by E. H. Jones
The immediate consequence of their arrival was the opening of the ‘Schoolhouse’, or, as it was more commonly called, ‘Posh Castle’. Thirteen officers moved into it, taking with them their quota of orderlies, and three of the thirteen were Price, Matthews, and Doc. O’Farrell. Their departure put an end to the séances in our house. After our previous exhaustive experiments I dared not suddenly discover somebody else en rapport with me.
But in the Hospital House spooking went on cheerily all the summer under the auspices of Bishop and Nightingale, and it gave the camp much to think about. There was the episode of Colonel Coventry’s sealed letter, which the Spook read with the greatest ease. Mundey, as true a believer as any of my converts in the Upper House, assured Coventry the letter had never left his possession. He was perfectly honest in his assurance. The courage with which he stood up for his convictions moved my admiration. It was no fault of his that he was unconsciously up against a first-class conjuror,10 and that he did not know the letter had been removed, steamed, read, copied, resealed and replaced. The episode is merely another instance of faulty observation. It supports the argument which ‘common sense’ opposes to spiritualists. Because X or Y or any other eminent scientist or honourable man vouches for the correctness of a fact, it does not follow that the fact is so. All X and Y can really vouch for is that it is so to the best of their belief. Nor does it follow that because scores of persons observed the same details as X and Y, these details are either complete or correct. How many members of a music-hall audience can see how a conjuring trick is done? For every one who has noticed the key move there will be a hundred who did not. In matters of observation the truth is not to be discovered by a show of hands.
Then there was the episode of the floating bucket. In view of our success in instilling credulity, it may be thought that soldiers are for some reason peculiarly gullible. But we gulled others as well – farmers, lawyers, and businessmen. Lieutenant McGhie, for example, was a dour Scot, not a regular soldier, but an ordinary sensible businessman, with a liking for donning khaki when there was the chance of a scrap, and taking it off again when all was quiet. He had ‘done his bit’ in the Boer War before he went killing Turks at Oghratina. He could not be called either a nervous or an imaginative man. He was one of many at a Hospital House séance who saw a bucket ‘float across the room’. ‘Nobody could have thrown it – it was quite impossible!’ Yet Nightingale threw that bucket! I can only account for this and similar cases by the assumption that the effect of a séance – of the feeling that one is dealing with an unknown force – is to blind one’s powers of observation much as the unknown motorcar makes the savage bury his nose in the sand. Indeed, it does more than blind, it distorts. One more instance of the methods by which interest was kept alive. Upstairs in the Hospital House Mundey and Edmonds, who were recording for Bishop and Nightingale, found one evening that they could get only the first half of each message. Every sentence tailed off into nothingness. This was ‘discovered’ to be due to the fact that downstairs Hill and Sutor were ‘blocking the line’, and getting the second halves of the messages. We had never heard of ‘cross-correspondence.’ Nightingale and Hill invented it between them (after all, it is a natural sort of leg-pull), and carried it a step further than any professional medium I have ever read of.
The man responsible for pushing the glass in the Hospital House séances was Nightingale. The position of his fellow medium, Bishop, was exactly analogous to that of Doc. O’Farrell – he was perfectly innocent of any suspicion that the whole affair was not genuine. The manifestations were worked by Hill at a given signal from Nightingale, so that they synchronized with the writing on the board. Two other people were ‘in the know’ – Percy Woodland and Taylor, and very carefully they guarded the secret. This information I learned for certain in August of the same year, when Nightingale, Hill and I swopped confidences. Until my own spook-club had broken up, I had paid no attention to the occasional advances in search of truth which my rivals had made. It was amusing to learn that my admission of faking took a weight off their minds – they had felt pretty certain all along that the Upper House show was also a fraud, but had been puzzled by my reticence and were obviously relieved to learn the truth. At the time of our mutual confessions, Nightingale was dreadfully tired of being dragged out night after night by enthusiastic spook chasers, and was racking his brains to discover some means of giving it up without causing offence. As one of his converts – Lieutenant Paul Edmonds – had already written a book on the new revelations of Nighty’s spook, confession had become rather difficult.
