Time and Time Again

8

‘COME ON, CHOP chop. Christ, what a country! I said coffee and cognac. And breakfast. Got any eggs? Fresh, mind.’

He’d heard that voice before.

His head had been bowed, his eye focused on Cassie’s emails. Now, quietly, he folded them away in his wallet and put it back in his pocket. Then, as much by instinct as intention, his right hand slid down beyond his pocket and dropped down into the bag at his feet, fingers closing round the handle of his little polymer machine pistol.

Although God knows he couldn’t use it.

Discharging a weapon like that with its awesome and currently unimagined capabilities could scarcely fail to raise the interest of every intelligence agency in the city. And as any student of military history knew, there were more spies than dogs in pre-Great War Constantinople.

‘I said coffee! And a drink! Dammit, what’s the bloody Turkish for booze?’

It was a curious voice, very clipped with short vowels, but the tone took Stanton back to Sandhurst. To officer training and all those private-school boys with their effortless sense of entitlement.

‘Lazy kaffir’s probably on some carpet praying,’ the voice went on. ‘They never stop praying, do they? If they spent less time praying and more time doing, then the country wouldn’t be such a bloody basket case, would it?’

But it wasn’t just the tone he recognized. He’d heard this specific voice before.

How could that possibly be?

He gripped the weapon tighter.

And then he remembered. His fingers relaxed around his gun.

How stupid. How very stupid. Of course he’d heard the voice before. Not in another century but scarcely an hour ago.

It was the idiot from the Galata Bridge, the driver of the Crossley 20/25.

He turned and glanced. It was them all right, the men in the car. All five of them. Early twenties. Boaters, blazers, flannel bags. Swagger sticks and old school ties. Smart enough but with bloodshot eyes and sweaty, pasty faces. Still half drunk. Hooligans. Wealthy ones but hooligans nonetheless. You got them in any age, any class. Swap the boaters for hoodies and they could have come from the twenty-first century.

Quite suddenly Stanton felt a terrible anger rising within him.

These could have been the four bastards who wiped out his family. They very nearly had wiped out a family.

‘I said coffee and cognac!’ the young man repeated loudly and unpleasantly as he and his companions slumped themselves noisily around one of the little tables, scraping back their chairs, lounging about and generally making it clear that they owned the place.

One of the others spoke up from behind a street map.

‘I’m sure it’s around here somewhere,’ he said. ‘Hey, you!’ the man barked at the cafe owner, who having disappeared into his kitchen was now emerging with a tray of cups and a coffee pot. ‘House of Mahmut – where is it? Girls? Dancing? House of Sluts? Where – Mahmut – House?’

The owner merely shrugged and shook his head.

‘Bloody idiot’s got no idea what we’re talking about,’ the first man said, ‘and he’s forgotten the brandy. Oi, you. I said coffee and cognac.’

The owner shook his head and turned away, which infuriated the Englishman, who banged the table in protest.

‘Don’t you bloody turn your back on me, you bloody dago! I said, where’s the bloody brandy?’

Stanton rose to his feet and picked up his bag. He knew he had to leave because he really wanted to confront these men and that would be a very stupid thing to do. His first and only duty was to pass the time until his business in Sarajevo as quietly and with as little impact as possible. His whole mission depended on the key events he was tasked with influencing remaining unchanged from when they had first occurred in time. Confronting gangs of semi-drunk posh boys in Old Stamboul was unlikely to affect the diary plans of the Austrian royal house, but it might.

The movement brought him to the attention of the five men.

‘You, sir,’ the man who’d been at the wheel of the car and who was the most vocal of the group said, ‘you don’t look Turkish. English? Français? Deutsch? We want some brandy. Do you speak dago?’

He should have just said no and walked out.

‘You’re in Stamboul,’ Stanton said quietly, ‘so have a bit of respect. This is a Muslim establishment. Obviously they won’t have brandy. It’s morning, so go back to Pera and sleep it off. But don’t try to drive or I’ll take your keys.’

For a moment the five young men stared in astonishment.

