IN WHICH WE DECIDE TO BECOME MAD AND THE SPOOK GETS
US CERTIFICATES OF LUNACY
Our last hope was to go mad, and try for exchange. We came to the
decision reluctantly, after a discussion that went on far into the
night. Then a thing happened that went far to restore my ebbing human
nature. Hill got up from his chair, and after pacing the room a little
while, he stopped, facing me.
“I will stand down, old chap,” he said. “If two of us go mad together it
will lessen the chances of each not by half, but a hundredfold, and one
man, on his own, has a poor enough chance against the Constantinople
specialists. So I will stand down, and good luck to you!”
“We have agreed that the mad stunt is now our best—our only chance,” I
objected.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But think of it—two fellows from the same camp
going mad at the same time. It is hopeless. I’d love to join you, but
I’m not going to spoil your chance. Your only hope is to go alone.”
I like to think of the half hour that followed, and of the depths it
revealed in Hill’s friendship for me. We were at the gloomiest period of
the war—April 1918. The German successes lost nothing in the recounting
in Turkish newspapers. To every appearance our imprisonment might last
for years. Yet Hill tried hard to sacrifice his last faint hope of
liberty for my sake. In the end I reminded him that we had pledged
ourselves to stick together, and threatened that if he returned to camp
I would fulfil my part of the contract by going back with him.
“Well, Bones,” he said. “I’ll come. I don’t know what special kind of
miseries the Turks keep for malingering lunatics, but I promise you that
without your permission they’ll never find out through me.”
I made him the same promise. Three months later I was to regret it most
bitterly, for Hill then lay at death’s door in Gumush Suyu hospital, and
forbade me to say the few words of confession that would have got him
the humane treatment he required.
Our Spook had a delicate task regaining its full authority over Kiazim.
It began by developing the Commandant’s own plan—a process to which he
could hardly object—and laying stress on its desire to keep Kiazim in
the background. It reminded us that in order to avoid OOO’s interference
it was better for us not to know what method would be ultimately
adopted. But there was no harm in preparing for a trip to Constantinople
to read the thoughts of AAA. And if we failed, which was unlikely, we
could try some other method when we returned to Yozgad. Meantime, Kiazim
need do nothing but tell the truth, in which there was never any harm.
It did not reprove Kiazim for lack of faith, or pretend to know anything
about his temporary secession, but went on quietly as if nothing had
occurred.
The Commandant was perfectly ready to tell the truth, but wanted to know
to whom he was to tell it, and what he was to say! The Spook told him.
He was to call in the Turkish doctors and make them the following
statement, which he should learn by heart:
“I am anxious about two of my prisoners, and I want your professional
advice that I may act on it. I have reason to believe they are mentally
affected, and that the English doctor is endeavouring to conceal the
fact.[41] A certain number of the prisoners, amongst whom Jones and Hill
were prominent, have been studying occultism ever since they arrived.
They admittedly practise telepathy, and were arrested for communication
with people outside on military matters. For direct evidence as to their
conduct during their confinement I refer you to my Interpreter (Moïse)
and my orderly (the Cook) who have seen a good deal of them. If they
have become mentally unhinged I fear they may do something desperate,
and would like you to send them to Constantinople where they can be
properly looked after, or do whatever you think is best for them.”
The Commandant would then produce the Cook. His story to the doctors was
to be as follows:
“By the Commandant’s orders I attended Hill and Jones in their
imprisonment, as they were not allowed to communicate with other
prisoners. I took them their food (from Posh Castle). At first I noticed
nothing peculiar. After a few days, in brushing out their room, I began
to find bits of meat hidden away in the corners. I used to give these to
my chickens. I do not know why the meat was thus thrown away because the
prisoners cannot talk Turkish. I also found charred remains of bread and
other food in the stove. A few days ago the prisoners forbade me to
sweep out their room. I do not know why. They usually look depressed and
silent. That is all I know.”
