by Tim Symonds
I stood with Holmes on Dreadnought’s deck waiting for a pinnace from the dockyard to take us ashore. Great steamers from every country churned back and forth whistling incessantly. Across the shimmering waters of the Golden Horn richly painted private vessels with long up-curving prows carried distinguished passengers in the stern under silken canopies, the owner’s rank dictating the number of oars. Nearby was a ship of the North German Lloyd line, the S.S. Grosser Kurfürst. Her decks and bridge were alive with the flashes of the sun reflecting from a hundred telescopes pointed in our direction.
By the harbour the creaking board-walk known as Galata Bridge bound Europe with Asia, Frank with Moslem, civilization with barbarism. Below and around it, tiny against the immensity of our battleship, barges plied for hire, darting about in every direction among lateen-rigged yawls and feluccas. In a high state of anticipation onlookers in turbans, keffiahs and fezzes, and Europeanised Turks in Stamboulines, moved along the bridge in a steady stream with the sedan-bearers. English couples en route to India with white umbrellas and puggried sun-hats wandered alongside veiled women with long draping mantles and ribboned panniers. Firemen carried large skins of water ready to dampen down any sudden conflagrations.
The roar of the crowds and the sudden flare of a beacon on the hillside announced the Sultan was about to leave his Palace. Through my binoculars I watched the open phaeton emerge at a trot from a huge gate, heading for the Imperial caique moored at Tersane. It was escorted by a detachment of the Twelfth Royal Lancers composed of Khurds and Anatolians. A living swarm of courtiers, eunuchs, household aides and panting pashas in heavy gold-embroidered uniforms ran alongside. An enthusiastic crowd of about fifty people waited at its waterfront destination ready to remove the horses and pull the coach the final hundred yards.
I heard Holmes’s voice. There was tinge of urgency in it.
‘Watson, are you ready? We must go.’
He gestured as though sweeping me to a gangplank. The steam pinnace had arrived, the name Haroony in English lettering still fresh on its bow. Dreadnought’s crew briskly transferred the thirty or more wood-and-glass Wardian cases guising us as naval plant collectors.
I went to my cabin to pick up the Offenbach rolls and the Lee Enfield. Holmes and I each wedged under an arm a copy of Hooker’s On the Vegetation of the Galapagos Archipelago, a study of the plants Charles Darwin brought back on the Beagle. The wind blew straight in from the distant isles of Greece as we went down a gangway and clambered aboard the waiting transport, an awkward manoeuvre in naval dress uniform and sword.
I used the binoculars to watch the Imperial caique setting out. The Sultan and four personages of his suite were seated on a dais in crimson-magenta velvet under a gold and purple canopy, rowed at an impressive pace by forty oarsmen dressed in white with blue, red-tasselled caps. The whole looked like a gigantic water-boatman on the surface of a pond. The royal turban-bearer followed the Sultan’s caique in a smart, eighteen-oar ship’s cutter, holding up one of three royal turbans ornamented with herons’ feathers and huge jewelled aigrettes which he inclined to the right and left, acknowledging the prostrations and cheers of the onlookers on behalf of his Imperial master. He was followed by an ensemble of energetic musicians - two drums, flute, triangle and viola - standing at constant risk of tipping over the gunwale of their tiny craft.
We slowed to avoid our wake jolting the on-coming barge as it went on by. The caique presented a sight of Moghul-like magnificence. The Sultan wore a turban adorned with three upside-down aigrettes, the equivalent of crowns, reinforced with hooked gold chains, dancing with plumes sourced from half the globe - crested cranes, peacocks, herons, hawks, ostriches, and birds of paradise. Behind him, like a bulbous shadow, stood a gigantic Abyssinian of phenomenal stature, head abased, the innumerable chins melting into a mountain of flesh. He wore a huge hat in the shape of a sugar-loaf at a slant on the back of his head.
Minutes later the Imperial visitors stepped aboard Dreadnought. The heaviest guns ever mounted at sea began a 21-gun salute. Then it was the Turkish Navy’s turn to commence their own deafening salute, gun for gun.
