The Unit Engineer

One day Adnan told me that Ciray would soon be discharged and that I had been chosen to replace him. From then on I began learning his duties. In practice I served as an engineer, with 140 soldiers working under my instructions each day.

When my townsmen came to visit and found my tent, they exclaimed in wonder, “So you are our engineer!” They were delighted to see me calm and comfortable. Pinhas recalled that during my first service I too had found a good position and used it to help my friends. In particular, he remembered how I had acted against an officer who beat him brutally.

In Siirt I once went several days without seeing Pinhas. When I asked after him, I was told that he had been badly beaten and imprisoned. I found him in his cell and sent in the coat I was wearing. I tried to console him by saying that scarcely any soldier in the Turkish army escaped a beating. Pinhas replied that this was not punishment meant to spur him on but cruelty: the officer had seen him in slippers, though the hospital itself required them, and beaten him until his whole body ached.

That officer often visited me and spoke of his life. Siirt suited him, he said; the hospital supplied everything, leaving his salary untouched, and in six months he intended to take a long leave. When I went to the hospital commander on Pinhas’s behalf, I was so agitated that I addressed him as “Efendi” rather than “Commander.” Were we regarded as infidels, I asked, that Pinhas could be beaten bloody and then thrown into prison?

The commander told me to calm myself and bring him the officer’s patient list. When I returned, he wrote Pinhas a two-day leave pass. The next day the violent officer departed on six months’ leave—far earlier than he had planned. Pinhas embraced me and said that his bones no longer hurt. I brought him to my room to rest, but he said he would endure the same beating again if only that officer would leave.

During their visit to camp, my friends recalled this story and decided they had no cause to worry now. “Everything here is under your command—you are the unit engineer.” We parted in good spirits.

At that time sixty Muslim men from the Hatay region were attached to the unit.¹ The number working under me rose to two hundred. One evening all sixty came to my tent. At first they had been wary of me, they said, but when they saw that I treated everyone equally, they found the courage to speak. They had chosen Turkish over French rule, yet were now called gavur—infidels—and sent into the army.² They asked me to double their workload.

Their spokesman was the hoja, their religious teacher. Thinking that the work was too hard, I offered to reduce it, but he insisted that they wanted the same quota as everyone else, or more. I addressed him as “hojam”—my teacher.³ Many men in camp, I said, had once been wealthy and had never held a pick, but now worked for the homeland. He should console his followers and not regard them as infidels or outsiders. I promised to help them in anything within my power.

The hoja considered my words and thanked me on behalf of his people. Their bitterness had made dark thoughts grow like a snowball, he said, while my advice had offered another view. They apologised and left.

The work advanced into wooded country, and we moved camp closer to the site. Some days we laboured beneath the trees without seeing sunlight. The commander then announced that three hundred men from another battalion would join us and told me to choose two assistants. A second lieutenant and a sergeant major would come to maintain discipline, but in technical matters they too would follow my instructions.

Until then our two hundred men had possessed only four rifles; the three hundred newcomers arrived fully equipped and armed. We marked out their camp. One man from Istanbul named Habut stood out for his extraordinary energy. I taught him the work, and within two days he was leading the entire group to the site. His manner, however, bred resentment. The soldiers confronted me: they would accept twice the work, but would not serve under him.

I replaced Habut. Their output immediately rose, and they completed two days’ work in one. Later they asked me to increase the quota again on condition that they could rest once it was done. Believing piecework would raise productivity further, I agreed.

That day they finished in two hours and vanished into the forest. I increased the quota repeatedly; even at five times a normal day’s work they still completed it within a few hours. I worried how I could explain an empty site if an inspection arrived in the morning. Their officer and I agreed to retain the quota system, but required the men to remain present after finishing.

Thereafter they stacked their tools beside the cart and gathered in the shade. They removed their caps, shook dice inside them, and cast them on the ground. I realised that these men had been removed from regular units for illegal gambling and sent to construction duty. They were hard men; moderation was wiser than tightening discipline.

When the senior officer arrived and saw no work under way, I explained that these soldiers produced ten times as much as the non-Muslims and still found time for their games. Their work was fast, accurate, and sound, so he too saw no reason to change the arrangement.