The Dark Moment

by Ann Bridge

  “The peasants and farmers,” said Dr. Pierce, “but …”

  The door opened at this point, and a second young man put his head in. “Oh Wilmington, there you are. The Counsellor wants you—when you’re free,” he added politely, with a glance at Dr. Pierce.

  Mr. Wilmington said “Right,” and turned to Dr. Pierce again; he was beginning in his turn to think that his visitor was possibly a little mad—Embassies drew lunatics as with a magnet—and he saw a chance of escape. “If it’s about grain, I think you should see the Commercial Attaché,” he said firmly. “I’ll see if he’s free. One moment”—and with that he picked up Dr. Pierce’s card and went out. On his way to the Counsellor’s room he poked his head in at a door—the Commercial Attaché was there. “I say, there’s an old boy in the waiting-room who seems rather potty; he wants to talk about grain. Can you cope? Marchmont wants me—” and he flipped the card onto the table. The other took it up. “Dr. Henry Pierce,” he read. “Why, it’s old Pierce!” he said—“He’s not potty, except about scripts.” “Well, he never mentioned scripts—he’s talking about people buying grain at a place called Arse or Carse,” said young Wilmington. “I say, could you cope? Marchmont’s waiting.” He fled.

  The Commercial Attaché went to the waiting-room, where Dr. Pierce was fretting, and wishing he hadn’t come—pure waste of time!

  “How do you do? My name is Hepburn. I’m delighted to meet you,” said a man of reasonable age, coming in and holding out his hand. “Won’t you come to my room?—more comfortable there.”

  In Mr. Hepburn’s room Dr. Pierce indeed found everything much more comfortable. He was given a cigarette, and in this soothing atmosphere told his story clearly enough. Mr. Hepburn listened with attention, putting a sensible question now and then; at the end—“I think the M.A. ought to hear this,” he said—“Would you mind? I’ll just fetch him.” He too went along the passage and poked his head in at a door. “Bill, could you come to my room for a second?” As the Military Attaché rose and went with him—“I’ve got old Dr. Pierce in there; he’s just come back from Kars,” Hepburn said.

  “Kars, eh? How on earth did he get in?”

  “He says he always comes with a Russian visa, just in case.” He opened the door. “Dr. Pierce, here is Colonel Scott. It would be very kind if you would tell him what you’ve told me.”

  Dr. Pierce did so; the Colonel also listened attentively. “Ah, Lonsdale wired that report from Trebizond on Tuesday,” he said thoughtfully; “but this fills it out nicely.” He questioned Dr. Pierce, closely but reasonably: it was in Kars that the old man had told him the reason for holding the grain? None of the others had said so? Ah no, they wouldn’t talk. There was some buying done before the frontier?—from Erzerum onwards? And after? All the way to Kars?

  “Yes, well that looks plain enough,” he said at the end to Hepburn. T think H.E.”—he checked himself. “Thank you very much, Sir,” he said to Dr. Pierce. “It was very good of you to come to us, and your information is most useful. Where are you staying, by the way?” Dr. Pierce gave the address of the pension, and Hepburn saw him out, between the now bowing kavasses.

  The next week passed quietly. Fanny and Dr. Pierce returned to the pension, but paid constant visits to the yali, where the Pasha and the Doctor pored over and discussed the Fuzuli texts—but the latter refrained from saying anything about his journey to Kars even to Fanny, let alone to his host. He felt vaguely uneasy—there was a sense of disquiet in the air, or so it seemed to him.

  Exactly a week after his return, on July the 24th, a Saturday, Fanny pressed to be taken to the yali. Ahmet and Fuad were coming, she said, and had promised to take her and Féridé out in Ahmet’s boat. In spite of a vague feeling of reluctance, Dr. Pierce agreed. As they went in at the gate a car, with a very smart footman beside the chauffeur, swept up the drive, going out—Dr. Pierce, stepping hastily aside, hardly looked at it, but—“That was Javid Bey,” Fanny observed.

  “You don’t know Javid Bey.”

  “No, but that was his man, Ibrahim—I know him.”

