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JavaScript in 10 Simple Steps or Less 1st Edition Arman
Danesh Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Arman Danesh
ISBN(s): 9780764542411, 0764542419
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 14.11 MB
Year: 2003
Language: english
TM
JavaScript
in 10 Simple Steps or Less
TM
JavaScript
in 10 Simple Steps or Less
Arman Danesh
JavaScriptTM in 10 Simple Steps or Less
Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
10475 Crosspoint Boulevard
Indianapolis, IN 46256
www.wiley.com
Editorial Manager
Kathryn Malm
Arman Danesh is the Internet Coordinator for the Bahá’í International Community’s Office of Public
Information. In that capacity, he manages the development of numerous Web sites, including The Bahá’í
World (www.bahai.org), the official Web site of the Bahá’í Faith, and the Bahá’í World News Services
(www.bahaiworldnews.org), an online news service, both of which use JavaScript. Additionally, he is the
Technical Director for Juxta Publishing Limited (www.juxta.com). He has been working with JavaScript
since the mid-1990s and is the author of some of the earliest books on the subject, including Teach Yourself
JavaScript in a Week and JavaScript Developer’s Guide. Arman has authored more than 20 books on tech-
nology subjects, including ColdFusion MX Developer’s Handbook (Sybex), Mastering ColdFusion MX (Sybex),
SAIR Linux & Gnu Certified Administrator All-in-One Exam Guide (Osborne/McGraw-Hill), and Safe and
Secure: Secure Your Home Network and Protect Your Privacy Online (Sams). He is pursuing an advanced
degree in computer science at Simon Fraser University outside Vancouver, British Columbia.
Acknowledgments
T he task of writing these long computer books is a daunting one, and it is a process that requires
significant contributions from many people who help these projects see their way to completion.
For this project, I need to thank the entire team, including Sharon Nash and Jim Minatel at Wiley, as
well as all the myriad others involved in preparing, designing, and producing the books there.
I also need to thank my family for their patience during the writing of the book. In particular, my wife,
Tahirih, and son, Ethan, deserve credit for tolerating the time I had to devote to the preparation of
this book.
Contents
Credits vi
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xix
etc., etc., and so on. Celtic scholars will recognize a popular Welsh
love lyric. In Yozgad it passed muster, very well, as the Incantation
of the Head-hunting Waas. The Pimple and the Cook listened open-
mouthed. Even Mundey was impressed.
“Something is here,” I called. “I feel it. Get a pick!”
Moïse turned to the Cook in great excitement and translated.
Opposite us, at the foot of the little garden, was a high wall. The
Cook was over it in a flash, like a monkey gone mad, and a moment
later we could see him racing up the road towards the
Commandant’s office to get the necessary implements for digging.
I glanced round and saw Corbould-Warren’s grinning face
watching from behind a neighbouring wall. Close to him was a little
crowd of my fellow-prisoners, all more or less helpless with
suppressed laughter. The impulse to laugh along with them was
almost irresistible. To save myself from doing so I sat down heavily,
in a semi-collapse, against Tony’s hen-house, and buried my face in
my arms. Mundey ministered nobly to me until the Cook reappeared
with the pick. I began to dig.
I calculated the revolver ought to be about fifteen inches
underground. When the hole was a foot deep I stopped, and again
appeared to listen to the invisible Spook.
“I forgot,” I said apologetically, “I am sorry.” Then, turning to
Moïse, “We’ve forgotten the fourth element, Moïse! Hurry up! Get it!”
“Fourth element! I do not understand.”
“Oh, you ass!” I shouted. “We’ve had Air and Earth and Fire. We
want the other one.”
“But what is it?” Moïse wailed.
“Water!” said Mundey. “Quick—a bucket of water!”
Moïse rushed into the house and brought out a pail of water. I
took it from him and poured it into the hole. As the last drops
soaked into the dry earth I breathed more freely. Any fresh mud or
dampness on the revolver due to the re-muddying process would
now be properly accounted for. I resumed the digging. A moment
later the butt of the revolver came to light. With a wild yell I pointed
at it, staggered, and “threw a faint.” It was a good faint—rather too
good—not only did I cut my forehead open on a stone, but one of
our own British orderlies who was not “in the know” ran out with a
can of water and drenched me thoroughly. I was then carried by
orderlies into the house and laid on my own bed.
