by Alan Bardos
Johnny clicked his heels and bowed stiffly. Talat looked at him curiously then turned to Esther. ‘Tell me, young man, do you wish to do her justice? Is that why you are here, to seek approval? Or is it to see if her connections are worthy of an up and coming diplomat?’
He glared at Johnny with dark eyes. His large nose was like a battering ram, poised over a thick moustache. A lot of Talat’s muscle was running to fat, nonetheless he presented a formidable figure. Johnny’s Turkish was still a bit shaky, but he got the impression that he’d managed to offend him already. Johnny looked down submissively, not wishing to provoke Talat’s anger any further.
‘No, I have no intention of doing that, Your Excellency. This visit is purely social,’ Johnny said. Talat looked at him shrewdly and Esther repeated it in clear concise Turkish.
Talat threw his huge arms up in the air and roared with laughter. Apparently Talat had been joking with Johnny.
He waved at some chairs in front of his desk. ‘Please, won’t you take a seat?’
Talat sat at the desk, commanding the room. Johnny felt like he’d just been subjected to a test that he’d failed.
The door swung open and a little girl carrying a tray of cigarettes and coffee was shoved into the room. She approached them cautiously and placed the tray on a small silver table. She offered them cigarettes and then began to pour the coffee. Talat waited for her to serve them, lighting one of the elegant, gold ringed cigarettes.
‘Tell me, what can I do for the daughter of my old friend Alfred Weisz?’ Talat asked as the little girl left.
‘When I was here with my father, you did me the honour of saying I may call on you again,’ Esther said. ‘As Herr von Jager was new to the city and eager to meet you…’
‘How is your father?’ Talat asked.
‘He’s currently in the Levant, building a section of the Bagdad railway,’ Esther said, maintaining her bearing.
‘I thought all the lines were being constructed by German firms,’ Talat asked, sucking on his cigarette, which was starting to fill the room with a pungent smell.
‘He’s been subcontracted, to build a branch line,’ Esther replied and smiled. ‘We are the poor relations.’
‘And work progresses well, with an engineer of your father's calibre in charge?’ Talat asked.
‘The economic crash since the war started has made it very hard. We are struggling to meet deadlines.’
‘We are all struggling to make ends meet. The war is crippling the country, and how we shall pay for it I'll never know,’ Talat said, pointing his cigarette at Esther. ‘However, I’m not sure what I can do for you that my good friend Enver Pasha has been unable to.’
‘You are very well informed, Excellency,’ Esther said, showing icy calm.
‘Please tell me, Esther Hanim, do you feel that I can be of more service than Enver? Or is it that I can assist you without extracting such a heavy price for my help. I understand he wishes you to marry one of his underlings?’ Talat stubbed out his cigarette.
‘Your government has been more than generous in granting the concession to our company. Unfortunately, the war has placed an unforeseen burden on it, a drain that can be easily ended,’ Esther said calmly.
Talat’s dark eyes twinkled with cunning, ‘I think at last we get to the reason for your visit and why you have brought this person to my house.’
His face took on a savage pallor, as he firmly planted his massive wrists on his desk, and focused on Johnny. Johnny doubted that there was a force in the world that could have moved those wrists.
‘My wife mentioned it also, but I have never seen a German bow in such an artless manner. And when I insulted you and dishonoured Esther Hanim, you chose to ignore it. Any German aristocrat worth his salt would have challenged me. Their overblown sense of entitlement over a weaker ally would have surpassed the need to show respect to a government minister.’
‘Excellency, I am a diplomat, trained to overlook such slights,’ Johnny said, but he had little doubt Talat was right.
‘My sources at the German Embassy have not heard of you and state that you haven’t set foot in the embassy. Yet the policeman on the door tells me you are a fully credentialed courier, Herr von Jager. If that is indeed your name, why is it that you have not delivered any diplomatic papers?’
Johnny exchanged a despairing look with Esther. It was true he had completely forgotten to take the documents he had been given to the German Embassy. He supposed he must have left them at the restaurant in Sofia.
