Читать книгу Harper of Heaven - Robert William Service - Страница 3

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Wistfully I watched a yellow dog water the sacred stone of Saint Sophia. As if suspecting that I would fain do likewise, a Turkish sentry eyed me malevolently. So, slinking into a hollow of the wall, I lit my pipe.... The next instant I found myself sprawling in the gutter.

What had happened? I was staring at the business end of a bayonet with, beyond it, that truculent Turk. Like magic a crowd had gathered, in their eyes bitter hostility. A nice position for a would-be war correspondent. What was going to happen?

Then the crowd parted and a beautiful young man surged to my rescue. With one hand he yanked me to my feet, and with the other tore open my Burberry. There on the sleeve of my new uniform was the brassard of the Crimson Crescent. Pointing to it triumphantly he harangued the crowd. The effect was magical. Scowls became smiles; growls, cheers; even the sentry cringed as if he wanted to kiss my hand. So with salvos of applause my saviour lugged me away.

“Would you strike a match on the tomb of your ancestors?” he demanded reproachfully. Privately I thought I would, but I hastened to say: “Certainly not.”

“Well, that wall was the back of a SHRINE, and you, an infidel, were desecrating it. No wonder that mob was ready to rend you apart. But you should wear your Red Crescent armband outside your coat, then they would forgive you anything. Also, you should wear a fez. I have an uncle who sells them. Come! We will see him.”

He was a masterful young man and, with the memory of six inches of cold steel jabbing at my diaphragm, I went willingly. Besides, he was a most attractive creature—tall, with blond hair and velvety eyes. He made me think of the David of Michael Angelo. I have always admired handsome men; yet I noticed that women we passed averted their eyes, while when I remarked on their charms he responded with indifference. So he led me to the shop of an old Armenian near Galata Bridge where the Fez was stacked in variety. I hesitated between khaki and crimson, but finally chose one of grey Persian lamb which I wore with a rakish tilt in place of my honey-hued fedora. David looked at me approvingly.

“You look a regular Turk! But you should not smoke that filthy pipe. Here everyone smokes the cigarette. I have an uncle who sells them. I will lead you to him.”

So we mounted the hill to Pera and in a little shop another old Armenian, who looked twin-brother to the first, sold me a box of gold-tipped cigarettes too pretty to smoke. Sighing I stuffed my friendly briar into my pocket; then, as I felt that David was getting bossy, I took the initiative. “I suppose you have not got an uncle who sells liquid nourishment? If yes, lead me to him.”

So presently behold me seated on the terrace of a grand café on a busy boulevard. It was the first time I had sat on the terrace of a café and it enchanted me. “Order something exotic,” I told David. He called the waiter. “A Susanna,” he commanded. The man brought two bottles, one golden, the other crystal. He poured a portion of each into a tall glass and the result was an amber liquid, pleasing to the eye. Hopefully I tasted it.... Bah! “It’s like medicine,” I said.

“A blend of gentian and aniseed—good for the kidneys.... No, I won’t have one. A Turkish coffee, if you please. But try again. I think you’ll get to like it.”

I did try.... No grimace this time. My third and final swallow was almost agreeable. A sense of comfort surprised me. Suddenly bold I called the waiter. “Encore un Susanna.” As he compounded his nectar I looked for the approbation of David. There, like a blot of mud, was his coffee but he was gone. So also was my honey-coloured hat of Austrian velours.... Then I saw him at the back of the café trying it on before a mirror. He was prinking and posing like a woman and I must say he looked very fetching. Presently he returned. “Please sell me your hat, Sir, now you do not need it any more. I have no money but I will serve you as a guide.”

“Nothing doing,” I said. “You don’t imagine I’m going to sport this goddam fez all my life.” Then I looked at him more closely. Though he wore some gaudy rings and stank of cheap perfume the poor devil was pathetically shabby.... “But I have a nice polka-dot tie I’ll give you.” He swallowed his disappointment, and I some more Susanna. It was having a buoyant effect on me. From contentment I soared to happiness, then to joy. And so in a sunshiny mist I reviewed the past month.

I never liked Germans, and from the first that Luxury Liner intimidated me. So different from the roach-ridden old tramp in which I had crossed fifteen years before. There was a gilt elevator I never dared take, for the liftman awed me. He was dressed like a major of hussars and looked at me haughtily. Yet when we left the boat he lined up like the rest. As I had never availed myself of his services I felt I did not owe him anything; but there he was, obviously expectant, and I had not the moral courage to pass him up. Yet to this day I recall his look of contempt at the half-dollar I gave him. I thought he was going to hand it back.

