by E. H. Jones
‘What did they want with you in the office?’ Pa asked.
‘Just some money that’s expected,’ I said. ‘Where’s my lunch?’
‘Oh, we gave it to Jeanie, hours ago. Thought you weren’t coming.’
Jeanie was the house dog. It was a mess joke to threaten to give her my food if I was late for meals. I hunted round till I found where Pa had hidden my cold porridge.
‘You’re up to some devilment,’ said Pa, watching me wolf the nasty stuff.
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re grinning. You’re enjoying something, and I know it’s not that grub.’
I must be more careful!
Chapter VIII
In Which We Become Thought-Readers
Hill and I met daily in odd corners, to discuss our plans. The first step was obviously to get Hill adopted as my fellow medium. It would have been simple enough had Hill taken any prominent part in our séances, but all his work had been behind the scenes. He had been responsible for the manifestations, which was a task of an extremely private nature, so the Pimple had no acquaintance with him as a spookist. His sudden appearance as a medium might give rise to suspicion.
Fortunately there was a way out of the difficulty which, if properly handled, would not only solve it but at the same time add to my reputation as a student of the occult in all its branches. For a couple of months past Hill and I had been secretly engaged on getting ready a leg-pull for the benefit of the camp wiseacres. Hill knew from his study of conjuring that stage telepathy was carried out by means of a code, and we set to work by trial and error to manufacture a code for our purposes. By the middle of January it was almost complete, and we had become fairly expert in its use. With the object of bewildering the camp, Hill then announced to a few believers in spooking that he had learned telepathy in Australia and would give lessons to one pupil who was really in earnest. As a preliminary to the lessons, he said, the pupil must undergo a complete fast for seventy-two hours, to get himself into a proper receptive state. Most of us had had enough of fasting during the last few years, so his offer resulted, as we hoped it would, in only one application for lessons in the telepathic art – that one being, of course, from myself. For three days I took no meals in my Mess, and I made a parade of the reason. To all appearances I was fasting religiously. People told me I was getting weaker, and that the whole thing was absurd. Which shows what the imagination can do; because three times a day I fed sumptuously on tinned food (a luxury in Yozgad) and eggs, in the privacy of Hill’s room. At the conclusion of the ‘fast’ Hill ‘tested’ me, and announced to the few believers interested that I had attained the necessary receptive state, and that he had accepted me as a pupil.
This was the position when the Commandant was hooked, and after some discussion we saw how to use it to the greatest advantage. We did not let the grass grow under our feet. As luck would have it, there was an orderlies’ concert on the afternoon of 2nd February – just three days after my interview with the Commandant. Hill was down on the programme to give his usual conjuring entertainment. When his turn came to perform, he made a carefully rehearsed speech from the platform. He said (which was quite true) that he had injured his finger. He had found at the last moment that his finger was too stiff to allow him to perform, but rather than leave a gap in the programme he had decided to alter the nature of his show at a moment’s notice.
Figure 14: Hill walked through the audience asking me to name the various articles handed to him. Our failures were few and our successes numerous, and sometimes startling.
‘As some of you know,’ he said, ‘I once underwent a course of telepathy, or thought-reading, in Australia. Within the last fortnight an officer in this camp went through the painful preliminary of a three days’ fast, and became my pupil. Possibly because of his previous knowledge of the occult, he has progressed at a surprising rate; and, although he considers himself far from ready for a public exhibition, he has very kindly consented to help me in this predicament. (Loud applause.) I ask you to remember that he is only a beginner, and if our show turns out a complete failure you will, I am sure, give him credit for his attempt.’
Heaven knows it takes little enough to interest an audience composed of prisoners of war. During the intervals between our concerts and pantomimes and dramatic performances the crowded camp was driven half crazy by fellows ‘practising’ for the next entertainment on landings and in bedrooms, and all over the place. We knew every tune, and every mistake it was possible to make in singing it, long before the ‘first’ (and usually only) ‘night’. And especially did we abhor to distraction the clog-dance practices. Yet, when the great day came, we enjoyed every turn, and shouted vociferous and most genuine applause. Everything was appreciated, from the scenery painted on old Turkish newspapers to the home-made instruments of the band. ‘As good as the Empire’, or ‘Drury Lane can’t beat that’, we would say.
