“Good enough,” he said at last, “but why leave the Turks behind? Why not take them with us in the boat? In short, why not kidnap ’em?”
It was my turn to sit silent.
“I believe we two could sandbag three Turks any day,” Hill grinned, “and it would be some stunt to hand over a complete prison camp Staff to the authorities in Cyprus. The giddy old War Office would be quite amused, I do believe, and a laugh would cheer them up. And think of the British public! If the German communiqués are true our folks should be in the dumps just now, with our armies in France being pushed about, and Paris being shelled and all the rest of it. It would do ’em a power of good to see a par. about us in their breakfast newspapers! Think of the heading: ‘Kidnapping of Yozgad Camp Officials’—‘Spoofed by a Spook.’ And think of the joy of Sir Oliver Lodge!”
“There’s another point,” said I. “If they were with us they couldn’t raise the alarm.”
“That settles it, doesn’t it?” Hill asked.
It did. We decided to kidnap as many of the Turks as we could.
On his next visit the Doc. carried away in his pocket a rough skeleton of our two plans (i.) for kidnapping the Commandant, and (ii.) for shamming mad. We asked him to give us his advice, especially about the madness, and also to discuss the plans with three men who had taken risks by sending us messages during our imprisonment, and on whose sound judgment we relied. These were Matthews, Price, and Hickman. We asked them to help us for the kidnapping stunt by procuring us a map of the south coast, morphia (to drug the Turks with) and an adze to use as a weapon should morphia and sandbags fail. We thought we could carry one adze for chopping firewood without causing any suspicion.
In reply we got a letter from Matthews. It was a good letter, and the talk in it was as straight as the writer. He said he thought the madness plan was impossible. But he thoroughly approved of the kidnapping. He did not want to “butt in” at the eleventh hour, after most of the hard work had been done, but if we could do it without upsetting our plans he would be most uncommon glad to be allowed to join our party. Would we take him? He could sail a boat with anyone, with or without a compass, and could do his share in a scrap.
We discussed his letter very carefully. We replied that there was nobody in the camp we would rather take as a companion, and that he would be most useful to us if we could fit him in. Our acceptance of him as a third member of our party was, however, conditional. We warned him that if at any time we found his presence was endangering our escape, we should “throw him overboard” without compunction. And on the ground that we knew more about spooking than he did, we demanded unquestioning obedience. He gave the promise we required with alacrity, and we set to work.
Our first step the reader has seen—we persuaded the Turks that it would be necessary to move us. At the same time we sent Kiazim Bey to the official Turkish doctors in Yozgad with a carefully prepared story of his ill-health. Kiazim was a victim to biliary colic, and we learned privately from Doc. O’Farrell what he ought to say in order to induce the Turkish doctors to believe he might be suffering from stone in the hepatic duct. Under orders from the Spook he said it, and the Turkish doctors gave him their written recommendation for three months’ leave. He was very grateful to the Spook who, in his opinion, had “controlled” the Turkish doctors, and he told us that Constantinople would undoubtedly grant him the leave on the strength of his medical certificate, especially as he could hand over charge to the Changri Commandant, who was coming with the next prisoners.