IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO THE PIMPLE

“‘Pimple’ wants to see you, Bones,” said Freeland, one afternoon in April.

“What on earth does he want with me?” I asked. I had never yet had any truck with the five-foot-nothing of impertinence that called itself the Camp Interpreter.

“Don’t know, I’m sure. He’s waiting for you in the lane.”

I went down. MoÏse, the Turkish Interpreter, was standing at our camp notice-board, surrounded by the usual little crowd of prisoners trying to pump him on the progress of the war. His hands were plunged deep in the pockets of a pair of nondescript riding-breeches. At intervals he took them out to readjust the pince-nez before his short-sighted eyes, and then plunged them back again. His calves were encased in uncleaned, black, leather gaiters. His sadly worn boots gave one the impression of having previously belonged to someone else. His grey-blue uniform coat had Austrian buttons on it, and his head-gear was a second-hand caricature of the Enver cap. Yet he stood there with all the assurance of a bantam cock on his own dung-heap, and crowed in the faces of his betters. He was part of the bitterness of captivity.

“Good afternoon, Jones,” he said familiarly, as I came up. He had never greeted me before—he kept his salutations for very senior officers.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He led me a little to one side, away from the crowd.

“You are a student of spiritism?” he said, eyeing me sharply. “The sentries have told me.”

“Well?” I ventured.

“Have you much studied the subject?”

“So-so,” said I.

“How much do you know about it? I, too, am interested.”

(I wondered what was up. Was I going to be punished?)

“The Commandant also is interested in these matters,” he went on insinuatingly, “and many officers have written to England of what you are doing.”

I thought I was “for it,” and fought for time. “I refer you to my friends for what I have done,” said I. “Captain Freeland, for instance.”

“Can you read the future?” he asked. “I have some questions.”

“What?” (I breathed again.)

“I want you to answer by occultism for me some questions. You will?”

Again I needed time, but for a different reason.

“We can’t talk here,” I said confidentially; “our mess has tea in about half an hour; come up and join us.”

“Right-o!” The familiar phrase somehow sounded obnoxious on his tongue. I walked back, up the steep path, thinking hard. Hitherto spooking had been merely a jest, with a psychological flavouring to lend it interest. But now a serious element was being introduced. If I could do to the Turks what I had succeeded in doing to my fellow-prisoners, if I could make them believers, there was no saying what influence I might not be able to exert over them. It might even open the door to freedom. Without any clear vision of the future, with nothing but the vaguest hope of ultimate success, I made up my mind to grip this man, and to wait for time to show how I might use him.

“Freak,” said I, entering our room, “wash your face, ’cause the ‘Pimple’ is coming to tea.”

Freeland stared at me open-mouthed. Uncle Gallup protested mildly because the announcement had caused him to blot his Great Literary Work. The Fat Boy woke from a deep sleep, and Pa dropped his pipe.

“Well, I’m ——,” said everybody at once.

“We’ll have that cake you’re saving up for your birthday, Freak,” I suggested.

“Hanged if we do,” said Freeland. “The little swab pinches half our parcels—why should we feed him? If he comes to tea, I’ll go and sit on the landing.”

“And I—and I—and I——” chorused the other three.

“No you don’t!” I said. “You’ll stay here and be good. Because of my great modesty I am the one who will be away. I can’t listen to my own praises. You, Freak, will tell him yarns about my powers as a Spookist, you will tell him that never before was there such a Spookist, never——”

“But I know nothing about your beastly spooking,” Freeland objected.

“Oh yes, you do! You know how I learnt the occult secrets of the Head-hunting Waa Tribe, and——”

“The WHO?” Freeland interrupted.

“The Head-hunting Waas in Burma,” I repeated. “I got this scar on my forehead from them, you know, when they were trying to scalp me.”

“You old liar!” said Pa. “I know how you got that scar. It was on the Siamese side in ’09——”

“Shut up, Pa!” I said. “I’m only asking Freak to prepare the ground. I want to make another convert, and once we’ve got the blighter on the string I’ll make him dance all right.”

“I’m sure it’s all beyond me,” said Uncle Gallup plaintively; “I’m all mixed up between you and the Spook, anyway.”

Freeland was looking at me strangely. “You’ll make him dance, will you?” he said.

