by E. H. Jones
Postcard Dated 16th March 1918
To: Sir Henry Jones, Noddfa, Tighnabruaich, Argyll, Scotland, England [sic] (his father)
From: E.H. Jones 2nd Lieut., I.A.R., Prisoner of War at Yozgad, Turkey. Number 54
Dear Father, I am in excellent health. My friend Lieut. C.W. Hill R.F.C. and I have now formed a little mess of our own, and we get on together very well. We live together and are lucky to have a very nice room in a very comfortable house. Love to mother and Paul and Silas. Like them I long for anything – even an earthquake – to swallow up the warring nations and let me home again. Harry
Notes and hidden messages:
1. As required by the Spook the card contains the message that ‘they are very comfortable’.
2. However, the card also contains a subtle hidden message telling Harry’s father not only that he and C.W. Hill were about to escape but also a clue as to how. The reference to Paul and Silas is to the apostle Paul and his close follower Silas described in the Bible. The parallels between the story of Paul and Silas and the story of Jones and Hill are remarkably similar and it is believed that Harry was using that to try to get a message to his father about their planned escape from Yozgad.
3. According to Acts 16:16-34, on Paul’s second journey from Jerusalem he and Silas travelled to Phillipi which is now in modern-day eastern Greece. There they rescued a slave girl who was possessed by spirits that enabled her to tell the future. As followers of Christ, Paul cleansed her of these spirits but, for doing so, he and Silas were taken prisoner and thrown in jail. Whilst there a great earthquake happened (hence the mention of the earthquake in the postcard) which ruptured the prison wall and broke their shackles, thereby giving them the opportunity to escape. However, they did not do so. The jailer was very impressed and was converted, now seeing Paul and Silas as true believers. He asked Paul ‘What must I do to be saved?’ Paul replied ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household’. The jailer was converted and, as a convert, let the two prisoners go.
4. Sir Henry Jones, Harry’s father, was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University and would therefore be very familiar with the story above and would use the analogy with the story of Paul and Silas to deduce much of what was planned. The Turkish censor, of course, assumed that ‘Paul and Silas’ were part of Harry’s family given the context.
5. The parallel with Harry and Cedric is very close. They had trekked across modern-day Syria and Turkey (albeit not so far as Greece), had been thrown in jail, had shown to be true ‘believers’ (albeit in relation to the ‘Spook’), were involved in predicting the future and banishing evil spirits and had rejected offers for an easier time (in order to put the Turks off the scent). The jailers (in this case the Turks) were wholly taken in by the belief and powers they appeared to hold, became themselves converted and let them go of their own choice.
6. One month after the postcard was written (on 26th April 1918) the Turks voluntarily sent Jones and Hill to Constantinople, effectively setting them free.
7. It also ties with the next card, sent four days later, which contains the coded message ‘Locked up for Telepathy’. Sir Henry would have known from the Paul and Silas analogy that something was about to happen and an escape was on the cards.
Postcard Dated 20th March 1918
To: Sir Henry Jones, Noddfa, Tighnabruaich, Argyllshire, Scotland, England [sic] (his father)
From: E.H. Jones 2nd Lieut., I.A.R., Prisoner of War at Yozgad, Turkey. Number 54
Received your postcard of 4th January. Am sorry to hear you can find no time to look after my little place at Ofalus. Can’t Alfred undertake it for you now you are munitionmaking [sic]? Tell Educationoffice [sic] last educational parcel arrived. They have your orders, I hope, to send some more educational books this year. I am well, but have no news. As I told you in my last letter I and Hill are now together – very comfortable. Your son E.H. Jones
Notes and hidden messages:
1. The word ‘Ofalus’ means ‘Careful’ in Welsh – it indicates read carefully, a coded message follows.
2. Reading the first letters of the subsequent words ‘Can’t Alfred undertake it for you now you are munitionmaking? [N.B. one word] Tell Educationoffice [N.B. one word] last Educational parcel arrived. They have your’ spells out the words ‘Cau i fyny am Telepathy’ which is Welsh for ‘Locked up for Telepathy’, basically the same message as sent by Captain Mundey eight days earlier and part of one of Harry’s subplots to secure their release.
