To All Eternity Page 21

  “Are we going to join in?”

  Savos raised his eyebrows. “What, fight the Turks, with the Italians? Or worse, the Albanians? Why should we do that, Colonel?”

  The two men gazed at each other.

  “But you would still like me to accept your offer,” Berkeley said.

  “Of course. When a war begins, shall we say, on your doorstep, it pays to be ready yourself, does it not?”

  “What you mean is, should the Italians get a bloody nose, the Turks might feel in the mood to do some muscle-flexing up here.”

  “Who can tell what a Turk will do,” Savos agreed.

  “While should the Italians win . . .”

  “Informed military opinion is that the Italians must win,” Savos said. “It is expected their fleet will sail up the Bosphorus and bombard Constantinople.”

  “And then?”

  “Who knows, my friend. The Turkish Empire may well fall apart. We must be ready to pick up the pieces. Will you help us?”

  “Yes,” Berkeley said.

  “Excellent. I will inform you of where and when you are to report. In the meantime, go home to your wife.”

  To my wife, Berkeley thought.

  But Caterina was in an excellent mood, the more so when she learned that he was definitely accepting a Serbian commission.

  “We anticipate fighting the Turks,” he reminded her.

  “One war often leads to another,” she said happily.

  Unfortunately, he knew she was right.

  However, this war hurried slowly. By the end of October the Italians had taken Tripoli, and on November 1 they carried out the first aerial bombardment in history, on Tanguira Oasis in Tripolitania. Four days later the Italian government announced the annexation of Libya, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. The total collapse of Turkish authority west of Egypt – which was actually controlled by the British – sent shock waves through the Balkans, and indeed the world. The French hastily annexed Morocco, at the other end of the North African coast. There were mobilisations everywhere. Berkeley, just joining his cavalry depot at Novi-Sad, expected war momentarily. But instead, King Peter went off to Paris to meet with the French president. The Serbs were taking no risks.

  In fact, after the initial Italian claims, the war went into a complete stalemate. Libya was actually far from conquered, and various Turkish outposts continued to hold out. The Italians declared they would land troops in Albania to invade the Turkish Balkans, and were brought up short by the Austrians, who refused to accept such a step and said they would go to war with Italy if necessary. As Austria and Italy were officially allies, with Germany, against France and Russia, this caused a further diplomatic furore.

  But the various machinations in the eastern Mediterranean were completely overshadowed the following April by the disaster of the RMS Titanic. While that news was winging round and round the world, the declaration of the Greek government that it had signed a pact of mutual assistance with Bulgaria against any common foe went almost unnoticed. But those two countries could only have one possible common foe.

  “It is all coming together,” Brigadier-General Petrovich said when he came to inspect Berkeley’s regiment that spring.

  Berkeley had worked hard over a bitter winter. He had found he commanded a regiment of lancers, also armed with sword and carbine; good men, mountain people who had served for some time already, excellent horsemen who only needed proper training and discipline to form a formidable force. The training and discipline were his province, with the assistance of Lockwood who he made a sergeant-major. He was also supported by an enthusiastic group of officers, among whom he was delighted to find Captain Horovich, who had commanded the frontier crossing at Apratin, when he had been bringing Anna home to die.

  “Now we are on the same side, eh?” Horovich said.

  “We always were, you know,” Berkeley told him.

  Sadly, with war likely at any moment, he had not been allowed to give any of his men leave, or take any himself. Thus he could not be with Caterina for the delivery of her third child, but she sent word that it had been simple enough; it was another girl, who she announced she would christen Alicia, after Berkeley’s mother. He wished he could be with her.

  While he wondered about affairs in Athens.

  “It is crumbling,” Petrovich told him. “The Turkish edifice. Of course the Austrians are being awkward; they suspect that if the Italians ever get into Albania they will never leave again. But we can work with the Italians. It is the Turkish beast we must destroy.”

