Patrol to the Golden Horn

by Patrol to the Golden Horn (epub)

  ‘I didn’t. Except which way Rodney turned in some battle or another … Talking about learning, though, how do you happen to talk German?’

  ‘Ah. Well, to start with, I had an Austrian governess. And my mother’s half French, so I wasn’t too bad at that, and when one had reached a certain standard – at school, I mean – there was the option of doing German instead. So—’

  ‘Are you fluent?’

  ‘Oh, not by a very long chalk!’

  ‘No …’ Nick stared at the slowly passing scenery. The whole thing was hopeless. If one could have put the clock back, been back in Wishart’s submarine, would one still agree to go ahead, elect to be here now?

  Lunacy … And yet, how could one have backed out – having got this far, having been brought through the straits, and with Reaper back there expecting miracles?

  He sighed. The thing was, to shut one’s mind: move from moment to moment, not think about what was happening in any general way … He unfolded his hand-drawn map — traced from the chart of the Bosphorus – and studied it. It was enough to show the rough layout of the three cities: this entrance, with Stambul on the left and the Horn like a wide river behind it, separating Stambul from Pera but with two bridges – the Galata and the Old Bridge – spanning it. Scutari was the city on the Asiatic side, over there to starboard and linked only by ferry-boats to the European shore. Simplified, the waterway could be thought of as having the shape of a capital Y. The lower part of it, the stem, was the entrance from the Marmara, the channel they were sailing up now. On the right was Scutari, and the right-hand branch of the ‘Y’ was the beginning of the Bosphorus. The left-hand branch was the Golden Horn, a cul-de-sac of protected anchorage dividing Stambul from Pera. That was about the sum of it.

  Nick folded the map and pushed it into a pocket of the jacket they’d given him, a loose garment of stained and threadbare linen. Under it he had a sort of vest, and his trousers were sailcloth. He didn’t know what he might pass for in this get-up: an Armenian horse-trader, an off-duty kitchen porter? The fez made him clearly a Mohammedan – Burtenshaw had one too, with his jumble-sale outfit. The caïque’s captain had invited them to select garments of their choice from a heap on the cabin deck, and it had been a matter of picking out what came closest to fitting. They weren’t the only living creatures in this gear, and they’d stood the greasy fezes upside down in the sun in the hope of baking out whatever forms of insect life resided in them. After the clothing issue and a parade in the open for the amusement of Aubrey Wishart at his periscope, the Turk captain had made his first demand for payment: Nick had refused it, and initial fawning had changed immediately to animosity.

  He’d been thinking about the money. He told Burtenshaw, ‘See if you can get a couple of the sovereigns out of the bag without our friends seeing what you’re doing. And slip them to me. I’ll pay them when we land.’

  ‘Just two?’

  ‘Someone ashore may well be expecting to get the whole five hundred, intact. And I doubt if these chaps see gold very often, anyway.’

  Near Oxia Island, eight miles and several hours back, Wishart had raised and lowered his periscope three times, the prearranged signal that he was leaving them to go on alone. They’d been careful not to wave, since the crew were watching them and they hadn’t wanted to advertise the fact that the escort was deserting them. Nick had pictured mentally the other end of that bronze tube, the now familiar control-room scene. It had felt like leaving home: and he’d never expected to have such feelings for a submarine! He’d heard in memory Wishart’s final words: ‘Best of luck, old lad. You’ll make a job of it, I’m sure.’

  He might have been sure!

  Grey Lady: Maritza Hotel: it wasn’t much to go on. Nick had counted on finding some reasonably helpful character aboard the caïque.

  Coming up close to Serai Point now. On the other bow the entrance to the Bosphorus seemed to be widening as the caïque moved into the wide joint of the ‘Y’. Sails flapping as the wind faltered and then returned: gear creaking. Slap of wavelets against the timber hull … Wishart had observed, not long before he’d surfaced this morning, that however hazardous the landing operation might seem, it was a fact that submariners in this Marmara had done things just as crazy, in the earlier Dardanelles campaign. Two submarines’ first lieutenants, for instance, had swum ashore pushing explosives along with them on homemade rafts, and blown up railway lines under the noses of Turk soldiers. There’d been all sorts of improbable adventures. He’d added, ‘Truly, you’re in the best of company.’

