Читать книгу Harper of Heaven - Robert William Service - Страница 4

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When I returned to my flea-infested room I gazed around anxiously. My imagination was working and I looked for signs of secret searching. Were the toilet articles just as I had left them? Had my bag been unstrapped? My papers—was it thus I had arranged them? And indeed it seemed to me there was disorder everywhere. But then I realised I was suffering from a muzzy headache, so I lay down and dozed for a few hours. I would not return to Saint Sophia, I decided, salving my conscience with the thought that I would never be missed. “Where’s that reporter?” someone might say. “Well, the bastard was only in the way anyway.”

At dinner I joined two genuine war correspondents—Grimstone an Australian, morose and lean; McHaggie a Scot, bandy-legged and loquacious. Both were aching to be at the Front and to send some copy to their papers. They had read some of my work, though they were rather ribald about it. They humbled me, for their experience put me at a disadvantage. Their talk was of the difficulties of getting stories out with the greatest speed, either by telegraph or courier. I could do nothing like that. I had a commission to send in articles at so much a word and by mail. They were newsmen; I an itinerant journalist.

“We canna get leave to go to the bloody Front,” said McHaggie (usually known as McHaggis) “so we’re thinkin’ of buyin’ an old car and slippin’ off. Nae doot we’ll be stoppit and pit under arrest but we’ll maybe get some stuff before they catch us. Now, if you care to come along and share expenses you’ll likely see some fun. There’s a big battle due out Adrianople way. We might get in on it.”

“And you might come in useful,” added Grimstone, “with that chocolate soldier uniform of yours. I’m told you speak a bit of French too.”

“I’ll come,” I said. “It’s decent of you to take me. I’ll only be doing articles so I won’t interfere with any scoop you get.” Of course I envied them their chance of getting a big story hot on the wire, but I thought my stuff might make up in colour and vitality for its tardiness. Stevens and Harding Davis were my models and I could ape them. Yes, I would share the adventure.

In the meantime I had to consider San Stefano, and as my headache persisted I thought I would go for a walk. Crossing Galata Bridge I found myself in the sinister byways of old Istamboul. Fascinated I wandered on, hardly meeting a soul. It was like a city of the dead, the only sound the howling of the pariah dogs that scoured the gutters for offal. The sky was flushed by floods of light and guns boomed at intervals. An eerie atmosphere. I rather enjoyed it, till I was suddenly conscious that I was being shadowed.

As I stood on Galata Bridge I had been aware of the two men. I would not have noticed them had there not been something familiar in their appearance. Where had I seen them before? Then I remembered—the Levantines on the terrace of the café. Yet without apprehension I watched them cross the bridge and disappear into the gloom beyond.

And now, as I looked back, I could see them at the end of the street. I tried to laugh. Perhaps it was imagination, but all the same I hurried my pace. Rounding the corner I almost ran to the end of another street and waited there in the shadow. I saw them halt under the light as if searching, and now I was certain it was the couple of the café. I remembered how they had watched the Doctor hand me that gold, and how I had stowed it away under my tunic. I admit I was nervously keyed up, yet that was hardly an excuse for the panic that now seized me. Again that instinct of danger possessed me, and I ran as if for my life.

The street I was in was short, but before I had reached its end I saw the two hot on my heels. I had no doubt now that they were after me, so I took the first turning and ran blindly. This street was longer and to the right was a big blank space. I plunged into its darkness, stumbling forward till I fell over an obstacle. A little stunned I lay there panting, then I realised I had tripped over a tomb. Around me vaguely I could see others and I knew that I was in a Turkish cemetery.

Suddenly I saw the pair passing only a few yards away. They, too, were running and I blessed the blackness that divided us. Moving ever so quietly I shrank deeper into the darkness. I had just reached what I considered a safe spot when I saw my pursuers doubling back. For what seemed ages they halted, staring into the cemetery, then as if reluctantly they gave up the chase.