Holmes and I stepped ashore. A sudden roar from the assembly on Galata Bridge drowned out the wailing note of the water-carriers and the raucous shouts of the Khurdish porters. We swung round to look. A submarine had bobbed up by the bridge. The Turks do not applaud with their hands. Their approval was signified by the hum of hundreds and hundreds of voices, a noise like the purring of a thousand cats. The telescopes aboard the S.S. Grosser Kurfürst swung to study the jouncing craft with the British navy White Ensign flapping in the slight breeze.
***
The steel wheels made a familiar growling sound as a Clarence emerged from the shade of a high wall at the Vinegar Sellers’ wharf. Behind it came a heavy two-wheeled cart to transport the pile of Wardian boxes, pulled by a jink-backed mare with feet like butcher’s blocks. I had seen this condition often when animals suffer an extreme wrench below the short ribs from a slip, or more often from being made to drag too great a burden. Both conveyances had a horseshoe with a central glass ‘evil eye’ dangling from the side to ward off bad things.
A man jumped out of the Clarence and greeted us. It was Mycroft’s man, Eric Shelmerdine. His English was so perfect he might have attended Eton College.
‘I’ve obtained an audience for you from His Imperial Majesty, the Padishah,’ he told us in a whisper as we climbed into the coach. ‘I’m to take you to him straight away.’
‘Which will be where?’ I asked, wondering how long we would have to wait, knowing the glistering ‘Padishah’ and his entourage were behind us aboard Dreadnought.
He pointed.
‘Up there. At Yildiz Kiosk. The Sultan’s favourite palace. Despite the heat I advise you to put on your coats and keep them buttoned up. We get there by a dusty track.’
The dragoman pulled up the carriage windows on either side, tapped on the wood-work, and away we rattled as fast as the horse could go.
Conversationally I began, ‘I believe you write for the newspapers?’
‘Yes,’ he affirmed. ‘Mostly obituaries.’
‘Obituaries!’ I blurted.
‘Sometimes I do a piece on the Sultan’s activities.’
‘And you are given a free hand?’ I enquired.
‘Of course not,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘This is Turkey. All local papers receive subsidies from Yildiz.’
‘Therefore,’ I pursued, ‘you cannot criticise the Sultan?’
‘Great Scot no!’ he exclaimed. ‘When His Majesty’s name is mentioned we speak in superlatives. Last week I referred to him as ‘recognised to be the wisest ruler in Europe’. Next week...’
He paused, calculating.
‘...it’ll soon be time once more for ‘the greatest Sovereign who ever girded on the Sword of Osman’. After that it may return to the old standby, ‘a model ruler, one whose good actions are so numerous that if those performed in a single day were all printed, the columns of all the newspapers in the Empire would be insufficient to report them’.’
He pointed to the camera at my side.
‘What a wonderful Quarter Plate.’
His hand went to a pocket.
‘That reminds me, I have a photograph for you. An enlargement of the Sword blade as requested.’
The dragoman stared at my new camera with a dubious expression.
‘And you intend to photograph ‘the Mountain Eagle, the one whose exploits outshine every other monarch’?’
‘I do,’ I replied. ‘Unless you think he...?’
‘Far from it,’ he replied. ‘He’ll be delighted. The Sultan will save you the bother of carrying your camera all the way back to HMS Dreadnought. He takes it for granted that anything which attracts him is being given to him - daggers, jewel-encrusted ornaments. The Sultan-Caliph will
be very grateful for...’ he bent forward to get closer to my camera, ‘... the latest Lizars.’
Conversation lapsed. I looked out of the carriage at the passing sights. Small, clean-eared Arabian horses plunged their faces into great deep basins, lustily lapping the water. Rows of fruit-shops offered apricots, cherries and plums from large baskets, and packages of young vine leaves used lavishly in Turkish cooking. A Cypress tree in the courtyard of a mosque and a stand of Oriental Plane, huge and old, had managed to survive a recent conflagration. The trees stood bereft of greenery, stately boles pitted and charred.
Our dragoman followed my gaze.
‘As you see, fire is a great hazard in Stamboul.’
He pointed up the hill.
‘That white tower has a perpetual watchman stationed in the turret to signal if a fire breaks out. At the first sign of fire drums are banged and guns fired and a coloured flag is raised to indicate the quarter. The firemen rush in with long iron hooks and pull down all the adjacent houses.’