  Some of which, Nick recalled, was dead. Wishart hadn’t mentioned this point, of course.

  Burtenshaw pointed suddenly, and announced, ‘Galata Bridge!’ At the same time his other hand nudged at Nick’s side. ‘Here. The money.’

  They’d rounded Serai Point. To their left a narrowing sheet of blue water was the approach to the Golden Horn; the Galata Bridge, straddling the 200-yard wide waterway, had its central span pulled aside. The bridge was of masonry resting on floating iron pontoons, and to open it they towed the middle ones outwards, like opening double doors. The caïque was swinging round now under rudder, and one of the crew had padded for’ard to tend its foresail as the craft turned close in around the point, almost in the shadows thrown by the walls of some kind of fort or castle. About four hundred yards to go, to that gap in the bridge: and then they’d be actually inside the Horn – with Goeben practically within spitting distance!

  They’d have some sort of guard, surveillance of the traffic entering, surely. He turned to Burtenshaw as he pocketed the two sovereigns.

  ‘If we get any problems like police boarding us, keep your mouth shut and give the crew a chance to talk us out of it. And do what I do.’

  ‘What will that be?’

  Of all the damn-fool questions … ‘If we have to split up, rendezvous in the Maritza bar. Right?’

  Burtenshaw licked his dry lips. ‘Right.’

  ‘Whatever happens, don’t lose that rucksack. And don’t let your pistol show.’

  The Marine pulled his rubbish-heap jacket together, to hide the webbing belt. The sun was a blinding golden halo around a mosque near the south end of the bridge. Two other caïques had emerged from the opening in the bridge’s centre: black silhouettes, dramatic on silver water, creeping up the northern shore towards the Bosphorus. Some steam-driven craft – tug or launch – was fussing about near the gap. The low sun was dazzling: but the tug, if that was what it was, seemed to have gone through, into the Horn … His nerves were a bit taut: they were close to the target now, the prize that had drawn them through so many obstacles, for which Louve had been lost, E.14 sunk – and a lot more, more distantly, an enormous lot more besides. She was there, somewhere beyond that bridge … He leant forward, shielding his eyes against the yellow searchlight of the sun: his throat felt as if it was lined with brick-dust. Burtenshaw, also peering towards the bridge, was humming a tune he must have picked up from Leading Seaman Morton, E.57’s second coxswain. Morton was always humming it – an old sailors’ ditty about a seafarer who spends a night with a girl, and, leaving her bed in the morning, gives her certain advice. The song was familiar enough to Nick, and he sang the words of the chorus now for the education of the ignorant leatherneck.

  ‘Saying “Take this my darling for the damage I have done,

  If it be a daughter, or if it be a son;

  If it be a daughter dandle her upon your knee,

  If it be a son send the bastard off to sea”’—

  He’d caught his breath: and his thoughts had flown a couple of thousand miles: to Sarah’s precipitate visit to his father and to the lack of any sort of reason or explanation … He, Nick, had been with her at Mullbergh: they’d spent that night together on some other planet and in the morning he’d left — because he’d had to – and within a very few days she’d—

  If it be a daughter or if it be a son…

  Sarah? As ruthless as that – as decisive and guileful?


  Just like that, seizing a chance so that if he, Nick, had fathered a child by his own stepmother, Sir John Everard would accept it as his own?

  Burtenshaw said, ‘I think they’re about to shut the bridge. They would do, I suppose, at sundown. But we’ll get through, all right – so long as the wind doesn’t die on us, or—’

  Babbling about wind … Nick told himself to think about something else: about now, for instance, and what the hell they were going to do when they got ashore. Maritza Hotel. Grey Lady. Find the first, ask for the second. It was all one could do. What had Reaper told him about the situation ashore, the general background? Reaper’s calm tones drawling as they trod the oak planks in step, their hands behind their backs, turning at precisely the same moment at each end of the cruiser’s quarterdeck: ‘Remarkable place, Constantinople. Beautiful and sophisticated, and under the surface it’s a snake-pit. Now more than ever. The Turks are – well, unpredictable. “Changeable” might be a better adjective. At the moment, luckily for Robins, they’re in a flat spin.’

