by Giles Milton
George rubs his elbow as he listens to Metropolitan Chrysostomos. A jagged shard of shrapnel is lodged close to the bone and causes the nerves to twitch in a most unpleasant fashion. ‘This blasted arm,’ he mutters to himself before explaining to Chrysostomos, ‘from a Turkish shell – whoosh – it got me right here. I was hit at Afyonkarahisar.’
Just five days earlier, George and his Greek comrades had been in combat against the Turkish army close to Ushak, some one hundred and forty miles east of Smyrna. The division with which he was serving had been hoping to break through the Turkish flank and head for Constantinople. The men had spent their evenings carousing after a string of victories and discussing how they were going to enter the city. One of them, a cocksure colonel named Teodoro, had proposed that George should ride into Constantinople on horseback; ride in on a white charger, mimicking Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror’s entrance into the city on that terrible day in 1453. ‘You must be the first to enter Constantinople,’ said Colonel Teodoro. ‘With God’s blessing, you have to be the first.’
The colonel’s suggestion had raised wild hurrahs from his men and George had managed to further increase the volume and tempo by proposing a toast to the recapture of the city from the infidels. But their confidence and morale had soon been shattered. The entire Greek army, which had for so long looked invincible, had been devastated by the forces of Mustafa Kemal, who had orchestrated a lightning, twin-pronged attack. The few survivors had fled towards the coastal town of Smyrna.
George had been fortunate to have arrived there first. He’d found a city that was oblivious to its impending doom. The casino was open as normal. The quay was crowded with porters and stevedores loading sticky figs onto waiting cargo vessels. Greek shipping patriarchs were dining in the Hotel d’Angleterre; the English residents in Bournabat continued to drink gin and bitters; the little American community was in the midst of arranging the autumn season of tea dances at the YMCA.
George pops a cube of local tulum into his mouth. Instead of chewing it, as is his custom, he squashes it slowly with his tongue. He can feel it squelching through the gaps in his teeth and sticking itself to his gums. ‘Hmm,’ he says to himself with a frown. ‘It doesn’t taste quite so good today. No, it’s got quite a different flavour.’ As he thinks this thought, he glances towards the sea. His sensitive nose has alerted his brain to the fact that something untoward is happening on the quayside, less than three hundred yards from where he is seated. Yes, a terrible stench is being carried on the breeze and it brings with it a story of misery and despair. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of wounded Greek soldiers are pouring into Smyrna from the interior of the country. They are stumbling, shuffling, bent almost in two by the weight of their packs. Their gaunt faces and blank expressions speak of extreme suffering. Some are leaning on their comrades for support. Others are dragging one foot after the other, struggling to reach the docks of Smyrna where they hope to find refuge.
The metropolitan lets out a low whistle as he watches a wounded rifleman collapse in pain. ‘I never thought it possible,’ he says. ‘I thought victory was ours.’
He swings his gaze back to the quayside, which holds the attention of everyone on the terrace of the Hotel Bristol, and watches anxiously as an ever-increasing number of soldiers shuffle their way along the seafront.
‘The Turks will not dare enter the city,’ whispers the metropolitan. ‘Not with all these foreigners here.’ He points towards the harbour, which is playing host to more than two dozen foreign warships. George counts eleven British ships, five French cruisers and several Italian minesweepers. There are also three American destroyers, the largest of which had arrived late the previous evening and is now anchored next to the Standard Oil terminal at the northern end of the quay.
‘I hope you’re right, Father,’ says George Trencom. ‘I hope to God you’re right.’ But even as he speaks these words, it becomes apparent that the situation is about to deteriorate still further.
All eyes at the Hotel Bristol are transfixed on the furthest end of the quay, where a most disquieting scene is unfolding. It is so disturbing that Metropolitan Chrysostomos involuntarily stands up and makes the sign of the cross. The infamous Turkish cavalry, commanded by Murcelle Pasha, can be seen riding along the harbour front. They sit erect in their saddles and wear high black fezzes emblazoned with the crescent and star. In their right hands, each horseman is clutching a polished curved scimitar. They shout ‘Victory! Victory!’ as they ride, then give themselves a rousing cheer.