Outside, the comedy was in full swing. When the revolver was
found, neither the Cook nor the Interpreter worried for a moment
about my condition. For all they cared I might have been dead.
Without a glance in my direction, they let me lie where I had fallen,
and seizing pick and shovel, began to dig like furies. If “the Treasure
was by Arms guarded” surely it must be somewhere near those
arms! They dug and they dug. They tore away the terrace wall. They
made a hole big enough to hide a mule. The Sage, who lived in a
room just above the rapidly growing crater, was roused from his
meditations. He sallied forth and cross-examined Mundey.
“What—aw—have we here?” he asked. “What—aw—what
nonsense is this?”
“Shut up, Sage,” said Mundey, fearful that the Pimple would
overhear.
“But—ah—what is the—aw—object of this excavation?”
“Do be quiet!” Mundey begged.
“You—aw—you appear to me to be—ah—bent on uprooting the
garden! What are you—aw——”
In despair Mundey imitated my procedure and fainted too! The
grinning orderlies helped him up to my room. The Sage continued to
look on, in mute astonishment. Luckily the Pimple was too excited to
have eyes for anything but the treasure.
A few minutes later Stace, who shared the Sage’s room, came up
to me.
“For any sake, Bones, go out and stop the Cook digging.”
“Has he dug much?” I asked.
“Much?” said Stace. “He has torn up the garden by the roots! If
you don’t stop him he’ll have the house down.”
“Right-o, Staggers. I’ll stop him!”
Stace went off, leaving me to think out the next move. A few
minutes later, I went downstairs, supporting myself by the banisters,
with every appearance of weakness. Moïse and the Cook, bathed in
perspiration and grime from their exertions, met me at the foot. I
leant feebly against the wall beside them.
“Are you better?” asked Moïse.
“What happened?” I asked. “How did I get back to my room? Did
we find anything?”
The Pimple patted me affectionately on the shoulder.
“Magnificent!” he said. “You have been in a trance. You found the
revolver.”
“No!” I exclaimed. “Where?”
They led me to the hole. “Bless my soul!” I said. “Did I dig that?”
“Not all,” said the Pimple. “When you found the revolver you
fainted. Then the Cook and I, we digged the ground, but found
nothing.”
“What?” I said. “You dug?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ve spoiled everything then! The Spook ordered you to
do nothing without instructions from me.”
“You think the Spirit will be angered?”
“Think! Tell me, did you find anything more?”
“No,” said the Pimple.
“Well, there you are!” said I.
The Pimple translated into Turkish for the Cook’s benefit. For some
minutes they talked together eagerly. Then the Cook seized my
hand, pressed it to his ragged bosom, and became very eloquent.
“He is thanking you,” said Moïse. “He says you are most wonderful
of mediums. You will know how the Spirit may be appeased. We
shall dig no more without orders.”
CHAPTER VII
The real sentries were the 350 miles of mountain, rock and desert
that lay between us and freedom in every direction. Such a journey
under the most favourable conditions is something of an ordeal. I
would not like to have to walk it by daylight, in peace-time, buying
food at villages as I went. Consider that for the runaway the ground
would have to be covered at night, that food for the whole distance
would have to be carried, and that the country was infested with
brigands who stripped travellers even within gunshot of our camp;
add to this that we knew nothing of the language or customs of the
people and had no maps. It is not difficult to understand why we
were slow to take advantage of our sleeping sentries.[10]
There was another factor that prevented men from making the
attempt. It was generally believed that the escape of one or more
officers from our camp would result in a “strafe” for those who
remained behind. We feared that such small privileges as we had
won would be taken away from us—the weekly walk, the right to
visit one another’s houses in the daytime, and access to the tiny
gardens and the lane (it was only 70 yards long) for exercise. We
would revert to the original unbearable conditions, when we had
been packed like sardines in our rooms, day and night, and our
exercise limited to Swedish drill in the 6ft. by 3ft. space allotted for
each man’s sleeping accommodation. A renewal of the old conditions
of confinement might—probably would—mean the death of several
of us. Such, we believed, would be the probable consequences of
escape.[11]
The belief acted in two ways in preventing escapes. Some men
who would otherwise have made the attempt decided it was not fair
to their comrades in distress to do so. Others considered themselves
justified, in the interest of the camp as a whole, in stopping any man
who wanted to try. And the majority—a large majority—of the camp
held they were right. The general view was that as success for the
escaper was most improbable, and trouble for the rest of us most
certain, nobody ought to make the attempt. For we knew what
“trouble” meant in Turkey. Most of the prisoners in Yozgad were
from Kut-el-Amara. We had starved there, before our surrender: we
had struggled, still starving, across the 500 miles of desert to
railhead. We had seen men die from neglect and want. Many of us
had been perilously near such a death ourselves. We had felt the
grip of the Turk and knew what he could do. Misery, neglect,
starvation and imprisonment had combined to foster in us a very
close regard for our own interests. We were individualists, almost to
a man. So we clung, as a drowning man clings to an oar, to the few
alleviations that made existence in Yozgad possible, and we resented
anything which might endanger those privileges.
