I told him.
“Bones, you old villain,” he laughed, “you’ll get yourself hanged yet if you are not careful.” That was an uncomfortably correct prophecy! I remembered it six months later when Hill and I were cut down just in time to save our worthless lives. But I am anticipating.
“I’ll take the risk,” I said, “if you’ll get me the gun.”
Half an hour later the revolver, its holster, and some dozen rounds of rust-eaten ammunition were in my possession. It had been cleaned, and some of the rust removed. We re-rusted it with sulphuric, re-muddied it, and next morning re-buried it. The spot chosen was not that where it had been found. The garden was terraced in six-foot drops, and a wall of uncemented stones upheld each terrace. By removing a few stones from the face of the wall, scooping out a cavity in the earth beyond and thrusting in the revolver and ammunition, Cochrane and I succeeded in planting the revolver in such a way that the ground above it was quite undisturbed. The only difficulty we might have to overcome was to explain the freshness of the mud on the holster; for the surrounding ground was bone dry.
The position now became somewhat delicate. A number of officers in the camp knew that Cochrane had discovered a revolver. Several of them had seen it. If the Spook rediscovered it, somebody was sure to recognize it and the fat would be in the fire. Suspicion would be cast on all our spiritualistic performances, and the edifice of credulity so painfully built up in the camp might easily come crashing to earth. This would have been disastrous, for my principal asset in converting the Turk was the childlike belief of many of my fellow-prisoners in the genuineness of our séances. The general atmosphere of faith had an effect on the Pimple which no amount of concerted lying could have achieved. It was essential to retain the atmosphere as far as possible, and to bring off the coup against the Pimple without affecting the belief in spiritualism of the camp as a whole.
The best plan was obviously to take the camp, up to a certain point, into my confidence. I announced that the Pimple was about to be subjected to a practical joke. My plan was not to have a séance at all, but to pretend to the Turks we had held one, and had received instructions from the Spook as to where to dig.
But on the morning of the 10th, the Pimple announced his intention of being present at the sitting. This involved our bringing out the answers on the spook-board, and placed a fresh difficulty in my way. It was obvious that if I brought out the answers by my usual methods, the audience would at once realize that if I could fake thus for the Turks, I could also fake for them! There must therefore be some difference from our ordinary procedure which the audience could easily detect for themselves.
The affair was arranged very simply, to the satisfaction of all concerned. As between myself and the audience, we agreed that wherever the Turk happened to sit I was to take the place immediately on his right. I could then so shade my face from him with my left hand that he could not see whether or not my eyes were open. With my eyes open, I explained to my little school of True Believers,[[9]] I could push the glass to the answers required. The part of the audience on my right would see the deception. I begged them to give no sign.
Such was the public plan. But the private plan was quite different. I wanted to be free to watch the Interpreter, and to be ready for emergencies. If my attention was to be concentrated on spelling out the correct answers I could not do this efficiently. So far as my fellow-prisoners were concerned, I would be the centre of interest. They knew beforehand the thing was to be faked by me, and they would naturally watch me closely to see how the fake could be carried out. Nightingale and I talked the matter over. It was decided that he should be responsible for pushing the glass to the correct letters. This would leave me free to act my double part so as to appear genuine to the Pimple and fraudulent to the rest of the audience, without being bothered with what the glass was doing on the board. Further, in order fully to occupy the Pimple’s attention, we decided to employ him as a recorder and keep him so busy writing down letters that he would not have any time to spare for watching the mediums.
The result was most gratifying. Nobody for one moment suspected Nightingale. Everybody, except the Pimple, “detected” me pushing the glass. They came up to me afterwards, congratulated me on my excellent imitation of a séance, and remarked “Of course it was quite easy to see you were pushing the glass. We could see you were watching the board.” Surely there were no further fields to conquer! The True Believers had first been convinced that I wasn’t pushing the glass when I was, and now they were equally convinced that I was pushing the glass when I wasn’t!