‘In the name of all that is holy,’ says the metropolitan, who once again crosses himself, ‘it has indeed come to pass.’
More than two thousand Turkish troops flood into Smyrna during the course of the afternoon. They are greeted as heroes and liberators by the Turkish minority living in the upper part of town, but elsewhere in Smyrna the mood has changed to one of foreboding. Scores of Armenians have been butchered in cold blood and several hundred shops have been looted. George Trencom watches in silence as the wealthiest Greek families board their pleasure craft and slip quietly out of the harbour. Those left behind have spent their time cleaning their weapons and preparing for the worst.
At exactly 3.22 p.m., General Noureddin, the newly appointed commander of Smyrna, sends an order that Metropolitan Chrysostomos should come to his headquarters. The metropolitan knows that he has little option but to obey and he heads to the general’s office, accompanied by Mr George Trencom, who has offered to act as his dragoman. Although the two men have a Turkish military escort, they have considerable difficulty reaching the portal of the building, for an ugly mob has gathered to jeer at the Greek metropolitan. As he comes into sight, they hurl scraps of rubbish and small stones.
Chrysostomos enters the general’s impromptu headquarters and extends his hand to greet Noureddin, a man he has met on several previous occasions. He congratulates him on his victory and asks him to show magnanimity towards the vanquished. Noureddin refuses his hand, gives him a disdainful sneer and then spits in his face. ‘You are a dead man,’ he says coldly, ‘and so are your people. Now get out. My people have some old scores to settle.’ He utters not a word to George Trencom, although his flickering eyes betray the signs of recognition. ‘Is it really him?’ he asks of his chief lieutenant. ‘Have we so easily lured him into our lair?’
The lieutenant nods and says, ‘Just look at his nose – it could hardly be anyone else.’
Metropolitan Chrysostomos and George Trencom turn to leave the general’s office and head back downstairs towards the entrance hall. Before stepping outside, they exchange glances and look warily at the mob. Chrysostomos instinctively makes the sign of the cross and mutters a prayer. ‘Only God can save us now,’ he says.
As the two men reach the bottom step, General Noureddin makes an appearance on the balcony of his headquarters. He addresses the mob in fiery language, giving them carte blanche to act as they wish. ‘Treat the dogs as they deserve to be treated,’ he says, ‘and most especially this one.’ He points at George Trencom, making an unambiguous throat-slitting gesture before calmly heading back inside. As he closes the doors to the balcony, the crowd surges forward and grabs Chrysostomos by the beard. George Trencom tries to defend his friend but, as he does so, he is stabbed in the neck by one of the mob. He falls to the ground in shock, clutching the gaping wound with his hand.
His last sight before losing consciousness is the murder of the metropolitan. Chrysostomos’s throat is slit and his eyes are gouged out with knives. The mob then cuts off his beard with a razor.
The crowd’s fury is assuaged by the killing and they soon begin to disperse. A couple of men remain behind to string up the corpses from a lamp-post. They place a placard round each man’s neck – a placard that is written in Turkish, Greek and Armenian. Its message consists of just three words: ‘Constantinople is Turkish.’
7 FEBRUARY 1969
Edward had not been at work for long when the shop bell tinkled and the door burst open. H
e sprang to his feet in a mixture of panic and alarm but was quickly reassured when he saw a familiar figure enter the shop.
‘Richard,’ he exclaimed. ‘You put the fear of God into me. What a surprise! What brings you here again?’ And before he had a chance to finish his question, he realized exactly why his friend had come. ‘You’ve got some news,’ he said in an urgent tone of voice. ‘You’ve filled a gap? What have you discovered?’
‘Calm down, old chap,’ said Barcley, smiling at his friend’s impatience. ‘I’ll tell you everything – only, well, I must admit, there’s not a great deal to tell.’
‘But you’ve found out who he is?’
‘No,’ said Richard. ‘I haven’t found out who he is. But I have discovered that something strange took place at Number Fourteen yesterday. Something that I witnessed with my very own eyes.’
