by E. H. Jones
‘Probably only one of us will be entranced,’ I said, ‘and if that is me you tell Mundey to stop me. You know how, don’t you, Mundey?’
Mundey rose to the occasion. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘I can use the Red Karen teletantic thought transmission.’
‘What is that?’ asked the Pimple.
‘Never you mind,’ said I. ‘That’s a secret process I taught Mundey in Burma. Come on! Let’s get ready.’ I stretched out my hands and the Cook bound them together with the cord we had brought for the purpose. Then he did the same for Mundey. These little things all count in instilling credulity.
‘Now what to do?’ asked the Pimple.
‘Hush!’ said Mundey. ‘Look at Jones! He’s going off! Don’t speak – for Heaven’s sake don’t speak to him.’
I went gradually off into a ‘trance.’ It was hard acting in broad daylight, with the two eager treasure-hunters watching at close range. The fact that I had never seen anybody go off into a trance did not make it any easier. But I had big plans at stake.
At last, speaking in a slow, sleepy voice, I addressed an invisible person behind the Interpreter, looking through him as if he were not there. ‘What did you say?’ I asked.
Figure 9: With eyes fixed on the ‘spirit’ I rushed past the astonished sentry.
The Pimple twirled round, but of course saw nothing.
‘What?’ I repeated. ‘I – can’t – hear.’
‘To whom is he speaking?’ asked Moïse. ‘There is nothing I see! Can you see?’
‘Hush – hush! For any sake be quiet!’ Mundey was acting splendidly.
‘South!’ I shouted, and started off at a great pace down the lane. ‘South! South!’
Mundey kept step with me. The Pimple and the Cook trotted (uncomfortably because of the bayonets) close behind us. With eyes fixed on the ‘spirit’ I rushed past the astonished sentry, who obeyed a signal from Moïse and made no effort to stop me. As I went I called to the spirit to have mercy on us poor mortals, and not to go so fast. Then, as my breath failed, I came to a stop and sat down in the cabbage-patch outside the camp.
‘What has happened? Where am I?’ I looked up at Moïse with a dazed expression.
‘You cannot see it now?’ Moïse asked in great agitation. ‘It is not quite gone away, surely?’
‘Quick!’ said Mundey. ‘The Ink Pool! Before it goes! Hurry up, Moïse!’
The Interpreter produced the bottle of ink and saucer which the Spook had ordered him to bring. We poured the ink into the saucer, and Mundey and I stared fixedly into it.
‘Ah!’ said Mundey.
‘Ah!’ said I.
‘What is it?’ asked the Pimple, peering over our shoulders into the ink pool. We paid no attention to him.
‘Can you see which way it is pointing?’ Mundey asked.
‘Yes,’ said I. ‘West! Come on!’ Jumping to our feet, Mundey and I started westwards up the hill as fast as we could go. Our bayonet-hobbled friends had the utmost difficulty in keeping up with us. We led them a pretty dance before we pulled up at the spot where the revolver was buried.
Here I asked for instructions from the invisible Spook. I was once more in a trance – a fact to which Mundey judiciously drew the Pimple’s attention.
‘Which test do you suggest?’ I asked.
The Spook’s reply was audible only to myself. I turned on the Pimple.
‘Quick!’ I said. ‘Do what he says, or we’ll be too late’
‘And what does he say?’ the Pimple asked.
‘He wants the test of the Head-hunting Waas,’ I explained excitedly. ‘Quick, man! Quick!’
‘I do not understand.’ The unhappy Pimple wrung his hands.
‘The fire! The shavings! Quick, you idiot!’ I raved. (It was great fun being able to abuse our captors without fear of punishment.)
Figure 10: Standing over the blaze, with arms outstretched towards the heavens, I recited a verse.
With trembling fingers the Pimple undid the bundle of shavings. I snatched it from him, deposited it directly over where the revolver lay, and put a match to it. Then standing over the blaze, with arms outstretched towards the heavens, I recited
Tra bo dŵry môr yn hallt,
A thra bo ’ngwallt yn tyfu,
A thra bo calon dan fy mron
Mi fydda’n fyddlon iti,
etc., etc., and so on. Celtic scholars will recognize a popular Welsh love lyric12. In Yozgad it passed muster, very well, as the Incantation of the Head-hunting Waas. The Pimple and the Cook listened open-mouthed. Even Mundey was impressed.