3. The fourth séance in The Colonels’ House had been held on 16th March 1918 but no record has survived – basically to protect the dignity of Moïse. They were purportedly burned by Moïse on orders from the Spook. At that séance, Harry and Cedric set Moïse up with a ‘beautiful lady’ in Yozgad which, as Harry said in the séance diaries ‘makes one all fizzy-wizzy in the pooh-bah’. This was playing on Moïse’s vanities and was set up in response to Moïse’s private questions which Cedric had pickpocketed on 13th March 1918.
4. The fifth séance in the Colonels’ House, a short séance in which Moïse revealed the transfer of prisoners from Changri had been held on 18th March 1918.
5. The sixth séance in the Colonels’ House, an important séance, had been held on 19th March 1918. In it the ‘Spook’ described the origin of the ‘treasure’ and the secret of the three clues. Using the aggression of enemy ‘spooks’ as a foil, Harry and Cedric also managed to trap Moïse into believing the ‘Spook’ could not reveal names of those who held the clues to the treasure.
6. On 26th March 1918, the date of the postcard, the seventh séance in the Colonels’ House took place at which Harry used the ‘Spook’ to dictate a speech to be given by the Commandant at a dinner of the officers Ski Club and thus draw the Commandant even more into the Spook’s power.
Letter Dated 27th March 1918
To: Sir Henry Jones (his father)
From: 2nd Lieut. E.H. Jones, Prisoner of War No 54. Yozgad Turkey
My dear father
Of late your letters have not been very fortunate in getting to me but by last mail I got two cheery little notes from mother. I know she must be very anxious about Jim and Arthur and I am glad she need feel no anxiety on my behalf. There is more cause to be anxious about you but you overstrain yourself with your work. Be careful of yourself, Father dear. Why not go with dear old Bryn and Tadbevan to Cauifyny this spring? I had a letter from the former in which he said he hoped to get some good fishing. I know they would like to be with you, if you would go.
I want you to send me a book called ‘The Criminal and the Community’. I can’t remember the name of the author but Bryn knows him – in fact he was staying with him, he says, when he wrote to me. He mentioned the book to me as an able study of criminal law.
The winter here is now nearly over. We passed the long evenings pleasantly enough. A little coterie formed a psychic research section which kept us amused. We began, curiously enough, on the advice of an old classmate of yours – I think he won the Caird Medal in your year – who got hold of my address and wrote to me. We met with surprising success, and were much interested, and I shall show you our results when I get home. The ‘spook’ sometimes gave us ‘war news’ of a fantastic character, sometimes we had conversations with the famous dead.
Dynarachos is the address Mair asked for – at least it was where Jack lived before the war but he may now be ‘somewhere in France’ for all I know.
I think I told you that Lieutenant Hill and I have formed a little mess by ourselves, ‘far from the madding crowd’ as the song goes. We are very lucky in having got a nice room and good quarters. He is an excellent fellow to chum with and we get along splendidly together. He is an Australian. His only ‘grouse’ is that he will have no job when the war ends, so would you see what you can do for him? Will you try your best? And while you are about it you might see if you can do anything for me too. If Germany wins the war she will probably bag India and I’ll lose my jo
b there.
We hear some more prisoners are coming to Yozgad. It will be interesting to meet them – they are mostly Kut men we are told – and to swap experiences after our two years’ separation.
I hope you will all keep as cheerful as I am myself. The arrival of some more educational books – real good ones, this time ‘Odger’s Common Law of England’ and two others equally useful – will give me plenty to do this summer. Many thanks for them. And rest assured that I do not intend to let myself stagnate here. I shall keep my brain occupied. So don’t worry about me. Just keep on being cheerful and happy.
By the way, you mention you have been sending Ten Pounds a month since August. It has not reached me. Please enquire at your end.
Love to all.
