Treason's Harbour (20 page)

Around the bubbling water-pipe in a small green privacy the interview went on in the direct, uncomplicated way that Jack had longed for. Murad urged Captain Aubrey to wait until the new moon and the end of Ramadan, since the escort, being janissaries and strict observers, could hardly march long stages fasting in the heat of the day; and it would only be a little while until Sheker Bairam, the feast at the end of the fast, when the Captain and the Bey could eat together all day long. But when Jack very earnestly represented to him that there was not a minute to be lost, that delay must have the most unfortunate effects on the whole expedition, and that his plan was to march by night, he smiled and said 'You young men are always impatient to be doing. Well, I will ride back with you this evening and give orders for your escort. I will give you my odabashi: he is stupid, but he is as brave as a bear and obedient to command and he beats his men into equal obedience; and I believe he has notions of the Low Dutch. He will pick three or four men, if they can be found, who are not afraid of spirits or the night-demon -the desert is full of them, you know. But I am an old man, and I have been fasting all day; I need some sustenance before the ride. You will not mind waiting until the sun has set?'

Jack said that he should be very happy to wait, and in the meantime he begged Murad to tell him about the siege of Acre. 'I am acquainted with Sir Sidney Smith,' he observed, 'and I had some friends in the Tigre and Theseus, but I never heard an account from the Turkish point of view.'

He heard one now; and Murad was giving him a very lively description of the last desperate assault, with the French colours actually flying from one of the outer towers, furious fighting in the breach, and Jezzar Pasha sitting in his chair behind it, handing out ammunition and rewarding those who brought him Frenchmen's heads, when a general noise throughout the coffee-house and the town itself showed that the long, long day of abstinence was at a lawful end and that men might eat and drink again.

It was quite dark when they rode out of the courtyard, their horses' hoofs muffled in the sanded alleys, and the darkness was made even deeper by the lanterns that accompanied them to the gate; but once they were well out on the caravan route, with eyes used to the night, the whole desert was bathed in gentle starlight. Venus had set, Mars was too small and too low in the east to shine with any effect, and there were no other planets in the sky; yet the fixed stars alone, hanging like lamps in the pure sky, were so strong that Jack could see all general forms and even the white of Murad's beard moving as he spoke.

He was still speaking of the siege of Acre, and what he said was extremely interesting; but Jack wished that he would keep his tale for later. In the first place the Bey rode slowly when he was talking; in the second Hairabedian had to post himself between them to pass the words on, turned from Turkish to English, and being a nervous rider, unaccustomed to the darkness, he made progress slower still by perpetually jagging his horse's mouth; in the third Yamina was eager to be home, so that Jack had to keep holding her in, and she was beginning to dislike him; and in the fourth he was himself very much in want of food. The Bey, in-the Spartan janissary fashion, had eaten no more than a mess of curds and whey; he had indeed offered some to Jack, but with the reserve that there would be a roast sheep at the fort which Captain Aubrey must share and that perhaps it might be a pity to spoil his appetite. Captain Aubrey had acquiesced, confining himself to sherbet: now he regretted it bitterly.

On the way to Katia the desert had seemed perfectly sterile; now it was, if not full of life, then at least tolerably well inhabited. Three or four times small dark creatures ran or bounded across their path so close that Yamina skipped and danced in a wide half-circle, and once something very like a fat serpent two yards long made her stand up on her hind legs and give a bound that very nearly unseated him. Then, when the mound of Pelusium stood out against the starlit sky fine on the starboard bow, a pack of jackals set up a prodigious din not far from the track, screaming and yelling so as to drown Murad's voice, and in a momentary pause came the even more disagreeable noise of a hyaena, whose howl ended in a long mad quavering laugh, enormously loud in the warm still air.

'Are those your spirits or night-demons?' asked Jack.

'No, no, those are only jackals and a hyaena,' said the Bey. 'I noticed a dead ass over there not long ago, and no doubt that is what they are quarrelling over. No: for real fiends you must go to that mound. In the ruined tower there sleeps a jinn, about the size of this boy here: it has long upright ears and terrible orange eyes- we often see it. And a troop of ghouls live in one of the old cisterns.'

