“That’s better,” Noel said as we came into the lounge. “If only we could get some grub. Oi’m famished.”
I knew how he felt. My appetite now was wolfish, but surely food couldn’t be far away.
This hope received a boost when we saw the towering form of Captain Birch striding towards us.
“I’ve been looking for you fellows,” he said. “There are a few things I want to tell you. Come and sit down over here.”
We arranged ourselves on padded chairs round a small table, and the sombre eyes looked us over for a few moments before he spoke.
“I don’t know who is in charge of your party, but I’ll address my remarks to you, Mr. Herriot”
“Right”
“Now, I’m sorry to tell you that all attempts to rectify the oil leak in the engine have failed.”
“Oh.”
“This means that we will have to fly the aircraft on three engines to our headquarters in Copenhagen for major repairs.”
“I see.”
“It also means that you chaps can’t come with us.”
“What!”
His expression softened. “I’m sorry to have to spring this on you, but the position is, frankly, that the aircraft is in an unsafe condition, and we are not allowed to carry passengers or any personnel but the crew.”
“But …” I asked the obvious question. “How do we get home?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” the captain replied. “The obvious thing is to contact the Export Company in London by telephone—I have their number here—and I’m sure they will make arrangements for you to be flown to England.”
“Well. . . thank you … I suppose that would be the thing to do.” Another thought occurred to me. “You say the aircraft is unsafe?”
The majestic head nodded gravely. “That is so.”
“In other words, you might never make Copenhagen.”
“Quite. There is that possibility. Flying over the Alps under these circumstances is going to be a little tricky.”
“But how about you? How about you and the crew?”
“Ah yes.” He smiled, and suddenly he looked like a kind man. “It’s good of you to ask, but this is our job. We have to go, don’t you understand? It’s our job.”
I turned to the farmers. “Well, I suppose we’d better do as the captain says?”
They nodded silently. They looked shattered, and I felt the same. But I took the point about that strange aeroplane. If one engine had given up, how reliable were the other three?
“I’d better find a phone, then. Will I do it from here or from the hotel?”
The captain cleared his throat. “That’s another thing I was going to mention. I haven’t been able to find a hotel.”
“Eh?”
“Afraid not,” he said. “I’ve tried everywhere, but it’s some kind of a public holiday here, and all the hotels are booked.”
I had nothing to say to this. Everything was turning out great
“But don’t worry,” he went on. “I am assured that if we go a few miles up the Bosporus, we’ll find some little place which will put us up.”
Some little place … The visions of five-starred splendour evaporated rapidly.
“Yes, of course.”
The captain smiled again encouragingly. “I’ve got a minibus outside. We’ll soon find somewhere.”
Dave and Ed were already installed in the little vehicle, lounging comfortably in their silky suits.
“Hi,” they said cheerfully. “Hi,” said little Karl, grinning at us from the back seat. Such contretemps were no doubt part of their normal lives, and they were taking everything in their stride. I made a sudden resolve to do the same. Things were looking a bit sticky, but I was here in Istanbul and I was going to enjoy what little time I had.
I fished out my camera. I had taken some pictures of the flight and of the Globemaster during the unloading. Even if it was a fleeting thing, I would capture some memories of this city.
As the minibus shot through the streets, I snapped away like mad, and when I wasn’t snapping, I was devouring the scene greedily. The knowledge that I was going to have only a short time in these surroundings made every new spectacle imprint itself on my mind.
As we sped through the teeming traffic on that gloriously sunny evening, exquisite mosques and minarets towered incongruously over modern tenements, then unexpectedly there would be a long stretch of waste ground with stubbly, scorched grass and garish billboards. Tremendous stone aqueducts, ancient and overgrown, appeared briefly in our windows and were gone before I could do more than catch them on my film. The massive ruins of the walls of old Constantinople, the crumbling fortresses on the shattered walls—I glimpsed them briefly, but even today among my photographs I can still look at the slightly blurred images beyond the smeared glass.
Among all these wonders eddied the Istanbul street scene—the vendors of coloured cordials, sweetmeats and peaches, the dark-skinned pedestrians in Kemal Ataturk’s obligatory westernised clothes: the women in cotton dresses, the men in an outfit of shirt and slacks so unvarying that it looked like a uniform.
Soon we were running along the side of the Bosporus, surely one of the most beautiful and romantic waterways in the world —wide and blue, bounded by tree-lined hills where elegant houses and even palaces nestled. Families sunned themselves on chairs on the little beaches, while out on the water a great variety of craft lay at anchor. There were large modern ships, fishing smacks and some wonderful old wooden vessels.
I had fair opportunity to view the Bosporus because we kept stopping in our efforts to find accommodation. At last we were successful, and we climbed out of the minibus in front of a small building. It wasn’t Claridges, nor was it a flea pit. It was an unpretentious little hotel up a side street.
The members of the staff were friendly and cheerful, but I had a strong impression that they couldn’t care less whether we stayed there or not. I managed to communicate to the manager that I wanted to telephone London. Smilingly he assured me that I would have to go to the local post office for that and said there was a taxi nearby.
