Forty-five

 

As they returned, exhausted, to Varna, spring began to conceal some of the horror with greenery and flowers.

Edward enjoyed working with McClumpha. It was simple for anyone with experience, and he found himself travelling by car, train and ship between Varna, Burgas, Constanza in Romania and Vilkova at the mouth of the Danube. On one occasion he travelled up the Danube with McClumpha and Rhadka, who had dropped her boyfriend since Edward’s arrival, from a delta so wide it was hard to tell where the Black Sea ended and Romania began. Business also took him south to Batum, Alexandroupolis, Salonika and Piraeus. Occasionally, well-disguised and with a false passport, he found himself in Odessa.

There was more to do in his leisure hours than he had expected, with concerts and amateur theatricals, even racing, though the horses varied in size from cavalry mounts to shaggy ponies, and the jockeys from blue-jowled thin-faced men to stalwart farmers and overweight rose growers.

There was game in the deep valleys, and the lakes behind the town were the home of countless snipe, woodcock, geese and duck which rose in honking hordes into the blood-red sunsets.

The Bulgarians loved football, and even played a form of cricket which they’d learned originally from the British soldiers who had been stationed in the area during the early stages of the Crimean War. The football was played on a stony sloping pitch with lopsided goalposts and no crossbar, so when the ball was booted high the question of whether a goal had been scored or not was resolved by a noisy argument that involved both teams, the referee and most of the spectators. Cricket was played in much the same spirit. In the evening, the local families congregated to sing and dance. Every other person seemed to be a fortune teller and they all believed in ghosts, vampires and werewolves.

Occasionally, Edward found himself in Smyrna or Constantinople, where it was impossible to be unaware of the tension that was ever-present in the Middle East. The legacy of the war was hatred, distrust and muddle. Under the Versailles agreement, Turkey had to surrender large tracts of territory inland to the Greeks in return for their support of the Allies.

‘One o’ these days,’ said McClumpha, ‘yon Turks are goin’ tae turn roond an’ bite you Greek buggers in the bum, you see.’

Realising that Edward’s interests lay elsewhere, Rhadka confronted him.

‘You do not like me,’ she said, pouting.

‘Of course I do, Rhadka.’

‘Then why do you avoid me so much?’

‘I’m not avoiding you.’

‘But you do not love me. You love some other body.’

‘Yes, Rhadka, I do.’

‘Does she not return your love?’ Rhadka sounded as though she had grown up on the Bulgarian equivalent of Peg’s Paper.

‘I think so, Rhadka.’

‘Then why do you not ask her to marry you?’

He laughed. ‘Because, Rhadka, I don’t know where she is. I keep hoping I’ll find her.’

‘I’ll help you. I’ll find her and explain that you have rejected me because you’re in love with her.’

For a month or two Rhadka wrote to acquaintances and school friends in other parts of the country, searching for a British voluntary nursing corps. She had some success, but none of them knew of Ginny. But her enthusiasm cooled as she became interested in a young lawyer she had met at the post office during her regular visits, and before long she announced her intention of marrying him.

It was the usual noisy affair of dancing, singing and eating, and as Edward watched the two youngsters disappear in a borrowed car for their honeymoon in Romania, he felt desperately lonely.

The uneasy state of affairs round the Bosporus seemed to be growing worse by the day. It was common knowledge by now that the Turkish Army, like the German Freikorps, were refusing to accept the defeat of 1918, and just waiting for the opportunity to make trouble. But, after enduring generations of Turkish occupation, the Greeks were only too keen to get their own back. Atrocity stories fanned the hatred as Greek slew Turk and vice versa in a vicious tit-for-tat.

Everywhere he went, Edward asked questions about Ginny. And one day, he felt at last he might be on the right track, when he heard rumours that a British nursing unit had been at Kilkis, north of Salonika. But, this story proved to be without foundation. Letters flew backwards and forwards between him and Ginny’s parents but they too had heard nothing.

Reluctantly, Edward was forced to consider that she must be dead, perhaps a victim of the great ’flu pandemic. At the end of two years, at the beginning of 1922, he announced that he intended to return to England.

McClumpha sighed. ‘I’m sorry, laddie,’ he said. ‘Ye’ve been like a son tae me but I cannae stop ye. What’ll ye do wi’ yon boats at Burgas?’

