The Greek cavalry had changed from the ‘walk’ to the ‘trot’. There were three lines of them, well spread out. The thin winter sunshine glittered from their sabres, which they held across their right shoulders. In front rode their officers, and their headquarters group were tightly bunched around the blue and white flag held high aloft by the gigantic standard bearer. They made an impressive sight, as a thousand pairs of hooves sent up a cloud of grey dust.
In the Turkish lines there was no movement. The brown pits of earth, recently dug up by the Turkish infantry stalled by this sudden Greek defiance, seemed empty. Indeed there was no sign that they were occupied at all, save for the silver crescent of Turkey which fluttered from a flagpole in the centre of the Turkish line.
Now the Greek artillery thundered into action. 75mm cannon lobbed shells over the heads of the advancing cavalry, which slammed into the Turkish positions. Here and there were ripples of cherry-red flame. But when the flame and the brown smoke cleared, there was still no sign of the Turkish defenders.
On the hill overlooking the battlefield, the Grey Wolf nodded his approval. His askaris, peasants to the man, were showing just how tough they were. Those Anatolian peasants turned soldiers could survive all day on a bottle of water, a slab of unleavened bread and a handful of dates and sultanas. The Grey Wolf was proud of them; they were the best soldiers in the world.
The Grey Wolf, as the new dictator of Turkey Kemal Ataturk was named by his people, was happy so far with how the battle was progressing. The Greeks were still using the same suicidal tactics that their French instructors had taught them. The direct attack to the front ‘à l’outrance’. All to the good. It was the easiest way to kill as many of the Greek swine as possible. But if the Grey Wolf was pleased, nothing of that stern visage showed it. The gaunt face, the grim mouth and the washed-out eyes revealed nothing of his complex emotions. For all his face showed, he might well have been simply watching some pre-war tactical exercise.
Now the Greek cavalry had changed from the ‘trot’ to the ‘canter’. The riders were moving up and down in the saddle. Here and there the horses swung their heads to one side, as if they already knew what was soon to come and were afraid. But their riders held them to a tight rein. Swiftly the distance between them and the Turkish positions lessened. Soon the Greek bombardment of the enemy lines would cease and then the Greeks would charge. The Grey Wolf raised his glasses. All around him his staff, obviously all feeling uncomfortable in the new caps he had ordered them to wear instead of the traditional fez, raised theirs. Inwardly the Grey Wolf smiled. They were all time-servers and lick-spittlers, apeing his every move. He knew why, too. Only the last month he had sacked 200 officers, including 168 generals, of whom he didn’t approve. They knew on which side their bread was buttered.
Suddenly, startlingly, the Greek bombardment ceased. Penetrating the loud echoing silence which followed came the silver notes of a Greek bugler, signalling the charge. The standard-bearer raised the flag of Greece high above his head. Next to him the regimental colonel rose in his stirrups and shouted something to the men behind him. He waved his sabre, the blade glinting in the sun.
A great roar rose from the ranks of the Greek riders. As one their sabres came down from their shoulders. Arms extended. Sabres came parallel with the sweating sides of their mounts.
‘They charge!’ one of the staff officers cried, unable to contain his excitement.
‘To their deaths,’ the Grey Wolf told himself. Aloud he said, a little harshly, but without raising his voice, ‘Quiet please. I am concentrating.’
‘Pardon, Effendi,’ the staff officer whispered and dabbed his brow with a handkerchief that stank of cheap Turkish eau de cologne. He had incurred the Grey Wolf’s displeasure. Rapidly he ran off a prayer to Allah, to whom it was officially forbidden to pray, that he wouldn’t be dismissed from the army.
Now the Greek cavalry was riding all out. The horses’ hooves kicked up a great cloud of dust, their manes flying in the sudden wind, as their riders lay along the length of the outstretched necks, sabres at the ready.
Still the Turkish lines lay silent and the Grey Wolf told himself what good soldiers his askaris were. He had fought in the Balkans, in North Africa, in Europe, but he had never seen infantry so solid when faced with the awesome spectacle of a cavalry charge.
Suddenly a lone officer appeared on the parapet of one of the holes towards the centre of the Turkish positions. He smoked a cigar and the only weapon he carried was a fly whisk, which he held casually over his shoulder. The Grey Wolf gave a wintry smile. The officer, whoever he was, had style, panache as the French called it. He stared at the charging Greeks as if they were barely of interest.
Almost casually the unknown officer on the parapet dropped his cigar. He raised his fly whisk. Sharply he brought it down, lashing the thongs against his knee.
The Turkish line erupted in fire. At both ends and in the middle machine guns started to chatter like angry woodpeckers. Tracker sliced through the air.
The galloping men were galvanised into frenetic action like puppets controlled by a puppet-master suddenly gone crazy. Men fell screaming from their mounts. Others slumped in their saddles, while their panic-stricken horses galloped on, going all out to their death. Horses tossed their riders. They towered on their hind-legs, front hooves pawing the air furiously. Others turned, dragging screaming riders with them, caught up in the stirrups. Others went down on their knees, their white flanks flecked with scarlet blood, dying as they crouched there, whinnying piteously.
Still the Greek cavalry came on. There were great gaps in their ranks now, but they still charged, carried away by the wild, unreasoning bloodlust of battle. Their colonel sprang across the first trench. An askari rose and tried to bayonet them. He missed. The colonel’s sabre flashed. Through his binoculars Ataturk, the Grey Wolf, could see the look of absolute agony on the soldier’s dark face as the sabre slashed into his neck. Next moment his head, complete with helmet, rolled to the ground, leaving the headless body to sag slowly after it.
