The Lord God Made Them All Read online

  “That’s better,” Noel said as we came into the lounge. “If only we could get some grub. Oi’m famished.”

  I knew how he felt. My appetite now was wolfish, but surely food couldn’t be far away.

  This hope received a boost when we saw the towering form of Captain Birch striding towards us.

  “I’ve been looking for you fellows,” he said. “There are a few things I want to tell you. Come and sit down over here.”

  We arranged ourselves on padded chairs round a small table, and the sombre eyes looked us over for a few moments before he spoke.

  “I don’t know who is in charge of your party, but I’ll address my remarks to you, Mr. Herriot”

  “Right”

  “Now, I’m sorry to tell you that all attempts to rectify the oil leak in the engine have failed.”

  “Oh.”

  “This means that we will have to fly the aircraft on three engines to our headquarters in Copenhagen for major repairs.”

  “I see.”

  “It also means that you chaps can’t come with us.”

  “What!”

  His expression softened. “I’m sorry to have to spring this on you, but the position is, frankly, that the aircraft is in an unsafe condition, and we are not allowed to carry passengers or any personnel but the crew.”

  “But …” I asked the obvious question. “How do we get home?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” the captain replied. “The obvious thing is to contact the Export Company in London by telephone—I have their number here—and I’m sure they will make arrangements for you to be flown to England.”

  “Well. . . thank you … I suppose that would be the thing to do.” Another thought occurred to me. “You say the aircraft is unsafe?”

  The majestic head nodded gravely. “That is so.”

  “In other words, you might never make Copenhagen.”

  “Quite. There is that possibility. Flying over the Alps under these circumstances is going to be a little tricky.”

  “But how about you? How about you and the crew?”

  “Ah yes.” He smiled, and suddenly he looked like a kind man. “It’s good of you to ask, but this is our job. We have to go, don’t you understand? It’s our job.”

  I turned to the farmers. “Well, I suppose we’d better do as the captain says?”

  They nodded silently. They looked shattered, and I felt the same. But I took the point about that strange aeroplane. If one engine had given up, how reliable were the other three?

  “I’d better find a phone, then. Will I do it from here or from the hotel?”

  The captain cleared his throat. “That’s another thing I was going to mention. I haven’t been able to find a hotel.”

  “Eh?”

  “Afraid not,” he said. “I’ve tried everywhere, but it’s some kind of a public holiday here, and all the hotels are booked.”

  I had nothing to say to this. Everything was turning out great

  “But don’t worry,” he went on. “I am assured that if we go a few miles up the Bosporus, we’ll find some little place which will put us up.”

  Some little place … The visions of five-starred splendour evaporated rapidly.

  “Yes, of course.”

  The captain smiled again encouragingly. “I’ve got a minibus outside. We’ll soon find somewhere.”

  Dave and Ed were already installed in the little vehicle, lounging comfortably in their silky suits.

  “Hi,” they said cheerfully. “Hi,” said little Karl, grinning at us from the back seat. Such contretemps were no doubt part of their normal lives, and they were taking everything in their stride. I made a sudden resolve to do the same. Things were looking a bit sticky, but I was here in Istanbul and I was going to enjoy what little time I had.

  I fished out my camera. I had taken some pictures of the flight and of the Globemaster during the unloading. Even if it was a fleeting thing, I would capture some memories of this city.

  As the minibus shot through the streets, I snapped away like mad, and when I wasn’t snapping, I was devouring the scene greedily. The knowledge that I was going to have only a short time in these surroundings made every new spectacle imprint itself on my mind.

  As we sped through the teeming traffic on that gloriously sunny evening, exquisite mosques and minarets towered incongruously over modern tenements, then unexpectedly there would be a long stretch of waste ground with stubbly, scorched grass and garish billboards. Tremendous stone aqueducts, ancient and overgrown, appeared briefly in our windows and were gone before I could do more than catch them on my film. The massive ruins of the walls of old Constantinople, the crumbling fortresses on the shattered walls—I glimpsed them briefly, but even today among my photographs I can still look at the slightly blurred images beyond the smeared glass.

  Among all these wonders eddied the Istanbul street scene—the vendors of coloured cordials, sweetmeats and peaches, the dark-skinned pedestrians in Kemal Ataturk’s obligatory westernised clothes: the women in cotton dresses, the men in an outfit of shirt and slacks so unvarying that it looked like a uniform.

  Soon we were running along the side of the Bosporus, surely one of the most beautiful and romantic waterways in the world —wide and blue, bounded by tree-lined hills where elegant houses and even palaces nestled. Families sunned themselves on chairs on the little beaches, while out on the water a great variety of craft lay at anchor. There were large modern ships, fishing smacks and some wonderful old wooden vessels.

  I had fair opportunity to view the Bosporus because we kept stopping in our efforts to find accommodation. At last we were successful, and we climbed out of the minibus in front of a small building. It wasn’t Claridges, nor was it a flea pit. It was an unpretentious little hotel up a side street.

  The members of the staff were friendly and cheerful, but I had a strong impression that they couldn’t care less whether we stayed there or not. I managed to communicate to the manager that I wanted to telephone London. Smilingly he assured me that I would have to go to the local post office for that and said there was a taxi nearby.

  The taxi whirled me through the streets with the same reckless speed as our minibus driver. This is something I had noticed straightaway; all traffic seemed to proceed at about seventy miles an hour.

  At the post office I explained my needs to a little fat lady, who nodded and smiled repeatedly. She knew enough English to assure me that all would be well.

  She lifted a phone and made enquiries. Turning back to me, she beamed happily. “Long wait, maybe hour. You go back hotel, I send taxi.”

  When I got back to the hotel, all my colleagues had been installed in rooms. There seemed to be no reception desk, so I asked various members of the staff where I was to sleep. My queries were received with uncomprehending shrugs until I found the manager again. He seemed to take a certain amount of pleasure in telling me that there was no room for me, but my obvious dismay softened his heart, because he took me downstairs and showed me into a cell-like apartment in the basement where he left me. There was a single unmade bed with a rumpled pile of blankets on a chair in a corner. That was all, but I was thankful for it. The bathroom was a long, long way away.

  But then all my senses were submerged by one thing—the smell of food. A rich, spicy aroma was beginning to pervade the little place, and I began to stumble towards its source. I suppose eating nothing for more than twenty-four hours is an unimportant detail to people who go on diets and visit health farms, but I have always believed in a regular hearty intake, and at that moment I was more ravenous than I have ever been in my life.

  I found the dining room where the crew and the farmers were already at the table, and as I sat down with them, the glorious victuals began to arrive—great heaped-up plates of kebabs resting on beds of saffron rice and peppers, steaming bowls of mixed vegetables and an abundance of coarse Turkish bread. I love bread, and I bit into this stuff immediately. It was delicious, and Ed laughe