The taxi whirled me through the streets with the same reckless speed as our minibus driver. This is something I had noticed straightaway; all traffic seemed to proceed at about seventy miles an hour.
At the post office I explained my needs to a little fat lady, who nodded and smiled repeatedly. She knew enough English to assure me that all would be well.
She lifted a phone and made enquiries. Turning back to me, she beamed happily. “Long wait, maybe hour. You go back hotel, I send taxi.”
When I got back to the hotel, all my colleagues had been installed in rooms. There seemed to be no reception desk, so I asked various members of the staff where I was to sleep. My queries were received with uncomprehending shrugs until I found the manager again. He seemed to take a certain amount of pleasure in telling me that there was no room for me, but my obvious dismay softened his heart, because he took me downstairs and showed me into a cell-like apartment in the basement where he left me. There was a single unmade bed with a rumpled pile of blankets on a chair in a corner. That was all, but I was thankful for it. The bathroom was a long, long way away.
But then all my senses were submerged by one thing—the smell of food. A rich, spicy aroma was beginning to pervade the little place, and I began to stumble towards its source. I suppose eating nothing for more than twenty-four hours is an unimportant detail to people who go on diets and visit health farms, but I have always believed in a regular hearty intake, and at that moment I was more ravenous than I have ever been in my life.
I found the dining room where the crew and the farmers were already at the table, and as I sat down with them, the glorious victuals began to arrive—great heaped-up plates of kebabs resting on beds of saffron rice and peppers, steaming bowls of mixed vegetables and an abundance of coarse Turkish bread. I love bread, and I bit into this stuff immediately. It was delicious, and Ed laughe
d as he saw my expression. “Good, isn’t it?” he said. “It’s got sunflower seeds in it”
Whether it had or it hadn’t, it was some of the best bread I have ever tasted. But I couldn’t wait to get at the serious eating, and I was poising my fork over the skewer laden with chunks of assorted meats when the taxi driver burst into the room.
“Mr. Herroot, come quick. Phone, phone!”
I could have wept. To have my food snatched from me before I had even started was too much. But this was important. I dropped my fork and hurried out. Once more I was swept at breakneck speed to the post ofhce, where the fat lady, still all smiles, indicated the phone.
I tried a lot of, “Hello, hello,” before I heard anything, and then it was a faint voice in the crackling distance. “Meester Harrioot, Meester Harrioot.” I replied with a, “Yes, yes, Herriot speaking,” but that was as far as I got. I don’t want to bore anybody with a detailed account of my session with that phone. Sufficient to say that it lasted about three-quarters of an hour and was made up of long silences, hopeful clicks and crackles and every few minutes that tiny voice, “Meester Harrioot.” My desperate outbursts were totally wasted.
Only once was there a shaft of light in the darkness, when a very English female voice said loudly as though from the same room, “Oh, God, I can’t hear a thing!” That was evidently London, and I set up an almost tearful yammering in reply, but the silence came down again, and though I waited hopefully the voice never came back.
As I looked out at the gathering dusk in the street, the realisation grew on me that I was never going to get through.
I thanked the fat lady and left.
At the hotel I didn’t know how much to pay the taxi driver, so I held out a handful of notes. A huge grin split his face as he selected a few, but before he could get them into his pocket a little man, apparently one of the staff, dashed down the steps and grabbed the money from him. He reduced the amount by about half which he handed back to me, then he shook his fist in the man’s face and showered him with eloquent abuse before getting out of the car.
The drivers big grin never slipped, and he bade me good night with a courteous wave of the hand before leaving.
I thanked my benefactor, but as I passed into the hotel, my spirits were touching zero. I was stranded in Istanbul with no prospect of ever returning to hearth and home, my relaxing trip to the Orient had so far turned out to be a fairly steady-going fiasco, I was hungrier than I had ever been in my life and I had missed my supper.
On top of that, I wasn’t looking forward to telling my two nice farmers that I had failed them. Not my fault, of course, but it had been left to me to organise something, and I was coming back empty-handed.
Joe and Noel were waiting for me in the dining room. I was touched that they were more concerned about my food than their immediate future.
Noel leaped to his feet. “We asked them to keep it warm for you, Jim,” he cried and ran from the room.
Within minutes he was back with a tray with the entire meal, including the gorgeous bread.
They watched in silence as I devoured everything down to the last crumb, then they looked at me expectantly.
“I’m sorry, chaps,” I said. “I had no joy there.” I gave them details of my forty-five minutes in the post office.
When I had finished my story, they looked pretty glum. Joe stared down at his knees. “What the ‘ell are we goin’ to do, Jim?”
A few minutes ago I would have been compelled to say I had no idea, but maybe the food had stimulated my brain because suddenly everything became clear.
“I didn’t bring much with me from home,” I said. “But I did bring a cheque book. I’ll go to the B.E.A. desk at the airport tomorrow and get three tickets to London. The Export Company will reimburse me later. It’s obvious, isn’t it? There was no need for all that phoning tonight.”
The mood of our little company cheered magically, and we were doing a bit of mutual backslapping when I saw the captain passing the doorway.
I ran out and told him about our plan.
