by R P Nathan
All present greeted his words with loud cheering.
“Backtrack, backtrack,” said Patrick. “How did we get to April?”
It was one o’clock and we were on the narrow triangle of land called the Customs Point which jutted out from Santa Maria della Salute. We sat against the lamppost at the end, looking out onto the water. On the right we could see the end of Giudecca and the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, and on the left the brick red tower of the Campanile in St Mark’s Square, where we had been just a couple of hours before.
We had been up by nine and had gone down to breakfast together. Patrick was cheerful and in a talkative mood again, excited about exploring Venice. In Julius’s absence we thought we would get the full tourist experience and do what the guidebook recommended and so we caught the Number 1 water bus from outside Santa Lucia station all the way down the Grand Canal, an eye-popping miracle of a journey in which every cliché from film and TV special was suddenly set before us in bobbing sunlit reality: a jaw-dropping blur of boats (speedboats and fishing boats and gondolas and water buses) and palaces (Foscari and Fontana and Dandolo) and churches and houses and museums and bridges and everywhere glimpses: of watery alleyways and markets, of terraces and back rooms; glimpses of life and activity, bustle under the blue sky all wrapped in multi-coloured plaster and tile and sparkling ultramarine.
It took forty glorious minutes to reach St Mark’s square. We went by it first on the water, averting our eyes in an attempt at delayed gratification, and got off at San Zaccaria and then walked back; past the high-end hotels on the quay (our inter-railing eyes popping enviously), and the colonnaded lower floors of the Doge’s Palace and finally passing between the twin columns bearing St Theodore and the winged lion of St Mark into the Piazzetta and the main piazza of San Marco beyond.
We walked around soaking it in: gawping at those taking coffee at Florian’s, kicking at the pigeons, and marvelling at the front of the basilica itself with its four horses perched on top. We did not go in as we were saving that for the next day when the girls turned up; but we did join the hour long queue to go up the Campanile and look out over Venice in its entirety, enraptured still by its beauty and entirely satisfied by its spectacle laid out before us.
It was from there that we saw Santa Maria della Salute and the golden ball of the Customs Point glinting in the sun. It seemed like a haven from the bustle of St Mark’s, so coming down we made a foray into the interior to buy a few provisions, then returned to San Zaccaria and got the Number 1 going back the other way to Salute.
“How did we get to April?” Patrick asked again. He had been sitting for the last hour with Polidoro’s journal in front of him, making notes about the code on scraps of paper.
“Well, between October and March the siege continues. All through the winter the Turks make assaults and the Venetians defend. But the city walls are too strong for the Turks to make any headway. So stalemate. Then in January a relief convoy of ships captained by Marcantonio Quirini manages to get through the Turkish blockade. Sixteen ships bring reinforcements and food and there’s huge rejoicing when he arrives. He sets about raiding Turkish positions on the coast and harrying the enemy generally and it puts real heart into the city. In February Quirini sets sail again for Crete, taking the children of the city with him to safety and promising to return with a bigger fleet from the garrison there soon.
“Then what?”
“Oh a few scraps and skirmishes.” I flicked through the journal and called out a couple of highlights. “Fourteenth March: five Turkish galleys are wrecked in a storm within the harbour. Twenty-second March: a magazine of cotton close to the powder store catches fire. Stuff like that. And all the time they’re clinging to the hope of reinforcements from Venice.
“On the 30th March eighty Turkish galleys arrive bringing massive reinforcements. All through April they build a network of trenches around the city and when they’re finished the trenches are so deep that the Turkish cavalry can ride through them unseen. In response the Venetians are doing all they can to strengthen the walls.
The enemy draws closer to the walls, yet we are making preparations daily. The whole city is working together to strengthen the parapets, prepare new shelters and to repair the old. We have thrown ourselves fully into this work: every hour has its toil but every day shows new improvements, new designs. Our batteries are reinforced with guns cast on the spot and chemists have prepared fireworks to be used against the enemy.
“Behind the scenes difficult decisions have to be made. In the middle of April, Bragadino takes an inventory of supplies and then orders 5000 Greek non-combatants to leave the city taking only a day’s provisions each. And they get searched on the way out to make sure they’re not carrying any extra food.”
“A bit harsh.”
“Though Polidoro does say the Turks allowed them through their lines and let them go off to their villages. After this full rationing comes into force:
Rations are now under the sole charge of Captain Laurence Tiepolo. All our bread is baked at one oven in the Arsenal. All barley, spelt and straw having being now exhausted, horses of the cavalry are fed on bran. Wine is also being rationed and is very scarce and where available is at such a high price that only the nobles can afford it. We others manage now on a mixture of vinegar and water. Salted meat and rice are prepared in a great central kitchen for all the troops so that they may have full bellies for this great fight. On meatless days they are served beans cooked in oil. During the day oil and vinegar are distributed for refreshment and I assist in this. The city is confident that as long as a crumb of food remains Captain Bragadino will distribute it and even when it is all gone there will still remain his good will to sustain us.
