The Water Diviner (15 page)

The wind screeches and howls. Connor turns to Art. ‘Good on you, son. You didn’t leave your brothers behind.’

He sees the look of fear in Ed’s eyes. ‘What’s that magic word, Ed? The one that makes the carpet fly?’

For a moment, Ed forgets where they are; he smiles. ‘Tonga.’

Art laughs despite himself. ‘Tangu, you wombat.’

Connor wraps his arms around his boys. ‘That’s it. Tangu. The name of Prince Hussein’s magic carpet.’

The storm outside screams like a banshee. But Art, Henry and Ed are safe. They can smell their father’s skin, his hair. Nothing can touch them as long as he’s here.

‘Close your eyes, lads. Let’s get out of here. Hold tight. Ed – I can see you peeping! Only works if your eyes are closed. You don’t want us falling off, mate, do you? Now, all together
. . .’

As one.

‘Tangu!’

‘G
od, you woulda hated to see this with skin on it. Look at the jaw on this geezer – he was half cow!’ Private Dawson is holding a human skull, Yorick-like, inspecting its pendulous mandible.

Lieutenant Colonel Hilton has been working too long on this peninsula and seen too much carnage to brook any levity when it comes to the dignity of the fallen. He snaps at Dawson, ‘Private! Bit of respect or I will have you on report!’

Dawson, shamefaced, puts the skull down. ‘Sorry, sir. He was probably a very good-looking man.’

Hilton turns and walks towards the summit of a low ridge. As he departs, out of the corner of his eye he sees Dawson salute him with a disarticulated arm. He decides to let it slide.

From the peak, Hilton surveys the soldiers at work below. They fan out across a shallow gully the size of a rugby pitch, moving methodically from one side to the other as they prod the ground with rifle-cleaning rods, looking for the telltale friable soil they find in patches where bodies decompose beneath the surface. There is no shortage of soft soil.

Men dig into the side of the hill, exhuming bones stained umber by the minerals in the earth, some still wrapped in decaying khaki uniforms that disintegrate as the soldiers lift them from the ground. Remains that have lain exposed above the surface since the conflict ended have been bleached to a blinding white by the Aegean sun. They lie in tangled clumps surrounded by the rubble and refuse of war: boots, the leather cracked and peeling; canteens, crushed and flaking; ammunition casings and rifle clips, rusting and packed with dirt.

Further along the ridge, a man sits on a folding canvas stool, hunched over a large sketchpad that rests in his lap. A thin stick of charcoal held delicately between thumb and forefinger, his eyes dart from the tableau unfolding in the gully beneath him to the sketch that is taking shape on his pristine white paper. Hilton walks over, peers down at the artist’s impressionistic and idealised interpretation of the sombre scene before them. The small, crude white crosses dotting the hillside become monuments of consequence; the dusty, weary soldiers working amongst them transformed into Homeric heroes, biceps bulging, noble brows furrowed. Hilton watches, marvelling at the strange alchemy that transforms monstrosity into beauty.

Hilton turns to see Major Hasan climbing the hill towards him. It’s been a month since the Turk returned unwillingly to Çanakkale, and the two men have reached a peaceful accord based on a growing mutual respect.

‘
Merhaba
, Hilton Bey.’

‘
Merhaba
, Hasan Bey.’

Down the slope, Sergeant Tucker has been sifting through the soil. He hails Hilton and holds up a red and purple arm patch.

‘One of ours! Sixth battalion, sir.’

‘A name tag?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Keep looking.’

Hilton turns to his Turkish companion.

‘You never told me what you did before the war.’

Hasan smiles sadly. ‘This is Turkey – there was no “before the war”.’

The men stand in silence for a moment, then Hilton hears a call from the gully below. It’s Private Dawson, who is standing looking in the direction of the shore through a pair of binoculars. ‘Ah, sir? We expecting company?’