“Yes,” he said seriously. “That sounds like a good scheme.” He paused and looked at his watch. “The only alternative would be to go to the British Consul, but it’s after nine now—I don’t suppose they’d be able to arrange anything at this time of night, and we’re taking off at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. No, I think yours is the best idea.”
When he had gone, we were gripped by a frothy elation.
“We got nothing to worry about, Jim, boy,” said Joe. “So we might as well enjoy ourselves. Oi could still murder that pint, so let’s go out on the town and enjoy ourselves.
Joe’s pint was our immediate goal, and there is no doubt we were three country cousins because searching for a pub in a Muslim city is a fruitless venture, but, full of enthusiasm, we piled into a taxi.
The night life of Istanbul seemed to be just getting into its stride. The streets were crowded, and the traffic had, if possible, speeded up after dark. Our taxi catapulted between other hurtling vehicles, the driver exchanging a running fire of shouted insults with his colleagues. I was relieved when he deposited us in what we hoped was the city centre.
Immediately, in the warm darkness, I was reminded that we were in the Orient. I could see nothing now of the romantic buildings and ruins, only the lighted shop windows, but the air was filled with mysterious scents, and over everything hung the heavy aroma of Turkish tobacco.
My other overriding impression was the noise: an unbroken, strident chorus of automobile horns of every conceivable pitch, punctuated by the screeching of brakes and the roar of engines.
In our search for a pub, we gazed into the windows of many interesting shops. Some were selling rugs and other souvenirs of the area, and I was intrigued by the large number of bakers who were turning out very sweet-looking cakes and confections and doing a brisk trade.
We stuck to one side of the street because it seemed like suicide to head into that boiling torrent of vehicles. There were, in fact, pedestrian crossings, but I noticed only one unfortunate little man trying to negotiate one. He was about halfway across when, to my horror, a car struck him and sent him flying high in a tangle of arms and legs. In Britain that motorist would have been heavily fined and received a dressing-down from the magistrates, but as I watched, a large, helmeted policeman loomed over the injured victim, who stood trembling in his inevitable shirt and slacks and rubbing his backside. The policeman shook his truncheon over the little man’s head and bawled out a flood of vituperation, which was unintelligible to me except for one word which sounded very like “stupido” and vividly reflected his attitude in the matter. He never even looked at the driver of the car.
“Hey, look, Jim.” Joe nudged me. “There’s a lot of fellers goin’ in there. How about it?”
Joe’s quest for a pint was becoming an obsession, so I acquiesced and followed him through a doorway and up a long staircase. We came out on an open balcony which was really the flat roof of the shop beneath and, to the farmer’s disgust, scores of shirt-sleeved men were sitting at tables, smoking and drinking coffee out of tiny cups.
We would have retreated then but a waiter was upon us, so we sat down and ordered the coffee. It was very thick and very sweet, and both Joe and Noel screwed up their faces, but I rather hiked it. I also enjoyed just sitting there above the roar and smell of the city, taking in the atmosphere of the place. In my hurried visit to Istanbul this is one of my persisting memories and, rightly or wrongly, it appealed to me as a typical scene.
After the coffee we resumed our tour of the streets, with Joe becoming more depressed by the minute. Then he suddenly gave tongue. “Look in there, lads! That’s a bit more like it!” He pointed through a window at a big, brightly lit room where a large number of men and women were sitting around, drinking from tall glasses. There wasn’t a coffee cup in sight.
He did not hesitate but opened a swing door and bustled inside, with Noel and I following. We sat down at a
vacant table, and Joe beckoned to a waiter.
“Drink! Drink!” he said, and when the man’s face registered polite incomprehension, he made the unmistakable motion of raising a glass to his lips.
The waiter smiled immediately and brought a tray bearing three tumblers of bright-red liquid. I offered him money, but he shook his head, laughed and walked away.
“What the ‘ell’s this?” Joe grunted. He tried a sip and pulled a worse face than over the coffee. “It’s bloody lemonade!” he spluttered.
I tried it myself. It wasn’t lemonade. It was a bland, syrupy concoction, sickly sweet and obviously non-alcoholic. It was too sugary for me, but Noel, who, I suspected, wasn’t much of a drinker, seemed to enjoy it.
“All right, this,” he said, imbibing contentedly.
Joe looked at him in disgust. Like me, he could not tackle the stuff, whatever it was, and with an air of defeat he flopped back in his chair.
Within a few minutes, the same waiter came back with a dish of cakes and pastries and laid them before us. Again he refused any money and walked away, laughing and shaking his head.
Biting into one of the sticky cakes, I found it had the same characteristic as the coffee and the coloured drinks. It seemed to me that a sweet tooth would be a prerequisite for anybody living in Istanbul.
However, it was an interesting scene. The big room was crowded with beautifully dressed people—I noticed that most of the women wore white evening gowns—and they nibbled the cakes and drank from glasses like ours not only bright-red liquid but equally brilliant blue, green and yellow.
When I saw that several children were present, something begin to stir in the back of my mind. The children were playing among the tables, and some of the adults were moving from group to group as though they knew everybody.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “Do you know what I think?”
Joe gave me a sideways glance. “What?”
“I think this is a private party and we’ve gate-crashed it.”