“I mean, of course,” I corrected myself hastily, “the Spook will make him dance.”

“How d’you know what the Spook will do?” asked Freeland. There was a confoundedly knowing twinkle in his eye.

I was cornered. “I’m only guessing,” I said lamely. “I—I——”

“Right-o!” said Freeland, laughing. “I’ll stuff him up for you. You leave it to me.”

In that moment, I am convinced, Freeland more than suspected it was all a fraud. Like the good sport he was, he covered my confusion from the others, and never, either then or afterwards, pressed his advantage. We talked hurriedly over what he was to say to the Interpreter, and I left the room.

An hour and a half later, from my hiding-place in Stace’s room, I watched the Interpreter depart. Then I returned to our Mess. There was a litter of tea-cups all over the place. I poured myself out a cup of cold tea.

“Oh, you’ve had the cake,” I said, pointing to some delectable-looking crumbs on a plate; “where’s my bit?”

“Yok,”^[6] said Freeland, with ill-concealed glee.

“Come on, you blighters, fork it out,” I pleaded. It was a recognized rule of the mess that all parcel dainties (Heaven knows they were few enough!) were scrupulously shared. An absentee’s portion was always put aside for him.

“Yessack,”^[7] said Freeland, laughing. “We told the Interpreter you never eat anything rich before a sÉance, so he took it. Besides, you told me to stuff him up——”

When the necessary posh had subsided, Freeland let me know what yarn he had told MoÏse. It appeared that some years ago I had been taken prisoner by the Head-hunters. They tortured me—my body bore scars in witness of it—but I was saved from death by the Witch Doctor, who recognized in me a brother craftsman. In exchange for my knowledge he taught me his. Then he died, and I became Chief of the Tribe by reason of my magic powers. In due course I left the Waas and returned to civilization with my pockets full of Burmese rubies, and my head full of the Magic of the East.

“You piled it on a bit thick, Freak,” said I.

“Oh, I went further than that,” he laughed. “I told him Townshend used to employ you to read the minds of the Turkish generals, which explains why none of the Turkish attacks on Kut came off!”

“Well, that’s torn it all right!” I exclaimed.

“Not a bit of it. It all went down—same as the cake. See here——”

He handed me a sheet of paper on which MoÏse had written a list of questions.

“He wants these submitted to the Spirit at the next sÉance.”

I ran my eye down the page. No names were mentioned, but it was possible to read between the lines. There were some civilian ladies interned in another part of Yozgad.

“Why,” I said in astonishment, “the fellow’s given himself away! He is using his official position as jailor to pay court to those unhappy girls!”

“Yes,” said Freeland, and there was a deep anger in his voice. “Yes. He’s got to be made to sit up. Can you manage it, Bones?”

My back was turned towards the other occupants of the room. I looked into Freak’s eyes, and winked.

---

At the next sÉance I produced the Pimple’s written questions for the inspection of Price, Matthews, and the Doc. Then I showed them answers prepared by Freeland and myself at the expenditure of much time and thought.

“I propose,” said I, “to send these as if they came from the Spook. It is no good wasting the Spook’s time over the Pimple; but you fellows will have to say, if asked, that we got this stuff at a sÉance.”

“The answers are pretty good,” said Alec, “and they hit him about as hard as he deserves, but they are not exactly characteristic of the Spook.”

“They won’t do at all, at all,” said the Doc. “He will know at once it is your work. Anybody with half an eye could spot your style, Bones.”

“Why not try the Spook and see,” Price suggested. “If the answers we get are not suitable, we can send this forgery.”

“But what’s the use of wasting time?” I objected; “the thing’s done already, and——”

“Ach! Come on, Bones!” The Doc. put his fingers on the glass. “Let’s get the genuine article. It’ll be as different as chalk from cheese.”

Freeland and I had spent a whole afternoon concocting the replies. It was most annoying that they should thus be consigned to the scrap-heap. I was also doubtful if I could manufacture a fresh series at such short notice, but I put my fingers on the glass and somehow the answers came and elicited general approval.

“There you are,” said Price at the end of the sÉance, putting the record before me. “Read that, my son!”

