They gouged out his eyes. They cut off his ears. They cut off his nose. They cut off his hands. Across the street French soldiers stood guarding a French business concession.
Stern saw two Armenian children sneak out of their ruined house dressed in their finest clothes. Once in the street they smiled and strolled arm in arm toward the harbor speaking loudly to each other in French.
A refugee woman in black carried her bleeding son on her shoulders, he so large and she bent so low his feet touched the ground.
An elderly Armenian made the mistake of unbarring his steel door to pass a letter to a Turkish officer. He was a wealthy merchant, he said, who had supplied Kemal's armies in the interior. The letter, signed by Kemal himself, guaranteed protection for him and his family.
The officer held the letter upside down. He couldn't read. He tore it up and his men stormed inside.
Stern at last reached Sivi's villa on the harbor. He went to the backdoor and found it hanging on its hinges. In the courtyard the old man lay crumpled on a flower bed, his head covered with blood. His French secretary, Theresa, was kneeling beside him.
It just happened, she said. They broke in, he tried to stop them and they beat him with their rifles. They're still inside, we have to get him out of here.
Stern struggled to pull the old man to his feet and all at once Sivi's eyes flew open. He raised his arm feebly and tried to strike Stern.
Sivi for God's sake, it's me.
I won't have it, he whispered. Get Stern here. We must fight back, call Stern.
His head fell forward onto his chest. The two of them dragged him across the courtyard and out into the alley. Theresa was remarkably calm although rifles were going off all around them. Stern was surprised at her control.
My convent training, she said.
In the alley Stern had to stop for breath. He propped Sivi against a wall and closed his eyes trying to think. A soft Irish voice spoke behind him.
The address checks out but what's this little game here? Taken to robbing and kidnapping old men then?
Having a go yourself now that the Black and Tans have set things up to have some Saturday night fun?
He turned and saw O'Sullivan Beare grinning, a revolver tucked into his belt. With him was an elderly Arab wearing an antique helmet. The Arab's face went white but Stern didn't see that.
Help me carry him, we've got to move him to another house.
But before Joe could move, the elderly Arab jumped forward, his face radiant.
If you will, my lord, allow me to help.
Jaysus, muttered Joe, what next. He can hardly carry himself.
If you will, my lord, repeated Haj Harun ecstatically, his eyes fixed on Stern.
Look, said Joe, I'll do the heavy lifting and you guard us from the rear. We need a reliable warrior back there to make sure some cutthroat of a Crusader doesn't try to sneak up on us.
Indeed we do, said Haj Harun, stepping back and proudly straightening his helmet, his eyes still on Stern.
Between the two of them they managed to carry Sivi up through the alleys away from the harbor. Bodies were everywhere. A girl was hanging from a lemon tree. They went in through the back of a deserted house and laid him out on a couch. A trail of blood ran across the floor to a cupboard. Joe looked inside and quickly closed it. A corpse was stuffed in the cupboard, a naked girl, one of her breasts cut off.
Theresa worked on the gashes in Sivi's head. She seemed to see nothing else. Stern turned to O'Sullivan Beare.
Where did you get the revolver?
The Black and Tans, where else. As usual they've got the goods. An officer he must have been, the troops carry rifles.
What happened to him?
A strange occurrence, I don't deny it. All I did was go up to him and salute and tell him I was reporting in for duty on the Crimean front, and what did he do but take one look at me and do a fast tumble. The medals it must have been, awed by all that brass I guess. Anyway he took such a dive he busted his head on the cobblestones before I could catch him. At least it seemed pretty well busted when I requisitioned his revolver so it wouldn't fall into the hands of some dangerous bloody belligerent.
Stern looked at him in disgust.
Go out front and see if we can reach the harbor. When it gets dark the fires will start.
That they will, general, that they certainly will. Come along, he added to Haj Harun, who stood rigidly in the doorway unable to take his eyes off Stern. At the front of the hall the old man gripped his arm.
What is it? whispered Joe.
But don't you know who he is? Once just before the war I saw him in the desert.
Hold it. Which war would we be talking about? The Mameluke invasion? The Babylonian conquest?
No no, the war that just ended, the one they call the Great War. Of course he doesn't recognize me.
Joe was about to answer that he bloody well knew who he was. He was the bloody fake of an idealist who had been trying to play father confessor to him for the last two years while he was smuggling useless rifles to countries that didn't exist and never would, who had gotten them into this mess in the first place by having them come to Smyrna to meet an ancient Greek queen who was now either deranged or dying.
But he couldn't say any of those things and his face was respectful.
Saw him did you? Just before 1914 in the desert? In person and all?
Yes I truly did. I was on my annual haj and he deigned to manifest himself from the skies at dawn and speak to me.
Speaking you say? From the skies? Manifesting himself? Well that's an event by any account. And who might he have been then?
Haj Harun's lips quivered. Tears trickled down his cheeks.
God, he whispered in a hushed voice.
Joe nodded gravely.
Oh I see, the very article himself. What did he have to say?
Well I mentioned that I knew God has many names and each one we learn brings us closer to him. So I asked him if he would tell me his name that day and he did. Apparently, although it's been a total failure, he must have found some virtue in my attempt to defend Jerusalem over the last three thousand years.
Good, very good. What name did he give then?
Stern, whispered Haj Harun reverently. It was the moment in my life I will always cherish above all others.
O'Sullivan Beare staggered against the door and hung there.
Stern? Out of the sky? Stern?
Haj Harun nodded dreamily.
God, he whispered. Our most gracious Lord descending gently from the heavens.
Joe crossed himself. Jaysus, what's he talking about now and how did he learn his bloody name really?
They moved from house to house making their way toward the harbor. At last they came out in a side street beside it, or rather Joe did. Haj Harun seemed to have fallen behind. He waited and after a while the old man came creeping around the corner carrying a heavy sword.
What's that?
A Crusader's sword.
It looked like it might be. Just turn up did it?
It was on a wall in one of those houses we went through.
And what will you be doing with it then?
Haj Harun sighed.
Bloodshed is wrong, I detest it. But I remember how the Babylonians and the Romans were and I've been assigned to guard our party, so now as then I'll do my best to defend the innocent.
The fires didn't wait for darkness. Long before sunset whole streets were ablaze. When they got back to the house in the Armenian Quarter smoke already hung heavily over the city.
Well? said Stern.
We can get there, general commandant sir, but why we should want to I don't know. The Black and Tans have half the Irish nation down there beating the shit out of them. A bad lot they are, better not to mix with them unless you're standing at the right end of a cannon loaded with rusty nails. Now I grew up on the sea but I cast the vote of the Aran Islands this time for going straight overland.