CHAPTER 4 – HALIDE EDIP AND YAKUP KADRI 158
which reminded you of begging or crying. Then a few hoarse screams of
women and children.
The officers we had with us plunged into the enemy crowd and went on
getting out of sight. The Western Front Headquarters Commander Major
Kemal Bey was sleeping in an open car parked in front of us.
“-Kemal Bey, Kemal Bey…”
He lifted his head, he looked at us with his eyes half open..
We asked:
“It is true what these officers did? How did they thrust themselves into
this crowd?”
Major Kemal bey smiled:
“- Which crowd? He said. They are no longer any different from a
shepherdless flock of sheep. I am thinking how I am going to get through
them without trampling them later.”
At this moment the orderly is approaching the car showing a man who
stands next to him.
“-Major, what am I to do with this one?” he asked.
“ -Search him well. If you find weapons take them. Then release him
among them and see what happens.”
Kemal bey gave this order and went back to sleep.
Gradually the crowd is increasing. There was no room even for a needle
to drop on the Cordon. Despite this, the officers who, splitting this
doomsday crowd into two a bit earlier, got through them and were
coming back.
At first sight we see them in great sorrow. Before asking them “what
happened” they start telling us what they saw: Essentially, the Rum
boatmen lined up in the waterfront and would not take anyone aboard
without first paying. They were saying that they would not take less than
ten lira per head. This was said by one of our officers:
“- Dear me, what vileness! They are Rum and those ones are Rum too!
How heartless this man must be that he is reluctant to help his compatriot
at such a moment of calamity. He is not even content with not helping,
he sees the opportunity to gain and make a profit from this calamity.”
The other one adds:
“- Even if they boarded the boats, where would they go? They were
hoping for help from the ship opposite them. But those who reached it
were turned back. Or they are wandering around in the sea. The ships
have drawn up their ladders and take no one. Some of the wretched ones
climb on to the anchor chains and try to board by force but the crew
strike their hands with long poles and throw everybody into the sea.
There is true vileness in these Europeans, they are not civilised and they
have no humanitarian feelings. They themselves put these miserable ones
in trouble and now they want to be just onlookers of the consequences.”