“The Spook’s the boy,” laughed the Doc. “If the Pimple has got any epidermis left to his feelings when he has read through those answers, you can call me a Dago. It’ll frighten the little cad out of his seven senses. Look at question eight, will ye! ‘What will my friends think?’ Bones gives a wishy-washy, non-committal answer, and says, ‘Your friends won’t know.’ Spook says, ‘You have NO friends.’ That’s the stuff to keep him awake o’nights. I’m all in favour of leaving it to the Spook every time; there’s not a man of us can come within shoutin’ distance of him.”

“Yes, it’s a good job we left it to the Spook,” said Alec; “he gets there every time, right on the solar plexus—a regular knock-out.”

It has always been the same. Far-away birds have fine plumage. A prophet’s meed of honour varies directly as the square of the distance. Still, every man wants to consider himself an exception to the rule. To me it was at first a little disappointing to be one more example of its application and to find the utterings of an unknown spook so much preferable to my own.

However, the answers created a deep impression on MoÏse the Interpreter, who, at this time, was not a believer in spiritualism. He had only reached the stage of wondering if there might not be something in it. Moreover, he was a well-educated man (he had spent some years in the Ecole Normale in Paris), and had all the natural intelligence and acumen of the cosmopolitan Jew. I felt I had a difficult task in front of me and walked warily. I pretended an absolute indifference as to whether he believed in the Spook or not and never suggested that he should come to sÉances. The result was that he consulted the Spook once, twice and again. Every time, without knowing it, he gave something away. I privately tabulated his questions, studied them hard, and determined above all to hold my own counsel until the time was ripe.

On May 6th, 1917, an order was posted forbidding prisoners to communicate in their letters to England “news obtained by officers in a spiritistic state.” This was encouragement indeed! It showed that the Turks were taking official notice of my humble efforts. At the same time I could not believe that it was the Interpreter who was responsible for this new prohibition. He was by now deeply interested if not already a believer, and was too anxious to keep on good terms with the mediums to risk offending them by attacking their spiritualism. It behoved me therefore to find out who was behind it. I waited my opportunity and waylaid MoÏse in the lane.

“That’s a poor trick of yours,” said I, “stopping us writing home about spiritualism. We only want verification of what the Spook says. The matter is one of scientific interest. It has no military significance at all.”

“I say so to the Commandant,” said MoÏse, “but he would not agree! He says it is dangerous.”

“Get along, MoÏse! The Commandant has nothing to do with that notice. You put it up yourself to crab our amusements.”

MoÏse probed excitedly in his pockets and produced a paper in Turkish which he flourished under my nose.

“There you are!” he said. “The seal! The signature! He wrote the order. I merely translated. I told him how great was the scientific value, how important is the experiment. He said the Spook gives war news. It is his fault, not mine.”

“Is the Commandant also a believer?” I asked.

“Assuredly! He has much studied the occult. He often consults on problematic difficulties women and witches in this town, but mostly by cards. He greatly believes in cards.”

“Yes,” I said, “there is much in cards, but it is rather an old-fashioned and cumbersome method. Now the Ouija——”

Jimmy Dawson rushed up to find out if the Pimple had any parcels for him in the office, and I seized the opportunity to depart. As I went I hugged myself. The Commandant too!

Kiazim Bey, Bimbashi of Turkish Artillery and Commandant of our camp, was the most nebulous official in Asia. He did not visit us once in three months. He answered no letters, took not the least notice of any complaints, refused all interviews, and pursued a policy of masterly inactivity which was the despair of our Senior Officers. He was a sort of Negative Kitchener—the very antithesis of organizing power—but he had the same genius for silence. Endowed with a native dignity and coolness which contrasted favourably with our helpless anger at his incapacity and neglect, he was comfortable enough himself (thanks to the contents of our food parcels) to be able to view our discomforts with a philosophic calm. And, withal, he was more inaccessible than the Great Moghul. Of the man himself, of his likes and dislikes, his hopes, his fears, his ambitions, his most ordinary thoughts, we knew less than nothing. How long, I wondered, would it be before I could get him into the net? Would he ever consult the Ouija as he consulted the “women and witches” of Yozgad? Would the Spook be able to play with him as it played with Doc. and Matthews and the rest of my friends?

The whole thing looked very impossible, but in less than a twelvemonth this “strong silent man” was to be clay in the potter’s hands, and evict his pet witch to give houseroom to two practical jokers—Lieutenant C. W. Hill and myself.