'I am not at all superstitious,' said Jack, 'but I like to learn about spirits. Have you other fiends or perhaps I should say genii in the neighbourhood?'

'Fiends? Oh yes, yes,' said the Bey impatiently, 'the desert is full of fiends of one kind or another, assuming various shapes: it is common knowledge. If you want to know about fiends you must ask our hakim; he is a learned man and he knows every jinn between here and Aleppo.'

Once they had passed Pelusium and had begun to turn about the hill of Tina they saw the fires of the Bedouins, then those of the naval encampment and the lit windows and gateway of the fort itself. And as they climbed the path - Jack holding Yamina hard to stop her going home at a run- the wafting air brought them the smell of roasting sheep.

A few minutes later they walked into the great hall, and Jack's dazzled eyes beheld the whole body of janissaries seated round their regimental cauldron, officers and all in the democratic Turkish way, with Stephen and Martin on either side of the hakim, the regimental wise man and physician. All hands rose and bowed and in a moment the circle was formed again, with the Bey in his due place and Jack beside him. Apart from ceremonial words as the newcomers washed their hands there was not much conversation, the fasting men being very deeply concerned with their mutton: they ate the first sheep entirely, together with a mountain of saffron-yellow rice, and the second was little more than a bare rib-cage by the time men began to lean back from the pot, to talk, and to move about. Beautiful great brass coffee-pots made their appearance; and after a certain amount of change among the officers Jack found Stephen and Martin at his side. He asked them whether they had had a pleasant afternoon, and whether they had seen the birds and animals they had hoped for. They thanked him and said that it had been very pleasant indeed, apart from a few untoward incidents, such as the frowardness of one of the camels, which bit Mr Martin and then ran away. It was not a very serious wound, but it gave Mr Martin some uneasiness, as the camel's bite was generally held to convey syphilis; the hakim, however, had dressed it with an ointment derived from the skink. Then the other camel, though not vicious, had declined to kneel, so that they could not mount but were obliged to lead it home over the desert, sometimes running lest they should be late. 'Yet at least you did see some birds?' asked Jack. 'There were any number near Katia.' Both gentlemen seemed rather reserved; but at last Martin described their reaching a dense reed-bed, their slow progress through the glutinous mud, the air being thick, thick with fasting mosquitoes, their rising hopes as they heard movements and cries before them, and their eventually reaching an open pool, where they found one common moorhen and two honest British coots, while on the branch of a nearby willow there was a bird that they managed to identify, though their faces were so swollen with mosquito-bites that their eyes could hardly open, as a hen chaffinch. 'It was perhaps a little arduous at times,' said Martin, 'particularly on our return, when we stumbled in the camel-thorn, but how eminently worth while our pains, since we have seen old Nilus' flood!'

'Furthermore,' said Stephen, 'I have every reason to believe that the eagle-owl is present. Not only have I seen his rejections, but Abbas Effendi imitated his voice unmistakably, a deep, strong Uhu, uhu, calculated to strike terror into mammals as large as a gazelle, and birds the size of a bustard.'

'Well, that is a mercy, I am sure,' said Jack. 'Mr Hairabedian, I believe that at this stage we may tell the Bey that I should like to see Mr Mowett and the Egyptian official, so that if their report is satisfactory we may take our leave as soon as it is civil.'

The Bey said that he was acquainted with Captain Aubrey's impatience, and that he would not detain him if it appeared that the column was ready to move off. 'And,' he added, 'since the odabashi will lead the escort, he had better go and pay his compliments to the corresponding officer.' He contorted his face sideways, and with an English intonation and a knowing look he said 'Boatswine.' Then he rapped on the ritual cauldron, and there was an instant silence. Everything was now perfectly regimental. 'Odabashi,' he said, and the odabashi stood up. 'Odabashi, you and five men will escort the Captain, beloved of the Sultan, to Suez, marching by night just as he bids you. Choose them directly and go with the dragoman, who will lead you to the officer of the same rank as yourself.'

The odabashi put his hand to his forehead and bowed. In a hoarse voice he named five men and followed Hairabedian out of the castle.

