Birds Without Wings

by Louis de Bernières

  It is possible that on 29 October 1914, when he either agreed or gave the order for the bombardment of those Russian bases by German sailors dressed in Turkish uniform, manning German battleships with Turkish names, Enver Pasha was thinking that he had no choice but to side with Germany.

  It was very simple. Britain and France were old yet exacting friends of the empire, but they were allied with Russia, and every Turk knew that Russia wanted Turkey in its empire, preferably without any Turks left alive in it. An Allied victory would have been a sanguinary catastrophe for the Turks, and a satisfying final solution for the Russians. It must have been clear to Enver Pasha that his enemy’s enemy was his friend, and he had no choice but to gamble on a German victory. Apart from that, there was a century of disaster to make up for, and no one can know how much he was motivated by injured pride on behalf of his own people. If so, it was an irony that his own incompetence and ambition should result in yet more disaster for his country, for instead of fighting a sensible defensive war, he went straight into the attack against the Russians in north-eastern Anatolia, through impassable mountains, and snow that was sometimes twenty feet deep. Within two months 75,000 of an army of 95,000 were dead, and he had lost all his machine guns and artillery.

  It was as part of this sorry concatenation of events that in November 1914 there occurred the arrival in Eskibahçe of Sergeant Osman, along with a Jewish clerk, a donkey laden with ledgers, and four dusty and disgruntled gendarmes.

  Sergeant Osman was an artilleryman of long service and fierce disposition. Unlike the gendarmes, the donkey and the Jew, Osman had managed to remain reasonably smart after the long and exhausting trek from Telmessos. He had a moustache waxed elegantly to upturn at the tips, he had blue and red epaulettes, a crimson fez, and red stripes at the bottom of his sleeves. Around his neck he wore the whistle that he once had employed for shrilling out the coded orders that took the place of shouting when in the heat of battle. Sergeant Osman had a romantic sabre scar across his left cheek, his face was dark and leathery from living a hard life in all weathers, and he was tough in the way that only Turkish soldiers can be. He was the kind of man who could march five hundred miles with a band of captives, and be genuinely puzzled at the end of it as to why all his prisoners had died on the way. He had not seen his wife and children for a year, and he had seen such terrible things in Thrace that much of the time he concentrated upon keeping his mind resolutely blank. Despite this, he could not repress one image of the Balkan War that recurred frequently and unpredictably, sometimes making him wake up at night with his eyes staring and his heart thumping painfully in his chest. It was of a field of stupendous carnage in Thrace in which only one building remained partially intact, and on the wooden door of that building hung a naked little girl who had been crucified and disembowelled. He could not forget the sweetness and innocence of that bowed little head with its tumbling shaggy locks of hair falling about its face. He could not forget that face with its open mouth and its little pink tongue and its two rows of tiny milk teeth. He could not forget reaching out and touching the child’s neck, realising as he did so that she was freshly dead. Worst of all was the crimson cavity of the stomach, disgorging its multicoloured and glistening cascade of entrails, piled up as if from the ground, that was already abuzz with flies. Sergeant Osman was not a philosophically sophisticated man, and so he was neither amazed nor outraged by the sacrilege that the retreating Greeks had perpetrated in visiting upon a child the same death as had been suffered by their own innocent Lord. In any case this crucifixion of children by Christians was quite a common thing in his experience, and the shock of it eventually wore off. What struck Osman as he touched the child’s neck was that it looked just like one of his own daughters at the same age, and so it was that in the nightmares and flashbacks of later years, it was his own child that he saw disembowelled and nailed to a door in Thrace. Sergeant Osman seldom thought of the vile things that he himself had done whilst in the baresark rage of victory or revenge, because it was all wiped out and cancelled by this one scene that overtopped and outplayed them all.

  Sergeant Osman had been so repeatedly wounded that he now found himself limping from town to town and village to village, accompanied by four gendarmes, a donkey and a Jew, in order to call up the reserve and recruit new troops. It caused him much frustration and bitterness that he had thus been apparently demoted, and in every place where there was a letter-writer he caused a letter to be written to Enver Pasha and the Sultan himself, begging to be allowed back into the front line with his regiment, this being in addition to the many written on his behalf by the patient and long-suffering Jew. Osman had a sense of his destiny, and he knew that this job was not a part of it, so that occasionally he became irascible in the prosecution of it.

