All Honourable Men by Gavin Lyall

Pera, that’s the part of Constantinople we’ll be in. That’s run by Europeans: they have their own hotels, clubs, shops, houses of course, newspapers – and courts. And all have virtually diplomatic immunity: a European can’t be tried by a Turkish court, a Turkish official can’t even enter the house of a European without his permission.”
    O’Gilroy let smoke trickle slowly from his nostrils. “How in hell’s it keep going?”
    â€œEuropean loans – mostly French. And European help. All the Powers want some part of the Empire only daren’t take it because of the other Powers, so they all help instead: we’re reorganising their Navy, the Germans their Army and building this Railway, the French lending money—”
    â€œWasn’t ye fighting the Turks yerself a coupla years ago?”
    Ranklin nodded. “On behalf of the Greeks.”
    â€œWas they any good? – the Turks?”
    â€œTraditionally, they’re a warrior race. But terribly badly equipped: most of them hadn’t even got boots.” And after a few weeks in the mountains, his Greek Gunners were no better off, so it was a real prize to find a Turkish officer, dead or prisoner (in practice, the difference was that he felt he should look the other way while his men stripped a live officer of his boots).
    â€œAnd at yer own game – as gunners?”
    â€œThey’d got the latest German seven-point-sevens – they’d spent their money on those, not boots – and they used them pretty well. To start with. We heard their artillery commander was a German, but that might have been just a Greek rumour put about to explain why he was any good. We just knew him as ‘the Tornado’; I think it was one of those silly newspaper nicknames . . .
    â€œThen one day, after we’d had a counter-battery duel –” was he getting too technical? “– guns shooting at guns, trying to knock each other’s pieces off the board – their control seemed to fall to pieces. They weren’t shooting to any plan . . .” It was odd how, behind the apparently random confusion of modern war, you might still sense a pattern that was an enemy mind, isolate a personality and feel you were duelling with
him
.
    â€œ
I
said we must have killed their gunner commander, or knocked him out, anyway. My brigadier didn’t agree, he was . . .” He shrugged.
    â€œDid it matter?”
    â€œWe’d have advanced quicker if we’d known they wouldn’t react because their gunnery control had collapsed.”
    O’Gilroy had been about to make a glib comment, thenrealised Ranklin was talking about a level of soldiering he would never know. “Did ye ever find out?”
    â€œNo, I was pulled home soon after that. But their gunnery was supposed to have saved Constantinople from the Bulgarians a few weeks later, so they must have got themselves sorted out by then.”
    Then he shook his head. “All a bit once-upon-a-time by now. Cut along to the dining carriage and see if you can rustle up some tea.”
    * * *
    It was near nine o’clock when they chugged into the frontier station of Deutsche-Avricourt and changed to a German train and railway time, an inconvenient fifty five minutes ahead. And although Ranklin and O’Gilroy were nodded through Customs, thanks to the diplomatic passport, they still had to wait for less significant souls. Luckily the buffet was open.
    â€
Un cognac, s’il vous plaît
.” Ranklin tossed a sovereign on the table. “
Et une bière
. This is exceptional,” he warned “Gorman”. “Normally you buy your own alcoholic drinks. And only when you’re off duty, mind.”
    O’Gilroy nodded, then asked: “Did I hear that Mrs Finn will be in Constantinople?”
    â€œMost likely.”
    â€œWill ye be calling on the lady?”
    â€œI don’t think she’d