Ziya gave him a blank stare.
The sergeant hurried them over to the ammunition depot. He gave them each one canteen, one G-3 infantry rifle, two cartridge belts, one cartridge clip, and eighty rounds of ammunition, recording each consignment with the blue ballpoint pen he’d pulled from his breast pocket and then signing for it. Then they all piled under the tarpaulin at the back of a rickety truck, and with the commander in the driver’s seat, they put Ceylanpınar behind them, and with it, the State Battery Farm, and the dark little stream down from the Ali Yerelli and Sheikh Nasır brooks and flanked on both sides by lines of towering poplars. On they went in the direction of the asphalt road. With them in the back of the truck were several huge sacks of bread, and as they were knocked back and forth by the ruts on the dirt road, the sacks gave out clouds of powder that they could not stop staring at, if only because they were the only things visible under the tarpaulin.
And that was when Kenan slid over in Ziya’s direction, just a little, and whispered: ‘Let’s hope we end up in the same outpost.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Ziya.
He kept his eyes fixed on the clouds of powder that rose up through the darkness every time the truck swayed, contracting the tent above them only to expand it.
‘Did you see the commander’s nameplate?’ whispered Kenan.
Ziya nodded.
Briefly, they exchanged glances.
The truck began to climb up a hill. There was barbed wire running alongside the road, and beyond it was a minefield. The truck turned around a bend and stopped. They were now standing in front of the Mezartepe Outpost, and the thick stone walls that enclosed its courtyard. The commander jumped down from the driver’s seat and came around to the back. Opening the flap of the tent, he pointed to the three soldiers he saw first. ‘You, and you, and you,’ he said. When they had stepped down, he turned to the officer standing next to him. ‘I am putting these men in your charge. Now take care of the rest.’
‘Yes, sir!’ said the other.
The round-faced cook standing behind the sergeant jumped up into the back of the truck. Finding the bread sack marked ‘Mezartepe’ and cradling it in his arms, he jumped down again with a great thud.
And then they were off again. They went back down to the asphalt road, and then it was another ten or fifteen desolate minutes, until, at a crossroads, they went hurtling up another hill, this time to stop in front of Seyrantepe Station. The commander came round to the back of the truck again, lifted the flap of the tarpaulin, and, drawing a horizontal line with his forefinger, he said, ‘You two get down.’
Gathering up their things, Kenan and Ziya got down.
The truck moved on to the Ege Outpost, and as it went down the dirt road, it grew smaller and smaller, until it reached the watchtower at the end of the road, and vanished.
Once it was gone, the sergeant said, ‘Welcome,’ and shook both Kenan’s hand and Ziya’s. And then he said, ‘Go straight into the dormitory without making too much noise, and go straight to sleep, my friends. Because in just a few hours, you’re on guard duty.’
Ziya had turned to look at the graves just in front of the outpost.
Seeing this, the sergeant said, ‘Those are two soldiers who were hit during a skirmish. They’re buried here because we had no family to send them to. That’s enough fooling around. Off to the dormitory! Get some sleep!’
‘All right,’ said Ziya.
He and Kenan went across to the prefabricated building that looked like it might collapse if you so much as blew at it. The dormitory they found to the left of the entrance was no bigger than a matchbox. They lay themselves down on the two empty bunks, but surrounded as they were by so many snores and outstretched limbs, they hardly slept. Towards evening, the cook came to wake them up. Hitting the frosted glass with the back of his hand, he said, ‘Hopla! Time to get up, my fine sirs, your food is ready!’ and with that he was gone. When the men had washed their hands and faces with water pulled from the well, they proceeded to the mess hall at the back. With its uneven stone walls, it looked just like a sheep pen. And there they sat down in front of their bowls of noodle soup. After this soup, which had nothing to offer them but heat, they moved on to soggy dried beans and semolina halva that was lumpy and as hard as rock. Then they went outside, taking with them a piece of bread each, to eat during the night, while on guard duty. Some went over to the well, others to the dormitory. Others went over to stand in line in front of the roofless wooden outhouse some fifteen or twenty paces to the right. And that was when a shame-faced Kenan went up to Ziya. ‘I’ve started to itch,’ he said softly. ‘And scratch.’