The leader collected himself first. ‘And you would be …?’

Stanton still could have turned around and left but he didn’t.

‘I’m a British army officer and I’m telling you that you’ll get no cognac here because alcohol is proscribed under Islam, as even imbeciles like you must know. So why don’t you just clear out and go home – but I warn you, don’t try to drive.’

Five jaws dropped open in front of him.

This was stupid and Stanton knew it. These men hadn’t killed Cassie and he was crazy drawing attention to himself.

‘I know who he is,’ another member of the party shouted. ‘He was on the bridge this morning. He’s the chap who nearly made us crash.’

‘So he is! Wish I’d damn well hit him now.’

‘I’m the chap,’ Stanton replied firmly, ‘who saved you from being under arrest for the manslaughter of a mother and her young children.’

Now finally he did try to leave, taking a step towards the door as if he’d said his piece. But he was already in too deep. The five young men were having none of it.

‘The wogs can’t arrest Englishmen,’ the leader said. ‘Or weren’t you aware of that?’

‘Funny sort of army officer,’ another remarked. ‘What’s your regiment?’

Stanton bit his lip. He knew from the research he’d done in Cambridge that Turkey had traded sovereignty for foreign investment. No British officer was going to rot in a gaol for knocking over a few locals and this comfortable arrangement would have been second nature to the British in the city.

‘Who are you, damn you?’ the leader of the group demanded. ‘I haven’t seen you before.’

‘I don’t think he’s army at all. I’ve never seen him. Anybody seen him?’

Stanton was feeling stupid. Why had he said he was a soldier? The foreign groups clustered around the embassies and hotels of the Pera district must inevitably be small and insular; the five men facing him would expect to know all their comrades in the city.

‘Who the hell are you?’ the one who had been driving demanded once more. ‘I asked you what’s your regiment.’

Well, it couldn’t be the Special Air Service. That would not come into existence for decades to come. Or perhaps now not at all.

‘I’m just a territorial,’ Stanton replied, belatedly trying to blend into the background from which he had irrevocably and so stupidly leapt. ‘Not real army at all, I’m a tourist really.’

But he knew he didn’t look like a tourist, or at least not the type of British tourist usually to be seen gently taking in the sights of Old Stamboul. He was tall, tough and rugged-looking, dressed for action in his thick socks and boots, grey moleskin trousers and tweed. The five men were eyeing him with growing suspicion.

‘Show me your papers,’ the lead man demanded. ‘I want to know exactly who you are and where you come from.’

Stanton was carrying identification papers in both English and German. The English ones were in his own name and established him as an Australian gold-miner and engineer, but he certainly didn’t want to have this identity placed on any official record. He was supposed to be a shadow, making zero impact on the history through which he was passing.

‘You have no authority here,’ Stanton replied. ‘I might just as well ask for your papers since it’s you who are bringing the army into disrepute. But it’s getting hot and I can’t be bothered so if you’ll excuse—’

‘Guard the door, Tommy,’ the leader instructed. ‘I think we need to talk to this chap.’

One of the group went and stood in front of the door. The other four took a step towards Stanton.

His options were few and none of them were attractive. He could, of course, drop to one knee, whip the machine gun out from his bag and kill all five of them. He didn’t judge that any of the men facing him were armed. Even if they were, he felt confident that he could dispatch them all before any one of them was able to haul out and cock the type of heavy, steel handgun they might be carrying. Stanton’s own little Glock was so reliable, rapid and accurate in its fire that with his special training and the added element of surprise his accusers would not stand a chance.

But creating a blood bath in the middle of a densely crowded neighbourhood was scarcely the action of a shadow.

Could he bribe them? He had plenty of money. But he guessed that his interrogators would view such an offer with contempt. Any effort in that direction would no doubt only serve to confirm their clearly growing suspicion that he was some kind of dirty foreign spy.

But if they held him and searched him and discovered all the various astonishing things inside his bag the game was up anyway. The authorities would hold him for ever trying to work out who and what he was.

