Four-Fifty Miles to FreedomJohnston, Maurice Andrew Brackenreed
History
Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom
Johnston, Maurice Andrew Brackenreed
Prisoner-of-war escapes; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, Turkish
After a short delay the three took their departure, Nobby and Johnny
again clicking heels and doing a pantomime chorus salute. The distance
to the remainder of the party was one and a half miles, and the path
climbed steeply the whole way. The Hun officer of course marched
coolly ahead, while Nobby and Johnny plodded behind, anything but
cool. After going a few hundred yards they glanced behind them. As
was to be expected, they were being followed. First came the beastly
German-speaking man, then the Greek, and after them the headman himself
on a donkey. Johnny advised Grunt to go on ahead and warn the others
that we were now Magyars, and that we each had a revolver. Nobby and
Johnny walked as fast as they could, but the sun was very hot and the
loads very heavy for them in their weak condition. The men who were
following eventually caught up with them and together they came to
where the remainder of the party were camped. This gave the headman a
bit of a shock, as he thought we had lied about everything, and so did
not expect to see five other Magyars.
As soon as the party could get their equipment on we formed up in two
ranks. Grunt made some guttural sounds, at which we "left turned" and
started to march off into the blue, leaving three very puzzled men
behind us. After an hour's going we halted and, seeing no one following
us, had a meal of two chupatties and six raw eggs each. For the two odd
ones of the fifty that had been bought we had "fingers out."
"Fingers out" was a procedure whereby all such debatable matters were
decided during our escape. On the last sound of the words "Fingers
up!" each member of the party held up any number of fingers he chose,
subject to the maximum being four and the minimum one. Having decided
beforehand at which person the counting would start, and which way
round it was to go, the total number of fingers shown was added up and
on whatever member of the party this number ended when counting round,
that was the man. This was the sort of thing that happened: "Starting
with Perce, going round right-handed, Fingers up!" Suppose the total
was 19. That would mean, in our party of eight, that the man two after
Perce would win the count. "Fingers out" was used only to settle
who was to have the pleasant things, such as these odd eggs, or the
scrapings of the cooking-pot; duties such as going on ahead to scout or
going back to a spring to fetch water were undertaken by volunteers.
We were still on the wrong side of the ravine in which was the village,
and inasmuch as it was dangerous to stay in a locality where we had
aroused such suspicion, the ravine must be crossed. A mile farther on
we discovered a possible line of descent to a ledge half-way down.
The ravine was about four hundred feet deep and its sides almost
precipitous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account