  ‘Having to surrender – and the Germans there to stop them doing so, you mean?’

  ‘They’re split. Only the Young Turks are pro-German and pro-War. The Young Turks, I suppose you know, are the ruling faction. The new Sultan – old one’s drunk himself to death, one hears – this young one, Vahid-ed-din Effendi – hates them like poison. Which is what they are, of course. The three top ones are Enver Pasha, Talaat Bey and Djemal Pasha. They’ll do a bunk, I’m advised, once they find their German friends aren’t there to protect them any longer. Enver’s a small, vain man, with curly ends to his moustaches. Ruthless as a snake. Talaat’s a vast brute, like a gorilla only more vicious. Djemal’s the Minister of Marine – sports a heavy black beard. Enver got himself and Talaat into office by shooting their C-in-C, old Nazim, back in ’13. And it’s pretty clear he’s the chap who murdered the Heir Apparent. The story they put around was that he’d killed himself – opened the arteries inside his arms – here and here, in the crooks of the elbows. But both arms at once really needs a contortionist – specially as he was lashed to a chair at the time. Those three’ll have to disappear, I’d guess, or swing.’

  ‘Will Robins – will we – find a welcome, d’you expect?’

  ‘From the underground, yes. All the Christians, and what’s left of the Armenians. The Turks have massacred most of the Armenians, or transported them. Not that there’s much difference – they sent one caravan of eighteen thousand men, women and children away to Aleppo in ’15, and exactly one hundred and fifty got there … But yes. I’d say we’ll find plenty of co-operation when the balloon goes up.’

  The caïque was inside: the bridge had been towering up, and in the last seconds it had swallowed them. Now the Turks could shut it for the night. But there were no big ships in here: certainly no Goeben … The crewman who’d let down the foresail sprang ashore with a rotten piece of frayed rope, passed it round a bollard and leapt back on board again: he was walking aft along the top of the gunwhale, balancing effortlessly on wide, bare feet whose thick skin must have been splinter-proof. His eyes were on the Englishmen and one hand hovered near the hilt of his knife. Two other crewmen were between them and the jetty; and the skipper was coming for’ard too now. Nick murmured, ‘Strap the rucksack on, Bob.’

  ‘Shall we ask for directions to the Maritza?’

  ‘What, tell these thugs where we’re going?’

  ‘Oh. No – I suppose not…’

  Ashore, lights were being turned on. This was Galata, and they were berthed on a stone quay not far beyond the bridge. There were other small craft about, but very little movement anywhere; it was as if with their arrival everything had suddenly closed down for the night. But against a corner of a warehouse sixty yards away, two policemen lounged, smoking and spitting: it was the sound of expectoration that had drawn his attention to them, and the gleam of light on brass buttons that revealed police-type uniforms.

  Goeben was not between the two bridges, so she could only be in the larger anchorage above the second one, the Old Bridge. The distance between the two was about half a mile. Nick thought it might be their good luck that she wasn’t in a Galata berth, because if she had been there’d surely have been German sentries and boat patrols all over the place. As it was, with both bridges shutting off the waterway, they probably didn’t think much more protection could be necessary.

  Nearer to the higher bridge, just this side of it, he could see a yacht moored alongside. She was about a hundred and fifty yards away and the flag over her stern was the Stars and Stripes. Puzzling over this, he remembered that America was not at war with Turkey.

  From shorewards came the familiar sounds of urban life. Voices, hooves and iron wheels on cobbles, snatches of music, tram bells clanging, a general background hubbub with individual sounds rising from it. The caïque’s skipper shuffled closer and stuck his hand out.

  It wasn’t a request. His three crewmen were barring the way to the jetty. Nick looked over their heads, towards the corner where the policemen had been leaning. They’d gone.

  He said, holding out one sovereign towards the malevolent-looking skipper, ‘You ought to be paying us. Here, take it.’ The last words had been hardly necessary: the man had snatched the coin, examined it, and now he was testing it with his teeth. The crewmen were crowding closer and there was a mutter of what appeared to be dissatisfaction; now one dirty hand was out again and the other was gesturing, pointing at the men behind. The swift, unintelligible gabble might have been to the effect that one coin was all right for him, but what about the staff?

