OF THE FIRST DAY IN HAIDAR PASHA HOSPITAL AND THE
PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION BY THE SPECIALISTS
It was long after dark when Moïse returned to the station with the news
that everything had been arranged. We and our baggage were then marched
up the hill to Haidar Pasha hospital, whose main entrance is about half
a mile from the railway terminus. For the last ten days we had been
doping ourselves regularly with phenacetin, and this on top of our
starvation had weakened us so much that we were glad to sit down on the
pavement half way to the hospital and rest. We each took our last four
tablets of phenacetin (20 grains) just before entering the hospital.
The building was in darkness. We were taken to the “receiving room,” or
“depôt,” where Moïse supplied the clerk in charge with such facts about
us as were required for entry in the hospital books, and handed over our
kit and our money, for which he obtained a receipt. It is fair to the
Pimple to record that although he could easily have done so, he made no
attempt to retain for himself any of our belongings. Indeed, throughout
the whole period of our spooking together he was always scrupulously
honest to us in money matters.
During these formalities Hill read his Bible as usual, and I, pretending
to be under the delusion that the hospital was a hotel, repeatedly
demanded that the night-porter should be summoned to show us to our
rooms, and bring us a whisky and soda. The clerk was a humorous fellow.
He explained that as it was war time the hotel had to be very minute in
its registration, but “Boots” would be along in due course. At last, the
“night-porter”—a rascally Greek—appeared and led us to an inner room,
devoid of all furniture, where he made us undress. At the depôt we had
been given a couple of our own loaves to tide us over the next day, for
hospital rations would not be issued to us till next evening. The Greek
appropriated our loaves. He also went through each garment as we took it
off, and helped himself to anything he fancied in the pockets; He was on
the point of taking my wrist-watch when the “_hammam-jee_” (the man in
charge of the bath) arrived with towels for us. The watch remained on my
wrist, and the Greek took away our clothes, presumably to the depôt. I
never saw mine again, nor did I ever get square with the descendant of
Aristides, for soon after he departed to a place where clothes are
unsuited to the climate.
The Commander of the Bath was a washed-out looking Turk. He had a large,
pasty, featureless face, not unlike a slightly mouldy ham in size,
colour, and outline. While we were washing he took charge of the few
small belongings we still retained—our cigarettes and tobacco, my watch,
the first volume of the _History of my Persecution by the English_. He
failed to loosen Hill’s grip on his Bible, and it came into the bathroom
with us. He asked if we had any money, and seemed disappointed when he
found we had none. When we had bathed he brought us our hospital
uniform—a vest, a pair of pants, a weird garment that was neither shirt
nor nightgown but half-way between, and Turkish slippers, and put into
our hands everything he had taken from us. I was surprised at his
honesty, but found later that, like every other subordinate in the
hospital, he had his own method of adding to his income. Even when the
doctors ordered it for us, Hill and I tried in vain to get another bath.
Either there was “no room” or “the water was off” or “the bath had to be
disinfected after itch patients”—there was always one excuse or another
to turn us away until we discovered that a ten-piastre note would
disinfect the bath, turn on the water, and make room for us, all in a
breath.
The “_hammam-jee_” handed us over to an attendant of the
“_Asabi-Qaoush_” (nervous ward). In the room to which we were taken by
this gentleman there were ten beds, four on one side, five on the other,
and one at the end. I was put into No. 10 bed, which was next the door.
Next to me, in No. 9 bed, was a Turkish officer, and on his other side,
in No. 8, they placed Hill. The room was faintly lit by a cheap kerosine
lamp. The corridor outside was in darkness. Both our beds were in full
view of the door.
I covered my head with the blankets, leaving a small peep-hole, through
which I could watch the corridor, and lay waiting. We were determined to
keep awake all night, because O’Farrell had warned us that our greatest
difficulty would be to get the “insane look” into our eyes, and our best
chance was to dull them with lack of sleep. We had expected to face the
doctors immediately on arrival at Haidar Pasha, and had not closed our
eyes the night before. Indeed, our last real sleep had been at Angora on
the 5th May, and it was now the night of the 8th. The beds were
comfortable (it was not yet the bug season), and we were very weary.
