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33 chapters
PREFACE
PREFACE
“The only good that I can see in the demonstration of the truth of ‘spiritualism’ is to furnish an additional argument against suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a ‘medium’ hired at a guinea a séance.”— T.H. Huxley. Professor Huxley was never a prisoner of war in Turkey; otherwise he would have known that “spiritualism,” provided its truth be taken as demonstrated, has endless other uses—even for honest men. Lieutenant Hill and I found several of thes
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
On an afternoon late in February 1917 a Turk mounted on a weary horse arrived in Yozgad. He had come a 120-mile journey through snowbound mountain passes from railhead at Angora, and he carried a belated mail for us prisoners of war. I could not feel grateful to him, for my share was only one postcard. It was from a very dear aunt. But I knew that somewhere in the Turkish Post Office were many more—from my wife, my mother, and my father. So I grumbled at all things Ottoman. I did not know this i
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
I made up my mind to rag for an evening or two more and to face the music, when it came, in the proper spirit. There was a recognized form of punishment at Yozgad for a “rag.” It was a “posh.” [3] In my case, with Doc., Matthews, Price, and of course the Seaman (who always joined in on principle) as my torturers, I expected it would be a super-posh, and trembled accordin’. I had no doubt in my own mind that discovery would come very soon. When evening came round, there were Alec, Doc., and Price
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
There was an empty room that formed part of the passage-way between the two portions of the Upper House. It was insanitary, draughty, and cheerless. It had an uneven brick floor of Arctic coldness. The view from the broken-paned, closely-barred window was restricted to a blank wall and a few ruined houses. Here, in the early days before the Turk increased our accommodation, five unhappy officers of the Worcester Yeomanry had learned the full bitterness of captivity. They were not very big men, b
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Those who still remained sceptical were completely puzzled. Our success was due, of course, to the cause which makes all spooking mysterious—inaccurate and incomplete observation. In the first place, Alec Matthews had been guilty of a bad slip. He was certain that he had kept the board in his possession and that the mediums could not have seen it. He forgot he had come into Gatherer’s room before the séance, to ask some question about a hockey match, and had carried the new board in his hand. I
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
“‘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 de
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Rome was not built in a day, and I had my little sea of troubles to navigate before reaching the safe harbour of the Witch’s Den. My new-born hope of capturing Kiazim was barely a fortnight old when the spooking in our house came to a sudden end. On the 23rd of May a party of 28 rank and file arrived at Yozgad, to act as additional orderlies to the officers in our camp. A travel-worn, starved, and fever-stricken little band were these “honoured guests of Turkey”: they had been driven, much as st
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
The camp as a whole had enjoyed the treasure-hunt. Mundey and I were congratulated on having pulled off a good practical joke against the Turk. On the other hand, there were a few who disapproved of what we had done. They held that discovery of the fraud would anger the Turk, not only against the perpetrators, but against the whole camp. Our success, however, deprived their criticism of any force, and they confined themselves to a warning that it was foolish to run such risks without an object.
