Hard on the heels of the boy, a group of a dozen men appeared, several were soldiers, and the rest were in civilian clothes - all carried weapons and were plainly in pursuit. With barely a glance towards the pair on the motorcycle, they ran around the corner, following the boy’s directions. As they disappeared, the young boy turned towards Bastian, his face alight with excitement.
“Armenians,” he said proudly. “I found them. They were hiding, but I found them.”
He turned and ran off behind the mob of men who sounded as though they were smashing down a door. Bastian felt a wave of nausea wash over him that this child was taking such glee from a savage manhunt.
He gunned the AJS into life and roared through the streets towards the American School. The groups of soldiers he now saw in the streets were not standing around idly. Many were carrying lit torches into buildings. Streams of civilians were rushing into the streets, some carrying pathetic bundles of possessions, many holding nothing but each other. Several were kicked and punched by the soldiers as they fled.
The School, however, was quiet and obviously untouched.
“We can’t take the girls out through this,” said Bastian. “Do you have any flags, American flags?”
Miss Barnes nodded, shocked by what she was seeing around her.
“Fetch them. Bring anything red, white and blue.”
Bastian and some of the teaching staff hurriedly began draping flags on the main gate and from the windows. One of the older girls ran up with armfuls of bunting, normally used for the Fourth of July party. Despite the horror going on around them, they festooned the gates with the strings of colored triangles.
Finally, with every door and window barred and every bath and bucket filled with water in case the supply was cut off by the fires, Bastian knew he could no more. He walked down the short driveway towards the front gate and out along the road to where a group of soldiers walked back and forth, calmly setting fire to houses which were being pointed out by some local Turkish inhabitants.
“You are burning houses” Bastian said, plainly.
“This is Armenian property,” said the officer. “Our orders are to set fire to it. Then we need to tidy up the Greeks.”
“And the American School?”
“Why should they worry about anything? No one will bother them,” the officer said, then seeing the concern in Bastian’s eyes, “Look, tell them to stay inside, we’ll make sure nothing happens to them.”
It was the closest Bastian was going to get to a promise.
“This is probably safer now than any building in the city,” said Miss Barnes to Bastian when he returned. “You’ve done all you can here. You should look to your family now.”
Bastian nodded slowly, reluctant to leave, but knowing that he had to.
The route that he had taken from his house into the city was now impassible. A solid throng of refugees choked the streets and whole sections of the city looked to be ablaze, so he threaded his way through the industrial area until he was forced to head back east, to the outskirts where the house lay.
As he wound his way through the streets, many houses in the Greek and Armenian districts where either ablaze, or were standing deserted, their doors lying open to the street and scattered belongings lying in the dirt. He came to the house of one of the foremen from his family warehouse and stopped, staring at the signs of hurried departure.
“Get off that motorcycle.”
The voice came from a narrow lane to Bastian’s right. He turned to see a group of three men, armed with rifles and wearing a collection of pieces of army uniform. They were ‘Chelles’, Turkish irregular volunteers. The man who spoke had a harsh accent from the mountains.
“My name is Drysdale-Behier and I am a British subject,” Bastian said slowly, not dismounting, “I am going home.”
His perfect Turkish and his calm tone paused the three men. One of the group leaned closer to the spokesman and they spoke quietly for a moment, frequently glancing at Bastian.
“Come with us,” said the spokesman eventually, gesturing back along the road they had appeared from.
“No,” said Bastian, quietly, “fetch your officer.”
The armed men stared at Bastian, shocked as much by the tone he had used as by the order he had given.
“Where is your officer?” Bastian said.
One of the group turned and pointed back at the alley they had emerged from. At this, Bastian gunned the motorbike and rode up the alley, causing the men to move sharply out of the way. The alley twisted to the left and Bastian found himself staring at the old route out of the city, the one that many referred to as ‘The Pilgrim Road’.
The road was filled with a thin stream of refugees, mostly Armenian, but some Greeks. Almost every major road he had seen so far had its share of horror, but this was worse, much worse. The Turkish Chelles troops were sending the people in the opposite direction to the one taken by the other refugees. They were not being sent to the harbor, but out of the city towards the hills and the barren desert beyond.
“Where are you taking these people?”
Bastian spoke to a man in uniform wearing an officer’s cap and a pistol holster on his belt. The officer turned slowly towards Bastian and opened his mouth to speak when there was a sudden commotion on the road.
One of the Turks had grabbed a piece of luggage from a man in the crowd. The man had fought for the bag, but was knocked to the ground and beaten by two of the guards with rifle butts. At this, a young man wearing the long, black robe of a clergyman rushed to intervene. He too was knocked down. Bastian saw a rain of blows fall on his head and he stepped off his motorcycle to intervene.
“Stop that stupidity,” shouted the officer to the men who, after delivering a final few kicks to the two victims, walked away, straightening their tunics. The man who had fought for his suitcase knelt on the ground, cradling his head in his hands, and then stood up, shakily. The priest remained on the dusty road, a pool of blood forming by his head.
