The Road to En-dor

by E. H. Jones

  ‘They are a bit over-exposed,’ Hill grumbled – he is never wholly satisfied with his own performances – ‘I gave them too long.’

  Maybe! But it says something for the nerve of the man that he had held the camera without a quiver for three time exposures under those conditions. I could see nothing wrong with the negatives. They were everything I desired, and Bimbashi Kiazim Bey, Commandant of Yozgad, was clearly recognizable in each. At last we had our proof.

  Chapter XVIII

  Of A ‘Dreadful Explosion’ and How OOO Sought To Murder Us

  We had long since decided that the most appropriate date for finding the second (and last) of the two clues we had made, would be the First of April. Hill had buried it, he told me, some four miles away on the bank of a gully beyond the Pinewoods, known to the camp as ‘Bones’s Nullah’. The photographs being already taken, we had no troubles to contend with, or fears of discovery to disturb us, and we set out next day in true April-fooling spirit. As we walked through the town in our black cloaks, we passed Lieut. Taylor, R.E., who was inside a shop making purchases for the camp larder. Taylor was one of two officers in the camp who definitely knew from Nightingale that the spooking was a fraud. He was also a fellow townsman of mine, and a very good friend. He saw the water-bottles and haversacks we carried, and jumped to the conclusion that we were being sent away from Yozgad. Like the good fellow he was, he took no thought of himself, and paid no heed to the Commandant’s order that no one was to communicate with us. Brushing aside his escort he ran into the middle of the street and shouted after us to know where we were being taken.

  Figure 26: Where the second clue was buried – Bones’s Nullah.

  ‘It is April Fools’ Day,’ I whispered to Moïse, ‘I’m going to pull his leg.’ Then, turning round, I shouted back the one word ‘Sivas’ (the name of a distant town in Anatolia).

  ‘I’ll write home to your people,’ Taylor roared; ‘you keep alive and we’ll get you out. We’ll report the blighters to Headquarters.’ He knew the Pimple must understand him, and braved the wrath of the Turks to cheer us up.

  ‘He’s a good fellow,’ Hill whispered, ‘tell him it’s all right.’

  But before I could speak, the Pimple broke in. Taylor’s threat to cause trouble had alarmed him.

  ‘April Fool!’ the Pimple shouted. ‘It is a joke. We are going a walk.’

  Taylor shook his fist at us playfully, and turned back into the shop.

  For the next mile the Pimple, Hill, and I chatted of the old British custom of April-fooling. The Pimple translated to the Cook, who was much interested, but neither of them thought of applying the knowledge thus acquired to his own case.

  The treasure hunt began about twenty minutes’ walk outside the town. There were slight variations from the previous day. YYY allowed the Turks to talk. He did not at first appear to our vision like KKK, but was able to make himself heard. We were clairaudient instead of clairvoyant.

  About half way to Bones’s Nullah, my injured knee began to trouble me. Also we were both suffering from the effects of our starvation, and felt very weak. But we did not want to tell the Turks of our distress. Luckily, we came to a stream of running water, and an old superstition came into my head.

  ‘Sit down,’ said the Spook, ‘and wait. I cannot cross running water. I must go round the source.’

  Whilst we waited (and incidentally rested) the Cook told us that what the Spook said about running water was a well-known fact in Turkey, and cited instances. In reply I quoted the immortal bard –

  Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,

  And win the keystane of the brig:

  There at them thou thy tail may toss

  A running stream they darena’ cross.

  And so we chatted until YYY’s voice from the other side of the stream (only Hill and I heard it, of course) bade us come on.

  The remainder of our journey was a repetition of the previous day’s, save that no photograph was taken; and when the tin box containing a second lira and another paper of cryptic instructions was unearthed, we failed to escape the gratitude of the Cook. He went on his knees, kissed our hands, and made a most fervent speech. (The Pimple translated.) He assured us that our names would never die in Turkey, and that his grandchildren’s grandchildren would call down blessings on the heads of Jones and Heel Effendi. We hope they will – it can’t do us any harm.

  All the way back the Turks babbled about the treasure. Two of the three clues were now found. The Spook was rapidly fulfilling his promises. All honour to the Spook, to YYY, and to KKK. We must thank them! When we got back to our prison the spook-board was produced, and the Pimple thanked all concerned with great solemnity, and asked for further orders.

