Evan's Gallipoli by Kerry Greenwood

did not offer tea, even though Isaiah is a Jew and therefore not fasting. We can’t do any cooking until this evening so we kept walking. We came into the village of Bolayir and there were no old men sitting in the shade drinking tea. We heard the muezzin calling people to prayer and Abdul made an excuse and left us. I suppose he will catch up later. I think he has gone to church. We rested for a while and then went on. The old men are so slow. My feet are itching to move faster. Behind us our pursuers may be gaining on us and we potter along so slowly that a snail would zoom past us. Father and Isaiah talk all the time but I do not know Hebrew. I wonder where Abdul has got to?
    July 26th
    Abdul arrived as I was cooking the chicken. It just fitted into my pot. I found some leaves to flavour it. Father had the leftover bean stew from yesterday. I was so hungry I could have eaten the whole bird myself. Abdul came into the camp and just sat down as if he hadn’t been away. He had brought some bread and grapes with him. I served out the chicken. Then he said, ‘In my home, we always had chicken to break our fast. My mother’s cook had a special recipe. This tastes like it. How did you do it?’ And I was pleased because he was talking to me again and I told him about the herbs—marjoram and mint—I had found growing by the wayside. Isaiah called me a wise boy. Then Abdul said that any mother would be pleased to have me as a son. He still edges away from Isaiah, though. He says it’s because Isaiah is a Jew. I told him that Father and I were Christians really. He already knows that. Abdul said that we are all People of the Book— Kitabin Insalari —but that Jews and Christians pay a special tax because they are not Muslims. Isaiah said that it was cheap at the price because Turkey was a beautiful country and Abdul agreed. It was a nice dinner. Father prayed after we had settled down to sleep. His prayers are always for peace. I prayed, too. So did Abdul and maybe that was what Isaiah was muttering also. Someone should be listening.
    July 27th
    It has got so hot that we have divided the day differently, just as we would in Australia in the summer. We walk in the early morning, then sleep in some hedgerow or olive grove until later in the afternoon, then walk until dark. In this way we covered I reckon about ten miles today. There were no villages, just little farmsteads. A Turkish farm is just like any other farm, except there are never any pigs. Jews can’t eat pork either, I find, so there’s only me pining for bacon. Abdul has never tasted it. This seems a pity. The farmhouse is usually a little white stone building with a red roof. There are always storks building nests on the roof. There is a big vine over the back door and a fig tree and maybe a lemon tree, some olives, a chained fierce dog, a scatter of chickens, a well, and a vegetable garden with a thorn fence to keep out the goats. This does not always work very well as the goats eat the thorns and get in anyway. Goats are like that. Determined. Father actually said something to the purpose today. He said, ‘Each man shall sit down under his own vine and fig tree and the nations shall study war no more.’ Father seems to be happy enough. He will walk if I lead him, sit down and eat and sleep when he is told to. But his mind seems to have gone away. I have to get him back home. I shall just have to be determined, like the goats.
    July 28th
    We had a scare today. We had stopped outside a little farm for Isaiah to sell his wares to the household when a boy shot out of the door and danced around us, chanting, ‘Infidel! infidel! Kill the infidels!’Anywhere else he would have got a clip over the ear for impudence but we just stood and stared at him. My heart was in my mouth. All he had to do was to tell any passing bey about us and we would be killed. Our lives were in the grubby hands of an eight-year-old