"Nah, look 'ere, civvies," he instructed, "yer speak English well inuf. Carncher read it? The notice says 'Officers Only', an' it means only officers. Dagoes 'ave ter use the yentrance rahnd the corner, so aht _yew_ go, double quick." That day Salonika gave itself up to revelry by reason of an unfounded report that an armistice had been signed on the Western front. One of the celebrators was a certain 2nd-class air mechanic of the Royal Air Force. We stopped him in the street, and asked the way to R.A.F. headquarters. Beatifically he breathed whiskied breath at me as he stared in unsteady surprise. "George," he called to his companion, "the war's over--_hic_--and here's two English blokes in civvies. Want to join the Royal Air Force, they do." Then, tapping me on the chest--"Don't you join the Royal Air Force. We're a rotten lot." Armed with signed certificates of identity we went to the officers' rest house to demand beds. "Speak English?" said a quartermaster-sergeant as we entered. "Yes." "Been expecting you. The Greek contractor's sons, aren't you?" Later, not long before the bulletin-board showed the rumoured armistice with Germany to be premature, an orderly in the rest house wished to share the great news that wasn't true with the nearest person, who happened to be White. He stopped short on seeing a dubious civilian. But his good-fellowship was not to be denied. French being the _lingua franca_ of the multi-nationalitied troops in Salonika, he slapped White on the back and announced: "_Matey, la guerre est finie_!" Metamorphosed by ordnance uniforms from third-class scarecrows to the regulation pattern of officer, we spent glorious days of rest and recuperation. Then, by the next boat for Port Saïd, we left Salonika the squalid for Cairo the comfortable; and so to the world where they dined, danced, demobilized, and signed treaties of peace. EPILOGUE A DAMASCUS POSTSCRIPT; AND SOME WORDS ON THE KNIGHTS OF ARABY, A CRUSADER IN SHORTS, A VERY NOBLE LADYE AND SOME HAPPY ENDINGS Of all the cities in the Near and Middle East Damascus is at once the most ancient, the most unchanged by time, the most unreservedly Oriental, and the most elusive. Constantinople is Byzantium--cum Mohammedan lust for power--cum Ottoman domination--cum Levantine materialism--cum European exploitation and Bourse transactions, in a setting of natural andarchitectural magnificence; a city that expresses itself variously and inharmoniously by a blendless chorus from an unmixable mixture of creeds and races; a charming, feminine city with a wayward soul; a cruel, unstable city of gamblers; a city of pleasant, vine-trellised alleyways, delightful waterways, fear-haunted prisons and extravagant rogueries; to my mind the most intriguing city in the world.