  Having seen some evidence of the Turkish mistreatment of their subject peoples, and read of the Armenian catastrophe, Berkeley was inclined to agree with him.

  “Am I allowed to give my people leave, General?” he asked. “They have been cooped up here all winter.”

  “Yes, give them leave, but staggered, of course. And subject to instant recall should the situation deteriorate.”

  “And my officers?”

  “Them too.” Petrovich chuckled. “And yourself. One week. You have a new child to see, have you not?”

  Sabac was as quiet as Berkeley had ever remembered it, an oasis of peace in a world which seemed close to falling apart. It was now summer, and the people seemed prosperous and content.

  Even Caterina was in the best of humours, and the children were delighted to see their father. Berkeley looked forward to a week of complete rest, and was unpleasantly surprised, on his third day, to see Karlovy on the street.

  Karlovy also obviously saw him, because he immediately disappeared. Berkeley returned to the Slovitza house.

  “Did you know Karlovy is back?” he asked.

  “I did not know he had ever been away,” Caterina said. “This is his home, you know.”

  “He has been away,” Berkeley pointed out, “as for three years we have not seen him. Has he been here?”

  “Why should he come here?” she asked.

  She was lying, he knew. But as he had to return to his regiment in less than a week Berkeley decided against making a scene. Instead he paid a visit to Belgrade. He went first of all to Gregory’s school where he was shown into the headmaster’s office.

  “Berkeley, my old friend,” Gregory said, embracing him. “How splendid you look in that uniform.”

  “Thank you. I have come to find out if you are up to your old tricks.”

  “Me? Old tricks?” Gregory gave a twisted smile. “I am a schoolmaster. I deal in schoolboys. Look. It is a break.”

  He went to the window and Berkeley joined him. The yard beneath was filled with young men, soberly dressed, walking to and fro, talking; some of the younger ones were kicking a ball about.

  “These are my followers now,” Gregory said.

  “And do you indoctrinate them with hatred of all things Austrian?”

  “Every good Serb must hate all things Austrian, Berkeley.”

  “You don’t think there are more important antagonists?”

  Gregory spread his hands. “Not if you come from Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

  “And some of your pupils are from there?”

  “Oh, indeed. They are the children of parents who fled when the Austrians took over. I do not have to teach them how to hate, my friend.”

  “I’m sure,” Berkeley said, and went to the door. There he checked. “Oh, by the way, have you seen anything of Karlovy recently?”

  “Karlovy? Why no. Should I have?”

  Another liar, Berkeley thought, as he went to police headquarters. But as he spent so much time lying himself, he supposed he should not complain.

  “Why, Colonel Townsend,” Savos said. “How splendid you look in uniform.”

  “Thank you,” Berkeley said. “Tell me about the Black Hand.”

  Savos raised his eyebrows. “It no longer exists.”

  “Colonel Savos,” Berkeley said, “I do not wish to be rude to you, but you are lying to me. Everyone is lying to me. The Black Hand exists, and it is busily reconstituting itself. Gregory
Masanovich is again in control, and I believe he is recruiting from among the schoolboys at his academy. I think it would be good for you, for all of us, were you to keep an eye on him, and it.”

  “Then I shall do so,” Savos agreed. “But I can assure you that there will be no problem with the Black Hand until after the war with Turkey.”

  Berkeley wondered how he could be so sure.

  But the war with Turkey was now very close. At the end of the week Berkeley received an order cancelling all leave and instructing him to rejoin his regiment; the cavalry brigade was to leave Novi-Sad and move south to Nish, close to the Macedonian border.

  “I am so proud of you,” Caterina said, checking his belts and sidearms, adjusting his cap to sit squarely on his head. “You will come back covered in glory. I know it.”

  It did not seem a possibility to her that he might not come back at all; or if it had occurred to her, she was not revealing it.

  He held her in his arms. His beautiful, beautiful bride, who knew only hatred. Once he had felt so sure he could wean her away from that. Now he was realising it would never happen.

