Twenty-three

 

The platform at Naples was crammed with people clutching suitcases. Even before the train had stopped, they began to scramble aboard, watched by a group of Italian police, caps tipped forward over their eyes, faces expressionless.

Edward found himself struggling against a dozen people trying to get in. In the second-class compartments, they were shouting and cursing, pushing children through windows and yelling at them to find places.

As he burst out of the door, he almost fell into Sam’s arms.

‘Welcome to Bedlam!’ shouted Sam, his face covered in perspiration. ‘Come on. I need a drink, even if you don’t.’

‘Well?’ said Edward, when they had found a table in the first-class buffet.

But Sam refused to say anything until the waiter had served them. ‘Guess what?’ he said. ‘I got married.’

‘Teresa?’

‘No, Rosina. She made most fuss about me going to Bulgaria. Teresa didn’t seem bothered so I decided Rosina was the one who was interested. I’m enjoying it, Ted.’

Edward stared back at him, grinning. ‘You might have waited until I got back,’ he said.

‘Rosie wanted to get on with it. The whole family was there. And after all it was me that was marrying her, not you. It was like a madhouse. About two million relatives, all crammed into the apartment. You couldn’t move. There’s another party tonight, now you’re back.’

It was Edward’s turn to look sheepish. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter, Sam. In fact, it’s fair enough because I didn’t wait either. I got married too.’

‘Who?’

‘Gussie.’

‘This calls for another drink.’ Sam signalled the waiter. ‘I thought you were after the other one.’

‘So did I.’

The two friends grasped hands warmly, then toasted each other with another glass of wine.

The toasts continued at the della Stradas. And the party seemed to include the whole street. Next morning, holding their heads, Sam and Edward tried to brief the family on what to do while they were away.

The Maréchal MacMahon arrived the following week. She had not run into any bad weather, but Edward and Sam insisted on examining the boats and crates. The French captain watched them with disgust written all over his face.

‘You think I cannot look after my cargo?’ he said.

To get at the hatches, the boats had to be lowered to the quayside and the crates containing tinplate and galvanised ware from Birmingham were hoisted out. Anxiously, they watched the boats hoisted back again two days later and lashed in place on the deck.

The ship stank of the mules she was carrying so they decided to eat ashore and join her at the last minute before she sailed.

They ate cozze, Taranto’s celebrated large mussel, for dinner, and, aware they were heading into the unknown, drank rather too much wine. When they awoke next morning the ship was at sea.

After the sophisticated bustle at Athens, Smyrna was a warren of mud-brick houses, huddled lattice to lattice and roof upon roof amid winding precipitous lanes. Churches, mosques and houses were silhouetted against the sky in a higgledy-piggledy pattern.

Passing through the Dardanelles, they gazed at dilapidated farms, outhouses and rickety buildings, and in Gallipoli were treated to a vision of the biggest-breeched, longest-bearded, dirtiest, most stately old Turks in the Ottoman Empire, all smoking pipes as they sat on wooden platforms along the water’s edge. The bazaars were full of men in shawl turbans, flowing fur-lined coats and bright sashes, in which were stuck silver-sheathed daggers and ornamented pistols. The women looked for all the world like bundles of washing set on top of yellow boots. Screw steamers, paddle vessels, barques and Mediterranean caiques bobbed in the filthy water of the harbour.

The Maréchal MacMahon anchored off Scutari. The town looked enchanting with a fairy tale prospect of domes, minarets and pink-painted houses, their balconies covered with flowers and creepers. But when they went ashore they found the harbour choked with refuse that stank to high heaven. When the Maréchal MacMahon’s boat ground on to a beach, gaunt dogs prowled about them, sniffing the debris along the waterline. The houses that had looked like pink sugar cake from the sea turned out to be windowless and filthy. The streets were rutted and rats, quite unconcerned, ran among stinking puddles of oily water. They were glad to get back to the ship.

Constantinople rose in spectacular terraces with a skyline of domes, snow-white minarets, golden cupolas, coloured walls, gable-ends and intricately carved roofs. But the streets were as narrow, fly-ridden and smelly as those in Scutari.

There was another long delay because once again the boats had to be hoisted to the quayside. Sam and Edward decided to take a horse-drawn taxi to a hotel in the European section of the city.

At dinner they found themselves sitting next to a beautiful blonde woman, who turned out to be Russian. She smoked cigarettes in a long amber holder, complained about the food and was clearly interested in Edward.

But their meal was rudely interrupted by a man in a fez and wide breeches.

‘Are you the owners of the two boats on the quayside?’ he demanded in English.

They could not deny it.

‘Please accompany me.’

A carriage took them across the city to a large pink-painted building. It looked like a police station. Men with rifles balanced on their knees sat around the entrance hall.

