OF OUR MAD JOURNEY TO MARDEEN
Ever since Major Osman and Captain Suhbi Fahri had certified us insane
we had feigned madness whenever any Turk was near, and in the presence
of some of the visitors from the camp. We had found no great difficulty
in maintaining our rôles as occasion arose, and indeed it was rather
amusing to be able to heave a brazier of charcoal at a sentry, or try to
steal his rifle, without fear of punishment. For the strain of acting
was only temporary. We contrived to give the special sentry who was
detailed to prevent us doing harm to ourselves or others such a very hot
time that he preferred to do his tour of duty outside our room. So for
most of the hours of the twenty-four we were alone, and could be
rational. But we realized that from the moment we left our sanctuary and
started on our journey to Constantinople, our simulation must be kept up
night and day. As soon as we reached Haidar Pasha our escort would
probably be questioned about our behaviour _en route_, and it was well
they should corroborate the Pimple’s report of our actions. We agreed
there must be no half measures. Alone or together, in sickness or
health, to friend and foe, at all times and under all circumstances we
must appear mad. O’Farrell warned us that the strain would be terrible,
but not even he, doctor as he was, guessed half what it really meant.
Nothing but the hope of liberty justified the attempt, and there were
times in Constantinople when we doubted if liberty itself (which in
those days was our idea of Heaven) was worth it. Pretend to be what you
are not and the desire to be what you are grows in intensity until it
becomes an agony of the mind. Your very soul cries out to you to be
natural, to be your own “self” if only for five minutes. Then comes a
stage of fear when you wonder if you are not what you seem—if you can
ever be yourself again—if this creature that weeps mournfully when it
should be gay, or gabbles wildly about its own grandeur, is not the real
Hill, the real Jones. You _believe_ you are all right, but you want to
_try_ so as to be sure—and yet trial is impossible; it would spoil
everything. For a brief period in Haidar Pasha hospital a former patient
came back and wanted the bed Hill happened to be in, so Hill was put in
the bed next mine. It seems a little thing, that we should lie there
three feet apart instead of ten, but it meant much. That was, for us,
the easiest period of our long misery. We did not attempt to talk—we
were too closely watched for that—but at night, under cover of darkness,
sometimes he and sometimes I would stretch out an arm, and for a brief
moment grip the other’s hand. The firm strong pressure of my comrade’s
fingers used to put everything right. It was the one sane action in our
insane day.
A merciful Providence has decreed that the present must suffice, and the
future shall be hidden from man; so though at Yozgad we guessed a little
of the horror to come, it did not unduly oppress us. When at 10 a.m. on
April 26th, the two best carts and the four best horses in the Changri
transport were brought to our door, we made merry with Moïse about this
theft from the Afion party. Then we went out into the street. In a mad
sort of way I superintended the loading of our belongings on to the
carts, getting into everybody’s way and flustering still further the
already flustered Turks. (_Why_ do Orientals always seem to lose their
heads when starting on a journey?) Hill stood by, perfectly heedless of
the tumult that was going on round him, reading his Bible and looking
miserable. Behind the barred and latticed windows of the Colonels’ House
we could hear the Changri prisoners chuckling at our antics, and a voice
hailed us from Posh Castle. We did not look up—our farewells had already
been said. By way of giving our escort an example of how to humour us,
Kiazim Bey came to the door of his office and told us in Turkish that he
was our very good friend, that he was sending us to Constantinople for a
holiday, and that the soldiers who accompanied us were there to guard us
against the enmity of Baylay and our other English foes. (All this, of
course, by order of the Spook.) I bade him a florid and affectionate
farewell and mounted the cart. Hill went on reading the Bible and had to
be pushed up beside me. The driver struck the horses with his whip. I
cheered, and my imitative mania asserting itself, I struck the driver
with my fly-flap. This caused a delay. The driver pulled up,
expostulating in angry Turkish, and my fly-flap was taken away from me
by Mulazim Hassan, who had turned up to see the last of us. By this time
