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[Page 79]
depend on. We tramped on as best we could expecting that if we struck good hard travelling we could reach the coast the following night. About midnight we struck a fairly good road but it was not leading in the exact direction to suit us so we had to leave it and strike off across the boggy fields again. We did not make much further progress owing to a terrible rain storm coming on, so we took refuge in one of our usual places of concealment. There was absolutely no timber in this part of the country. The following day it was still raining. We began to see the terrible possibility of failure. Nearly all day we discussed the situation and came to the conclusion that if the rain did not stop it would be impossible to reach the coast at our present rate of travelling In the afternoon the rain cleared up and we had hopes of being able to continue the trip with success. We could see Tarsus in the distance and knew by our position that we would still have about 13 miles to do. We had gone about 2 miles when another terrible rain storm broke and it was not long before we were like drowned rats. We stopped for about 1 hour in the hopes of it clearing off, but no such luck. It seemed as if it was going to last. We knew that with the small amount of wet biscuit we had, we could not possibly do the trip. After reaching the coast we had a 4 to 5 days trip. At sea we could not possibly stand the strain of this without food. We ate the remaining biscuit and decided that we would start back to camp before any of us became sick to walk. Cullen had a slight attack of malaria and we did not know the minute we might all be stricken down with the same complaint. We had been wet through practically all the time for the past four days. I think the only thing that went a long way to keep off a sickness was a bottle of Dr. Collis Brown's chloradyne which one of our friends had given us before leaving in case of dysentry. He had received it in a parcel. We took 20 to 30 drops of this every night after we finished the nights march and we found it warmed us up wonderfully. We left all our gear in a wheat field where we were, to be found by who ever should reap the harvest. I have often wondered since what the man who found it thought it was, if it was a Turk, I am sure that the mystery is still unsolved for the Turk is very ignotant outside his own little bit of farm work. We set off back relieved of our heavy burden but how we felt it having to leave our boat behind which we had spent months of work on and had depended on it getting us out of that terrible country. I still fell sure today that had the rain kept off we would have reached the coast and got safely across to Cyprus, an English possession. There was nowhere where we could leave the boat and come back in a month or two and find it for the country was all the same and the nights were pitch black. We would not have found the same place again especially a wheat field.