TURN, SAVES THE HUNT CLUB, AND WRITES A SPEECH

In the interval between the treasure sÉances we interfered as much as possible with the administration of the camp, the Spook butting in wherever an occasion offered with suggestions for the amelioration of the lot of our comrades. Our most successful effort was in connection with the Hunt Club.

Shortly before we had got ourselves locked up, some fifteen or twenty officers had decided to form a Hunt Club. The idea was to purchase greyhounds, and, with Kiazim’s permission, to hunt once or twice a week over the hills in the neighbourhood. The membership of the Club was strictly limited, for it was thought that Kiazim would not allow more than a few officers to be out at the same time, as the number of spare sentries at his disposal was small.

Hill and I knew no more of the matter than that the idea was being entertained by a select few, and was being kept secret. A few days after we had been imprisoned the Pimple informed us that the Commandant had granted permission for the Club to be formed, that a couple of long dogs had been bought, and that there was a good deal of ill-feeling in the camp amongst the eighty odd officers who had been left out in the cold and were not members of the combine which had made this “corner” in cross-country exercise. We decided to try to get Kiazim to extend his permission not only to members but to anyone who wanted to hunt. But we could not see how to interfere.

On the 15th March we were informed by the Pimple, in the course of his usual daily visit, that the Commandant was “what you say in a hole.” It appeared that, when he gave permission for the formation of a Hunt Club, he had overlooked a standing order which strictly forbade such organizations. Communications had now been received from Constantinople drawing his attention to the order and reiterating the prohibition of all hunting for prisoners.

Constantinople orders must be obeyed, so Kiazim was going to the camp next day to withdraw his permission and close down the Club. That night Hill and I discussed the matter and formed our plans. We must interfere to save the Hunt Club. We decided to pit the authority of the Spook against that of the Turkish War Office.

On the 16th we sent the Cook with a note to the Pimple telling him that the spook-board had been rapping and tapping and making curious noises all night, and we thought the Spook wanted to communicate something. The Pimple came at once, and we began our sitting.

The Spook began by warning MoÏse not to tell the mediums what the glass was writing, because if he did so the mediums would refuse to go on, as the information concerned their fellow-officers. If Jones or Hill questioned him afterwards about the sÉance, he was to say that the Spook had been arranging for him an introduction to a certain beautiful lady, and that the matter was private.

Then we settled down to it. The glass wrote steadily, MoÏse getting more and more excited, but keeping silent except for an occasional studiously innocent ejaculation. He thought, of course, that we did not know what was being written.

The Spook said It wanted to save the Commandant from disgrace. He had made a bad mistake in giving permission for a Hunt Club, but he would make a much worse one if he carried out his intention of prohibiting it. Such action would make the camp exceedingly angry with Kiazim Bey, and the thought-waves they generated against him would be of the greatest assistance to OOO and the opposition. They would “block” the treasure messages! Further, at present the prisoners were happy and contented. Nobody wanted to escape. But, as sure as Kiazim lived, his one hope of preventing escape (which would disgrace him) lay in keeping his promise. The best way of angering an Englishman was to break your promise to him, and if the breaking of the promise touched his pocket^[31] as well as his comfort, the Englishman became quite madly unreasonable, while the Scotsmen (and the camp was full of them) turned into wild beasts. They could no more stop the prisoners from breaking out than they could stop the sea. Therefore it behoved Kiazim Bey to be careful. If he riled the camp many would run away, not so much with the idea of reaching England, which was hopeless, as in order to secure the removal of the Commandant from his post; and the most likely of all to do this was Colonel Maule, who—as he knew from experience—was a nasty, vicious, spiteful fellow where his physical exercise was concerned.

“Now,” said the Spook, “what you fear is that one or more of these fellows will escape while out hunting, and then you will get into trouble with the War Office for allowing them to hunt in the face of orders. If you take my advice, nothing of this will happen. Constantinople will not know. I shall arrange everything for you. You need only concern yourself with Maule—I shall see to the rest. Go to Maule AT ONCE. Tell him of the standing order. Say you had overlooked it when you gave permission for the Club, but that you will not go back on that permission now, although it may get you into trouble, if he will meet you halfway. Then ask him for his parole not to escape while out hunting, and tell him you expect him to hold himself responsible that none of the others in the Hunt Club will use it as a means to escape. If you do this I guarantee everything will be all right. But if you persist in your decision to withdraw your promise, you will be helping OOO & Co. and will have extra difficulty in finding the treasure.”

