But we must return to our real subject. Amongst the three officers from Geddos was one Tweedledum, so named from a certain rotundity of figure, which even the scanty provisions said to be obtainable there had failed to reduce. From his lips we first heard of the wonderful capabilities of the Handley-Page passenger aeroplane. Such machines, he said, could carry fifteen to sixteen passengers, and three of them had recently flown from England to Mudros, with only one intermediate landing in Italy. A pilot of one of them had been a prisoner with him at Geddos. A few evenings later Nobby had a great brain-wave; fetching a 'Pears' Annual,' he turned up the maps of Europe and Asia Minor, and, after a few hurried measurements, unfolded to his stable companions, Perce and Looney, what was afterwards known as the "aeroplane scheme." These three had, with much expense and trouble, managed to collect enough planks for a real wooden partition to their "room," and it was behind this screen that this and many another devilish plot was hatched. Briefly, Nobby's idea was for a flight of five or six Handley-Pages to be sent from Cyprus, swoop down on Changri, and pick up the whole camp, both officers and men--and Sami too. We should, of course, have to take over the barracks from our guards, but this should be easily effected by a _coup de main_, and probably without having to resort to bloodshed. At first the idea appeared a trifle fantastic, for after being cut off from the outside world for two whole years it took time for us to assimilate the wonderful advance of aeronautical science which the scheme assumed; but given that Tweedledum's statement was correct, the scheme was feasible, and we soon took up the question seriously. Our representative of the R.F.C. pronounced the surrounding fields practicable landing grounds; a committee confirmed the possibility of taking over the barracks by surprise; and the whole scheme, illustrated by a small sketch of the vicinity, was soon on its way home. We were fortunate in having a method of sending secret information without much risk of detection. The censorship of our letters, like most things in Turkey, was not very efficient. Looney's brother in England was the inventor of the secret means. The first code which he devised consisted merely of diminutive gaps between pairs of letters in an apparently ordinary communication. That there was a message contained was indicated to the addressee by the writer adding after his signature his address as "Codin House, Thislet Terrace."[6] The exact nature of the code then had to be discovered by guess-work. After two letters had been received, Nobby noticed the gaps, and the clue was discovered. By stringing together all the letters preceding the gaps, one obtained the concealed message.