There followed for both of us a dreadful struggle against sleep. Time
and again I pulled myself together on the verge of oblivion. I felt I
would give all I possessed, all I hoped for, to be allowed to close my
eyes for ten minutes,—for five,—for one! I began pinching myself, making
the pinches keep time with the snores of a Turk in one of the beds
opposite, but in a little while the noises stopped and I nearly fell
asleep while waiting for the next snore. A rush of feet down the
corridor roused me, and I lay listening to the sound of blows. Then all
was silent again. I did not know at the time what had happened, but I
was to see the same thing happen often enough—it was merely a wandering
lunatic in a neighbouring ward being pounded back to bed by the
attendants. An idea prevails that the mentally deficient are handled
with exceptional gentleness in Mussulman countries. It is erroneous. No
doubt they are believed to be “smitten by Allah,” but followers of the
Prophet are no more patient than other mortals, and if a lunatic “won’t
listen to reason,” orderlies take it out of the poor devil. Before I
left Haidar Pasha I was to see sights and hear sounds that will never, I
fear, leave my memory. The brutalities usually took place at night, and
never when there was a doctor anywhere in the neighbourhood. For the
Turkish doctors at Haidar Pasha were, in the main, humane and educated
gentlemen. There ought to have been a medical man on the spot, night and
day, to prevent the things I saw, and there wasn’t. But that is another
story.
When things quietened down again I noticed through my peep-hole a shadow
flit past in the dark corridor outside, and disappear beside a large
cupboard. The slight scraping of a chair on the cement floor let me know
that someone had taken a seat. We were being watched.
This was excellent. It would help to keep me awake. I wondered if Hill
knew, or if he had succumbed to our enemy—sleep. For perhaps half an
hour I lay watching the cupboard, trying to see into the shadows beside
it. Then I got out of bed and began a dazed wandering round the room, as
Doc. had told me to do, peering suspiciously into corners and under the
table and the beds. I heard the soft pad-pad of stockinged feet behind
me and knew the watcher had come to the door. Pretending to have heard
nothing, I went on with my mysterious search till the circuit of the
room was completed. This brought me face to face with the attendant. He
stooped at my bedside, picked up my slippers and handed them to me.
Apparently I might walk about as much as I pleased. I paid no attention
to him, and got back into bed. The attendant returned to his post beside
the cupboard.
Half an hour later Hill began to pray aloud. It was comforting to know
that he, too, was awake.
Soon, whispering in the dark corridor told me they were changing guard.
I waited for about an hour, then I got up, and by the light of the
miserable lamp began to write up the _History of my Persecution by the
English_. (I always wrote this at night, after the other patients were
asleep.) The new attendant came in and ordered me back to bed. I
pretended not to understand him and went on writing. He took me by the
arm and dragged me from the table. I managed to bump into Hill’s bed as
I was being taken back to my own.
After a decent interval Hill was praying again.
I can remember hearing Hill’s last amen and listening to him bumping his
head (Mohammedan fashion) at the end of the prayer. (He mixed up the
rituals of every creed with a delightful impartiality.) I can remember
pinching myself for what seemed æons, and then plucking at my eyelashes
in an effort to sting myself into wakefulness. I saw the blackness of
the corridor change to a pearly-grey—and after that I knew no more till
I found myself being roughly shaken.
“_Chorba! Chorba!_” the attendant was saying. He had brought my morning
“soup”—a bowl of hot water with a few lentils floating in it.
I sat up with a start. It was seven o’clock, and I had slept nearly two
hours.
I glanced round the ward. Hill was kneeling on his bed, saying his
morning prayers. The man between us was sleeping. In No. 7 bed a
good-looking young fellow was sitting up, watching Hill intently. I was
to come to know this man very well. He was Suleiman Surri, the son of a
Kurdish chieftain and a very gallant soldier. He was perfectly sane, but
his legs were already useless from a disease which entitled him to a
place in the nervous ward and which might, in time, land him in an
asylum. He employed his time in watching us, and was more dangerous than
all the regular attendants put together; for he had an acute and logical
mind, and like all good sportsmen was observant of every detail. This
man reported everything we did to the doctors, and missed nothing. We
bear him no grudge for he was doing his duty as a Turkish officer, and
in his reports he neither exaggerated nor minimized. Indeed, we owe him
a debt of gratitude for many little acts of kindness, not least among
which was his insistence that the other patients should treat our
affliction with the same consideration as they showed to their brother
officers. Suleiman Surri came from Diabekr. He had imbibed no western
“culture,” but he was one of nature’s gentlemen. Courteous, courageous,
and full of a glowing patriotism, he was a man whom any country might be
proud to call her son, and if Turkey has many more like him there is yet
hope for her.