  Ahmet and Fuad were already in the salon when Fanny ran upstairs, and with Féridé they went off to the boat. This was kept in the caïque-hané, a long dark narrow boat-house behind the fountain at the far end of the haremlik garden; to reach it one had to squeeze round the end of the screen of marble panels, from spouts in which the fountain played, into a sort of passage under the bushy cliff. Order and civilisation ended here; this was where Zeynel, the gardener, kept his rubbish; dead branches, heaps of leaves, piles of faggots for the sweet peas, odds and ends of old iron encumbered it; a narrow path under the high wall separating the Pasha’s domain from the next yali led to a door at the landward end of the boat-house. Two of the caikdji, or boatmen, awaited them there, in their baggy white trousers and velvet waistcoats; they got in and set off.

  In the selamlik Dr. Pierce found his friend abstracted; there was a certain constraint in his manner. They studied the variants in the new Fuzuli texts, but half-heartedly. Presently Osman, the servant, as before brought in the Tercümani Hakikat—and as before the Pasha told him to put it down. “Oh, could I just glance at it for a moment?” said Dr. Pierce—“I was too busy this morning.” He opened it, and read of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia.

  Dr. Pierce’s jaw dropped. “Pasha, look at this!” he said. Unwillingly —uninterestedly, he thought—the Pasha took up the paper. And the idea struck the Doctor with inescapable force—It isn’t news to him! Javid Bey told him! But he himself was shocked. The crudity, the savagery of the terms were unbelievable. “The Serbs can’t accept that,” he said. “That means war.”

  “If the Austrian Empire and Serbia go to war, Serbia will go down,” said the Pasha—he spoke almost coldly.

  “Yes, but will Russia see Serbia go down?” Dr. Pierce asked. And then he remembered those decent substantial men, those pleasant companions of the road, buying grain all the way from Erzerum to Kars, just a fortnight ago—and he said no more. He was relieved when the caïque returned, and he could collect Fanny and take his leave.

  (What Dr. Pierce did not know—what not even his acquaintances at the Embassy knew till later—was that on that Saturday, when they had passed Javid Bey’s car in the Pasha’s drive, the Ottoman Government had started negotiations with the German Government for a Treaty of Alliance, a Treaty which was signed in secret on August the 2nd. That, as well as the Austrian ultimatum, the Pasha might well have learned that day from Javid Bey.)

  But before August the 2nd other things had happened. The sky grew darker and darker all that week. Dr. Pierce felt almost awkward about going to the yali, but the Pasha continued to invite him, and even seemed to wish to discuss the political situation—it occurred presently to the Doctor that his host was “sounding him out” on England’s probable attitude. “After all,” he said more than once, sitting in his fez, elegant and calm, in his study sipping coffee—“whatever happens, there is no reason whatever for either of our countries to be mixed up in this.” Dr. Pierce, again thinking of the grain-buyers, found it hard to make a very hearty response.

  On Saturday, August the 1st, the Doctor was there again. Mirza Ali Temel had sought out and sent down from Erzerum three more Fuzuli scripts, and for the first time for many days the two old friends were happily and whole-heartedly concentrated on them, bending over the big table in the bow window, the centre shutters thrown back, when Ahmet hurried in, brandishing the afternoon paper.

  “My Father! Look at this! It is monstrous!” He was all in disorder.

  “You know Dr. Pierce?” said the Pasha, in calm reproof.

  “Oh yes—indeed. How do you do?” The young man gave the coldest of formal bows. “But—excuse us one moment,” to the Doctor— “My Father, this is a terrible thing!” He thrust the paper into the Pashas hands.

  There were two sets of banner headlines in it. Germany had declared war on Russia; and England was holding the Reshadieh, the first of the battleships b
uilt for Turkey. She was ready, the Turkish crew of 500 was on a transport in the Tyne waiting to take over, and the English would not let her go, had placed guards on board! It was to this item that Ahmet pointed, with a shaking finger.

  The Pasha read it, incredulously. “But it isn’t possible,” he said, slowly. “Not England!” He held the paper out to Dr. Pierce; the lines flashed to the eye. The Doctor’s discomfort was acute.

  “But they are paid for” the Pasha said, still slowly, unbelievingly.

  “Then be sure of this, Pasha; every penny will be paid back,” said Dr. Pierce stoutly.

  “But why? Why do this thing?”

  “Why do you want them in such a hurry?” the Doctor countered. “If we go to war with Germany, we may want them pretty badly ourselves.”

  “But why should you?”