Then there was the Captain, a porcine man, crusted with medals and smeared with gold braid. He was only visible in the evening when he had a chair placed next to the orchestra and listened to every note of the music. He was pig-eyed and sausage-necked; but he had the soul of a musician, and probably envied the meanest member of the band.

But our celebrity was a Publisher—a little grey man who looked like a pocket edition of General Grant. He accentuated this by sitting for an hour in the gymnasium every morning on the mechanical horse, very military as he rose in the saddle. Perhaps he thought the chubby young man who waited there was admiring him, but I was saying: “Darn the little blighter! When will he let me have the gee gee? ... Although I have four best-sellers to my credit he takes no more notice of me than if I was an earwig. No one does on this bloody boat. I’m just a lousy little nobody.”

It was galling, but my inferiority complex rode me most at meal times. There were four at our table—a German American, a German Jew and his wife. The first was plump, pasty, important, a specialist in velours hats, and he was now going to Vienna to buy for a New York firm. He noted my honey-coloured fedora. “A cheap hat,” he said, and asked to examine it. Sadly I gave it, but his face lit up. “Why, this is first-class! I wouldn’t be surprised if I had imported it myself.” Then he turned to the group around us. “This gentleman is the possessor of a very fine velours hat, and I should know.” Though their interest was of the politest I could see respect for me was born. I might have written a dozen books but the ownership of that hat gave me more prestige.

The German Jew and his wife were a honeymoon couple from Chicago where he was in the garments trade. She was pretty but temperamental and when the two men talked in German, which she did not understand, she bridled. The first time it happened she turned to me: “Let’s have a little huddle of our own.” The second time she left the table. When we reached Gibraltar I bought some roses and innocently gave them to her, but he made a fuss. Told me I had a nerve giving flowers to his wife. Only the end of the voyage saved me from unpleasantness.

The nicest men on board were professional gamblers, yet after I had told them I loathed cards they lost interest in me. There was a German Jewess who was a playwright. She was going to Berlin to see the latest successes and consider their exploitation possibilities. There was a well-known caricaturist who was asked by the playwright to make a sketch of her. She must have been very sorry. Oh, what a beak he gave her! But if I was disdained by everyone we were all ignored by a German Baron with a Brunehilde of a wife, who was too haughty to mix with anyone. A big blond man, he became an ace in the war, and when he was shot down I was glad he was killed, not because he was a dangerous enemy but because he had been so imperious! However, the whole boat was tainted with Teutonism, till one felt one was despised by even the meanest member of the crew.

Naples leapt at me with a riot of colour and a roar of life. In my Yukon cabin I had read the travel sketches of Theophile Gautier and longed to write jewelled prose. Now I tried to depict this beauty that amazed my sight, but the best of my word-painting was vain. Yet I was conscious that a ferment of filth and ancient corruption lay beneath the loveliness. Being a bit of a Puritan I was shocked at the physical frankness and sex freedom of the common people.... A man relieving himself in the hollow of a wall and tipping his hat to a passing female friend.... Guides who begged me to visit mirrored rooms where naked girls displayed the twenty-nine Postures of Pompeii.... A boy with the face of an angel who sought to sell me his thirteen year old sister for a lira or two.... All these gave me an inkling of a sensuous life to which I was a stranger. I am naturally attracted to the slums of a city but those of Naples nauseated me.

The railway journey to Brindisi found me spellbound gazing at the Italian landscape. There were so many tunnels it was like running through a flute—blinks of brilliance, then gulps of gloom. At Taranto a Roman nobleman joined us and insisted on spraying the compartment with a disinfectant. I wanted to keep the window open but the conductor closed it. “Heem seek,” he said, pointing to the patrician, so I realised I was in a land of aristocratic privilege. He also asked me not to smoke, so politely I put my pipe away.

I have a memory of moonlight on the Aegean that made me think of “magic foam on fairy seas forlorn;” of Athens and the Parthenon, serenely lustrous like a jewel in a sunset of mellow gold.... If only I could have been free to enjoy it, but I was a peon of the pen, condemned to turn it into copy. Some day, I thought, I will enjoy travel for its own sake and to hell with this tyranny of the typewriter. So by seas of cornflower blue I came to ten-tiered Istamboul with its domes and minarets gleaming in the sunrise.... And now I was on the terrace of its finest café with a fez cocked over one eye, a gilt-tipped cigarette between my lips and a gorgeous concoction called a Susanna at my elbow—marvellously happy and delightfully lit up.

In this mellow mood I was aware of a familiar figure regarding me furiously—or rather regarding David. Then David vanished and the figure approached. It was my boss in the Red Cross, Doctor Dilly who looked like a duck. He had a spatulate nose, beady eyes and a negligible chin, yet he was no quack. At first I thought he was peevish about my Turkish get-up, but it was not that. “Do you know whose company you were in?” he began.

