Even though the bathroom was fairly warm[[79]] (65° to 75° Fahrenheit I should guess), over five hours naked on the marble floor was a pretty severe ordeal for a man who was just getting over a bad bout of dysentery and was too weak to walk without difficulty. At this period Hill was so emaciated that he could not bear to cross one leg over the other in bed for any length of time because his shinbones felt so sharp.

The object of the Turks seems to have been to see if they could force a complaint out of Hill or get him to show any interest in his own treatment or his surroundings. He was led three times past the ward I was in, probably as a test to see if he would recognize it and come to me for help in his misery. But such was the iron resolution of the man that, though ready to drop from weakness, he managed to appear quite heedless of everything except his Bible.

Of this period Hill has told me since that worse than all the physical sufferings which he had to undergo—and they were many—was the mental agony of knowing that, with the exchange in sight, after all our months of hard work, we were under a darker cloud of suspicion than ever; and for no apparent reason except this mysterious “letter from Yozgad.” What that letter was we never knew and do not know to this day. But that such a letter came we have now no doubt. The author was probably Kiazim Bey’s superior officer, and the contents may be guessed from the following story of what happened at Yozgad, which we learned after our release.

The “Big Escape” from Yozgad took place on August 7th, 1918. Kiazim Bey at once retaliated on those who were left behind in the camp by cancelling all privileges of every description. He locked up the prisoners in their respective houses and gardens. A Turkish official, superior in rank to Kiazim Bey, was sent from Angora to investigate the circumstances of the escape. To him the camp complained of their treatment and endeavoured to secure Kiazim’s dismissal by means of a series of charges of peculation, embezzlement of money and parcels, and so on. But Kiazim was a wily Oriental and had covered his tracks well. These charges were hard to prove, and he looked like getting off. As a makeweight there was added proof of Kiazim’s complicity with Hill and myself. One of the three negatives of the treasure-hunt, to procure which Hill and I had taken so much trouble and so many risks, was handed over to Kiazim’s superior.[[80]] The negative showed me standing with my arms raised over the fire in the “incantation,” and round me the carefully posed and clearly recognizable figures of the Pimple, the Cook and Kiazim Bey. Together with this damning photograph the Turkish authorities were given some sort of a summary of our séances. To make assurances doubly sure the investigating official got the negative enlarged. Kiazim was recognized beyond doubt, placed under arrest, and ordered to be tried by court-martial. Thus the camp revenged themselves on Kiazim Bey and won back some of their lost comfort.

This explains the “letter from Yozgad” and our nerve-racking experience towards the end of our stay in Haidar Pasha. It looks to us as if Kiazim’s superior officer reported to the War Office, and the War Office asked the administrative authorities of Haidar Pasha about us. That we still managed to deceive everybody I can explain only on the assumption that the specialists were by this time firmly convinced of our insanity. The opinion of experts like Mazhar Osman, Chouaïe, and Helmi Beys, supported as it was by that of many junior specialists like Ihsan, Talha, Riza, and Shezo-Nafiz, and by the whole Exchange Board of doctors, had already been given in our favour and was not lightly to be set aside. So the administrative authorities appear to have contented themselves with a few experiments “on the quiet” at our expense. At any rate, Hill and I got off with some quite undeserved discomfort and a very bad scare.

The surrender of our “evidence” to the Turks was due to a misunderstanding of our wishes. Colonel Maule explained the matter to me after our release, when I grumbled that the camp had come very near to blowing us up in the mine we had so laboriously laid for Kiazim Bey. The facts were these: When Hill and I left Yozgad we had given instructions to Matthews as to the circumstances under which our “proof” was to be used. Once we had got clear of Turkey, we told him, the camp might make use of it in any way it chose, and we pointed out that it might then prove a useful weapon for all sorts of purposes. But so long as we remained in the grip of the Turks it was not to be used on behalf of the camp except to prevent suffering from our actions, a circumstance which was not likely to occur except in the improbable event of Kiazim seeing through our plan and realizing we had been duping him all along, when we would be “in the soup” even more than the others. The threat of exposure which Matthews would be in a position to make might then save both ourselves and the camp from ill-treatment, and ensure Kiazim’s silence and good behaviour. Never for a moment did we contemplate sacrificing ourselves or our scheme to save our comrades from discomfort caused by the actions of others.

Matthews knew this quite well, and had he remained in Yozgad the photograph and the summary of our papers would never have been given up to the Turks. But unfortunately for us, Matthews was one of the twenty-six who attempted escape, and before he had been recaptured or could interfere on our behalf the damage had been done. Some time before his escape Matthews (with our full permission, of course) had told our story and shown our papers to the new Senior Officer of the camp, who had taken Colonel Maule’s place on the arrival of the Kastamouni party in April. In telling it he had emphasized the fact that the camp had now a grip on Kiazim. Unfortunately for us the new S.O. misunderstood. He got it into his head that it was our wish the evidence should be used in any serious emergency. Himself one of the “Kastamouni Incorrigibles,” with strong anti-parole views, he fostered and aided every reasonable plan of escape, and nothing could have been further from his mind than to put obstacles in our way. He may have thought, as a good many people in Yozgad thought, that we were already safe in England. Be that as it may, it is only just to an officer for whom every prisoner in Turkey had a profound respect to say that in using our evidence he fully believed that he was carrying out our wishes. Indeed, now that it is all over, Hill and I take it as a high compliment that he should have thought us capable of such disinterested action, and much regret the necessity of having to confess that he was quite wrong.

AUTOGRAPH PHOTOGRAPH OF MAZHAR OSMAN BEY (CENTRE, SEATED) AND FIVE OTHER HAIDAR PASHA DOCTORS.
(PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR BY TALHA BEY)

We saw the Pimple only once more. He came to the hospital late in September to enquire of the Spook how much longer his unpleasant military training was likely to continue, when we would proceed with the treasure-hunt, and when he might expect to begin his career as Ruler of the World. He also wanted to know if the Spook really intended us to be sent to England as exchanged prisoners, and, if so, why.