The Rio Cruz slowed to quarter-speed, slipping gradually to starboard, urgently sounding her siren as she was narrowly missed by a side-paddle steamer full of impassive Levantines which drove directly across her bow. Thirty swarthy heads turned without much interest to watch us: a collection of greasy turbans, fezzes, bur-nooses and cloth-caps. The paddle-boat was painted bright streaky red. She carried a silver Islamic crescent on her smoke-stained funnel and clattered like a sewing-machine as she made her painful way towards the Asian shore while our own ship grumbled, an ill-tempered old lady discommoded by rowdies.
Human voices now emerged amidst the noises of the harbour traffic. I smelled smoke, burnt oil and sweet spices. My suspected typhus forgotten, I grew more animated as the Baroness for some reason became increasingly withdrawn. Polyglot shouts rose and fell with the movement and slap of the waves. As the drizzle was dissipated by the sunshine Jack Bragg returned to supervise his sailors making themselves busy with ropes and rigging; then the ship’s engines changed to a violent, slow thud, shaking our entire hull every few seconds. On the bridge the captain’s clear, commanding English was absorbed in a general babble from the port as we drew steadily closer to the European shore. I could distinguish individuals now, little cafés with balconies stuck out over the water, full of arguing, coffee-drinking Turks who ignored us completely. There were dense rows of evergreens, innumerable tracks leading inland from the clustered buildings, the boxes, barrels and bales heaped upon the wharves.
Then at last the sun broke through with full force so that the misty barrier was completely scattered and revealed the view. I was startled by it, for I had been unaware that so much had remained unseen.
Suddenly Constantinople was dramatically illuminated. Speech became impossible. I believe even the Baroness gaped. My senses ceased to register ships, voices or any ordinary details of dockside life.
Through massive, darkling clouds the sun sent a mile-wide golden fan of rays directly above the twin cities of Stamboul and Pera which lay upon hilly banks on both sides of the Golden Horn. In moments the mist vanished utterly and buildings glared and shimmered in a cool, delicate light. Old Byzantium was on my left with her crenellated turrets and fortresses, and commercial Galata on my right, a mass of newer buildings seeming to lean one against the other all around her harbour. Like Rome the old city was built on seven hills and each hill was rich with languid poplars, green parks and geometrical gardens, slender towers, massive domes. Directly from the waterfront Constantinople ascended tier upon breathtaking tier, a unique alchemy of history and geography; the accumulated architecture of two thousand years. Winter sun gleamed on marble roofs and gilded minarets, warmed the soft green cypresses. Everywhere were mosques, churches and palaces. Our ship, the harbour itself, was dwarfed by the enormous weight and variety of monumental stone. Merchantmen, destroyers, frigates, tugs, swarmed at her feet like midges on a pond. I had expected nothing so huge, so much like an Oriental fantasy. Even the industrial smoke rising in thin pillars from a dozen different points could as easily have poured from an exotic Arabian pyre. I half expected the smoke to form itself into the shape of gigantic genii or flying horses. At that moment I might have been Haroun-al-Raschid himself or wandering Odysseus first glimpsing the grandeur of Troy. This was a vision almost painful in its variety and beauty: our Emperor City.
The Rio Cruz began to steam in close to the low bridge stretching between Stamboul and Galata, its structure almost completely hidden by a multitude of ships and boats moored to it. Near either end of the bridge stood a huge domed mosque flanked by tall, delicate towers of the purest marble. The last of the clouds fell back towards the horizon and remained there, white and huge beneath glittering blue, and still more of the two cities was revealed: minaret upon minaret, dome upon dome, palace upon palace, into the distance above our heads. Here was the glory of Byzantium repeated a thousand times by the envious successors of Suleiman who believed themselves custodians of Constantine’s tradition, even though they imposed their alien religion upon his city. Their mosques had all been built in imitation of Hagia Sophia, itself now a mosque, the noblest cathedral ever raised to the glory of Christ. Glowing green, gold and white in the soft sunlight the city was so much larger and more complex, so much older than anything I had previously known that I was momentarily overcome by a sense of terror. How easily one might be swallowed by Constantinople; to be lost, forgotten, unnoticed in the warrens of her complicated bazaars.
In comparison Odessa seemed no more than a small provincial town. When Jack Bragg rejoined us for a moment he was sardonic, ‘It’s impressive, but wait till you smell it. We’ll dock near the European Customs House on the quay there. First we have to cross to Haidur Pasha to be cleared.’ He gestured towards Asia. ‘On the Scutari side. At most points this bit of water’s no wider than the Thames. Astonishing what it separates.’
I resented his matter-of-fact voice; it interrupted my reverie, almost amounting to prayer. I had tried to cram, as it were, all the city into my eyes at once. The ship now turned her back on Byzantium and began her approach of the Eastern shore where the tall, official buildings were newer and built further apart, although there were still domes and minarets visible amongst the trees. We sailed towards a row of foreign warships flying the flags of Italy, America, Greece, France and England: the crosses of Christ, the tricolors of Liberty. All that was missing was our Russian flag. We had been pledged for centuries to restore Constantinople to Christ and at the moment of success we turned and destroyed one another in a bloody Civil War.
I believe I was weeping a little when Mrs Cornelius, holding to her face a handkerchief soaked in eau-de-cologne, came to stand unsteadily between me and the Baroness. She peered vaguely at the view, her eyes round in her soft, pink features. ‘Cor! It looks a bloody sight better from this side, dunnit?’ She had passed through Constantinople with her Persian lover in 1914. ‘So near and yet so bleedin’ far, eh, Ivan?’
In twos and threes the Russian passengers began to come up on deck. They shared a sense of awe and, I suspect, trepidation. Constantinople was central to our deepest mythology, meaning far more to us than Rome to a Catholic. Mimari Kimdir! Millions had died in recent years profoundly certain their sacrifice would see our Tsar in person ultimately raising the Russian eagle above the Sublime Porte. The posters had clearly told us that a victorious Tsar, sword lifted in triumph, would set his heel upon the neck of a fallen Sultan. Then he would lead his knights to the doors of St Sophia to claim our oldest church, after five hundred years of humiliating thraldom, for Christ again. That was the worst the Bolsheviks stole from the Russian people when they told us to stop killing Turks and destroy one another. My only consolation was a glimpse of the Greek’s blue-cross flag flying close to the Union Jack. When Lenin’s Jewish masters withdrew our forces from the Crusade the Greeks had heroically picked up our Saviour’s banner. But soon the Greeks would be cheated, too.