Eastern Nights - and Flights: A Record of Oriental Adventure

Eastern Nights - and Flights: A Record of Oriental Adventure.

Photograph of Captain Alan Bott, taken in Constantinople while he was a prisoner. Captain Bott signed it in the name of "Fritz Richter, First Lieutenant in the German Flying Corps." While escaping, he was able, by means of the false signature, to convince a Turkish gendarme that he was a German officer wearing mufti. Most of us who were at close grips with the Great War will remember the habit of speculation about life on the far side of the front. Somewhere beyond the frontier of trenches, we realized, were our opposite numbersinfantrymen, gunners, aviators, staff officers, mess orderlies, generals, captains, lance-corporalseach according to character, rank, and duties, and to the position he occupied by reason of ability, courage, initiative, old age, self-advertisement, or wire-pulling. We saw them through a glass, darklya glass that, being partly concave, partly convex, and almost impenetrable throughout, showed us our opposite numbers as distorted reflections of ourselves. We knew well that a journey through, round, or over this glass would take us into an unnatural world where we should be negative instead of positive, passive instead of active, useless scrap-iron instead of working parts of a well-constructed machine. Yet we never considered the possibility of being obliged, in that unreal world, to live a life of impotence. Our companions, now, might have the bad luck to be dragged there; but our sense of normality would not let us reckon with such an unusual happening in our own case. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 41094
Author: Bott, Alan
Release Date: Oct 17, 2012
Format: eBook
Language: English