Then the Pimple:
“I know both Jones and Hill well. When they first arrived they were both
smart and soldierlike. They have gradually become more and more untidy
and slovenly. For over a year they have been studying occultism, and I
know they achieved some extraordinary results, e.g., they got the first
news that came to Yozgad of the taking of Baghdad. There were many other
things. At one time spirit-communiqués were published in the camp. All
the other prisoners knew of it and many believed in it. The first
peculiarity I noticed was that occasionally one or the other of them
would write an extraordinary letter, abusing certain officers and the
camp in general. I thought at the time these letters were due to drink,
and tore them up. This was many months ago. I remonstrated with them for
using such language about their fellow-officers.[42] I do not know when
they began what they call ‘telepathy,’ but I used to come upon them
studying together. I was present at their public exhibition (description
follows). Nobody has ever given me a satisfactory explanation of their
powers.
“When Hill and Jones were imprisoned on March 7th it was my duty to
visit them every day and try to elicit the name of their correspondent,
which the Commandant wanted. Sometimes they were rude to me, sometimes
polite, sometimes sullen. At first they got food sent in from Major
Baylay’s mess (Posh Castle). I now remember that soon after they were
locked up they began to ask me if Major Baylay was abusing them. About
20th March or a little before they began to beg to be allowed to cook
their own food, or for the Turks to cook it. When I asked why, they
first said they did not want to cause trouble in the camp. I saw Major
Baylay and Price, of the Posh Castle mess, who said it was no trouble,
and they would continue sending food. When I told this to Hill and Jones
they got excited, insisted that they _must not_ give trouble, and
finally told me in confidence that Major Baylay was putting poison in
the meat, and that they were afraid he would poison the other food too.
I thought they were joking about the poison, and that the real reason
was they did not wish to give trouble, but I arranged for them to cook
their own food. I now understand that they did not intend it as a
joke—their belief explains why they hid the meat which the Cook found.
“On the 1st of April the order came from Constantinople to release them.
When I told them of this they were very frightened. They asked me to
keep the door locked, and said this order did not really come from
Constantinople, but was an arrangement between Major Baylay and the
postmaster who had been paid ten liras to forge a telegram. They said
the real object of the telegram was to stop them writing to the British
War Office about Baylay (it forbade them write any letters), and to get
them outside so that they could be murdered. This alarmed me, as they
were obviously serious. I fetched in the English camp doctor, but did
not tell him my suspicions about their sanity. I was present during the
doctor’s examination, and noticed the two prisoners were reticent and
said nothing about Baylay. The doctor seemed puzzled. He paid several
visits and was vague when I questioned him. He mentioned neurasthenia,
but when I asked if that meant nervous trouble he shut up and did not
answer. He was obviously alarmed about them. To please them and give the
doctor a chance, the door was kept locked for several days, in spite of
the War Office order to liberate them. Then I _had_ to inform the camp
that they were free, Hill and Jones were terrified and begged me not to
allow any English officers to visit them.
“When visitors came Hill and Jones got very excited. They were rude to
many of their friends. They complained to me that these officers had
been sent by Major Baylay and Colonel Maule to murder them. They
complained that one officer—Captain Colbeck—had asked them to come out,
with the object of killing them, and when they refused to go had
threatened to take them by force.[43] I found out that the truth was
their visitor was alarmed by their altered appearance, and thought it
would do them good to have tea in Baylay’s garden. Hill and Jones
thought they were being enticed out to be killed. They also complained
to me that Baylay had visited them,[44] and had scattered poison about
the room, and had poisoned some bread, which they had to burn in
consequence. When asked why they would not allow the Cook to sweep the
room they said if he did so it would liberate the poison which Baylay
had put in the dust. They next began to distrust the English doctor and
to think he was an emissary of Baylay’s. They pretended to take his
medicine, but confided to me that they dared not do so, and showed me a
bottle of Dover Powder which the doctor had given them, pointing out
that it was labelled ‘POISON.’” (O’Farrell had provided us with
medicines for his “neurasthenia” diagnosis, but had instructed us not to
take them.)
