Finally the Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna began to understand. They boarded their shops and barricaded their doors. The crowds disappeared, the cafes closed.
The Greek general in command of the city had gone insane. He thought his legs were made of glass and refused to leave his bed lest they break. In any case he had no troops. The garrison had been evacuated along with the army. Kemal's Turkish forces had triumphed absolutely in the interior.
On September 8 the Greek High Commissioner announced that Greek administration of the city would end at ten o'clock that night. The harbor was filled with British and French and Italian and American warships ready to evacuate their nationals.
The advance Turkish cavalry rode into the city the next morning, well-disciplined and orderly, followed by infantry units marching in formation. All that Saturday, the day O'Sullivan Beare and Haj Harun arrived in the city, the Turkish forces kept pouring into Smyrna in their confusing array of uniforms, some wearing American army uniforms captured from the Russians.
Looting began quietly at dusk. Turkish soldiers entered deserted shops and sorted through the wares.
Turkish civilians carried out the first armed robberies. They came down from their quarter and held up Armenians and Greeks on side streets. But when they saw the Italian and Turkish patrols ignoring them they quickly moved to the larger stores, scooping up rolls of satin and stuffing them with watches.
Soon the Turkish soldiers had joined them and by midnight houses were being broken into with crowbars. There were some rapes and some murders but loot was still the primary concern. Murders were mostly done with knives so the Europeans wouldn't be alarmed by excessive rifle fire.
But by the following morning, Sunday, restraint was gone. Gangs of Turks raced through the streets murdering men and carrying off women and sacking Greek and Armenian houses. The horror was so great the Greek Patriarch of Smyrna went to the government house to plead with the Turkish general in command. The general spoke a few words to him and then appeared on a balcony as the Patriarch left, yelling at the mob to treat him as he deserved.
The mob swept up the Patriarch and carried him down the street to the barbershop of a Jew named Ishmael. He was ordered to shave the Patriarch but when that proved too slow they dragged the Patriarch back into the street and tore out his beard with their hands.
They gouged out his eyes. They cut off his ears. They cut off his nose. They cut off his hands. Across the street French soldiers stood guarding a French business concession.
Stern saw two Armenian children sneak out of their ruined house dressed in their finest clothes. Once in the street they smiled and strolled arm in arm toward the harbor speaking loudly to each other in French.
A refugee woman in black carried her bleeding son on her shoulders, he so large and she bent so low his feet touched the ground.
An elderly Armenian made the mistake of unbarring his steel door to pass a letter to a Turkish officer. He was a wealthy merchant, he said, who had supplied Kemal's armies in the interior. The letter, signed by Kemal himself, guaranteed protection for him and his family.
The officer held the letter upside down. He couldn't read. He tore it up and his men stormed inside.
Stern at last reached Sivi's villa on the harbor. He went to the backdoor and found it hanging on its hinges. In the courtyard the old man lay crumpled on a flower bed, his head covered with blood. His French secretary, Theresa, was kneeling beside him.
It just happened, she said. They broke in, he tried to stop them and they beat him with their rifles. They're still inside, we have to get him out of here.
Stern struggled to pull the old man to his feet and all at once Sivi's eyes flew open. He raised his arm feebly and tried to strike Stern.
Sivi for God's sake, it's me.
I won't have it, he whispered. Get Stern here. We must fight back, call Stern.
His head fell forward onto his chest. The two of them dragged him across the courtyard and out into the alley. Theresa was remarkably calm although rifles were going off all around them. Stern was surprised at her control.
My convent training, she said.
In the alley Stern had to stop for breath. He propped Sivi against a wall and closed his eyes trying to think. A soft Irish voice spoke behind him.
The address checks out but what's this little game here? Taken to robbing and kidnapping old men then?
Having a go yourself now that the Black and Tans have set things up to have some Saturday night fun?
He turned and saw O'Sullivan Beare grinning, a revolver tucked into his belt. With him was an elderly Arab wearing an antique helmet. The Arab's face went white but Stern didn't see that.
Help me carry him, we've got to move him to another house.
But before Joe could move, the elderly Arab jumped forward, his face radiant.
If you will, my lord, allow me to help.
Jaysus, muttered Joe, what next. He can hardly carry himself.
If you will, my lord, repeated Haj Harun ecstatically, his eyes fixed on Stern.
Look, said Joe, I'll do the heavy lifting and you guard us from the rear. We need a reliable warrior back there to make sure some cutthroat of a Crusader doesn't try to sneak up on us.
Indeed we do, said Haj Harun, stepping back and proudly straightening his helmet, his eyes still on Stern.
Between the two of them they managed to carry Sivi up through the alleys away from the harbor. Bodies were everywhere. A girl was hanging from a lemon tree. They went in through the back of a deserted house and laid him out on a couch. A trail of blood ran across the floor to a cupboard. Joe looked inside and quickly closed it. A corpse was stuffed in the cupboard, a naked girl, one of her breasts cut off.
Theresa worked on the gashes in Sivi's head. She seemed to see nothing else. Stern turned to O'Sullivan Beare.
Where did you get the revolver?
The Black and Tans, where else. As usual they've got the goods. An officer he must have been, the troops carry rifles.
What happened to him?
A strange occurrence, I don't deny it. All I did was go up to him and salute and tell him I was reporting in for duty on the Crimean front, and what did he do but take one look at me and do a fast tumble. The medals it must have been, awed by all that brass I guess. Anyway he took such a dive he busted his head on the cobblestones before I could catch him. At least it seemed pretty well busted when I requisitioned his revolver so it wouldn't fall into the hands of some dangerous bloody belligerent.
Stern looked at him in disgust.
Go out front and see if we can reach the harbor. When it gets dark the fires will start.
That they will, general, that they certainly will. Come along, he added to Haj Harun, who stood rigidly in the doorway unable to take his eyes off Stern. At the front of the hall the old man gripped his arm.
What is it? whispered Joe.
But don't you know who he is? Once just before the war I saw him in the desert.
Hold it. Which war would we be talking about? The Mameluke invasion? The Babylonian conquest?
No no, the war that just ended, the one they call the Great War. Of course he doesn't recognize me.
Joe was about to answer that he bloody well knew who he was. He was the bloody fake of an idealist who had been trying to play father confessor to him for the last two years while he was smuggling useless rifles to countries that didn't exist and never would, who had gotten them into this mess in the first place by having them come to Smyrna to meet an ancient Greek queen who was now either deranged or dying.
But he couldn't say any of those things and his face was respectful.
Saw him did you? Just before 1914 in the desert? In person and all?
Yes I truly did. I was on my annual haj and he deigned to manifest himself from the skies at dawn and speak to me.
Speaking you say? From the skies? Manifesting himself? Well that's an event by any account. And who might he have been then?
