way point. His life in captivity is constraining, of course,
but relatively pleasant. Over the next few days TNT, will
juxtapose this relative comfort with brutal reports of
other Turkish prisoners in Russian POW camps during
the same period.//
M. Fuad Tokad
21 August 1916 Monday
The weather is pretty nice but there are
some clouds in the sky. There’s
no warmth at all. After lunch I received a note from Şerif and went
to
see him. We spent the afternoon making the top portion of his suit and
chatting. Then I
returned. Poor Halis was upset at having been left
alone. In the evening he let me know it with a
number of gestures. He
was right and I deserved it. Because just as I don’t have a close friend
beside
him he doesn’t either. Just as when I get upset I need his
consolation, he no doubt needs me to be
there for him in the face of
insolence. But I had left him alone and had caused his distress to
multiply. My shyness, first of all, and secondly, profoundly, the effects
of the calamity of 328 (1912)
still have on me, irritate dear friends like
this and cause them to feel badly. Damn you calamity and
shyness!
When will I be rid of you? In particular, shyness is the reason for all
I’ve
suffered, right?
22 August 1916 Tuesday
The weather is quite nice. Time is passing
relatively well, too. But
some thoughts have cropped up as the result of our being occupied
with
work and both the future and the past have come to life in my
imagination. The phases of the past
are marching along like a parade.
A person feels a twinge of emotion at this time and the effect of
this
leaves one in a state of extended perplexity. This environment is
paralyzing me in a terrible
way. But the emotion that the past
sometimes elicits may be attributable to the environment,
too. Yes,
this small place is strange. Since everyone’s level is the same the
thoughts are
different. Too bad there aren’t many young fellows here
who give any thought to humanity. Some of the others
busy themselves
with just enduring,
while the rest are occupied with pointless and
inhumane things. Nobody wants to discuss the issues that matter most
in life and they’re not
interested in taking common advantage of these
days in captivity. They just
want to kill time. These are the things that
anger me most…Kör Mehmet
and Şerif came to
see us and we had a
talk. The Turks are advancing on the Russian front and in
Iran.
Romania is near to making a peace agreement with our
allies. At night
I went to bed early.
23 August 1916 Wednesday
I went to the hospital because of a
mosquito bite on my foot that I
kept on scratching without thinking and now the wound has worsened.
There’s a little corridor with many rooms on each side that are all for
examinations.
Something that caught my attention: even in the hospital
there’s a lamp with a picture of Jesus on
it. Russian fanatics! In any
event, they spread some iodine on my foot, bandaged it and I came
back. The hospital is nice and clean.
In the afternoon Şerif and Yahya came and we sat for a
while. After
the evening meal Ethem summoned Halis. They spoke
for more than
an hour and Ethem had quite a lot to say. I had a feeling
that I knew
just what Ethem said and what his
intentions were. Then, when Halis
came back up he first lay on his bed under the pretext of a stomach
ache and this made me very suspicious. Two hours later, I heard
Ethem say to Salah these
words while they were playing chess:
‘corner seclusion and I separated them.’ Right away I went
over to
Halis and we began to talk. Ethem had told Halis that there were
lots of things
happening to his detriment and that Halis should talk
more carefully with everyone, especially me.
Halis told me that for
a little while anyway he would speak more seriously and carefully
so that
he can rid himself of these things…I thought and then spoke
definitively. We’re still together,
we’ll live as one, everything we
have together but our behavior and attitude must be more serious
than before. The poor fellow was so frightened that he was saying
that we wouldn’t be able to
speak with one another anymore…but
a couple of days ago when I had said to Halis ‘let’s not
attract
attention from others’ he had said ‘as long as we’re honorable no
one can say or do anything to
us.’ But today we’re afraid to talk
intimately. It’s clear that Ethem’s words had the desired
effect on
the poor fellow.
24 August 1916 Thursday
The bitterness of last night prompted me to
get up early in the morning.
The distress in my heart
continues. Even if I’m able to console myself
I can’t shake off the bad
feeling I have from what’s happened. I spent
the morning
lying on my bed. A little while after lunch Halis, Hasan
and I went to the bath and got
cleaned up. Then I lay down on my bed
again and pulled the blanket over me. Halis went
outside for a walk and
I fell asleep for a while. At this time Salah recited a poem and he
seemed to
be aiming a dart at me. It appears he achieved his goal. I lay
there until the evening
meal. Zühdü and Hikmet came and asked
‘what’s wrong? Are you sick?’. Halis keeps on saying
‘please get up.
If you don’t then I’ll start thinking and be worse off than you.’ After
dinner I went
out into the garden and walked around a bit by myself.
Later I felt a slight stomach ache
and I laid down again. Halis came
and tried to console me. But the effect of Ethem’s remarks
yesterday
wouldn’t allow him to spend more than a brief time by my side.
Halis is more careful
now, more noticeably protecting himself but this
wasn’t right. In the evening , actually at
night, we talked one-on-one.
I said these things to him and advised him not to worry. Let’s see
how
this will turn our. What will fortune do to us? The weather is bad. We
heard with joy
the news that the Turkish army has reached Beyazid
and Eleşker. Success.
25 August 1916 Friday
Since I went to bed early I got up early.
The weather is nice. After
drinking tea I lay on my bed and rested. Zühdü came at noon. He
tried to
comfort me, saying my disposition of the past couple of days
had changed for the better.
In the afternoon, in fact after the fellows
had returned from their walk, Yozgatlı Saffet came to
me. We sat on
the bed and talked. He was complaining to me about how lousy our ,
surroundings are
and that we don’t have any serious work to keep us
busy. Anymore, Halis doesn’t come by to see
me very often but after
dinner we chatted for a while. After than I told him to got out in
the
garden and walkd a bit. I laid down again. I looked around with a view
from afar…everyone was
in their own mood. About an hour and a half
later Halis came and he was laughing. He had
spoken with Saffet and
Saffet had told him lots of things about me. Saffet said we shouldn’t
pay attention
to the words of the intriguers and he complained a lot
about our environment…Halis
appreciated these things. He came to
the realization that Ethem’s advice had been a bluff, a lowdown trick.
Halis is stroking my face and eyes from happiness and he regrets
having been overwhelmed by emotion.
He says that he should be
forgiven for the behavior, which happened because of his
inexperience.
Anyway, we had a long talk. We consoled each other
for having gone through such a difficult
time…I was very touched
by Saffet’s magnanimous act in enlightening the inexperienced
Halis about
this matter. News: the Turks are advancing in five
columns, trying to surround Erzurum. The action is proceeding
successfully. The Bulgarians have turned
back the French and are
taking Kavala Siroz.
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