‘I’ve obtained an audience for you from His Imperial Majesty, the Padishah,’ he told us in a whisper as we climbed into the coach. ‘I’m to take you to him straight away.’
‘Which will be where?’ I asked, wondering how long we would have to wait, knowing the glistering ‘Padishah’ and his entourage were behind us aboard Dreadnought.
He pointed.
‘Up there. At Yildiz Kiosk. The Sultan’s favourite palace. Despite the heat I advise you to put on your coats and keep them buttoned up. We get there by a dusty track.’
The dragoman pulled up the carriage windows on either side, tapped on the wood-work, and away we rattled as fast as the horse could go.
Conversationally I began, ‘I believe you write for the newspapers?’
‘Yes,’ he affirmed. ‘Mostly obituaries.’
‘Obituaries!’ I blurted.
‘Sometimes I do a piece on the Sultan’s activities.’
‘And you are given a free hand?’ I enquired.
‘Of course not,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘This is Turkey. All local papers receive subsidies from Yildiz.’
‘Therefore,’ I pursued, ‘you cannot criticise the Sultan?’
‘Great Scot no!’ he exclaimed. ‘When His Majesty’s name is mentioned we speak in superlatives. Last week I referred to him as ‘recognised to be the wisest ruler in Europe’. Next week...’
He paused, calculating.
‘...it’ll soon be time once more for ‘the greatest Sovereign who ever girded on the Sword of Osman’. After that it may return to the old standby, ‘a model ruler, one whose good actions are so numerous that if those performed in a single day were all printed, the columns of all the newspapers in the Empire would be insufficient to report them’.’
He pointed to the camera at my side.
‘What a wonderful Quarter Plate.’
His hand went to a pocket.
‘That reminds me, I have a photograph for you. An enlargement of the Sword blade as requested.’
The dragoman stared at my new camera with a dubious expression.
‘And you intend to photograph ‘the Mountain Eagle, the one whose exploits outshine every other monarch’?’
‘I do,’ I replied. ‘Unless you think he...?’
‘Far from it,’ he replied. ‘He’ll be delighted. The Sultan will save you the bother of carrying your camera all the way back to HMS Dreadnought. He takes it for granted that anything which attracts him is being given to him - daggers, jewel-encrusted ornaments. The Sultan-Caliph will be very grateful for...’ he bent forward to get closer to my camera, ‘... the latest Lizars.’
Conversation lapsed. I looked out of the carriage at the passing sights. Small, clean-eared Arabian horses plunged their faces into great deep basins, lustily lapping the water. Rows of fruit-shops offered apricots, cherries and plums from large baskets, and packages of young vine leaves used lavishly in Turkish cooking. A Cypress tree in the courtyard of a mosque and a stand of Oriental Plane, huge and old, had managed to survive a recent conflagration. The trees stood bereft of greenery, stately boles pitted and charred.
Our dragoman followed my gaze.
‘As you see, fire is a great hazard in Stamboul.’
He pointed up the hill.
‘That white tower has a perpetual watchman stationed in the turret to signal if a fire breaks out. At the first sign of fire drums are banged and guns fired and a coloured flag is raised to indicate the quarter. The firemen rush in with long iron hooks and pull down all the adjacent houses.’
‘What’s the local word for ‘fire’?’ I asked.
‘Yangin,’ came the reply.
‘Yangin,’ I repeated. It was my first Turkish word.
‘Another fireman stands watch on the Yildiz clock tower,’ our dragoman went on. Dropping his voice he murmured, ‘They say the Sultan likes to take a rifle up there of an evening to indulge in what your Army calls the Mad Minute.’
I was familiar with the Mad Minute from my military training. It entailed firing a minimum of fifteen aimed bullets into a distant target within sixty seconds.
When the clatter of the wheels obscured his words from the driver, Shelmerdine added, ‘The ‘mad minute’ here is like yours, with one important difference. The Sovereign of the House of Osman aims bullets at real people. With so much practice he has become a magnificent shot. I wager he would challenge you, Dr. Watson, for marksmanship with the rifle.’
He pointed at the lengthy bundle at my side.
‘He’ll soon master that. And,’ he carried on slyly, looking at the boxes, ‘the smokeless cartridges will be most useful. At present, everyone knows when the Sultan fires down on his subjects by the cloud of black-powder smoke rising from the spot.’
We drove past a dignified tomb surrounded by a complex of medreses and mosques. Other tombs were scattered among ancient Italian cypresses and nettle-trees. Storks wandered freely or nested on the domes.
In a louder voice Shelmerdine continued, ‘Mr. Holmes, your brother has asked me to give you some background into the state of play here. You will find Yildiz Palace a strange and cosmopolitan landscape. The grooms are Arabs, the footmen English, German and French. The nurses are Armenian, the housemaids Russian, stewards Italian, janizaries Turkish. French is the first foreign language acquired by members of Turkey’s elite. The rest speak Persian, Arabic, Greek, Judeo-Spanish, Armenian, Wallachian, English, Dutch, German, Italian, and Sclavonian.’
Shelmerdine described an empire in miniature populated with Sandali - black eunuchs whose genitalia had been entirely amputated - white eunuchs, harem women, some captured or purchased, some voluntarily entering a hotbed of plots and counter-plots, mystery and bribery in return for the chance of high rank and wealth. Until recently the Valide Sultan Rahime Perestu presided over them all as ruler of the Imperial Harem. She was the all-powerful foster-mother of the present Sultan, with her rooms always adjacent to her son’s. The post was now vacant. ‘Eighteen months ago the Valide Sultan took ill in her villa at Maçka and died. The Sultan felt her loss terribly. For one week the military band did not perform. At the time of her passing I wrote: ‘The esteemed lady’s luminous face, graciousness, delicate manner, and elegance inspired respect and affection in everyone’s heart, so that all those living in the palace loved her deeply’.’
‘She died of...?’ I asked.
‘Croup.’
‘Croup?’ I exclaimed, puzzled.
Croup was a respiratory condition almost only seen in children. Even in the very young it was seldom fatal.
Our dragoman nodded.
‘Newspapers are under the strictest orders never to report a Royal Personage died from old age or assassination. No king, president or emperor dies by an assassin’s knife, pistol or bomb. Empress Elizabeth wasn’t really stabbed to death in Geneva by an Italian anarchist.’
‘So how...?’ I asked.
‘Pneumonia.’
‘And President McKinley?’ Holmes asked.
‘Anthrax. As to King Alexander and Queen Draga of Serbia two years ago, you would be wrong to assume they were killed by a fusillade of bullets.’
We looked at our dragoman expectantly.
‘Indigestion. Simultaneously.’
Abd-ul-Hamid’s succession was not without its difficulties, Shelmerdine continued. The Sultan was brought to the throne by the murder of his uncle and the deposing and imprisonment of his half-brother.
‘As a result he is dominated by fears of conspiracy and revolt, and not without reason. Last year the Armenian Revolutionary Federation left a bomb for him outside the Yıldız Mosque. I was there. There was a huge explosion. People, phaetons and horses were blasted into the air but the Sultan survived. Since then he has become morbidly suspicious. He buries himself in his Palace, in the company of soothsayers, astrologers, courtiers and police informers. He appears in public as seldom as possible, and always heavily guarded by soldiers.’