Figure 8: It came up – with a revolver and holster attached. They smuggled their find away under the nose of the unobservant sentry.
‘Don’t confess,’ I said. ‘Let’s get the Pimple well on the string first.’
‘But how?’ asked Nighty.
None of us knew. We could only imitate Mr. Micawber and hope something would turn up.
Something did turn up – it always does if you wait long enough. Early in September, Cochrane and Lloyd, walking up and down the hockey ground, noticed a leather strap sticking out of the earth. The magpie instinct was by this time well developed in the camp. At one time or another we had all been so hard up that we now made a habit of collecting tins, bits of string, pieces of wood, old nails, scraps of sacking – in short, everything and anything which might some day have a possible use for some project yet unborn. The sum total, hidden under your mattress, was technically known as ‘cag’. A leather strap, with a buckle, was ‘valuable cag’. So Cochrane and Lloyd tugged at it. It came up – with a revolver and holster attached! They smuggled their find to bed under the nose of the unobservant sentry. We talked of the discovery in whispers, and wondered what had happened to the unfortunate Armenian who had buried it.
A few days later the Pimple buttonholed me.
‘I want to ask something,’ he said. ‘I go to Captain Mundey, and he tells me to ask you.’
‘What is it, Moïse?’
The little man glanced furtively up and down the lane, to make sure no one was within earshot, and lowered his voice to a confidential whisper.
‘Can the Spirit find a buried treasure?’
‘That depends,’ said I.
‘On what?’
‘On who buried it, and who wants it, and whether the man who buried it is still alive; or, if he is dead, on whether he can communicate, or is willing to communicate. The difficulty varies with the circumstances.’
‘I see,’ said the Pimple. (This was very satisfactory, for I was hanged if I myself saw!)
‘You want me to find this Armenian treasure?’ I went on, risking the ‘Armenian’.
‘You know about it?’ the Pimple asked in surprise. ‘How did you know? Did the Spook tell you?’
‘I have had several communications,’ I said guardedly. ‘You’ve been concentrating on the wrong places.’
(I did not know whether Moïse had been digging or merely thinking about digging. ‘Concentrating’ covered both.)
‘We tried the Schoolhouse garden,’ said the Pimple, ‘but did not find it.’
‘Of course not,’ said I. ‘Digging at random is like looking for a needle in a haystack.’
The Pimple was much struck by the phrase, and made a note of it in his pocketbook, to practise it some days later on a choleric major who wanted his parcel dug out in a hurry. Thus he acquired English – and unpopularity!
‘You will grant me a séance?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes! Let’s see! What’s the best day?’ I pondered deeply. ‘How’s the moon, Moïse?’
‘Moon?’ said Moïse. ‘What has the moon to do?’
‘Do you want the best results?’ I asked.
‘Certainly.’
‘Then how’s the moon?’ (He told me.) ‘Ah! Then three days hence will be best. We’ll have a séance on the evening of the 10th September in the Hospital House. You must get me permission to sleep there for the night.’
It was directly contrary to the rules of the camp that a prisoner should be absent from his own house after dark. The readiness with which Moïse granted the privilege showed he had nothing to fear from the Commandant.
The interview had been most satisfactory. I had learned, first, that the Turks believed that there was a treasure; second, that two or more of our captors had already been looking for it (Moïse had said ‘WE tried the Schoolhouse garden’); and third, that one of the group was probably the Commandant, Kiazim Bey himself. No doubt I could have learned all these facts quite easily by direct questioning. But the whole art of mediumship is to gather information by indirect methods, in order that, at a later stage, it may be reproduced by the Spook as an original utterance from the unknown. The only memory of our conversation Moïse was likely to carry away with him was the ‘fact’ that the success of a séance depends on the state of the moon.