‘Something is here,’ I called. ‘I feel it. Get a pick!’
Moïse turned to the Cook in great excitement and translated. Opposite us, at the foot of the little garden, was a high wall. The Cook was over it in a flash, like a monkey gone mad, and a moment later we could see him racing up the road towards the Commandant’s office to get the necessary implements for digging.
I glanced round and saw Corbould-Warren’s grinning face watching from behind a neighbouring wall. Close to him was a little crowd of my fellow prisoners, all more or less helpless with suppressed laughter. The impulse to laugh along with them was almost irresistible. To save myself from doing so I sat down heavily, in a semi-collapse, against Tony’s hen-house, and buried my face in my arms. Mundey ministered nobly to me until the Cook reappeared with the pick. I began to dig.
I calculated the revolver ought to be about fifteen inches underground. When the hole was a foot deep I stopped, and again appeared to listen to the invisible Spook.
‘I forgot,’ I said apologetically, ‘I am sorry.’ Then, turning to Moïse, ‘We’ve forgotten the fourth element, Moïse! Hurry up! Get it!’
‘Fourth element! I do not understand.’
‘Oh, you ass!’ I shouted. ‘We’ve had Air and Earth and Fire. We want the other one.’
‘But what is it?’ Moïse wailed.
‘Water!’ said Mundey. ‘Quick – a bucket of water!’
Moïse rushed into the house and brought out a pail of water. I took it from him and poured it into the hole. As the last drops soaked into the dry earth I breathed more freely. Any fresh mud or dampness on the revolver due to the re-muddying process would now be properly accounted for. I resumed the digging. A moment later the butt of the revolver came to light. With a wild yell I pointed at it, staggered, and ‘threw a faint’. It was a good faint – rather too good – not only did I cut my forehead open on a stone, but one of our own British orderlies who was not ‘in the know’ ran out with a can of water and drenched me thoroughly. I was then carried by orderlies into the house and laid on my own bed.
Outside, the comedy was in full swing. When the revolver was found, neither the Cook nor the Interpreter worried for a moment about my condition. For all they cared I might have been dead. Without a glance in my direction, they let me lie where I had fallen and seizing pick and shovel, began to dig like furies. If ‘the Treasure was by Arms guarded’ surely it must be somewhere near those arms! They dug and they dug. They tore away the terrace wall. They made a hole big enough to hide a mule. The Sage, who lived in a room just above the rapidly growing crater, was roused from his meditations. He sallied forth and cross-examined Mundey.
‘What – aw – have we here?’ he asked. ‘What – aw – what nonsense is this?’
‘Shut up, Sage,’ said Mundey, fearful that the Pimple would overhear.
‘But – ah – what is the – aw – object of this excavation?’
‘Do be quiet!’ Mundey begged.
‘You – aw – you appear to me to be – ah – bent on uprooting the garden! What are you – aw –’
In despair Mundey imitated my procedure and fainted too! The grinning orderlies helped him up to my room. The Sage continued to look on, in mute astonishment. Luckily the Pimple was too excited to have eyes for anything but the treasure.
A few minutes later Stace, who shared the Sage’s room, came up to me.
‘For any s
ake, Bones, go out and stop the Cook digging.’
‘Has he dug much?’ I asked.
‘Much?’ said Stace. ‘He has torn up the garden by the roots! If you don’t stop him he’ll have the house down.’
‘Right-o, Staggers. I’ll stop him!’
Stace went off, leaving me to think out the next move. A few minutes later, I went downstairs, supporting myself by the banisters, with every appearance of weakness. Moïse and the Cook, bathed in perspiration and grime from their exertions, met me at the foot. I leant feebly against the wall beside them.
‘Are you better?’ asked Moïse.
‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘How did I get back to my room? Did we find anything?’
The Pimple patted me affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Magnificent!’ he said. ‘You have been in a trance. You found the revolver.’
‘No!’ I exclaimed. ‘Where?’