It hadn’t occurred to Edward to do anything at all with them. He had sold them to King Ferdinand, and, as far as he was concerned, they were no longer his.

‘Take ’em wi’ ye, lad,’ McClumpha advised. ‘They’re only takin’ up room an’ me an’ Enescu want to open up the basin there for repairs.’

‘They’re not mine.’

‘They’re nobody else’s, laddie. You sold ’em tae King Ferdinand and Ferdinand has gone. Take ’em away. They’d make a nice bit o’ cash for ye when ye reach home.’

It was an idea, and McClumpha was prepared to offer practical help. ‘I’ve got the Hamtun goin’ south,’ he said. ‘Callin’ at Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonika and Naples. I’ll carry ’em there for ye for nothin’. A sort o’ partin’ bonus, ye might say.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Edward.

‘I want tae get Smyrna sortit out,’ McClumpha went on. ‘I dinna trust yon Turks, y’see. They’ve been mutterin’ ever since the glaikit people at Versailles offered the place to the Greeks. I think I’d be wise to leave. I dinnae want tae have tae fight ma way oot. I hold tin concessions and I want tae clear ’em up.’

 

At Burgas, on the way to Constantinople, Edward and McClumpha had the first intimations of trouble. The Greek soldiers who were supposed to be watching the Turkish Army in the Turkish hinterland were in difficulties. Greece was bankrupt, the winter had been severe, clothing and food were short. Equipment had been delayed and the leadership was demoralised. And still the Turks waited, their passions at fever pitch, until finally the Greeks had nervously decided to retreat.

By the time the Hamtun reached Constantinople, the vengeful Turkish Army was hard on the heels of the Greeks. The retreat rapidly became a rout, with the soldiers dragging in their wake thousands of Greek civilians and setting fire to villages all the way to the coast.

Smyrna itself was a cosmopolitan place with every language in the world gabbled along the waterfront. It was well developed, with a golf course, a race course and an opera house. The bars were open and selling what they called ‘American Skoch Misky’, and the Greek and Armenian beauties who giggled and waved from the windows of the rooms above the busy streets were said to double up as agents for the Bolsheviks. There was the constant throb of zithers, mandolins and guitars, but behind them a murmur of fear. Everyone knew the Turks were coming.

The harbour was a perfect crescent at the end of a long bay, and, when the Hamtun arrived, it was crowded with ships. There were two British battleships, three cruisers and six destroyers at anchor, three American destroyers and numerous French and Italian ships. The water was littered with anything that would float. There were Levantine caiques, and massive freighters from every nation in the world except Greece. Their last ship had already nervously slipped away, carrying with it the Greek Army headquarters and all the officers of the Greek administration.

There had been no rain since May and a cloud of yellow dust hung over the carts, cars, carriages and people. McClumpha didn’t waste any time in removing the cargoes that belonged to him and closing down his interests. The shipping agent wailed his protest, but McClumpha was adamant that the Greeks were failing to provide protection.

The first of the Greek wounded began to arrive. The trains rattled in, heading for Chesme. Then came the fleeing soldiers in ox-carts, trucks and handcarts, on camels, horses and mules, all dusty, hungry and begging for food. Behind them was an enormous cloud of civilians, dragging exhausted, crying children. Institutions like the YMCA offered to take them in, but mobs of terror-stricken women had begun to besiege the entrances to the consulates.

The first of the Turkish cavalry arrived soon afterwards, swords and bayonets rusty with dried blood, their high black fezzes emblazoned with the red crescent and star.

The Turkish quarter of the city was already decked out with red cloth, from windows, gas lamps and shop fronts, but the railways had ceased to operate as the Greek and Armenian employees bolted for the safety of the ships. Suddenly dozens of small vessels and fishing boats sprouted the Stars and Stripes because the Turks loathed Britain for backing the Greeks.

Disciplined Turkish infantry followed the cavalry, and there was nothing to stop them. The Greek Army had no leadership. For a short while, it seemed as if the occupation would remain under disciplined control, but then, returning from the British consulate, Edward saw Greek and Armenian shops being looted.

‘Time to be off,’ he thought, as he heard distant shooting.