Dec. 6, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
719 
After having threatened the hotel proprietor 
that he would not get a cent from us if our 
shooting togs were not dry the next morning, 
we went to heaven in the form of a good warm 
bed. 
First half-day’s bag: 7 snipe, 2 teal. 3 mal¬ 
lard, 1 widgeon. 
Br-r-r! Fortunately we set an alarm clock 
as well, for the proprietor was nowhere to be 
found when I finally got up courage to forsake 
the warm sheets. I hunted from the basement to 
the attic, knocking at every door and asking if 
the proprietor were in, but only received every 
now and then sleepy muffled oaths in reply. All 
the officers were up and getting ready for the trip 
tc the front. It was the last dawn but a few 
that many of the poor fellows were destined to 
see, for I afterward learned that those regiments 
took part in the ill-fated attempt to land at 
Charkeuy, on the opposite side of the Marmora 
Sea, then occupied by the Bulgarians. Hatchik, 
the Armenian proprietor, was not in the hotel, so 
I threw a blanket over my underclothes and saun¬ 
tered out into the waning night to the “Casino” 
to find him. It was positively the coldest, bleak¬ 
est morning I ever remember, and privately I was 
all for remaining in bed and letting the morning 
flight go to a much warmer place than Ismidt 
just then. After that morning I really felt for 
the poor belligerents in that cold winter campaign, 
and realized the hardships they went through. 
After a fruitless search I returned to the room 
tc explain to Pat that Hatchik must have been 
drafted in the Turkish army overnight, for he 
was not to be found. To my surprise Pat was 
swearing like any trooper at his horse outside at 
Hatchik-—I don’t know where he dropped from— 
who was holding out togs in his hands and try¬ 
ing to explain why they were not dry. Pat as¬ 
sured me that one change-of hunting togs would 
be enough, as Hatchik always had them dry as 
toast the following morning. The light had failed 
this time; the midnight fire had given out, and 
our clothes were frozen crisp. We looked at each 
other, each hoping the other would -declare his 
feet had grown cold and suggest bed until the 
clothes were dry or the sun up, or some similar 
excuse. Finally we decided we had come all the 
way to Ismidt for the morning flight, and it 
would never do to squeal out of it then. In an 
hour we would have to wade through the sea to 
the first marsh, so what good would dry clothes 
do us then? So we got into our iced clothing. 
Auch 1 it was awful when I wound puttees over 
my iced pants and shoved my feet into the tennis 
shoe ice-boxes. 
It was beginning to get light when we went 
to the “Casino” to put something warm into our 
systems. I had some Turkish tea—with lemon— 
bread and a couple of brandies. I don’t where 
Pat originally got the idea from—probably from 
some hydrophobic naval officer friend of his—but 
he persists in practising the following breakfast 
when on hunting trips: A whole litre-bottle of 
beer with a slice of bread. 1 shuddered as I 
watched iiim drink the delicious iced frothy stuff 
at such an ungodly hour of the day. 
In the meantime, Bedros the boatman came 
and informed us that he was all ready for us. 
We should have followed him right away, for the 
delay of five minutes caused us to find when we 
got to the landing that our boat had been com¬ 
mandeered by a bunch of Turkish officers to put 
them on board a transport half a mile out in the 
harbor. In our combined Turkish we gently 
remonstrated, and had the honor to inform these 
officers that we had not hired the boat for the 
benefit of the Turkish army, but that we should 
be delighted to let them have it when we got 
through with it. They evidently did not make 
us-out, for they respectfully saluted us and kicked 
Bedros for being so slow in his rowing. My 
sympathies, formerly turcophile, became radically 
pro-Bulgarian for the time being, and 1 felt like 
slipping a No. 4 shot shell in my gun and giving 
them an idea, on a small scale, of what was com¬ 
ing to them when they reached the other side of 
the Marmora. So we walked up and down the 
wharf to keep warm, being stopped once by sol¬ 
diers and once again by an officer and asked to 
pioduce some plausible reason for being there at 
such a time of the day and in such weather. Then 
again a bunch of inquisitive soldiers collected 
around us and made us understand that we were 
Bulgarian spies and that that was all there was 
to it. We began to be nervous, asserted we were 
British and American respectively and that our 
nations were Turkey’s greatest friends, said the 
Bulgarians were low-down dogs and rotten fight¬ 
ers, and wished our inquisitors Godspeed. The 
bluff worked all right, and when we handed the 
cigarettes around they became quite genial. One 
of them wanted to bet with me that an American 
soldier’s regulation kit did not weigh more than 
half of theirs. The good semi-savage’s intimacy 
was not quite welcome just then, so, pretending 
to convert figures on the back of my cigarette 
box, I said he won the bet, for the American 
soldier’s kit only weighed two-fifths of theirs, 
and gave him five cigarettes. To our great re¬ 
lief Bedros returned with the boat and saved us 
from the swelling circle of soldiers around us. 