In the time it had taken for Stanton to think these thoughts his opponents had taken two steps more towards him. Two more and they’d be within arm’s length. Stanton resolved that he would have to fight them hand to hand. The space was small and he was in a corner so they couldn’t all come at him at once. There was a good chance that given his superior training he would be able to punch his way through to the door with his bag. The odds weren’t bad; there were five of them, certainly, all fit young men and soldiers too. But they’d been up all night drinking and it was highly unlikely that they knew any of the hand-to-hand skills which to Stanton were second-nature. They’d all have boxed but according to strict Queensberry rules and Stanton didn’t intend to follow any rules. Whatever the odds, this offered him a better chance of completing his mission than spraying the crowded room with bullets.

Stanton had just determined that his first move would be a left-hooked karate chop to the prominent Adam’s apple of the group leader, and in fact his left arm was already in motion, when the owner of the cafe appeared once more.

‘Stop this please,’ he said softly. ‘Prayers are completed in the mosque.’

‘Oh, so you can speak a civilized language when it suits you, can you, Abdul?’ the leader of the five said over his shoulder as he advanced the final step towards Stanton. ‘Well, bully for you, but I’m not interested in your prayers or your damned mosque.’ The man addressed Stanton once more. ‘Now you show me your papers, my friend, or you’re coming with us to the military police to explain why you’re impersonating a British officer.’

‘And in a moment my cafe will be full,’ the Turkish owner went on, and something about his tone gave both Stanton and his opponent pause. ‘Full of Muslims, sir, devout Muslims and also Turkish patriots. Must I tell them that you have insulted me and my house with your crude observations and your demands for alcohol?’

The young Englishmen were astonished.

‘Are you threatening us?’ the leader asked.

‘This is Stamboul, not Pera,’ the owner went on. ‘This part of the city does not belong to foreigners. It belongs to us. You should leave now.’

Clearly the young Englishmen were torn, their pride and arrogance baulked at being ordered about by mere natives, but they could see that outside the window beyond the hookah pipe the tiny, ancient square was already filling up as the mosque disgorged. And the crowd was not the kind of westernized Turk that lived in Pera, this was Old Stamboul. There were no linen suits, no fezes, no clean chins, and no women at all. Instead there were pyjama-y trousers, flowing robes and flowing beards. Already two or three of the worshippers were at the door of the little cafe. Fierce men with knives at their belts. Stanton saw a pistol, although it must have been fifty years old.

The five officers might have been arrogant and half drunk but they weren’t completely beyond reason. This was still the age of Empire, the British had been spread very thinly and precariously across the globe for two centuries, and they knew they wouldn’t be the first soldiers of the Crown to disappear into a resentful local crowd, never to be seen again. The shock of Gordon’s fate at Khartoum had cast a shadow across the psyche of late Imperial Britain every bit as traumatic as the death of any fairy-tale princess had done a hundred years later.

‘All right, we’ll go,’ the leader said. ‘But you’re coming with us,’ he added, turning to Stanton. ‘Guy, get his bag.’

Once more Stanton stiffened in readiness. They most certainly were not getting his bag.

Once more it was the cafe owner who diffused the situation.

‘No,’ he commanded. ‘My friend did not insult the Prophet. He stays. You leave.’

Now the door of the cafe opened and the first thirsty customers came in from prayer. Within a moment the little space was packed with at least ten puzzled-looking men watching what was clearly some kind of stand-off between a group of feringi. The owner turned to the newcomers and spoke to them in Turkish. Whatever he said caused them to glare menacingly at the five now beleaguered Englishmen.

‘You’d better not let me see you again,’ the leader snarled in Stanton’s face. Then, with what dignity he could, he led his comrades out into the square, where they were the object of many sullen stares.

Stanton turned to his saviour and thanked him.

‘It is I who should thank you,’ the owner replied. ‘It is not so common for a foreigner crusader in our city to treat a Muslim as his equal.’

‘You speak very good English,’ Stanton observed.

‘Only when I choose to. Please. Another coffee.’