  The Spook warned us that another attempt might be made on our lives that night. (On the night of the 31st March OOO had tried, but failed to do anything.)

  MOÏSE: ‘May the mediums have extra food tonight? They are very hungry.’

  SPOOK: ‘Better not. Drink, if they like.’

  MOÏSE: ‘They would like soup. Do you include soup in drink?’

  SPOOK: ‘No! No! Not soup! Wine or spirits.’

  MOÏSE: ‘Are they allowed to go to bed?’

  SPOOK: ‘Let them amuse themselves, and keep a light burning till after midnight. I order wine to keep their courage up. They may be sorely tried, but let them have faith and courage.

  The Commandant doubled our sentries again, and sent us a bottle of the best wine we had tasted since the war began, and a flagon of superlative raki. He was delighted with our success. He sent word that a cipher telegram49 had just been received from the Turkish War Office ordering him to release us from solitary confinement and send us back to the camp, but he would not bother the Spook with it until next day and certainly would not execute it until he had consulted our Control. He thanked us for finding the second clue, and begged us to keep our courage up whatever OOO might attempt that night.

  Hill and I settled down to discuss our future plans and celebrate our past success. We allowed ourselves a couple of baked potatoes each, by way of foundation for the wine, and had a most cheerful evening.

  The Pimple appeared at dawn on the 2nd of April with an anxious face. The sentries had reported strange noises in the house during the night, and he was sure OOO had made another attempt on our lives. We told him that OOO had made a perfect nuisance of himself until well past midnight. Doors had banged, windows had rattled and footsteps had echoed through the house. Strange voices had sung weird songs. Several times OOO had come within an ace of ‘controlling’ us, but our Spook had come to the rescue. The strain had been terrible.

  ‘You have no evil effects, I hope?’ the Pimple asked.

  ‘Only a slight headache,’ we said together.

  The Pimple congratulated us on being still alive, and escaping so lightly. It did not occur to him that OOO was not the spirit on whom our sore heads could justly be blamed.

  Then he asked if he might consult the Spook about the War Office telegram ordering our release. The explanation of the wire turned out to be simple enough to a true believer.

  ‘You remember,’ said the Spook, ‘how I said I might cause Constantinople to send a telegram (see p. 232). Well, I had everything ready. Their minds were prepared to send a wire as soon as I put it into their heads what to say. OOO got wind of our intention through his medium, who must have picked up your thought-waves.’

  MOÏSE (aside): ‘Who is this damned fellow?’

  SPOOK: ‘It is X’ (naming a friend of ours in the camp). ‘OOO got this wire sent because he was able to use the ground previously prepared by me. Do you understand?’

  MOÏSE: ‘Yes, Sir. We understand.’

  SPOOK: ‘OOO is determined to stop us finding the treasure. He hoped the wire would arrive in time to stop the search for the first clue, because he thought if the Commandant got this wire before anything had been found he would not believe in me, and being frightened, would send the mediums back to the ca
mp.’

  The Pimple was much impressed by the cunning of OOO. He agreed that had the telegram arrived before the finding of the clues, Kiazim Bey would have been frightened out of his wits. It was, of course, obvious that our Control had delayed the delivery of the telegram for three days! As things stood, with two out of three clues already discovered, Kiazim would not dream of putting an end to our solitary confinement: he fully trusted our Spook to keep the War Office in order.

  The Turks were now entirely in our hands. Their confidence in the Spook was absolute. They had reached the high-water mark of faith, and we determined to rush things through on the full tide of their credulity. For there was no more ‘planted treasure’ to be dug up, nor could we hope to increase the trust in us which they already showed, so there was no sense in delay.

  But their offer to keep us locked up, though satisfactory as a proof of their faith, did not quite fit in with our plans. Our first object was to get into touch with somebody in the camp, and give him the negatives and other proofs of Kiazim’s complicity. Not until then would we be free to go ahead with our two alternative plans, which, as has already been explained, were either to get Kiazim to send us somewhere whence escape would be easy or, failing that, to sham madness in the hope of being exchanged. At the same time, while gaining access to one man in the camp, we desired to maintain our splendid isolation so as to enable us to spook at high pressure without fear of interruption from our brother officers; for once we had handed over our proofs we intended to rush the Turks off their legs, while they were still ecstatic over the finding of the two clues.