They led me to the hole. ‘Bless my soul!’ I said. ‘Did I dig that?’
‘Not all,’ said the Pimple. ‘When you found the revolver you fainted. Then the Cook and I, we digged the ground, but found nothing.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘You dug?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you’ve spoiled everything then! The Spook ordered you to do nothing without instructions from me.’
‘You think the Spirit will be angered?’
‘Think! Tell me, did you find anything more?’
‘No,’ said the Pimple.
‘Well, there you are!’ said I.
The Pimple translated into Turkish for the Cook’s benefit. For some minutes they talked together eagerly. Then the Cook seized my hand, pressed it to his ragged bosom, and became very eloquent.
‘He is thanking you,’ said Moïse. ‘He says you are most wonderful of mediums. You will know how the Spirit may be appeased. We shall dig no more without orders.’
Figure 11: ‘On fine days they snoozed at their posts.’ ‘A Gamekeeper on Guard in Yozgad.’
Chapter VII
Of The Calomel Manifestation and How Kiazim Fell Into the Net
The camp as a whole had enjoyed the treasure hunt. Mundey and I were congratulated on having pulled off a good practical joke against the Turk. On the other hand, there were a few who disapproved of what we had done. They held that discovery of the fraud would anger the Turk, not only against the perpetrators, but against the whole camp. Our success, however, deprived their criticism of any force, and they confined themselves to a warning that it was foolish to run such risks without an object.
Nobody guessed that behind my foolery there was an object, and a very serious one. It was the first real step in a considered plan of escape.
Escape from any prison camp in Turkey was difficult. From Yozgad it was regarded as practically impossible. Here the Turks sent Cochrane, Price, and Stoker, who had made such a gallant but unsuccessful attempt to get away from Afion Kara Hissar in 1916; and here, later on, came the Kastamouni Incorrigibles13 – some forty officers who had refused to give their parole.14 Yozgad was the punishment camp of Turkey.
Escape was not a question of defeating the sentries. The ‘Gamekeepers’ who preserved our numbers intact were nearly all old men, and were very far from being wide awake. On fine days they snoozed at their posts; if it was cold, or wet, or dark they snuggled in their sentry-boxes. As several officers proved by experiment, it was no difficult matter to get out of the camp and back again without detection.
The real sentries were the 350 miles of mountain, rock and desert that lay between us and freedom in every direction. Such a journey under the most favourable conditions is something of an ordeal. I would not like to have to walk it by daylight, in peacetime, buying food at villages as I went. Consider that for the runaway the ground would have to be covered at night, that food for the whole distance would have to be carried, and that the country was infested with brigands who stripped travellers even within gunshot of our camp; add to this that we knew nothing of the language or customs of the people and had no maps. It is not difficult to understand why we were slow to take advantage of our sleeping sentries.15
Figure 12: The lane where the prisoners exercised.
There was another factor that prevented men from making the attempt. It was generally believed that the escape of one or more officers from our camp would result in a ‘strafe’16 for those who remained behind. We feared that such small privileges as we had won would be taken away from us – the weekly walk, the right to visit one another’s houses in the daytime, and access to the tiny gardens and the lane (it was only 70 yards long) for exercise. We would revert to the original unbearable conditions, when we had been packed like sardines in our rooms, day and night, and our exercise limited to Swedish drill in the 6ft by 3ft space allotted for each man’s sleeping accommodation. A renewal of the old conditions of confinement might – probably would – mean the death of several of us. Such, we believed, would be the probable consequences of escape.17
The belief acted in two ways in preventing escapes. Some men who would otherwise have made the attempt decided it was not fair to their comrades in distress to do so. Others considered themselves justified, in the interest of the camp as a whole, in stopping any man who wanted to try. And the majority – a large majority – of the camp held they were right. The general view was that as success for the escaper was most improbable, and trouble for the rest of us most certain, nobody ought to make the attempt. For we knew what ‘trouble’ meant in Turkey. Most of the prisoners in Yozgad were from Kut-el-Amarah. We had starved there, before our surrender: we had struggled, still starving, across the 500 miles of desert to the railhead. We had seen men die from neglect and want. Many of us had been perilously near such a death ourselves. We had felt the grip of the Turk and knew what he could do. Misery, neglect, starvation and imprisonment had combined to foster in us a very close regard for our own interests. We were individualists, almost to a man. So we clung, as a drowning man clings to an oar, to the few alleviations that made existence in Yozgad possible, and we resented anything which might endanger those privileges.