“When Constantinople, in their telegram of April 1st, prohibited Hill
and Jones from writing to England, they began to write extraordinary
letters to high Turkish officials and also to the Sultan. This alarmed
me. I could get no satisfaction from the English doctor. I therefore
asked you gentlemen to tell me the early symptoms of madness”—(This was
true enough. Moïse had done so, acting under instructions from the
Spook)—“and learned enough to make me fairly certain that the English
doctor was concealing the truth. With the Commandant’s consent I then
questioned the English doctor.” (This interview was also ordered by the
Spook, O’Farrell having been previously warned by us.) “He was again
vague, said the two men could be treated and looked after here, and
appeared to be afraid of a Turkish asylum. I reported what O’Farrell had
said to the Commandant, and he decided he must have proper medical
advice, as they are gradually getting more violent.”
Moïse was then to produce the letters we had written to the “high
Turkish officials.” The Spook told us these letters were written by
himself. We pretended, at the time of writing them, that we were “under
control” and quite unconscious of what we were writing. Moïse and the
Commandant, of course, quite believed this.
I give below two specimens of the many letters we wrote. In my letters
the handwriting was very scrawly and hurried, there were frequent
repetitions, and occasionally words were left out. The first is to the
Sultan, the second to Enver Pasha. Hill was supposed to be forced to
write by me.
“To the Light of the World, the Ruler of the Universe, and Protector of
the Poor, the Sword & Breastplate of the True Faith, his most gracious
Majesty Abdul Hamid the of Turkey, Greeting: This is the humble petition
of two of your Majesty’s prisoners of War now at Yozgad in Anatolia. We
humbly ask your most gracious protection. We remain here in danger of
our lives owing to the plots of the camp against us. They are all in
league against us. Baylay is determined to poison us. He tried to drag
us into the garden to murder us. He is in league with all the camp
against us. We cannot eat the food they send because he puts poison in
it. Colonel Maule has said to the Commandant he is going to get rid of
us. Also the doctor who was our friend until Baylay persuaded him to
give us poison instead of medicine. Please protect us. The Commandant is
our friend. When Baylay tried to he said no and put us in a nice house
please give him a high decoration for his kindness we cannot go out
because Baylay will kill us and all the camp hate us who shall in duty
bound ever pray for your gracious Majesty.
“E.H. JONES. C.W. HILL.”
“DEAR MR. ENVER PASHA,
“I don’t suppose your Excellency will know who I am, but Jones says
he knows you. He met you in Mosul. Will you help us? The other prisoners
want to kill us. The ringleader is Major Baylay. He gave a letter to the
Turks and said we wrote it. He thought the Commandant would hang us. But
the Commandant was very kind to us and gave us a house to ourselves and
locked the door so that Baylay could not get at us. We were very happy
until Baylay started poisoning our food. Then we the Commandant said we
could cook our own food and now he leaves the door open and we are in
terror lest Major Baylay comes and kills us he did come one day and
tried to entice us into the garden and he now sends the doctor to give
us poison the doctor pretends it is medicine but we know better. Will
you please write to the Commandant and ask him to lock the door.
“Your obedient servants,
“C.W. HILL. E.H. JONES.”
Such was the case that was laid before the two official Turkish doctors
in Yozgad, Major Osman and Captain Suhbi Fahri, by the principal
officials of the prisoners’ camp on the morning of April 13th, 1918. We
knew nothing of the medical attainments of Major Osman or Captain Suhbi
Fahri, but we calculated that if the officers in charge of a camp of
German prisoners in England made similar statements about two prisoners
to the local English doctors, and told them (as the Turks were told)
that the German doctor in the camp was trying to conceal the true state
of affairs with a view to keeping the two men from the horrors of an
English asylum, it ought to create an atmosphere most favourable to
malingerers. In Yozgad we had the additional advantage that the Turkish
doctors were very jealous of O’Farrell, whose medical skill had created
a great impression amongst the local officials, and were only too
delighted at a chance of proving him wrong. But the outstanding merit of
the scheme was that it avoided implicating O’Farrell. We would face the
Constantinople specialists purely on the recommendation of the Turks,
and O’Farrell’s disagreement with the local doctors would make him
perfectly safe if we were found out. Also O’Farrell’s whole attitude
towards us, his fellow-prisoners, would help us to deceive the
specialists, because it would be a strong argument against the theory
that we were malingering, for it would be natural to suppose that the
English doctor would seek to help rather than hinder us to leave Yozgad.