‘What? What?’ said Edward. ‘Come on – tell me.’
Richard paused. ‘Well, perhaps we should go downstairs. Into the cellars. This isn’t the most appropriate place.’
‘Spot on,’ said Edward, who walked over to the top of the stepladder and called down to Mr George to ask if he could serve in the shop for a few minutes.
‘At the double,’ responded Mr George, whose appearance at the top of the ladder was masked by the two large boxes of camembert he was carrying. ‘Ah, hello, Mr Barcley,’ he said in a friendly voice. ‘Long time, no see. To what do we owe this pleasure? Is it cheese or personal?’
Richard smiled. ‘I need to borrow Edward for a moment,’ he said. ‘Just for a moment, mind. Can you stand guard? Keep the home fires burning?’
Once Richard and Edward were down in the cellars, Edward was desperate to know every detail of what had happened. ‘Well,’ said Richard, ‘there really isn’t a great deal to tell. But for what it’s worth …’
He described how he had been standing at the window of his office on the previous afternoon at about 3.30 p.m. ‘The curtains of the building opposite were open,’ he said, ‘and I could see directly into the room. There had been no one in there all day, as far as I was aware, but now – not long before I was due to pack up – I saw three men enter the room. It was hard to make out exactly what was taking place, for the sunlight was reflecting off the windows. But I’m convinced that one of those three men was the same person who was staring at us just the other day.’
‘What was he doing?’ asked Edward. ‘And the other two – what were they doing?’
‘Well, it was clear they were having an argument. In fact, they were having an almighty row. Two of the men seemed to be shouting at the third. And at one point, they grabbed the lapels of his jacket.’
‘And then?’ asked Edward.
‘And then, unfortunately, they saw me standing at the window. And then it was curtains. They closed them, I mean.’
Edward let out a long sigh. ‘And that’s it?’ he asked. ‘There’s nothing more?’
‘No,’ said Barcley. ‘I mean, yes. There is something more. There’s something very much more. In fact, there’s this.’
He pulled an envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket and waved it at Edward, rather as if he was displaying a trump card.
‘What have you got there?’ said Edward. ‘What is it?’
‘When I got to work yesterday’, explained Richard, ‘this was waiting for me. It had been pushed through the letter box and left on the mat. Mrs Clarke picked it up when she arrived in the morning.’
‘Well?’ said an increasingly impatient Edward. ‘What does it say?’
‘Not a great deal,’ said Barcley. ‘In fact, not very much at all. But it’s no less interesting for all that. Listen to this. It says: “Please be kind enough to meet me on Friday, 21 February, at noon, at the junction of Throgmorton Street and Old Broad Street. I have something of the utmost importance to tell you – something that needs to be relayed to your friend. I cannot, for reasons that I am unable to explain here and now, meet with you before this date.”’
‘And that’s it?’ asked Edward as he flipped over the sheet of paper.
‘And that,’ replied Richard, ‘is indeed it. Nothing more, nothing less.’
‘So what now?’ asked Edward with a long, exasperated sigh. ‘That’s two weeks away. Will you go? No – you can’t. You can’t put yourself in danger because of me. No, Richard, I shall go. I will meet him that Friday.’
‘No,’ said Barcley firmly. ‘You can’t go. It’s quite clear that you are the one that’s in danger. Someone, for reasons as yet unknown, wants to do you harm. And you’re already an easy enough target without going to this rendezvous. No, no, Edward. I shall go.’
Richard picked up a small piece of gorgonzola and pressed it to his nostrils.
‘Wow, Edward, that’s a pungent one. It’s a bit too early in the day for that. And now,’ he said, glancing at his watch, ‘if you don’t mind, I need to get on my way. Dear Mrs Clarke will be worrying herself senseless about me. Look after yourself, old chap. I’ll keep you posted about any developments.’
And with that, Richard Barcley headed across the cellar towards the stepladder and disappeared upwards into the shop.
Edward Trencom had long held that there were two types of people in life. One type, which included his good self, could only make sense of the present by constantly referring to the past. ‘It’s like a fine stilton,’ he would say. ‘Unless you can compare it with its predecessors, how on earth can you pass judgement?’