there was a biggish crowd in the street. We started again. I hugged the
driver, got up another cheer, and began distributing bank-notes among
the onlookers. Moïse, who had been warned by the Spook what to do if I
was controlled into wasting my money, jumped off his cart and collected
them back again. He had hard work explaining to the ragged mob that I
was mad and they must not keep the money, but his fear of the wrath of
the Spook if he failed lent a new boldness to his speech and authority
to his manner. Still, it was not difficult to see he was far from happy
when forcing them to disgorge, and that his nervousness increased
proportionately with the size and burliness of his victim.[47]
Thus, in the two best carts obtainable, with Moïse and two selected
gamekeepers in charge of us, and the blessings of the Commandant on our
heads, we started forth to face the world as lunatics, and to read the
thoughts of the holder of the third clue in Constantinople. It was good
fun, getting out into the open after nearly two years of dismal prison
life, and I was not a little sorry for Hill. As a religious melancholic
he must do nothing but weep or pray or read his Bible, while his heart,
if it was anything like mine, was thumping with joy at being quit of
Yozgad and moving westwards towards Europe, England, and Liberty! The
time was to come when, with hope near dead within me and the stress of
an enforced cheerful idiocy weighing me down, I would long to change
places with Hill so that I might pray a little, aye—and weep too! But
for this one day I was in luck. The Turks put down my happiness to the
fact that I was leaving behind the English who were so intent on
murdering me, and going to Stamboul to see the Sultan, and Enver Pasha,
and become a great man in the Turkish Government. So it was quite in
keeping with my type of insanity to be light-hearted, and to let off my
high spirits in any old act of lunacy that came up my back; to set the
carts racing against one another, to howl Turkish songs in imitation of
the drivers, to shout mad greetings and make faces and throw money (to
the annoyance of the Pimple) at the amazed passers-by. And from my own
private point of view there was some excuse for high spirits—were we not
the first two to get out of Yozgad on our own initiative, and were we
not being taken on a personally conducted tour at the expense of the
Turkish Government, which, if all went well, would end in old England?
So I laughed, and shouted, and sang, and was exceeding cheerful, to the
great joy of the escort and the drivers, who much preferred this phase
of my lunacy to my “dangerous” moods. All the time Hill sat mournfully
huddled up, as became a melancholic, but once, when he glanced at me, I
noticed his eyes were sparkling. He told me afterwards it must have been
a sparkle of anticipation—he was planning his first dinner at Home!
The first three days of our journey were very happy. In my rôle of
“cheerful idiot” I rapidly got on good terms with Bekir and Sabit, the
two sentries, and with the drivers of our carts. Beyond insisting on
praying before he would do anything they wanted him to do, Hill gave
them no trouble at all. So our escort thought they had got a “cushy”
job, and a paying one, as an occasional five-piastre note, which escaped
the notice of Moïse, came their way. They told Moïse it was a shame to
send such a couple of innocents to the _“Tobtashay,”_ and they’d like to
look after us till the end of the war. They were soon to change their
tune.
Doc. O’Farrell’s hint that a “suicide” would complete the downfall of
the Constantinople doctors had not been lost upon us. We had decided to
hang ourselves on the way to Angora, and to arrange to be rescued by the
Pimple in the nick of time. We told the Doc. of our intention. “If ye do
it,” he said with enthusiasm, “there’s not a doctor in Christendom, let
alone Turkey, will believe you’re sane!” Then caution supervened, and he
tried to dissuade us. He told us uncomfortable details about the anatomy
of the neck and the spinal column. He said that theoretically the idea
was sound, but practically it was impossible, because it was too
dangerous. A fraction of a minute might make all the difference and
convert our sham suicide into the genuine article. “One of ye do it,” he
suggested, “then the other can be at hand to cut him down if the Turks
don’t come.” We objected that, besides being suspicious, this would give
one of us an unfair advantage over the other in the eyes of the
specialists, and we were determined to do the thing thoroughly and share
all risks equally. The Doc. made one last despairing effort.