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
Hill and I met daily in odd corners, to discuss our plans. The first step was obviously to get Hill adopted as my fellow medium. It would have been simple enough had Hill taken any prominent part in our séances, but all his work had been behind the scenes. He had been responsible for the manifestations, which was a task of an extremely private nature, so the Pimple had no acquaintance with him as a spookist. His sudden appearance as a medium might give rise to suspicion. Fortunately there was a
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
The Thought-Reading Exhibition had aroused great interest. A number of our fellow prisoners wanted Hill to give them lessons, but most of them fought shy of the three days’ starvation which was the necessary preliminary. A few—amongst them some of our best friends in camp—offered to undergo the fast, and Hill had all his work cut out to persuade them not to. He finally resorted to the plea that he could not undertake more than one pupil at a time. The exhibition had one good result. Hearing Hill
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
There followed a delightfully busy fortnight for Hill and myself. We made a minute study of a large book on mental diseases, purloined from the Doctor’s library, and improved our minds with other medical lore anent an illness to which the Commandant was subject. Under a specious plea we borrowed from Spink an Armenian-French dictionary—a treasured possession which he kept hidden under a movable plank in the floor of his room. Spink was an industrious and painstaking youth. With a view to a possi
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
The news of our impending imprisonment and its cause roused the camp out of its usual lethargy, and provided us with interesting sidelights into the character of our fellow-prisoners. That our more intimate friends should press forward with offers of help did not surprise us. It was what might be expected of them. Nor were we astonished when true believers, like Mundey, stated their readiness in the interests of science to incur any risk to get us out of our predicament or to send news of it hom
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
Our new prison was one of the best built houses in Yozgad, empty of all furniture, it is true (except the chair and table we had each brought with us), but large, airy, and comparatively clean. From the front windows we had a view of the Commandant’s office and the main street. From the side we looked into “Posh Castle,” where now lived our friends Doc., Price and Matthews; and at the back there was a tiny cobbled yard, with high walls round it, and a large stone horse-trough, which we promptly
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
We started our sojourn in the Colonels’ House with a great many irons in the fire. As an essential preliminary to our main plan we had the photograph to take, and in case any of the hundred and one possible accidents happened to the films, we must provide subsidiary evidence of Kiazim’s complicity. The main plan was, of course, to escape from Turkey. Our first aim was to persuade the Turks to convey us east, southeast, or south (the exact direction and distance would depend upon their convenienc
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
After we had been a week in solitary confinement the Spook decided we were sufficiently “in tune” to begin the treasure-hunt. The Commandant, now that his fears of the consequences from the telepathy trial were at rest, had begun to show a little impatience. It was time to throw him a sop. Besides, we had now reconnoitred the ground, and had gained a good idea of the character of the man with whom we had to deal. We were ready for the next fence. To the Turks the important part of the séances th
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
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
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Our next séance, held on the 24th March, purported to be an explanation of and an introduction to that special species of trance talk which appeals to all superstitious minds—the reading of the future. The real lesson which we wished the Turk unconsciously to assimilate was the fact that a “ray” exists—called by the Spook the “telechronistic ray”—which preserves both the past and the future in the present for anyone who can get into touch with it, and that Jones and Hill were developing the powe
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
For the past fortnight Hill and I had known that a number of new prisoners were coming to Yozgad—44 officers and 25 men. These were the “Kastamouni Incorrigibles.” After the escape by Keeling, Tipton, Sweet, and Bishop from Kastamouni in 1917, their comrades of Kastamouni Camp had been badly “strafed.” The whole camp was moved to Changri, where it was housed in the vilest conditions imaginable. [34] In despair a number of officers gave the Turks their parole not to escape, in order to get reason
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
We had long since decided that the most appropriate date for finding the second (and last) of the two clues we had made, would be the First of April. Hill had buried it, he told me, some four miles away on the bank of a gully beyond the Pinewoods, known to the camp as “Bones’s Nullah.” The photographs being already taken, we had no troubles to contend with, or fears of discovery to disturb us, and we set out next day in true April-fooling spirit. As we walked through the town in our black cloaks
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
On the First of April the Pimple had let slip a morsel of valuable information. He told us that the Changri prisoners were coming to Yozgad in charge of their own Commandant and Interpreter . “That solves one difficulty,” I said to Hill, after the Pimple had gone away. “How?” “For the escape stunt. If we persuade them to send us to the coast all three will want to come with us, because they don’t trust each other. But if they can leave the Changri Commandant and Interpreter in charge of this cam
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