The other patients in the ward were nearly all either mentally deficient
or epileptics. Few stayed more than a week or two. At the end of a short
period of observation they went off to the asylum, or were given into
the charge of relations or, if they were malingering (we saw plenty of
that before we left), they were sent back to duty—and punishment.
About 8 o’clock a young doctor came in. He was dressed in the regulation
white overall, and his duty, as we afterwards discovered, was to make a
preliminary examination and diagnosis for submission to his chief. At
his heels, looking decidedly nervous and uncomfortable, trotted our
Pimple. An attendant took me by the arm and led me to the table, facing
the doctor.
Moïse introduced me: “This is Ihsan Bey.”
“_Chôk eyi_” (very good), I said, and grasping the doctor’s hand I
pumped it up and down in the manner of one greeting an old friend, as
O’Farrell had told me to do. He grinned, and told me to sit down.
“The Doctor Bey has a few questions to ask you,” said Moïse.
“Certainly,” I said. “But first I have something to say to him.” I
launched into a very long and confused story of how I had been deceived
in the dark into believing that the hospital was a hotel, demanded that
the mistake be rectified at once, and that I be taken to the best hotel
in Pera as befitted a friend of Enver Pasha. The Yozgad Commandant, I
said, would be very angry when he knew what Moïse had done, for I was a
person of consequence in Turkey, and was going to see the Sultan. I
would answer no questions until I got to the hotel—and so forth, and so
on.
The doctor explained that this was the usual procedure—everybody who
wanted to see Enver Pasha had to be examined first on certain points. I
then told him to fire away with his questions.
He consulted a bulky file of documents (amongst which I noticed the
report of Kiazim Bey) and began filling up the regulation hospital form.
“Your name,” he said, writing busily, “is Jones, lieutenant of
Artillery.”
“No,” I said, “that’s wrong! If that’s for Enver Pasha it won’t do! My
name _used_ to be Jones, but I’ve changed it. I’m going to be a Turk,—a
Miralai first and then a Pasha.”
“I see,” said Ihsan. “What’s your name now?”
“Hassan _oghlou_ Ahmed Pasha,” said I earnestly.[51]
“Very well, Hassan _oghlou_ Ahmed, what diseases have you had?” said
Ihsan, smiling in spite of himself.
“What the deuce has that to do with Enver Pasha?” I expostulated.
“There’s no infection about _me_, unless I picked up something in your
beastly bath last night.” I began a complaint about the state of the
hospital bathroom, but was interrupted.
“I must know,” Ihsan said.
“Measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough—is that enough?”
“No—I want them all.”
“Malaria, ague, dengue fever, black-water fever, enteric, paratyphoid,
dysentery,” I said.
“Have you ever had syphilis?” the doctor asked. This was the disease he
expected me to name. The examination was proceeding exactly on the lines
O’Farrell had foretold, and I knew what to do. I hung my head and began
picking nervously at the hem of my nightgown-shirt.
“Come,” he went on. “You’ve had it, have you not?”
“I’ve had pneumonia and pleurisy,” I said, picking away more furiously
than ever.
“Never mind about the other things,—I want to know about syphilis.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I want to find out why you are ill.”
“But I’m not ill!—Don’t be silly!”
“You’ve got to tell me,” he said sternly.
I remained silent.
“Enver Pasha is very particular about this question,” Ihsan went on in
an encouraging tone. “Come now.”
“When I was about eighteen,” I began shamefacedly—and stopped.
“Yes! When you were about eighteen?”
“Nothing!” I said, with sudden resolution, “nothing at all! I was very
well when I was eighteen! And what’s more, I think you are very
insulting to ask such a question. I don’t believe Enver Pasha cares two
whoops whether I’ve had syphilis or not. I am sure you have no right to
ask me such a thing! I’ll report you for it!” In my pretended excitement
my straining fingers ripped a large piece out of my nightgown-shirt. (I
was to destroy many more of those elegant garments before we were done
with Haidar Pasha.) The doctor calmed me down.
“There now!” he said soothingly. “You needn’t say it. What treatment did
you undergo?”
“When?”
“When you were eighteen—when you had syphilis, you know.”
“There you go again!” I roared. “I tell you I never had it! You lie and
you lie and you lie! You are in the pay of the English! You all say the
same, and you all lie! It’s a plot, I know it is, and you’re going to
lock me up again, so that I’ll never see the Sultan, and shove needles
into me, and inject things into me like that fool M——[52] did, and keep
me locked up for months and months, all on the excuse that I’ve got
syphilis, and I _haven’t_, I tell you I _haven’t_, I tell you it’s a
lie, and you’ll have to admit it, as M—— had to admit it, and let me go
again as he had to let me go, and then I’ll have you all hanged, every
man jack of you, along with Baylay....”
