The Great War

by Aleksandar Gatalica

  The 1,513th victim of typhus in Belgrade was a journalist, the formerly merry fellow with his trademark broken, black umbrella, Pera Stanisavlevich Bura. His death meant the abrupt end of the bulletins on cholera in Austria-Hungary, but for a long time readers retold strange stories about ‘Bura’s code book’, whose secret neither amateur informers nor professional Belgrade spies had been able to crack. That is how the Great War ended for the 1,513th victim of typhus in Belgrade on 16 January 1915, by the old calendar.

  The Great War ended that same day for one apprentice in the distant Caucasus, but his guardian, Effendi Mehmed Yıldız, would not find out until later, the day a large fire broke out in Istanbul’s Emirgân neighbour­hood. It was fated that the trader hear bad news during the fire. Fires were an inseparable part of the five-century history of Istanbul and the people of the city always had to be prepared for their wooden houses by the Bosporus and all their property to fall prey to the flames. In spite of that, or maybe precisely for that reason, fires remained an unavoidable fact of social life, and when a fire broke out hundreds of closet pyromaniacs — children, women, the idle and the elderly, and even pashas — gathered to watch the sparks flying into sky and to catch a whiff of the pungent smoke wafting to their nostrils from the charred beech-wood.

  It was the beginning of February 1915 when the paint factory caught fire. The effendi heard about the blaze shortly after evening prayer, so he too, the old Istanbuler, rushed to see the red and blue flames licking the sky above the roof of the factory. He ran to the quay to grab onto a departing barge, and soon he was on the opposite side of the Golden Horn. A crowd quickly gathered in the lanes leading to the factory. The agitation of the throng, which stared at the fire and flames as they devoured the adjoining wooden houses, did not bring a tear to the trader’s eye or draw a sigh from his mouth. The acquiescence with fate and the Turkish acceptance of whatever befell one in life, overcame him.. But then a distant acquaintance worked his way up to Yıldız through the crowd. Whether he was a business partner or a rival, a man of note or a good-for-nothing — he couldn’t remember.

  ‘Yıldız Effendi, you’re sure to have heard of the collapse of our army in the Caucasus,’ the man said to him. It was a fitting moment to say such a thing. No one would have dared to utter such words in the street under normal circumstances because every Turk seemed to have a constant ‘companion’, be he in the café or talking shop, on the square or in his own neighbourhood. That fellow was usually moustachioed, stocky and inconspicuous; he listened to the musicians, drank soda water without ordering coffee, strolled along past the shops or tested overripe fruit with his fingers, while in fact he was following everyone and listened to everything. Yıldız Effendi also informed himself about matters in silence, without exchanging thoughts with anyone, just as he had learnt to read between the lines when perusing his Tanin. He had been overjoyed when he heard of the victory at Miyandul and the capture of almost the entire region of Azerbaijan, but the fortunes of war had turned against the Turkish cause. The Russian army had pushed back the Turkish forces — that could be seen in the phrases “retreating to more secure positions” and “relinquishing the strategically superfluous Azerbaijani bases”. Then came the most terrible day for the Caucasus army: the Battle of Karaguy, and one day later the engagement at Ostip.

  No one had been killed; the Turkish side had hardly suffered any casualties at all — that was what his Tanin said, but on the streets people were beginning to jostle and pass one another pieces of paper with the names of the dead. No one had yet come up to him, but the effendi was painfully aware that he had someone close to his heart in the Caucasus. He tried to turn his mind from it. As people in the Orient know, rumours are like flighty dancers. They come swirling up to everyone who has to be told good news, and they are borne on an even faster storm when there is bad news to be conveyed. That is why he usually retired to his red-felt-covered stool, and when he went to watch the blaze at the paint factory in Emirgân it was like going to meet his fate.