It is easy enough for the armchair critic to say it is a man’s duty to
his country to escape if he can. As a general maxim we might have
accepted that. The tragedy in Yozgad was that his duty to his
country came into conflict with his duty to his fellow-prisoners. I
thought at the time, and I still think, that we allowed the penny near
our eye to shut out the world. But it was only a few irresponsibles
like Winfield-Smith who shared my view that the question of whether
a man should try or not should be left to the individual to decide,
and if he decided to go the rest of us ought to help him, and face
the subsequent music as cheerfully as might be. And I must confess,
in fairness to the officers who undertook the unpleasant task of
stopping Hill when he was ready to escape in June 1917, that
though in principle I disapproved of their action, in fact I was
exceedingly glad, for my own sake, that he did not go.
I suppose every one of us spent many hours weighing his own
chances of escape. For myself I knew I had not the physical stamina
considered necessary for the journey. If the camp stopped a man
like Hill, they would be ten times more eager to stop me. Secrecy
was therefore essential. Believing, as I did, that the War might
continue for several years, I had made up my mind in 1917 to make
the attempt and trust to luck more than to skill or strength to carry
me through. But because of the feebleness of my chance, and the
extreme probability that my comrades would not have the
consolation of my success in their suffering, it behoved me more
than anyone else to seek for some way of escape which would not
implicate my fellows, and not to resort to a direct bolt until it was
clear that all other possibilities had been exhausted.
My plan was to make the Turkish authorities at Yozgad my
unconscious accomplices. I intended to implicate the highest Turkish
authority in the place in my escape, to obtain clear and convincing
proof that he was implicated, and to leave that proof in the hands of
my fellow-prisoners before I disappeared. It would then be clearly to
the Commandant’s interest to conceal the fact of my escape from
the authorities at Constantinople (he could do so by reporting my
death); or, if concealment were impossible, he would not dare to
visit his wrath upon the camp, as they could retaliate by reporting
his complicity to his official superiors. By these means, I hoped, not
only would my fellow-prisoners retain their privileges, but by
judicious threatening they might even acquire more.
The most obvious way to accomplish my object was by bribery,
and it was of bribery that I first thought. The difficulties were
twofold: first, there were no means of getting money in sufficient
quantity; second, supposing I got the money together, I could see
no method by which the camp could satisfy the Constantinople
authorities that it had gone into the pocket of the Commandant. The
Turk takes bribes, readily enough, but he is exceedingly careful how
he takes them, and he covers up his tracks with Oriental cunning. If
I could not provide the camp with proof of the Commandant’s guilt, I
might as well save my money and bolt without bribing him.
I was trying to convince myself that these difficulties ought not to
be insuperable when the Interpreter first evinced an interest in
spooking, and the Commandant’s belief in the supernatural was
proved by his official notice of May 6th (see p. 51). From that
moment I discarded all thought of bribery. I was filled with the
growing hope that my door to freedom lay through the Ouija. And
first and foremost in pursuance of my plan, I aimed at inveigling the
Commandant into the spiritualistic circle and making him the
instrument of my escape. The news that there existed a buried
treasure which the Turks were seeking gave me an idea of how to
do it.