  “Why should you go to war with Russia? The Germans aren’t your allies.”

  The Pasha’s face changed, and Dr. Pierce saw it. “By Jove, Wangenheim has dragged them in—or will,” he said to himself. “Oh Lord, what a mess!”

  “You know our difficulties with Russia,” the Pasha was saying slowly.

  “Yes, my old friend. And you know who has generally bailed Turkey out of them in the past!” He went up to the other. “I am most terribly sorry—you know that,” he said. He could not say more—his old friend had not been frank with him, he felt sure; it was an unhappy moment. He gathered up his papers, put them in his shabby old case, and as soon as Fanny could be found, took his leave.

  Things moved fast after that. On the Monday, two days later, came, first, the news that England had mobilised the Fleet, and in the evening that the German army had entered Luxembourg. Then events came like an avalanche—and as an avalanche fills some smiling alpine valley with the distant roar of destruction, bringing dread to the hearts of all who hear the sound, so did the rumour of these events, so far away, penetrate to the sunny shores of the Bosphorus, and send dread into hearts there. One after another came Germany’s ultimatum to Belgium, England’s ultimatum to Germany—telling the Germans that, as a guarantor of Belgian neutrality, England would go to war if it was violated. The Pasha heard this last piece of news with an incredulity that was shared by half Europe—and then remembered the Doctor’s words in the garden about England and morals, before he went to Erzerum. But it was appalling. The Pasha knew definitely, now, that his government had signed a secret Treaty of Alliance with Germany, only last Saturday; war between England and Turkey could only be a matter of time, unless the Germans accepted the English ultimatum— and they would never do that! He paced the stone floor of the “sofa,” that Tuesday afternoon, to and fro, to and fro—down past the little fountain with its silly tinkle towards the door that gave onto the garden, back past the fountain to the door leading to his study. The English ultimatum was to expire at midnight; he kept looking at his watch. Different thoughts jostled one another in his head, claiming attention. One recurred, with the persistence of the water falling into the fountain—the recollection of Colonel Mustafa Kemal’s ominous words, as reported by Ahmet a month before: that if Turkey allowed herself to be dragged into the conflict, whoever won, she was doomed. He tried to brush it aside. This business of losing the two ships, though; that was disastrous—must the whole Caucasian plan founder for lack of them? Worse—what was now to stop the Russian fleet from coming down the Bosphorus and bombarding Istanbul? Oh, had Enver Pasha really been wise?

  The thought of the ships brought another, more personal concern into his mind. Public anger was rising over them—would rise higher when England and Germany were really at war, as seemed inevitable. The Pasha thought of his old friend, so scholarly, so unworldly, there at the pension—with his small niece, the bright little Canary, Féridé’s dearest, most beloved companion. Things might become very disagreeable for them—they ought to go. They ought to go as soon as possible. He went through to his study and wrote a note to Dr. Pierce, asking him to come, if he could, next day to discuss some points which had occurred to him in connection with the scripts.

  Touched and pleased, after their last gloomy conversation, the Doctor went. The papers that morning had brought the news that England and Germany were at war, and this troubled him—he would be glad to see a friend. They sat again in that room, so staccato with colour and pattern, and talked of Fuzuli. But at one point the Pasha asked, casually, when Dr. Pierce thought of leaving? The overland route, by the Simplon Orient Express, was of course closed to English travellers, since Germany and Austria stood together; and with France, England and Germany at war, sea-passages through the Mediterranean might become difficult. “You should, I think, perhaps reflect on this,” the Pasha said.

  From a Turk, as Dr. Pierce instantly recognised, this was a hint so direct as hardly to be a hint at all. He thanked his host, and said that he would certainly reflect on the matter. And next morning he hastened in to the city to book passages home. To his dismay he found crowds at the steamship offices, all bent upon the same errand—English tourists, who thought it would all be over in six weeks, but anyhow they had better get home; and a large number of French. He was there half the day, but at last he secured a single cabin—(he could sleep on the floor) on a small ship which was sailing on August the 12th. Everything earlier was booked up.

  On his return, tired out, to the pension, he sent a note to the Pasha, thanking him for his views on the scripts—at the end, quite casually, he mentioned that he found himself obliged to leave, and stated the date of their departure, and the boat on which they were to sail.