It is easy enough for the armchair critic to say it is a man’s duty to his country to escape if he can. As a general maxim we might have accepted that. The tragedy in Yozgad was that his duty to his country came into conflict with his duty to his fellow prisoners. I thought at the time, and I still think, that we allowed the penny near our eye to shut out the world. But it was only a few irresponsibles like Winfield-Smith who shared my view that the question of whether a man should try or not should be left to the individual to decide, and if he decided to go the rest of us ought to help him, and face the subsequent music as cheerfully as might be. And I must confess, in fairness to the officers who undertook the unpleasant task of stopping Hill when he was ready to escape in June 1917, that though in principle I disapproved of their action, in fact I was exceedingly glad, for my own sake, that he did not go.
I suppose every one of us spent many hours weighing his own chances of escape. For myself I knew I had not the physical stamina considered necessary for the journey. If the camp stopped a man like Hill, they would be ten times more eager to stop me. Secrecy was therefore essential. Believing, as I did, that the War might continue for several years, I had made up my mind in 1917 to make the attempt and trust to luck more than to skill or strength to carry me through. But because of the feebleness of my chance, and the extreme probability that my comrades would not have the consolation of my success in their suffering, it behoved me more than anyone else to seek for some way of escape which would not implicate my fellows, and not to resort to a direct bolt until it was clear that all other possibilities had been exhausted.
My plan was to make the Turkish authorities at Yozgad my unconscious accomplices. I intended to implicate the highest Turkish authority in the place in my escape, to obtain clear and convincing proof that he was implicated, and to leave that proof in the hands of my fellow prisoners before I disappeared. It would then be clearly to t
he Commandant’s interest to conceal the fact of my escape from the authorities at Constantinople (he could do so by reporting my death); or, if concealment were impossible, he would not dare to visit his wrath upon the camp, as they could retaliate by reporting his complicity to his official superiors. By these means, I hoped, not only would my fellow prisoners retain their privileges, but by judicious threatening they might even acquire more.
The most obvious way to accomplish my object was by bribery, and it was of bribery that I first thought. The difficulties were twofold: first, there were no means of getting money in sufficient quantity; second, supposing I got the money together, I could see no method by which the camp could satisfy the Constantinople authorities that it had gone into the pocket of the Commandant. The Turk takes bribes, readily enough, but he is exceedingly careful how he takes them, and he covers up his tracks with Oriental cunning. If I could not provide the camp with proof of the Commandant’s guilt, I might as well save my money and bolt without bribing him.
I was trying to convince myself that these difficulties ought not to be insuperable when the Interpreter first evinced an interest in spooking, and the Commandant’s belief in the supernatural was proved by his official notice of 6th May (see p. 65). From that moment I discarded all thought of bribery. I was filled with the growing hope that my door to freedom lay through the Ouija. And first and foremost in pursuance of my plan, I aimed at inveigling the Commandant into the spiritualistic circle and making him the instrument of my escape. The news that there existed a buried treasure which the Turks were seeking gave me an idea of how to do it.
To my fellow prisoners the farcical hunt for the revolver had appeared a complete success. To me it was a bitter failure. I felt that if the Spook’s achievement in finding the weapon did not bring out the Commandant, nothing would. But day followed day, and he made no sign. A considerable experience of the Eastern mind made it easy enough for me to guess the reason for his reticence. Like the Oriental he was, he wished above all things to avoid committing himself. He clearly intended to work entirely through his two subordinates, the Interpreter and the Cook. If anything went wrong, he could not be implicated. If everything went right, and the treasure were discovered, he could use his official position to seize the lion’s share. It was clear that there would be a long struggle before I could get into direct touch with the Commandant. I decided that the Pimple must learn for himself that he could get ‘no forrarder’ with the Spook until he put all his cards on the table. It was to be a battle of patience, and knowing something of Oriental patience, I almost despaired.