This huddle of narrow streets may once have been a pleasant riverside town, but when I arrived there it was packed with troops. The damp houses and miry streets emitted a terrible stench and the place seethed with angry men. After a great deal of trouble I was shown at last to the house of a Greek merchant where I found a mob of clerks, map makers, officers, messengers, idlers, peddlers, Jews, gypsies, and even a runaway monk who had wandered barefoot through Hungary that winter to serve the Sultan’s cause.
When I reported to the Aga of the Scouts, this much-tried man cursed and declared he could not find a crib for every donkey that the Sultan was pleased to send him. Nevertheless he bade me study the maps of Hungary and make a list of the wells and grazing grounds marked upon them, so that if need arose I could gather more detailed information by interrogating prisoners. I might billet myself where I could find room, for-as he added drily-he could always reach me through the paymaster, whom I would be sure to visit.
This unfriendly reception sobered me, but after my all too rosy expectations it was wholesome, and inclined me to humility and patience. I put a good face on it, therefore, and returned to my janissaries who had pitched their tents on the riverbank. I could not even be rid of my camel, since no one was so foolish as to give me a horse in exchange.
We were now in the month of May, and one night as I lay shivering in my wet clothes the river burst its banks. The wildest confusion arose in the rainy darkness, and I had only the alertness of my janissaries to thank for being still alive at dawn when I found myself high up in a tree, lashed to a sturdy bough. Below us the yellow waters eddied and swirled, carrying with them drowned men and beasts and all manner of stores. I was still dazed with sleep, my teeth chattered, and my stomach cried out for food. At first I felt no gratitude for my rescue, but mourned the loss of my tent, my clothes and weapons, and even my unserviceable camel, which had perished. But at dawn the onbash and the six janissaries whom his presence of mind had saved praised Allah and performed their devotions as best they might in so comfortless a situation. The onbash assured us that our wetting in the floods equaled a complete ablution and that Allah, taking our plight into account, would pardon our imperfect prostrations. The prayers of these men, so singularly performed in the tree top, gave true expression to their thankfulness, yet I, weighed down by my losses, could not feel reverence at so fantastic a sight. As the light grew, however, and revealed the desolation of that flooded plain where lately so huge a camp had stood, I realized the wonder of my preservation and the good reason I had to send up a sigh of thanksgiving.
Here and there clumps of trees rose out of the waters, with survivors hanging in them like clusters of grapes. Other men, shrieking in terror, clung to drifting roofs, to troughs, and even to the carcasses of drowned animals, and besought us in Allah’s name to throw them a rope’s end. But our tree could carry no more, and we needed all the ropes to keep us from falling in ourselves. Three days and nights we stayed there and would no doubt have succumbed had we not been able to cut pieces of flesh from the carcass of a donkey that lodged among the lower boughs.
I had begun to lose all hope of rescue when a flat-bottomed river boat came in sight, punted along by several men and constantly running aground on its voyage from tree to tree to pick up survivors. As it drew near we shouted and waved until the man in command brought it alongside and ordered us to jump down. My fingers were too stiff to loosen the knots in my rope and so I cut it, and tumbled headfirst into the boat; no doubt I should have broken my neck had not the man in charge caught me in his arms. His broad face and indeed the whole of him was plastered with yellow mud, and as he looked at me he cried in astonishment, “Is it you, brother Michael? What can you be doing here? Has Piri-reis sent you to chart these new Turkish waters?”
“Dear heaven, it’s Andy!” I exclaimed. “But where are your guns?”
“Safe under these swirling waters; and as the powder has become somewhat damp they’d be of little use to me just now. From this we see how equitably fate orders our affairs. But you’re in luck, for I’ve orders to bring you straight to the Sultan who will pay you compensation for your wetting. Others wiser and more prudent than you, who ran uphill in good time out of reach of the floods, win no prizes.
I wonder what can be the object of rewarding stupidity and punishing good sense?”
When we had taken so many men aboard that our gunwale was almost level with the water, he began to punt his way back, and was by now so familiar with the channels that he was able to avoid shipwreck on the ruins of houses, and other reefs. Soon we reached the foot of a slope where helpful hands dragged us ashore, rubbed our numbed limbs, and poured warm milk down our throats. We were then led to the top of the hill where stood Sultan Suleiman and Ser- askier Ibrahim, gorgeously arrayed and surrounded by bowmen. At their command the Defterdar paid immediate compensation to every man saved. Janissaries received nine aspers each, onbashes eighteen, and I, having produced my written orders from the Aga of Janissaries, was given no less than ninety aspers. I hardly knew if I was awake or dreaming, for how had we deserved thanks by being caught in the floods? But the onbash loudly praised the Sultan and explained, “Janissaries have a traditional right to compensation for a wetting. If while marching with the Sultan we wade through water to the knees we’re given an extra day’s pay. If it reaches the waist, double. And if we’re lucky enough to go in up to the neck in his service we get three days’ pay. Therefore the Sultan does his best to avoid pools and streams, but he could hardly be expected to allow for the flooding of the Maritsa. I hope not too many were rescued, however, or funds will give out before we reach even Buda.”
The sun shone. After the three days’ fast the milk felt warm in my stomach and the good silver coins were agreeably heavy. Neither the Sultan nor the Grand Vizier appeared discouraged at the losses sustained by the army; on the contrary they laughed aloud and gaily welcomed the groups of survivors that were still coming ashore. Yet their seeming cheerfulness was but a custom, to encourage the troops after any reverse; and a good custom it was, for no sooner had I taken my money than I too began to make little of the sufferings I had undergone. Three pillars had been set up on the hillside, on each of which a head had been placed. Some of the rescued men amused themselves by pulling the beards of these; for they were the heads of three pashas whom the Seraskier held responsible for choosing the camping place and whom he beheaded, to propitiate the Sultan and to keep his favor.
My guide brushed the mud from his kaftan and told me to fetch the new clothes that the Sultan had promised me, and then go to the road builders’ tent to await further orders from the Grand Vizier. But Andy turned his steps resolutely toward the field kitchens and I was compelled to go with him, for he had me by the arm. The cooks were easily identified by their white aprons and caps, and Andy addressed them respectfully, saying that he felt a little hungry; but they bade him join his father in the nethermost pit. Resenting this, Andy first assured himself that the broth in one of the cauldrons was not yet scalding, then seized the nearest cook by the ears and plunged his head into it. Next, lifting him out and holding him high in the air he said mildly, “Perhaps another time you’ll treat a grown man like a man and not like a naughty boy.”
The cooks raised a great outcry and brandished their carving knifes, but as Andy still stood firm and massive as a block of granite, pointing first to his mouth and then to his belly, they came like wise men to the conclusion that they would most easily be rid of him by giving him the food he asked for.