Forty Days of Musa Dagh (59 page)

 

 

His light hand, a miracle of tender awakenings, passed stroking down
the length of her arm, over her breast, down to her hips. She broke into
babbling sobs. Gonzague comforted her:

 

 

"You've still got time, yet, to make up your mind. Seven long days. And
after all, who knows what may happen in the meantime . . ."

 

 

 

 

Ter Haigasun after a long interval had summoned the entire Council of
Leaders. They sat on the long bench in the council-room of the government
hut. Only Apothecary Krikor, as his habit was, heard the discussion
from his sleeping-apartment, without himself saying a word. The sage,
it appeared, had, with the object of perfecting his inner life, almost
entirely renounced human contacts. He spoke to scarcely anyone now
but himself, though in the depth of night his soliloquies went on and
on. Nobody hearing them would have been in the least the wiser. For
Krikor merely ranged long lines of imposing encyclopaedic concepts in,
so to speak, dreamy single file. As for instance: "Burning core of the
earth -- celestial axis -- swarm of the Pleiades -- fructification of
blossom . . ." Such high-sounding concepts seemed to raise Krikor's soul
above itself, bringing it nearer the underlying cause of all things. He
tossed them in the air. They hovered in swarms above his head. Out of them
he fashioned a dome, set with the glimmering mosaics of Science, under
which he lay with the enigmatic smile of a Buddhist priest. There exists
a degree of ascetic perfection too elevated to permit of its being shared,
since everything exalted is also asocial. Krikor had perhaps attained it,
he no longer taught. The Leaders, his former disciples, never came near
him now, or eyen inquired for him. The days were done when, on nightly
walks with Oskanian, Shatakhian, Asayan, and other dust-devouring mortals,
Krikor had named the stars and numbered them, out of his own mind. Now
these giant stars, these giant worlds, circled in silence within his
brain, and the sage had ceased to feel any pricking urge to give of them
enthusiastic tidings. Krikor scarcely got an hour's sleep. A fierce
pain, worse every day, cramped his joints and tendons. When, noticing
he was ill, his old friend Bedros Altouni asked medical questions,
he received a triumphant Latin answer: "Rheumatismus articulorum et
musculorum." Not a word of complaint passed Krikor's lips. He had been
sent this illness to preserve the supremacy of the spirit. It had no other
consequence. Everything around him drifted away. Reality grew buzzingly
remote. So that, as, for instance today, the men sat discussing, he heard
their words with the staring eyes, the uncomprehending, muttering lips,
of a deaf-mute. It was as though the words which expressed such earthly
necessity had almost ceased to have a meaning.

 

 

This time they talked for hours. Avakian and the parish clerk of Yoghonoluk
sat apart, taking notes of their chief resolutions, to be shaped into
minutes. The camp guard had been posted outside the government hut --
a personal edict of Ter Haigasun. Since their priest was not given to formal
gestures, it must be supposed that he had some good and far-sighted reason
for taking this protective measure. Today the guard had only the duty of
shielding the Council from interruption, keeping unauthorized persons
out of the hut. Later, more dangerous sittings might have to be held,
on days when the Council needed protection. Ter Haigasun presided with
half-shut eyes, as frostily weary-looking as ever. Pastor Aram Tomasian,
as chief supervisor of the domestic economy of the camp, read out his
report on the state of food supplies, which the priest had set down as
the first item on the agenda. He gave an exact picture. Following on the
first, disastrous hailstorm, the direct hit of the shrapnel had not only
destroyed their remaining flour, but all their other precious stores:
all oil, all wine, sugar, honey, and -- apart from unnecessary things
like tobacco and coffee -- that first of all necessities, salt. There was
only enough salt left to cure their meat for three more days. And the meat
itself, which every stomach already rebelled against, was diminishing at
a really alarming extent. The mukhtars, who were present, had arranged
a count of remaining cattle, and reckoned that, since they had lived on
Musa Dagh, the collective herds had shrunk by a third. Such economy could
no longer continue, as supplies would very soon be exhausted. The pastor
asked the mukhtar, Thomas Kebussyan, as an expert breeder, to explain the
state of the herds. Kebussyan stood up, wagged his head. His squinting
peasant's eyes stared at all and nobody. He launched out on a string
of moving complaints over the loss of his own beautiful sheep, which
it had taken him so many years of industrious breeding to rear. In the
golden days before the migration, a full-grown wether had weighed anything
from forty-five to fifty okas. Now it scarcely weighed half that. The
mukhtar attributed this to two special reasons. The first of these was
sentimental. This cursed communal ownership -- not that he did not admit
that it was necessary -- was bad for the sheep. He knew his sheep. They
were getting thin because they belonged to nobody, because they couldn't
feel any master worrying about them, their good or bad health. His second
reason was less political, more enlightening. All the best pasture in the
enclosure, which had not only to feed the sheep, but goats and donkeys
into the bargain, was almost cropped down. The sheep were being badly
foddered; how could they be expected to put on fat, or tender flesh
even? And it wasn't any better with the milk. You couldn't so much as
think of butter or cheese any longer, Kebussyan concluded in a whine;
some other pasturage was essential if they wanted to improve the condition
of the stock.

