About the middle of August Moïse came again. He was much excited, for he had just been to the War Office, and learned some news through a friend there.
“There has been a big escape from Yozgad,” he told me; “twenty-six officers have run away. Only a few have been caught so far.”
The Kastamouni Incorrigibles!—I thought to myself. I could have shouted with joy.
“I’ve seen the telegrams,” Moïse went on, “and neither Kiazim nor the War Office can make out how they got away. But I know. The Spook did it! This must be the Spook’s attempt to get Kiazim punished, but I fear it cannot succeed.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because the Commandant has much influence at Headquarters, and it will all be hushed up.”
The Pimple did not come back again until well on in September—he could not get away from his training school. In the interval Hill came back from Gumush Suyu and we carried on as usual.
Suddenly, for no reason at all as far as we could see, the whole atmosphere of the hospital seemed to change towards us. Turkish officers among the patients, who had always been friendly, suddenly began to cold-shoulder me. The attendants seemed to be watching us with added care. I was forbidden to go into the garden at all, whether with or without an attendant, and as I had not been detected in an escape[[76]] for some time previously I could not understand it. A Turkish patient in a ward upstairs hung about me for three or four days, pretending to be very friendly towards me, but obviously putting me through my paces. He said he was an Armenian, and informed me I “was very clever but would have to be careful.” I replied, like a good G.P., that I “was the cleverest man in the world.” That evening, by sheer good luck, I saw this man leaving the hospital for a stroll. He was dressed in the uniform of a Turkish doctor! Next day he was back in hospital, dressed as a patient. “Keep it up,” he said to me, “always keep it up.” (He should have followed his own advice, I thought to myself, and not gone for that stroll.) “I want to see you get away and I think you’ll do it. Flatter them—bribe them, if you have the money.”
I stared at him in astonishment, as if I did not understand.