  Unless Austria were to be crushed, somehow, and there did not seem the least possibility of that happening.

  He kissed and hugged the children; Anna was just old enough to put some words together, and in English.

  “You go beat the Turks, Papa,” she said.

  It was not a question.

  “Oh, indeed,” he said, and mounted his horse.

  How sad it was, he thought, that he should feel relief at leaving his wife and family, his home and his people. No, never his people.

  He found his thoughts drifting to Athens. But there was no hope of returning to Athens until the business in Macedonia had been completed.

  The brigade moved south, and found itself part of a steadily growing army concentrating on the southern border. They marched through villages and were escorted by cheering crowds; girls and women threw garlands of flowers, small boys and dogs marched beside them. It was impossible not to feel a sense of euphoria Berkeley had never experienced before. In Egypt and the Sudan the British had been an occupying force, and although a large proportion of the population – those who were opposed to the Mahdi’s fundamentalism – had appeared to welcome them, there had been no real enthusiasm.

  But how odd it was, he thought, that having for a dozen years been regarded as unfit for active service by the British, he should now be riding at the head of a column of brightly clad and enthusiastic horsemen. But then, no British officer would ever consider leading, for example, the Household Cavalry into battle in full dress.

  Even odder were his personal feelings. Like most Englishmen, brought up on Gladstonian revelations of Turkish horrors committed against the people of the Balkans and the Armenians, he certainly had no feelings of sympathy for the enemy. But although he was proud of his men and knew it was an honour to lead them, he felt no affinity for them, or for their country’s aspirations. He could not help but feel that the Serbs, and their allies the Bulgarians and the Greeks, were like hyenas, seeking to prey on a decaying colossus. From what he had seen he did not believe that they could replace it with anything vastly better, or that they would not fall out amongst themselves when the spoils came to be divided.

  He was here, risking his life, simply because General Gorman had willed it. And because it pleased Caterina, to be sure. But he was increasingly coming to wonder if that was any longer relevant.

  The Lovers

  The concentration on the Macedonian border was the largest Berkeley had ever seen; the Serbian army totalled some 80,000 men, a mass of gaily flying flags and splendid uniforms and rows of neat tents and supply wagons. The cavalry were met by Brigadier-General Petrovich, and instructed as to where to set up their encampment. They were to mount pickets along the border.

  “But under no circumstances are they to cross the border,” he told the regimental commanders.

  “Are we not here to fight?” someone asked.

  Petrovich smiled. “Indeed we are, Colonel. When the moment is right.”

  That evening Berkeley sat his horse beside Lockwood’s, on a bluff overlooking the Morava and the twinkling lights on the far side of the river.

  “They’re well back,” Lockwood remarked. “They must know we’re here.”

  “I’m sure they do,” Berkeley agreed. “But they’re desperate not to provoke an incident.”

  “Is that what we are here to do, sir?”

  “We,” Berkeley said, “are waiting on the Italians.”

  He hoped they wouldn’t take too much longer to complete their victory and move on Turkey itself; it was already into October and growing very cold. He didn’t relish the prospect of the army, and himself, sitting in these hills for a very bitter winter.

  He wished there was some means of communicating with Gorman, if only to find out exactly what was going on, but he dared not take the risk that anyone in the Serbian army might discover he was actually an English spy.

  A week later the commanding general of the Serb forces, Putnik, arrived, and summoned all field officers to a conference.

  Radomir Putnik was a short, heavy-set man with a clipped white beard. For the last nine years he had been either Chief of Staff to King Peter or Minister of War in the Serb government, and the soldiers worshipped him. He had seen service as a junior officer in the wars of the eighties, but not since then, and was now sixty-five years old. But there was no apparent diminution in energy.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I have grave news. As a result of their defeats in Africa, the Turkish government has sued for peace. The Italians have agreed.”

  He paused to let this sink in.