The sÉance ended about 3.30 p.m. The Pimple said he had no time to tell us anything. He went off hotfoot to the Commandant. By 6.30 he was back. He burst into our room in great excitement as we were starting dinner, and cried out:

“It is all over! Wonderful! Wonderful! It is marvellous!”

“What is wonderful?” we asked.

Then MoÏse remembered that he had been forbidden to tell us of the Spook’s advice. His face was a study.

“What is wonderful?” we repeated.

“The—the beautiful lady,” he stammered. “She—she was very kind to me! The Spook—the Spook introduced us.” He plunged into a long and confused story, to which we listened with the utmost solemnity, of a superlatively beauteous damsel whom he said he had discovered under the Spook’s guidance in one of the back streets of Yozgad.

At a later sÉance he asked for permission to tell us the whole story. The Spook gave it. We then learned that the Commandant had gone to Colonel Maule at once, and carried out the Spook’s instructions. The Colonel had gladly given his own parole not to escape whilst out hunting, and had added that as President of the Club he had already taken a similar parole from all other members of the Hunt, and therefore the Commandant might be quite easy in his mind that the privilege he had granted would not be abused!

This was one of a number of coincidences which greatly added to the renown of our Spook. Colonel Maule had taken these paroles from our fellow-officers after we had left the camp, and neither Hill nor I knew anything about them. We could almost equally well have persuaded Kiazim Bey to let his promise stand without sending him to Maule at all, and our object in sending him was to get a playful smack at our Senior Officer by putting him on parole as a quid pro quo for the paroles he had taken out of us. Indeed, this was why the Spook limited Kiazim’s attentions to the Colonel, who we knew had no intention of escaping, and forbade interference with the rest of the camp. But after Maule’s statement, following so naturally on the Spook’s promise, nothing on earth would have convinced Kiazim that it was Maule himself (and not the Spook acting through him) who had put the others on parole. The incident became for the Turks one more marvellous example of our Spook’s power of controlling the minds of others, and in the face of this experience Kiazim readily believed that the Spook would keep Constantinople in ignorance of his disobedience to orders. So permission was graciously granted, and the Hunt Club became one of the institutions of Yozgad. The authors of “450 Miles to Freedom” called it “the most useful” of the concessions granted at Yozgad. “Some of the happiest recollections of our captivity,” they say, “are those glorious early mornings in the country, far away from the ugly town which was our prison. Here, for a few brief hours, it was almost possible to forget that we were prisoners of war.” Hill and I are very glad of that!

It is of course possible that the Commandant would have disobeyed his own Government without the interference of Hill and myself. Perhaps the camp could have saved the position off its own bat. Perhaps the parole not to escape would have been sufficient of itself to induce the Commandant to disobey his own War Office. But we doubt it very much. There were other factors that counted more in his decision. These were, his belief that Constantinople would never know, his fear that if he angered the camp escapes would certainly take place, and his dread lest the Spook communication about the treasure be “blocked” by ranging the thought-waves of the camp against himself and on the side of OOO.

So elated were we by our success that four days later, on the 20th March, we laid a plot to commit Kiazim to an open declaration of a friendly policy towards the camp. That night, in recognition of his kindness in having given permission for ski-ing during the past winter, he was to be the guest of the Ski Club at a dinner in Posh Castle.

We guessed that someone was likely to make a speech thanking him for the privilege he had granted. It was easy enough to prophesy the sort of thing that would be said, and we thought it would be a good stroke to write his reply. Therefore, towards the close of a sÉance held at noon on the 20th March, the Spook suddenly said:

“Would the Superior like to make a very popular speech tonight? I can help him, though I know he can do it quite well himself.”

Several hours later, about 5 p.m., MoÏse came to us in a state of great excitement, and said, “Major Gilchrist has just given me a speech to translate into Turkish. It is to be given to the Commandant tonight. I am sure the Spook has written this also. Let us ask him.”

We got out the Ouija, and MoÏse read the speech aloud to the Control. The speech was as follows:

What really was wonderful was the fact that Gilchrist should have hit upon the idea of getting his speech written out in Turkish to be handed to Kiazim Bey at the dinner—and that the very same idea should have cropped up in our sÉance a few hours earlier. For Kiazim, with the Spook’s approval, was to hand in an English copy in the same way! So far as I am aware the handing over of a written translation of a speech had never been thought of at a previous function in Yozgad. It was another of those coincidences which may help the reader to sympathize with our victims’ belief in the powers of the Spook. Indeed, it is not a bad parallel to the “Honolulu incident” in Raymond, and I may be considered wrong in calling it a “coincidence.” Spiritualists would no doubt find an easy explanation in “telepathy.” Pah!