  That stranger came up to him and said loudly: ‘Yıldız Effendi, you’re sure to have heard that your apprentice Şefket was killed at the Battle of Ostip in the Caucasus. Russian Cossack cavalry cut down three hundred of our fleeing infantrymen. They caught up with him and chopped him in half as he ran, from shoulder to groin. They say that his separate halves went on hopping by themselves for another ten metres before they both sagged and sank to the ground.’ Once he had spoken these words, the stranger vanished back into the crowd. Who was he? How could it be that a random person watching a fire at a paint factory brought him such news, like a walking bulletin from military headquarters? But Yıldız Effendi barely thought about it. Spreading news like this was typical of wartime Turkey. He didn’t even think about having heard the rumour from that obscure man, of whose face he had only seen one eye, with a scar on his right brow and a lock of black hair. No, it had been the ethereal herald, that singer beloved of Allah, who in the shape of a virgin with fluttering veils brought bad news faster than good. She had chosen a stranger to speak and convey to him what had to be said.

  Şefket, his black-haired apprentice who used to dispel their weariness with a song in the evenings, was dead. Yıldız Effendi didn’t think of checking the news; there was no one to ask. The news had reached him and he could be sure it was true. He simply stood there, without bursting into tears, and after a few moments he turned and went back to the shop. He thought of the words he should use to deliver the news to Şefket’s father but then realized that Allah’s Pheme was sure to have made it to all who were dear to Şefket on her rounds of Istanbul that night, so there was no need for him to wear down the soles of his shoes and interfere in her herald work, as bitter as wormwood. Şefket’s father certainly knew by now, as did Şefket’s red-headed brother now stationed in Thrace, who had cheated so adroitly at the scales before the war. The eight-year-old brother who had been sent to Yıldız Effendi as a replacement for the two robust apprentices under arms also knew everything. Everyone knew. Şefket was dead. And to think he had died so shamefully, like a wild animal cut in half by a Cossack sabre out in some God-forsaken steppe.

  The city of Ostip didn’t know that one part of the old spice trader died that night. Four of his assistants were still in the Great War, and he fervently prayed to the Saviour for their redemption, now that he could only beg that dear Şefket enter the Garden of Heaven. The next morning, however, everything in the trader’s life was the same again: the way it should and must be. His alarm clock rang. He got up. He caught the tram to the Aya Sofya. After prayers, he walked down the hill. He gave a whistle by the thick walls of the palace to see if one of the Padishah’s olive-green nightingales would pop out its head, and then he opened up the shop. He laid down the prices for the day and began to call them out and haggle boldly as if that one part of him hadn’t been snuffed out. He was surprised at himself for a moment and thought the alarm clock must be to blame: it rang every morning and announced the day which had to happen.

  The inexorable new day was also announced by one rather unusual alarm clock: it rang at the French positions at exactly ten o’clock every morning and soon became the subject of comprehensive study by the German command. Its regular ringing in the French trenches north-east of Vic-sur-Aisne began shortly after the brief celebration of New Year’s Eve 1915. At first, the German officers thought the alarm clock was announcing something: an artillery barrage, an infantry charge or flares, but it was hard to establish its purpose because it rang at ten in the morning on days when there was movement on the French side and on also days when there wasn’t.

  That should have been reason enough to put aside this eccentricity of trench warfare but, the army being the army, it began to spin yarns about the French alarm clock. To begin with, rumours spread that every ringing portended the death of at least one German soldier, which could have been true almost every day despite it being relatively quiet on that part of the front; later, word spread down the tren
ches that the alarm clock was meant to disable German weapons; finally, the alarm clock was reputed to be the cause of disease among the troops and even delays in the delivery of food. In order to prevent this, sergeants spoke with captains, who in turn approached company, battalion and brigade commanders. ‘The case of the alarm clock’ even came to the attention of the corps commander, but no action was taken.

  Then the soldiers in the German trenches came up with an idea. They ordered a small company of alarm clocks from home, and their pugnacious Prussian wives sent them little wooden cuckoo clocks. The men suspended the clocks from the beams supporting the sides of the trenches so their pendulums could move freely and keep their mechanisms working. The cuckoos were ‘throttled’ every hour on the hour by holding shut the clocks’ little trapdoors. Only at ten in the morning were they all allowed to cuckoo in chorus from the German lines. This bit of tit-for-tat could not disconcert the robust French alarm clock, whose ringing overwhelmed the choir of German cuckoos and thrust the kaiser’s soldiers even deeper into misery.