‘That was an oversight, Excellency.’
‘I suggest that we dispense with this childish charade and you tell me exactly who you are, before I lose patience,’ Talat said with an amused look at their naive attempts to deceive him.
Esther coughed. ‘Excellency, you have pre-empted us. Please forgive our subterfuge, the intention was to protect you from any suspicion.’
‘I think you should let him speak for himself,’ Talat said coldly.
‘I am a courier, Excellency, just a British one.’
Talat grunted.
‘The reason for my visit, Excellency, is to ask if you would be willing to enter into negotiations for a separate peace with the Allies.’
‘And they send you to ask me?’ Talat looked genuinely offended.
‘My government has organised a more fitting emissary should you wish to discuss terms and arrange a meeting with their official representatives,’ Johnny said trying to sound deferent.
‘So you are merely a stalking horse.’ Talat spoke menacingly, but his reservations were starting to fade. ‘What makes your government think I would be interested in making an agreement with them?’
‘It is no secret there is little support in your Government for a war that Enver Pasha dragged you into. Your people are tired and long for peace,’ Johnny said.
‘Who is to act as the emissary of the British Government?’ Talat asked.
‘The Grand Rabbi, Haim Nahum,’ Esther said.
Talat looked at her shrewdly. ‘Yes, he is notorious for his Germanophobia. I have had call to reproach him for it myself. A good choice. Bring him here so we can continue this play acting, but I make no promises.’
Chapter 21
Laszlo Breitner pushed his way to the end of the Grande Rue de Pera, through the bustle of Taksim Square and turned right towards the German Embassy.
There was no mistaking the pale yellow edifice, it looked like it would endure against any power that dared challenge Germany's Imperial ambitions.
Breitner went through the embassy gates and was directed to the embassy chancery. He showed his papers to a neat little clerk who led him to a large, dark, panelled office where he was greeted by a bullet-headed mandarin, with matching duelling scars.
‘Yes, I am Graf von Wut.’
‘Good afternoon, sir. I have a request from the Austro-Hungarian Embassy, for access to your shipment records,’ Breitner said, trying to sound like he cared.
Von Wut temple’s flushed under his pale duelling scars. ‘Really, have you nothing better to do?’
Breitner handed von Wut the chit. ‘I believe that one of your diplomats may have mistakenly impounded two cases of champagne, intended for His Excellency the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador.’
Von Wut looked at the chit. ‘Obviously some swine has filched it! How dare you accuse the Imperial German Embassy of such a crime!’
‘I'm not suggesting that someone in this embassy took it, Excellency. In fact, the evidence suggests that the perpetrator was from a different embassy.’
‘I wager that scar was not taken in a student duel?’
Breitner glanced at the faint scars on von Wut’s cheeks and realised he took such matters seriously. ‘I received this scar on the Eastern front, from a Cossack’s sabre.’
‘I see, you are a man of action and have now been made to serve a mindless sheep like von Grubber. Very well, you may look through our records. Müller here will assist you.’ He pointed at the nea
t little clerk.
Breitner was extremely impressed by the German archive, the contrast with the Austrian Embassy was stark. Everything was fastidiously catalogued and filed in a coherent and logical fashion. And the clerk, Müller, was excellent. For the first time since the war started, Breitner felt a sense of tranquillity.
He spent the rest of the day going through all the shipments the embassy had received for the past month, but found nothing resembling the delivery of champagne.
‘I think that this might be what you’re looking for.’ Müller handed him two crumpled bits of paper. ‘We never actually received the champagne, at the embassy, so the paperwork was filed under Miscellaneous.’
‘That sounds promising.’ Breitner said. Miscellaneous was where dirty little secrets were hidden.
‘I can only assume that the shipment in question was consumed in transit, before reaching the Embassy, sir.’
Breitner took the crumpled sheets of paper. The first was signed E von Jager but the name on the second sheet, written in the same hand, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Johnny Swift.
