The Quartermaster General explained that this overture was not entirely lacking in poetry, but he would have preferred the idea of abandoned harems to be linked to some more basic element of human life, something more vital to the economy, such as, for example, the plough or the vine. He added that a few figures would give it more substance.
At that moment the general’s secretary appeared at the tent door. His master signalled to him to come nearer, and the servant whispered something in the general’s ear. The Quartermaster said “yes” several times, and “no” an equal number of times.
“What were we saying?” he asked the chronicler as soon as the secretary had left. “Ah yes, figures! But you mustn’t take too much notice of me on this issue, because I’m obsessed with numbers. All day long I do nothing but count and reckon!”
The secretary reappeared.
“A messenger from the Pasha,” he blurted out as soon as he saw his master scowl.
The courier came close to the general, bent down to speak in his ear, and went on whispering in that position for a long while. Then he put his own ear to the Quartermaster’s mouth to collect the reply.
“Let’s go out,” the Quartermaster suggested when the courier had left. “We’ll have a better chance to talk outdoors. Otherwise the thorns of everyday business will throttle the violet of our conversation!”
Dusk was falling. The camp was in a state of lively activity. Akinxhis were coming from all directions, leading their horses to water. Standards rustled in the wind from the tips of the tent poles. With the addition of a handful of flowers to add their smell, the many-coloured camp would have looked less like a military installation than a blooming garden. The chronicler remembered that none of his colleagues had ever described an army as a flower garden — a gulistan — but that was what he was going to do. He would liken it to a meadow, or else to a polychrome kilim, but one from which, as soon as the order to move forward was given, would emerge the black fringes of death.
They had almost reached the centre-point of the camp when they ran into the engineer, Saruxha. He was wandering around looking absent-minded.
“Is the meeting over?” the Quartermaster General enquired.
“Yes, it’s just ended. I’m dead tired,” Saruxha replied, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes. “We’ve not had a wink of sleep for three nights in a row. Today the Pasha gave us final orders to ready the cannon for next week … In eight days, he said, he wants to hear their blast.”
“Will you manage?”
“I don’t know. We might. But you can’t imagine how difficult the work will be. Especially as we’re using a new kind of weapon, one which has never been made before, so I have to attend to every detail of manufacture.”
“I understand,” the Quartermaster said.
“Do you want to have a look at the foundry?” Saruxha asked, and, without waiting for an answer, he led them off across waste ground.
The chronicler was delighted to be given so much trust. Before leaving the capital he had heard all kinds of rumours about the new weapon. People spoke of it alternately with admiration and horror, as is normal with a secret weapon. They said its roar would make you deaf for the rest of your life, and its blast would topple everything around it within a radius of several leagues.
During the long march he had noticed the camels that were alleged to be carrying pieces of the barrel destined to serve the big cannon. The soldiers who marched silently alongside never took their eyes off the rain-soaked black tarpaulins hiding the mortal secret.
Çelebi itched to learn more about the camels’ packs but he was frightened of arousing suspicion. When at last he overcame his shyness and questioned the Quartermaster, whom he had just got to know, the latter burst out laughing, with his hands on hips. Those heavy packs, he said, don’t have any tubes in them at all. All that was in them were bars of iron and bronze, and a special kind of coal. “So you’re going to ask me, where then is the secret weapon? I’ll tell you, Mevla Çelebi. The big, fearsome cannon are in a tiny little satchel … as tiny as the one over my shoulder, here … Don’t look at me like that, I’m not pulling your leg!” Now he whispered it into Mevla’s ear, nodding towards a waxen-faced man wrapped in a black cloak: “The secret cannon really is in a satchel.” It took the chronicler a little while to grasp that in that wan figure’s shoulder bag were to be found secret designs and formulae that would be used for casting the big gun.
The foundry had been set up away from the camp in an area that was entirely fenced off and under heavy guard. It was separated from the stream by a hillock, and at twenty paces from the gate stood a sign saying: “Forbidden Zone”.
“It’s well guarded, day and night,” the engineer said. “Spies might try to steal our secret.”
The engineer acted as their tour guide through the long shack that had been thrown up and gave them copious explanations of what could be seen. The forge and the ovens had just been lit, and the flames gave off stifling heat. Shirtless, soot-blackened men dripping with sweat were busy at work.
Heaps of iron and bronze ingots and huge clay moulds covered most of the floor.
The engineer showed them the designs for the giant cannon.
The visitors looked with wonderment at the mass of straight lines, arcs and circles meticulously traced out on the blueprints.
“This one’s the biggest,” Saruxha said as he showed them one of the drawings. “My artificers have already dubbed it balyemeztop!”
“The gun that eats no honey? Why call it by such a strange name?” the Quartermaster asked.
“Because it prefers to eat men!” Saruxha replied. “It’s a whimsical cannon, if I may say, a bit like a spoiled child who says to its mother one fine morning, ‘I’m fed up with honey!’ … Now come and see the place where it will be cast,” he added as he moved off in another direction. “Here’s the great hole where the clay moulds will be laid down, and over there are the six furnaces where the metal will be melted. A standard cannon takes one furnace, but for this one, six will barely suffice! That’s one of the main secrets of the casting. All six furnaces have to produce molten metal at exactly the same degree of fusion at precisely the same time. If there’s the tiniest crack, the tiniest bubble, so to speak, then the cannon will burst apart when it’s fired.”
The Quartermaster General gave a whistle of astonishment.
Although he too was amazed at what he had heard, Mevla Çelebi was sufficiently astute not to turn his head towards the general in case the latter, once he had regained his poise, might feel annoyed at having been caught in a moment of weakness by a mere chronicler, or, in other words, at having let himself be seen to be astonished, when he was supposed to be far above such emotions.
But the Quartermaster General wasn’t trying to hide his bewilderment. The chronicler, for his part, trembled at the thought that Engineer Saruxha was engaged on God’s work, or else the Devil’s own, by having his furnaces produce a fiery liquid that Allah himself caused the earth to spew out through the mouths of volcanoes. Labour of that kind usually brought severe punishment.
As the engineer went on explaining how the casting would be done, in their eyes he slowly turned into a wizard, wrapped in his black cloak, about to perform some ancient, mysterious ritual.
“It is the first time that cannon of this kind are to be used in the whole military history of humankind,” Saruxha finally declared with pride. “An earthquake will sound like a lullaby next to their terrible thunder.”
They looked at him with admiration.