(This is the first chapter of So Many Little Hands, a novel in progress by David C. Brands. For reasons which will appear obvious, the author urges reading it in its entirety. A translation option is available at the end of the post. Revised 9/7/17 Թարգմանությունը տարբերակը հասանելի է ավարտին պաշտոնում.)

Mock-up of jacket cover

Turkey, 1915. For Armenians it was the darkest of times.

Harut was a clever ten year-old. At about four feet tall, with closely-cropped dark hair and a stringy build, he carried himself confidently for such a tender age. His charm with a dash of guile also served him well. Whenever his mother--always the firm but gentle Armenian mother--would discipline Harut, she could never be mad at him for long. Neither could his teachers.

Now he, his mother and two little sisters were dying of thirst and starving. Forcibly removed from their homes, the four had been marching with thousands of others to who-knows-where since July 25. They had tramped over two hundred miles --much of it in circles--on rough roads, cow paths and ancient trails through mountains and valleys in scorching summer heat. The rare downpour was welcome, but the saturated ground made walking treacherous and night bivouacs even filthier than the night before. Worse yet, they were driven like cattle under constant threat of the lash and raids from roving bandits with no real protection for the guards. Most prayed silently that tonight would be peaceful, even though peaceful meant a meal of hard bread and no water. Then there were lice and fleas plus swarms of mosquitoes. 

Harut's once-idyllic life in central Anatolia was beginning to seem more like a fading dream even though it ended just three weeks before. Normally at this time, the carefree summer days of swimming and playing cowboys with friends would give way to preparing for the new school year. But not this year.

Armenian extermination made headlines in America

Two mornings before the deportation, his father was milking the family cow when local zaptiehs dragged him away. Police thugs were raiding other houses in the neighborhood too. Undoubtedly terrified, Harut's father promised his panicked family he would be back for supper but he never returned. Fathers or brothers or uncles never returned once taken. Their only crime in the eyes of Ottoman Turkey was being Armenian and Christian. Yet Harut would see his father again a day after their forlorn convoy embarked.

They were passing a clump of cottonwood trees beside a small, stream-fed pond where shepherds sometimes watered their flocks. Harut remembered it from a short trip they took two summers ago to see relatives in another formerly serene village. As their human caravan passed closer to the trees, he saw what no child--what no grown-up--could have ever imagined before these wretched times. Perched in the crooks of the largest cottonwood were a half-dozen severed heads, three with eyes closed in the neutral expression of death; two with no eyes at all; and the last was frozen in the horror of life's last moments, staring blankly at the passersby. All were unrecognizable except the last one. Harut stopped in his tracks, noticing the oval mole on the left cheek about halfway between his father's mustache and ear.

"Don't look! Don't look! Keep your head down!" Harut's mother hissed. Just then a guard, always looking for a reason to inflict pain, lashed his whip across their backs.

"Keep moving, you filthy giavours or your heads will be decorating the tree!"

Harut's twin sisters--just at five years old--as pure as snow and as delicate as daisies, started crying again. They were stuffed in wicker baskets along with some food and extra clothes that were slung over both sides of the small donkey they were allowed to use. Alhough she made a weak attempt to comfort them, the situation was too much for his mother as well, and she wept openly for the first time since their father had been hauled away. Now any hope of seeing her husband alive had been utterly dashed. There had been something oddly comforting about not knowing: it must have been in the hope that somehow, somewhere, he would step back into her reality. But hope, really, is just an antidote for reality. As for Harut, he could barely process what he had just seen. He was too stunned to cry, at least for the moment.

Now, some twenty days later, he realized the horror of seeing his father's gory head was only a portent of things to follow.  Where more than 6000 Armenians from numerous villages had been en route, now only 1500 still survived.  All of their food had been consumed or stolen by raiding parties in just a week. If they were lucky, the guards would give them crusts of hard, black bread which invariably included straw, insects and dirt baked in and was impossible to digest. Often there was simply nothing to sustain them. Despite pleas to help the young and old who were losing strength by the hour, the gendarmes were unmoved...

One night Harut stole away from camp in search of food for his family. He discovered a prickly pear cactus which are common in Syria. The cactus had no fruit but he did cut away several cactus leaves or “pads” for their moisture and as food. The same night Harut came upon a single mulberry tree beside the ruins of a house. He picked as many mulberries as he could carry and, with the cactus pieces, slipped back into camp. Harut's family feasted in silence. The food acted like a toxic shock to one of the twins, already weakened by typhus, and she succumbed later in her sleep. At daybreak before embarking, a degenerate Turkish guard named Ayberk discovered stains on Harut and his other sister’s face, hands and clothes from the mulberries. As marchers were not allowed food or water for days, the stains were incriminating. A special punishment had to be meted out.

            "I believe there was a crime committed during the night, effendi," Ayberk informed his commander when the march south commenced. "And, of course, I have thought of a most appropriate punishment for the offender."

            "Go ahead, corporal. Explain," replied the lieutenant with a glint of anticipation. Ayberk related little Harut's midnight adventure and suggested a specific plan. It did not take long.

Starving Armenian children

            "It is certainly within the parameters of Sharia Law," surmised the officer with overbearing piety. "And it should be a most appropriate punishment, Inshallah." Then he sent a guard ahead to prepare the village for a change of plans. Today's would not be a normal massacre.