‘It can't be,’ Breitner whispered. It was drunkenly scrawled, but there was no mistaking the name. He couldn’t believe that Swift had infiltrated the German Diplomatic Service. The damage he could have done in a region as sensitive as the Balkans was inestimable.
Breitner looked again at the drunken scrawl. If Johnny had been causing mayhem for any length of time, he knew he would have pilfered from other shipments and left similar paper trails. Breitner had to find him, before he could do any more harm.
‘I need to keep these receipts and see all similar records,’ Breitner said, wondering if he’d just found the golden thread that would lead him out of the disaster he was in.
‘I’m afraid I’m not authorised to release documents without the express permission of the Graf von Wut, and he will have left for the day.’ Müller sighed, it wasn’t his fault.
‘Then let me speak to someone else in authority,’ Breitner shouted, starting to feel like himself again. Now that he’d actually found something of interest in this sea of banality, the last thing he intended to do was share it with his allies and lose control.
‘The disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador’s champagne is a very serious diplomatic matter, which I’m sure you would not wish to be held responsible for, Müller.’
‘Very good, sir, I’ll find the duty officer,’ Müller marched off. He returned with a self-regarding cavalry officer from an Uhlan regiment.
‘I am Captain Sigmund Stolz, how may I be of assistance?’
‘Are you in authority?’ Breitner asked.
‘I have been appointed aide-de-camp to General Liman von Sanders,’ he declared, very pleased with himself.
‘Very well, you’ll do. I demand that you release these documents into my care, they are vital to the honour of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.’ Breitner handed the two crumpled papers to the Captain.
He glanced at them. ‘Really, champagne? Is that all anyone cares about? Very well, if they are so vital to your country’s war efforts then please, by all means, take them and be damned!’
‘Thank you, now I need access to all your shipping records since July last year, including all miscellaneous receipts.’ Breitner would start his search from the last time he had seen Johnny.
Chapter 22
Johnny knocked back his schnapps and cringed as raw, pear-flavoured alcohol burnt his throat and warmed his stomach. Kurt and Dolly followed suit and he poured another round.
They'd enjoyed a splendid dinner of chicken schnitzel in a café along an elegant glass-covered arcade on the Grand Rue de Pera, and now the serious drinking could start.
So far Johnny had been able to keep up with Kurt and Dolly, but they were drinking with total abandon. They would not be able to drink like this where they were going and may never drink like this again. There was a sombre mood underlying the little gathering and Johnny felt that his companions would rather be on their own, but were doing what was expected.
Kurt and Dolly had just got their orders and were being sent to the Dardanelles Strait in preparation for the expected attack by the Allied fleet. Johnny didn't envy them being on the wrong end of naval guns. He tried to ignore his guilt and switched his attention to the undulating women performing on the stage.
Johnny drank another schnapps and then felt himself retch. Sigmund Stolz was picking his way through the café. He shot a disgusted look at the belly dancers and moved towards Johnny’s table.
‘Good evening, gentlemen.’ Stolz looked around at the group disapprovingly, waiting to be invited to join them.
'Stolz, what can we do for you?' Kurt said. The alcohol had done little to ease his anxiety.
Stolz shot another disgusted look at the belly dancers. 'I’m in need of diversion. I've been with the most extraordinary person from the Austro-Hungarian Embassy. He had me running back and forth trying to find champagne belonging to the Austrian Ambassador, which he had the audacity to claim had been waylaid by a German diplomat.'
Kurt and Dolly roared with laughter, making Stolz blink. He had suddenly found himself the centre of attention and was slightly confused.
'He must mean you, Ernst,' Dolly shouted at Johnny.
'I’ve spent hours rummaging through boxes of receipts!' Stolz was still relating his anecdote, ignoring the conversation going on around him.
Johnny laughed at Stolz enjoying the spectacle of someone else suffering the consequences of his actions. Stolz glared realising that he was the butt of the joke, rather than the instigator and Johnny saw how he could make Stolz’s discomfort worse. ‘Perhaps we should have two cases of champagne sent along to the Austro-Hungarian embassy with an apology?’
