CHAPTER 66

Karatavuk at Gallipoli: Fikret and the Goat (6)

Generally, we had two days in the trench at a time, and at least a day behind the lines. Then we could wash and delouse, and eat better food, and sleep. Because the trenches were full of shit and flies and corpses, it made the beautiful places behind the lines seem even more beautiful. The Franks had no areas behind the lines, because their bridgehead was very small, so they cannot have had any good rests as we did, as we could always shoot or shell them wherever they were. It would have been very bad to have been a Frank.

There was a village where we stayed that was a Greek village, but the Christians had mostly gone because of what happened to their women. In this village there was a well that had no wall around it. It was just a hole in the ground, and one day a goat fell in.

The first thing we knew was that we heard echoey bleating coming up from it, and Fikret went to have a look, and he called us over, and we saw the goat very dimly down below, swimming and kicking out at the sides, as if it thought it could climb them. I went to fetch Lieutenant Orhan, and he came and looked over the side, and he said, “If it dies down there, it’ll poison the water, and anyway, this is a good milking goat.” He looked at us, and said, “I need a volunteer,” and he looked at each one of us, and we tried to avoid his eyes without looking as if that was what we were doing, and he said to Fikret, “It’s you.”

Fikret came to attention and said, “I don’t give a shit, sir, and I am happy to volunteer.”

“Good man,” said Lieutenant Orhan.

So it was that we lowered Fikret down on a rope, and there were about ten of us on the rope, so it wasn’t too difficult, and Fikret had the rope around his chest and under his armpits, but not very tight.

It was a fairly small goat, but Fikret had a lot of trouble grabbing hold of it because it was dark and because the animal was in a panic and did not want to be lifted up. It took a long time, and the goat was bleating, and there was great splashing, and Fikret was saying, “Son of a whore, son of a bitch, Iblis fuck your mother’s cunt, and your mother’s mother’s cunt and the cunt of every cunt of every mother’s cunt,” and we were looking down and making it all worse by bleating like the goat and laughing at Fikret. Fikret’s curses and all the laughter and bleating echoed in the well and made a booming sound.

Finally he got the goat round the body and held it under one arm, and started walking up the side of the well as we hauled on the rope. He was still cursing as he came up, and when he arrived at the top he threw the goat over the rim, and just as he did so, the goat shat, and the shit fell down into the water. Then the goat bleated and ran off. The bleating reminded me of the various kinds of bleats that Ibrahim used to mimic, such as “the bleat of a goat with nothing to say,” and I had a pang of homesickness.

When Fikret came up over the edge he was panting from the effort and soaking wet, and you could see that he was bleeding and bruised all over from where the goat was kicking out with its sharp little hooves. Fikret complained, “That son of a bitch kicked me in the balls.”

Lieutenant Orhan called Fikret to attention, and said to him, “Now go down and collect the shit, Fikret Nefer,” and a look of outrage passed over Fikret’s ugly face, and he said, “Permission to speak, sir,” and the lieutenant said, “Permission granted,” and Fikret said, “Why me, sir? Not that I give a shit, sir,” and the lieutenant said, “Because there is no point in anyone else getting wet, and partly because you don’t give a shit, but most of all because it was an order.”

So Fikret went down the well again, and Lieutenant Orhan said, “Men, we just have to hope that goatshit floats.”

So Fikret came back up, absolutely soaked, with his pockets full of shining black pellets of goatshit, and ceremoniously laid them at the lieutenant’s feet in a crescent pattern, and then he stood up, dripping with water, and saluted. Lieutenant Orhan saluted him back, and the two men looked at each other, and the lieutenant said, “Fikret Nefer, if there were a medal for rescuing goats and goatshit, and thereby securing the purity of our water supply, I would recommend you for it.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Fikret.

“But fortunately, you don’t give a shit,” said the lieutenant.

“No, sir,” agreed Fikret.

“Do you want to know why it was you who volunteered?” asked Orhan.

“No, sir,” answered Fikret, according to his time-honoured principle of not giving a shit.

“Well, it was because you smell exactly the same as a goat, and I thought that she would be less frightened if I sent you down rather than someone else. Also, I thought you would be pleased to get your hands on something female, even if it was only a goat.”

Fikret looked genuinely pleased, as if he had received a compliment, and said, “Thank you, sir,” and then he saluted, and Lieutenant Orhan smiled very slightly, and saluted him back, and said, “Dismiss,” and he was still smiling when he walked away.

Later on Fikret turned to me when we were eating cheese and olives under a lemon tree, and we could hear the big guns thumping in the distance, and he tapped the side of his nose, and said to me, “That lieutenant and me, we really understand each other.”