“Then Bragadino makes that speech to cheer everyone up. Bragadino, Baglione and Tiepolo take up their quarters within the bastions in the perimeter to be close to the troops. Meanwhile the Turks have built huge wooden towers to batter the city walls from close range and even when the defenders manage to destroy one they just repair it within a couple of days. The defence gets ever more desperate:
In the city powder has begun to run short and has to be used with care so that our gunners have been forbidden to fire without express orders from their commanders and these are only given when absolutely necessary. The chief means of harassing the enemy lies in the fireworks which we hurl down on them from the walls, throwing them into disorder and killing many. Iron balls too have been used, full of very fine powder, which when they burst can kill many Turks simultaneously yet despite these devices we cannot keep the enemy away from the walls, and they have begun to dig under them in several places and lay mines there, especially near the Arsenal.
“By the end of June the Turkish bombardments are incessant:
They keep up a never-ending fire from mortars throwing balls of enormous weight high over the walls and into the city where they fall on houses destroying the roofs and killing the inmates. Yesterday they also shot off a shower of arrows aiming high so that they fell perpendicularly on the heads of those who stood within and near the walls. And over the last week they have kept sounding the alarm, especially at night time as though they were coming to attack. In short they have never allowed us an hour’s rest.
“New breaches in the walls are appearing daily. The nights are spent trying to patch them up, so the defenders are exhausted. Polidoro speaks of:
... a creeping tiredness which has permeated everyone so that we walk through the city not greeting or speaking to anyone unless it is to assist in some task which is our next defensive duty.
“Everyone in the city is involved: the women, the priests, even the bishops. But things just get harder and harder."
“So when does it finally change? When do the Venetians finally send reinforcements?”
“They don’t.”
He blinked at me. “But I thought the Venetians won the siege?”
I gave him a wan smile. “On the 21st June a mine blows a large gap i
n the wall by the Arsenal tower. Six assaults are made and all repulsed. On the 29th June another part of the wall is breached and simultaneous assaults are staged. The Venetians fight these off as well. But then on the 7th July the Turks land more heavy guns and even more reinforcements begin a round-the-clock bombardment. On the 9th July comes the all-out assault. It rages all day: wave after wave of Turks throwing themselves into attacks on the walls:
The Turks fought furiously, inflamed by their desire to gain the city. But our men kept well together and we have held our ground with desperate courage. I was in the bastion of the Arsenal and the bitterest day it was for much of the fighting was hand to hand and we were weary even at the outset. The assault continued for five full hours but we met it bravely.
Because of the fierceness of the fighting we only heard of how the other parts of the defence fared later in the day. The worst news came from the Limisso gate. There our soldiers were thrown into disorder by the enemy’s fireworks and were still engaged with the enemy and suffering very severe losses when at other sections of the walls the battle was almost done.
At last they had to give way and the Turks coming onto them began to scale the ravelin—
“What’s a ravelin?”
“Dunno. Some kind of fortification I suppose…”
—which if they continued would allow them access into the city itself. And so with no other defence available, the commanders took the terrible decision to fire a mine which they had themselves dug under the ravelin against such an emergency. On the ravelin stood crowded together troops from the enemy’s camp and our own fine soldiers, charging and retreating, and in an instant as the mine was fired, friend and foe alike were buried in the ruins.
The ravelin lost, there remained between besiegers and besieged only the breadth of the second line of defence constructed of casks and sacks full of earth. But Captain Baglione urged the soldiers to fight and, full of daring and with his own hands, he tore from a Turkish standard bearer a flag taken in the siege of Nicosia on which were blazoned the arms of Venice. And somehow, through dint of our soldiers’ blood and a firm belief in the rightness of our cause, the Turks were repulsed.
But still they devised yet a new way to harass our men whose troubles and difficulties were already unbearable. They filled the whole space between the gate and the ravelin with firewood and fascines and set the stuff on fire. Our soldiers at that part of the walls were sorely tormented with the heat and with the stench of a certain wood grown on the island called by the peasants tezza which gives out a strong and most unpleasant odour. This fire has lasted for now many days and there is nothing we can do to extinguish it, try as we might.
“They’re really in a bad way now. There are no medicines to tend the wounded and all the food is gone:
We are driven through hunger to eat the flesh of the dogs and the cats and the rats now, even though the taste of them is nauseous to us. But we have no choice for the pain of hunger gnaws at us constantly and if God in his wisdom were to send a plague of locusts to try us yet further, we would eat them as well.
“It was only now that hope finally died in them and they realised that help from Venice wouldn’t come. They knew there was no point resisting further and to fight on would simply be to throw more lives away. So, on the 1st August, a white flag was raised over Famagusta and the City surrendered.”
We sat in silence looking out over the water at Venice and beyond. It was three o’clock in the afternoon on a warm August day and the scene before us, the bright water and the beautiful buildings, felt a million miles from Famagusta.
“But why didn’t Venice help them?” asked Patrick eventually.