  “A conference is taking place in London at this moment to agree terms. This means that our plan to take part in an assault upon the Turkish territories in the Balkans, in conjunction with our Italian allies, has collapsed. The Italians will presumably get Libya, which is all they really wanted. While we . . . well, they do not appear to have much interest in what we might want.”

  Another pause.

  “So,” the general said, ‘we are going to operate on our own.”

  A rustle of relief ran through the room.

  “Even without the Italians,” Putnik went on, “with our other allies we have an ample superiority over the Turkish forces here in the Balkans, and this superiority will be accentuated by the low morale we may expect on the other side following their defeats by the Italians. We anticipate being able to complete our campaign, successfully, before the Turks can bring any additional forces from the rest of the empire. Now . . .” He turned to the huge map of the region pinned to the wall. “We are here.” He touched the area around Nish with his wand. “Eighty thousand of the best fighting men in the world. The Bulgarians are here . . .” he indicated the country just east of the Macedonian frontier, “. . . with one hundred and eighty thousand men. And the Greeks are here . . .” he touched the southern Macedonian border, “. . . with fifty thousand men under the command of Crown Prince Constantine. There are also the Montenegrins here.” He pointed to the Adriatic seaboard. “They have about thirty thousand men under arms, but frankly, these cannot be considered front-line troops, no matter how useful they may be as guerillas.

  “The Bulgarian task is to guard our eastern front, and undertake their own invasion of Thrace. The Greeks and ourselves will clear Macedonia of the Turks. To this end we are going to advance south into the valley of the Vardar, here . . .” He traced the river, in the lower half of Macedonia. “The Greeks will come up from the south, and between us we will squeeze the Turks into total collapse. So, gentlemen, you will receive your battle instructions within the week, and then . . . we seek the liberation of the Balkans from Turkish rule. I know you will all carry out your duties. May God go with you.”

  *

  Hostilities commenced on October 20, 1912. The previous afternoon General Putnik came to the cavalry encampment, and inspected the troops in the comp
any of Brigadier-General Petrovich. He then assembled the senior officers for another conference.

  “As you will have observed,” he said, “the Turks are not manning the border in any strength. Our first business must be to seek out their army and destroy it. You are our eyes. Discover the enemy dispositions, and report. You will not undertake any aggressive actions against superior forces until the infantry have come up. Thank you, gentlemen.”

  Petrovich summoned Berkeley, and Putnik shook hands.

  “You are the Englishman who fights for us,” he said. “I congratulate you, Colonel Townsend. Will your countrymen support us?”

  “If you mean here in the field, sir, I’m afraid not,” Berkeley said. “The Balkans are a long way from Great Britain.”

  “Of course. I met an English journalist, quite recently, who thought Belgrade was the capital of Bulgaria. But will we at least have their sympathy?”

  “I believe you will, sir.”

  “Then that is a step in the right direction.”

  “But only if the war is conducted in a civilised manner, sir.”

  Putnik looked at him. “Is it possible to conduct a war in a civilised manner, Colonel? Godspeed.”

  At dawn the next morning the cavalry crossed the river.

  Still maintaining the pretence that nothing was happening, the Turks had not blown the bridges and the crossings were entirely unopposed.

  “Eerie, sir,” Lockwood commented, riding at Berkeley’s right hand; the trumpeter was on his left, and the three squadrons, a total of 450 men, were in column behind him. The other two regiments of the brigade were about a mile away, to either side, and immediately in front of Berkeley’s command there rode Brigadier-General Petrovich, with his staff. In front of him, a further half-mile distant, was a screen of some fifty men, widely spread out. “You wouldn’t think there was a Turk for a hundred miles.”

  “I imagine they’re closer than that,” Berkeley said, surveying the hills through his binoculars.

  The country was indeed so crumpled any one of the tree-shrouded valleys could have concealed a sizeable enemy force, but throughout the first day, during which the cavalry advanced some thirty miles, not a shot was fired. Petrovich sent a galloper back to report to headquarters, and he returned a day later to inform the brigadier that just about the entire Serb army was across the frontier.