For a full hour I lay there not daring to move. Perhaps it was the Doctor’s caution, perhaps the gold I carried, perhaps the sinister surroundings, but I was in an unreasonable funk. Until the coast was clear I would not venture out of my hiding place—no, not if I had to wait until dawn. How long I would have remained I do not know had I not spied another figure coming down the long street. Crawling nearer to the edge of the cemetery I saw that it was a man in a military cloak, so letting him get a fair start I hurried after him.

He was a Turkish officer dressed in a sky-blue uniform. He had a grey moustache and a pleasant face. I said in my bad French: “I have lost my way,” and I displayed my brassard of the Red Crescent, whereon to my surprise he spoke to me in English: “You are indiscreet to wander in Istamboul after dark. It is dangerous for strangers. But come, I will guide you to Galata Bridge.”

As we walked he took from a paper bag a very fine apple and asked me to accept it. I did so, munching with pleasure as I told him of the New World. I was happy in his company but my joy was complete when we passed two loitering men and I recognised them as my pursuers. But I gave them such a bold look now, swaggering past with my military escort. The soldier conducted me to the bridge where I thanked him almost hysterically. To this day I have never forgotten him and he has made me think kindly of Turks. He was a true gentleman.

The night passed dolefully, punctuated by the pounding staves of watchmen and the booming of those guns within whose range I longed to be. Quite early I sought the wharf on the Golden Horn and put the rice through the Customs. As we loaded the sacks on the Red Cross launch the scene was richly colourful, oriental craft of all kinds plying busily on the sprightly water. A brilliant morning when Istamboul masked its misery by a front of sunny insouciance. In the bow of the launch I chatted gaily as we churned the waters of the Bosphorus and it was near noon when we arrived at San Stefano. In peace time it had been a summer home for wealthy Turks, but now it was turned into a hell-hole. I went ashore with misgivings, past coquette villas, to the horror of the cholera camp.

The Greek school had been made into a hospital. As I peered through the doorway the stench caught me by the throat and the sight smote my eyes with horror. Lying on the bare floor were hundreds of soldiers—dead or dying. Heavy beards failed to hide their haggard faces and under their tattered khaki their bodies were skin and bone. Making no moan they waited for death to take them. Looking like a ghost a Red Cross nurse stood at my elbow. He addressed me hoarsely: “Hope you’ve come to help us, Doc. We’re having a tough time. For twenty-four hours I haven’t been off shift and I’m like to drop.”

“I’m not a doctor,” I explained with shame. “Just a sort of amateur helper attached to the commissariat department.” I did not like to tell him I was a newspaper man. Somehow in this mulch of misery I was ashamed of my profession. He saw my repugnance to the sinister scene and went on reassuringly: “There’s no danger really. It’s not infectious. You have to take the germ through the lips to catch the plague. It’s really a violent form of dysentery. There are three men back there who died this morning. You might give me a hand to pack them out.”

Picking my way among the limp bodies I aided him to carry the poor devils to the porch. Then hastily I made my escape. I felt sorry for the nurse who was obviously all in, but it was not my kind of a job and I felt incapable of helping him. The stink of death was in my nostrils, so I sought the beach and there in the Sea of Marmora I swam till I felt fairly clean again.

Yet horror fascinates, so once more I mounted to the village. Beyond, in a vacant plain, thousands of tents had been set up, and in each half a dozen men lay on the bare ground, writhing and retching. Every now and then one would get feebly to his feet and stagger to the door of the tent. Alongside was a shallow ditch, and on the edge of this he would cower weakly, convulsed by violent spasms of diarrhoea, and scarcely able to unbutton his breeches. There was a long line of these men, crouched on the edge of the ditch, their lean buttocks gleaming pallidly in the pale sunshine. Then they would stumble to their tents again, not bothering to button their garments. This was to be my lasting memory of San Stefano—hundreds of Turkish soldiers hunched over a slit in the ground, and the acrid odour of an agonising dysentery.

The Red Cross had a mess somewhere but I did not go there. Somehow I felt I was butting in, for though I was a helper I was an unpaid one. In the professional sense I did not belong. So I found a tiny Turkish restaurant where I had an omelette served by a woman proudly pregnant. It was not a cheerful meal, but neither was my appetite. Then in a villa near the sea, rented by our organisation, I wrapped myself in a borrowed blanket and slept on the floor. In the various chambers were a number of Austrian women nurses, but though they pitied the poor devil on the porch not even the homeliest of them would invite him to share her couch.

