The Road to En-dor

by E. H. Jones

  ‘It is that damned OOO again,’ he wailed, ‘he is getting more powerful since he organized his company.’

  Our Spook made us try again and again till the unhappy Pimple was completely worn out with recording the meaningless gyrations of the glass. For us mediums this was easy work – there was no guiding to do, and we pushed the glass about anywhere, in comfort. When Moïse was half dead with fatigue, the Spook admitted defeat. But he said there were other methods. He first offered to control AAA into committing suicide with a view to getting into touch with his spook afterwards, as in the case of YYY and KKK. It was easy enough to do, we were told, but the objection to this method was that the Spook of AAA would learn what had happened, and might join the opposition out of revenge for his own death. Besides, even if he proved willing to communicate, it would be some time before he could learn how to do so, as had already been pointed out. (Vide our own séances and Raymond passim.)

  The Pimple declined to take the risk, and asked that AAA be left alive. Needless to say his petition was granted.

  There remained, said the Spook, telepathic trance-talk, but this involved enormous risk to all concerned. Failure might mean loss of sanity, or even death to the mediums, and equal danger to the sitter if he made any mistake. There was no other method of finding out the third clue in Yozgad, and the only alternative was to move us away from Yozgad.

  This led to a long discussion between the Pimple, Hill, and myself. Hill and I objected strongly to the idea of being moved from Yozgad. We pointed out that the Commandant was our friend, that we were very comfortable (except for the starvation), and that nowhere else in Turkey could we expect to pass our imprisonment under such pleasant conditions. Therefore we proposed trying the telepathic trance-talk, however dangerous it might be, and expressed ourselves willing to run any risk rather than be moved to another camp and another Commandant.

  The Pimple, on the other hand, did not at all relish the idea of either insanity or death at the hands of the opposition. He thought we ought not lightly to discard the warning of the Spook. Death, after all, was a terrible thing. And he himself, as sitter, had an unfortunate habit of making mistakes.

  We denied that death meant anything for mediums who knew what splendid activities awaited them in the world of spooks. Indeed we were quite anxious to pass on. So we forgave the Pimple beforehand for any mistakes he might make; then we outvoted him, and refused to contemplate a move until we had tried every possible method in Yozgad.

  The poor little man acquiesced with the best grace he could muster. When the hour for the trance-talk arrived (it was to take place in the dark) he shook hands with us very solemnly and took his place in the dark at the other side of the room. His instructions were to listen, but not to interrupt.

  Hill and I held hands in the usual way and went off into a trance to the usual accompaniment of grunts and groans. Then the Spook announced he was going off to Constantinople (where AAA was for the time being) in order to put AAA under similar control.

  Hill and I had everything rehearsed beforehand. We waited for the silence and the darkness to begin to prey on the Pimple’s nerves, and then rose together, called to the Pimple to follow and set off downstairs. We talked, as we went, to an imaginary spirit. With the Pimple at our heels we turned to the left at the bottom of the stair and passed through a doorway (usually shut) into a large hall on the ground floor. Immediately there was the bang of a most terrific explosion. Hill and I shrieked to Moïse to run. Blind with terror, the poor little fellow rushed out of the house and smashed into the ten-foot wall of the yard, which he vainly sought to climb. Then, recovering himself bravely, he came back to our rescue. We were halfway up the wooden stairs that led to our room, bawling for help at the top of our voices, and wrestling desperately with an invisible opposition in the dark. First one and then the other of us fell clattering to the bottom of the stairs. As fast as we climbed up we were thrown down again. The night was filled with our groans and shouts, and the noise of blows. The din was terrific.

  Moïse often told us afterwards that it was the most awe-inspiring incident in all his spooking experience. It was so dark on the stairs that he could see nothing, but he realized that we were fighting for our lives. Sometimes our calls for help sounded so agonized he feared we were losing the struggle.

  It was small wonder our voices were ‘agonized’, for we were really suffering most abominably from a desire to laugh. The tumult on the stairs was of course prearranged. First Hill dragged me backwards then I dragged him, and we both yelled at the top of our voices, pounded one another in the dark, kicked and stamped and raved to drown the laughter that was rising within us. We were seeking to terrify Moïse into another flight, and hoped he would make a bolt for home, but we failed. We did not know until afterwards that he had left the key of the outer gate in our room upstairs, and was as much a prisoner as ourselves.

  The end came suddenly; Hill was halfway upstairs, holding on to the banisters with both hands and shaking them till they rattled. I had him by the ankles and was heaving and hauling in an endeavour to break his grip and give him as bumpy a passage to the bottom as he had just given me. We were both yelling blue murder. Then the Pimple took a hand in the fight. He came up to within a foot of my back in the dark, stamped his heavy boots loudly on the wooden stairs, and cried ‘Shoo – shoo!’ in a very frightened voice. The idea of ‘shoo-ing’ away a malignant spirit who was intent on our murder was too much for us; Hill let go of the banisters and I loosed his heels at the same instant, and we fled together to our room to suffocate our laughter in our blankets, – a ‘fuite precipitée au haut de l’escalier’52 Moïse called it in his notes. The Pimple followed, and bravely took up his position at his table. I must admit the little rascal had courage where spooks were concerned, for he took out his pencil and carefully recorded the curious sounds we made in stifling our laughter, annotating the whole with the remark ‘cries of souls in torment’. Finally we got back into our chairs, and with the usual groans and grunts the ‘power passed away.’ The Pimple lit the lamp and peered at us anxiously.