  Upon arrival in the town Osman went for a shave, and then, refreshed and smelling of lemon cologne, he set up office under a plane tree in the meydan and sent out the gendarmes with the clerk to fetch in the empire’s new soldiers.

  Thus it was that Iskander was in the shade of his tatty awning happily fashioning birdwhistles for Mr. Theodorou’s export business in Smyrna, when he became aware of the four unfamiliar gendarmes and the clerk standing by his side waiting for him to finish the particular one which he was making. His initial reaction was to wonder what he had done wrong, and he felt a pang of fear. The clerk pushed his spectacles further up his nose and asked, “You are Iskander, a potter of this town?”

  “I am Iskander, yes. Peace be with you.”

  “And with you,” replied the clerk drily, scratching his forehead with a pencil, and tipping back his fez, “although I fear it may not be as much peace as you might have wished.”

  Iskander looked at him for a moment, and then the clerk said, “There has been a general mobilisation, and you have been called up again. I am sorry if this is an inconvenience, but there is no choice in the matter, I am afraid.”

  Iskander paled. “I’ve done my service. I was in Arabia. You can check. I’ve done my service.”

  “I know, I know,” said the clerk, “but you must realise that you are still in the ihtiyat. You remain in the active reserve for six years, and you have only done five years and nine months.”

  “It’s nearly six,” replied Iskander, aghast. “What will happen to my family? How will they live?”

  “What will happen to us? How will we live?” wailed Nermin when her distraught but stoical husband came indoors to tell her the news. “What about the children? What will we do for money? We’ll starve. There’ll be no one to save us. It’ll be like it was when you were in Arabia. We were skeletons. What if you die? I can’t go through it all again. Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” She rocked miserably where she sat, and wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

  “It’s a holy war,” said Iskander resignedly. “It’s been declared a holy war. God will provide, God willing. What can I do? I’ve got to go. The Franks have declared war with us, and tomorrow I’ve got to go. If I die I go to paradise, God willing.”

  “What use are you in paradise?” demanded Nermin tearfully.

  At this point Karatavuk stepped out of the shadow and knelt before his father, touching his father’s hand to his lips and forehead. “Baba,” he said, “let me go in your place.”

  Iskander looked down at his son and said, “You’re only fifteen.”

  “I’m strong. I can fight. I have courage. Let me go. They’ll call me up anyway before too long. So let me go now. For the sake of my brothers and sisters, and for Mother’s sake.”

  Iskander stood speechless, looking down at his favourite son. He knew that there was nothing he could say. If he said “yes” then he would feel that he had been a coward who was prepared to send his son into danger. If he said “no” then his wife and family would have no means to live. Nermin also found nothing to say. She went on her knees beside her son, and took his hands in hers, kissing them and pressing them to her cheek so that he could feel the warm trickle of her tears.
/>
  “I will not give you permission,” said Iskander at last, as pride conquered his common sense. “I have to do my duty. It’s a holy war, and I don’t have the choice. God will protect His own.”

  Karatavuk stood up to protest, and his father silenced him with one hand raised. “Enough,” said Iskander. “God will surely remember what you have offered to do, as I will remember it. You are a most excellent son.”

  So it was that shortly afterwards Karatavuk went to find his friend Mehmetçik, and the two went together to see Sergeant Osman and the clerk at their desk under the plane tree in the meydan. The sergeant, standing at ease with his fingers linked behind his back, raised his eyebrows in enquiry as their turn in the queue came up, and scanned them sceptically.

  “We’ve come to volunteer,” said Mehmetçik.

  “Why?” asked the sergeant bluntly.

  “For the empire and the Sultan Padishah,” replied Mehmetçik.

  “How old are you?”

  “I am eighteen,” lied Mehmetçik.

  “Your name?”

  “Mehmetçik.”

  “Son of?”

  “Charitos.”

