hearted as ourselves at deliverance from the Turks, were
coming into the open.
One of the stowaways, a passportless woman whom the aged captain was
taking with him to Odessa, did not rejoice for some time. As
hiding-place for her the ancient had chosen a deep locker in his chart
room on the bridge. There she had remained for the past two days.
Now Katrina, the kitchen wench, knew nothing of the captain's lady.
That morning, not wishing to send him back to the bunkers, where he had
spent the previous day, she thought of the locker as a temporary home
for her own particular stowaway--a Turkish deserter with coal-blackened
face, untrimmed beard, and decidedly odorous clothes. She dumped the
Turk inside the locker, fastened the lid, and ran back to the kitchen.
The Turkish deserter landed with some violence on the captain's lady,
and both received a bad fright as they clutched at each other in the
darkness. Yet the lid could not be removed from the inside, and the
shouts were unheard outside the little room. The air in the
unventilated locker grew ever more stuffy and velvety as the two people
continued to breathe it. Finally the woman fainted. The Turk, tired out
after a long spell of cramped wakefulness in the bunkers and the
kitchen, composed himself philosophically and went to sleep.
When the _Batoum_ was beyond the Bosphorus and all danger of a search
the captain opened the locker to release his friend. He inserted an
arm, and jumped with fright when, instead of a female, he produced a
coal-blackened man. The woman revived when taken into the fresh air,
but I should imagine that never again will she become a stowaway.
Titoff, fearing that some informer among the passengers might notice
us, still kept White and myself under cover all day, until we took our
usual exercise on deck each evening. The other stowaways were mingling
with legitimate passengers, whose bedding was spread over the hatches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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