-•4 
LAND & WATER 
Septi'iiiber 28, iqiO 
{Conliuued from pa^e 22) 
>i..irched the marrow. Past^ntly we climbed up into hills, 
and the road, though not badly engineered to begin with, 
grew as rough as the channel of a stream. No wonder, for 
the traffic was like what one saw on that awful stretch lietween 
Cassel and \'pres. and there were no gangs of Belgian road- 
makers to mend it up. We found troops by the thousands 
striding along with their impassive Turkish faces, ox con- 
voys, mule convoys, wagons drawn by sturdy little Anatolian 
horses, and. coming in the contrary direction, many shabby 
Keil Crescent cars and wagons of the wounded. We had to 
crawl Un hours on end. till \\x- got past a block. Just before 
the darkening we seemed to outstrip the first press, and had a 
clear run for about ten miles over a low piss in the hills, 
I bt>gan to get anxious alxjut the car. for it was a poor one 
at the best, and the road was guaranteed sooner or later to 
knock even a KoUs-Koyce into scrap iron. 
All the same it was glorious to be out in the open again. 
Peter's face wore a new look, and he sniffed the bitter air like 
a stag. There floated up from little wayside camps the odour 
of wood-smoke and dung-fires. That, and the curious acrid 
winter smell of great wind-blown spaces, will always come 
to my memory as I think of that day. Every hour brought 
me jx-ace of mind and resolution. I felt as I had felt when 
the battalion first marched from Aire towards the tiring line, 
a kind of keying-up and wild expectation. I'm not used to 
cities, and lounging about Constantinojile had slackened my 
fibre. Now, as the sharp wind buffeted us. I felt braced to 
any kind of risk. We were on the great road to the east 
and the border hills, and soon we should stand upon the 
farthest battle-front of the war. This was no commonplace 
intelligence job. That was all over, and we were going into 
the firing-line, going to take part in what migiit be the down- 
fall of our enemies. I didn't reflect that we were among 
tho;e enemies, and would probably share their downfall if 
yfc were not shot earlier. The truth is, I had got out of the 
way of regarding the thing as a struggle between armies and 
nations. I hardly bothered to think where my sympathies 
lay. First and foremost it was a contest betvveen the four 
of us and a crazy woman, and this personal antagonism made 
the strife of armies only a dimly felt background. 
We slept that night like logs 'on the floor of a dirty khan, 
and started next morning in a powder of snow. We were 
getting very high up now. and it was perishing cold. The 
Companion— his name sounded like Hussin— had travelled 
the road before and told me what the places were, but they 
conveyed nothing to me. All morning we wTiggled through 
a big lot of troops, a brigade at least, who swung along at a 
great pace with a fine free stride that I don't think I have 
e\-er seen bettered. I must say I took a fancy to the Turkish 
fighting man : I remembered the testimonial our fellows 
gave him as a clean fighter, and I felt very bitter that Germany 
should have lugged him into this ugly business. They halted 
for a meal, and we stopped too andlunched off some brown 
bread and dried figs and a flask of very sour wine. I had a 
few words with one of the officers who spoke a little German. 
He told me they were marching straight for Russia^ since 
there had been a great Turkish victory in the Caucasus. " We 
have beaten the French and the British, and now it is Russia's 
turn, he said stolidly, as if repeating a lesson. But he added 
tliat he was mortally sick of war. 
In the afternpon we cleared the column and had an open 
road for some hours. The land now had a tilt eastward as 
If we were moving towards the valley of a great river. Soon 
\ve began to meet little parties of men coming from the east 
■A'lth a new look m their faces. The first lots of wounded 
lad been the ordinary thing you see on ev-rv front, and there 
liad been some jjretence at organisation. But these new lots 
were very weary and broken ; they were often barefoot, and 
tliey seemed to have lost their transp<jrt and to be starving 
.\lmost all were wounded, some badly, and most were 
horribly thm. I wondered how my Turkish friend behind 
would explain the sight to his men. if he believed in a great 
\ ictory. rhey had not the air of the backwash of a con- 
juering army, 
liven Bleniiron, who was no soldier, noticed it. 
"These boys look mighty bad." he observed. "We've 
got to hustle. Major, if we're going to get seats for the last 
act. 
