He brought me to a prosperous, neat-looking house with heavy
wooden doors. In response to his summons an old woman came and ushered us
into a large, cool room, well furnished and with beautiful Kurdish rugs.
There we found four young girls, who, it was explained to me, formed the
Turkish general's "field harem." He had left in too much of a hurry to
take them with him. They were Kurds and Circassians, or Georgians--and the
general had shown no lack of taste in his selection! True to the tradition
of the Garden of Eden, this harem proved disastrous to a brother officer
who, having heard of my capture, sent me "priority" over the field service
lines a ribald message as to its disposition. "Priority" wires are sent
only on affairs of the greatest importance, and when I left the country my
friend was slated to explain matters before a court martial. There were no
papers of any great value to be found, and I told the mayor to take me to
the more important ammunition and supply dumps. By the time I had located
these some cavalry had come in, and I went back to the river to help get
the fighting cars across.
Once we had these safely over we set out in pursuit of the Turks. The next
town of importance was a ramshackle mud-walled affair called Tauq, twenty
miles beyond, on the far side of a river known as the Tauq Chai. The
leading cars pursued to within sight of the town and came in for a good
deal of shelling.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130