We finally started off, feeling very sore with 
the Turkish army and the nerve of its officers, 
who made us miss the morning flight. When we 
were out of hearing distance from the landing, 
Bedros dropped the oars, raised his eyes to the 
grey sky, first called for the fire of heaven to 
destroy the embarking army and then praised 
Heaven for having brought about this disastrous 
war, which was ridding the world of so many 
thousands of his oppressors. 
The 150 yards wade in the sea was nothing 
tc what was coming to us. The marsh was a 
sheet of ice three-eighths of an inch thick. We 
would break through the ice, sink beyond the 
knee in mud, and then scrape and cut our legs 
above the puttees with the jagged edges of ice. 
In parts where the mud was more compact it was 
like walking barefoot on sharp rocks. A fine 
mallard rose to me from a clump of reeds twenty 
yards away just like a partridge. I tried to aim 
and fired, but I was too stiff and numb to harm 
the duck. My gun barrels were so cold that I 
let the gun rest on my arm and put my hands 
in my pockets so as not to touch them, and swore 
at the snipe and ducks that were rising to me 
within range. I looked in Pat’s direction for 
sympathy. According to him the whole world 
was in a very bad bleeding state. The weather, 
the snipe, the marsh, etcetera, were all “bloody.” 
Even he had his hands in his pockets except when 
he pulled them out quickly to regain his balance 
or to extricate himself from the “bloody bog.” 
I felt rather sore with Pat for not telling me to 
bring at least a pair of woollen gloves. 
I finally sidled up to the commanding officer 
of the expedition and asked him if this was the 
usual agony connected with wild fowling, swearing 
inwardly that I was done forever with that wet, 
icy branch of sport. All the encouragement I 
got from Pat, however, was to be informed that 
he had twice before in his life suffered like this. 
The birds began now to be quite shocked at our 
language and rose quite far away as it became 
louder. The time came when we could stand it 
no longer—two more of my toes felt they would 
soon be frostbitten—and simultaneously and in¬ 
dependently we made for our boat, to wait in it 
until the sun rose. I should here mention that 
while we were wading to the first marsh we put 
up four springs of teal, which all flew up the first 
liver. 
The cold but welcome sun at last crept 
over the western range of hills. We waded ashore 
again and walked up the west bank of the first 
river. Our miseries now came to an end, for the 
sight of three teal swimming at a bend in the 
river set our blood circulating again. Pat was 
positive there were at least fifty more birds that 
we could not see around the bend. Hoping to 
get within range of the three that I could see, I 
offered to do the stalking. Pat remained where 
he was, hiding in a clump of reeds and pulling 
out his pipe. I first made a wide detour, then 
turned and went to the bend at right angles, glid¬ 
ing on all fours as I came near the bend. I now 
saw only one teal, which was fast asleep, with 
its little head tucked under the feathers of his 
back, and I was soon within range of it. I lay 
flat on the iced mud, took rifle target practice aim 
at him, reasoning in a very unsportsmanlike man¬ 
ner that one teal sighted along the barrels of my 
gun was worth fifty imaginary ones behind the 
ONE OF THEM WANTED TO BET ME THAT AN AMERIGAN SOLDIER’S REGULATION 
KIT DID NOT WEIGH HALF AS MUCH AS HIS 