  Fanny and Féridé also exchanged sad little notes—“Oh, my Two Eyes, when shall I see you again?” Féridé wrote. But the feeling about the two requisitioned battleships was now so strong that Dr. Pierce turned a deaf ear to Fanny’s imploring requests for a farewell visit to the yali—it would hardly be suitable, he said.

  The Pasha had half expected a visit, suitable or not, and was sad that none was proposed, though he guessed the feeling that prevented the Doctor from suggesting one; Féridé’s little face, sulky and miserable, made him wish to get Fanny there once more, too. Those ships!—what distress they were causing. But later that week the Pasha suddenly became a degree less concerned about the non-delivery of the Reshadieh. Javid Bey paid another of his calls, and the Pasha learned, under seal of secrecy, the heartening, the wonderful news that the Goeben, the crack German battle-cruiser, and also the light cruiser Breslau (which were both in the Mediterranean) had been ordered to proceed to Istanbul. This was news indeed! Once in the Sea of Marmara, the capital could be protected from any Russian raid; the Goeben in particular could outsteam and outshoot anything the Russians had in the Black Sea. But would they get there?—or would the British Mediterranean Fleet intercept them before they entered the narrow waters of the Dardanelles?

  The Pasha’s anxiety was intense. This was a secret so deadly that he could share it with no one, and he paced up and down under the magnolias and plane-trees in the selamlik garden—wondering, wondering, hardly daring to hope. So much, so much depended on whether those two ships arrived!

  . . . . . .

  Dr. Pierce and Fanny sailed at about 3:30 on August 12th. In Turkey, at the departure of any ship from any port, the quay is always occupied by a howling mob, seven-tenths of which are not only not travelling, but have no sort of business on board. Through such a mob they struggled towards the gangway, Dr. Pierce for comfort’s sake wearing his fez—only his height made him conspicuous. Fanny, clutching a bag and trying to keep their porter in view, presently noticed two Turkish women not far off amid the throng, who seemed also to be edging towards the gangway; densely veiled in their long black çarşafs, their heads merely round black knobs above the floating drapery, they were, like all Turkish women in public places, totally unidentifiable. Slowly they made their way nearer, the taller forcing her way between other bodies with unusual energy, till at last they found a place at Fanny’s side.

  “Dji-djim!” said a soft voice.
“Shsh! Don’t say my name. But I had to see you again.”

  “Who’s with you?” Fanny whispered, through the veils.

  “Dil Féripé—I made her come! Niné, even, doesn’t know. Oh, I shall pay for this!”

  Fanny realised what Féridé had done—the wicked, the impossible! She hugged her through the veiling. “Little angel, how good of you! Oh, I am so glad,” she whispered.

  “And you will come again, and stay with me; and love me and be happy, as we have been? Whatever happens?”

  “Yes, whatever happens,” Fanny said.

  The crowd surged forward towards the gangway; Fanny moved with it; the two black knobs above black draperies fell behind. Turning her head, she saw them—Féridé in front, making their way against the human stream, away from the boat, towards the town.

  Their boat—Italian, with a crew largely composed of Maltese—was not very comfortable; the food was indifferent, their single cabin small and rather stuffy. Dr. Pierce insisted that he would sleep on the floor, from which Fanny’s young supple bones would not have suffered in the least; he stayed on deck till the last possible moment, as they chugged down the Sea of Marmara—Fanny was already asleep when he finally lay down. He woke just before sunrise; stretching himself stiffly, he decided to take a turn on deck, and went up and forward to the bows.

  They were just approaching the Narrows. On his right, in Europe, rose low pale hills, darkly speckled with scrub; to his left lay flatter sandy shores, beyond which, far far away, the enormous blue bulk of Olympus-in-Asia stood up into a sky faintly flushed with pink. But Dr Pierce hardly looked at the view, lovely as it was in the cool half-light; his attention was arrested by something else. From the narrow waters ahead of him two grey shapes were emerging, slowly, majestically; the leading one so vast that its great superstructure seemed to dwarf those low scrub-covered hills. Dr. Pierce gazed in astonishment. They were two enormous men-of-war! But men-of-war were not allowed through the Dardanelles, he thought with astonishment. A bell rang sharply below; the Martelli altered course slightly, and the two great vessels passed by on his left hand, their wash making a line of white along both shores.