Hilton strides down to join Dawson, who hands him the binoculars and points to a spot far below on the rippling black waves curling towards the sand. A small fishing boat is approaching the beach, rowed by a single man working the oars as another man stands at the bow. Incongruously, the tall, broad-shouldered man at the front of the boat is wearing neat pants, a suit jacket and tie, and a broad-brimmed hat. In his hands he’s holding a small brown suitcase.

Connor vaults from the bow, the beach just a few feet away. The water is deeper than he expects. Scrabbling with his bare feet to find purchase on the slippery pebbles, the waves soak into the trousers he has rolled above his knees. Attempting to keep his pants dry is an impossibility; one hand holds his boots and socks above his head, the other his suitcase. He wades through the water past the carcasses of wrecked landing craft, shattered timber crates and hollow, spent ammunition shells, feeling the cut and tug of sharp objects digging into the soles of his feet.

Reaching the shore, Connor puts down his luggage and looks up. Looming above him is a heavily eroded cliff, pockmarked by craters where shells have blasted away great chunks of earth, and deep scars where men have gouged paths and trenches that zig and zag up to the summit. The beach isn’t much to speak of – only a couple of hundred yards long – and the cliff face is so close that Connor’s head spins as he looks up at the escarpment. He shuts his eyes, steadying himself, but the imagined sounds of war intrude – the crack of rifles and pounding of guns, bullets whizzing and whipping through the air, explosions, the soft, wet thud of targets hit, the harrowing screams of dying men. Connor shudders, opens his eyes. All is quiet save the lapping of water on the stone beach and the unmistakable sound of horses’ hooves.

Four men on horseback in military uniform are cantering along the beach towards him. Connor notices that one of the men is wearing an Ottoman uniform. The tall man leading the charge draws his horse to a halt and dismounts, marching determinedly, if a little awkwardly, towards Connor. His high black boots, polished to a mirror-like shine, slip and sink in the wet pebbles. The man’s lips are pressed into a thin line of frustration, and his high cheekbones are flushed with anger. Without breaking stride, he snaps an order at the men who accompany him. ‘Don’t let that boat go anywhere!’

While the men hail the fisherman, who has turned his boat and is hoisting the sail, preparing to return to Chanak, the tall man advances on Connor.

‘Lieutenant Colonel Cecil Hilton. Who in the blue blazes are you?’

Without turning to look at him, Connor addresses the soldier.

‘This is where they landed?’

Hilton is incredulous. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘. . . Sitting bloody ducks. What idiot would land an army here?’

‘I asked you who you are, sir!’

‘Joshua Connor. From Rainbow – hundred miles southwest of Swan Hill.’

‘Surely they told you this was a restricted zone?’

‘Someone may have mentioned it.’ Connor shakes his head, trying to digest the Herculean task that faced his sons when they landed here in 1915. ‘Back home the papers kept telling us we were winning.’

‘Mr Connor, is it? I’m at a loss. You’ve turned up here unannounced. For what? A tour? A pilgrimage? We are trying to work here, putting names to ten thousand dead men.’

Connor looks up to the gullies in the escarpment above them, where tiny figures work amongst a growing field of white crosses. ‘Good. Because I’m only looking for three.’

He can see Hilton’s attitude soften immediately as the extent of Connor’s loss registers on the soldier’s face. ‘Your sons?’

Connor nods.

‘There are eight square miles of collapsed trenches, bomb craters and barbed wire around here,’ Hilton explains gently, ‘and more than enough unexploded shells to blow us all to high heaven. You simply cannot stay.’

From his coat pocket Connor draws out his map of the peninsula. He jabs his finger at the creased paper.

‘Yep, I know it’s tricky. But I know where my sons were killed. Here at Lone Pine. Around 7 August.’

Hilton’s reply is firm and clear. ‘You don’t understand what you’re asking. Those battles in early August were some of the most intense and bloodiest of the whole campaign. Finding your sons amongst the thousands of bodies at Lone Pine is a fool’s errand.’ Hilton draws himself up. ‘Rest assured, Mr Connor, I aim to identify every man out there, including your sons. But you
cannot
stay. Sergeant! Escort Mr Connor back to his boat!’

