Forty Days of Musa Dagh (62 page)

 

 

"I am glad I wasn't wrong about you, Sarkis Kilikian. We have you, as much
as anyone, to thank for our success on the fourteenth. Those machines
of yours were a very good invention. I suppose you remembered something
you'd learned at the Seminary? The Roman siege methods, was that it?"

 

 

"Haven't an idea, don't know anything about it," Kilikian grinned.

 

 

"If the Turks don't venture another attack on the south, that'll be your
work, Kilikian."

 

 

This seemed to make some slight impression, but not a pleasant one.
The Russian glanced with dead eyes at Gabriel. "We might have made those
things far better."

 

 

Gabriel felt how inexorably the Russian was rejecting him. He began to be
annoyed at his own weakness, which had nothing to oppose to this. "I suppose
you got some experience of engineering in the boring turrets of the Baku
oil fields?"

 

 

The Russian smirked at him mockingly. "Wasn't even semi-skilled. I was
nothing but an ordinary hand."

 

 

Gabriel pushed some cigarettes across to him. "I've asked you here, Kilikian,
to tell you some intentions of mine with regard to you. It's to be hoped
we'll be getting a few days' peace; but sooner or later they're bound
to start a fresh attack that will make all the others seem like child's
play. Now listen, my son, I intend to give you an extremely responsible
post -- "

 

 

Kilikian emptied his tin mug to the very last drop, set it down reflectively.
"That's your look-out! You're the commandant."

 

 

Meanwhile, the long "churls' table" had begun to get extremely noisy.
These people had become unused to alcohol, and it soon went to their heads.
And Juliette had given orders for a third jar to be unsealed. There were
two very argumentative factions -- optimists and pessimists. Mukhtar
Kebussyan had climbed up on the bench, where he stood swaying and rolling
his bald head. He eyed them all with immense and vacant satisfaction. He
was slyly mysterious:

 

 

"We ought to negotiate. I've been mayor of Yoghonoluk for twelve years.
. . . I've negotiated with the Turks, with the Kaimakam and the müdir . . .
the Kaimakam was always most cordial . . . I was punctual to the minute in
paying in the communal bedel . . . and I used to be taken into his office
-- they all know me -- the whole lot of them -- Kaimakam, Mutessarif,
Wali, Vizir, Sultan -- they all knew I was Thomas Kebussyan! If I go along
to negotiate, they won't do anything to me, they know I'm a taxpayer . . .
you aren't taxpayers, there's no comparison . . ."

 

 

The smaller taxpayers, the village mayors and headmen of minor villages,
were annoyed; they pulled Kebussyan down off his perch. Chaush Nurhan
shouted that he wouldn't stand any more useless people in camp, eating
up the supplies -- he'd make the whole lot of them toe the line, whether
they were seventy years old or not. Laughter. The tipsy row looked as
though it might end in blows. But luckily Gabriel gave orders that no
more of his wine was to be distributed before quickly leaving the table
with Samuel Avakian, who had come to him to whisper some announcement.

 

 

Almost all the notables had retired. Ter Haigasun had stayed just
half an hour. Aram Tomasian had soon followed him and gone back to his
wife in the tent. Gonzague and Juliette sat together. Hrand Oskanian
was still in attendance on Juliette. He sat on the grass at her feet,
and refused to take a place that had been vacated. But suddenly the
silent little schoolmaster scrambled up, with the aid of his musket,
as though a snake had bitten him. He stared in horror at Juliette, then
he turned and left them stiffly. Oskanian had not had much to drink. And
yet, before he had gone a few yards, he was telling himself that what
he supposed he had just seen must have been an illusion, brought on by
wine. It was not to be thought, it was something altogether impossible,
that a fair-haired pale-skinned goddess should sit rubbing an amorous knee
against that of a shady adventurer, her subject, of whose origins no one
knew anything. Yet for all his conclusive reasoning Oskanian's heart was
still beating hard, as he crossed the square before the altar. Juliette,
grown suddenly restless, stood up to say that she must go in to see
Hovsannah, neglected by her culpably all this time.