  “So, you are Mehmetçik, son of Charitos? So Mehmetçik, I suppose, is a nickname?”

  “Yes, beyefendi, my real name is Nicos.”

  “That’s a shame. Mehmetçik is obviously such a good name for a soldier. You and your father are Christian, then?”

  “Yes, beyefendi. But I still want to go and fight, as long as I can stay with Karatavuk. For the empire and the Sultan Padishah.”

  An expression of puzzlement passed over the sergeant’s face. “Who is this blackbird that you want to stay with?”

  “It’s my nickname,” said Karatavuk, stepping forward. “My real name is Abdul.”

  The sergeant assessed the boy: dark-eyed, golden-skinned, a little taller than the norm. “This business of nicknames is an irritation,” he exclaimed at last, waving his hand in a small gesture of exasperation. “Everyone seems to have one even though the Prophet expressly forbids it. Who are you the son of?”

  “Iskander the Potter.”

  “I see,” said the sergeant. “But let’s do this one at a time.” He returned to Mehmetçik, stockier and shorter than his friend, but oddly similar nonetheless. “So you are Nicos, son of Charitos, and you say you are eighteen. And a Christian, yes?”

  “Yes, beyefendi. But nowadays Christians aren’t exempt.”

  “I know. Obviously I know. I am a soldier, you see. I have a tendency to know about these things. But haven’t you heard that this is a holy war? Haven’t you heard that we are fighting the Franks, and that the Franks are Christians? Didn’t you hear about the ships, and how they cheated us?”

  “I am an Ottoman,” replied Mehmetçik proudly, “and one of the Frankish peoples is with us. I have heard that they are called ‘Almanca.’ ”

  “Yes, the Germans are with us, but still it’s a holy war, and you can’t expect us to trust Christians in the army in case they turn against us. It’s only natural common sense. If you want to join up you will have to go to one of the labour battalions.”

  “Labour battalions?”

  “Roads, bridges, things like that,” said the sergeant.

  “I want to fight,” said Mehmetçik scornfully, “not dig holes.”

  “You’d better not volunteer, then,” replied the sergeant, with a glint of humour in his eyes. “We’ll come and get you sometime anyway, and then you’ll go in a labour battalion. Probably when you really are as old as you say you are. In any case, much of a soldier’s life does consist of digging holes. You would just be digging holes without being shot at, which is slightly safer.”

  Mehmetçik’s eyes glowed with disappointed anger, but he could think of nothing to say, except, “I don’t want to be safer.”

  “I am sorry, young man,” said Osman sympathetically. “In my opinion we’ll need all the soldiers we can get, and as a matter of fact one of my grandfathers was Christian, he was from Serbia, but it’s not up to me to decide these things. You’ll have to wait and see if the rules are changed. In the meantime, if you really want to help the Sultan Padishah and the empire, the best thing you can do is grow food and breed mules.”

  “As for you,” said the sergeant, turning to Karatavuk, “you are a son of Iskander the Potter. You are not on our list. Your father is, however.” He turned to the clerk. “You have already spoken to him, haven’t you, Solomon Efendi?”

  “I have.”

  “I am offering myself in my father’s place,” said Karatavuk, “according to the tradition.”

  “According to the tradition,” repeated the sergeant, regarding Karatavuk with particular respect. “Do you have your father’s permission to go in his place?”

  “Yes,” declared Karatavuk, avoiding looking directly in the sergeant’s face. “It’s for the sake of my mother and my brothers and sisters.”

  “You’re lying,” observed the sergeant, “but fortunately I have not noticed it.”

  “Thank you, beyefendi,” said Karatavuk, repeating, “It’s for the sake of my mother and my brothers and sisters. Without my father they won’t live. Without me they will have more chance. I am strong. I can fight.”

  “You are a good son,” observed the sergeant. “A man would be proud to have a son like you.”

  Karatavuk’s shoulders seemed visibly to broaden beneath this praise. “Do you accept me, beyefendi?”

  The sergeant sighed wearily. He had seen so many young sons making this sacrifice. It was always both moving and depressing. He wondered how many of the fine youngsters would ever see their mother’s face again. “Very well, you may come in your father’s place, according to the tradition. Let it be on your conscience and not mine for deceiving your father, and may God forgive you for it.”