That was my own feeling. The sight made me mad to get 
on faster, for I saw that big things were happening in the East 
1 had reckoned that four days would take us from Angora 
to Erzerum, but here was the second nearly over and we were 
lot yet a third of the way. I pressed on recklessly, and that 
iiurry was our undoing. 
I have said that the Studebaker was a rotten old car 
Its steering-gear was i.retty dicky, and the bad surface and 
■ontinual hairpin bends of the road didn't improve it. Soon 
we came into snow lying fairly deep, frozen hard and rutted 
«y the biR transport-wagons. We bumped and bcunred 
Horribly, and were shaken about like peas in a bladder. I 
began to be acutely anxious about the old boneshaker, the 
more as we seemed a long way short of the village I had pro- 
pf)sed to s]3end the night in. Twilight was falling and we 
were still in an unfeatured waste, crossing the shallow glen 
of a stream. There was a bridge at the bottom of a slope— 
a bridge of logs and earth which, had apparently been freshly 
strengthened for heavy traffic. As we approached it at a 
good pace the car ceased to answer to the wheel. 
I struggled desperately to keep it straight, bit it swerved 
to the left and we plunged over a bank into a marshy hollow. 
There was a sickening bump as we struck the lower ground, 
and the vviiole party were shot out into the frozen slush. I 
do not yet know how I escaped, for the car turned over, and 
by rights I should have had my back broken. But no one 
was hurt. Peter was laughing, and Blenkiron, after shaking 
the snow out of his hair, joined him. For myself I was 
feverishly examining the machine. It was about as ugly as 
it could be, for the front axle was broken. 
Here was a piece of hopeless bad luck. We v ere stuck in 
the middle of Asia Minor with no means of conveyance, for 
to get a new axle there was as likely as to find snowballs on 
the Congo. It was all but dark, and there was no time to lose. 
I got out the petrol tins and spare tyres and caclied them 
among some rocks on the hillside. Then we collected our 
scanty baggage from the derelict Studebaker. Our only hope 
was Hussin. He had got to find us some lodging for the night, 
and next day we would have a try for horses or a lift in some 
passing wagon. I had no hope of another car. Every 
automobile in Anatolia would now be at a premium. 
It was so disgusting a mishap that we all took it quietly 
It was too bad to be helped by hard swearing. Hussin and 
Peter set off on different sides of the road to prospect for a 
house, and Blenkiron and I sheltered under the nearest rock 
and smoked savagely. 
Hussin was the first to strike oil. He came back in twenty 
minutes with news of some kind of dwelling a couple of miles 
up the stream. He went off to collect Peter, and, humping 
our baggage, Blenkiron and I plodded up the waterside 
Darkness had fallen thick by this time, and we took some bad 
tosses among the bogs. When Hussin and Peter overtook 
us they found a better road, and presently we saw a light 
twinkle m the hollow ahead. " 
It proved to be a wretched tumble-down farm in a grove 
of poplars-a foul-smelling, muddy yard, a two-roomed 
hovel of a house, and a barn which was tolerably dry and which 
we selected for our sleeping-place. The owner was a broken 
old fellow whose sons were all at the -war, and he received 
us with the profound calm of one who expects nothing but 
unpleasantness from life. . 
By this time we had recovered our tempers, and I was trying 
,A °^?I! .■"/•".'''^ '^'^'"'^^ philosophy into practice. 1 
reckoned that if risks were fore-ordained, so were difficulties 
and both must be taken as part of the day's work. With the 
remains of our provisions and some curdled milk we satisfied 
0^110 hfrn^"Ri"T''''^ ourselves up among the pease straw 
ot the barn. Blenkiron announced with a happy sigh that 
he had now been for two days quit of his dyspq^L. 
(To be continued) 
Union Jack Club Fund 
Previously acknowledged ^ ^' *"'' 
Alfred O. Beardmore, Esq. 
A Friend . . 
H. T. Ivatt, Esq. . . 
R. B. Wright, Es(|. 
Miss Marion Arkwright, Mus.Doc 
G. T. Barlow, Esq. 
Major R. St. T. Hickman,' V.D.'. ' 
" Sailor " . . 
H. de CM. 
W. O. Appleford, Esq. . . 
Miss Hopkins 
Major E. J. Burke, R.A.M.C 
A. M. Morley, Esq. 
Anonymous .... 
All 
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