[57]. I think our traps were on the whole more successful than those of the medical men. The most amusing, perhaps, was what we called “the chocolate test.” Chocolate at this time was practically unobtainable in Constantinople. Indeed, anything of that nature was immensely expensive. Now one of the junior doctors, who had a room in the hospital, had a sweet tooth. Hill and I had hoped for this, and had arranged the test before we entered the hospital.
I let it be known in the mad ward that we had a large supply of “stores” in the depot. (We had saved them up from parcels which arrived during our starvation period at Yozgad.) This aroused great enthusiasm amongst the other patients, who suggested they should be brought up. They were fetched by Ibrahim, the good-natured attendant who happened to be on duty at the time. When the case arrived I pretended to change my mind. I refused to allow it to be opened, because for all we knew the stores might be poisoned. A malingering epileptic, to whom I had promised some tea, said the doctor could examine them for us and find out if they contained poison or not. This was what we wanted. One of the junior doctors was then brought in, and pretended to examine the stores. He declared them all fit for human consumption. With my customary lavish generosity (generosity was one of my symptoms), I started handing tins of tea, coffee, sugar, etc., to all the patients, keeping nothing for myself. (A pound of tea in those days cost a thousand piastres—about £9.) The doctor stopped this mad act, took charge of the stores, and said he would issue them to Hill and myself little by little. He took them to his private room upstairs.
A week later, with the freedom of a lunatic, I burst into his room unannounced, and found him with his mouth full of our chocolate. He blushed, said he was “testing our chocolate for poison,” and asked me if I knew how many tins I had. I said I did not know at all. “You have two,” he said, looking relieved. (We really had ten, but he had already eaten eight, I suppose.) “And here they are.” He handed me two tins, assured me they were not poisoned, and told me to give one to Hill. He also gave me a little tea and a tin of condensed milk. That was all we ever saw of the stores. I pretended to forget about them, but used to make incursions into the private room to note the rate at which our junior doctor was getting through them. Hill and I were delighted at the success of our little plot, for we knew that this man at least would be anything but anxious to prove our sanity to his Chief, and as he was more often about the ward than any other doctor, the sacrifice was well worth while.
I purposely do not give his name. In the main he was a good fellow enough, and in the half-starved state of Constantinople the temptation to which he was subjected was very severe, while he was very young. But I hope that, like a good Mohammedan, he thoroughly enjoyed the tins of “Pork and Beans,” and that he suffered no indigestion from the bacon.
Later, when fresh parcels arrived, we tried the same trick with Chouaïe Bey, a new doctor whose attitude towards us we wanted to know. It failed utterly, I am glad to say, not because he suspected us, nor yet because his mouth did not water over the dainties, but because he was an exceedingly fine man in every way. It was only with immense difficulty that I got him to accept a tin of cocoa as a gift, and he insisted on repaying us by sending us delicacies from his private house. He was also the only doctor amongst them all who tried hard to induce me to send a note to my wife and relieve her anxiety by saying I was quite well. (I refused, because my wife knew this already.)
We tricked Chouaïe Bey in another way—I had kept up the old pretence of knowing no French, and had the pleasure of listening with a wooden face while he described our diseases to a friend.
[58]. I learned at Haidar Pasha that Hill’s medical history was never sent to Gumush Suyu, nor did the Gumush Suyu doctors ask for it, although they knew Hill had been two months under Mazhar Osman Bey. Hill’s transfer was made in obedience to an administrative order from the Turkish War Office, without the knowledge or concurrence of our own doctors, who were off duty when the order arrived. I was sent to Gumush Suyu at the same time as Hill, and was subjected to similar treatment. (My temperature on admission was 103° due to influenza.) By dint of making a thorough nuisance of myself to everybody, I succeeded in getting myself sent back to Haidar Pasha after thirty-six hours of Gumush Suyu, but failed to get them to send Hill with me. The reason for sending me back was stated in a note from the head doctor which said that Gumush Suyu hospital had neither the trained staff nor the accommodation necessary for mental cases. It amounts to this: The bold experimenters at Gumush Suyu were quite ready to practise their prentice theories on Hill, who was harmless and passive under their treatment as befitted his malady, but they had no desire to try their tricks on a lunatic who was active and possibly dangerous, like myself. When I pretended to take a violent dislike to one of the doctors, and tried to buy a knife from the sentry, they thought discretion the better part of valour. This was the sole reason why I was a “case for specialists,” while Hill was not.
[59]. Colonel F.E. Baines, I.M.S., the British medical officer who saw Hill at Psamatia, at once put in a strong protest in writing about Hill’s condition and treatment. It stated that Hill was suffering from dysentery and acute melancholia, and that he was dying through neglect, and that he should be sent to England at once. It ended with the threat that if Hill did die, Colonel Baines would hold the Turkish Government responsible for his death, and do his best to bring the responsibility home. The letter was a gallant challenge to the Turks from a man who was himself a prisoner. It was, of course, a perfectly bona fide expression of the Colonel’s professional opinion, and is a worthy example of the fearless way in which our medical men sought to do their duty. That Colonel Baines, too, was deceived is no reflection upon him. Another British doctor, also deceived, characterized Hill’s performance afterwards as “the most wonderful case of malingering he had ever heard of.”
[60]. The Embassy report was sent to my parents by the India Office in their letter M.35342 of October 30th, 1918, and is as follows:
“14th August, Psamatia. We found removed to Psamatia 2nd Lieut. C. W. Hill, R.F.C., mentioned in our first report on Gumush Suyu Hospital. As he is not taking any food and his insanity growing worse every day, we advised to send him back to England instantly together with Lieut. Jones of Haidar Pasha Hospital or to put him under special treatment.”