‘Don’t even ask,’ said Ziya. ‘I have, too.’
Osman of Selçuk, who had been wandering amongst them like a cow let off his lead, noticed them whispering. He came to their side. Smiling slyly as he swung his head from side to side, he said, ‘Nothing to be ashamed of, friends. You can scratch to your heart’s content.’
And then he sized them up, these two, who still seemed uncertain as to how to scratch, and then, turning sad and solemn, he said, ‘Don’t get upset. You have lice, that’s all. That’s why you’re itching. But while you scratch, just remember that you’ll never get rid of them. Whatever you try, I can guarantee you it won’t work. Sometimes we put this ointment on – spread it over every inch of skin, and as if that weren’t enough, we throw all our pillows and blankets and bedding into vats, along with all our clothes, and boil them for hours and hours, but that doesn’t make a shit of difference. Twelve hours later, the lice are back. Because these little critters live inside the earth, that’s why. Sit down just once at the edge of the barbed wire over there, and you’re infested. So that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Don’t be ashamed. Scratch away, and try to get used to it. You’re three-day birds, anyway. Whatever way you look at it, you’re here for another seventeen months. You don’t mind my calling you that, do you?’
‘Not at all,’ said Ziya.
‘Oh please,’ said Osman of Selçuk. ‘I implore you. Don’t take offence.’
And then, hopping off towards the guardhouse, he stopped in front of the graves. And in a voice so loud you’d think his throat might burst open, he bellowed, ‘Fuck off, you fucking village! Fuck off, before I fuck you more!’ Sparks flew from his eyes as he stared out into the distance, teeth clenched. And it was as if he could actually see that village he wanted to fuck over.
He was still staring out there when the sergeant came out of the guardhouse, holding his blue register. In an agitated voice, he said, ‘That’s enough fooling around, my friends. Get over here, all of you, and sign your names.’
They went over and signed the register.
‘You’ve signed up to the third station to the east of the D-3 outpost,’ the sergeant told Ziya. ‘I’m sending you out with some people who know the drill.’
‘That’s fine,’ Ziya murmured.
Then they all got ready together; they filled their canteens with water, and lined up their rifles in a row, and attached the chargers to their rifles, took out the bolt handles and loaded the bullets and then more bullets and, leaving behind them only the cook and the night watchman and those two unclaimed soldiers in their graves, they followed in the sergeant’s footsteps as he slowly led them out to the border. So here we are, Ziya whispered to himself, here we are, inside that story the convicts at battalion headquarters told us. As he whispered these words, he cast a tense gaze at the lands of Syria stretching out before them and breathed in sharply. They went down a hill that was covered with dry grass, and after they had patrolled the dirt track that went along the barbed wire from one end to the other, the sergeant put them in charge of the border and when night fell they moved with their rifles into their trenches. That was when Hayati of Acıpayam did as the sergeant must have asked, and gave them a bit of instruction.
‘You see that railroad over there,’ he said, turning his head in the direction of the barbed wire. ‘Well that’s the actual
border. And between that asphalt road and this barbed wire, it’s a minefield. If you see a shadow trying to cross the railroad, you must shoot without hesitation. Understood? According to the rulebook, we’re supposed to tell them to stop three times and only open fire if they fire first, but don’t you pay any attention to that. The book counts for nothing out here! And anyway. If we played it by the book, those smugglers would hunt us all down like grouse. And then, God forbid, we’d all be going home early, in coffins. In the meantime, don’t forget that smugglers go between these countries in both directions. That means you have to keep a watch on both sides of this border. You have to do this even when there’s a skirmish. Because the ones trying to cross over into Syria meet with fire from Syria while the ones trying to cross over into Turkey meet with fire from this side, and in a skirmish like that we end up getting fire from both sides. Understood?’
‘Understood,’ said Ziya.
And so began their ordeal at the border.