 

 

The noisy quarrelling and spiteful laughter at the plebeian table was
getting more and more malicious, although all the men had long been
drunk. Several uninvited people, most of them young, had come crowding
in, and they heaped fuel on the flames. The sun sank. It had grown
late. This excited christening party cast wildly contending shadows
across the grass. No doubt a brawl would have begun, had the sound of
a long roll of drums, outside the Town Enclosure, not put a stop to
it. Sudden quiet. "The münadirs," said somebody, and someone else cried
out: "Alarm!" The young men and the old were suddenly startled out of
their quarrelsome forgetfulness of realities. They all went rushing
off excitedly, to take their places in the sections. Pastor Aram was
seen rushing in wild haste towards the Town Enclosure. Within a few
minutes Three-Tent Square was entirely empty. "Alarm!" repeated Gonzague
thoughtfully, and small gold points glinted in the quiet brown depths
of his eyes. This Turkish attack was just what he wanted. This time it
would probably end badly. Oughtn't they to use tonight?

 

 

Krikor could not manage to get up from the table without help. Gonzague
aided him. The old man's agonized legs would not obey him. He would have
collapsed, had not Maris carefully steered him home. Krikor, however,
seemed scarcely to notice that he was in pain. It was nothing more than
an unfortunate contretemps of nature. It took a very long time to get
him to the government hut.

 

 

"Alarm?" he asked as indifferently as though he had scarcely noticed
such a trifle, and so forgotten it again.

 

 

"Alarm!" Gonzague impressed it on his mind. "And this time it's not
going to be a joke."

 

 

The apothecary stopped. His breath failed at every fifth step. "What does it
matter to me?" he breathlessly asked. "Do I belong to them? Of course not!
I belong to myself." And his shaky hand traced a circle round him,
to indicate the exclusive majesty of his ego-world.

 

 

"If I don't believe in evil, there isn't any evil in the world . . .
there isn't any death unless I believe in it. . . . Let them kill me,
I shan't even notice it. . . . Anyone who can get to that point reshapes
the world out of his mind."

 

 

He tried to raise his hands above his head. But in this he failed.
Gonzague, whose whole nature continually prompted him rather to see a
misfortune before it had happened than to let it happen before he saw it,
had understood nothing of all this. And yet he politely asked, to please
the apothecary: "Which of the ancient philosophers were you quoting
then?" The mandarin's mask stared indifferently out through gathering
dusk. The white goatee twitched up and down. The high hollow voice
announced contemptuously: "That was said by a philosopher whom no one
but myself has ever quoted, or ever will quote -- Krikor of Yoghonoluk."

 

 

 

 

Gabriel had ordered the great alarm without having been quite sure
of immediate danger. This time it needed the dark to show him what a
force the Turks had massed -- just how large it was still impossible to
determine -- in the Armenian valley and across the Orontes plain. The
combined regulars and sharpshooters seemed too numerous to be quartered
in villages and so had to camp in the open. The wide half-circle of
their campfires extended from the ruins of Seleucia, almost as far as the
farthest Armenian village, and northwards as far as Kebussiye. By degrees
the spying patrols came in with astounding news. Turkish soldiers had
sprung up suddenly out of nowhere: and not only soldiers but saptiehs
and chettehs, Moslems from all over the countryside, suddenly armed
with bayonets and Mauser rifles. Their officers were forming them into
detachments. The number of armed men could not be estimated. Fantastic
figures went from mouth to mouth. Yet, as Gabriel watched the huge
half-circle of campfires and considered it, these figures seemed not so
fantastic after all. Two things were certain. First, the Turkish commander
had a strong enough force to besiege the Damlayik or storm it from South
Bastion to North Saddle. Secondly, they must feel so vastly superior
as to have no need to protect their advance and attack suddenly. This
open advance, intended (as indeed it did) to fill the Armenians with
consternation, pointed to a definite "case," which Bagradian had already
provided against under the heading "general attack." He had worked it
out and used a defence maneuver. Gabriel felt much calmer than he had
before the two previous attacks, though this time things looked hopeless
for the mountain-folk. After the first alarm he sent his runners out to
the various points of defence, to collect all the leaders and the free
decads at his headquarters. They were quite sober now, and all looked
terrified. Gabriel, as he was empowered constitutionally to do, took
over full control of the camp for the period of battle. He gave orders
that all freshly killed meat was to be got ready during the night. Two
hours before daybreak the trenches must be fully provisioned. Further,
whatever wine or brandy was still available in the camp must be shared
out among the fighters. He placed all the remaining ten-litre jars on
Three-Tent Square at their disposal. (This gift was later to cause the
myth of Bagradian's inexhaustible store of supplies.)