  Nick made a show of conferring with Burtenshaw. He said, ‘He can have the other one, but he’s got to believe it’s all we’ve got. Argue with me – tell me I mustn’t give it to him.’

  ‘You mustn’t give it to him.’

  ‘Damn it, can’t you put some feeling into it?’

  The Marine bawled, ‘You must not give it to him, I say!’

  ‘Well, you can go to blazes!’

  Staring at each other: Nick apparently angry, and Burtenshaw bewildered. Nick glanced back at the caïque’s captain, and produced the other sovereign; he also turned the pocket of his jacket inside out, as proof that there wasn’t any more.

  ‘Here. And may you break a tooth on it.’ The hand clawed out; Nick muttered, ‘Come on, Bob, while the going’s good.’ He pushed past the rabble and vaulted over to the jetty. Cobbles. ‘This way. Let’s not look as if we’re running away.’ All very well to talk like that, but as he said it he was sharply aware of his own exposed back and the knives in the crewmen’s sashes. Burtenshaw, at his side, marched as if he was on parade – Beating the Retreat, perhaps – with his jaw out-thrust and eyes glaring straight ahead, arms swinging stiffly from the shoulders. He was going to need quite a lot of jollying along, Nick suspected; he told him, ‘There’s no one on the saluting base today, Bob.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Relax. We aren’t on a parade ground.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But I think they’re following us.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish!’

  ‘Just listen, then …’

  Three women – dark shapes, veiled and shawled – appeared out of one of the alleys that joined the quay, and watched them as they passed. An old man popped out of an arched doorway, stared at them, shot back inside and slammed the door. Nick heard a sudden twitter from those women, and an answering growl in a man’s voice: he glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the three figures huddled close together and another skulking past them, yet another showing very briefly and nearer, ten yards further this way: then there was nothing, only the women walking back the other way along the cobbled quayside and a long area of darkness in the cover of the wall, pools of it blacker still in the angles of buildings shielding alley-ways. Burtenshaw said, ‘Two of them at least. I heard one call the other, or swear at him. Actually I heard them when they were coming ashore from the caïque and I thought you must h
ave too.’

  ‘You’ve got damn good ears.’

  ‘They’re closer than they were.’

  The Turks, he meant, not his ears. But what to do now, Nick wondered. Stop and face them? But they’d have knives, and it would hardly be wise to use revolvers on them. Those two policemen couldn’t be far off, and shots would bring them running – plus any other guards there might be in the vicinity. The crewmen following must either suspect that there’d be more gold where that sample came from or be wanting to know, for their own ulterior purposes, where their former passengers were going. They might easily draw baksheesh from both sides, from the Turk authorities as well as from Commander Reaper’s contacts.

  Make a break for it – run, hope to lose them?

  No. Daft. They’d know these alleys thoroughly, and to try anything of the sort would be playing right into their hands. As well as attracting the attention of any policemen or German sentries who might be about. It was a fairly weighty problem and there wasn’t much time, he felt, for dithering; then, suddenly and not far ahead, he saw the Stars and Stripes.

  It was floodlit, on the yacht’s ensign-staff, and her name – Scorpion – was painted in gold letters across her transom. In all the circumstances, he decided instantly, to pass her by would be looking a gift-horse in the mouth.

  ‘We’ll go aboard that Yank.’

  ‘Could be a trap. How can there be an American—’

  ‘They aren’t at war with Turkey. And anyway, it’s our only hope.’ He heard the footfalls behind them, very much closer than they had been, and he grabbed the Marine’s arm: ‘Now – run for it!’

  As he rushed to the gangway where it slanted down abreast a tall, slim funnel, his eye recorded a clean sweep of deck and a high clipper bow and twin raked-back masts. A pretty ship: and if American hospitality was what it was cracked up to be she was in the right place at the right time. He swung himself on to the lit gangway between polished brass stanchions, and Burtenshaw came pounding up the planks close behind him. As they reached the top, a large individual in the uniform of a petty officer in the US Navy stepped forward into the light.