“Suppose you pull it off and deceive the Turks into thinking it was a
genuine attempt,” he said, “what do you think will happen?”
“We’ll be sent home—to England.”
“Aye—you’ll be sent home all right. An’ what do you think your address
will be?” He leant forward and tapped my shoulder impressively with a
crooked forefinger. “Until I get back to let you out it’s Colney Hatch
you’ll be in, and divil a glimpse will ye get of Piccadilly or the
French Front or whatever it is ye’re hankering after. Remember, I can’t
write and explain—the Turks would hang _me_ if I tried.”
“Once we are in England we can explain matters ourselves,” I laughed.
“An’ who will believe you, with your spooks and your buried treasure and
all the rest of it? I tell you, you can explain till you’re blue in the
face, but it is mad they’ll label you, and mad you will remain till I
get back!”
We said we’d risk that, and Doc. gave up argument and threw himself
enthusiastically into the task of helping us to deceive his professional
brethren, showing us how to fix the knot with the least danger to
ourselves, and telling us how to behave when we came to (if we ever came
to), and what to say when we were questioned about the hanging. Matthews
got us some suitable rope. We used it, for the time being, to tie up our
roll of bedding, and very innocent it looked as we rode along towards
Angora. Thus openly did the Pied Piper carry his flute.
“... Smiling the while a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
Within his quiet pipe the while.”
Our rope would open for us a path through the mountains of captivity,
and we too had our Mayor and Corporation—Kiazim and our escort—to leave
gaping behind.
On the second day out from Yozgad the Spook began to prepare Moïse for
the “suicide.” It was, of course, out of the question to use the
spook-board, or to hold regular séances, because privacy was impossible,
and we did not wish the sentries to see Moïse in his rôle of “sitter,”
lest they report the fact to the Constantinople authorities. The Spook
had therefore announced at one of our last séances in Yozgad that we
were now so well in tune, and so amenable to “control” that the use of
the board could be dispensed with (though we were to take it with us),
and after leaving Yozgad messages would be delivered through either Hill
or myself, as Moïse desired. Moïse suggested that the messages should be
delivered through me, and asked for some sign by which he might know
“whether it is Jones himself who is talking or whether it is the Control
speaking through his voice.” The Spook said that the sign of my being
under control would be that I would start twisting my coat-button.
Whatever was said while I twisted the button emanated from the Spook,
and not from myself, and neither Hill nor I would be conscious of it or
remember anything about it. The Pimple was overjoyed at this advance to
more speedy means of communication; for the glass and board method had
been painfully slow, a séance taking anything up to six hours. The great
merit of the Ouija or of table-rapping, from the mediums’ point of view,
lies in this very fact of slowness, for spelling out an answer letter by
letter gives us psychics plenty of time to think. When an inconvenient
question is asked, an unintelligible reply can easily be given, and
while the sitter is trying to puzzle out what it means the mediums can
consider what the final reply is to be. But when the Spook uses the
medium’s voice question and answer follow one another with the rapidity
of ordinary conversation, and there is less opportunity for
deliberation. Because of this danger we had never trusted ourselves to
use the “direct speech” method in Yozgad.[48] But on the road to
Constantinople we used it freely, for we knew exactly what we wanted,
and were quite sure of our man.
Early in the morning on the second day, the drivers asked us to lighten
the load by walking. The Pimple, Hill, myself and the two sentries took
a short cut up the hillside, while the carts followed the winding road.
The Pimple began giving us a lesson in French, for the Spook had told
him to teach us some French words and a few simple phrases in order to
enable us to ask for things in hospital. Ever since Constantinople had
been fixed upon as our destination Moïse had spent an hour a day in
giving us a French or Turkish lesson. He was an excellent teacher, but
he found us rather slow pupils.
“Your Turkish,” he said to me as we walked together up the hill, “is
much better than your French. Now—say the present tense—_je suis_.”
