Toros was beyond despair. His beloved ferry was sinking
before his eyes. His family had run the ferry for over a hundred years and this
was the 5th iteration of the large boats that plied the Turkish Straits. His
ferry had carried kings and queens and now it was being scuttled before his
eyes by the thugs from the army. He was told that it was to keep it out of the
hands of the cursed Ruskies in whose hands they feared it would be used to
bring death to all from across the Bosporus.
Why would he have let that happen? He would have taken
his ferry away from the fighting. Did they really think he was that stupid or
was a spy for the Ruskies up north, their ancient enemy the Cossack? We will
fight them for every inch and they would never have gotten on foot on my
beautiful ferry he fumed inside.
What was he going to tell the family? Should he have
fought an unwinnable fight with these 18 year olds and their pig of an officer?
All that would happen would be a knife in his belly if he had tried to
physically stand up to them. He had seen their kind before. All swagger and
bravado when facing an old man but just wait until they faced an 18-year-old Ruskies
driving a tank, then we’d see how brave they were. He could hear shouts all
along the waterfront as barge and ferry were scuttled. The weeping and wailing
was deafening as it bounced off a passing freighter, which made them even weep
louder and curse the soldiers harder. How were the fishermen going to fish? How
were the ferryman going to feed their families? The whole waterfront was shut
down and how in Allah's name were the Cossacks going to get across in the first
place. There were no boats on the far side and he could see nothing or imagine
anything that they could use to get across.
His families ferry and heritage, bumped against the rocks
in the causeway as it drifts down to the bottom, one last large jolt causes the
clapper of the bell to hit the side of the rim and to ring one last time. It so
happens that this was the one millionth time exactly, that the bell had rung,
and its last. This particular bell was made from the canons of Constantinople.
The irony was that these cannons were originally made from the Christian bells
of this same city. The bells were melted down, some more chemicals and the zinc
and copper levels adjusted and poured into the cannons that manned the walls
for centuries. As brass cannons were replaced the metal was remolded and used
in Ottoman Tombak and bells.
This form of brass called tombak is easy and soft to work
by hand: hand tools can easily punch, cut, enamel, repousse, engrave, gilt or
etch it. It has a higher sheen than most brasses or copper, and does not easily
tarnish. Some of the greatest works of art to come out of the Ottoman Empire
were made from tombak. It is a beautiful medium to work with and to create some
of the most beautiful, intricate and prized works of art man has ever imagined
much less created.
Another use is just as creative yet very destructive to
individuals, the full metal jacket. Gilding metal is a type of tombak which is
one of the most common jacketing materials for jacketed hollow point bullets
which the Hague Convention of 1899 prohibited using. These are the kind of bullets
that easily flattened and expanded in the body. That rip a person’s insides to
shreds once they penetrate the skin. Expanding to triple the size they enter
as. A monstrous invention on the par of shrapnel and napalm.
As with most inventions of man, Tombak can be used to
create things of great beauty and to kill and maim.
In less than a week Toros and all he knew would be dead,
burned or blown to bits. His wife, 3 children, mother, 2 sisters and 13 cousin’s
aunts and uncles. His ferry would not even be a footnote in history even after
serving kings, queens, the rich and the poor. Not a picture or even a clear
memory would remain of his movable floating bridge between east and west. Luckily,
he would be the first to die and none of this would enter his mortal life and
spiritual memory. He would not take to the grave all the tragedies that were
about to be endured by his family. We don’t even know Toros or his boats given
name.
All Toros knew is that his ferry was sinking and so was
his livelihood and his families future, the feared and hated Russki were a few
hundred meters away and about to attack. His wonderful ship's bell rang one
last time before it was swallowed up by the waters of the Bosporus. One last
clear tolling of his beloved bell.
“Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in
mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee. . . . from Meditation 17 by John Donne”
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