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
My enquiries at Baranki Barracks, and in the offices of the British
Provost-Marshal and the Arab gendarmerie, failed to trace the fate of
George; and I had to be content with the memory of a futile little
figure standing on the steps of our railway carriage, on the morning
after our betrayal, and saying, with despair in his voice: "I have so
little courage. I ask pardon."
Of the other intimate characters in the story I can account for all but
two. Jean Willi, the Israelite dragoman who was my benefactor at
Nazareth, has not yet given me the chance to pay back in part the good
deeds that I owe him; but I still have hopes. And I can only guess at
what has happened to Michael Ivanovitch Titoff, now somewhere behind
the screen which, since the Bolshevist reoccupation of last spring,
separates Odessa from the normal world. From what I know of his
character I am certain that when the Soviet troops arrived he
proclaimed himself a Bolshevist, and took full advantage of the
conditions whereby the unrighteous have special opportunity to
flourish.
Vladimir Franzovitch--a Russian as estimable as Michael Ivanovitch was
despicable--died for the country he loved and despaired of, fighting in
Denikin's army.
For the rest, I can offer happy endings as conventionally apposite as
those of the worst "best-seller" of any lady novelist.
Miss Whittaker, the noble girl who played in Constantinople the heroic
part of an Edith Cavell, is now Lady Paul. Less than a month ago an
American warship took her from Constantinople to Beyrout, where she
married Captain Sir Robert Paul, one of the British officers whom she
had helped to escape. She now lives in Aleppo, where Paul commands the
Arab gendarmerie. In this crowded narrative I have failed to do justice
to the brave and gifted woman who many times risked liberty and life in
aiding unfortunate countrymen; but only because the last thing she
would desire is advertisement have I refrained from writing the eulogy
she deserves.
Another happy ending, almost too good to be true, was the recent
wedding of Colonel Newcombe and Mlle. "X", the girl who arranged his
escape from Broussa and concealed him in Constantinople while he worked
for a withdrawal of Turkey from the war.
Mr. S., the British merchant who jeopardized his neck in helping no
less than seven British officers to liberty, has returned to England,
and should be conscious of much merit.
The Turkish armistice happened a few days before Theodore was to have
been hanged. Fulton and Stone were released from the Ministry of War
Prison, and twenty-four hours later, by means of threats, they obtained
reprieve and freedom for the Greek waiter who had hidden them. He was
then half dead, as a result of insufficient food, and of the dreadful,
disease-ridden, insanitary, crowded state of his dungeon; but he
recovered under careful nursing, and returned to his mother and
sisters, in the house where the gendarmes had captured Yeats-Brown,
Fulton, and Stone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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