“_Je suis, tu as, il a_——”
“No, no, no,” said the Pimple, “you mix with _avoir_! Perhaps I have
tried to make you go too fast. Do you remember the numerals?”
I got as far as “_douze_” and stuck.
“You, Hill?”
Hill struggled on to twenty in an atrocious accent.
“You should have learned all this at school,” said the Pimple
reprovingly; “you British are always deficient in foreign languages, but
even so most of you know the French rudiments.”
“I was trained for India,” I said apologetically. “Eastern languages,
you know. Perhaps that is why I find Turkish easier.”
“You are lazy and forgetful, both in French and Turkish.” He began to
lecture us for forgetting our lesson of the day before. “Try _je suis_
again and see if you can——” Suddenly his voice broke.
“Sir,” he said, excitedly, fixing his eyes on my fingers. I was twisting
my coat-button.
The Spook began to speak through me, and Moïse was at once all ears. The
change in his attitude was extraordinary. A moment before he had been a
hectoring schoolmaster abusing his pupils, a Turkish conqueror in charge
of his two prisoners, secure in his superior knowledge and in his
official position. Now he was the disciple, humble, deprecating, almost
cringing.
The Spook reminded him that both Hill and I were now in a trance and
knew nothing of what was being said. Moïse was to keep it secret, lest
we got frightened. For in order to justify, in the eyes of the
authorities, the diagnosis and fears of the Yozgad doctors, we were to
be controlled into hanging ourselves.
“Oh _mon Dieu_!” said the Pimple. He was genuinely shocked.
“_Tais-toi!_“ said the Spook angrily. ”_Il ne faut jamais dire ce mot
là’._” It began abusing him in French for his carelessness. The Pimple
made a most abject apology in the same language, which the Spook was
graciously pleased to accept. It then went on in English to describe the
Pimple’s part in the coming suicide, and to impress upon him the
importance of carrying out his orders exactly, for on that alone the
lives of the mediums would depend.
The hanging, the Spook explained, would take place at night, at Mardeen,
which was a little country town some sixty miles from Yozgad. The signal
that the hanging had begun would be the extinguishing of the candle in
the mediums’ room. As soon as he saw the room was in darkness, Moïse was
to call out and ask why the light was put out. He would get no answer
and would enter the room to see what was the matter. He would find Hill
and Jones hanging by the neck, close together, and must at once do his
best to lift them up so as to take some of their weight off the rope,
and shout at the top of his voice for assistance, holding them thus till
help arrived and they could be cut down. Any carelessness on his part
would mean the death of the mediums and loss of the treasure, but beyond
being careful to carry out his instructions he need have no other
worries, for the mediums would feel no pain and would be quite
unconscious of what they were doing.
The Spook made Moïse repeat his instructions, over and over again, until
there was no doubt that he knew exactly what to do. Then I gave a sigh,
let go of the button, and turned my eyes, which had been fixed steadily
on the horizon, and said:
“All right, I think I can remember it now! _Je suis, tu es, il est, nous
sommes, vous êtes, ils ont._”
Moïse stared at me open-mouthed. He was a little shaken.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s right, except the third plural. But do you know
you’ve been in a trance?”
“Has he?” said Hill. “I never noticed.”
“And in your trance,” Moïse went on, “you spoke French—well, fluently,
with _argot_ in it!”
“You don’t say so! What did I say?”
“You abused me for saying ‘_mon Dieu!_’”
“Nothing else?”
“No,” Moïse lied. “Nothing else. But surely that is wonderful enough?
Oliver Lodge says it is practically unknown for mediums to speak in a
tongue they don’t know. You’ve beaten Lodge.”
“But you’ve been teaching us French,” I expostulated.
“Pah!” said the Pimple, “you used words you never heard in your life!”
Perhaps! But then, the Pimple did not know as much about me as he
thought. My training for India had not been entirely confined to Eastern
languages. I have pleasant recollections of summers spent in a French
school and a French ’Varsity.