“Until a few years ago, it was officially run by a Sultan. Real old-school sort: corrupt, murderous, looted the treasury and so on. Then he got shunted aside by a thing called the Committee for Union and Progress – they seem to be mostly Army officers and usually known as the Young Turks. But as someone said: ‘They’ve got hold of the dog’s collar, but has anyone told its fleas?’
“So we’ll probably find the fleas still in charge: the bureaucrats. I’ll give you one example I came across of just how weak the central government is: it can only collect five per cent of taxes itself. It has to farm out collecting the other ninety-five to the governors of provinces and districts. Gives them a figure, and anything they collect above that, they keep. Plus the bribes, the baksheesh, for doing their jobs. . . well, you can see why most of them buy their positions. And why a railway linking things up better appeals to the Government,” he added.
“Things are a bit different in Pera, that’s the part of Constantinople we’ll be in. That’s run by Europeans: they have their own hotels, clubs, shops, houses of course, newspapers – and courts. And all have virtually diplomatic immunity: a European can’t be tried by a Turkish court, a Turkish official can’t even enter the house of a European without his permission.”
O’Gilroy let smoke trickle slowly from his nostrils. “How in hell’s it keep going?”
“European loans – mostly French. And European help. All the Powers want some part of the Empire only daren’t take it because of the other Powers, so they all help instead: we’re reorganising their Navy, the Germans their Army and building this Railway, the French lending money-”
“Wasn’t ye fighting the Turks yerself a coupla years ago?”
Ranklin nodded. “On behalf of the Greeks.”
“Was they any good? – the Turks?”
“Traditionally, they’re a warrior race. But terribly badly equipped: most of them hadn’t even got boots.” And after a few weeks in the mountains, his Greek Gunners were no better off, so it was a real prize to find a Turkish officer, dead or prisoner (in practice, the difference was that he felt he should look the other way while his men stripped a live officer of his boots).
“And at yer own game – as gunners?”
“They’d got the latest German seven-point-sevens – they’d spent their money on those, not boots – and they used them pretty well. To start with. We heard their artillery commander was a German, but that might have been just a Greek rumour put about to explain why he was any good. We just knew him as ‘the Tornado’; I think it was one of those silly newspaper nicknames . . .
“Then one day, after we’d had a counter-battery duel -” was he getting too technical? “- guns shooting at guns, trying to knock each other’s pieces off the board – their control seemed to fall to pieces. They weren’t shooting to any plan . . .” It was odd how, behind the apparently random confusion of modern war, you might still sense a pattern that was an enemy mind, isolate a personality and feel you were duelling with him.
“I said we must have killed their gunner commander, or knocked him out, anyway. My brigadier didn’t agree, he was . . .” He shrugged.
“Did it matter?”
“We’d have advanced quicker if we’d known they wouldn’t react because their gunnery control had collapsed.”
O’Gilroy had been about to make a glib comment, then realised Ranklin was talking about a level of soldiering he would never know. “Did ye ever find out?”
“No, I was pulled home soon after that. But their gunnery was supposed to have saved Constantinople from the Bulgarians a few weeks later, so they must have got themselves sorted out by then.”
Then he shook his head. “All a bit once-upon-a-time by now. Cut along to the dining carriage and see if you can rustle up some tea.”
* * *
It was near nine o’clock when they chugged into the frontier station of Deutsche-Avricourt and changed to a German train and railway time, an inconvenient fifty five minutes ahead. And although Ranklin and O’Gilroy were nodded through Customs, thanks to the diplomatic passport, they still had to wait for less significant souls. Luckily the buffet was open.
”Un cognac, s’il vous plait.” Ranklin tossed a sovereign on the table. “Et une biere. This is exceptional,” he warned “Gorman”. “Normally you buy your own alcoholic drinks. And only when you’re off duty, mind.”
O’Gilroy nodded, then asked: “Did I hear that Mrs Finn will be in Constantinople?”
“Most likely.”
“Will ye be calling on the lady?”
“I don’t think she’d ever have met Patrick Snaipe before.” Corinna had little enough time for any diplomatists, let alone ones who were en poste by birth rather than merit. “But I think it’s quite likely we’ll bump into her, so I’ll probably send you round with a note as soon as we know where she is. I did think of sending her a telegram, but what could it say if she isn’t supposed to know me?”
O’Gilroy nodded, looked around and hunched his shoulders into a posture of deference. This frontier was a metaphorical one as welclass="underline" from here on, they must both play their characters full-time, except in moments of certain privacy. “Ah – might I be so bold as to ask what part of the Ould Counthry ye come from, sir?”
“South Limerick.”
“Of course, sir. Then perhaps ye’d be knowing Mr Tobias Gallagher? – a noted farming man in those parts . . .”
“Please tell me more.” So for ten minutes O’Gilroy recalled some of the notables he had encountered during his time as a chauffeur at one of the Big Houses, and whom a real, and sane, Patrick Snaipe would know. The one thing neither of them was bothered about was Ranklin’s lack of accent: most of the Irish nobility learned the King’s English at their nanny’s knee.
Gradually, there and on the train as they headed across Alsace-Lorraine, German territory since 1870, Ranklin evolved the character of Snaipe. He couldn’t be a complete fool – he had been over-playing, he realised, at the Gare de l’Est – or even the Diplomatic Service wouldn’t have touched him. More importantly, people wouldn’t bother to talk to him. But he must not be curious. This should both head off suspicion and account for his having achieved virtually nothing in his forty-odd years.
The first impression he gave in Strasbourg would be vital. Then, if he later forgot himself and said something perceptive, it should be dismissed as an aberration. Perhaps affable bone-idleness was the key. And for that, he could recall more than one brother officer to model himself on.
7
They reached Strasbourg just after midnight, the station empty, windy and cold. There was an instant scurry and babble as the other passengers sought their luggage and a warm bed as soon as possible, but Ranklin held back.
“Should I see to the bags, sir?” O’Gilroy asked.
“No rush. I think the best thing is just to stand here and look lost.”
So they did that for a while. Twice an official in the double-breasted military overcoat of the Prussian Railways strode past, seemingly looking for someone important. By the third time he had lowered his standards and stopped to demand if Ranklin were the Honourable Snaipe.
“Yes, that’s me,” Ranklin said.
The official – he looked rather like the late Prince Bismarck, but it was a popular look – gave him one hard stare to make sure he wasn’t being trifled with, then barked for action. Porters appeared out of the steamy gloom and went off with O’Gilroy to the baggage van, while Ranklin was led across to the most distant platform, and then further still. In the marshalling yard, among the rows of dark, engineless trains, a lone carriage stood leaking light from curtained windows.
They tramped across the tracks towards it, the official mounted at one end and rapped on a door. A moment later, Ranklin was invited up.