‘What’s the local word for ‘fire’?’ I asked.
‘Yangin,’ came the reply.
‘Yangin,’ I repeated. It was my first Turkish word.
‘Another fireman stands watch on the Yildiz clock tower,’ our dragoman went on. Dropping his voice he murmured, ‘They say the Sultan likes to take a rifle up there of an evening to indulge in what your Army calls the Mad Minute.’
I was familiar with the Mad Minute from my military training. It entailed firing a minimum of fifteen aimed bullets into a distant target within sixty seconds.
When the clatter of the wheels obscured his words from the driver, Shelmerdine added, ‘The ‘mad minute’ here is like yours, with one important difference. The Sovereign of the House of Osman aims bullets at real people. With so much practice he has become a magnificent shot. I wager he would challenge you, Dr. Watson, for marksmanship with the rifle.’
He pointed at the lengthy bundle at my side.
‘He’ll soon master that. And,’ he carried on slyly, looking at the boxes, ‘the smokeless cartridges will be most useful. At present, everyone knows when the Sultan fires down on his subjects by the cloud of black-powder smoke rising from the spot.’
We drove past a dignified tomb surrounded by a complex of medreses and mosques. Other tombs were scattered among ancient Italian cypresses and nettle-trees. Storks wandered freely or nested on the domes.
In a louder voice Shelmerdine continued, ‘Mr. Holmes, your brother has asked me to give you some background into the state of play here. You will find Yildiz Palace a strange and cosmopolitan landscape. The grooms are Arabs, the footmen English, German and French. The nurses are Armenian, the housemaids Russian, stewards Italian, janizaries Turkish. French is the first foreign language acquired by members of Turkey’s elite. The rest speak Persian, Arabic, Greek, Judeo-Spanish, Armenian, Wallachian, English, Dutch, German, Italian, and Sclavonian.’
Shelmerdine described an empire in miniature populated with Sandali - black eunuchs whose genitalia had been entirely amputated - white eunuchs, harem women, some captured or purchased, some voluntarily entering a hotbed of plots and counter-plots, mystery and bribery in return for the chance of high rank and wealth. Until recently the Valide Sultan Rahime Perestu presided over them all as ruler of the Imperial Harem. She was the all-powerful foster-mother of the present Sultan, with her rooms always adjacent to her son’s. The post was now vacant. ‘Eighteen months ago the Valide Sultan took ill in her villa at Maçka and died. The Sultan felt her loss terribly. For one week the military band did not perform. At the time of her passing I wrote: ‘The esteemed lady’s luminous face, graciousness, delicate manner, and elegance inspired respect and affection in everyone’s heart, so that all those living in the palace loved her deeply’.’
‘She died of...?’ I asked.
‘Croup.’
‘Croup?’ I exclaimed, puzzled.
Croup was a respiratory condition almost only seen in children. Even in the very young it was seldom fatal.
Our dragoman nodded.
‘Newspapers are under the strictest orders never to report a Royal Personage died from old age or assassination. No king, president or emperor dies by an assassin’s knife, pistol or bomb. Empress Elizabeth wasn’t really stabbed to death in Geneva by an Italian anarchist.’
‘So how...?’ I asked.
‘Pneumonia.’
‘And President McKinley?’ Holmes asked.
‘Anthrax. As to King Alexander and Queen Draga of Serbia two years ago, you would be wrong to assume they were killed by a fusillade of bullets.’
We looked at our dragoman expectantly.
‘Indigestion. Simultaneously.’
Abd-ul-Hamid’s succession was not without its difficulties, Shelmerdine continued. The Sultan was brought to the throne by the murder of his uncle and the deposing and imprisonment of his half-brother.
‘As a result he is dominated by fears of conspiracy and revolt, and not without reason. Last year the Armenian Revolutionary Federation left a bomb for him outside the Yıldız Mosque. I was there. There was a huge explosion. People, phaetons and horses were blasted into the air but the Sultan survived. Since then he has become morbidly suspicious. He buries himself in his Palace, in the company of soothsayers, astrologers, courtiers and police informers. He appears in public as seldom as possible, and always heavily guarded by soldiers.’
Shelmerdine pointed down a side-street at an assembly of parked vehicles identical to London’s Metropolitan Police wagons.
