Zone by Mathias Enard Read Free Book Online Page A

where darkness is settling in, summer sunsets over the sea near Troy were much more beautiful—Apollo the archer of the East also guided the Turkish artillerymen near the well-guarded Dardanelles, on the banks of the Scamander, facing Cape Helles where the monument to unknown soldiers of the battle of Gallipoli stands, white as a lighthouse, you can read over 2,000 British names there for as many bodies whose remains are scattered throughout the peninsula along with the dusty bones of 1,200 unidentifiable Frenchmen from the years 1915-1916, before the Eastern Expeditionary Corps gave up and went to try its luck near Thessalonica in support of the Serbs against the Bulgarians, leaving the Dardanelles and the Bosporus inviolate after ten months of battle and 150,000 French, Algerian, Senegalese, English, Australian, New Zealanders, Sikh, Hindu, Turkish, Albanian, Arab, and German corpses, like so many Boeotians, Mycenaeans, brave Arcadians, or magnanimous Cephallenians against the Dardanians, Thracians, Pelasgians with the furious javelins, or Lycians come from afar, guided by the spear of blameless Sarpedon, but the Allies didn’t have the patience to wait ten years, the battle of the Dardanelles or of Gallipoli was savage and quick, it began with a naval attempt to force a passage through the Dardanelles on March 18 th , 1915 at 10:30 in the morning: British and French ships began advancing in three lines and shelling the Ottoman forts port and starboard, blindly, to try to put their mobile batteries out of operation, the giant marine cannon shells—305 millimeters, 200 kilos of explosive—were so powerful that the houses in neighboring villages collapsed from the concussions, Hephaestus himself was breathing on his forge, the earth trembled and Seyit Çabuk Havranli the Turkish artilleryman, from the height of the fort of Rumeli Mecidiye, watched the heavy vessels immobilized at every volley on the impenetrable sea, he saw the battleship Bouvet strike a floating mine and disappear with all hands in less than six minutes, 550 men carried down in an armor-plated coffin, eighty meters deep among the jellyfish, the gunner Seyit and his comrades hammered the seaboard with huge shells until a volley aimed at the HMS Ocean damaged the gun: the handcar that brought ammunition up to the breech is hit, impossible to transport the warheads, but artilleryman Seyit is a lumberjack from the slopes of Mount Ida, a descendant of the Mysians of Troy, he takes the 200 kilos of metal and explosives on his back he suffers he bends beneath it Zeus himself helps him and encourages him Seyit carries his burden into the still burning soul of the cannon loads the gun that the firing officer points at the HMS Ocean motionless in the middle of the strait, it too has just hit a mine: Apollo guides the Turkish arrow towards the British destroyer, the 400 pounds explode on the stern of the English battleship which loses its rudder and springs a giant leak, the entire aft is flooded in a few seconds: drifting, threatened by mines, the Ocean would sink a few hours later, making Koca Seyit from Havran lumberjack of Mount Ida a hero— Koca the giant has served since 1912 as a simple soldier, he fought the Serbs and the Bulgarians in the Balkans, his head shaved, with a proud mustache, the Turkish army desperate for glory immediately promoted him to onbaşi , corporal, I wonder what the giant of Mysia thought when the journalists from Istanbul arrived to photograph him, in a photo from then he looks embarrassed, modest, not very big either, the propaganda reporters want to immortalize him with a mortar shell in his arms, they try but Seyit can’t manage to repeat the exploit, Zeus is no longer there to help him, the shell weighs too much, fear not, they make a wooden replica that the little corporal takes on his back, the photographer triggers his apparatus and forever humiliates Seyit of Havran by transforming him into a liar for posterity, into a