Beyond the hall a colonnade enclosed a paved court like a cloister with a small square pond in the centre. The pillars were striped in twists of pink and yellow. Above the capitals the walls rose in arched ribs to a roof of carved and gilded wood. Pink jewel-like lamps glowed on the walls.

They passed through a maze of dimly-lit corridors until they reached a large room where a man smoking a hookah at an ornate desk rose to meet them. He spoke in French.

‘You are–’ he glanced at a paper in front of him ‘–Messieurs Bor – Bourdillon and Nan–’ like everyone else he stumbled over the name ‘–Nankidno.’

They agreed they were.

‘The owners of the boats on the quay. Bound for Batum.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are they naval boats?’

It was easy to see where the questions were leading. ‘No,’ Edward said.

‘Are they designed to carry weapons?’

‘They’re pleasure boats.’

‘Can weapons be carried on them?’

‘That would make them top heavy.’

‘Are they fast?’

‘Very.’ Edward was praying that the man behind the desk was no sailor and hadn’t been serving in Arina at the time of the Tahaf and Huda incident.

‘They could be put to naval use?’

‘Every boat in the world could be put to naval use. Providing enough hard work and money were spent on them.’

‘They are not men-of-war?’

‘No.’

‘Your customer?’

Edward and Maurice had thought of that one way back in England and fixed the advice note accordingly. ‘Someone called Nabat. He may not, of course, buy the boats. We’ve come to demonstrate them.’

‘His nationality?’

‘Turkish, I believe.’

The two officials exchanged looks and it was clear what they were thinking. If the Turkish government found it necessary to have the boats, Nabat, as a good Turk, would be expected to hand them over.

The man behind the desk scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Edward. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You may go.’

‘And the boats?’

‘They may go, too.’

 

They were down at the docks early next morning on nervous look-out for Turkish officials or soldiers but no one came near them. When the Maréchal MacMahon left, the stink of the mules was worse than ever. Rain began to fall heavily and for four days the ship drove through a storm that kept them below decks. The bunks felt harder and more lumpy with every day and the stench grew so bad that they tasted mule with every meal they ate. Even on deck in the shrieking wind they breathed mule. They were surprised one evening to be invited to dinner by the Captain, who seemed to have mellowed in his attitude towards his English passengers. He was very free with the wine and the brandy, but nothing could blot out the smell.

‘The mules are dying,’ he said. ‘And one of the muleteers who came with them has gone, too. Typhus.’

Batum stank of the waste from the oil refineries and the sky was choked with cloud. As soon as they arrived a launch appeared alongside the ship and the Captain was informed they were to be held in quarantine. There was malaria and cholera in the town.

They remained in Batum for two dreadful weeks. It poured with rain the whole time. There was nothing to read except Russian newspapers, and nothing to do.

Eventually, permission to continue was granted and, with the captain in a sulphurous temper, they headed north with a new cargo of drums of oil, citrus fruits and tea for the ports of Sebastopol and Odessa.

Their first sight of Russia was of the sheer cliffs of Balaclava.

A pilot was waiting to take them round Cape Khersonese into port by the naval base of Sebastopol. White houses gleamed in the sunshine and bells were ringing in the warm air.

‘This is more like it,’ said Sam.

As the deck cargo was lifted ashore, a fast, green-painted launch appeared alongside. It was long and low like the Bourdillons, but with a high cabin that ruined its lines. The man at the helm requested permission to come aboard.

‘Pavel Ivanovitch, Count Khamlukin,’ he introduced himself in excellent English. ‘Russian Imperial Navy. My father is Admiral Count Khamlukin. I was admiring your boats. Would they carry torpedoes?’

‘They’ve been used very satisfactorily,’ Edward pointed out. ‘One like these sank the Turkish Huda at Arina.’

Khamlukin nodded. ‘Do they carry armour plate?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘They’re intended to be fast. The weight would slow them down.’

‘How fast are they?’

‘Thirty knots.’

‘I presume such boats are for sale to anyone?’

‘Of course.’

‘Where will you put them in the water?’

‘Varna.’

‘I should like to see them perform.’

They removed the tarpaulins and allowed Khamlukin to climb into one of the boats.

‘Bourdillon Mark III,’ Sam said.

‘Excellent,’ Khamlukin said. ‘But little comfort for the officers.’

‘They’re not built for comfort.’

Khamlukin smiled. ‘For Russian officers, comfort is essential. Perhaps we ought to try your boat against mine.’

‘With pleasure,’ said Edward.

‘As it happens, I am on the point of negotiating for a flotilla for the Imperial Navy. If yours is faster, I could be persuaded to take them.’

Despite Khamlukin’s smile and friendly manner, there was something about him that made Edward suspicious. But he was happy to accept the challenge if it meant another sale.