‘What a splendid idea,’ Dolly banged the table and signalled to a waiter. ‘I will have it sent over straight away.’
‘What are you doing?’ Stolz asked, still apparently confused.
‘We drank some champagne belonging to the Austrian Ambassador on the way here – I’m sure it can’t have been the champagne you were looking for,’ Johnny said.
‘Well, what else could it have been? Do you know how much time I’ve wasted?’ Stolz pointed at the empty bottles on the table, in a sweeping motion of disgust. ‘I see your preparations for the front are following the same decadent pattern.'
‘Yes, we are soon to take on the pride of the British Empire and send it to the bottom of the sea,’ Kurt yelled in Stolz’s face, part excitement, part unease about what was coming. ‘While you are kissing the arse of Liman von Sanders.’
Stolz methodically wiped Kurt’s spittle from his face and drew himself up, gaining strength from the social humiliation.
‘It is always a fine thing to see such a bold example of the German fighting spirit, close up and quite personal, even at your wake. I just wonder if it will be so apparent when you are sober and facing the most powerful navy in the world, with only a few crumbling forts and some obsolete guns. You might as well put your shrouds on now, as you are going to be buried there. After all isn’t that what you volunteered for, hazardous service? While I’m at headquarters. I don’t imagine I look like quite such a joke now?’
For a moment no one could quite believe what they had heard. Then Dolly spoke quietly. ‘What the hell do you mean by that, Stolz, are you suggesting we can’t stop the Royal Navy?’
‘Even our illustrious Ambassador Herr von Wangenheim thinks that the British will succeed in forcing the Dardanelles Strait and you will be right in the firing line.’
Kurt roared with rage and stood up to challenge Stolz. Dolly put a hand out to stop him. ‘Forcing the Dardanelles Strait is impossible, Stolz. I have been there and seen our defences.’
‘Then why are the Royal Navy determined to try? They have a brave tradition of sacrifice and will throw ship after ship at our defences until they are pulverised. We estimate that it will take up to ten ships, but it will be done.�
�� Stolz relayed the facts simply and tonelessly.
‘Ten ships? Do you seriously believe that the British would sacrifice ten battleships? That is the talk of Embassy laymen sitting in smoke-filled rooms,’ Kurt said.
‘To gain Constantinople and open the route to Russia, with the impact that would have on the war? Yes, I believe they would sacrifice twice that number of ships.’ Stolz was enjoying the effect his words were having.
‘I’m sure that it won’t come to that and everything will all be resolved through negotiation,’ Johnny interjected.
Kurt looked at him, his fine Viking features outraged. ‘Have you changed sides, von Jager? You think this swine is right and we can’t beat them?’
Dolly pulled Kurt away. They were going to the front, and he to a smoke-filled room, ‘come on the backroom boys are all on the same side.’
Johnny desperately wanted to tell them that the negotiations he was involved in would stop the Royal Navy from attacking. He tried to ignore the shame he felt. He was serving his country. It was time to remember whose side he was on. They were the enemy and it was his duty to beat them.
‘Quite a performance,’ Stolz said after Kurt and Dolly were a safe distance away. ‘Perhaps we can have a quiet drink now?’
‘Yes, perhaps we could,’ Johnny agreed. He still had to maintain the pretence of being an ambitious diplomat.
Chapter 23
Johnny watched the blue trails of Talat's cigarette smoke gently circle into a thick cloud formation and sipped his Turkish coffee, enjoying the heady mix of aromas.
Talat looked business like in a black frock coat and the ubiquitous red fez, belying the anxiety on his face as he listened to the Grand Rabbi, read out London’s terms.
'The Dardanelles Strait are to be cleared of all mines and opened immediately to Allied shipping. The Ottoman Empire is to cease all hostilities with the Allied powers and withdraw from the war. Your alliance with Germany is to be ended and you’re to remain neutral.’