After a breakfast of bread and coffee I paced the beach, awaiting the arrival of the Red Cross launch. I felt a repugnance to revisit that accursed village—the putrid confusion of the Greek hospital, the acrid stench and the tattered figures in khaki evacuating into the ditch. Instead I had another swim, thinking of Leander and wondering where the hell was the Hellespont. When the launch arrived I was greeted by Doctor Dilly with a cheerful grin, but there was another with him who gave me a stare of cold surprise. He was a tall man, with a blond moustache and a military manner.

“That’s our Colonel,” said the Doctor. “A grand chap, a pukka soldier.” I gave him the balance of the gold and the Customs clearance papers, and he thanked me heartily. I also told him of my adventure in Istamboul and he reverted to his obsession of German agents. “I warned you,” he said excitedly. “I can feel they’re all about us. The Turk and the Teuton are hand in hand.” I thought of my officer friend, suggesting they were just common thugs. He shook his head; then he asked me what I thought of conditions up in the village. “Putrid mess, I expect. Well, we must do our best for the poor devils.”

During our conversation the Colonel had been standing aloof, a monocle in his eye. Now he beckoned to the Doctor and I heard him snap: “Who’s that fellow?” While the Doctor was accounting for me he listened with a sour smile. “Quite! One of those newspaper pests. Proper poison, those chaps. Tell the bounder we’ve no use for him. Get rid of him.”

All this I heard distinctly. And now the Doctor came to me: he was embarrassed and his manner was apologetic. With a hum and a haw he began: “Awfully sorry, old chap, but we’ll be obliged to let you go. Really there’s no job here worthy of you. However, we’re so much obliged for the way you’ve helped us.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I quite understand. Well, thanks for giving me a hand. I’ve no doubt I’ve the makings of an article from the little I’ve seen.”

Thus we parted good friends, but the Colonel took no notice of me. So, by way of being polite I sauntered up to him. “When is the boat going to leave?” I asked. He gave me an up and down look through his monocle. “You mean—when is MY boat going to leave.” “Quite,” I said and turned away. He expected me to ask permission to go on board, but not for a king’s ransom would I have done so.

And that evening I paid my fare on a paddle steamer. It was crowded with Anatolian troops, whose officers slapped them with the flats of swords to make them pack closer. But when I reached the city again I had a great feeling of relief. I went to my room, changed into civilian clothes, folded my uniform and put it away. I looked with distaste at the Red Crescent. Thank God I was free again!

At supper that evening I informed Grimstone and McHaggie of my experience with the Colonel. Said McHaggie: “I would have told the bastard to stick his boat up his erse.”

“I couldn’t do that,” I said, “being in uniform. After all, he was in his rights. News hounds are a nuisance.” But McHaggie wouldn’t have it. “Any numbskull can be a sodjer,” he said, “but it takes brains to be a writer. Well, you can come along with us and write up the battle of Adrianople.”

I said I would go gladly; but the fates were to decide otherwise, for that evening as I sat in my room there was a knock on the door. Two shabby men waited there. “The police,” one said. I asked them in and they looked around appraisingly. I thought they were going to make a search but one, who had a scaly nose, spoke to me in halting French. “Monsieur, we would like to see your papers.”

Anxiously I waited as they scanned my documents. They did not seem satisfied. They jabbered, grimaced and looked at me suspiciously. Finally Scaly-nose handed me a paper, saying grimly: “Monsieur, you are convoked for tomorrow at three o’clock at the Commissariat de Police.” Then bowing stiffly they retired.

What trouble was I in now? I stared at the summons distastefully. Then I had an idea. There was a Travel Agency near the hotel and it was still open. “When is there a boat to Constanza?” I asked. There was one leaving next day. I was so worried that I could not sleep all night, for I have a horror of authority. So, at eleven next morning I boarded the Roumanian steamer and at the time of my interview with the police I was vomiting over the rail into the unsympathetic Black Sea.