We had left at Psamatia a store of clothes and tinned food, which was to have been smuggled on board by the Russian aviator Vladimir Wilkowsky. As the days passed and nothing arrived we suspected Wilkowsky of having either failed or fooled us. Then, at a party in Titoff's cabin one evening, I saw inside a cupboard some tins of biscuits and cocoa, of the kinds that were sent to aviator prisoners in Turkey by the British Flying Services Fund. Titoff could not--and in any case certainly would not--have bought them in Constantinople; for English cocoa and biscuits, if obtainable at all in the shops of Pera, fetched extortionate prices.
Although the mere sight of the tins provided insufficient proof, the inference was that Wilkowsky had sent our belongings and that Titoff had stolen them. But we delayed investigation and accusation until we should be safely out of Turkey, and in the possession of revolvers. Some time or other we meant to make Titoff suffer. Meanwhile, we were forced to wait until our moment came.
Delay followed upon heart-breaking delay, until we began to lose hope that the _Batoum_ would ever weigh anchor. In four days' time, it was promised, the cargo would arrive. Two days later the four days had stretched, elastic-wise, to ten, because a consignment of figs had not arrived from Smyrna. Then, a week afterward, a further extension of five days was reported, the Turkish merchant having failed to come to terms with the Ministry of Commerce.
It became impossible for us to remain in Kulman's cabin, which faced the captain's. The old skipper received many visitors, including Turkish officials, any one of whom might have been led by mischance to discover us. At Titoff's suggestion we moved to a small room on the bridge, formerly occupied by a wireless operator, in the days when the _Batoum_ was a Russian transport. The transmitter and receiver were still there, but had been out of action long since, for the Germans forbade the use of wireless by merchant craft in the Black Sea.
There we remained hidden for a succession of twelve monotonous days and nights enlivened only by British air-raids and by expeditions to the deck when sunset and twilight were past, and we could take exercise by tramping backward and forward, forward and backward, in the shadow. For the rest, we continued to study Russian, and received friendly calls from Kulman, Josef, Feodor, Viktor the Student, and Bolshevik Bill the Greaser.