            An hour later the mulasim shouted orders to halt the convoy just outside the village gates. Then he passed word to all police guards that every child between the ages of three and eleven years old were to be herded through the gates and on to the village square.

            The order brought panic among the families. Mothers began moaning and wailing as their young--some urinating in abject fear--were rounded up. Most mothers had to be whipped before relinquishing a screaming girl or squalling boy from their grasp. One who would not let go took a bayonet in the back from an obliging police soldier. The just-orphaned toddler rushed to place a last kiss on her murdered mother as she was carried away.

            Whips cracking, some 700 children or about half of the remaining caravan, were trudged about 500 meters through the village's main avenue toward the public square. Mohammedan boys taunted and spat phlegmy gobs at the little non-believers passing by. Thrown stones met their marks, cutting the head of an innocent here or knocking down another hapless one there. A lone Turkish grandmother sadly mumbled that the wrath of Allah would be met on the people one day and then walked away in disgust.

            Local ruffians waited excitedly at the village common. These included misfits just released from the town jail on the lieutenant's orders, specifically for the event. Each carried either an axe, butcher knife, meat cleaver or even the occasional scimitar. The trunks of two maple and two pine trees recently felled, stripped of branches and drying for winter fuel had been dragged into the square and arranged in parallel about ten feet apart. The Armenian boys and girls were separated by gender at one end of each tree trunk.

            Shaking and whimpering, the children were quickly whipped into order when the haughty mulasim addressed the crowd from his mount.      

            "During our encampment last night a most serious crime was committed by a member of this stinking group of little giavours.  One of these filthy Christ-lovers admittedly slipped into the night, against standing orders, to steal food from the kingdom of Allah," puffed the pompous ass. "Fortunately, the tell-tale stains of berries did not go unnoticed by one of Turkey's finest." The martinet nodded toward Ayberk, who pridefully beamed at the compliment.

            "Therefore, it is in accordance with Sharia Law that this offender's hands be separated from his body as a lesson for such thievery. And, so as not to allow such a heinous crime to be committed by any of his peers for the remainder of this authorized deportation, the hands of all these devious little infidels before us shall be hacked off as well. But first, bring he who is guilty to face justice."

            Several of the older Armenian children knew some Ottoman Turkish. The millet system of interior Turkey allowed minorities to live semi-autonymously among their own ethnic groups. But the few who did comprehend the officer's words began shaking and word spread rapidly. Frantic screams and wails of seven hundred small children could be heard by the adults outside the village. Harut and his sister had been separated and, wracked with guilt, he would never again see her sweet eyes to apologize for her gruesome fate which he had unknowingly caused.  Having kept Harut within his sight, Ayberk snatched him by the neck and dragged him before the group. Shamed as much as horrified, Harut cast his gaze downward, avoiding the eyes of his fellow doomed. The brutish guard pushed Harut to his knees before a center log while another pulled his arms over the trunk. In perfect coordination, two deft whacks of another's ax severed the helpless boy's hands just above the wrists. The surreal micro-moment of seeing his stumped arms before blinding pain struck had loosened his bowels of the once-blessed mulberries whose stains had betrayed him.

            Immediately thereafter, the slaughter began in earnest. A cacophony of hysterical children's voices wailed and screamed and prayed in vain while the organized whack and thwack of chopping arms continued unabated in this demonic, open-air abattoir. By now, many of the onlookers were stunned into silence. 

Murdered Armenian children

"Mother, mother help! They're taking our hands!"

"Mother, where is Jesus? We need him now!" yelled the desperate urchins in vain.

After some four hours, the raucous butchery had been reduced to a low, mournful dirge. Only the most depraved of the village voyeurs watched the butchery to its gory end. Blood and misery was everywhere but work was still to be done. During the horror, many of the hand-less girls had bled to death and were tossed aboard a dozen open wagons. Girls still barely alive were thrown in with the dead and taken to Euphrates where they were dumped en mass--the watery resting place for so many other Armenians during these darkest of times. 
The worst was saved for the boys. Those who had bled out were also thrown on wagons but the barely living were force-marched behind the wagons to an open refuse pit outside town. After emptying all wagons of the dead, the Turks turned to the weakened, blood-soaked remainder of the boys, agonizing in the scorching summer sun. Rather than putting them to the sword, the boys were pushed or thrown in on top of the dead and one other, then doused with kerosene, gasoline and cooking oil--anything flammable the villagers had on hand. Pleased with the day's spectacle and its creator, the cruel lieutenant had Ayberk set the boys alight. In the summer of 1915 in Ottoman Turkey, a bonfire of Armenians was business-as-usual.

The remnants of the sad convoy, helplessly waiting on the outskirts, were ushered through town in time to set up camp on the opposite side before nightfall. The horrific sounds of the afternoon had abated and the Armenians saw none of their precious little ones. Only hundreds and hundreds of bloody, chopped-off hands.

So many little hands.

"Cultured, sympathetic Mohammedans, Turks as well as Arabs, shake their heads disapprovingly, yes, they do not even try to hide their tears when they see these poor deported people traveling through a city, being beaten by the soldiers.... The German Consul at Mossul [sic] told in my presence... that on the way from Mossul to Aleppo he had in many places seen such quantities of chopped off hands of little children that the streets might have been paved with them."

From a letter written by Dr. Martin Niepage, a teacher in a German high school in Turkey quoted in the New York Times, November 12, 1916

David C. Brands