Forty Days of Musa Dagh (100 page)

 

 

Oskanian stopped at the oatmeal. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
He slapped his knee mournfully. "Finish it! Finish it all!"

 

 

And Sarkis Kilikian answered, in a very monosyllabic growl: "We mean to . . .
tomorrow evening."

 

 

The little teacher's hands turned cold as ice as he heard this sleepily
casual remark. Nor did they become any warmer when Kilikian, in four curt,
casual sentences, explained their intentions. Oskanian's round, pebble
eyes stared as intently at the Russian as though his ears were not enough
to listen with. Yet what he heard had for long been common talk among the
men of the South Bastion. Sarkis Kilikian the deserter, and a few others
under his influence, had had quite enough of the Damlayik. They intended
to get away early before it was light, on the morning after the following
day. The basest treachery to the commune! Perhaps only Kilikian had this
feeling, to some slight degree. The others merely saw Musa Dagh, not as
a fortified camp, in which they had pledged themselves to hold out, but
as a temporary shelter, paid for at the very high rental of nearly forty
days' fighting service. Now they were hungry. Famine had, in a sense,
dissolved the contract. For several days no food had come down to them
from their hosts save a few heaps of repulsive bones. Were they really
to be asked to starve slowly, merely in order to fall into Turkish hands?
What did they care for the people of the seven villages? Only a few of
them had belonged to the Armenian valley. After all, before Ter Haigasun
and Bagradian had come to take possession of the Damlayik, they had lived
fairly well on the mountain. Not a man of them had the least intention
of sharing the fate of the five thousand. Why should they? They could so
easily save their own skins. It merely meant that they returned to the old
life -- the life before the forty days. Beyond the Orontes, to the south,
there extended the barren heights of Jebel el Akra, ridge upon ridge,
almost as far as Latakia. This Jebel el Akra was not well watered and
green like Musa Dagh, but barren, trackless, ragged, and so the place for
refugees. Quite a simple plan. In the night, about a hundred strong, they
would descend on the Orontes plain, past Habaste and the ruins. Since all
the troops in the valley were concentrated round the northern heights,
there would probably be only a few pickets of saptiehs on night duty
guarding the edge of the mountain and the Orontes bridge at El Eskel. Not
much fear of dangerous resistance! Whether or not they had to fight their
way, the hundred could no doubt soon be across the narrow plain and have
reached the mountains by sunrise. During their secret discussion a few
of the more scrupulous among them had asked if it might perhaps not be
permissible to warn the Council of their decision. This mere question
had nearly led to their being thrashed. What would have been the results
of such stupidity?

 

 

And this criminal element refused to be satisfied with mere disappearance
into the night. It had serious reasons to back its policy. First, there was
the question of munitions. On that would depend the future existence of any
vagrant robber band. That was the real meaning of the demand made by the
long-haired thief with such cringing insolence to Gabriel, on the day
their forbidden bonfire had been extinguished. Chaush Nurhan issued
cartridges very sparingly. Only when a fight had almost begun, were
munitions brought into the trench, and even then someone in the confidence
of the leaders would distribute as few of them as possible. These deserters
at present had only about five shots to a rifle. An impossible state of
affairs! But in the government hut the lockers stood one above the other,
there were troughs of cartridges. Nurhan's "factory" had worked on without
a break, not only filling the used cases, but making fresh bullets for
them to fire. The deserters felt it unavoidably necessary to supplement
their present supplies from the camp armory. With that object they must
visit the government hut; when and how still seemed undecided. And at
the same time they could take a look round the enclosure, to see if this
or that might not be worth carrying. A prolonged sojourn on the barren
heights of Jebel el Akra would demand certain necessary implements, which
the people here in camp, whose fate was sealed, could have no possible
further use for. And, while they were looking round the enclosure,
they could always keep their eyes open for certain unpopular public
figures. Ter Haigasun, for instance. The priest had never pretended
to like deserters. He had taken every possible chance of bringing the
rigors of camp life home to them. You might reckon that the South Bastion
as a whole had had five fast days to put up with. Nor had Ter Haigasun
scrupled to sentence one or another of its garrison to a sharp dose of
bastinado. It could do no possible harm to settle accounts.