  The contingency had already been foreseen and prepared for before we were locked up, and we got rid of our proofs easily enough. It was done thus:

  The Spook thanked the Commandant for his trust and his readiness to disobey the War Office. But to make the disobedience doubly safe, the responsibility for our continued confinement should be transferred on to the shoulders of our fellow prisoners. With this end in view the Spook announced he had placed Doc. O’Farrell ‘under control’. Let Moïse go to the Doc, and say the mediums want some quinine; the proof that the Spook was in control would be that Doc. would refuse to give any medicine without first seeing his patients.50 Moïse was to object a little at first, but in the end he should permit the visit. ‘If I am successful,’ the Spook said, ‘the doctor will be very uneasy about his patients after his visit. He will go home and consult his text books. Then he will ask the Commandant’s permission to keep them under medical observation, and will suggest that they be not permitted walks or access to the other prisoners until he is satisfied about their health. The Commandant can then produce the telegram and say, “Orders have just come for their release. I was just going to tell them.” The doctor, speaking under my control, will advise him not to tell them just at present, but to keep them locked up, to which the Commandant will agree. In this way the Commandant will be free from all blame for their continued imprisonment.’

  The Pimple thought the plan excellent, and at once put it into execution. He asked the doctor for some quinine. As previously arranged, Doc. refused to give it without seeing us. The Pimple, much delighted at finding the control so perfect, brought him over to us. While the doctor was examining our tongues and feeling our pulses, Hill slipped into his pocket a small packet containing:

  1. A complete copy of the Pimple’s records of the séances51.

  2. A brief explanation of our plans, and a note telling the Doc. what advice we wished him to give the Commandant, and why.

  3. The negatives of the treasure hunt.

  4. The camera, to be returned to its owner (Lieut. Wright).

  The Pimple and the Doc. left our room together. Ten minutes later the Pimple came back. He told us the Spook had succeeded partially, but not wholly. The doctor had obviously been under control, for his hands were very cold, his face pale, and his voice a trifle shaky. (So they were – from excitement. He knew something was in the wind.) But outside, instead of recommending our seclusion, he had recommended walks, as we looked pale!

  Hill and I knew what had happened – Doc. had given his orders for walks off-hand, before reading our instructions. Moïse explained that no doubt the Spook would put things right later, for the doctor had said at parting that he would visit us again, as he had forgotten to bring his thermometer.

  We turned again to the spook-board.

  ‘There were several reasons why I did not do everything at once,’ said the Spook. ‘First, my motto is “Yawash, yawash” (slowly, slowly). Second, I needed all my force for the doctor and could spare none to instruct the mediums how to answer his questions. Third, you – Moïse – ought to have remembered that the doctor was under control. You were so interested that your thoughts interfered with me. Try to keep your mind a blank next time.’

  The Pimple decided that, to make sure of not interfering, he had better stay away when the doctor visited us in future. This he did. Naturally, under these conditions it was easier to explain things to the Doc.; his preliminary mistake was soon rectified, and he took the responsibility for keeping us in prison.

  From the 2nd of April until the 5th (when the Spook allowed Kiazim to make it known that our solitary imprisonment was ended) we had séances night and day. Indeed from now until we left Yozgad on 26th April we gave the Turks no rest, and I doubt if any government business was done by the Commandant, Cook, or Interpreter except by the order of the Spook.

  The Commandant asked the Spook, before going on to the third clue, to assist in interpreting the two clues already found. Although the Turks had obtained a couple of Armenian dictionaries, the clock-face arrangement of the letters in the first clue foiled their efforts, for they could not tell where the message began and therefore could not use the dictionaries. Further, Armenian has three distinct forms of type, and the two dictionaries in the Commandant’s possession differed both from one another and from the writing of the clue, which was in capitals.

