“I can’t,” he declared; “unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Well you know what Gladstone said when he dined with Queen Victoria in 1884.”
“No.”
“Love and laughter are the only two recreations suited to persons of our years. Madam—the choice lies with you”
She set down the teapot, regarding his smooth brown face and vivid smiling blue eyes seriously for a moment. Then she shook her head. “You know you’re impossible! My ribs are still sore from the way we laughed last night and now you are trying to start me off again. Do you always behave like a rather wicked small boy?”
“I’m a devil on the parade ground,” he assured her solemnly.
“Have I to choose between the conversation of an imbecile and that of a martinet?”
“There is always the one suitable alternative which I have suggested.”
“No.” She shook her pale gold head. “I don’t want to be made love to—at least not at the moment. But how old are you really?”
“Old enough to be your father.”
“You’re not!”
“Well—stepfather.”
“Or elder brother,” she smiled.
“Damn it! Let’s settle it at lover—why not,” his blue eyes twinkled at her mischievously.
“No, court jester perhaps, but I bet you’d lose your job within a week.”
“Never so long as the Queen’s countenance was inclined kindly towards me—take me on and see—but talking of jobs I have a special reason to be gay to-day since your good papa is about to offer me one.”
“I know it was about that I wanted to see you.”
“Only for that,” his expression of dismay was quite comical.
“Well—not quite only,” she confessed. “But particularly—because I want you to promise me that you won’t take it.”
“What!” he exclaimed. “Why in heaven not?”
“I can’t go into details, but you don’t need it. You have plenty of money and you are just off to Norway so you would have to cancel that.”
“True,” Swithin admitted, suddenly remembering all the tarradiddles he had told her the night before so that she should not worry about him “But I’m a glutton for work, so I could never be happy idle and this chance may never come again. I don’t mind two hoots about cutting out Norway.”
“You don’t even know what the job is yet.”
“No—do you?”
“Amongst other things you will have to take over a Tobacco Depot outside Constantinople.”
He nodded. “I feared it might be something in the Near East and that’s a pity because if it had been in London I could have continued to see you.”
“That does not affect the question as I am leaving with father on his yacht for Constantinople at the end of the week in any case, but I’d much rather you didn’t take this job.”
“Why!—that’s all the more reason that I should. I may be able to see something of you there.”
“Oh, you’ll see me I dare say,” she said a little crossly, “we may even travel out together, but don’t expect me to devote any of my time to you if we do. My party is already made up.”
He placed his hand gently on her shoulder and turned her face towards him. “What’s bitten you all of a sudden Diana,” he asked earnestly. “I have been fool enough to think you rather liked me—isn’t that true after all?”
“I do like you,” she looked away quickly, “but I don’t want you to come with us on the yacht and above all I don’t want you to take this job.”
“But why? Surely you can give me some reason?”
“In the first place you don’t really need it.”
“But suppose that I do really need it and that it is absolutely necessary for me to earn a spot of ready cash?”
“I should still ask you not to take it.”
“But why?” he persisted.
“I can’t explain,” she said sullenly. “But if you do really like me and I ask you to refuse it—surely that is enough.”
For a moment Swithin hovered in miserable indecision. If she had asked him to do any stupid, childish, reckless thing just for her amusement he would have done it without a second thought, but it seemed so utterly unfair that, for some absurd girlish whim, she should ask him to sacrifice the prospect of a decent job.
The butler came in to remove the tea things. “Sir George is ready to see you in the library, sir,” he announced as he picked up the tray.
Swithin stood up. “I’m sorry,” he declared as the man left the room, “but if it is a job that I can do I mean to take it.”
“Very well.” Diana’s dark eyes clouded with angry tears which he could not see because her head was turned away. “You’ll think you can do it I’ve no doubt, but you’ve no experience so you’ll make a muck of it before you’ve done. Anyhow don’t expect any sympathy from me because I hate pig-headed people.”
The butler reappeared in the doorway. “This way, sir, If you will follow me I will show you down to the library.”
CHAPTER V
THE SECRET MISSION
Sir George Duncannon held up a restraining hand. “My dear fellow it is quite unnecessary for you to go on. Far from being a sinecure which I am about to offer you it is a job which requires courage, brains, and ability.”
“That’s nice of you sir.” Swithin wriggled a little uncomfortably in his chair. “But I hope you are not ranking my mental capacity too highly.”
The banker smiled, “I don’t think so. Of course it requires other attributes and among them a sound knowledge of Greek and Turkish, but I understand that you have that, also that you have lived in Constantinople for a time—is that correct?”
“Yes, I know the city and I’m pretty fluent in both languages.”
“Good. Then unless I’ve completely misjudged you I should be hard put to it to find a man better suited to the work I have in mind. It is much more a question as to whether you would be willing to undertake it.”
Swithin’s lips twitched into a smile beneath his short, dark, upturned moustache. “If you really think that—go ahead, sir. I’m pretty well up against it at the moment so it would have to be a very queer business for me to turn it down.”
“It is a queer business and before we go any further I am sure you will understand that anything we may say must not go outside these four walls.”
