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[Page 49]
The Turkish guards were disappointed that some of us didn't die and thereby allow them a few pickings from our belongings. At any rate their threatenings were many and comprehensive as to our future, after the German Company had finished with us. They often reviled us and gloated at the thought of the Christian dogs becoming slaves to the Faithful i.e. themselves. I'm sure they would have liked us to suffer as they made the Armenians but were afraid to put it to the test for we weren't Armenians.
X add written a/c of difference of Treatment here found on page 31A [see previous page 46]
On 27th 180 of us prisoners left Angora at 7 p.m. We travelled in 3rd class dog boxes full of vermin. Even though we were 3 days and nights in these carriages packed like sardines with no room to lie down and sleep yet we had plenty of fresh air and it was much better than our last experience walking to Angora. They gave us a meal of ½ cooked bad wheat at a town called Eski-che-hia shehir, which means old city, but very little of this was eaten. It was too bad even for hungry prisoners and most of us were feeling pretty sick and depressed at this journey.
After 3 days we came to one of the oldest Turkish towns in Asia Minor called "Konia."
Pop. 55,000 a function of the Anatolian & Bagdad Rlys. There we were offered another Karra-wanna. This word means meal or dish in Turkey, of boiled wheat. We were allowed on to the station to eat is and were told off 10 men to a dish.
We arrived at the village or town of Belemedik (see photo) on 1st day of February. This was our first introduction to the renowned Bagdad Railway which proved to be our destination. Here I had better give a brief note on the importance of the Bagdad Railway to the enemy, especially of the narrow gage part with which I was more immediately concerned. It had a broad gage down to the town of Gelebek (Gulek Basar?) on the Bagdad side of the Taurus Mts. Then began 12 miles of narrow gage over and through the mountains and it passed the 12 tunnels and these until it reached Belemedik on the south side of the Mountains. All the munitions, produce etc. had to be unloaded and reloaded at these 2 stopping places changing from the broad to narrow gage lines. The A German Civil Engineering Company had been working on the Taurus Mt., part of the River 5 years previous to the outbreak of war, when the work here ceased. However early in 1916 when the enemy saw the extent of fighting on the Palestine Suez Canal and Mesopatamia fronts, this section became of vital importance for the conveyance of war munitions expeditiously. The only other route was by means of a motor transport on the rough mt. Roads from Bozardi Bazardjik to tarsus a town of Biblical fame. This was the only Pass through Taurus Mts. and it was upalong this tedious track that the Old crusaders journeyed of old. The Germans immediately increased the number of prisoners workers to 30, 000 made up of chiefly prisoners Greek, Armenians, Turks, unfit for military duty. The