‘Don’t bother.’ Connor folds up his map angrily, shoving it back into his pocket. ‘Thanks for all your help.’

As Connor turns to leave, the Turkish soldier steps towards him, holding something in an outstretched hand. With a shock Connor realises it is the photograph of his boys. The Turk is staring at it.

‘Your sons,’ the man murmurs in accented English, lifting his gaze to meet Connor’s. ‘It fell from your pocket.’

This man is the enemy and everything about him sets Connor’s teeth on edge. The despised Ottoman uniform, the flourish of his elaborately coiffed moustache, his dusky complexion and eyes as black as pitch. That he has in his hand the photograph of Connor’s sons – the sons who were cut down by Turkish bullets in this cursed terrain – only makes it worse. Connor snatches the photo wordlessly from the man’s hand and storms down the beach to where the fisherman waits.

Dusk descends upon the Aegean as gently as a sheet of silk. It’s one of the things about this land that Hilton has come to appreciate. He sits on a camp chair, hands intertwined behind his head, legs outstretched and resting upon a log, and watches the sky as it glows an implausibly peachy pink. The distant lofty purple peaks on the island of Imbros float on a mauve sea. Everything is still, impossibly calm. Not so much as a puff of wind.

From behind him drifts the clatter and chatter of the soldiers settling in for the night, tending fires and heating army rations. He hears footsteps, the crunch of heavy boots on gravel. Hilton looks over his shoulder at Tucker.

‘Sir, something you might want to see.’

Hilton reluctantly gets to his feet and follows the sergeant over to the cliff’s edge. He looks through a pair of binoculars at the beach below. A small fire flickers on the pebbly beach. Sitting on his haunches, lifting the lid on a billy, is the pigheaded Australian father, Connor.

Hilton is astonished. He is caught halfway between anger and admiration – there is no faulting the resolve of the stubborn fool.

‘Damn.’

‘Want me to arrest him, sir?’

‘And then what? No. Take some food down to him. And a blanket.’ Hilton turns and walks back to the camp. ‘We’ll sort him out tomorrow.’

W
ater sprays in curtains as a group of naked soldiers splashes about in the sea. Warm, briny droplets bead on forearms and foreheads tanned as brown as boot leather, in stark contrast to their fish belly–pale torsos. Greeves bobs about on his back like a barrel, his corpulent midriff providing an easy target for Tucker and Dawson, who skim flat skipping stones across the waves at his roly-poly profile.

‘Incoming!’ Tucker launches a missile, flattened and burnished by the tides. It hits its target, glancing off Greeves’ gut.

‘Steady on, fellas!’ the New Zealand lieutenant protests, on his feet now, arms flapping impotently at his sides. The temptation’s too great. Greeves is bombarded with a barrage of pebbles, shells and dried seaweed from shore, most hitting the mark.

Hasan sits some way back from the water’s edge, coolly observing the Anzac soldiers gambolling in the waves. He has half an eye on his sergeant, Jemal, who is absorbed in his work at the base of the cliff, gently fanning a small stack of glowing embers. Rummaging in his mess kit, Jemal takes out a brass cylinder ornately engraved with foliate designs and unscrews it. Hidden within is a hinged, detachable handle that he removes and sets aside. He fills the bottom half of the cylinder with glossy, chocolate-brown coffee beans and screws the lid back on before attaching the handle to the lid. Jemal rotates the handle vigorously, nodding his head when he deems the job done and opening the grinder to appraise its contents. He holds the open bottom half of the cylinder to his nose, smiling with satisfaction. Meticulously, he measures the correct amount of coffee into a tiny copper pot that has a small amount of water in it from his canteen, along with a teaspoon of precious sugar. He rests it on the embers until the coffee begins to froth – a thick, bubbly foam – then pours it into a delicate, gilded coffee cup. Jemal inspects the coffee critically and raises his bushy eyebrows, satisfied with the product of his labour. Holding the fragile cup in his mitt-like hand, he treads apprehensively across the beach towards where Hasan sits.