  ‘Did anything happen? Have we found it?’ I asked.

  ‘It has been terrible – atrocious!’ said the Pimple. ‘You feel all right? You are sane? Eh?’

  At his request we examined ourselves. We found bruises; I had barked my shins, Hill’s nose was skinned, and though it was a cold night we were both bathed in perspiration.

  We affected not to understand, and the Pimple gave us a lurid account of the night’s performance. Then we turned to the Spook for further light on the subject.

  In preparing us for the trance-talk the Spook had warned us: ‘It is like a battle. While I am attacking AAA at Constantinople, the opposition may suddenly counter-attack on my mediums, and as I have told you, I have no reserves.’ This was exactly what happened; our Spook put us into a trance and turned his force on AAA. While he was doing so, OOO stepped in, pretending to be AAA, and taking advantage of the trance state of the mediums counter-attacked by leading them, not to the third clue, but into a trap. It had been a second and most brutal attempt to kill the mediums. Our Spook had arrived back from Constantinople just in time to interpose between us and the ‘explosion’, and to divert the missiles. ‘The missiles themselves are of course invisible in your sphere,’ our Spook explained, ‘but their results, and the results of the explosion you heard, are visible. Would you like to see them?’

  ‘Is there no danger?’ Moïse asked.

  ‘No, I am with you,’ said the Spook.

  We took a candle and went cautiously downstairs and into the hall below. The place was in a fearful mess. At the end where we had entered, the floor was deep in broken plaster, and in the wall, all round the spot where we had been standing when the explosion took place, were ten great holes. Moïse probed those he could reach with shaking fingers, but found no missiles. As the Spook had said, the ‘missiles were invisible’. Awestruck, we returned upstairs.

  ‘The mediums and
I thank you sincerely,’ said Moïse to the Spook. ‘It was a dreadful explosion. We are grateful to you.’

  ‘You are a brave man, Moïse,’ the Spook replied. ‘I congratulate you. Your presence on the stair and your stamping helped me. Well done! But you see it is very dangerous. I think you are satisfied it is too risky. You had better consent to Plan 2.’

  Moïse was satisfied – eminently satisfied – but Hill and I were not. We protested against leaving Yozgad, and wanted to try again, whatever the danger might be. But Moïse had had enough. He agreed with the Spook that we ought to try another plan, that this was too risky, and when we would not yield he went off to tell the Commandant that he would resign his position as ‘sitter’ and give up the treasure unless we agreed to being moved as the Spook suggested. He returned with the news that the Commandant was strongly in favour of Plan 2, because if his mediums were killed all hope of the treasure would be gone. Plan 2 entailed our leaving Yozgad.

  We had got what we wanted. The Turks were now keen on moving us. We did not trouble to explain that the ‘explosion’ which had frightened them was caused by Hill banging shut a heavy trap-door left open for that purpose, or that the ten ‘shell holes’ in the wall represented some hard work with the pick we had borrowed for the treasure hunt. Indeed, if we had said so, they would not have believed us!

  Chapter XIX

  Of The Four Point Receiver and How We Planned To Kidnap the Turkish Staff At Yozgad

  On the First of April the Pimple had let slip a morsel of valuable information. He told us that the Changri prisoners were coming to Yozgad in charge of their own Commandant and Interpreter.

  ‘That solves one difficulty,’ I said to Hill, after the Pimple had gone away.

  ‘How?’

  ‘For the escape stunt. If we persuade them to send us to the coast all three will want to come with us, because they don’t trust each other. But if they can leave the Changri Commandant and Interpreter in charge of this camp it should be easy enough for Kiazim and the Pimple to get away. The Cook can always come as Kiazim’s orderly.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Hill, ‘that you expect all three to come with us to the coast?’

  ‘More than that,’ said I. ‘I’ve a plan for getting them to provide a boat for us. I believe if they do so they will be too frightened to give the alarm when we bolt, and we’d get a good start.’

  In his function as critic Hill listened to my plan for persuading the Turks to get us a boat. Then he sat silent for some time.

  ‘Good enough,’ he said at last, ‘but why leave the Turks behind? Why not take them with us in the boat? In short, why not kidnap ’em?’

  It was my turn to sit silent.

  ‘I believe we two could sandbag three Turks any day,’ Hill grinned, ‘and it would be some stunt to hand over a complete prison camp Staff to the authorities in Cyprus. The giddy old War Office would be quite amused, I do believe, and a laugh would cheer them up. And think of the British public! If the German communiqués are true our folks should be in the dumps just now, with our armies in France being pushed about, and Paris being shelled and all the rest of it. It would do ’em a power of good to see a par. about us in their breakfast newspapers! Think of the heading: “Kidnapping of Yozgad Camp Officials” – “Spoofed by a Spook.” And think of the joy of Sir Oliver Lodge!’

