The Secrets of a Kuttite: An Authentic Story of Kut, Adventures in Captivity and Stamboul IntrigueMousley, Edward O. (Edward Opotiki)
History
The Secrets of a Kuttite: An Authentic Story of Kut, Adventures in Captivity and Stamboul Intrigue
Mousley, Edward O. (Edward Opotiki)
Al Kut (Iraq) -- History -- Siege, 1915-1916; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, Turkish
The journey I made under a most undesirable character,
called Mohammed Ali, a Turkish subaltern, thoroughly dishonest
and treacherous, and a bully. We soon came to loggerheads,
as I realized I would get no privileges from him except
what I took. I was driven to the Brusa station in his gharry,
for which he made me pay two liras. When we got to
Modarnia I had to wait an age on the roadside in a biting
wind. This, I remember, set my neuralgia going severely in
my back. It was necessary to wait, he said, while he bargained
for various hens and a lamb, which he proposed to turn over at
a profit at Stamboul. Then, when I went for a meal to an
exorbitant Greek, he wanted to stop my ordering from the
waiter, even through him, and proposed to decide what I
should eat, and this, when he proceeded on the usual presumption
that I would pay for him. We did this on occasion, but
the regular thing into which this custom had grown was often
exploited against us. He ran up a huge bill of about two liras,
which he was so certain of my paying that he started bullying
beforehand. His face, when I didn't pay, was a study for
Mr. Punch's artist.
The sea ran high and our boat left before we arrived. I
hoped for many things if we could wait that night in Modernia,
what with communications and plans useful in case I returned
to Brusa. No one had ever stopped there. As bad luck had
it, a terrible little produce boat turned up late in the evening,
and, with many cattle and sheep and hens, we crouched down
from the wind. It was the third week in March, and at this
season the Marmora can be very rough.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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