rty 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 wriggled 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 ever 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 dirty business.
They halted for a meal, and we stopped, too, and lunched 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 that he was mortally sick of war.

In the afternoon 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 we began to meet little parties of
men coming from the east with a new look in their faces. The first
lots of wounded had been the ordinary thing you see on every front, and
there had been some pretence at organization. But these new lots were
very weary and broken; they were often barefoot, and they seemed to
have lost their transport and to be starving. You would find a group
stretched by the roadside in the last stages of exhaustion. Then would
come a party limping along, so tired that they never turned their heads
to look at us. Almost all were wounded, some badly, and most were
horribly thin. I wondered how my Turkish friend behind would explain
the sight to his men, if he believed in a great victory. They had not
the air of the backwash of a conquering army.

Even Blenkiron, 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. I had reckoned that
four days would take us from Angora to Erzerum, but here was the seco