  ‘There’s another point,’ said I. ‘If they were with us they couldn’t raise the alarm.’

  ‘That settles it, doesn’t it?’ Hill asked.

  It did. We decided to kidnap as many of the Turks as we could.

  On his next visit the Doc. carried away in his pocket a rough skeleton of our two plans (i) for kidnapping the Commandant, and (ii) for shamming mad. We asked him to give us his advice, especially about the madness, and also to discuss the plans with three men who had taken risks by sending us messages during our imprisonment, and on whose sound judgment we relied. These were Matthews, Price, and Hickman. We asked them to help us for the kidnapping stunt by procuring us a map of the south coast, morphia (to drug the Turks with) and an adze to use as a weapon should morphia and sandbags fail. We thought we could carry one adze for chopping firewood without causing any suspicion.

  In reply we got a letter from Matthews. It was a good letter, and the talk in it was as straight as the writer. He said he thought the madness plan was impossible. But he thoroughly approved of the kidnapping. He did not want to ‘butt in’ at the eleventh hour, after most of the hard work had been done, but if we could do it without upsetting our plans he would be most uncommon glad to be allowed to join our party. Would we take him? He could sail a boat with anyone, with or without a compass, and could do his share in a scrap.

  We discussed his letter very carefully. We replied that there was nobody in the camp we would rather take as a companion, and that he would be most useful to us if we could fit him in. Our acceptance of him as a third member of our party was, however, conditional. We warned him that if at any time we found his presence was endangering our escape, we should ‘throw him overboard’ without compunction. And on the ground that we knew more about spooking than he did, we demanded unquestioning obedience. He gave the promise we required with alacrity, and we set to work.

  Our first step the reader has seen – we persuaded the Turks that it would be necessary to move us. At the same time we sent Kiazim Bey to the official Turkish doctors in Yozgad with a carefully prepared story of his ill health. Kiazim was a victim to biliary colic, and we learned privately from Doc. O’Farrell what he ought to say in order to induce the Turkish doctors to believe he might be suffering from stone in the hepatic duct. Under orders from the Spook he said it, and the Turkish doctors gave him their written recommendation for three months’ leave. He was very grateful to the Spook who, in his opinion, had ‘controlled’ the Turkish doctors, and he told us that Constantinople would undoubtedly grant him the leave on the strength of his medical certificate, especially as he could hand over charge to the Changri Commandant, who was coming with the next prisoners.

  The question of leave for the Pimple and the Cook was simple. The Commandant could – and would – grant it.

  So far as the three Turks were concerned, the difficulty of leaving Yozgad was thus solved. There remained Hill and myself, and if possible Matthews. We first thought of leaving Yozgad as members of the Afion party, intending to get the Commandant to separate us from the party at railhead (Angora). Here are the Spook’s instructions:

  ‘Let the Superior go to Col. Maule or send word to him as follows: The two officers Jones and Hill are now free but they will not be allowed to write letters during April.53 I am anxious to get rid of these two men, but have not yet heard if Constantinople wishes them kept here pending the completion of the enquiry as to their correspondent in the town. If they are not required here I shall send them to Afion. Will you please warn any two of the twenty officers nominated that their places may be taken by Jones and Hill? I have already informed Jones and Hill of this, and am permitting them to stay in the Colonels’ House till the party leaves for Afion.’

  Next day (5th April) the Pimple reported having given the Spook’s message to Colonel Maule, and showed to the spook-board the following reply from the Colonel:

  MR. MOÏSE,

  I should like to see the Commandant as soon as possible. As all the officers detailed for Afion have made their arrangements, sold or broken up their furniture, written to England, etc., there is only one who wants to stay here now, and it is rough luck on them to upset the whole arrangement after the Commandant would not let Lieut. Jones’s and Hill’s names go in originally.

  (Signed) N. S. MAULE,

  5.4.18. LT.-COL. R. F. A.

  The letter interested us because it showed that the Pimple had told the truth when he informed us of the previous attempt to get rid of ‘the black sheep’. It was also a trifle annoying, because it upset our plans a little. To have overridden the Colonel’s objections would have been easy, and I was on the point of makin
g the Spook do so (this was one of the occasions when there had been no opportunity for consultation with Hill) when I was struck by the possibilities in one phrase – ‘there is only one who wants to stay here now’. This was what we wanted. It should be easy for Matthews to change places with that one, while Hill and I could be added to the party as far as Angora – we had no intention whatsoever of accompanying them further, or of allowing Matthews to do so. But there was not much time for reflection.

  ‘What do you think of this? What do you advise?’ Moïse asked excitedly of the Spook.

  SPOOK: ‘Do not forget your manners, Moïse! I always say “good evening” to you.’

  MOÏSE: ‘I beg your pardon, Sir. I am very sorry.’

  SPOOK: ‘All right. Now ask.’ (Moïse repeated the question). ‘Poor Moïse! Poor Moïse! This is terrible, is it not? You thought I wanted these two mediums to be in the twenty, did you not?’ (Note. – This was ‘eyewash’ talk – to gain me a little time to think out a reply.)