The report of the bacteriologist, of course, stated everything was healthy and normal. I danced with simulated joy, jeered at Ihsan and Talha, called loudly, day after day, for my hundred pounds and demanded to be sent forthwith to Enver Pasha. Ihsan and Talha went through another head-scratching competition. I have never seen two men more interested or more fogged. Meantime Hill was being left sedulously alone—a treatment quite as trying to the nerves of the malingerer as what I had been through. He knew quite well that though no one went near him he was under observation every minute of the twenty-four hours.
On the 13th May, five days after our admission into hospital, they held a Board on our cases. I was examined on much the same lines as on the first occasion, except that they pestered me a good deal more about the hanging, which I continued to deny. They also questioned me about Hill. There was in our kit (it was put there purposely for them to find) the following cutting from the Constantinople paper Hilal of June 1st, 1916:
“Un aviateur Anglais à Damas.
“Le journal ‘El Chark’ de Damas écrit: L’aviateur Australien Hol faisant son service dans l’armée anglais, a pris son vol de Kantara près du Canal, et a survolé le désert pour faire des reconnaissances. Une panne survenue en cours de route l’obligea à atterir.
“Quelques habitants du désert out accouru sur les lieux pour le capturer, mais il opposa une résistance acharnée qui a duré six heures. Finalement il a dû se rendre. Cet aviateur a été amené à Damas.”
From the fact that Mazhar Osman Bey began to question me about Hill’s capture I gathered they had found the cutting, and that their interest had been roused, as we hoped would be the case. I replied that all I knew about it was that the Arabs had knocked him on the head so that he became unconscious. (This was quite untrue, as the Arabs did Hill no injury, but O’Farrell had said that a bump on the head would be a good “point” in Hill’s medical history. It certainly created an impression on the doctors, for there was a good deal of whispering after I mentioned it.) Mazhar Osman Bey then asked what I thought of Hill—and I think he hoped I would say he was mad. I replied he was my engineer and was designing me an aeroplane to carry 10,000 men, and I would make 3,000 such aeroplanes and would invade England with 30,000,000 men, etc., etc., etc. I was interrupted and told to go, and after another appeal to be sent to Enver Pasha and to be made a Turkish officer on the grounds that my blood test, etc., had proved me sane, I went.
Hill was then called in. The following is his description of what occurred:
“After about ten minutes Jones came out and I was led in. It was a small room, and choc-à-bloc with doctors of all sizes. There was a stool in front of the head doctor (Mazhar Osman Bey) on which I was invited to sit down. He spoke to me through the Interpreter, who stood beside me.
THE MAD MACHINE FOR UPROOTING ENGLAND