  Four hundred kilometres further west, on the same Western Front, no one thought of winding up an alarm clock. At the positions near the French town of Avion, everyone was still talking about the first wartime opera which had ended in the death of the great baritone Edwin McDermott from Edinburgh, and about Hans-Dieter Huis, who had sung so beautifully from the German side, and about a Christmas Eve when all men became brothers who could no longer shoot at each other. Other German soldiers were now facing the Scottish 92nd Division and the French 26th Brigade, sniping at them with clenched teeth and a hostile gaze whenever they stuck their heads up over the top of the trench.

  New Year’s Eve near Avion had led to a real flurry of investigati­ons on both sides. Never before had so many generals converged on a simple French property. Soldiers of all three armies were accused of high treason for having gathered beneath Father Donovan’s cross on Christmas Eve. Arrests followed, and ultimately executions. Father Donovan was also put on the list of those to be shot, but in 1915 no one yet dared to execute a priest for high treason, so the chaplain was pardoned.

  Both warring sides realized that the soldiers who had knelt together beneath the cross would not be able to fire at each other any more. Everyone was therefore waiting to see which side would be first to relocate those men. After two days of hesitation, the Germans made a move: the soldiers of the 93rd Division were transferred in livestock wagons to the east, to the future slaughterhouse by the Masurian Lakes. Other Germans now came up to face the Scottish and French troops and began to hate them with a vengeance, when they heard what had happened. That ire satisfied the generals, who were chauffeured back to their headquarters in high-roofed black automobiles.

  Everything seemed to return to normal at the front near Avion. Flares burst in the night sky like sinister fireworks, German artillery pounded the allied positions from a nearby coppice, and long-range French 75mm guns never neglected to reply. On 5 February 1915, the order was given for the assault. Although the French artillery had pummelled the enemy positions for three days, the Fritzes surprised everyone by meeting the attackers with a steady hail of fire. The Scottish soldiers quickly withdrew. The more lightly wounded managed to roll their way back to the trench, while those further away quickly stopped groaning and fine snow began to cover them like a shroud. Night fell, but Father Donovan couldn’t get to sleep. Later, long after midnight, he talked with a wounded man who was crying for help out in no man’s land. Why did he talk with him instead of helping straight away? Why didn’t he haul him into the trench? British precision was the reason. Scottish regiments, like all others in the British army, were equipped with hooked poles six ells (twelve feet) long, for hauling wounded men from no man’s land. It was considered that longer poles would break and also that dragging men further than six ells would cause such severe bleeding that hauling them back into the trench was pointless. That is why Father Donovan had a hooked pole of six ells beside him that night. Not an inch longer.

  The young man who was moaning so frightfully and begging for help was about ten ells away.

  This is the conversation which took place between the pastor and his lamb that night.

  ’Father Donovan, I’m going to die! My right side hurts terribly. I’m holding my hand against it so it doesn’t bleed. Help me. Help me, by God.’

  ‘Grab hold of the pole, my son. I’m flinging it to you. There, can you see it?’

  ‘It’s so dark, Father. I’m dying. I can’t see a thing.’

  ‘Wait for a flare . . . there’s one, hear it hiss. Can you see the pole now?’

  ‘Aye, Father, but I can’t reach it. It’s too far — a good four ells. Damn Sassenach measurements! Why does a pole have to be just six ells long?’

  ‘Take it slowly, my son, It’s only four ells away. That’s nothing.’

  ‘I can’t, Father, I’m bleeding. I’m leaking all over the place. All I can see is mist, and my head is spinning. Help me, Father, you’re our pastor and there’s no other God except Our Father.’

  ‘Who are you? Tell me something about yourself. You know me, but I don’t know you. ‘

  ‘My name’s Hamilton . . . John Hamilton. I was born in Glasgow in 1893. I’m studying mathematics . . . I have a brother and a sister. She married away to England. I love the afternoons. What am I talking about? I love the gloaming in Glasgow. I used to be a sportsman. I love the smell of old Chippendale furniture. One little table . . . ’

  ‘Go on, my child.’