To my fellow-prisoners the farcical hunt for the revolver had
appeared a complete success. To me it was a bitter failure. I felt that
if the Spook’s achievement in finding the weapon did not bring out
the Commandant, nothing would. But day followed day, and he
made no sign. A considerable experience of the Eastern mind made
it easy enough for me to guess the reason for his reticence. Like the
Oriental he was, he wished above all things to avoid committing
himself. He clearly intended to work entirely through his two
subordinates, the Interpreter and the Cook. If anything went wrong,
he could not be implicated. If everything went right, and the
treasure were discovered, he could use his official position to seize
the lion’s share. It was clear that there would be a long struggle
before I could get into direct touch with the Commandant. I decided
that the Pimple must learn for himself that he could get “no
forrarder” with the Spook until he put all his cards on the table. It
was to be a battle of patience, and knowing something of Oriental
patience, I almost despaired.
Time and again after the revolver incident the Pimple attended
séances. To his amazement and regret he found the attitude of the
Spook had undergone a complete change: for a long time nothing
but abuse of the Turks emanated from the board. The Spook was
very angry with them for exceeding instructions and continuing to
dig after the revolver had been found. Not one word would It say
about the treasure. The Pimple apologized to the board abjectly,
humbly, profusely. It made no difference. The Spook turned a deaf
ear to all the little man’s pleas for forgiveness. Its only concession
was to produce a photograph of the owner of the treasure on a
piece of gaslight paper which the Pimple obtained in the bazaar and
held to his own forehead at a séance. With commendable
perseverance the Pimple kept up his appeals for two months. Then
at last he delivered himself into my hands. He lost his temper with
the Spook.
“Always you are cursing and threatening,” he said to the glass,
“but you never do anything. Can you manifest upon me?”
“To-night,” answered the glass, “you shall die!”
“No! Please, no! Nothing serious, please! I beg your pardon!
Please take my cap off, or my gloves! I only wanted you to move
something!”
“Very good,” said the Spook, “I shall move something. For this
occasion I pardon. I shall not kill. But to-morrow morning you shall
suffer. I shall manifest upon you.” The Spook then went into details
of what would happen to the Pimple to-morrow morning.
Two hours later we gathered in my room, as usual, to discuss the
séance, and as usual the Pimple drank cocoa—our cocoa—with
infinite relish. He enjoyed it very much that night, because it was
extra sweet. That was to cover any possible flavour from the six
grains of calomel I had slipped into his cup!
I met him again on the afternoon of the following day. He looked
pale.
“Well, Moïse,” I said, “did the Spook fulfil his promise?”
Moïse gave me all the gruesome details in an awed tone. “And it
was no use sending for the doctor,” he added, “because I knew it
was all supernatural. I am most thankful it is all over.”
I congratulated him on being alive.
“I shall press no more for the treasure,” said he; “this lesson is for
me sufficient.”
“Good,” said I.
It was more than good. It was excellent. His subordinate having
failed, surely the Commandant would now come forward. I waited
hopefully, a week, a fortnight, a month. But Kiazim Bey never put in
an appearance. I thought I was beaten and all but gave up hope. So
far as was possible, I backed out of spooking. There seemed no
alternative to the direct bolt. I made my plans to go on skis at the
end of February, or beginning of March. I warned my room-mates, in
confidence, that I might disappear, sent a cryptogram to my father,
and began to train. But early in January I met with an accident while
practising. A bone in my knee was injured in such a way as to put
escape out of the question for me till well on in the spring. I sold my
skis to Colbeck and turned back to my first love.
Perhaps the pain in my knee acted as a counter-irritant to my
sluggish wits. A few days after the accident the necessary brain-
wave arrived. The Pimple was in the lane at the time. I hobbled out
to him through the snow. We chatted, and our chat came round to
the old subject—the Spook—quite naturally.
“This rage of the Spirit’s—it cannot be explained,” the Pimple said.
“No,” I replied, “I have only seen one previous instance where the
Spook behaved so badly for so long. And there the circumstances
were different.”
“What were the circumstances?”
“It was soon after my adventure with the Head-hunting Waas,” I
said, “about which I shall tell you some day.”