Bimbashi Kiazim Bey spent the afternoon in learning his speech by heart, and delivered it in great style at the dinner that night, to the accompaniment of uproarious cheering, which we could hear from our room. Next day the English copy of it was posted up on the camp notice-board. A good many people thought the English too idiomatic to be the Pimple’s composition, but no one knew who had written it, and the general impression was that the Commandant was showing signs of being a reformed character.

The five courses of the Ski Club dinner were sent over to us by our good friends in Posh Castle, and a bottle of raki with them. The Spook, it will be remembered, had luckily given us a complete holiday to eat what we liked on this day. (This was not a coincidence but the reverse.) We knew it was likely to be our last decent meal for many a long day, and we did full justice to it. For in response to repeated and urgent secret signals from us, Price had at last consented to send us no more food, and henceforward, until we had beaten the doctors, our diet was to be bread and tea. In the lean days that lay ahead, in misery and sickness and starvation, that dinner was to be a very joyous memory to both of us.

Indeed, from the soup to the raki liqueur, it was a notable feast, and it heartened us. When we had finished we stood at our window, listening to the songs and laughter and cheering from across the way, and peppered the Posh Castle windows with our pea-shooters by way of accompaniment. One of the guests, who had drowned his sorrows with some thoroughness, staggered out into Posh Castle yard for a little fresh air, and sat him against the wall, his head in his hands, close beside a large tin bath. We collected snow and snow-balled him from our retreat. When we missed him, we hit the bath, till it boomed like a 4·7. The poor fellow was too far gone to realize what was happening. He apostrophized the bath as a “noisy blighter,” and every time he was hit called the empty world to witness that it was a “dirty trick, a dirty trick to shtop a f’low shleeping.” A particularly nasty smack finally brought him to his feet and he rushed back into Posh Castle roaring out something about the “neshessity for instant action by counter attacksh.” An hour later the company broke up and as the sentries marshalled them under our windows, preparatory to marching them to their respective homes, we thrust out our heads and sang them a lullaby:

There was a second’s silence down below, a silence with something of consternation in it: then Winnie Smith bellowed out:

“It’s Bones and Hill! Good lads! Keep your tails up! Three cheers for the criminals!”

A yell of greeting went up from the crowd. The sentries, alarmed at this disobedience of the Commandant’s orders, began to hustle them, but Winnie shouted again.

“Hush, Winnie,” said a voice we recognized. “Do you want the whole camp hanged? Come away and leave ’em.” And Winnie was dragged off by his mentor. But at the corner he drowned all expostulation in a cheery “Good-night” to us. Thank you, Winnie! Everybody knows you are a happy-go-lucky, impulsive, generous, and most injudicious young rascal, but you have a heart of gold to a friend in trouble. Hill and I weren’t in trouble, of course, but you thought we were.

On the 21st March, in accordance with the Spook’s orders, our diet was reduced to toast and tea. To begin with our allowance was one pound of dry bread a day. Later we reduced it to eight ounces. Our diet had to be lowered more suddenly than was intended by the Spook originally, “in order to counteract MoÏse’s mistake at the last sÉance.”^[33] On this day we were taken for our first (and only) walk. We felt very empty.

22nd March.—“On his morning visit,” my diary reads, “MoÏse told us that the Commandant’s wife cannot sleep for thinking of the treasure. With a view to explaining their coming access of wealth, she and her husband have started a rumour that they have sold some property in Constantinople. MoÏse has started a similar rumour about himself. He tells us that relations between the treasure-hunters are getting strained, and unless the Spook apportions shares in the treasure, there will be trouble. The Cook says he will not be put off with a small share, and unless the Commandant gives him at least a quarter he will report the whole business to the War Office.”

23rd March.—“A quiet day. Affairs still strained between the Commandant and the Cook, who is a man of one idea,—money! The Spook refuses to interfere or to apportion the shares.”

24th March.—“The low diet is working wonders. Hill and I are getting beautifully into tune. Several times during his visit MoÏse noticed that we both made the same remark in the same words at the same moment. ‘Your two minds,’ said he, ‘are obviously rapidly becoming one mind.’”

Of course they were! But the Pimple never knew what a lot of practice it took to do it naturally.