Note 76 — Chapter XXX

During our air-raids on Constantinople, which usually took place at night, I used to spot the general direction of gun-flashes, etc. For the purpose of accurately marking down these anti-aircraft gun and mitrailleuse positions (in which I was fairly successful), and especially in the hope of locating a concealed munitions factory which several patients told me was hidden near “Katikeoy” (in which I failed), I frequently broke out of hospital. I usually got back without my absence being observed. Once I was nearly shot (by the sentry guarding a mitrailleuse concealed in the English cemetery on which I stumbled quite accidentally). Three times I was captured outside, twice by sentries and once by the gendarmerie. Once I escaped again from my captors, by diverting their attention with a tin of jam—I told them it was a bomb to bomb the English—on the other two occasions I was brought back to hospital, and each time used the same trick—raved and stormed, and said I must kill Baylay. On both these occasions the doctors drugged me, with trional and morphia, to quieten my nerves and put me to sleep. They ascribed my wanderings to my madness. So far as I know my real object was never suspected.