The Pimple smiled knowingly. “I know it,” he said; “months ago
Captain Freeland told me in confidence.”
“Did he? Well, it got about that I had learned occultism in
captivity. A lady asked me to consult the Spirit about a gold watch
she had lost.”
“Did you find it?” the Pimple asked.
“Oh yes. Quite easily. Then several other people came who had
lost other things. The Spook found them all. Then came a man who
asked me to find a diamond necklace for a friend of his, whose
name he would not give. I tried, and the Spook became abusive—for
three months it abused us. Finally a fakir told me the reason. The
Spook was angry because the sitter kept back the name of the lady
who wanted the necklace. It wanted our full confidence and full
faith.”
“But we have full faith,” said the Pimple, “yet it abuses us.”
“Of course we have,” I agreed. “The present case is quite
different, for we are not keeping back anything from the Spook or
hiding anybody’s interest in the search. You see, in the affair of the
diamond necklace the lady who wanted it was in a very high social
position, and she was afraid of being laughed at for consulting the
Spook, so she remained in the background. That made the Spook
angry.”
“I see,” said Moïse. “And did you find the necklace in the end?”
“Oh yes. Once the lady learned the reason, she allowed her name
to be mentioned, and we found it at once.”
“I see,” said the Pimple. “Who was the lady?”
“I don’t mind telling you in confidence,” I replied; “it was Princess
Blavatsky.”
“Oh!” said the Pimple.
Then I hobbled back to my room to be abused by dear old Uncle
and Pa for playing the fool with my knee, and to await results.
On January 30th the result came. Our Mess were sitting down to
the regulation lunch of wheat “pillao” and duff when a sentry
appeared and handed me a note demanding my presence at the
office. Thinking there might be a parcel awaiting me, I nodded and
indicated by signs (for in those days we knew no Turkish) that I
would come as soon as lunch was over. The man got excited.
“Shindi!” (now), “Shindi!” he said. “Commandant! Commandant!”
My heart seemed to stand still. The time had come. Hickman
looked at me anxiously.
“What’s up, Bones?” he asked. “Are you ill? You’ve gone white.”
“It’s my knee,” I said. “It got a twist just now.”
“Chabook! Gel! Commandant! Commandant!” repeated the sentry.
“It—aw—seems the Commandant wants you,” the voice of the
Sage explained from the next table.
The Sage was wrong, as usual. It was I who wanted the
Commandant. But I let it pass and went off with the anxious sentry.
In the office Kiazim Bey returned my salute with dignity and
politeness. Then he shook hands with me and placed me in a seat
on one side of the table. He sat opposite. The Interpreter stood at
attention by his side.
This was my first introduction to the Commandant. During my
nineteen months of prison life in Yozgad I had seen him only rarely,
and never spoken to him. Small fry like Second Lieutenants had
small chance of getting to know the man who refused interviews
with our most senior Colonels and consistently kept aloof from us all.
As he spoke to the Interpreter I studied him with interest. He was a
man of about fifty years of age, a little above middle height, well
dressed in a uniform surtout of pearly grey. Except for a slight
forward stoop of the head when he walked, he carried himself well.
His movements were slow and deliberately dignified; his voice low,
soft, and not unpleasing. The kalpak which he wore indoors and out
alike covered a well-shaped head. His hair, at the temples, was
silver-white, and an iron-grey moustache hid a weak but cruel
mouth. His features were well-formed, but curiously expressionless.
I believe that no prisoner in Yozgad, except Hill and myself, ever saw
him laugh. His complexion was of an extraordinary pallor, due partly
to much illness, and partly to his hothouse existence indoors; for like
most well-to-do Turks, he rarely took any exercise. And he had the
most astonishing pair of eyes it has ever been my fortune to look
into; deep-set, wonderfully large and lustrous, and of a strange deep
brown colour that merged imperceptibly into the black of the pupil.
They were the eyes of a mystic or of a beautiful woman, as his
hands with their delicate taper fingers were those of an artist. He
played nervously with a pencil while he spoke to me through the
Interpreter, but never took his eyes from my face throughout the
interview. He began with Western abruptness, and plunged in
medias res.
“Before we go into any details,” he said, “I want your word of
honour not to communicate to anyone what I am now going to tell
you.”
