The way thus opened, more effective means of communication could be developed. One of these was to send out messages written on a slip of paper, wrapped up in silver tissue and then inserted in a full tube of tooth-paste. As parcels, however, took anything from eight months to over a year to reach the camp, the value of the news contained was considerably diminished. Moreover, this method was not available for sending news from Turkey to England. The final method was simple, yet perfectly effective for smuggling news into a country such as Turkey. It consisted of pasting together two thin post-cards, the gummed portion being confined to a border of about an inch in width round the edges. The central rectangle so left ungummed was available for the secret message, which was written very small on the two inner faces of the cards before they were stuck together. Further space for writing was obtainable by adding another slip of paper of the size of the rectangle, and including this within the cards when gumming them up. After being pressed, the final post-card was trimmed so as to leave no sign of the join. The position of the rectangle containing the message was indicated on the address side by at first two lines, and later by the smallest possible dots at the corners. Well over a score of such cards must have passed from England into Turkey, and more than half that number in the reverse direction, without discovery ever being made by our captors. In the camp, to avoid the risk of being overheard talking about "split post-cards" by one of the interpreters, these cards were known as "bananas"--an apt name, as you had to skin them to get at the real fruit inside! This explains the method by which it was possible to suggest the aeroplane scheme to the home authorities. Unfortunately it used to take at least four months to receive a reply to a letter. For this reason we could not afford to wait until a definite date was communicated to us, so we ourselves named the first fifteen days of May as suitable for us, and agreed, from 6 to 8 A.M. on each of these days, to remain in a state of instant readiness to seize the barracks should an aeroplane appear. For the sake of secrecy, the details of the _coup de main_ itself were left to be worked out by a small committee, and the report spread amongst the rest of the camp that the scheme had been dropped. The true state of affairs would not be divulged until a few days before the first of May.