The Turks are not sufficiently conversant with Poker to recognize a
bluff of the second degree.
The Spook had promised the Commandant to place us under control and make
us seem mad when the doctors visited us. It succeeded to perfection, for
we had left no stone unturned to deceive the Turks.
We were unshaven, unwashed, and looked utterly disreputable. For over
three weeks we had been living on a very short ration of dry bread and
tea. For the last three days we had eaten next to nothing, and by the
13th April we were literally starving. We sat up all night on the 12th,
that our eyes might be dull when the doctors came, and we took heavy
doses of phenacetin at frequent intervals, to slow down our pulses. All
night we kept the windows and doors shut, and the stove red-hot and
roaring, and smoked hard, so that by morning the atmosphere was
indescribable. We scattered filth about the room, which had already
remained a week unswept, and strewed it with slop-pails, empty tins,
torn paper, and clothing. Near the door we upset a bucket of dirty
water; in the centre of the floor was a heap of soiled linen, and close
beside it what looked like the remains of a morning meal. Over all we
sprinkled a precious bottle of Elliman’s Embrocation, adding a new odour
to the awful atmosphere. An hour before the doctors were due, Hill began
smoking strong plug tobacco, which always makes him sick. The Turks,
being Turks, were ninety minutes late. Hill kept puffing valiantly at
his pipe, and by the time they arrived he had the horrible,
greeny-yellow hue that is known to those who go down to the sea in
ships.
It was a lovely spring morning outside. The snow had gone. The
countryside, fresh from the rains, was bathed in sunlight, and a fine
fresh breeze was blowing. We heard Moïse and the doctors coming up our
stairs, laughing and chatting together. Captain Suhbi Fahri, still
talking, opened the door of our room—and stopped in the middle of a
sentence. It takes a pretty vile atmosphere to astonish a Turk, but the
specimen of “fug” we had so laboriously prepared took his breath away.
The two doctors stood at the door and talked in whispers to Moïse.
Hill, with a British warm up to his ears and a balaclava on his tousled
head, sat huddled motionless over the red-hot stove, warming his hands.
On the other side of the stove I wrote furiously, dashing off sheet
after sheet of manuscript and hurling them on to the floor.
Their examination of us was a farce. If their minds were not already
made up before they entered, the state of our room and our appearance
completely satisfied them. Major Osman never left the door. Captain
Suhbi Fahri tiptoed silently round the room, peering into our
scientist-trapping slop-pails and cag-heaps, until he got behind my
chair, when I whirled round on him in a frightened fury, and he
retreated suddenly to the door again. Neither of them sought to
investigate our reflexes—the test we feared most of all—but they
contented themselves with a few questions which were put through Moïse
in whispers, and translated to us by him.
They began with me.
MAJOR OSMAN. “What are you writing?”
SELF (nervously). “It is not finished yet.” The question was repeated
several times; each time I answered in the same words, and immediately
began writing again.
MAJOR OSMAN. “What is it?”
SELF. “A plan.” (Back to my writing. More whispering between the doctors
at the door.)
MAJOR OSMAN. “What plan?”
SELF. “A scheme.”
MAJOR OSMAN. “What scheme?”
SELF. “A scheme to divide up England at the end of the war. A scheme for
the abolition of England! Go away! You are bothering me.”
(More whispering at the door.)
MAJOR OSMAN. “Why do you want to do that?”
SELF. “Because the English hate us.”
MAJOR OSMAN. “Your father is English. Does he hate you?”
SELF. “Yes. He has not written to me for a long time. He puts poison in
my parcels. He is in league with Major Baylay. It is all Major Baylay’s
doing.”
