Ismail Kadare - The Siege

“The fourth battalion has left!”

“Seems they’ve attacked the janissaries’ quarters.”

“Fifth eshkinxhi battalion, here!”

“Kara-Mukbil is fighting them to the death!”

“To the foundry! They’re attacking the foundry!”

“Back! What is your unit? Second battalion? Then retreat!”

“The Albanians have opened the gate!”

“They can’t have. Keep your mouth shut!”

“Bakerhan is dead!” someone screamed like a madman, at the head of the group that was falling back in chaos.

“Get back! Where are you going?”

“Skanderbeg!”

“Back, I said!”

“Skanderbeg! Skanderbeg!”

“What are you shouting about, you scoundrel? Here! Have this!”

The chronicler heard the dull thud of a blade entering a body, and then the sound of a man collapsing to the ground.

“The akinxhis ! Here come the akinxhis !”

Kurdisxhi’s great mane of hair, gleaming in the torchlight, flashed past at the head of a mounted squadron.

“Get back! Get back!” an officer screamed.

“Join your units!”

“The sipahi s! The glorious sipahi s!”

Sipahi s galloped past and disappeared into the night on the tail of the akinxhis .

The chronicler’s heart was ready to burst. The flower of the army was valiantly rushing to the front to repulse the enemy. He was ashamed of having yielded to fear a few moments before. He watched with admiration as the Moroccan tabors rushed towards the area where that beast Skanderbeg was wreaking havoc. But his joy was brief. The mass of men whose voices, arms and orders had dispelled his fear suddenly melted away before his eyes at incredible speed. The weapons, the voices and the commands were all swallowed up by the dark and very soon Mevla Çelebi realised that he was alone on a path that might very soon be taken by the marauding tiger.

He started running, not knowing which way he was going. He just had to get away from that spot which was being abandoned like a sinking ship. All around he could hear men calling and urging each other on, but in the black night he could not make out exactly where they were coming from. More like the voices of ghosts than of living men, the cries were carried off by the dark wind of the night.

He soon found himself once again in a crowd. He couldn’t tell if this dense pack of men was running away from the fight, or looking for it. It too quickly dispersed and the chronicler once more found himself on his own. He could now see all over the camp that men were coming together like bees to a swarm, then moving around, then dispersing, without rhyme or reason, like fluffy white clouds on a windy day. On a night of panic such as this, there was nothing to rely on.

He ran on and on. His legs took him instinctively towards the middle of the camp, where the commander-in-chief’s tent stood. He heard people calling and commanding, then from out of the darkness came an extraordinary, terrifying sound of heavy breathing which drowned out all other noise. Tahanka! the chronicler thought.

The Pasha’s tent was dark. Yet he saw messengers coming and going. Çelebi reckoned the Pasha was inside, but that the lights had been shaded so the tent would not be visible. He had collected himself now, and noticed that all around the tent were hundreds of desert warriors standing silently with their long lances at the ready. They made him feel safer. He sat down on the ground beside an alleyway. All sorts of noises could be heard in the distance, but here, at least, it was quiet. Mounted messengers galloped up, stopped dead in their tracks, slid straight out of the saddle, then ran on. Praise be to God for having allowed him to find safe haven! But this relative calm did not last long. He felt as if something was crawling forwards and moving in the dark. More and more desert warriors were swelling the detachment. From behind him, someone shouted out an order. A distant rumble of thunder seemed to be drawing nearer.

Çelebi could feel the drops of sweat on his forehead. What if that tornado were to strike the tent of the commander-in-chief? He sat up straight. Yes, of course. The tent was obviously the target. Yes, it was aiming to get here, and nowhere else. He was overcome with terror once again. He started to run. Ah, if only he could find a spot to hide! A really safe place, a bolt-hole, a hole in the ground … His mind was working fast. The abandoned tunnel! The bread oven! (Mevla! Have you only just realised that the oven was camouflage for the entrance to the tunnel?) He hastened towards the broken-down building. The rumble behind him was getting nearer. Quickly! Quickly! Now he’s got there at last. Nobody around. He goes inside. Feeling his way, shaking from head to toe, he finds the ladder. He climbs down. The rungs are ice cold. Further down. Pitch-black. A bitter odour of mud. He thinks of the astrologer. Suddenly, beneath his feet, in the dark, he felt something move. A snake! he thought, in terror, and he had already started to dash back up when from down below someone said quietly:

“Careful! You’re treading on us.”

He was petrified.

“You’d better sit down,” the same person said in a placid tone.

Çelebi couldn’t make sense of it all. He thought he felt something else move a little further on. He heard a sneeze.

“Where are you from?” the voice said.

“Me? From here … accidentally …” the chronicler stammered.

“It’s alright,” the voice replied. “I know the kind of accident you mean. But you had a bright idea. You’re not stupid!”

Çelebi didn’t answer.

“Have no fear,” the man went on gruffly. “We’re not hiding here so as to give you away. Crows don’t pick out each other’s eyes. I’m from the fourth azab battalion. Eleven years in the ranks. I worked out long ago that I’d lay low down here if Skanderbeg mounted a night raid. Dying on the walls is fine by me, but getting mown down in the crush really isn’t worth it. So at the first sound of the alert I ran out of my tent. Off you go, old azab , I said to myself, time to find your hidey-hole. Then once I got here I found friends. They’d been even quicker off the mark than I had.”

As if to confirm the azab ’s explanation, someone nearby hiccupped.

“Sit down,” he went on. “Make yourself at home. Nobody will bother you down here.”

Çelebi found a little hump to sit on.

“You a sapper?” the azab asked.

“Yes,” the chronicler answered.

“Thought so. You must have worked here, obviously.”

By the time Çelebi felt like having a chat, as everyone does in due course once danger has passed, the azab had fallen silent. The chronicler didn’t dare speak first. He was afraid his voice might be recognised. He was ashamed. At the very moment when battle was raging, he, the historian, the writer of the chronicle destined to immortalise the stirring deeds of the campaign, was crouching like a rat in a hidden tunnel waiting for it all to calm down.

“Up there it must be sheer murder,” the azab muttered, as if he was reading Çelebi’s thoughts.

The chronicler didn’t know what to say. They could hear banging on the ground above them, sometimes quite clearly, sometimes less so. There was a long pause, then the noise began again, far away to begin with, then getting nearer and nearer.

“They’re coming this way,” the azab mumbled.

They held their peace and strained their ears. The banging was getting nearer, and was turning into the sound of horses galloping. They were even nearer now, right on top of them. The ground began to shake. The chronicler huddled up.

“They’re right above us,” the azab declared.