Be that as it may, ours at Yozgad was a comparatively healthy spiritualism, conducted by a collection of spooks who did not encourage snivelling sentimentalism, even under the guise of scientific investigation. With the exception of a monotonous melancholic, who butted in at regular intervals to inform us plaintively that he was “buried alive,” the spooks were a decidedly jovial lot. They kept us in touch with the outside world. We walked with them down Piccadilly, dined with them in the Troc., and tried to hear with them the music of the band. We conversed with Shackleton on his South Polar expedition, with men in the trenches in France, and with ships on the wide seas. From Cabinet Meetings to the good-night chat between “Beth Greig” and her girl friend, nothing was hidden from us. There was no place to which we could not go, nothing we could not see with the Spook’s eyes, or hear with his ears. A successful night at the spook-board was the nearest we could get, outside our dreams, to a breath of freedom. We forgot our captivity, our wretchedness, our anxieties, and lived joyously in the fourth dimension. And it was better than novels—streets ahead of novels—for it might be true.
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO THE PIMPLE
“‘Pimple’ wants to see you, Bones,” said Freeland, one afternoon in April.
“What on earth does he want with me?” I asked. I had never yet had any truck with the five-foot-nothing of impertinence that called itself the Camp Interpreter.
“Don’t know, I’m sure. He’s waiting for you in the lane.”
I went down. Moïse, the Turkish Interpreter, was standing at our camp notice-board, surrounded by the usual little crowd of prisoners trying to pump him on the progress of the war. His hands were plunged deep in the pockets of a pair of nondescript riding-breeches. At intervals he took them out to readjust the pince-nez before his short-sighted eyes, and then plunged them back again. His calves were encased in uncleaned, black, leather gaiters. His sadly worn boots gave one the impression of having previously belonged to someone else. His grey-blue uniform coat had Austrian buttons on it, and his head-gear was a second-hand caricature of the Enver cap. Yet he stood there with all the assurance of a bantam cock on his own dung-heap, and crowed in the faces of his betters. He was part of the bitterness of captivity.
“Good afternoon, Jones,” he said familiarly, as I came up. He had never greeted me before—he kept his salutations for very senior officers.
“What do you want?” I asked.
He led me a little to one side, away from the crowd.