Now more and more of the Greek riders were springing over the Turkish trenches. Askaris rose out of their holes to meet the challenge. Bayonets and sabres flashed and locked. Little groups of men and horses were locked in murderous combat on all sides. The Turkish commander went down under the flailing hooves of a Greek horse before he had a chance to draw his revolver. The Greek cavalryman leaned down low from his saddle and slashed his sabre to left and right of the wounded man’s face. Through his glasses the Grey Wolf watched as the Turk’s face slid down to his jaw like molten red wax.
To the rear another Greek regiment of cavalrymen came thundering across the plain. They cared nothing for their dead and dying comrades or the wounded horses struggling to rise again. They rode straight into them. They were wild with excitement. Even at that distance the Grey Wolf could hear them screaming and shrieking as they anchored their lances, pennants flying, in the leather cups below their saddles ready for the charge.
It was too much for the Turkish infantry.
In ones and twos at first and then in increasingly larger groups they started to pull back. At first they did so apparently reluctantly, backing off, turning to fire a shot or two before retreating again. But now as the lancers came riding at full gallop across the trenches, their great pointed spears gleaming in the weak winter sunshine, the withdrawal became a retreat.
Suddenly they were running, through the second line of defence, throwing away their rifles and helmets as they did so, the ones to the rear of the running men screaming shrilly, as the lances dug into their shoulders and transfixed them.
The Grey Wolf’s face showed no emotion. He had seen it all often enough before. Those who lived would fight another day. They were not cowards. Turks were never cowards. But the impact of full-scale cavalry charges was just too much for them. He lowered his glasses and barked one word in a voice thickened by years of drinking cheap raki and smoking too many cigarettes. ‘Artillery!’
Immediately the staff officers went into action. The field telephones whirred. Officers snapped orders. A signaller started wagging his flags. All was sudden hectic activity, while the Grey Wolf stood there, his arms folded, his dark face revealing nothing, as he watched the infantry run.
Minutes later the horizon behind him flooded a deep pink. Lights flickered, as if the doors to some huge furnace had been opened. A great boom. Moments afterwards there was a banshee-like screeching, as shells hurtled overhead, straight towards the charging Greek cavalry. Men and horses went down on all sides, as the shells ploughed huge brown-smoking holes in the fields like the work of gigantic moles. Then it was the turn of the Greeks. The survivors started to pull back, leaving behind the churned-up battlefield littered with bodies and dead horsemen.
The Grey Wolf shrugged to himself. There would be no further advance this day. In the Prophet’s name, he cursed to himself, when would he get rid of those damned Greeks and set about his real task – the restoration of Turkey, no longer the sick man of Europe, but a new powerful modern state respected by the world and no longer looked down upon?
‘Effendi?’
It was one of his staff officers. With him he had a European in civilian clothes, though from his ramrod-straight posture, the Grey Wolf could see he was an officer in mufti. He stared hard at the European. Then he remembered that hard face with the cruel-looking duelling scar running down one side of it. ‘Major Willmer,’ he said in French, ‘you were with me at Suvla Bay in the Dardanelles in fifteen.’
‘Yes sir,’ the German answered in his harsh, clipped French and gave a stiff bow.
The Grey Wolf didn’t offer to shake hands in the European fashion. He respected the Germans for being good fighters and organisers, but he didn’t like them. Indeed he didn’t like any foreigner. He had long determined ever since the Germans had taken over Turkish affairs during the war, brought in by the Sultan, that only Turks should run their country and find their own salvation. ‘Are you here as Schlachten-bummler?’ – he used the German word for a battlefield tourist.
‘No, your excellency,’ Willmer replied, still standing stiffly to attention. His eyes switched from left to right, as if he were checking who was listening to him. ‘I have come at the behest of Captain Canaris, the head of our naval intelligence.’
The Grey Wolf actually smiled. ‘I didn’t know you still had one. You are very devious persons, you Germans. But pray what have I to do with your intelligence?’
The artillery had ceased thundering, now that the Greeks were in full retreat and the German major lowered his voice gratefully. He knew of old just how easily the Turks could be bought. He didn’t want the secret he had brought with him all the way from Berlin to go any further than its recipient.
‘The English,’ he said, selecting his words carefully, ‘know of your plans for the Greek civilians at Smyrna, Excellency.’
The Grey Wolf frowned. ‘Hm,’ he said, ‘baksheesh, I suppose. Or perhaps those Germans of yours who have been accompanying our troops during the campaign. Germans can be bought, too.’
The Major flushed. Once the Turks had been under German orders. Back in the war, he would have ordered the bastido, that terrible Turkish punishment of having the soles of the victim’s feet lashed with canes, for anyone who had dared to insult the good name of the Fatherland. But those days were over. Germany was now weak, the loser, its great empire taken away from it by the Allied victors. So he kept his temper and said, ‘I don’t know how, Excellency. But they do and they are attempting to do something about it.’
‘What?’ the Grey Wolf demanded harshly.
‘They will try to stop you,’ Major Willmer hesitated.
‘Go on!’
‘Stop you with the business of the civilians.’
‘How?’ the Grey Wolf had learned long ago not to waste words.
‘Those two former enemy battleships, the Implacable and the French one – they intend to sabotage them.’
The Grey Wolf forced himself to smile. He needed the Germans after all. ‘Major,’ he said taking the other man’s arm. ‘You will dine with me and tell me more.’ He said in guttural German. ‘Meine Leute haben eineri Esel geschlachtet. You will enjoy the meat.’
Willmer’s stomach churned at the thought. Donkey, he told himself revoltedly. ‘My God.’ Aloud he said, ‘Danke sehr, Exzellenz. Es wird mir ein Vergnugen sein.’
Down below, the returning Turkish infantry were going from Greek to Greek, kicking them in the ribs to see if they were still alive. If they were, they slit their throats and looted the bodies.