Yet many good fellows forced their way in. Our condition distressed them. We were unshaven and dirty, our faces pale, drawn, and very thin. The fortnight’s starvation had put a wild look into our eyes. But our chief pride and horror was our hair—we had refrained from cutting it for the last two months, and now we did not brush it, so that it stood up round our heads like the quills of the fretful porcupine. To cap everything there was the studied filth of our room.
The best way to get a man to agree to a plan is to make him think it is of his own invention. This was the system we followed with the Turks. After the “explosion” the Turks had (of themselves, they thought) decided we must be moved from Yozgad. The Spook pointed out that two problems remained—how were we to be moved, and where were we to go? These, also, we caused the Turks to solve for us, in the way we wanted.
“I want to see you try the same problems as you are giving me to do,” said the Spook, “because when we all think together, it helps.”
Moïse. “We thought you had a plan ready.”
Spook. “So I have, but I dare not tell it yet because of OOO. I want you all, the Sup. and the Cook too, to invent plans, because your thinking about these will confuse OOO, and so help me by reducing his force. Write down all your plans and bring them to me.”
The Commandant, the Cook, and the Pimple spent all their spare time manufacturing plans. They appealed to Hill and myself to help, but we turned out to be singularly uninventive, and beyond an occasional suggestion (calculated to put them on the right lines) they got nothing out of us. We excused ourselves for our failure by saying that the English are a very practical race and have no imagination. The three Turks thought that however good we might be as mediums, we were hopelessly dull at what Moïse called “intrigue.”
Within 36 hours of the explosion, the Commandant, inspired by Doc. O’Farrell’s fears as to our sanity, produced the following plan. I quote it in full from the Pimple’s notes, and the reader can see for himself how near it came to being what we wanted:
“Écrire à Constantinople déclarant que deux officiers par suite du pouvoir qu’ils out de communiquer par telepathie et ayant abusé de ce pouvoir, sont dans un état mental excessif qui pourrait avoir une influence néfaste sur leur physique ou cerveau. Par conséquence prière de les envoyer à Constantinople afin de les faire examiner par des spécialistes et de découvrir les moyens de les guérir. L’Interprête connaissant toutes ces questions, il serait utile de l’envoyer avec eux soit pour les empêcher de tâcher de communiquer soit pour les surveiller plus efficacement.”
There were several other plans by both Moïse and Kiazim, who were certainly inventive enough. The poor old Cook could only think of one plan—he was an unimaginative person like ourselves. It was to get horses and clap us on them, and gallop gaily across country wherever the Spook might want us to go. The Cook would have done it, and Hill and I would have been only too delighted to do it, but for Kiazim it was much too open and direct. He wanted his own tracks well hidden before he moved, and would not countenance it—at this stage.
We were quite satisfied with Kiazim’s proposal as a basis for our plans. But we pretended to object to it very strongly. We said we were afraid we might be certified mad, and consequently lose our jobs when we returned to England after the war, as well as make our relatives anxious in the meantime. The Pimple asked for the Spook’s opinion on our objection, and the Spook was very angry.