The camp knew nothing of the long hours Hill and I had spent together asking and answering such innocent sounding code questions as, ‘Quickly! What have I here?’ ‘Tell me what this is?’ ‘Now, do you know what this article is?’ and so on. It was something new for them to get an apparently unrehearsed show. The fact that the audience contained a number of converts to spiritualism assisted us greatly in obtaining the necessary atmosphere of credulous wonder. Hill walked through the audience, asking me (blindfolded on the platform and ‘in a semi-hypnotic state’) to name the various articles handed to him, to quote the numbers on banknotes, to read the time on watches, to identify persons touched. Our failures were few enough to be negligible – not more than half a dozen in all – and our successes were numerous, and sometimes (as when Slim Jim produced a stump of a candle from the ‘cag’ in his pockets) startling. Naturally, in the end, we were ‘as good as the Zanzigs’, and so on. A few suspected a code, and said so, but were utterly in the dark as to how such a code could be arranged.20 Others were simply bewildered. And still others, and among them none more ardently than the Pimple, professed themselves entirely satisfied that here at last was genuine telepathy and nothing less. We learned afterwards that the Pimple left the concert before its close to inform the Commandant of the supernatural marvels he had witnessed.
On the evening of the same day (2nd February 1918), the Pimple came round for his séance. He asked that it should be as private as possible. It was therefore arranged that only Mundey and Edmonds should be present in addition to myself and the Pimple. There was, of course, no mention of Hill.
The séance began in the usual manner. After a few questions and answers, the Pimple asked and obtained permission from the Spook to read out a written statement. It was as follows –21
‘There is a treasure in the Schoolhouse. A man came from Damascus and related to an acquaintance of mine the following facts:
1. Before the Armenians were driven out of Yozgad the wife of the owner of this Schoolhouse with a little boy and one or two other relations went at night to the garden of the Schoolhouse and dug out a hole and buried about £18,000. He is not certain of the amount. There were jewels. A few days after, I think, they were all “sent away”.
2. This man, hearing this news, escaped from Damascus, where he was a soldier, came here, and told this to my acquaintance, but as he did not know exactly the place his information was of little value.
3. If what this man says is true, will you kindly tell me the place? I make the following propositions to the three persons here tonight –
a. I Promise to give each of them ten per cent of all the money and valuables if they accept these propositions;
b. Or I offer thirty per cent as they choose, with certain restrictions as to the keeping of the money for the safety of all until the war ends.’
It was needless to ask why he applied to the Spook for information instead of to the woman who had buried the treasure. She was dead – long since – very probably tortured to death in a vain effort to get her to reveal the whereabouts of her wealth. For t
he late occupants of the Schoolhouse had been wealthy people, and after they were ‘sent away’ (we all knew what that meant) nothing had been found. Behind the bald, cold-blooded statement which the Pimple read out there lay a great tragedy, the tragedy of the Armenians of Yozgad. The butchery had taken place in a valley some dozen miles outside the town. Amongst our sentries were men who had slain men, women, and children till their arms were too tired to strike. They boasted of it amongst themselves. And yet, in many ways, they were pleasant fellows enough.
The mentality of the Turk is truly surprising. Supposing I had the supernatural power which the Interpreter and Commandant thought I possessed, was it likely that I, presumably a Christian and avowedly an enemy, would be ready to help them to the property of fellow Christians whom the Turks had most foully murdered? Yet they had put the proposal to me without a hint of shame. Englishmen are often upbraided with their inability to understand the Oriental. But sometimes it is the Oriental who fails to understand the Englishman.
‘I revoke all claim to a share in this treasure,’ I said. ‘As a medium, I am not allowed to gain.’