  It would have been easy enough for the Spook to say straight out that the clue consisted of two Armenian words meaning ‘South’ and ‘West,’ and as we were in a hurry to get on to the more important task of persuading Kiazim to give us a free trip to the coast, we resented delay. But straightforward answers are not indulged in by Spooks. The Commandant had studied Raymond and knew this. Spooks enjoy puzzling and teasing people over trifles – Sir Oliver Lodge says so – and the other thing is simply ‘not done’ in the spook-world. The simplest answer to the simplest question must be ‘wrapped in mystery’. The Turks expected mystery, and they got it. Perhaps we were gilding refined gold, but it is such caution and attention to detail that makes the difference between the ‘genuine medium’ and the ‘vulgar fraud.’ The reader must not forget that we belonged to the former category, and had to maintain its high standard.

  In answer to the appeal for assistance the Spook sent Moïse to fetch a dictionary. He came back with two, and found us starting our lunch of dry toast and tea. He did not notice that it was an hour before our usual lunch time, but sat chatting with us while we ate. I picked up the two dictionaries, glanced at them one after the other in a casual way, and set them down again with the remark that the characters looked like a mixture between Russian and Greek. Then we chatted of cabbages and kings till the last piece of toast was eaten, when we returned to the spook-board.

  ‘Now,’ said the Spook, ‘take a dictionary, Moïse.’ Moïse picked up one of the books and held it out to the spook-board.

  ‘Page 792,’ said the Spook.

  ‘Got it,’ Moïse answered.

  ‘Oh,’ the glass wrote, ‘if you’ve got it, you don’t require my help any more.’

  ‘I mean I have got the page.’

  ‘Well, say what you mean! Put your finger on the top left-hand corner.’ (Moïse obeyed.) ‘More to the right!’ (Moïse obeyed.) ‘There! You are touching the first three letters of the first word. Now find out!’

  (Here followed a valiant effort by Moïse to puzzle
it out, but as the type was so different from the writing he failed.)

  ‘Does it mean “droit”?’ he asked.

  ‘No! Ha! Ha! Ha!’ (The glass was laughing.) ‘Write down a number.’

  Moïse wrote down 473.

  ‘Add 810 to it and look it up.’ (Moïse took up the same dictionary.) ‘No, the other book!’

  Moïse looked up page 1283 in the second dictionary and found a similar word.

  ‘Does it mean this?’ he asked, pointing to the word ‘South.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ came the answer. ‘Now I will number the letters of the second word for you. Begin – 1, 32.’ (Moïse began looking up page 132.) ‘Foolish! Read what I said. That is the page. I am not numbering the page, but the letters of the alphabet.’

  ‘We are hopeless, sir,’ said Moïse.

  ‘1, 32,’ said the Spook, ‘then 5, 11, 20, 31, 1, 15, 24, 18, 20, 22. Now go home and puzzle it out.’

  Moïse went home and after an hour’s good hard work with the dictionaries found that the clue meant ‘South’ ‘West,’ the numbers given representing the position of the letters in the Armenian alphabet. First south and then west were the directions in which to measure.

  The second clue was a circle containing in the margin two numbers, either of which might be 61 or 19. (Armenian figures are the same as our own. The Spook told the Turks that with the aid of a good compass it would be quite easy to decipher. (We wanted them to produce a good compass, and when the time arrived we would ‘dematerialize’ it for it would be most useful to us. We liked that word ‘dematerialize’. It was much nicer than ‘steal’.) And there, for the present, the deciphering of the second clue remained, and we turned our attention to the discovery of the third, and last.

  The Spook first made an attempt to get into telepathic touch with AAA through the board. The séance was in many ways most interesting. We had the greatest difficulty in getting through to Constantinople, and for a while it looked as if OOO & Co. had captured the thought-wave exchange, or as if it had been nationalized by the Government of the next sphere, for we were connected up in turn with all sorts of people with whom we did not particularly want to talk. We got on to Colonel Maule’s mind, and were able to assure the Turks that he was not mentioning our case in his monthly letter to Headquarters. (We had learned this fact from the Doc., who had questioned Maule.) Then we were switched on to the British War Office and discovered that our plight was already known there, and that enquiries were to be made. Next we got Turkish headquarters in Palestine, and German headquarters in France, and learned interesting things about the war, but do what we would we could not get Constantinople. The Spook appealed to us for one last effort. We made it, got Constantinople, got AAA on the other end of the ‘thought-wave’, and immediately got jammed. The opposition had blocked us. The Pimple was almost in tears – we were so near success and yet so far away!