“That was David. Charming fellow. Saved me from the bayonet of a bazi-bazouk or something. Might have been massacred by the mob but for dear David.”

“That, Sir,” said the Doctor grimly, “is one of the most notorious fairies of Istamboul.”

“What’s a fairy?” I asked blankly.

“Good God! I mean a pansy, an Oscar Wilde chap.”

“Heavens! I didn’t know such people existed. We had nothing of that kind in the Yukon.”

“Well, we cannot have you consorting with company of that kind. Remember the uniform you are wearing.”

“But he saved me from bloody butchery. Besides, I promised him a polka-dot tie.”

“Forget it. What’s that poison you’re drinking? Ah, a mixture of gentian and anisette. Hum! Very bad for the kidneys. Well, I’ll have one anyway.”

So he ordered a Susanna and mellowed under its spell while we watched the passing throng.... But perhaps I should explain why I came to be in the Red Cross Section of the Turkish army. It was over breakfast at the hotel when we encountered, and after we had talked awhile he said: “You’re the sort of chap we want. Why don’t you join us?”

I looked at the Red Crescent on his arm, the Turkish equivalent for the Red Cross, and I thought it might be a good idea. As a war correspondent I was a dud. Although I could hear the guns of Tchatalje I could not get near them. This might be my chance. I did not care a darn for the Red Cross but I wanted to get copy. “I’m on,” I said.

So next day I bought a khaki uniform and pinned the Red Crescent on my arm. As I saw myself in the mirror I felt quite impressed, a semi-soldier, capable of deeds of near-danger. Then I reported and was given a job in the mosque of Saint Sophia, now turned into a hospital. There in the palace of Constantine, amid marble magnificence, each tiny cot held its mite of misery. Their hollow faces seemed all eyes that gazed with pitiful pleading. I would have given anything to help them but all I could do was to hand dressings to the male nurses. The wounded suffered from bed sores and were like pathetic animals with oh such trust and gratitude in their liquid eyes! When I realised I was doing this to make grist for my pen I felt rather a low dog. Even as I fetched water and passed bandages I was exploiting their sufferings. So I put in eight hours a day, mostly hanging round, and returned to the hotel to sleep.

To my satisfaction the Doctor ordered a second Susanna, making me almost feel as if I had invented it, and we sat there more or less bemused and watched the scene. Troops passed continually, now a long defile of convalescents, lagging forlornly, each a picture of hopeless misery.... Then a Turkish regiment with new uniforms, stepping snappily. Their German trained officers shouted to the men to stamp the left foot every time they brought it down; but while those in their vicinity obeyed, the stamps decreased with distance till they finally died out.... Now a company of mountain Kurds, small wiry men with donkeys carrying light guns and wearing no special uniform. ... Lastly streams of refugees, peasants with ox-drawn wagons loaded with sacks of grain, seeking a new home. And over all boomed ceaselessly the guns of Tchatalje.

The Doctor stared at the passing procession, then turned to me and indicated two men at a nearby table. “German agents,” he whispered. “This place is infested with them. The Germans are running the whole show. Yesterday I found my room had been entered and someone had gone through my papers. You want to be careful. Lock up everything, or carry it about with you. The woman who runs the hotel is a German spy.”

“They have nothing on me,” I said. “I’m a simple writer hoping to be a war correspondent. Oh, if I only could get to the Front!”

“I could get you a little nearer than you are,” he said thoughtfully. “You’re not much use to us at Saint Sophia. If you like I’ll send you down to the cholera camp at San Stephano where you might grab more material and maybe help us out a bit. Of course, there’s a certain amount of danger. You don’t want to die of the plague, I imagine?”

“Not particularly. But anything’s better than stagnating here.”

“Well, we’re establishing a post there and I’d like you to take a ton of rice down tomorrow. You’ll have to get it through the Customs, load it on our boat and deliver it at the camp. The Turks will charge you duty on it, even though we are bringing it to feed their own soldiers. Rotten bastards! Well, I’d better give you money to pay the duty.”

From his breast pocket he drew a leather bag full of gold and counted out thirty sovereigns. “There, that should be enough. Better keep it on your person. Here are the papers you need.”

As I stowed them away I noticed the two supposed agents watching us intently, but I doubted if they were Germans. They were more like Levantines, capable of cutting a throat for a dollar. I was sorry the Doctor had not slipped me the coins more discreetly. Right then I determined to be very careful. So, with wishes for good luck he left me; but as I went my own way I happened to turn.... There were the two following me. Somehow my heart sank and I had a sense of danger.