CHAPTER 59

Karatavuk at Gallipoli: Karatavuk Remembers (3)

We all knew that the Franks would return with an army as well as ships, and many people grew fearful, but I had the fate of being commanded by Mustafa Kemal, and so I and my comrades were among the lucky ones.

You know how it is. Sometimes there is someone who is special and stands out among all others. I think that Abdulhamid Hodja was like that, and also Rustem Bey. Sometimes there is someone who is selected to be a lion or an eagle when the rest of us are selected to be sheep and sparrows, and this someone is not caught up by destiny, but makes destiny for themselves, as if they have a greater knowledge of what must be done, and an understanding of the direction in which the world must go.

I know that Mustafa Kemal is now the President, and anyone would be ignorant indeed who has not heard of him, and I know that for all of us now he is the greatest Turk of all, and those like me who have met him personally shine with some of his glory for ever afterwards, but back then he was just an officer, and none of us knew how he would grow to be great. Even so, we knew he was the best commander to have, and we soldiers were grateful to serve under him rather than someone else, because we had confidence in him. This was because he was a serious officer, and not somebody who was just passing his life away in a uniform, and he had served in that region before, and therefore knew it very well. He would go forward and spy on the Franks with his binoculars, and risk getting shot, like a proper soldier, and he would stride about in the battle and never get hit, as if he were protected. It was said that when he commanded the 38th Regiment, he had made it perfect, and this knowledge strengthened us. Mustafa Kemal knew how to read the intentions of the enemy, and so he was able to confound them, and most of his attacks were successful, but nowadays, when I think back, I have to admit that I have grown doubtful. As I have said, all the attacks were frontal assaults, and several times Mustafa Kemal sacrificed thousands of us in one day. He inspired us, and anyway we were prepared to die, but now it strikes me as wasteful. A soldier is a kind of ammunition, and we were always told not to waste ammunition. In my opinion, looking back after all these years, there was no need for us to make any attacks or counterattacks at all. All we had to do was wait for the Franks to exterminate themselves by attacking us, because all the casualties for both sides were caused by attacks and not by defence.

Because the peninsula was so large, and the armies small, and not big enough to defend every landing place, it was decided to create a mobile reserve, and this was the 19th Division, and I was in it, and we were encamped near Bigali. This was the best place for the reserve because we could go in one direction to support the 7th Division, or in another to support the 9th. At Bigali, Mustafa Kemal was in a house. This house was a peaceful one, and it had a balcony and balustrades, and a courtyard, and heavy tiles on the roof, and in the garden were roses and mint, and for some reason there were no windows at the back of the house. Every time we saw this peaceful house, we felt better because Mustafa Kemal and Major Izzettin were in it, making plans.

During the month before the Franks returned, five more divisions were moved in, and we spent the time in two ways, and there was not a moment’s rest. We laid barbed wire until our hands bled and our uniforms were in shreds, and we did this until the wire ran out. We dug ramparts and foxholes, and filled sandbags to make little strongpoints with them, and we cleared trees and shrubs to make better lines of fire. We made trenches covered over with planks and earth, to keep us safe from shells. Mustafa Kemal made us train continually, and he marched us at high speed all over the peninsula so that we would be strengthened and know the terrain, which twisted and turned and was very confusing. There were many deep water courses that were dry in the summer, and ravines and gullies that meandered about and went nowhere, and the land was very unsuitable for proper battles, because there were very thick thorny bushes which meant that soldiers had to go in file along tiny goat tracks rather than advance, properly spread out, and consequently it was very easy to train machine guns on to the goat tracks and get any soldiers who came along them. Also, when you advanced, you got lost almost straight away, and lost contact with the rest of your unit, and every unit lost touch with every other unit, and so every attack degenerated into chaos.

It was a place where the land constantly changes. By the sea there are steep and stony cliffs covered with spiky shrubs, and in places there is beautiful soft farmland, and there are woods of small pine trees, full of yellow singing birds, and in places there are the deep gullies and ravines that I just mentioned, and there are hills which are rocky and also covered in spiky shrubs. There were no roads, and so we marched everywhere across country, making the tracks as we went, and everything had to be carried by animals and men, and not in carts, and sometimes the horses were so hungry that they were trying to eat the paint off the buildings. At that time of year it was spring, and it was very beautiful, with flowers growing everywhere as if they did not know there was a war. The shepherds’ dogs had rounded ears and spiked collars. There were tortoises clattering about in the stones of the forts, and little lizards that lived beneath the rims of the wells. There were beetles with tan backs, and big beetles that walked backwards dragging leaves, and tiny turquoise damselflies, and big brown whirring dragonflies. There were black ants that made their own little roads, and very big ants that carried away caterpillars. There were big snakes with golden-brown heads. Out on the jetties there were cormorants hanging out their wings to dry, and in the skies there were magpies and ravens. These are the things that a soldier notices, because he lives close to the earth, and these are his companions, and he becomes interested in them because there is often very little to do, and they make him think about what it is to live, and about the many types of life. He remembers these things long after the details of the battles have faded away. Of course, as the seasons changed, we realised more and more that the place was not for long the paradise that it was in the spring.

Mustafa Kemal thought that the attack would come from the south, but the Frankish German general thought it would come at Bolayir, and so we were marching from one place to another, staging mock attacks and practising movement at night and by day, and we learned how to use the bayonet, because at close quarters a bayonet is less dangerous to your own comrades than a bullet, since a bullet can go straight through an enemy and strike a friend. We learned for ourselves, however, after the battles had begun, that it was best not to bayonet someone in the ribs, because the ribs are like springs, and they clamp down on the bayonet, and you can’t get it out unless you pull it out with your foot on the man’s chest, and this is not a good thing to have to do, since it is very cruel to a dying man, and he clutches at the bayonet with his hands, and you have to look in his face, and you remember this face for a long time, and his eyes, and the blood that he coughs up, and this comes up in your dreams, and so it is difficult to sleep, even when you are exhausted. Also, if a bayonet is stuck between someone’s ribs, you might be bayoneted yourself whilst trying to pull it out. The other thing is that sometimes you can fight an entire battle with bayonets, without firing a single shot. It happened when we had no ammunition, and sometimes even when we did. I often thought we would have been better off with swords, because, if you think about it, a rifle with a bayonet is just like a dagger on a stick, or maybe a short spear that you can’t throw, or like a stabbing sword, as opposed to a sabre. In my opinion we all should have had swords, and not just the officers. This opinion is made stronger by the fact that the Franks had some little men called Gurkhas. These Gurkhas were the fiercest and bravest of the soldiers, and they had heavy knives that were bent in shape, and the bottom half had a big bulge, and with these they could cut off your head or your arm with one stroke, and they were very effective in the trenches. I have one of these knives that I took from a dead Gurkha, and I keep it on the wall of my house.

We in Mustafa Kemal’s division considered that we were the best troops of all after the month was over, and we also thought we had the best commander, because he was always going from one place to another, examining everything through his binoculars, and thinking seriously. He had blond hair and blue eyes, which made him strangely fascinating to us, who were not like him at all, and these blue eyes shone with light and cleverness, and when he stopped to talk to you, you felt as honoured as if it were the Sultan Padishah himself. He had a doctor with him who gave him injections from time to time, but I don’t know why, and the doctor’s name was Hussein Bey.

When the Frankish landing happened, it was the day after we had finished all our preparations. The fields of fire were cleared, the big guns were ranged and the sights of our rifles were zeroed. It was like when a wedding is arranged, and the guests arrive just as you are putting out the food.