Then we turned to the board for advice as to procedure. The Spook promised to tell all, but warned us it would take time. It instructed us to get proper mediums and place them in a proper environment. It indicated Hill as the best medium in the camp, but informed us that he was afraid to ‘spook’, and had kept his powers dark.
Next day the Pimple came to me beaming. He reported having approached Hill, who with great reluctance had confessed to being a medium. Hill had not seemed anxious to take part in a séance, but under great pressure had agreed to do so. The Pimple was greatly pleased. He did not know how carefully Hill’s reluctance had been rehearsed. He reported to the Commandant that thanks to a hint from the Spook and his own persuasive powers, he had secured the best possible man to help me in my task. Nothing was further from his thoughts than that Hill and I were confederates.
Chapter IX
How the Spook Wrote a Magic Letter and Arranged Our Arrest
The Thought-Reading Exhibition had aroused great interest. A number of our fellow prisoners wanted Hill to give them lessons, but most of them fought shy of the three days’ starvation which was the necessary preliminary. A few – amongst them some of our best friends in camp – offered to undergo the fast, and Hill had all his work cut out to persuade them not to. He finally resorted to the plea that he could not undertake more than one pupil at a time. The exhibition had one good result. Hearing Hill explain that my progress in telepathy was being hampered by lack of privacy, Doc. O’Farrell placed his Dispensary at our disposal for our experiments. As a quid pro quo we promised that he should be taken on as the next pupil as soon as my education was completed.
The Dispensary was a tiny room over the Majors’ wood store. It was exactly the place we needed. Here we could meet without fear of interruption. Everybody knew we were studying the problems of telepathy, which was a sufficient explanation of our constant hobnobbing, both for the Turks and for our fellow prisoners. So nobody suspected us of plotting to escape, as they would infallibly have done had there been no ready-made reason assignable for our conferences. Here, then, we discussed our plans, and here the Pimple came from time to time to get the benefit of our discussions in the form of oracular utterances by the Spook.
The policy pursued by Hill and myself throughout our long campaign against the Turk was always to concentrate on the obstacle immediately ahead, and while taking every reasonable precaution about the future, not to trouble about it overmuch until we had crossed the nearest fence and seen what lay on the other side. In pursuance of our object not to implicate the others, we decided that the first thing to be done was to get moved out of the camp. But the flitting must be so arranged that the camp would not suspect we ourselves had planned it, while the Commandant, on the other hand, must be equally convinced that we had no other motive than to find the treasure. We felt that escape from separate confinement outside the camp would make it difficult for the Commandant to charge our comrades with complicity, and at the same time it would make it easier for us to devote our whole energies to getting a stranglehold on Kiazim Bey. The danger of discovery would be lessened by more than half; for we stood in greater fear of the detective abilities of our fellow prisoners than of those of the Turk. Discovery by either would have meant our being stopped.22
While reconnoitring the ground up to this obstacle – and we did so very carefully – it struck us that there was no reason why the move itself should not be so engineered as to become the direct cause of our release by the Turks. Johnny Turk is a queer mixture of brutality and chivalry. It was quite on the cards that if we could get the Commandant to commit a glaring faux pas at our expense, and if we could at the same time get the British or neutral authorities to represent the matter to Constantinople, the Turkish War Office might compensate us by granting us a compassionate release. Indeed, such a release had already been granted to an officer named Fitzgerald who had been wrongfully thrown into prison early in the War. So it was not entirely a castle in Spain that we were building.
We decided to induce Kiazim Bey to sentence us to a term of imprisonment, under conditions as harsh as we could get him to impose. There was little chance, however, that he would so sentence us wrongfully; he stood in too great a fear of his own War Office to do that. But perhaps we might succeed in getting him to do so on a charge which to everyone but himself was manifestly and on the face of it absurd. If there is one thing the Young Turk desires it is to be regarded by Europe as civilized, and if there is one thing he fears it is the ridicule of civilization. If we could arrange something, the publication of which would render him a laughing-stock in the eyes of Europeans, the Young Turk Government at Constantinople would gladly either cut our throats to ensure our silence, or grant us a compassionate release to prove that they had the civilized standpoint and to throw the blame on the local subordinate. We thought it was about an even chance which course they would pursue, but decided that the risk was worth while.
