CHAPTER XII THE LONG TRAIL

There was excuse for us to cross Macedonia. Twenty-five thousand peasants from Turkey had taken refuge in Bulgaria, and no correspondent had personal knowledge of the state of affairs that caused this exodus. The Man of Yorkshire and I got together again and appointed a day to start on the journey we had planned long since. We instructed Alexander the Bulgar to appear on the morning with a pair of socks in his pocket. Alexander had the temerity to ask the reason for luggage. We gave him no hint. Alexander was not safe enough to be trusted with the secret. Again we hired a carriage with a Turkish driver to take us to Kalkandele; and again we succeeded in getting out of town while the Turks dozed, bound in an opposite direction.

WAYFARERS AT A ROADSIDE FOUNTAIN: TURKS.

To Egri-Palanka, the frontier town at which we proposed to leave the carriage and take to our legs, was a two days’ journey. We spent the intervening night at a lone khan, miles away from any other habitation. The Turk protested, and attempted to draw up at a Turkish blockhouse, but by vigorous methods we got the horses past this danger spot at a pace which did not give the Turkish officer time to make up his mind.

Stable for beast and stable for man were one and the same at the khan, and the Turk declared the Christian food unfit to eat. We had eggs which had seen better days, gritty black bread, and goat’s milk with wool in it. Alexander and the Turk consumed a quantity of heady wine and advised us to do so, but we liked not the stuff. Supper over, we stretched ourselves out for the night, one upon the table, the rest on benches, the other alternative being the floorless ground. There were no rugs for us to lie on and no covering, and no one thought of undressing.

We had hardly laid ourselves down in this unholy place than the ‘plagues of Egypt gat about us.’ Even across the table from which we had supped half an hour before they came at us in battalions. Alexander and the Turk, insensible with drink, groaned and tossed, but snored nevertheless; sleep, however, was impossible for us. We shook ourselves, unbarred the doors, and escaped to the still high road, which we paced most of the night. It was too cold to sleep.

Through the windows we saw the sleepers by the dim light of a taper, tossing and fighting. This was some comfort to us.

‘I’m glad,’ said the Man of Yorkshire when Alexander the Bulgar emerged much scarred from the battle of the night, hundreds of the enemy lying dead upon the expanse of his sturdy chest, ‘I am glad all was not peaceful with you and the Turk.’

‘You mistake,’ said Alexander; ‘we slept profoundly.’

‘Why, we saw you tossing all night long, and your groans were pitiful.’

‘Ah, monsieur, we drank well at supper; and though the arms moved and the mouth talked the eyes remained closed.’

After vast deviations to ford streams and avoid bridges, we arrived at Egri-Palanka. As we expected, a smiling police officer awaited us on the outskirts of the town. Our escape from Uskub had been discovered, our direction traced, and instructions to turn us back had been wired on. After many gracious bows and compliments, the policeman invited himself into our carriage, and never again left us until we left Egri-Palanka. He conducted us to the khan, where he was joined by several gendarmes. The polite chief introduced us to the others, announcing that they were for our service and safety, and we all salaamed and shook hands.

After a meal, a wash, and a short rest, we went, followed by the gendarmes, to visit the gypsy quarter, the kaimakam, and other sights. When we left the town to climb to the Bulgarian monastery a troop of soldiers suddenly appeared to augment our following. The Englishman and I could have outstripped the ill-conditioned Turks in a mile, but it was part of the game we were playing to pretend to despise walking, and we stopped a dozen times to rest, feigning fatigue.

The high road to Uskub was without a crossing, and when we departed the following day, bound back the way we had come, the authorities of Egri-Palanka seemed relieved and assured. Considering our foreign susceptibilities, our escort did not surround us; it followed at a distance of half a mile.

We pulled up the hood of the carriage—not because of the sun—and hustled the driver. At every stiff hill we got out, to relieve the horses and to get a sight of the party in the rear. They were suffering, apparently, from the pace we were setting. It was extremely hot, and we left them further and further behind. After an hour of this we were quite a mile in the lead.

We had packed our few effects in shape to sling over our shoulders, one sack for Alexander. At a convenient bend in the road we halted our shandrydan, passed Alexander his pack, and handed a letter to the driver. The letter was to be delivered at Uskub that night without fail, and upon the presentation of it he was to receive his fare. Had we paid him he would have gone to Palanka again to pick up another load. This much through the mouth of the equally bewildered Alexander, who was then dragged from the box and hustled through three acres of standing barley before he knew what had got him.

It came off! How we slogged through that corn and down into the valley, looking back, with the perspiration streaming off our faces, to see our driver toiling away through the dust, presenting a large and discreet carriage hood to the unsuspecting escort. Presently a kindly hill shut out the road, and we struck our route by the map and the sun.