My plans had been formed during our interview. This was obviously what I had waited for so long – an opportunity of attaining my object of properly intriguing the Turk. A treasure-hunt has a glamour of its own in the most material surroundings. A treasure hunt under the guidance of a Spook ought to be a stunt beyond price. It only remained to prove that the Spook could find things and the Turk would be on the string. I determined, if necessary, to ground-bait with my own poor little store of gold and let the Pimple acquire a taste for the game of treasure-hunting by finding it. The advantage of this method would be that the rest of the camp would remain as much in the dark as to the origin of the gold as the Pimple, and I saw the prospect of much fun by organizing digging parties throughout the autumn. Had gold been at all plentiful this would undoubtedly have been the proper course to pursue. But it was a rare commodity, and I was reluctant to part with my small stock without first trying a cheaper method.
I therefore waylaid Cochrane.
‘I hear,’ said I, ‘that you dug up a revolver the other day. Was it a good one?’
‘It was a Smith and Wesson 450,’ said Cochrane, ‘and we got some ammunition with it. But the weapon’s quite unserviceable – the action has rusted to pieces.’
‘Would you mind very much parting with it?’ I asked.
‘It’s of no value,’ said Cochrane; ‘but it isn’t mine, it’s Lloyd’s. What do you want with it?’
I told him.
‘Bones, you old villain,’ he laughed, ‘you’ll get yourself hanged yet if you are not careful.’ That was an uncomfortably correct prophecy! I remembered it six months later when Hill and I were cut down just in time to save our worthless lives. But I am anticipating.
‘I’ll take the risk,’ I said, ‘if you’ll get me the gun.’
Half an hour later the revolver, its holster, and some dozen rounds of rust-eaten ammunition were in my possession. It had been cleaned, and some of the rust removed. We re-rusted it with sulphuric, re-muddied it, and next morning re-buried it. The spot chosen was not that where it had been found. The garden was terraced in six-foot drops, and a wall of uncemented stones upheld each terrace. By removing a few stones from the face of the wall, scooping out a cavity in the earth beyond and thrusting in the revolver and ammunition, Cochrane and I succeeded in planting the revolver in such a way that the ground above it was quite undisturbed. The only difficulty we might have to overcome was to explain the freshness of the mud on the holster; for the surrounding ground was bone dry.
The position now became somewhat delicate. A number of officers in the camp knew that Cochrane had discovered a revolver. Several of them had seen it. If the Spook rediscovered it, somebody was sure to recognize it and the fat would be in the fire. Suspicion would be cast on all our spiritualistic performances, and the edifice of credulity so painfully built up in the camp might easily come crashing to earth. This would have been disastrous, for my principal asset in converting the Turk was the childlike belief of many of my fellow prisoners in the genuineness of our séances. The general atmosphere of faith had an effect on the Pimple which no amount of concerted lying could have achieved. It was essential to retain the atmosphere as far as possible, and to bring off the coup against the Pimple without affecting the belief in spiritualism of the camp as a whole.
The best plan was obviously to take the camp, up to a certain point, into my confidence. I announced that the Pimple was about to be subjected to a practical joke. My plan was not to have a séance at all, but to pretend to the Turks we had held one, and had received instructions from the Spook as to where to dig.
But on the morning of the 10th, the Pimple announced his intention of being present at the sitting. This involved our bringing out the answers on the spook-board, and placed a fresh difficulty in my way. It was obvious that if I brought out the answers by my usual methods, the audience would at once realize that if I could fake thus for the Turks, I could also fake for them! There must therefore be some difference from our ordinary procedure which the audience could easily detect for themselves.
The affair was arranged very simply, to the satisfaction of all concerned. As between myself and the audience, we agreed that wherever the Turk happened to sit I was to take the place immediately on his right. I could then so shade my face from him with my left hand that he could not see whether or not my eyes were open. With my eyes open, I explained to my little school of True Believers,11 I could push the glass to the answers required. The part of the audience on my right would see the deception. I begged them to give no sign.