“I will give it with pleasure, Commandant, on two conditions.”
“What are they?”
“First, that your proposals are in no way detrimental to my friends
or to my country.”
“They are not,” said the Commandant. “I promise you that. What
is your second condition?”
“That I don’t already know what you are going to tell me.”
“It is impossible for you to know that,” he replied. “How can you
know what is in my mind?”
I looked at him steadily, for perhaps half a minute, smiling a little.
“It is impossible for you to know,” he repeated.
“You forget, Commandant, or perhaps you do not know. I am a
thought-reader.”
“Well?”
The time had come to risk everything on a single throw.
“Let me tell you, then,” I said. “You are going to ask me to find for
you a treasure, buried by a murdered Armenian of Yozgad. You want
me to do so by the aid of Spirits. And you are prepared to offer me a
reward.”
The Commandant leant back in his chair, in mute astonishment,
staring at me.
“Am I correct?” I asked.
He bowed, but did not speak. We sat for a little time in silence, he
toying again with his pencil, I endeavouring to look unconcerned,
and smiling. It was easy to smile, for the heart within me was
leaping with joy.
“I am afraid,” he said at last, “that if our War Office learned that I
had entered into a compact with one of my prisoners, it would go ill
with me.”
“There will be no compact, Commandant,” I said; “I have no need
of money. You mustn’t judge by this” (I touched my ragged coat and
laughed). “What I seek from the Spirits is not money. It is
knowledge and power. But I feel I owe you something. You have had
me in your power, as your prisoner, and have shown me no
discourtesy. I am grateful to you for what you have done for us, for
the privileges you have granted, and the kindnesses you have
shown. And in return any small skill I possess as a medium is wholly
at your service. I shall do my best to find this treasure for you, if you
wish it.”
“You are very kind,” said Kiazim Bey, and bowed. He was obviously
waiting for my parole.
“As to secrecy,” I went on, “it is as essential for myself as for you.
If I find this money for you, the British War Office may quite well
shoot me on my release for giving funds to the enemy. And there is
much more danger of me being discovered than of you. It is very
hard to keep what happens at séances secret from the camp. For my
own sake, of course, I must do my best to keep it dark. I cannot
promise more than that.”
“The camp does not matter much,” said the Commandant, “it is
Constantinople that is important.”
“I cannot see, Commandant, that you are doing them any harm by
seeking to find this money by any means in your power. But that is
neither here nor there. Before this game is played out I shall require
helpers—and at least one other medium, and perhaps recorders,
must get to know. I promise that if you play the game with us,
Constantinople will remain in the dark so far as I am concerned. But
I cannot promise that the camp may not find out.”
“The great danger will be if we find the treasure. Then you must
be silent as the grave,” he said.
“That I can promise—it is to my interest as well as yours,” I
replied.
“Silent as the grave, then,” he said, holding out his hand.
“As the grave,” I answered, and grasped it.
I arranged with the Pimple for an early séance and rose to go. The
Commandant accompanied me to the door. I could see, more by his
expressive fingers than by his impassive face, that he was greatly
agitated. He put a detaining hand on my arm.
“That was a most serious oath,” he said, looking at me strangely. I
tried to fathom the meaning behind the dark eyes, and think I
succeeded. It was the vultus instantis tyranni.
“Serious as Death, Commandant,” I said.
He half nodded, and returned my salute with slow gravity.
Hill and I met daily in odd corners, to discuss our plans. The first
step was obviously to get Hill adopted as my fellow medium. It
would have been simple enough had Hill taken any prominent part in
our séances, but all his work had been behind the scenes. He had
been responsible for the manifestations, which was a task of an
extremely private nature, so the Pimple had no acquaintance with
him as a spookist. His sudden appearance as a medium might give
rise to suspicion.
Fortunately there was a way out of the difficulty which, if properly
handled, would not only solve it but at the same time add to my
reputation as a student of the occult in all its branches. For a couple
of months past Hill and I had been secretly engaged on getting
ready a leg-pull for the benefit of the camp wiseacres. Hill knew
from his study of conjuring that stage telepathy was carried out by
means of a code, and we set to work by trial and error to
manufacture a code for our purposes. By the middle of January it
was almost complete, and we had become fairly expert in its use.
