The word for prisoner is the same as that for a slave

TCD MS 3416 page 39

TCD MS 3416 page 39

[June 1916]

& starvation – he then begged me not to repeat this for he feared being hanged. The Turkish General arrived shortly afterwards, and informed us that we were only in the barrack temporarily, & that we should shortly be billeted in Hotels. After two hours more during which time we continued to try and shake off the “insect patrols” who were still in close contact with us, we started off in small parties to our Hotels under the charge of a Ziaptieh or gendarme, who wore round his neck a brass plate very similar to the plate which enables you to distinguish the difference between a port or sherry decanter. With him were a few Arab soldiers with fixed bayonets. Unfortunately, the word for “prisoner” in the Turkish tongue is the same as that for “a slave”, so our guard was far from civil, and wondered, I think, why we were not in leg-irons. On our complaining of the behaviour of the guards and threatening to report the Turkish police officer to the General, this officer explained to his men, those “Sons of the Desert”, that it was not the correct to dig a British officer in the stomach with the butt of a rifle and to knock his helmet off by way of explaining that it was forbidden to look out of the front door!

Our small party of ten were allotted