Moïse was then to produce the letters we had written to the “high Turkish officials.” The Spook told us these letters were written by himself. We pretended, at the time of writing them, that we were “under control” and quite unconscious of what we were writing. Moïse and the Commandant, of course, quite believed this.
I give below two specimens of the many letters we wrote. In my letters the handwriting was very scrawly and hurried, there were frequent repetitions, and occasionally words were left out. The first is to the Sultan, the second to Enver Pasha. Hill was supposed to be forced to write by me.
“To the Light of the World, the Ruler of the Universe, and Protector of the Poor, the Sword & Breastplate of the True Faith, his most gracious Majesty Abdul Hamid the of Turkey, Greeting: This is the humble petition of two of your Majesty’s prisoners of War now at Yozgad in Anatolia. We humbly ask your most gracious protection. We remain here in danger of our lives owing to the plots of the camp against us. They are all in league against us. Baylay is determined to poison us. He tried to drag us into the garden to murder us. He is in league with all the camp against us. We cannot eat the food they send because he puts poison in it. Colonel Maule has said to the Commandant he is going to get rid of us. Also the doctor who was our friend until Baylay persuaded him to give us poison instead of medicine. Please protect us. The Commandant is our friend. When Baylay tried to he said no and put us in a nice house please give him a high decoration for his kindness we cannot go out because Baylay will kill us and all the camp hate us who shall in duty bound ever pray for your gracious Majesty.
“E. H. Jones. C. W. Hill.”
“Dear Mr. Enver Pasha,
“I don’t suppose your Excellency will know who I am, but Jones says he knows you. He met you in Mosul. Will you help us? The other prisoners want to kill us. The ringleader is Major Baylay. He gave a letter to the Turks and said we wrote it. He thought the Commandant would hang us. But the Commandant was very kind to us and gave us a house to ourselves and locked the door so that Baylay could not get at us. We were very happy until Baylay started poisoning our food. Then we the Commandant said we could cook our own food and now he leaves the door open and we are in terror lest Major Baylay comes and kills us he did come one day and tried to entice us into the garden and he now sends the doctor to give us poison the doctor pretends it is medicine but we know better. Will you please write to the Commandant and ask him to lock the door.
“Your obedient servants,
“C. W. Hill. E. H. Jones.”
Such was the case that was laid before the two official Turkish doctors in Yozgad, Major Osman and Captain Suhbi Fahri, by the principal officials of the prisoners’ camp on the morning of April 13th, 1918. We knew nothing of the medical attainments of Major Osman or Captain Suhbi Fahri, but we calculated that if the officers in charge of a camp of German prisoners in England made similar statements about two prisoners to the local English doctors, and told them (as the Turks were told) that the German doctor in the camp was trying to conceal the true state of affairs with a view to keeping the two men from the horrors of an English asylum, it ought to create an atmosphere most favourable to malingerers. In Yozgad we had the additional advantage that the Turkish doctors were very jealous of O’Farrell, whose medical skill had created a great impression amongst the local officials, and were only too delighted at a chance of proving him wrong. But the outstanding merit of the scheme was that it avoided implicating O’Farrell. We would face the Constantinople specialists purely on the recommendation of the Turks, and O’Farrell’s disagreement with the local doctors would make him perfectly safe if we were found out. Also O’Farrell’s whole attitude towards us, his fellow-prisoners, would help us to deceive the specialists, because it would be a strong argument against the theory that we were malingering, for it would be natural to suppose that the English doctor would seek to help rather than hinder us to leave Yozgad. The Turks are not sufficiently conversant with Poker to recognize a bluff of the second degree.
The Spook had promised the Commandant to place us under control and make us seem mad when the doctors visited us. It succeeded to perfection, for we had left no stone unturned to deceive the Turks.