At sunset every evening, they went out to the barbed wire and until dawn, they guarded the border, together with the lice crawling over their bodies. There was more to it than just lying in their trench, training their eyes on the border. They were forever getting up and slinging their rifles over their shoulders, and going off to patrol the part of the border for which they were responsible. They did this to keep a close eye on the places that were beyond their field of vision and also, as time went on, to stay awake. They would walk down the dirt track that ran alongside the barbed wire, looking both to their left and their right, and while they walked they would whisper to each other in half sentences, careful to make as little noise as they could. And when they did so, their voices seemed to bring a little light to the dry grass, and the barbed wire, and the dirt track, and the minefield, and the night itself. But it was not enough to go out on these patrols all night. Every ten, fifteen minutes, they cupped their hands or leaned forward and hollered into the darkness: ‘Whoooooop!’ And then the same call would come back to them from the next station along: ‘Whooooop!’ And then the next station along would answer this cry, and on it would go, from station to station, echoing in the night, all along the border. It would start at the station on the shores of the Mediterranean, carrying with it the blue scent of salt, and travel the full length of the barbed-wire fence, through Hatay, and then Gaziantep, and then Suruç, and Akçakale and Viranşehir. Moving on to Kızıltepe, it would echo for a time in Mardin, and from there it would travel the length of the Iraqi border, and the Iranian border, and the border with the USSR, station by station, until at last it reached the Black Sea.
It wasn’t a military regulation, whooping like that. Quite the opposite. It was entirely irregular. But it was better known than any regulation in the book. And no irregularity was more strictly observed than this one. To draw out those o’s – to whoop and listen to it pierce the night – it was a way of nudging the people in the next station, and keeping them awake; it was to say, fear not, my friends, I’m just over here next to you, and as you’ve just heard, I’m awake. And at the same time, should a smuggler or some such be approaching the border, whooping was a way of saying, listen, brother, don’t risk your life and mine by coming any closer. It might be masquerading as a challenge, but underneath the show of force was a softness, and a silent plea. And sometimes it was a way of letting out a long and mournful sigh of frustration, or a rough, gruff curse against the conditions in which they were living, and the fate that had brought them to this place. But most important, whooping was a way for the caller to cast a veil over the fear he had buried inside him, so that no one else could see it. When it was Osman of Selçuk’s turn to call out, he was never satisfied with just one whoop, of course. Shaking his fist at the night, he would cry out, ‘Fuck off, you fucking village! Fuck off!’
As these calls went up along the border, there was sometimes – every four or five days – a faint call from across it. According to some, these came from old soldiers who had no longer been able to bear the conditions and escaped across the border, there to marry and settle down. But others said, nonsense, those aren’t old soldiers, they’re those trickster smugglers, heading towards the border, and after calling out like that they would turn back, no doubt; having seen that it was impossible to cross over at this point, they would vanish into the night. While others said that it was nothing more than their own calls echoing in the depths of Syria. The terrain was so flat around here that it would, no doubt, take four or five days for a call to bounce back, and that was also why it sounded so exhausted, so much like a low moan. Whereas Veysel Hoca, who had worked as an imam in a village called Cıkınağılköy out in the sticks near Şereflikoçhisar, saw no merit in any of these theories; in his view, the souls of the soldiers who’d fallen in skirmishes over the years were still here, and when they heard the voices of those still in life, they couldn’t restrain themselves, and that was why, from time to time, they whooped from the next world. But no one, not even Veysel Hoca, could know if there was any truth in any of these theories, of course, so whenever a faint little call came floating out to them from the depths of Syria, they would peer back into those dark depths with suspicion.
On his nineteenth day at the border, Ziya heard his third call floating in from Syria. It was Hayrullah of Denizli District, Adana, standing next to him that night; several hours in, they dipped into their parka pockets and took out the dry bread they’d brought with them, and after they had finished it, they went out on patrol, each in their own direction. The air had cooled somewhat, so Ziya had pulled his cap down over his ears, and he was treading softly down the dirt track that quivered before him like a piece of white gauze. All he could see on the Turkish side was a darkness so thick it almost pressed against his face; on the Syrian side, on a gentle hill some seven or eight kilometres away, there were the lights of a small village. And so it was while Ziya was gazing over at those lights that he heard what sounded like a soft moan, rising from the darkness beyond the railroad. ‘Whooooop!’ And with that, Ziya turned on his heels, to race back to the trench. And there, rushing in from the other side, holding his rifle crossways, was Hayrullah, and even though his face was half-obscured by darkness, you could see that he was shaking, quaking; throwing himself into the trench like some sort of sack, and struggling to catch his breath, he gasped, ‘Did you hear it?’
