Chapter 87 – Dacre

The dialogue between Dacre Stoker, parts of his cell and a rat he called Archibald is taken from Stokers Autobiography Straws in the Wind (pp. 224-234) The conversation is reproduced almost verbatim, with only minor grammatical changes and a few details added at the end to give the reader some context.

At this time, Stoker had been in solitary confinement in Istanbul for over two weeks (p.221) and started to question his own sanity. He and one other prisoner of war had been sent from the prison camp as part of a diplomatic reprisal by the Turks about treatment of prisoners of war. Stoker goes into some details about this period and it seemed to have a significant impact on him (182-249).