With the object of bewildering the camp, Hill then announced to a
few believers in spooking that he had learned telepathy in Australia
and would give lessons to one pupil who was really in earnest. As a
preliminary to the lessons, he said, the pupil must undergo a
complete fast for 72 hours, to get himself into a proper receptive
state. Most of us had had enough of fasting during the last few
years, so his offer resulted, as we hoped it would, in only one
application for lessons in the telepathic art—that one being, of
course, from myself. For three days I took no meals in my Mess, and
I made a parade of the reason. To all appearances I was fasting
religiously. People told me I was getting weaker, and that the whole
thing was absurd. Which shows what the imagination can do;
because three times a day I fed sumptuously on tinned food (a
luxury in Yozgad) and eggs, in the privacy of Hill’s room. At the
conclusion of the “fast” Hill “tested” me, and announced to the few
believers interested that I had attained the necessary receptive
state, and that he had accepted me as a pupil.
This was the position when the Commandant was hooked, and
after some discussion we saw how to use it to the greatest
advantage. We did not let the grass grow under our feet. As luck
would have it, there was an orderlies’ concert on the afternoon of
February 2nd—just three days after my interview with the
Commandant. Hill was down on the programme to give his usual
conjuring entertainment. When his turn came to perform, he made a
carefully rehearsed speech from the platform. He said (which was
quite true) that he had injured his finger. He had found at the last
moment that his finger was too stiff to allow him to perform, but
rather than leave a gap in the programme he had decided to alter
the nature of his show at a moment’s notice.
“As some of you know,” he said, “I once underwent a course of
telepathy, or thought-reading, in Australia. Within the last fortnight
an officer in this camp went through the painful preliminary of a
three days’ fast, and became my pupil. Possibly because of his
previous knowledge of the occult, he has progressed at a surprising
rate; and, although he considers himself far from ready for a public
exhibition, he has very kindly consented to help me in this
predicament. (Loud applause.) I ask you to remember that he is only
a beginner, and if our show turns out a complete failure you will, I
am sure, give him credit for his attempt.”
Heaven knows it takes little enough to interest an audience
composed of prisoners of war. During the intervals between our
concerts and pantomimes and dramatic performances the crowded
camp was driven half crazy by fellows “practising” for the next
entertainment on landings and in bedrooms, and all over the place.
We knew every tune, and every mistake it was possible to make in
singing it, long before the “first” (and usually only) “night.” And
especially did we abhor to distraction the clog-dance practices. Yet,
when the great day came, we enjoyed every turn, and shouted
vociferous and most genuine applause. Everything was appreciated,
from the scenery painted on old Turkish newspapers to the
homemade instruments of the band. “As good as the Empire,” or
“Drury Lane can’t beat that,” we would say.
The camp knew nothing of the long hours Hill and I had spent
together asking and answering such innocent sounding code
questions as, “Quickly! What have I here?” “Tell me what this is?”
“Now, do you know what this article is?” and so on. It was
something new for them to get an apparently unrehearsed show.
The fact that the audience contained a number of converts to
spiritualism assisted us greatly in obtaining the necessary
atmosphere of credulous wonder. Hill walked through the audience,
asking me (blind-folded on the platform and “in a semi-hypnotic
state”) to name the various articles handed to him, to quote the
numbers on banknotes, to read the time on watches, to identify
persons touched. Our failures were few enough to be negligible—not
more than half a dozen in all—and our successes were numerous,
and sometimes (as when Slim Jim produced a stump of a candle
from the “cag” in his pockets) startling. Naturally, in the end, we
were “as good as the Zanzigs,” and so on. A few suspected a code,
and said so, but were utterly in the dark as to how such a code
could be arranged.[12] Others were simply bewildered. And still
others, and among them none more ardently than the Pimple,
professed themselves entirely satisfied that here at last was genuine
telepathy and nothing less. We learned afterwards that the Pimple
left the concert before its close to inform the Commandant of the
supernatural marvels he had witnessed.
On the evening of the same day (February 2nd, 1918), the Pimple
came round for his séance. He asked that it should be as private as
possible. It was therefore arranged that only Mundey and Edmonds
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