I raved on and on, bringing in the name of M—— at frequent intervals.
At length Ihsan managed to calm me down again and proceeded with his
questions.
“Say these figures—4, 7, 9, 6, 5, 3.”
“What fool game are you at now?” I asked. “Why should I say them?”
“Because you must!” Ihsan said sharply.
“Why?” I persisted.
“I want to see if you can repeat them after me. I’m testing your memory
for Enver Pasha.”
“All right, say ’em again, and I’ll repeat them.”
In order to give me the same figures the young doctor had to consult his
notes. (He was writing down each question as he asked it.)
“There you are!” I jeered. “You’ve forgotten them yourself!”
He grinned a little sheepishly, and gave me the figures again.
“That’s quite simple,” I said, and repeated them correctly. “Any fool
can do that! Now, talking of figures, there’s funny things about
figures. For instance, take the figure 9, you’ll find everything goes by
nines. Look!—there’s nine panes in that window, there’s nine people on
your side of the room, there’s nine beds in the ward (that one by itself
at the end doesn’t count) and there’s nine Muses, and nine——”
“Never mind about nine,” said Ihsan, “repeat these figures, 8, 4, 3, 7,
5.”
“That’s too easy,” I said. “I’ll tell you what—I’ll multiply those
figures by 25 in my head. Can _you_ do that?”
“Never mind about multiplying them—just say them.”
“You can’t do it,” I jeered, “and I can! The answer is 2109375.”
“Repeat the original figures,” said Ihsan.
“I won’t!” I said. “I’ve multiplied them by 25—2109375—and done it in my
head, and that should be good enough for Enver Pasha or anyone else.
Test my answer if you like!”
Just to humour me he did, and found to his amazement I was correct;
(every English schoolboy knows the trick of adding two noughts and
dividing by four). Before he had time to recover from his surprise I
went on.
“I’m clever enough for anybody! I know all about figures. See here!
Here’s a question for you; supposing the head of a fish weighs nine
_okkas_ and the tail weighs as much as the head and half the body, and
the body weighs as much as the head and tail put together, what is the
weight of the fish? Or would you prefer a puzzle about monkeys? I know
about monkeys too, for I’ve been in India and——”
“Never mind about monkeys and fish,” Ihsan interrupted. “Tell me, do you
ever see visions?”
“Oh yes!” I said. “That’s spiritualism. I’ve got the spook-board
downstairs in the depot.”
Moïse corroborated my statement, and referred the doctor to some
passages in the file, which he read with interest. For some time the two
men talked together in Turkish.
“Tell me about these spirits,” Ihsan said at last.
“No fear!” I replied. “Hill and I were caught out that way in Yozgad.
I’m not going to be imprisoned for telepathy again. Two months on bread
and water is quite enough, thank you!”
I refused to say a word about spirits or visions, knowing that Moïse
would supply the doctors with the information required. He did, and told
all about the telepathy trial.
“Well,” Ihsan went on, “do you ever smell smells that are not there?”
“There are plenty of real smells in Turkey,” I said, “without worrying
about the ones that are not there. Why on earth are you wasting my time
with these asinine questions? Let’s get to the War Office without any
more of this foolery.”
Ihsan laughed, and asked why I wanted to go to the War Office. I leant
forward confidentially and told him I had a plan for finishing the war
in a week, and once I got to Enver Pasha I’d blow England sky high. I
was working at the scheme now, Hill was my engineer and designer—and
very soon everything would be completed. I talked on and on about my new
aeroplane that would carry 10,000 men, and the coming invasion of
England by air.
“Why do you hate the English?” Ihsan asked.
I went into an involved and excited account of my “persecution”—of how
Baylay had tried to poison me, and of how my father, mother and wife
sent me poisoned food in parcels from England. Ihsan had to interrupt me
again.
“Why did you try to commit suicide?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” I said.
“You hanged yourself at Mardeen.”
“That’s a lie!” I roared. “A dirty lie! And I know who told you!”
“Who was it?”
“It was that little swine Moïse,” I said, pointing at the unhappy
Interpreter. “He’s been telling everybody. I expect he’s been bribed by
the English. Yes! That’s it! Baylay must have paid him money to get me
into trouble! He’ll do anything for money. Don’t you believe him! He’s
not a Turk—he’s a dirty Jew, and the biggest liar in Asia. I never
hanged myself!”