[Illustration:
_Photo by Savony_
“THE MELANCHOLIC”—C.W. HILL]
I grew more and more excited, and burst into a torrent of talk about my
good friend Baylay’s “enmity,” waving my arms and raving furiously. The
two doctors looked on aghast, and I noticed Captain Suhbi Fahri changed
his grip on his silver-headed cane to the thin end. It took them quite a
time to quieten me down again. At last I gathered up my scattered
manuscript and resumed my writing. Hill had never moved or paid the
slightest attention to the pandemonium. They turned to him.
MAJOR OSMAN. “Why are you keeping the room so hot? It is a warm day.”
(Moïse had to call Hill by name and repeat the question several times
before Hill appeared to realize that he was being addressed. Then he
raised a starving, grey-green, woebegone face to his questioners.)
“Cold,” he said, and huddled an inch nearer the stove.
“Why don’t you go out?” asked Major Osman.
“Baylay,” said Hill, without lifting his head.
“Why don’t you sweep the floor?”
“Poison in dust.”
“Why is there poison in the dust?”
“Baylay,” said the monotonous voice again.
“Is there anything you want?” Major Osman asked.
Hill lifted his head once more.
“Please tell the Commandant to lock the door and you go away,” then he
turned his back on his questioners.
The two doctors, followed by Moïse, tiptoed down the stairs. We heard
the outer gate clang, listened carefully to make sure they had gone, and
then let loose the laughter we had bottled up so long. For both the
Turkish doctors had clearly been scared out of their wits by us.
Moïse came back later with our certificates of lunacy. They were
imposing documents, written in a beautiful hand, and each decorated with
two enormous seals. The following is a translation as it was written out
by the Pimple at our request:—
“_HILL._ This officer is in a very calm condition, thinking. His face is
long, not very fat. Breath heavy. He has been seen very thinking. He
gave very short answers. There is no (? life) in his answers. There is a
nervousness in his present condition. He states that his life is in
danger and he wants the door to be locked because a Major is going to
kill him. By his answers and by the fact he is not taking any food, it
seems that he is suffering from melancholia. We beg to report that it is
necessary he be sent to Constantinople for treatment and observation and
a final examination by a specialist.”
“_JONES._ This officer appears to be a furious. Weak constitution. His
hands were shaking and was busy writing when we went to see him. When
asked what he was writing he answered that it was a plan for the
abolition of England because the English were his enemies; even his
father was on their part because he was not sending letters. His life is
in danger. A Major wants to kill him and has put poison in his meat.
That is why he is not eating. He requested nobody may be allowed to come
and the door may be locked. According to the statement of the orderly
and other officers this officer has been over-studying spiritualism. He
says that the doctor was giving him poison instead of medicine.
According to his answers and his present condition he seems to suffer
from a derangement in his brains. We beg to report that it is necessary
to send him to Constantinople for observation and treatment.”
Both reports were signed and sealed by
“Major Osman, Bacteriologist in charge of Infectious Diseases at
Yozgad.”
“Captain Suhbi Fahri, District Doctor in charge of Infectious Diseases
at Yozgad.”
“Your control,” said Moïse to us, “was wonderful—marvellous. Your very
expressions had altered. The doctors said your looks were ‘very bad,
treacherous, _haine_.’ You, Jones, have a fixed delusion—(_idée
fixée_)—and Hill has melancholia, they say. They have ordered that a
sentry be posted to prevent your committing suicide and that you and
your room be thoroughly cleaned, by force if necessary. Do you remember
the doctors’ visit?”
[Illustration:
_Photo by Annan_
“THE FURIOUS.”—E.H. JONES]
Our memories, we said, were utterly blank, and we got the Pimple to
relate what had occurred.
“It was truly a glorious exhibition of the power of our Spook,” the
Pimple ended, “and the Commandant is greatly pleased. I trust you suffer
no ill-effects?”
We were only very tired, and very anxious that the doctors’ suggestions
as to cleaning up should be carried out. Sentries were called in. Our
bedding and possessions were moved to a clean room, and we were led out
into the yard and made to bathe in the horse-trough. Then we slept the
sleep of the successful conspirator till evening.