 

 

When decads, group leaders, and the people of the reserve had all assembled,
Gabriel made a short speech. He explained the kind of battle they must
expect, and kept nothing back. He said: "By all human reckonings we have
only the choice between two deaths, between easy death in battle, or a
mean and terrible death by massacre. If we realize this quite clearly --
if we are men enough to make up our minds quite coolly to choose the
first, decent death in the field, then perhaps there'll be a miracle,
and we shan't have to die. . . . But only then, brothers!"

 

 

A new division for the case of a general attack was formed. Chaush Nurhan,
the Lion, was given command of the North Saddle. A further change of
command was that Gabriel entrusted Kilikian, as he had promised to
do a few hours previously, with the important sector above the ilex
gully. Two entirely new fighting groups were constituted, a mobile
guard and a band of komitajis. For the last Nurhan and Bagradian,
remembering the guerrilla troops in the Balkan war, picked out about
a hundred of the most determined men among the decads, the best shots
and most expert climbers. They were to disperse over the whole valley
side of the Damlayik and form ambuscades along the slopes, in tree tops,
behind rocks and bushes, in hollows and folds of the ground. They were
to let the attacking Turkish columns come on undisturbed, then suddenly
open fire on them from behind, if possible from several points at once,
without sparing munitions. Each komitaji was served out with twelve
magazines, that is to say sixty cartridges, a lavish ration under the
circumstances. But this time Bagradian did not propose to stint munitions,
since the coming battle would doubtless bring the final decision, and
he saw no reason for trying to economize bullets. Only a few remnants of
the original cartridges, and those they had plundered, or else refilled,
still remained in the stores. In his simple, logical way he explained
their duties to the sharpshooters, so that each of these youngsters
understood exactly what was wanted. The chief rule was still "a dead man
for every bullet." When the komitajis had been formed, the mobile guard
was picked out from among the decads. Gabriel reduced the garrison in the
South Bastion, whose strong defence works made it an almost impregnable
position, to only the most necessary fighters. The reservists filled
in the gaps. This released about one hundred and fifty rifles for his
mobile guard, which he led in person, and with which he would attack in
any place where the lines seemed menaced. Most of these storm troops
were mounted on the camp donkeys. Donkeys in these parts are not as
slow-footed and obstinate as elsewhere, but will take any pace. The two
groups of the cohort of youth, the orderlies and the section of scouts,
had always to keep at the heels of the guard, so that widely extended
communications between all sections and the command might never be broken.

 

 

Such were the main outlines of this ordre de bataille, already worked
out by Gabriel to meet the case of general attack. He had prepared it all
with the greatest calm, during the first two hours of the night. Lastly he
summoned the whole reserve. It was ordered to vacate the Town Enclosure
by sunrise. One half of it was destined to stand by for action in the
various sectors, the other took up its position on the long reaches
of the high plateau. These strips of ground, which in many places, as
for instance before the ilex gully sector, were only about a thousand
feet wide, formed a very dangerous zone. Here only a few redoubts, or
rather a few loosely piled up stones, defended the Town Enclosure from
assault. When Gabriel had also addressed the reserve, and made them
realize themselves as the final barrier against the worst horrors of
rape and child-slaughter, Nurhan the Lion sounded the bugle call.
Its fierce stutter managed to shape out a few notes of the Turkish
"lights out." This was the order to get to sleep.

 

 

Gabriel went to look at the howitzers. He intended to spend the night
adjusting them. With Nurhan's help he had managed to train a few of the
more intelligent men for artillery duty. The last two scouts were in
before midnight. They reported nothing not known already. The only fresh
details they could give was that the half-moon flag had been hoisted
over Villa Bagradian, that many horses were tethered in a line along the
courtyard, and that officers kept coming in and out. It was therefore
clear that the Turks had made the villa their headquarters. Gabriel
waited for the late rising of the moon. Then, with compasses, he carefully
began to mark out distances on his map, and to draw calculations. A big,
inflated-looking full moon gave enough light to enable him to sight an
auxiliary mark and adjust his guns by it. The men of the battery were
instructed to drag the lockers close up to each gun. There were still
five shrapnel and twenty- three grenades in the boxes. Gabriel had
half these shells placed in a row behind the guns. He went from one to
the other and set the fuse with his clamping key, by the light of his
electric torch. Iskulii appeared as he was doing it. At first he did
not notice she was there. She called to him softly. He took her hand,
and led her far away from the gun, till they were alone. They sat down
under an arbutus bush; it was covered all over with red berries, which,
in the moonlight, had the dead look of drops of sealing wax.