Mr Hollar the boatswain, Mr Borrell the gunner, and Mr Lamb the carpenter were drinking tea in the warrant-officer's tent when the dragoman brought them their visitor. He explained his status and function, saying 'I presume he will mess with you.' He then said that he must hurry on and find the first lieutenant and Abbas, because the Captain wished to know how things stood.

'They stand pretty well,' said the bosun, 'all stretched along and the anchor apeak. Every fifth camel has a lantern shipped abaft its load, ready to be lit, and all the saucy ones have been muzzled. There is only this and the gunroom tent to be struck, and in five minutes we are under way. As for Mr Mowett, you will find him beyond the big fire where the starboard watch are sitting.'

'Thank you,' said Hairabedian. 'I must run.' He vanished into the darkness, leaving the odabashi standing there.

'Have a cup of tea,' said the bosun in a very loud voice; and then louder still, 'Tea. Cha.'

The odabashi made no reply but an awkward writhe of his body and stood looking at the ground, his arms dangling low on either side.

'Well, this is a hairy bugger, and no mistake,' said the bosun, surveying him. 'Such a ugly cove I never seen: more like a hape than what you might call a human.'

'Hape!' cried the odabashi, stung out of his shyness, 'You can put that where the monkey put the nuts. You're no oil-painting yourself, neither.'

The dead silence that followed this was broken at last by the bosun, who asked 'did the odabashi speak English?'

'Not a fucking word,' said the odabashi.

'No offence intended, mate,' said the bosun, holding out his hand.

'And none taken,' said the odabashi, shaking it.

'Sit down on this bag,' said the gunner.

'Why didn't you tell the Captain?' asked the carpenter. 'He would have been right pleased.'

The odabashi scratched himself, muttering something about being too bashful. 'I did speak up once,' he added, 'but he did not mind me.'

'So you speak English,' said the bosun, who had been staring heavily for some time, turning the matter over in his mind. 'How does that come about, if I may make so bold?'

'Which I am a janissary,' said the odabashi.

'I'm sure you are, mate,' said the carpenter. 'And very much to your credit, too.'

'You know how janissaries are recruited, in course?'

They looked at one another with perfectly blank faces, and all slowly shook their heads.

'Nowadays it is not so strict,' said the odabashi, 'and all sorts of odds and sods get in, but when I was a little chap it was all by what we call the devshurmeh. It still is, but not so much, if you understand me. The tournaji-bashi goes round all the provinces where there are Christians, mostly Albania and Bosnia, the others being what you might call scum, and in each place he takes up a certain number of Christian boys, sometimes more, sometimes less, whatever their parents may say. And these boys are fetched away to a special barracks where their pricks are trimmed pardon me the expression and they are learnt to be Mussulmans and good soldiers. And when they have served their time as ajami, as we say, they are turned over to an orta of janissaries.'

'So I suppose a good many janissaries talk foreign,' observed the carpenter.

'No,' said the odabashi. 'They are took so young and so far off they forget their language and their religion and their people. It was different with me. My mum was in the same town. She was from the Tower Hamlets in London, and went cook-maid with a Turkey-merchant's family to Smyrna, where she took up with my dad, a cake-maker from Argyrocastro, which made trouble with the family. He took her back to Argyrocastro, but then he died and the cousins put her out of the shop, that being the law, so she had to sell her cakes from a stall. Then the tournaji-bashi came round, and the cousins' lawyer gave his clerk a present to take me, which he did - took me right away to Widin, leaving her alone.'

'And she a widow-woman,' said the carpenter, shaking his head.

'It was cruel hard,' said the bosun.

'I hate a lawyer,' said the gunner.

'But I had not been a prentice-soldier in Widin six months before there was Mum with her stall of cakes outside the barracks: so we saw one another every Friday, and often other times; and it was the same in Belgrade and Constantinople when I was out of my time. Wherever the orta went. And so I never forgot my English.'

'Perhaps that was why they sent you here,' suggested the bosun.

'If it was, I wish I had cut my tongue out,' said the odabashi.

'Don't you like it here?'

'I hate it here. Present company excepted.'

'Why so, mate?'

'I always been in cities, and I hate the country. And the desert is ten times far worse than the country.'

'Lions and tigers, maybe?'