rters over,
perhaps to see whether we had done damage, or perhaps to make
certain nothing had been left. He came out in a minute or two and
then we were marched out of the barrack in the dimming light, with
Tugendheim in full marching order falling into step behind us and
the senior German officer smoking a cigar beside Ranjoor Singh. A
Kurdish soldier carried Tugendheim's bag of belongings, and
Tugendheim kicked him savagely when he dropped it in a pool of mud.
I thought the Kurd would knife him, but he refrained.
I think I have said, sahib, that the weather was vile. We were glad
of our overcoats. As we marched along the winding road downhill we
kept catching glimpses of the water-front through driving rain,
light after light appearing as the twilight gathered. Nobody noticed
us. There seemed to be no one in the streets, and small wonder!
Before we were half-way down toward the water there began to be a
very great noise of firing, of big and little cannon and rifles.
There began to be shouting, and men ran back and forth below us. I
asked Tugendheim what it all might mean, and he said probably a
British submarine had shown itself. I whispered that to the nearest
men and they passed the word along. Great contentment grew among us,
none caring after that for rain and mud. That was the nearest we had
been to friends in oh how many months--if it truly were a British
submarine!
We reached the water-front presently and were brought to a halt in
exactly the place where Ranjoor Singh had halted us those five times
on the day we tramped the streets. We faced a dock that had been
vacant two days ago, but where now a little steamer lay moored with
ropes, smoke coming from its funnel. There was no other sign of
life, but when the German officer shouted about a dozen times the
Turkish captain came ashore, wrapped in a great shawl, and spoke to
him.
While they two spoke I asked Ranjoor Singh whether that truly had
been a British submarine, and he nodded; but he was not able to tell
me whether or not it had been hit by gun-fire. Some of the men
overheard, and although we all knew that our course to Gallipoli
would be the more hazardous in that event we all prayed that the
artillery might have missed. Fear comes and goes, but a man's love
lives in him.
When the Turkish captain and the German officer finished speaking,
the Turk went back to his steamer without any apparent pleasure, and
we were marched up the gangway afte
|