Such was the public plan. But the private plan was quite different. I wanted to be free to watch the Interpreter, and to be ready for emergencies. If my attention was to be concentrated on spelling out the correct answers I could not do this efficiently. So far as my fellow prisoners were concerned, I would be the centre of interest. They knew beforehand the thing was to be faked by me, and they would naturally watch me closely to see how the fake could be carried out. Nightingale and I talked the matter over. It was decided that he should be responsible for pushing the glass to the correct letters. This would leave me free to act my double part so as to appear genuine to the Pimple and fraudulent to the rest of the audience, without being bothered with what the glass was doing on the board. Further, in order fully to occupy the Pimple’s attention, we decided to employ him as a recorder and keep him so busy writing down letters that he would not have any time to spare for watching the mediums.
The result was most gratifying. Nobody for one moment suspected Nightingale. Everybody, except the Pimple, ‘detected’ me pushing the glass. They came up to me aftewards, congratulated me on my excellent imitation of a séance, and remarked ‘Of course it was quite easy to see you were pushing the glass. We could see you were watching the board.’ Surely there were no further fields to conquer! The True Believers had first been convinced that I wasn’t pushing the glass when I was, and now they were equally convinced that I was pushing the glass when I wasn’t!
The Spook fixed the 12th of September for the treasure hunt. At 2p.m. on that day, by the Spook’s orders, Mundey (who wanted to share in the joke) waited with me outside the woodshed by the Majors’ house. The Pimple came fussing up.
‘Good morning, Mundey! Morning, Jones! You are ready?’
‘Yes,’ we answered.
‘Let me see.’ Moïse consulted his record of the séance. ‘The shavings for fire? The cord to bind your hands? The cloaks? The ink and saucer?’ he ticked off each item as we produced them.
‘What about your companion, Moïse?’ Mundey asked. ‘The Spook said there must be two of you.’
‘Soon the Cook will be here,’ the Pimple said, ‘and like myself he is carrying hidden steel. Feel! A bayonet’ – he thrust forward a stiff leg. Inside the trouser-leg, according to the Spook’s instructions, he was wearing a naked bayonet which reached well below the knee.
I was a little disappointed that the Commandant’s Cook should be the fourth, for I had hoped the Spook’s orders might bring out Kiazim Bey himself. But the Cook was no ordinary cook – he was the confidant as well
as the orderly of our Commandant, was practically Second in Command of the camp, and was altogether as big a rascal as ever wore baggy trousers. The Pimple’s selection of this man to accompany us instead of one of the regular sentries was another proof that the Commandant was in the know.
‘Do you think there will be danger?’ Moïse asked.
Mundey, with a fine air of martyrdom, shrugged his shoulders. ‘One never knows in these things,’ he said carelessly, ‘but if we follow instructions it should be all right.’
‘Oh, I hope so,’ said the Pimple. ‘Why do you think the Spook says, “the Treasure is by Arms Guarded”? Why does he insist that first we find the arms? Why not lead us straight to the treasure?’
‘Don’t be impatient,’ said Mundey severely; ‘for all you know the treasure may be mined, and if we go digging it up without disconnecting the mine we would all go up together. Our job is to obey the Spook’s instructions, not to argue about them.’
‘Do you think we shall find these arms which are guarding our treasure?’ Moïse asked.
‘I think so,’ Mundey said. ‘You have done this sort of thing before, haven’t you, Bones?’
‘Oh yes,’ I answered.
The Cook arrived, walking gingerly on account of the bayonet. He spoke rapidly in Turkish to the Pimple, who turned to us and translated.
‘The Cook wants to know what are we to do if the Spook leads to a harem?’
Mundey and I had the utmost difficulty in keeping our faces straight – we had not thought of such an enterprise.
‘We can stop outside, I suppose,’ said Mundey.
The Pimple translated to the Cook, who burst into a torrent of agitated Turkish.
‘He is saying,’ Pimple translated, ‘you will be entranced and the Spook says on no account must you be touched or spoken to. How then are we to stop you if you are making to go into the women’s quarters?’