  ‘There was a little table I especially loved as a boy. My mother served tea and quince jam on it. I’ll never forget the smell of black tea and Mother’s hand putting a teaspoon of sweet quince in my mouth. And then dark fell, like this now. But I was a child then, Father. I was healthy, not disfigured like now. Mother laid me in starched bedlinen and stroked my head. Poor Mother, when she hears I’ve died. Like this.’

  ‘What’s your mother’s name and her maiden name?’

  ‘Rebecca. Rebecca Sutton.’

  ‘In the name of God the Father, it seems we’re related. My name is Donovan Sutton, and your mother must be a distant niece of mine. My son, you mustn’t die. We’re of the same blood, of the Montgomery clan.’

  ‘Save me then, Father . . . Uncle, if you can. Find a longer pole or come up out of the trench.’

  ‘I tried that, but a German had me in his sights. He very nearly killed me. ‘

  ‘I heard the bullet. So what now? We’re back at square one. I’m ten ells from the trench, and you have a pole of six.’

  ‘Tell me some more about yourself.’

  ‘I can’t, Father. I’m thinking now what a short distance that is for one life. Four ells! Four ells is the length of the bar in Arta pub in Albion Street. The tapman needed just three seconds to push a pint of dark ale to a guest sitting four ells away. And a Scottish vinegar fly — it needs less than a second to fly four ells.’

  ‘That isn’t going to get us anywhere, laddy, or bring you any closer to the pole of six ells. Tell me about yourself.’

  ‘What can I say. I was a top student. I was being considered for an assistant’s post at the university, but I loved sport. As soon as I finished classes I’d jog to the old sports ground at Hampden Park and practice for football and running. Oh, I was a great sportsman, may God be my witness. I could run a hundred yards in 10.3 seconds. I hoped to surpass the record holders Williams and Kelly, but I couldn’t get below ten seconds. Did you know, Father, that a runner needs one hundred and ten steps to run a good hundred-yard dash? One step more and the result will be worse. He needs three steps to run four ells. Three steps, Father Donovan! Just a year ago I would have run that distance in less than a second. One second! And now it hurts so much I can’t drag myself to a six-ell pole.’

  ‘Let’s talk about sport a bit more. We British invented it, whatever our French allies say. You were a footballer too. Which position did you play?’

  ‘I was . . . ah, it hurts . .
. I was centre forward.’

  ‘Oho, the one nobody’s supposed to see, who’s not even supposed to really play, but just taps in the ball.’

  ‘Aye. When they told my trainer I was “nowhere on the pitch” but still scored a goal, he said that if people didn’t understand . . . if they didn’t understand the role of centre forward they should watch Chinese ping-pong instead. The centre forward . . . I can’t laugh now . . . the centre forward is meant to go unseen, to lull the opponents’ defence, and then to bite like a snake, or rather to knock the ball into the goal. He doesn’t have to do much. He just has to . . . just has to put that ball in.’

  ‘Come on now, my son, let’s score a goal against the Germans.’

  ‘It hurts, damn it hurts.’

  ‘What distance is it easiest to miss the goal from?’

  ‘From the edge of the goal area, Father, from four ells . . . That’s right, it’s easiest to miss the goal from just four ells away.’

  ‘I’ve heard that before, but I can’t believe it. How is it possible that he misses from four?’

  ‘The posts and the crossbar are too close. You think: I’ll just tap in the ball and Bob’s your uncle. But no damn way . . . pardon me, Father — it’s not like that. If you kick the ball properly it sails off over the bar; and if you bother to aim it goes past the post. All you need to do is close your eyes and boot the ball any which way. That’s the only way to make it go in.’

  ‘Come on then, we can do that too. Close your eyes and imagine you’re in the opponents’ box. Don’t think about the wound. Push your body like it’s that ball. Any old way. If you try and get up properly you’ll be too high and the German sniper, who’s awake tonight specially for us, will get you; and if you try to aim for the pole I’ve pushed out you’ll miss it in this starless night. You’ve only got one chance. Let go with the hand that’s holding your belly wound, close your eyes, and reach out with both hands.’