“Maybe they thought the whole thing was hopeless from the start.”
“They should have at least tried.” He sniffed. “So what happens to Polidoro in the end?”
“I’ll tell you when I’m done.” I flicked the remaining few pages. “How are you getting on with the code?”
“Pretty good. I’m sure I can crack it.”
I smiled at him.
“The trick is that it’s old so it must have been a relatively simple code. I think it’s a straight monoalphabetic cipher.”
“And what’s that?” I said happy to think about something different.
“It’s where each letter in the coded document corresponds to a single letter in the original. So if A is encoded as F, then every time you see an F in the code you know it was an A in the original.”
“Aren’t they all like that?”
“No. The harder ones are where an A will be sometimes represented by an F, sometimes by a Q or whatever. It changes according to some pattern, which is known as the key. That’s called a polyalphabetic cipher.”
“Oh right,” I said vaguely, taking the book from him and looking at the code properly for the first time, at the pages of seemingly random letters stretched out before me. It was difficult to believe there was any order to them at all: V E L G A S A G A I I…
“The problem is,” said Patrick frowning, “is that if it were that simple then someone – this Henry Shaeffer for instance – would already have cracked it and so would have found the treasure.”
“If there really was a treasure.”
He looked at me in surprise. “Of course there’s a treasure. It’s just whether anyone’s cracked the code and gone and dug it up yet. But in any case I’ll crack it. And then maybe we should take the girls on a little trip to Cyprus...” He smiled at me and to himself and at his scraps of paper. “Can I borrow Shaeffer’s notebook for a bit? There could be some comments in there about the code. Could save me some time.”
I handed it to him then turned my face into the warm breeze blowing off the water, closed my eyes, starting to relax at last.
“OK, listen to this,” Patrick said, leafing through. “Dum-de-dum – boring, boring – saying what he’s doing in Italy—”
I flicked an eye open. “What is he doing in Italy?”
Patrick looked at me like I was wasting his time. “I’ll tell you,” he said grudgingly.
4 January 1915
It is four months since I left you in Cambridge. It was raining that day and it sometimes feels like it has been raining ever since I arrived here in Venice. It has been four weeks since I was moved from Rome and though in geographical theory I am closer to the front line and therefore closer to action, in reality I am trapped still within this netherworld of diplomacy. Italy dithers. That she chose not to enter the war on the side of her ally Germany naturally gives us cause for thanks as it reduces the pressure on beleaguered France. But why does she not come out and outright declare war on Austria Hungary?
“Are you sure you want to hear all this?”
“It shouldn’t take you too long.” I stretched out in the sunshine.
In Rome we had spent weeks talking with the generals of the Italian army, talking with the senior admirals of the navy, talking with the Italian minister of war and his staff; in short, talking to all who would listen, or at least allow us to talk (there is unfortunately a distinction to be drawn there my darling) in an attempt to get the powers that be to understand that by attacking Austria Hungary they would have the perfect opportunity to annex the Italian speaking areas of the South Tyrol and Trieste, as well as strengthening her hand in the Adriatic generally. But, alas, so far these compelling arguments have fallen on deaf ears and after another hour’s talking we are offered a small cup of strong coffee or a glass of grappa and a smile and a nod that they have heard what we have been saying (again, alas, my darling Anna, all too different to having listened).
And so another day would pass. But at least in Rome there was the Pantheon and the Vatican and the Colosseum and the Forum and any number of places of rich culture. And at least in Rome the sun shone and the heat warmed me through if not right to my heart then at least all other parts of the body. And at least in Rome there was food and drink in rich abundance and variety which could salve my lust for home and my deep d
esire to see and hold you again.
But now I am here in Venice at the British consulate. Four weeks of unremitting boredom. Ignore what I have told you in my letters. I have been diplomatic about my post as second assistant military attaché here. It is my job to be diplomatic after all so there is no reason why I should not continue as such in my missives. The work here is dull. There are not even the regular meetings to look forward to, however frustrating I found them in Rome. There is simply intelligence (a singularly inappropriate term) to review, translation (which I do with none of your flair) of intercepted telegraph transmissions and some code breaking. This last I do enjoy but there is too little of it to occupy us for very long.
“Oh,” said Patrick. “So he’s got a background in codes.”
“See, I told you it would be interesting.”
And the rest of the time we pore over maps of the area so that I believe I really am now an expert on that whole cursed area from the Piave to the Tagliamento to the Isonzo and the Gulf of Trieste.
Oh, how I long that events had taken a different turn and that instead of being seconded here – and if I could not be back with you my darling – at least I could have been with Rupert and the rest of the Royal Naval Division. Though they are back in England now they have at least seen action in Antwerp. If it were not for my facility with Italian I would be with them still.
“Who’s Rupert?” I asked yawning. It was warm and entirely pleasant lying there in the sunshine whilst Patrick read from the notebook.
“Some mate of his maybe? I don’t think he’s mentioned him before.”