 

 

Gabriel opposed this very decisively. These weren't the piping times of
peace; at best this was life in a Noah's Ark, on a deluge of blood. There
could be no question of allowing people or herds to stray as they pleased.
Turkish spies were all round the camp enclosure. To let the herds graze
outside that enclosure, especially on the northerly heights, would be
more of a risk than anyone dare take on himself. Damn it! There must
surely be some other pasturage, within the camp. Couldn't they drive
the herds up the steeps?

 

 

"The grass up there is short and all burnt out," interrupted the Mukhtar
of Habibli, "even camels couldn't manage it."

 

 

Gabriel refused to be led astray. "Better that we should have less meat
than none at all!"

 

 

Ter Haigasun endorsed Bagradian's warning and asked the pastor to finish
his report. Aram went on to the lack of bread, and the consequences
of unmixed meat-eating. There were a hundred reasons, besides this
diminishing of the herds, for trying to find some other food besides
meat. Forays into the valley were out of the question, now that the
villages were reoccupied. On the other hand Bedros Altouni would agree
with him that the people's health would be bound to suffer in the end,
unless some other food could be found. They could see for themselves how
much sallower and thinner people were looking. They must all have felt
it. So that a change of diet would have to be made possible at all costs.

 

 

And Pastor Tomasian had a scheme. So far they had all neglected the sea.
At certain points along the cliffs it was possible to climb down to it
in half an hour. He himself had discovered a disused mule-track which
could easily be built up and made fit to use. What was the good of having
skilled road-menders both among the villagers and deserters? Two days'
work, and there would be a very easy road down to the beach. They must
form a group of young people, the strongest women and biggest lads of
the cohort of youth, to lay out a salting-ground down in the hollow under
the cliffs. A raft, knocked together out of tree trunks and a few oars,
would be enough to put out to a calmer place, a few hundred yards out to
sea. The women could set to work that very day making draw-nets. There was
plenty of twine in the camp. And another thing! He, Aram, remembered that
as a boy he had always been out stoning birds. The boys of Yoghonoluk
must be much the same nowadays. Well, let them all bring out their
catapults! Instead of hanging about and getting under people's feet,
the lads ought all to be out bird-killing.

 

 

