IN WHICH WE ARE PUT ON PAROLE BY OUR COLONEL, AND GO
TO PRISON
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 home. It was still more delightful to find men on whom we had no manner of claim putting at our disposal money, food, clothing, anything and everything they had, and begging us to indicate any way in which they could be of assistance. Nothing could have been kinder or more unselfish than the attitude of these men, and our pleasantest memory of Yozgad is of the way in which they stood by us in our apparent distress. To us the most charming instance was “Old ’Erb,” who first obeyed the dictates of his kind heart and positively forced on us the loan of a large sum of money (he wanted to make it a gift), and then, like the sportsman he was, had the moral courage to take me aside, lecture me roundly on losing my head and giving Hill away, and advised me (if not for my own sake, then for that of my co-accused), “to curb my tongue and my pride, and knuckle under to the Turk.” I knew that in his heart he thought my conduct towards Hill despicable, and yet he helped us.
But our experiences were not all as pleasant. Hardship and prison life bring out the worst as well as the best that is in a man. Many of us had grown selfish to a degree that can be imagined only by one who has gone through a long period of privation and discomfort in the enforced company of his fellow-men. To hide the fact would be to give a wholly false impression of the moral atmosphere of our camp, which was probably no better and no worse than others in Turkey. We had amongst us some who concentrated first, last, and always on their own comfort. “Hell!” said one such gentleman, on learning that we had been sentenced to an indefinite term of solitary confinement, “we’ll get no more parcels.” And he cursed all spiritualists from Oliver Lodge downwards. Indeed, on the whole, we got from our fellows as many kicks as ha’pence.
On the morning after the trial I was up betimes, packing in preparation for our imprisonment, and impatiently awaiting Hill’s report. I hoped to hear that he had successfully withdrawn his parole not to escape. For this had been the object of the 24 hours’ grace, which, like everything else that had happened at the “little show,” had been granted under instructions from the Spook. We had, of course, seen to it that the Commandant ascribed an entirely erroneous motive to the Spook’s orders. He thought the object of the order was to impress the camp with the belief that he was giving us every possible chance. We knew better. The threat of imprisonment away from the camp should prove an adequate excuse for Hill to withdraw his parole.
Hill arrived about eleven o’clock.
“Have you been on the mat yet?” he asked.
I told him I had not, beyond being abused by some of my pals as a nuisance.
“Well, I have!” said Hill. “I’ve just been had up before Colonel Maule and Colonel Herbert.”
“Did you get quit of your parole?” I asked.