 

 

Sarkis Kilikian still lay on his back, heeding neither Oskanian's
conversation nor the dark hints of the long-haired thief. Had any mortal
been able to look into his mind, he would have found nothing there except
impatience. His impatience was that of the scurrying clouds above his
head. The brain behind that extinguished mask was restless with longing
to break out of one jail into the next.

 

 

The teacher had long since scrambled up on to his thin little legs.
And he jutted his pigeon breast, as if to show that he, the panegyrist of
suicide, would shrink from no deed, however bold. He stood there pursing
his lips and wagging his head at them. He never stirred to warn the camp.
Kilikian and the others must take this as a sign of admiration. The thought
of giving the alarm fluttered behind the teacher's forehead like a caught
bird. Against it his perpetual vain terror of being thought weak by Kilikian
and the other "daredevils" -- he a "daredevil" among the rest! So that then,
against his better judgment, a piece of vague but still profoundly
treacherous information slipped out of him:

 

 

"Tomorrow in the late afternoon, Ter Haigasun has arranged a special Mass
of petition. But the decads are to stay in the trenches."

 

 

One of the other "daredevils" answered Oskanian's self-abasement
appropriately: "Well, then, you'll stay here with us till tomorrow, see!
So that we can be sure you'll keep your mouth shut."

 

 

The deserters shoved their government commissar in front of them back to
their trenches. They need not have troubled to do this, since he came as
a voluntary prisoner, without thoughts of escape. And they never once let
him out of their sight. He sat perched glumly on an observation post,
staring down at the narrow ribbon of highroad, far below, which leads
from Antakiya to Suedia. Hatred of Gabriel, Juliette, Ter Haigasun,
suddenly seemed to have flickered out of his heart. Fear had replaced
it. He prayed that the Turks might attack. But they seemed to have no
intention at all of breaking their heads a second time against the rocks
of this barren slope. There was peaceful traffic on the road through the
Orontes plain. Oxcarts, sumpter mules, two camels even, took their slow
way to market at Suedia, as though on Musa Dagh there were not so much
as an Armenian. Only near Yedidje, at the foot of the outer slopes of
the mountain, did a tiny dust-cloud suddenly rise. As it settled again,
a small, grey army car could be distinguished.

 

 

 

 

It had dawned, the fortieth day on Musa Dagh, the eighth of Septemher,
the third of famine. Today the women had not troubled to go in search of
unnutritious herbs from which to concoct a bitter tea. Spring water was
just as filling. All still able to stand clustered round the various
well-springs -- old men, mothers, girls, children. It was a queer
sight. Again and again, one after another, these exhausted faces bent
down to the water-jets to drink without thirst, out of hollow hands,
as though to drink were an urgent duty. Many lay down flat, breathing
heavily, feeling that their bodies were like some porous clay that
stiffened slowly in the air. Others dreamed happily. They felt certain
that now they were growing wings, that as soon as ever they liked they
could spread them for a short blissful flight. Over them all lay a
veil of gentle slowness. The small children were all fast asleep; the
bigger ones had ceased to be noisy. That morning three old people died,
and two sucklings. The mothers kept their wretched creatures pressed
against empty breasts until they stiffened and became cold.

 

 

In contrast to these in the Town Enclosure, the men out in the trenches
had still life and energy enough in them. Though they, too, were anything
but sated. The meat ration and the remains of Gabriel's tinned food had
not been even enough to take the first edge off their hunger. Yet these
privations produced a strange mentality in the fighters. They inspired
them with a crazy longing to do battle, get things settled once and for
all. This new state of things had at least the advantage that Gabriel
could arrange his proposed night-raid without having to trouble himself
with the question whether or not the people would elect to leave the
Damlayik. He was sure of his fighters. He had planned the attack for
that same night.