Ihsan laughed and Moïse looked uncomfortable. (I must admit it was
unpleasant for him to have to translate these things about himself.)
“Look at him!” I said. “He knows what I am going to say next, and he is
afraid. He stole all our money on the way to Angora. Arrest him for it!
I tell you he is in league with the English. Arrest him and hang him!”
“You are mad, my friend,” said Ihsan. “You are mad. That’s what’s the
matter with you!”
I stared at him, open-mouthed.
“I’m a specialist,” he went on, “and I know. You’re mad!”
“I don’t know whether you are a specialist or not,” I said angrily, “but
I do know you are a most phenomenal liar. I am no more mad than you are.
This is a plot, that’s what it is, and you are all in league against me.
You are jealous of me—that’s what’s the matter—jealous of me. You know
my brain is better a tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousand million
millionfold, than yours, and you are jealous! You know I am rich and
great and powerful and you are jealous. So you say I am mad. How _dare_
you say I am mad without even examining me?”
“I’ve been examining you all along,” said Ihsan, laughing. “Go back to
bed.”
“I won’t!” I said. “I must put this right”—an orderly took me by the arm
but I shook him off. “Look here!” I expostulated, “let me explain! I’m
sorry I said you were jealous—I see it all now. Let me explain. I see it
all now. Let me explain, will you?”
Ihsan Bey signed to the orderly to leave me alone, and I continued.
“I’m not mad. You are puzzled in the same way that M—— was puzzled. You
are making this mistake _because_ you’re a specialist, that’s what it
is. You specialists are all the same. I’m a strong man, strong enough to
fight any six men in this room. I’ve got a heart like a sledgehammer.
I’m sound all through. But if I went to a heart specialist he would find
something wrong with my heart, and if I went to a stomach specialist
_he’d_ find something wrong with my stomach, and if I went to a liver
specialist _he’d_ find something wrong with my liver. You are all the
same, you doctors. Because _you_ happen to be a brain specialist you say
there’s something wrong with my brain. That’s what it is, and you’re a
liar! I’m _not_, NOT mad!”
I began to rave again and was taken off to bed by the orderlies. Ihsan
Bey came and stood beside me. He had a tiny silver-plated hammer, capped
with rubber, in his hand. With this he went over my reflexes, hastily at
first and then more and more carefully. He took a needle and tried the
soles of my feet, the inside of my thighs, and my stomach reflexes. He
paid special attention to my pupils. Then he stood up, scratched his
head, and after gazing at me for a moment rushed out into the corridor
and brought in a second doctor—Talha Bey. Together they read over my
“deposition” and together they went over my reflexes, again. Both men
were obviously well up in their work, and I made no effort to hold back
my knee jerks or other reflexes for I had been warned by O’Farrell that
concealment against a competent doctor was hopeless. So all the
responses had been normal, and Ihsan and Talha, who were both convinced
from my “history” and my answers that I must have had syphilis, were
hopelessly puzzled by the absence of the physical symptoms they expected
to find. They consulted together for some time and then Talha came and
sat down by me.
He was a clever youth, and should get on in the world. He began by
talking about India. A little later he said I appeared to have suffered
much from the climate—dysentery and malaria and so on. I admitted that
was so, and chatted away quite frankly and pleasantly. Then he talked
about microbes and asked if the doctors in India were as clever as the
Constantinople doctors, and knew about combating diseases by injections.
I said they did. He pretended surprise and disbelief—how did I know?—had
they ever given me injections?
I saw what the sly fellow was after, and pretended to walk straight into
his trap. O’Farrell had coached me very thoroughly.
“Oh yes!” I said. “I’ve had plenty of injections! You’ve come to the
right man if you want to know about injections. I had a regular course
of them once.”
“How interesting,” said Talha. “Where did they inject you?”
“In the thigh,” I said. “First one thigh and then the other. A sort of
grey stuff it was.”
“Not more than once, surely!” he said, with pretended surprise.
“Oh yes,” I said. “Every week for about six weeks, and then a spell off,
and then every week for another six weeks, and so on, and then I had to
take pills for two years. I know all about injections, you bet.”
“Dear me!” said Talha, “what a curious treatment! What was that for, I
wonder?”
I managed to look confused, stammered a little, plucked nervously at the
hem of my nightgown, and then brightened up suddenly and said,
“Malaria!—yes, that was it! Malaria!”
Talha smiled and left me. He thought he had got the admission he wanted,
for I had described the treatment for syphilis.