The second type – of which Richard Barcley was an outstanding example – cared nothing for old objects. For him, the past was only useful if it provided the answer to a crossword clue or a put-down quip to an over-smart client.
One had only to cast an eye over the decor of their respective houses to realize that there was more than a grain of truth in Edward’s little theory. Barcley’s house was furnished with functional chairs and tables that had been bought from Arding & Hobbs with little effort and less thought. Edward’s home, by contrast, was cluttered with old armchairs and sideboards that had been acquired from junk shops and auctions over the previous twelve years of married life. His Sedgefield dining room table (circa 1890) had come from Pringles of Honiton. His East India tea chest, which still smelled pleasingly of jasmine, had been bought at Dobson Antiques in Tower Street. Although Edward had never kept an inventory of the things he had bought, he could remember where each item of furniture came from and the price that he had paid.
Recalling these facts brought him nearly as much pleasure as the thought that generations of people like him had already enjoyed the objects that filled the rooms of Number 22 Sunnyhill Road. Every time Edward relaxed in his Windsor settle, he recalled how he had bought it for £2 4s – a veritable bargain. He was the first to admit that there was nothing especially noteworthy about the chair. The headrest was unadorned and the legs were less ostentatious than on many Windsor chairs he had seen. Yet the oak had acquired the deep patina of old boots over the years and there were grooves in the arms where generations of elbows had rubbed and rested. When Edward sat in the chair, he would sniff at the newly applied wax (which itself smelled of antiques), emit a satisfied sigh and think of all the people who had enjoyed the warmth of its moulded back.
He had many other favourites as well. Some years ago, he had bought a Royal Doulton coronation mug of King Edward VIII – a most unusual item, given that the king had abdicated before he was crowned. Edward derived pleasure from simply looking at the mug, not so much because of its value (it was not actually worth a great deal), but because it was such an oddity. It was on a par with the eighteenth-century minke whale rib that hung above the fireplace.
All these objects paled into insignificance when compared to the family papers that Edward had discovered in the cellars of Trencoms. It was not just the fact that he had unearthed a crate of old objects – itself a cause of considerable contentment – but the fact that each and every item in the box had a direct bearing on his own life.
On the evenin
g of 7 February, Edward spent more than an hour pondering over the records that referred to his grandfather. He quickly realized that there was frustratingly little information about George. Aside from the photograph, there were the two newspaper articles and six or seven maps of the Ottoman Empire. And that was all.
Edward was about to pack up the papers and retire to bed when he noticed a handwritten letter tucked inside the fold of one of the maps. With tremulous hands, he unfolded the notepaper and, scanning his eyes to the bottom, realized that it was a letter from George to his wife, Alice:
Dearest Alice,
All our hopes are at an end. All our dreams have been in vain. My last letter came from Afyonkarahisar, where I was wounded in the elbow by shrapnel. We had hopes of breaking through the enemy lines and my comrades in arms were talking of me being the first to ride into Constantinople – and on a white charger, too! But we have now been beaten back to Ushak (from where I write this letter) and our forces are in poor shape. In two days, I shall head for Smyrna, from where I shall try to find myself passage home.
How is Trencoms? How is Peregrine? How are you? I regret this whole foolish business – which I am now abandoning for ever – and ask for you, my dearest, to accept my sincere apologies.
With all my love and affection,
George
Edward read the letter a second and then a third time. He was still no clearer as to its meaning and studied it line by line in the hope that it would all fall into place. He scratched at his nose – a habit he had developed at a very tender age – and stared blankly at the ceiling. ‘And on a white charger,’ said Edward to himself for the umpteenth time. ‘Why a white charger? That’s what I find so bizarre.’
Edward was still troubled by these questions on the following morning when, at a little after nine o’clock, he pushed open the newly installed swing doors of Southwark’s municipal public library. He sat himself down at the third desk on the right – his usual – and was about to open a book when he spied a familiar face on the far side of the library. ‘Ah-ha,’ he thought to himself, ‘here’s someone on hand to help and he’s coming right this way. Hello, Herbert!’