“Britisher?” said the officer.
“Yes,” said Bastian, his face a mask. “I live here.”
“Go home, Britisher. Go home.”
Beyond the door
“It’s empty,” said Sparke, peering in through the doorway.
Tilly made no response.
“This is what, a storeroom?” he said, in an attempt to prompt a reaction.
Both Sparke and Tilly stood at the doorway, like swimmers standing on the edge of a pool. In the stark light of their flashlights and head torches, the room did have the look of a forgotten storage area. Sparke’s eyes moved between the few pieces of simple furniture, a table, a low bunk, a small wooden chest, which stood against the far wall. In each of the corners he noticed piles of what looked like abandoned junk, loose bits of wood, old broom handles.
“You’re not supposed to be in this building, so you are definitely not going into that room,” she said finally.
“There might be something else,” said Sparke, “another room beyond this one. Try the scanner.”
“I’m serious, Peter, don’t take a single step into the room. This will be photographed millimeter by millimeter and we don’t want your bootprints showing up.”
Sparke looked at Tilly, his face blank with confusion.
“Sanctum sanctorum,” said Tilly, “that’s what we’re looking at - the residing place of the holy of holies. This passageway, and especially this room, are probably the remains of a temple thousands of years old.”
She cast a beam of light at the far wall.
“That,” she said, looking at a carved figure, “is Heracles, see the big club he’s holding? And that one, see the guy in the chair?”
Sparke struggled to make out the image in the wavering lights.
“He is holding lightning, probably Zeus.”
“Ancient Greeks?” said Sparke. “You think they built this?”
“I know they didn’t. See that bunch of figures near the corner? I am willing
to bet those are Hittite deities.”
“So how long ago was that?”
“Something like 2,000 BC at a guess, but I’m not an expert in that era.”
It was only now, with eyes adjusted to the shadows and shapes on the walls, that Sparke could make out the figures and some of the symbols. He turned the beam of his light to the wall closest to them and squinted at the lines he saw.
“That’s not ancient Greek,” he said.
Tilly turned her head to follow Sparke’s gaze.
“My, oh my,” she said.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“It certainly looks like it.”
Carved deeply into the rock was a shape made up of clean, smooth, straight lines. It was a Christian cross, over a yard across. Next to that was a circular carving, perhaps a foot wide. Within the circle was the image of a horse bearing two men who held swords aloft. Sparke and Tilly looked at each other.
“Templar?” said Sparke.
Tilly looked at the surface of the door again, and ran her fingers over it.
“My guess is that they built this door,” she said.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” he said.
“Nobody has. This chamber has been used by half-a-dozen different civilizations,” she said. “They all left their marks, but didn’t wipe away the evidence of the people who came before them.”
Tilly seemed lost in the wild collection of imagery, absorbed in the idea that millennia of people had treasured this room as a unique place.
The beams of light were dazzlingly bright, illuminating whatever they were pointed at, but throwing everything else into dark shadow. Tilly was so engrossed by the cravings, that it was Sparke who first turned his light onto the piles of things stacked on the floor.
“This isn’t a storeroom, and that’s not rubbish,” he said, making Tilly turn to follow his light.
“Weapons,” said Tilly, “those are weapons.”
She passed a beam of light over a pile of artifacts.
“That’s Roman, those are sarissae, Greek spears. No idea what those are, but that is definitely a pernach, a medieval club, probably from our Templar friend.”
She paused for a moment. Sparke could see the thoughts crossing her face.
“You know,” she said, “it’s absolutely possible that we are the first people to enter this room in eight hundred years.”
“No,” said Sparke, “no we’re not.”
“How can you say that?” said Tilly, looking in the direction of Sparke’s light.
On the rough table, among several other items, shone the dull metallic glow of a revolver. Unable to stop herself, Tilly stepped into the room, crossing to the table in three long strides. She peered closely at the gun and read from the mark stamped on the body.
“Webley & Sons, Mark VI.”
Without touching the weapon, she examined it from every angle until, peering closely at the base of the grip, she spoke.
“I can see letters stamped onto the steel here. There’s an ‘S’ then a ‘D’ and a ‘B’, and there’s a hyphen between the last two letters. What was the name of Maryam’s great-grandfather, the one who passed on the key?”
“Sebastian,” said Sparke, still rooted to the doorway. “His name was Sebastian Drysdale-Behier. SDB.”
“Maryam wanted an interesting TV program,” said Tilly. “Looks like she’s got one.”
“Is that paper…parchment…what is that next to the gun?”
Sparke was standing on his tiptoes, craning to get a better view of the things strewn across the tabletop.
“Don’t come in here, I mean it,” said Tilly. “Somebody soon is going to ask me exactly what happened when I walked in here and I don’t want to tell any more lies than I have to.”
“Don’t worry,” said Sparke. “I might be willing to ignore a court order, but I draw the line at fighting you.”
Tilly looked up at Sparke and smiled.
“Glad you know how things work around here.”
She bent down and peered closely at the things on the table.
“This is parchment, not high quality, the sort of thing that might have been locally made.”