Swithin nodded and the banker went on quietly. “First of all I should like you to accompany me when I leave England on Friday. We go overland to Marseilles, join my yacht, the Golden Falcon, there and proceed to Athens where I have a series of conferences which I must attend. From there you would go on independently to Constantinople and take over the management of a Tobacco Depot on the Bosphorus which, owing to certain financial difficulties, has now become the virtual property of my company.”
“You realise sir, that I do not know the first thing about banking—or tobacco?”
“That is immaterial. You will have a score of technicians to advise you.”
Swithin’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Then I can only assume this to be a cover of some sort. Of what is my real work to consist?”
“There!” Sir George smiled quickly. “I felt certain that I should not be disappointed in you. Your position at the Depot, as you have guessed, will be nothing but a blind. I only wish it was as easy for me to tell you what I really want you to do. Have you any knowledge of Turkish history?”
“I have never passed an exam. in it but I am familiar with its general outline from the time of the Crusades up to the Great War.”
“And that of the other Balkan States?”
“I know a little about them all.”
“I see. You will know then that there is good reason for that part of the world to have been termed the Plague-spot of Europe. The history of the Near East has been one long tale of wars and strife. Mohammedans massacring Christians one day and Greeks or Armenians slaughtering Turks the next.”
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Sir George paused for a moment and then went on thoughtfully: “Perhaps that was inevitable up to the period of the Great War. Although for three hundred years in a state of decay and bordering on collapse, the Ottoman Empire had still managed to maintain suzerainty over a great area of South-Eastern Europe containing many million Christians, while to the south and east they held Syria, Palestine, and the vast Arabian peninsula, all peopled by races alien to the Turks and constantly in rebellion against them. But the Great War changed all that.
“At its conclusion the Allies had practically driven the Turks out of Europe while Allenby had cleared Palestine and Syria. Liman Von Sanders had been facing Allenby and, as all German officers were recalled to their country immediately the Armistice was signed, he handed all that was left of his army over to Mustapha Kemal who had been fighting under his orders. The history of Turkey has been, for all practical purposes, the history of Mustapha Kemal—or Mr. Ata Turk as he calls himself now—from that date.
“He was not a person of any real importance at that time. From his youth he had been a revolutionary, a prominent member of the Vatan and, later, of the Committee of Union and Progress which was pledged to replace the despotism of the Sultan with constitutional government and to abolish the antiquated religious restrictions which stifled all progress. But he was such an aggressive, dictatorial and unsympathetic individual that his associates loathed him. In consequence, when the revolution actually came in 1908, Enver Pasha, Talat, Jemal, and Javid took all the credit for freeing the country from the tyranny of the Sultan Abdul Hamid. They squeezed Kemal out and he remained practically a nonentity. Henceforth he was the lone wolf, hating and hated both by the Sultan’s party whose power he had helped to break and by his old comrades who were the new masters.
“However, fate has been kind to Mustapha Kemal in giving him unique opportunities and his genius lies in his quickness to seize them. When the British were about to attack Gallipoli he was still very much an under-dog, suspect and unpopular with the powers of the day. Not wishing to give him any chance to get in the limelight they relegated him to the command of a reserve division at Maidos. The Turks knew of course that the Allies were about to make a landing in force but where it was to take place along the sixty miles of coast line they had no idea. Liman Von Sanders believed that the attempt would be made at Bulair, on the north end of the Peninsula, and had concentrated his forces there. Kemal was forty miles farther to the south and on the eastern coast, watching the Dardanelles.
“As it happened the British landed just opposite him on the west coast at Ari Burnu. They drove the Turkish pickets in at once. The news reached Kemal as he was exercising his troops. Immediately it became a race from opposite sides of the Peninsula as to which could reach the mountain crests of the Chunuk Bair first and thus dominate the whole position. Kemal won by a matter of minutes—no more—but he was hopelessly outnumbered, having only his reserve force, a couple of Arab regiments and a few police, against the flower of the Australian divisions. Yet somehow he managed to cling on.
“All that day, all night, and all the following day as well, he fought with magnificent tenacity and courage, forcing his utterly exhausted troops to maintain their position, until help arrived, by the sheer power of his personality. By ignoring the orders of his superiors and utilising the whole of the Army Reserves to the last man he saved Constantinople. That prompt action of his in the beginning, and his second almost equally brilliant performance when he repulsed the whole weight of the fresh British landing at Suvla Bay, under very similar circumstances, were directly responsible for the enormous loss in lives and treasure sustained by the British Empire in that disastrous campaign.”
Swithin nodded quietly: “I know sir.”
“Of course,” Sir George smiled apologetically, “I forgot for the moment that I was talking to a soldier. To return then to the political side. Kemal’s victories did him little personal good. He was still cold shouldered by his superiors and increased his unpopularity by a display of open hatred towards their allies. He had always proclaimed the doctrine of ‘Turkey for the Turks’ and loathed the Germans only a fraction less than the British.