The idea of the immense wealth that awaited them at the coast filled the minds of the Turks to the exclusion of everything else. The original treasure—a mere £18,000—became insignificant and paltry; and, compared with the Four Cardinal Point Receiver, the methods of discovering it were cumbersome and uncertain. The Cook, especially, was in flames to start at once, and had he been our Commandant the next day would have seen us galloping for the coast. For the Cook was a very thorough sort of rasc
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
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 t
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
I woke at sunset to find Doc. O’Farrell bending over me. “Doctors been here?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. I nodded. “And what’s the result?” “Did you see the sentry at the door?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you’re found out,” Doc. moaned, “or I’ll never forgive myself.” “All right, Doc. dear! The sentry’s there to prevent us committing suicide!” Doc. stared a moment, and then doubled up with laughter that had to be silent because of the Turk outside. “Like to see the medical reports?” I asked, han
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
The telegram from Kemal Pasha, ordering us to be sent to Constantinople, arrived on the 16th April. The prisoners from Changri, bringing with them the Interpreter who was to take the place of the Pimple, reached Yozgad on the 24th. Hill and I left for Angora on the 26th. The Spook explained that though we would probably read AAA’s thoughts and discover the position of the third clue as soon as we got to Constantinople, it was essential for our safety that the Constantinople specialists should, f
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
Next morning the hotel-keeper came in early to survey the damage. His suspicions about our insanity had been partially set at rest by Moïse, who had shown him copies of the Yozgad doctors’ certificates of lunacy, but he still had his doubts and was out to get what compensation he could. He produced his broken clasp-knife and demanded another in its place. “Why should we give you another?” I said, “it has nothing to do with us.” “I broke it in cutting your companion down,” he said indignantly, po
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
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 tablet
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
Hill’s examination followed. It was much shorter, for Hill’s conduct was in every way the antithesis of mine. He answered each question with a gloomy brevity, and never spoke unless spoken to. The questions asked were much the same as those put later to him by Mazhar Osman Bey in the interview which I quote below, but at this preliminary examination Hill denied the hanging. I could not hear what was said, for they spoke in low tones; in the middle of it I saw Ihsan grab Hill’s wrist, but the phe
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
Hill and I braced ourselves for the six weeks of acting that lay between us and July. We were under no delusions as to the cause of our success so far. Our acting had no doubt been good, but we knew quite well that by itself it would have availed us little. The decision of the doctors had been based on our “medical history,” as edited by the Spook and presented to them in the reports of the Commandant, the Pimple, the sentries Bekir and Sabit, and the two Turkish doctors of Yozgad. We have no de
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CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXX
As has already been told, the War Office promised Moïse his commission as soon as we reached Constantinople. He asked for, and obtained, a month’s leave in order to return to Yozgad, nominally to collect his kit and settle his affairs there, really to find the treasure. He said good-bye to us about the middle of May. I did not see him again until July. Hill was then doing his month’s “penal servitude” at Gumush Suyu, and I was alone at Haidar Pasha. Moïse took me out into the garden, where I was
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POSTSCRIPT
POSTSCRIPT
I have been asked to add what has become of our three converts to spiritualism—the Pimple, the Cook and Kiazim Bey. All I know is contained in three letters from Moïse—so far unanswered. Their chief interest lies, not so much in the news they contain, as the attitude of mind they reveal. It is an attitude common to many Spiritualists—a refusal to look facts in the face. Until I read them I never could understand how Sir Oliver Lodge and others like him could go on believing in mediums, such as E
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APPENDIX I
APPENDIX I
( Note. —The rank given above is that held by the officer at the time of his capture by the Turks. The list does not include the officers from Kastamouni camp who arrived in Yozgad the day before the departure of Lieut. Hill and myself for Constantinople.—E.H.J.)...
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APPENDIX II
APPENDIX II
What happened in this test is a little difficult to follow without an illustration. Consider the Ouija illustrated on p. 5 as the one with which I was familiar up to the time of the test. Matthews made his secret rearrangement of the letters by interchanging T and W, B and M, D and V. The order of the letters on his “original,” “duplicate” and “triplicate” therefore was as follows: Owing to my not having noticed that D and V had been interchanged, the order of the letters as I saw them in my min
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APPENDIX III
APPENDIX III
I give below enough of the Telepathy Code used by Hill and myself to show the system on which we worked. The portion here given is about one-sixth of the whole code. In order to indicate any article to me Hill asked the question in the horizontal column in which the article appeared, and added the word or words at the head of the perpendicular column. Thus:— “ Tell me what this is,” meant a pipe. “ Can you tell us what this article is?” meant a photograph. “ Yes , what’s this one ?” meant a stra
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