With the advent of spring we all responded to the call and took fresh hope and formed new resolves. Amongst them I started a fortnightly paper called _Smoke_, the Kastamuni _Punch_ and _Tatler_. In a rash moment I finally consented to the "General's" request, the General being Captain Kirkwood, our Mess-President. So far it has been a decided success. Our artist was an officer from the Lower House whose handy pen finished the cartoon and illustrated the serial and verse. The paper was not wholly given to ragging and joking, but in a serious corner we discussed aspects of Kut and the Trek and Kastamuni and the war. We also ran fictitious notes from Kara Hissa, Yozgad, Brusa (where the generals are), and "Eve" of the _Tatler_ finally came to live in Kastamuni to cheer us up with a certain famous chaperone called "The Destroyer." The most popular article amongst our own mess was the current one called "The Oblong Table," at which we all sat--King Arthur, Sir John Happy Tight, Sir Saundontius the Good, Sir Sulphurous Blears, Sir Bedevere le Géant, Sir Leslie Bee de Canard, Sir Cliftus Smallkake, Sir Samuel Longbow, Sir Carol le Filbert, Sir Richard Oldlace, Sir Pompous Oldass, Sir Lancelot the Bard, Sir Galahad the Silent, and Sir Rufus Appletree. And we lived well up to the best traditions of the Round Table, and conversations and jests and challenges flew to and fro. But altogether it is rather a sweat, as I have to do the whole thing, and then it has to be copied out again by some one with a decent caligraphy. Great care has to be taken to keep it out of the Turks' hands. I have also worked on a further constitutional study of the possible Society of Nations or International Body, following out constitutional developments and tendencies as revealed by the war since my pre-war work "The Place of International Law in Jurisprudence." And so what with the band and _Smoke_ and this diary and bits of French and my law work, I have plenty to do. I am only wondering how long it will be before these, too, follow the rest of our enterprises to oblivion. It is true that one's springs of action seem almost run out, and that with leading this dreary existence the iron of Kastamuni has already eaten into the souls of many. The psychology of a captive is an extraordinary one. At night-time, when the last tremors of the muezzin have died away and all is still, we sometimes fancy we can hear the echoes of those great events that are rearranging the world, the crashing of nations in mortal combat, the battle cries of men fighting for their faith, the death cries of the fallen, above all, the cannon cacophany of the fire deluge. And from here in the backwater of the world, without news or knowledge, our hearts go out to our countrymen on the other front, and we pray to God that we may soon be amongst them again. CHAPTER XI EXTRACTS AND PHOTOS FROM "SMOKE," THE KASTAMUNI "PUNCH"