“After his brilliant exploits on Gallipoli he was too big to break, so his old enemy Enver Pasha, who was running the country under the direction of the Germans, fearing his acid-tongued interference at Constantinople, got him out of the way as much as possible by giving him various missions. One was to accompany the Prince Vaheddin, who afterwards became Sultan, on a tour of the Western Front. Then when he returned, to get rid of him again they packed him off to the distant Syrian Army where Liman Von Sanders was facing Allenby near Jaffa. That was where fate played into Kemal’s hands again for, after the retreat when Allenby had forced the Turks back on Alexandretta and right up against the frontier of Turkey proper, the Armistice was signed. Von Sanders was recalled and Kemal Pasha left in supreme command.
“Enver, Talat, Jemal and the rest fled the country to save their skins, and of the leading men Kemal, practically alone, remained. He refused to evacuate Alexandretta or lay down his arms in accordance with the terms of the Armistice.
“Instead, he dug himself in and prepared to resist the occupation of Turkey. Then he made the defiant declaration which he has stuck to ever since. In effect he said that the retention of her possessions in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Arabia, Greece and Bulgaria had been the means of draining the life blood from Turkey for generations. The Allies had conquered them and they were welcome to keep them but now they meant to dismember Turkey herself and that he would not permit. The Victorious Allies might say that the War was over, but it was not for him and his men. Unless Turkey were left inviolate they meant to hold the mountain passes of the frontier and die there rather than give in.
“The Allies threatened him. His own Government ordered and begged him by turns to accede to the Allies’ demands and trust the generosity of the British. He would not.
“He visited the Northern Army which had fought against the Russians, won them over to himself, and called a conference of Deputies from all Turkey at Erzerum. The Sultan repudiated him and then ordered his arrest. He replied by saying that the Sultan and the Constantinople Government were prisoners in the hands of the British and therefore no longer free to act in the country’s best interests. The Deputies gave him the emergency powers of a Dictator.
“The Allies’ troops were tired of fighting and clamouring to be taken home. Each week, as a few more regiments were withdrawn, Kemal’s position became stronger; so that by the time the Great Men at Versailles had made up their minds how Turkey was to be cut up on paper they no longer had the troops in the Near East to enforce their orders.
“Venizelos, greedy for more territory, suggested that the Greek Army should be sent against Kemal. The offer was accepted and the Greeks landed large forces at Smyrna with all the munitions and resources of the Allies to assist them. Mustapha Kemal marched west with his tattered, ill-equipped, half-starved veterans. There was a terrible campaign which dragged on for many months. No quarter was given or prisoners taken by either side. It was sheer ferocious butchery. Despite the odds against him Kemal was victorious. He captured the Greek Commander-in-Chief and drove his army into the sea while the sailors of the Victorious Allies sat watching the rout from the great battleships, powerless to intervene.
“Kemal turned then to the problem of liberating Turkey in Europe. That also was held by the Greeks and, to add to his difficulty, the British still occupied Constantinople, barring his way across the straits. He was too sensible to force a war upon Britain by a direct attack so he ordered his men to reverse arms and walk peaceably through our lines at Chanak. It was a very awkward situation for our Commander, Sir Charles Harington, If his men had opened fire it might have dragged us into another war with Turkey and he knew that the Government at home would be very adverse to that. Moreover, he had nothing like sufficient troops under him to put up a serious opposition against Kemal. The French rep
resentative came to the rescue and hurriedly patched up an agreement. Kemal asked no more and no less than he had nearly four years earlier, at the time of the Armistice. That Turkey proper should remain inviolate for Turks to run and Turks to rule without foreign interference. The Mighty Allied and Victorious Powers caved in, giving this ferocious but courageous soldier what he demanded. The foreign troops were withdrawn from Turkish soil and Mustapha Kemal had saved his nation.
“At what a price you can imagine. Since the outbreak of the first Balkan War in 1912 the man power of his race had been decimated by ten years of slaughter, the country laid waste, thousands of towns and villages burnt to the ground. Besides which Kemal was by no means the master yet in this country of ruins that he had saved from final partition at the hands of the Allied Statesmen.
“He is said to be a licentious drunken brute, a cynic and a liar, whom no decent men could respect or trust. He was feared and hated even by the men who, from patriotic motives, had stood by him in his long struggle. It is said that in all his life he has only had one really intimate friend, a Colonel Arif who used to be the companion of his debauches, yet he hung him with a batch of others because he played some small part in a political intrigue, without the least compunction.
“Once Turkey was freed from the foreigner all his associates turned against him. They had not risked their lives in the early days to force a constitution on the Sultan in order that Kemal should usurp his powers and become dictator. They wanted a Republic, but in order to fight Kemal, they rallied round Vaheddin who was still nominally the head of the State and powerful in his dual capacity of Sultan, and Caliph of the Faithful.
“Kemal then forced a decree through the National Assembly severing the Sultanate from the Caliphate. Vaheddin fled from Constantinople and his nephew Abdul Mejid was created Caliph in his stead. A year later Turkey was declared a Republic and six months after that Mustapha Kemal abolished the Caliphate as well. Then in 1926 he hung the entire opposition and at last became the sole and absolute master of Turkey.
The Eunuch of Stamboul Page 4