She touched the edge of the parchment lightly, with the end of a pen she had taken from her pocket.
“Not even that brittle. Good condition.”
“Who cares about the bloody parchment,” said Sparke. “What does it say?”
“Patience, patience, patience, Peter,” said Tilly.
“You’re enjoying this,” said Sparke.
“Latin,” said Tilly, finally reading the text. “Clear handwriting, but not fancy. Short sentences. Not a professional scribe. It’s a letter. Got a wax seal at the base, hard to make it out, but I’m pretty sure it’s a Templar seal.”
“Who is it addressed to?” said Sparke.
Tilly read the document, following the words with the edge of her pen. She read the first few lines three or four times.
“It’s addressed…well, the strange thing is, that it seems to be addressed to Sebastian Drysdale-Behier.”
The Quay
The scene that greeted Bastian as he turned into his house reminded him of the preparations for a family holiday. The family’s two cars were being loaded with luggage as his mother stood on the steps, directing the servants. Beside her, his father sat in his wheelchair.
“We’ll need to leave the luggage,” he said to his parents. “We can only take one car.” Behind him, his parents could see the cloud of smoke that had spread to cover half the city. That and the look on Bastian’s face stopped any discussion before it started.
“Clarise, you’ll need to drive. I’ll take father in the AJS and clear the way.”
Bastian knew he was alarming his family. He could hear his own voice and recognized that it was the tone he used when he was in Gallipoli. Last night, before this had started, he had been a son, a father and a husband. Now, he had to be in charge.
His mother turned immediately to the housekeeper.
“Lock up the house,” she said, “then go home, and send everyone home. Wait for word from me once everything has settled down.”
The servants, many of whom had spent their entire working lives with the family, stared back at her.
“I think you will be safer if you are not seen with us. Go home.”
She took a set of keys she had been holding and passed them to the housekeeper, then without another word, picked up Bastian’s young son and climbed into the rear seat of the smaller of the two cars, ignoring the pile of luggage stacked near the vehicles.
For a moment, no one moved, then, with tears coursing down her face, the housekeeper turned away. Bastian raced past her into the house and a few minutes later emerged with a canvas satchel in his hand.
When the family left the house, they did not stop to close the gate behind them.
Bastian led the tiny convoy on a long, zigzagging route through the city, avoiding the Greek and Armenian quarters where most of the fires seemed to be. But nothing could disguise the fact that they were headed towards the worst of the smoke. The harbor was ablaze.
The closer they got to the port, the thicker, and more desperate, the crowds became. The streets were strewn with discarded cases and bundles, many of them lying open with their contents scattered on the ground.
“Which way will you take?” said his father.
“Through the railway workshop road,” said Bastian. “It’s longer, but less people know it.”
By now, the smoke had turned the sky to a dark, heaving storm cloud and through the noise of the fires, they could hear a small, thin chorus of screaming.
Turning off the road, the motorcycle and car drove through an empty railway yard, then on through one of the workshops Bastian had seen being built by his father’s own company. The empty building had an eerie quiet, the noise from outside now muffled. Bastian dismounted and walked over to one of the doors that led directly onto the quayside and reache
d up to the chains that operated the opening pulleys.
“Oh my God,” said Bastian.
The wooden doors opened onto a scene from hell. All along the dockside, buildings were fully ablaze, the fires roaring from within. Huddled near the waterside was a mass of people, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands strong. Embers from the buildings were falling amongst them, setting fire to the piles of discarded luggage and possessions, often trapping the people between two lines of fire.
Out in the harbor sat over twenty warships from Western powers, but no civilian ships able to evacuate the refugees.
Bastian strode over to the car and opened his satchel. He pulled out a jacket and hat, both deep blue, and pulled them on, throwing his civilian coat and cap to the ground. Now he was in his Royal Navy uniform, untouched and forgotten for four years.
He clambered back onto the AJS and slowly rode, with the car close behind, to the edge of the quay. It was only now that the true nature of the catastrophe was visible. People, mostly young men, were leaping into the filthy water and swimming towards the warships. Those who reached them searched vainly for a way to scale their hulls. The few who found their way up anchor chains or mooring ropes were knocked off by sailors wielding boathooks.
Bastian forced his way through the crowd to the edge of the quay, where a set of stone steps led down to the water, and raised both his arms directly into the air. Then he slowly began to drop and raise his arms as though he was pointing to random numbers on a clock face. For long minutes, the heat of the fires now beginning to make breathing painful, he continued in his dogged repetition of his strange movements.
“Sir, signals from the quayside, looks like one of ours.”
The sub lieutenant, officer of the watch on board HMS Didcot, pointed directly across the water towards where Bastian stood.
“Semaphore, making the signal, ‘SOS, British’, repeat, ‘SOS, British’, repeat.”
The ship’s captain swung his binoculars away from the chaos at the main quay to where Bastian stood in his Navy jacket and cap, surrounded by desperate refugees.
The Templar Key, By Number One Author (Peter Sparke Book 3) Page 19