‘I heard it,’ Ziya whispered.
They swung their rifles forward, and now it was their barrels looking out like two eyes over the dark minefield; with bated breath, they put their fingers on their triggers. Then suddenly they could see a tangled flock of shadows landing on the railroad, until, one by one, they moved into the minefield, rising and falling, crackling the dry grass beneath their feet. And then Hayrullah pressed the trigger, and then Ziya did, too: hearing gunfire, a few of the shadows turned around, whinnying in pain as they went. There was then a violent scuffle, as several shadows broke away from the flock; a few of them shot back at the trench: one shadow with a great load on its back lost its balance and fell on to its knees, but at the very moment as it pulled itself back up to the level of the asphalt road, it vanished. And with a speed that seemed to verge on the impossible, the shadows coming up behind it vanished, too. Hayrullah and Ziya fired a few more shots in their direction, and into the rustling grass, and then, trembling with fear and excitement, they waited. And as they did so, the night slowly expanded; as it lapped against the old border, it grew thicker, too. Seeing that the danger was over, Hayrullah muttered, ‘We got off lightly this time, thank God,’ but his eyes were still fixed on the border. ‘Did you see them? Those were bales of tea on those horses’ backs, and there were seven or eight people, at least.’
‘So we’ve fended off a plot to bring down the national economy – is that what you’re saying?’ asked Ziya in a mocking voice.
Hayrullah said nothing, but he lifted up his head, just a little. His eyes were still on the rustling grass and the railroad.
And for a time Ziya
fell silent. ‘Dear God,’ he said to himself. ‘I hope none of those shadows were hit. Dear God, I hope not. I hope none of them were hit. Dear God!’
At daybreak, the sergeant came back, bringing with him the soldiers from the other stations, and they all went out to the barbed wire to look at the field. There were, as far as they could see, no dead or wounded, and neither had they left anything behind. There were tracks about the width of five ploughs coming on to the field, and just a bit of the way in, long before they reached the other side, they looped away in all directions. Later on, the commander arrived in a cloud of dust to inspect the area where the incident had taken place. Stepping down from his jeep, he put his hands on his hips and took a good long look at the field.
‘So now,’ he said to Hayrullah. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Hayrullah gave a blow-by-blow account of what had happened, but of course he left out the whoop.
The commander left it there, asking no questions, and he didn’t so much as look at Ziya. He just stood there staring at his glistening, freshly shined combat boots, and listening to what Hayrullah had to say. Then he marched sternly back to his jeep, and climbed in.
Back at the outpost, they took a statement, and instead of saying that they had used forty-seven bullets back in the trench, it said they had used a hundred and forty-seven. This was because they were all short of bullets, and that was because the soldiers sometimes fired their rifles indiscriminately as time went on, sometimes just out of exasperation, and sometimes because they were about to be discharged and wanted to make sure nothing went wrong at the last moment. Some had used most of their bullets on the mosquitoes. Especially when the State Battery Farm put on its water sprinklers, those mosquitoes came out in force, and when they did, it felt as if there were dozens of lice crawling over the men’s groins and armpits and down the seams of their uniform. The mosquitoes came swarming in like clouds. All night long, they’d buzz annoyingly around their heads, and by morning their hands and faces would be covered with bites. If a driver was going to Viranşehir for provisions and ammunition, there were even those who begged him to bring them back plastic bags to put over their hands and heads while on guard duty. This, too, had its drawbacks, because if you were breathing inside a plastic bag, you misted it up, and so you had to keep reaching in to rub off the condensation, and when you did that, you dislodged the elastic band that kept the plastic bags on your hands. And that was when some soldiers lost their patience and tore those plastic bags off their heads, upon which the mosquitoes that had been sitting on their rifles rose up in clouds and zeroed in on them.
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