  “Thank you, beyefendi, and, beyefendi, please don’t tell my father.”

  The sergeant nodded. “I’ll send a message to your father to tell him that after all he has been exempted. He won’t know why. You must be here tomorrow in his place.”

  As the two boys walked away, Mehmetçik cursed softly under his breath. He had tears of anger in his eyes. “Grow food and breed mules!” he repeated bitterly, and Karatavuk put his arm round his shoulder in sympathy. “They’ll probably change the rules,” he said, “if the war gets bad enough.”

  “Let’s hope that it does, then,” said Mehmetçik shortly. They stopped by Abdulhamid Hodja’s house, and Mehmetçik took his leather purse out of his sash. He removed a few paras from it, which he folded back into his sash, and then leaned down and scraped up a handful of earth. He tipped it into the purse, repeated the action, and then drew the string tight. He held it out to his friend. “Wherever you go,” he said, “take this with you, and don’t empty it out until you return, and when you come back make sure you tip it back in exactly this place.”

  Karatavuk took the purse and loosened the drawstring. He sniffed at the soil and sighed. “The earth of home. It has a particular smell. Have you ever noticed it? When I am far away I shall be able put this to my nose and be reminded.” He closed the purse, put it to his lips and kissed it. He placed it in his own sash, and then he put his arms around his best friend and dropped his forehead on his shoulder for a moment. He felt his throat constrict, and was overcome with an emotion that he could not name, because it was a mixture of so many. “Ah, my friend, my friend,” he said, drawing back and thumping his chest, “I have a heavy feeling in here. I feel as if I have a stone in my heart. I wonder what’ll become of us all.”

  “I think we’ll be divided,” said Mehmetçik sadly. “Suddenly it matters that I am a Christian, where it mattered only a little before.”

  “We won’t be divided,” replied Karatavuk firmly. “We have always been friends. We have always been together. You have taught me to read and write.”

  “I don’t know how much use that will be,” said Mehmetçik. “When it comes down to it, there’s nothing to read, an
d in other places I hear that all the writing is a different sort, like that writing on the mosque that only Abdulhamid Hodja understands.”

  Karatavuk reached once more into his sash and took out his birdwhistle. “I’m taking this with me. If I break it I will write to my father and ask him to send me another one. When I return you’ll hear it and you’ll know I’m back.”

  “God bring the day,” said Mehmetçik.

  “Do you remember,” asked Karatavuk, “when we were little boys, and we decided not to piss down mouseholes in case the mice drowned? Well, now I’ve got to go out and put bullets through other men.”

  “At least a mouse is innocent,” observed Mehmetçik.

  “I wonder what it feels like,” said Karatavuk.

  CHAPTER 51

  The Sadness of Rustem Bey

  “Why are you unhappy, my lion?” asked Leyla Hanim, coming up beside Rustem Bey, and placing a hand on his shoulder. It was early evening, and he was seated on a low wall that surrounded a flower bed in the courtyard, his hands limp in his lap, and a stricken look on his face. Pamuk the white cat lay curled up in her favourite place beneath the orange tree. She had lain in the same place so much over the years that she had created a cat-shaped declivity in the gritty soil. Near his feet a large tortoise crawled laboriously by, its shell draped in lava flows of solidified white wax, because Leyla had at some time in the recent past employed it as one of her romantic mobile candelabra.

  “I am not so much unhappy, as sad,” he replied.

  “There’s a difference?”

  “I feel there is one, but it might be hard to explain.” “What is it that saddens you, then?”

  Rustem Bey gestured inarticulately. “It’s the war. I ought to be in it, and I have bad feelings about it.”

  “You’ve done all your military service,” said Leyla, appalled at the thought that he might be leaving. She added, somewhat thoughtlessly, “Aren’t you too old?”

  Fortunately Rustem Bey was not in the mood for taking offence. “I have a great deal of experience, and a man is not too old unless he is no longer strong. I daresay I am stronger than most boys who go to war.”