Our talks were long and earnest. We examined and rejected scores of possibilities. And we finally decided, first, to aim at being ‘jugged’ without cause or trial; or, failing that, to get ourselves sentenced to imprisonment, after a public trial, on a charge of obtaining War news by telepathic communications. I knew I could beat the Turkish censor and get details of the charge and sentence to England,23 and if this charge was not absurd enough to galvanize our War Office or the Dutch Embassy into protest, we would give up all hope of outside assistance bringing us our compassionate release, and rely, as Mr Smiles advises good boys to do, on Self-Help.
It took exactly a month to achieve our aim. The first ‘Dispensary Séance’ was held on 6th February 1918. On 6th March, on the charge of obtaining and sending military information by means of telepathy, Hill and I were arrested, tried in the presence of brother officers, and condemned to solitary confinement until the end of the War.
The genius that brought about this desirable state of affairs was the Spook. A verbatim report of every question and answer set to, and given by, our spirit-guide between 6th February and the date we left Yozgad is before me as I write.24 It is a transcript of the records carefully kept by the Pimple, who had read Raymond (a copy reached our camp just about this time), and by our advice modelled his attitude on that of Sir Oliver Lodge. Indeed, except in the matter of fame, the two had something in common, for in civil life the Pimple also called himself a Professor. So, thanks to his industry and ‘scientific methods’ of research, it is possible to give an accurate summary of the doings and sayings of our ‘Control’, and where necessary to quote its exact words. For the historian the scientific method has much to commend itself.
Our Spook began by greeting Hill with every symptom of friendliness. The glass did not exactly ‘caress’ him – we had not yet reached such advanced proficiency – but it spelled out its delight at the meeting, and it ignored the Pimple. It went on to warn us we
were making an improper use of the Ouija. It was wrong to seek gain, wrong and dangerous, especially for ‘dear C.W.H.’ Under the best possible conditions the discovery of the treasure would take a long time, possibly many months. And the present conditions were hopeless.
‘You must live together,’ said the Spook to Hill and myself, ‘so that your two minds become as one mind and your thoughts are one thought. Also it is most necessary that it be all kept profoundly secret. Above all you must be free from other thought influences; … the other prisoners unconsciously project their thoughts between you, thus preventing unity. You ought to be removed elsewhere. Even prison would be better for you than this. It would be easier to communicate if you were alone. In one or two months you could attain more rapid methods, such as direct speech, but it is hopeless without privacy and peaceful surroundings. Remember I, too, have immense difficulties on this side. Ask them’ (i.e., the Commandant and the Pimple) ‘either to give up all hope of my help in finding the treasure, or do what I say and remove you.’ And It again suggested we should be clapped into prison.
Then Moïse dropped into French, which he imagined neither Hill nor I understood.
‘Remove? Déménager pour de bon, or go for a sitting?’
‘Pour de bon, mon ami,’ the Spook replied. ‘C’est absolument nécessaire.’ He added that it was necessary in order that the mediums ‘might get into tune’. Without being ‘in tune’ they could not find the treasure.
This was enough for one sitting, so the ‘force began to go’, as the Spiritualists put it, and the Pimple found himself confronted with the delicate task of breaking the news to the mediums. It must be borne in mind that, as is usual with all mediums of any standing, Hill and I were always ‘absolutely ignorant’ of what had been said by the Spook until the Pimple saw fit to read it out to us. At times it was a matter of no little difficulty to avoid displaying our knowledge of what had occurred. When, for example, the Pimple had omitted a negative, or in some other simple way altered the whole tenor of the Spook’s order, it was extremely tempting to correct him. But that would have been fatal. We learned to endure his mistakes in silence.