Your son, Harry
Notes and hidden messages:
1. In this letter he is telling his father that he and Cedric plan to escape and their plans for doing so. His father, when reading this letter in conjunction with the hidden messages in other mail written at that time, would have a pretty good idea that something was afoot and that séances and hoodwinking was very much part of the escape plan.
2. ‘Be careful of yourself, Father dear’ is in instruction to his father to pay attention (‘be careful’) when reading the next sentences. The word ‘Bryn’ means ‘Hill’ in Welsh whilst ‘Tadbevan’ means ‘father of Bevan’. ‘Bryn’ is referring to C.W. Hill (his co-conspirator) and ‘Tadbevan’ refers to himself (his son Bevan was born in January 1916). The Welsh words ‘Cau i fyny’ mean ‘Close up’. The phrase ‘Bryn and Tadbevan to Cauifyny this spring?’ is therefore saying that ‘he and Hill are to close up this Spring’ i.e. that he and Hill will be closing their escape plan soon. ‘I had a letter from the former in which he said he hoped to get some good fishing. I know they would like to be with you’ is saying that they are aiming to get to the sea (given by the use of the word ‘fishing’) from where they can more easily get away. This plan is described in detail in The Road to En-dor.
3. He continues. The words ‘Dyna’r achos’ in Welsh mean ‘That is the reason/cause’. Here he is saying that they are using their skills with the Ouija board (the ‘psychic research’ of the previous paragraph) to effect the escape. It is not known who the ‘old classmate’ or Jack are.
4. The prisoners coming to Yozgad that he refers to included those who were to later make the remarkable cross-country escape from Yozgad led by Lieutenant-Commander Cochrane, D.S.O., R.N. and told in the book 450 Miles to Freedom by Captain M.A.B. Johnston and Captain K.D. Yearsley. They, together with Harry and Cedric, were amongst the very few to successfully escape from Yozgad. The group left Yozgad the day before Harry and Cedric were sent to Constantinople (now Istanbul) under their plan and escaped.
5. Again, the letter includes the message required by the Spook stating that they are very comfortable in their new house.
6. By the date of this letter, 27th March 1918, the camp Commandant Kiazim Bey and the Interpreter Moïse were well and truly under the spell of the ‘Spook’. At the eighth séance in the Colonels’ House held on 24th March 1916 the ‘telechronistic ray’ and the concepts of ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ were introduced to a totally believing Moïse. That evening Harry and Cedric had had the first staging of trance-talk, done in the dark to frighten Moïse, in which ‘visions’ of the future were revealed.
7. On 26th March 1918 the ninth séance in The Colonels’ House had been held at which Moïse was prepared for the finding of the first clue to the treasure, the first step in the escape plan. The following day, the date of this letter, the tenth séance in The Colonels’ House was held to put a hold on the search for the first clue due to the poor weather at Yozgad. The search took place four days later, on 31st March 1918.
Notes
All endnotes are from the original publication of The Road to En-dor other than those in Italics marked POSTSCRIPT which have been included to assist the modern reader.
1. A list of the officers who were prisoners of war with us in Yozgad is given in Appendix I.
2. POSTSCRIPT. Sir Oliver Lodge was a physicist who developed early work on wireless transmission. He and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, both of whom lost sons in the First World War, turned to spiritualism – Oliver Lodge writing Raymond or Life and Death which discussed séances he had held to communicate with his dead son Raymond. The existence of this book did much to give credence to the séances held at Yozgad.
3. Of course neither this nor any other of the conversations in the book claims to be a verbatim report of what was said. Such a thing would be difficult to give even after twenty-four hours – much more so after two years. These conversations are ‘true’ in the sense that they are faithful reconstructions of my recollection of what took place. Every event mentioned in the book occurred. (See endnote 21.)
4. I believe the English language is indebted to Lieut. L.C.P. Tudway, R.N., for the invention of this word. A ‘posh’ is a good-tempered cross between a riot and a rugby scrum. The object of the ‘poshers’ is conjointly and severally to sit upon the victim and to pinch, smack, tickle, or otherwise torture him until he begs for mercy.