‘Those are everywhere, ready to make mass arrests if the people riot.’
We were now high up on the slope.
‘I may not be a medical man, Dr. Watson,’ the dragoman pursued, turning to me, ‘but I’m not the only person to say God’s Promise on Earth is sick in mind and body, obsessed with one idea, that of preserving his throne and his life. Wherever the Sultan sits he has advance notice of anyone coming in. Mirrors hang at every angle of the room. Every room has its cage of parrots which screech at the sight of strangers. Every door is lined with steel. He goes to bed only after the woman who shares his bed has searched every cranny for a hidden bomb. In knowledge of your own English Gunpowder Treason Plot he never sits in a room above a dungeon. Abd-ul-Hamid even keeps his own submarine down near the Dolma Baghchech Pier. When a fit of fear or superstition strikes the Commander of the Faithful and Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe, he hastens to the pier and stays the night submerged in his submarine a few miles out in the Sea of Marmara. He did so two days ago when news arrived from the Black Sea that a flock of purple-and-white hoopoes appeared at the very time the North Star was in alignment with the moon.’
Our guide pulled another photograph from his pocket. This time it was a fading picture of a submarine. He pointed at the waters below.
‘Your English submarine down there is to be a replacement for this vessel, the Nordenfelt 11.’
Like the earlier enlargement of the Sword of Osman, the photograph was in sharp focus.
‘Who took these?’ I heard Holmes ask.
Shelmerdine pointed at himself.
‘I did.’
Our interpreter resumed, ‘As he grows older the Sultan’s private horrors also grow, not least a horror of darkness. By night tortoises with oil lamps attached to their shells creep among the beds of flowers. The Great Lord is so terrified by the stillness that armed guards have to tramp ceaselessly up and down outside his bed-room. If eunuch or guard encounters the Sultan, they must shake his hand in a particular way, with a twist or crack of the fingers. Without that secret signal he’s likely to pull out an automatic and kill them on the spot.’
Shelmerdine told us about a diver trying to reach a wreck just off Seraglio Point who signalled violently to be drawn back up. Once safely ashore the man explained
in a voice quaking with terror he’d found himself among a great number of sacks on the bottom of the sea. Each contained the body of a woman standing upright, her hair swaying to and fro in the current.
We were approaching the Palace. Shelmerdine lowered his voice.
‘Abd-ul-Hamid fritters away his days in intrigue. He bribes everyone he considers a likely enemy - soldiers, hodjas, imams. Dancing Dervishes. Softas. At least, he thinks he’s bribing them. The money and jewels seldom reach their targets. They mostly remain in the pockets of the two chief Palace eunuchs.’
Our interpreter bent his head to look out of the carriage window. The first of the Imperial gates loomed, the fine portico flanked by sixteen columns of Bulgarian syenite. The bright muskets of a dozen sentinels rustled in salute as we drew near.
‘The Great Khan is particularly sensitive right now. This month we’ve had an eclipse of the Moon, the flight of a shooting star, flashes of lightning, thunder as deafening as a battleship’s biggest guns. Last week street dogs howled during the morning Ezan, the Islamic call to worship. To Ottomans these are omens spelling the death of someone of great importance. Abd-ul-Hamid fears it could be his.’
Our dragoman opened the carriage door and stepped out.
‘Here I shall bid you adieu. You will find the Second Black Eunuch waiting for you just inside the gate. His name is Nadir Aga.’
‘And the First Black Eunuch?’ I called out.
‘That’s Djafer Aga, a pasha of three peacock tails. You saw him on the Imperial barge.’
He leaned in at the now-open window.
‘Abd-ul-Hamid likes to be called “His Sublimity”. Doesn’t come easily to Englishmen’s lips, does it! A last word. If there’s any truth in the rumour about the sword my guess would be the conspirators are members of the Committee of Union and Progress. Half the Keepers of the Imperial nightingales and parrots, the pipe-cleaners and coffee-makers, the sword-bearers and stirrup-holders are in the pay of the CUP. Even barbers who have no other function than to trim the Sultan’s beard, every hair of which is reverentially preserved. If their leader Bahaeddin Shakir gains possession of the sword they could move against His Sublimity within days.’