The pastor's suggestions were applauded and discussed in detail.
The Council empowered him to organize these projects for food supplies.
Then Bedros Altouni gave his health report. Of the twenty-four wounded
in the last battle all, thank God, except four, who were still feverish,
were out of danger. Twenty-eight he had already sent back home, to be
looked after by their families. They would soon all be ready for the
line again. But what gave the doctor cause for far worse uneasiness
was the strange new illness brought into camp by a young deserter from
Aleppo. Since last night the boy had been on the point of death, and was
probably dead by this time. But worse still, the other hospital patients
had begun to show signs of being infected by him; cases of sudden vomiting
and high fever and choking fits. So it must be a case of that epidemic
of which he now remembered seeing accounts, in the last few months, in
Aleppo newspapers. But one epidemic of this description was as dangerous
to the camp as were the Turks. Early that morning therefore he had made
arrangements for the strictest isolation of all these cases. Far from
the Town Enclosure, as everyone knew, there was a small, shady boxwood,
with a stream between two high mounds. It was well out of the way of
both the decads and workers. He suggested that the Council form a group
of hospital attendants, out of all the least useful people in camp,
who must also be kept apart from everyone else. Bedros gave Kevork,
the sunflower-dancer, as an instance of the kind of person he meant.
He obviously would be ideal as a nurse. He turned to Gabriel.

 

 

"My friend, I must ask you particularly to beg Juliette Hanum not to come
back to the hospital tent. I shall be losing a very good assistant. But
frankly her health is more important to me than her help. Even apart
from any danger of infection, I'm worried about your wife, my son!
We others are a hardy sort of people, and scarcely a mile away from our
homes. But your wife has changed a good deal since we've been on the
Damlayik. She sometimes gives me very queer answers, and she seems not
only to suffer physically. She isn't strong enough for this life. How could
she possibly be? I advise you to look after her more. The best thing for her
would be to stay in bed all day, and read novels, and get her mind far away
from here. Luckily Krikor could supply a whole townful of ladies with enough
French novels to make them forget their troubles."

 

 

Altouni's warning startled Gabriel into a sense of guilt. He remembered
that it was almost two days since he had last spoken to Juliette.

 

 

Hapeth Shatakhian now began a vehement complaint at the undisciplined state
of the boys. Impossible to make them come to school. Ever since Stephan
Bagradian and Haik had captured the howitzers, the whole cohort of youth
had got out of hand. They felt themselves full-grown fighters, and were
constantly cheeky to the grown-ups.

 

 

The mukhtars fully endorsed the teacher's complaint. "Where are the days,"
yammered he of Bitias, "when boys weren't even allowed to speak to men,
but had to use humble signs in addressing them?"

 

 

But Ter Haigasun did not feel the problem of sufficient immediate urgency
to discuss. Suddenly he asked Bagradian: "How does our defence really stand?
What's the longest you'll be able to hold out against the Turks?"

 

 

"I can't answer that, Ter Haigasun. Defence always depends on attack."

 

 

Ter Haigasun turned shyly resolute eyes, the eyes of a priest, directly
on Gabriel. "Gabriel Bagradian, tell us what you really think."

 

 

"I have no reason to want to spare the Council, Ter Haigasun. I'm perfectly
sure our position is desperate."

 

 

Then Gabriel made an important suggestion. Absurd as the hope of rescue
might appear, the Council must not allow itself to await inevitable
destruction in effortless indolence. To be sure the sea looked as horribly
empty as though ships had never been invented. But no stone must be left
unturned. And after all, God knew whether, against all probability, there
might not be an Allied torpedo boat outside the Gulf of Alexandretta.

 

 

"It's our duty to suppose there is, and it's our duty to act on the
supposition, and not miss a possible chance. And then what about Mr. Jackson,
the American Chief Consul in Aleppo? Has he heard of these Christian fighters
in need on Musa Dagh? It's our duty to let him know about us and demand
protection from the American government."

 

 

So Gabriel explained his plan: two groups of messengers would have to be
sent out, one to Alexandretta, the other to Aleppo -- the best swimmers
to Alexandretta, the best runners to Aleppo. The swimmers' task would
be easier, since the Gulf of Alexandretta was only thirty-five English
miles to the north, and they could find their way across the summits
of almost deserted mountains. Their real object would be to swim out
to any warship in the gulf. It would need the greatest strength and
determination. The runners to Aleppo would not need to be so determined,
but they would have an eighty-five-mile road to cover and would be able
to walk only at night, never using the highroad, and in constant danger
of being shot. If these couriers managed to reach Jackson's house,
the camp might be as good as saved.