to get. He " "obtained German soldier's cap for me, on discovering that I had no hat. He persuaded the German barber to bring my lunch one day, so that he might cut my hair. A comb, a toothbrush, soap, books, and dozen other things were supplied by Jean Willi, who, having learned that my ready cash amounted to fourteen shillings, pretended that the articles had been sent by the German officers. Later I discovered this to be a benevolent untruth.

In the wayside fallings of a roving life I have met several very good Samaritans, but none other who did as much for me, under great difficulties, as Jean Willi. Before meeting him I was altogether broken in spirit, and with hopelessness filling my mind had actually begun to fear for my reason. He understood all this, and to the limit of his powers did his best to remedy it, well know ing that his actions would bring him the enmity and sus

pioions of the Turkish officers. His friendly conversation and his invariable kindness were splendid tonics, taken three times a day, at each visit,

When he was away my mind was prevented from slipping back into the stagnation of despair by the books he had smuggled into my room. The first of these was a German war novel-Der Eiserne Mann'procured from a Boche soldier. It purported to show how loyal were the Alsatians to the German Fatherland. It was untrue, stupidly sentimental, and often farcical; but, after all, so were most of the war novels published in England at that time. Then, in some dark recess of the house where he was billeted, he found a copy of 'Les Liasons Dangereuses an altogether extraordinary book to be salvaged from a little house in Nazareth. This was my first introduction to Barbéry d'Auréville, and joy and interest in his magnificent characterisation completed my rescue from the slough of despondeney.

It was Jean Willi who first gave me an outline of Turkey's fantastic history during the war. He was never tired of asking why the British left the Dardanelles. They could have forced the way through with ease had they stayed a little longer, he said, as the Turks were at their last gasp, and, having no direct communieation with the Central Empires, were nearly out of ammunition. Every one in Constantinople was expecting this to

happen, and most people hoped for it. The Greeks and other Christians had been ready to rise in revolt as soon as British ships entered the Sea of Marmora. All the gold had been transferred to Asia Minor, whither the Ministry intended to retire. This same story of the Turkish army being at its last gasp I heard, later, from soores of Turks, including officers who had actually fought on Gallipoli.

on

The sudden, savage slaught of the Turks against their Christian subjects; the horrible character of the Armenian massacres; the murder of prominent Syrians; the deportation of Ottoman Greeks; the gradual starvation of the rotten old empire, whereby hundreds of thousands died of hunger while the Germans were sending trainload after trainload of foodstuffs from the country; the ruthless execution of all who dared to oppose Enver and Talaat; the amazing bribery and peculation; the hundreds of thousands of deserters, and the scores of thousands of brigands-all this was described in such vivid detail by Jean Willi that I could scarcely believe he could be relating fact. Two-thirds of the population, he said, were pro- Entente not only the Christians and Arabs, but the very Turks themselves - although none could or would oppose the violence of the Young Turk party. As for himself, although he had never been to England, this Jew without a country claimed to have a frantic love of the

English, which he could not explain, "like the love of a man for a mistress whom he respects"-his own words.

One day there arrived four Australian aviators who had been captured in the Jordan valley. R., the pilot of a Bristol Fighter, had landed behind the Turkish lines after his petrol-tank had been hit. Several months earlier he came to enemy earth on a B.E. under almost identical circumstances. Lieutenant Macnamara then won his V.C. by descending beside him, and, after his own Martinsyde had been destroyed, flying R.'s machine home, with R. in the passenger seat. On the occasion of R.'s second descent in Turkish territory H. had tried very pluckily to emulate Macnamara. He made a beautiful landing, and with R. and R.'s observer seated on the lower planes, one on each side of the pilot's cockpit, attempted to take his machine into the air with a load of four men. He might well have succeeded if R. had not jerked his body backward, to avoid a hot blast from the exhaust outlet, with the result that the equilibrium was upset and the craft swung round and hit a pile of stones. The four officers were able to burn their machines before being captured. A Turkish corporal tried to kill them off-hand, but the Germans prevented this, and finally they came to Nazareth.

Yet another British officer was at Nazareth in those days. W., a Yeomanry officer, had been for several months in hospital with severe wounds.

General Liman von Sanders, Commander-in-Chief of the Turoo-German Army in Palestine, visited this hospital and promised the Turks that he would recapture Jerusalem and Jaffa within three months. Incidentally he gave the Iron Cross, 4th class, to every Turkish officer in the hospital, irrespective of whether he were wounded or merely in bed with a cold. W., whom the general presumed to be a Turk, received an Iron Cross like the other patients.

One morning the Australians and I were taken for interrogation to German headquarters. We agreed that our best plan would be to claim complete ignorance of everything connected with the war. The invariable answer of C., the first visitor to the private office of the Intelligence Officer-one Leutnant Santel W88 "I don't know." When H., the second on the list, adopted the same tactics, Santel tried

bluff.

are very useful in eommunieating with the Bedouins east of the Jordan, are they not?" "I don't know." "But I do know."

"Why ask me, then?"-the reply obvious.

"You don't know! You don't know! So! Please leave the room."

88

H. returned to us, and none of the remaining three were questioned that day. Leutnant Santel adopted a more subtle method next morning. With Oberleutnant von Heimburg ("brother of the famous submarine commander," Santel introduced him), Staff Officer of the German Flying Corps at Palestine Headquarters, he came to the barracks and invited C., R., and me for a day's outing to Haifa, on condition that we gave parole until the return. We accepted and agreed; but while getting ready I remembered how, before my capture, it had been my duty to milk a German pilot of information while entertaining him, and warned the others not to be drawn into friendly talk about aeroplanes and operations.

It W&S 88 we expected. While we were driving to Afuleh aerodrome, for lunch in the Flying Corps Mess, von Heimburg and Santel refrained from any mention of the war; but at table they performed the usual trick of showing us photographs of British aerodromes and pilots, in the vain hope that on recognising them we would say something useful.

Next we travelled along a