 

 

So every detail of this raid into the valley was discussed. He had forgotten
nothing. Every man had his place, and every minute had been considered.
Nothing had been left to chance.

 

 

He had decided to keep the Turks occupied all that day, and alarm
them, on the northern heights, with sudden bursts of firing and shows
of attack, to get them to move as many troops as possible out of the
valley. Unexpectedly they anticipated his wishes and performed this
tactic of themselves. Their preparations plainly showed that, within
the next twenty-four hours, everything was going to be decided. The
heights beyond the Saddle were alive with the bustle of trench warfare
before an attack. Over there, the Armenians could catch sight of lines of
infantrymen, slowly and gingerly advancing, dragging thick tree trunks,
stripped of their branches, which they dropped with a clatter on the
hillside. There could be no doubt that these smooth, strong stems were
to be made to serve as moving cover, when the extended lines crawled
on. Gabriel and Chaush Nurhan went from man to man in the front-line
trench, levelling sights to get the distances. Whenever one of the Turks
on the counter-slope ventured too far out from among the trees, they gave
single orders to fire. By midday a few enemies were disposed of. The
one deadly bullet was always answered by a wild, undisciplined volley,
which either passed over the heads of defenders, or spent itself in the
heaped-up stones of the parapets. The fighters perceived with crazy pride
that their new defense works were so strong that it would need artillery
to deal with them. But of that there was still no indication. The strange
dninkenness of hunger produced bouts of madness in these men. They were
eager to use any method of luring the Turks to attack. They climbed
their trench and danced on the parapet; many ventured far out into the
obstacle zone. The Turks refused to be enticed.

 

 

At about midday Ter Haigasun came to visit the trench. Gabriel asked him
to say a prayer in their midst, since the decads would not be present that
afternoon at the great service of petition. He prayed with them. Gabriel
had also to tell the priest that these men's votes need not be taken at
the plebiscite, since they had announced their decision through Chaush
Nurhan of going wherever their leader might care to take them. Ter Haigasun
was surprised at Gabriel's energy; the leader glowed with the excitement
of coming action. Only a few days back he had still believed that his soul
had not the raw strength needed to recover from Stephan's horrible death.
But on his way back to the enclosure Ter Haigasun knew that Bagradian's
soul had withstood nothing but itself, and even that, perhaps, for no
more than these last few hours of intensity.

 

 

 

 

General Ali Risa Bey was one of the youngest brigadier-generals of
the Turkish army. He was not yet forty. But Ali, both in appearance
and mentality, was the exact opposite of his chief, the picturesque
dictator of Syria. He was, up to a point, representative of the very
latest, most European type of soldier. It was only necessary to watch
him walk up and down, as he did at present, in the selamlik of Villa
Bagradian, where a subdued officers' council followed his steps with
timid eyes, to perceive his mentality. And the whole difference became
apparent when one compared this young general with, for instance,
the wounded yüs-bashi, whose arm was still bandaged, and who waited,
in the respectful posture prescribed, on some stray remark from his
superior. This major, with his cigarette-stained fingers, his tired and
dissipated face, had something forlorn and slightly soiled about him,
when contrasted with Ali Risa Bey. And now, impatiently, the general
pushed open the drawing-room windows to let out the clouds of smoke,
with which the other officers filled the room. He neither smoked nor
drank; he loved neither woman nor man; and it was said that, because of
a weak stomach, he lived exclusively on raw goat's milk. A translucent
ascetic of war. The onbashi came in to him with a report.

 

 

The general glanced at it; he compressed thin lips. "We've just had some
losses from an Armenian attack in the north. . . . I intend to make company
commanders strictly responsible for this sort of thing. . . . I hope you
gentlemen will all take note of what I say: I've promised His Excellency
that not a single man on our side shall be sacrificed in this whole action.
. . . We're clearing out a camp of scoundrelly mutineers. . . . Anything
else would be sheer disgrace. . . . Disgraceful enough to have let it get
so far."