5. POSTSCRIPT. The prisoners were allocated three houses in Yozgad known as Major’s House, Hospital House and Upper House. E.H. Jones was in Upper House. A fourth and fifth, School House (or ‘Posh Castle’) and Colonel’s House, were added later.
6. See Appendix II.
7. The séance that follows is incidentally an example of a conversation with a person still alive, or, in the technical language of the séance room, ‘still on this side’.
8. Yok is the Turkish equivalent of ‘Na-poo’ in Tommy’s French.
9. Yessack: Forbidden
10. The conjuror was Lieutenant C.W. Hill, R.A.F., who ultimately became my partner for escape and whose better acquaintance the reader will make later on.
11. From now onwards O’Farrell, Matthews, and Price did not attend any of our séances, as communication was not allowed between the Schoolhouse and the Hospital House after dark. The séances that led up to trapping the Interpreter were conducted by Nightingale, Bishop, Hill, and myself, with Edmonds and Mundey as recorders, and numerous casual visitors.
12. POSTSCRIPT. This is the third verse from the eighteenth-century Welsh love song Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn (Watching the White Wheat). Literally translated, it means:
Whilst the sea water is salty
And whilst my hair is growing
And whilst there’s a heart in my breast
I will be true to you
13. POSTSCRIPT. Afion Kara Hissar and Kastamouni were other prisoner of war camps in Turkey.
14. POSTSCRIPT. A military expression meaning ‘word of honour’. It was used often in the First World War to bind officers not to attempt to escape.
15. It is true that the feat was eventually accomplished, and eight men led by Cochrane reached Cyprus in September 1918. The narrative of their adventures has been published, and is a splendid story of pluck and almost superhuman endurance, of wise and heroic leadership. But these qualities, which the party possessed in measure full to overflowing, would have availed them little had they not met with the stupendous luck that their courage deserved. It detracts not one whit from the splendour of their achievement that their effort was favoured by the Goddess of Fortune. And the reflection may bring some comfort to the eighteen others who started the same night – only to be recaptured – and to those wiseacres who remained behind.
16. POSTSCRIPT. ‘Strafe’ is military slang meaning to punish heavily.
17. Events prove we were perfectly correct in our anticipation of what the Turks would do in the event of an escape.
i. After the attempted escape of Cochrane, Price, and Stoker from Afion Kara Hissar in 1916, the whole camp was confined for six weeks without exercise, in a church.
ii. The escape of Bishop, Keeling, Tipton, and Sweet from Kastamouni in 1917 was followed by a very severe ‘strafing’ of the whole camp.
iii. The big escape of twenty-six officers from Yozgad in August 1918 was followed by a camp ‘strafe’.
iv. The following Turkish Order, which was put up on our notice-board in Yozgad in October 1917 speaks for itself. I quote it verbatim:
‘The stipulations of the Penal Military Statutes will be applied fully and severely to the officers or men Prisoners of War who will try to run away and will be caught and they will be confined in a special building in the district of Afion Kara Hissar. In (sic) the other hand their comrades will be deprived of all liberty and privileges. The prisoners of war in my camp are requested to take information of this communique.
‘THE COMMANDANT’
18. POSTSCRIPT. Used in the early twentieth century as a disinfectant and a purgative.
19. POSTSCRIPT. A coded message to this effect is contained in a letter dated 25th February 1918. This letter is included in the Supplementary Material on the website accompanying this book.
20. For the benefit of the curious our code-system is given in Appendix III
21. Complete records of all séances between 2nd February and 26th April were kept and smuggled out of Turkey. This is a verbatim copy of the Pimple’s statement. From this point to Chapter XXIV (where our written record ends) all questions put to, and answers given by, the Spook are quoted from these records. So, too, are the letters to and from the Turkish War Office at Constantinople. We have to thank Capt. O’Farrell, Capt. Matthews, Capt. Freeland, Capt. Miller, Lieut. Nightingale, Lieut. Hickman and others for the preservation of our documents and photographs. POSTSCRIPT. A page from the original séance diary manuscripts, which were written in micro-text due to limited material and to reduce bulk and avoid detection is given in Appendix IV