Three or four miles up the road the driver would come to the military post already mentioned, where he would halt to feed his horses; the escort would overtake him, and he would tell of our flight. A couple of hours was the most we could count on before the pursuit was started.

What a day of dodging roads and skirting villages, of scrambling up perpendicular mountain sides, and peering for Turkish patrols on the red line of high road below! It was fun the first day. We made a wager of a mijidieh, the optimistic Man of Yorkshire betting that we would not be caught before the night. I lost. I was glad to lose—the first day. We renewed the wager for the following day.

We spied a snug, secluded little village—Christian, because there was no minaret—and dropped down to it at dark. It was Servian, and the Servian schoolmaster gave us supper and shelter.

‘The peasants think you are Bulgarian,’ he said.

‘Committaji?’ we asked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

We told the schoolmaster to persuade them we were not.

There was little danger that they would bring the soldiers down upon us, knowing the habit of the Turk to visit vengeance upon the town that harbours committajis. But we learned that there were three families of Turkish peasants living in the village, and this, indeed, alarmed us. It was quite on the cards that they would trot over to Kratovo, half an hour away, and come back with a cheery gang of Anatolians or Albanians, whose habit in dealing with insurgents is to fire the house in which they are and shoot them as they emerge from the flames.

So we sent our compliments to the Turks (Mohamedans must be treated with deference) and requested them to call; which they did, and were convinced that we were not Bulgarians. Nevertheless, we spent a most uncomfortable night. We lay on the rough gallery rolled in rugs, watching the fireflies and listening for the ‘fire brigade,’ falling asleep from dead weariness and starting out of it at every sound.

We got away from the Servian village early the following morning, taking a guide for the direction in which we were bound, but not divulging our destination. We shook him off when we got the lay of the country and were certain of our maps again.

About noon we dropped, as intended, into the monastery of Lesnova. We sat down by a fountain in the courtyard, the brown-timbered structure enclosing three sides, and over the mud wall on the fourth stretched the valley into the blue distance. A palsied beggar in a filthy state devoured food like a ravenous wolf, washing it down unchewed with great gulps of water. The old abbot who came out to greet us said they could do nothing for the man’s ailments; there are no doctors in the country, and folk who become ill die.

Here we got the first news of events which had driven the Christian peasants to Bulgaria. The story was the same we had heard so often before; nothing new except the details of tortures. Of these there are sufficient in later chapters; for this, the adventure of our long trail.

The monks gave us a good meal, and we slept for an hour on a comfortable divan, for we were footsore already. The soles of my boots and those of Alexander’s—whom we had now come to call ‘Sandy’—had gone, and we were driven to native charruks—which, from their absence of heels, caused me to walk as on eggs for many miles, and made my insteps very sore. The Englishman’s clumsy foot-gear outlasted mine by many hours; still, I do not believe in British boots.

Shortly after one o’clock we were on the climb again, up a decent path for once, which led over a big hill towards the town of Sletovo. A delightful town it appeared, as we looked down from behind a bush at the top of the hill. It was surrounded by tents, with even barracks to add a charm. The first sight of us from one of those tents by any intelligent soldier, and our trekking was over! By great luck a trail led off to the right, which seemed to skirt the tents entirely, and we picked our way cautiously down it, concealed by a shoulder of the hill. At the bottom the trail turned straight into the town. There was another path somewhere to the right leading away; but how to get to it? Just as we had made up our minds for a dash through some corn we came on the connecting link, a dry watercourse, and we were soon on the circular tour. But now, while keenly watching the tents to the left, an ancient tower—probably of Roman antiquity—appeared on our right front. Outside this, with his rifle leaning against the wall, squatted a sentry, dirgeing a dismal Oriental lay. He was not more than two hundred yards off, and commanded a view of our heads and shoulders above the corn; but there was nothing for it except to go ahead. I am confident that I watched that songster with one eye and the town on the opposite side with the other. For five minutes our fate hung on the balance. Our hats were unmistakable; no one but a man from civilisation wears anything with a brim to it in that part of the country. Once his dull eye was caught by our headgear we were booked. But the amiable creature sang on, his mind probably back in Anatolia; and we dropped out of sight to the next stream and took a big drink.

Late that afternoon a few drops of rain came down, a delightful sensation to the parched and dusty ‘foot-slogger’; but presently this increased to sheets of water driven before a cold wind, and for half an hour we clung, soaked, to the slimy face of a bank, with little mud waterfalls dribbling down our necks. Then the storm blew over. The path, awkward at any time, was like a switchback skating-rink, down which we slid and staggered with horrible swoops and marvellous recoveries, to a boiling yellow torrent below, about as fordable as the Mississippi in flood. We had hoped to do a greater distance this day, but neither of us was sorry—though neither of us admitted it—that we had to seek shelter on this side of the stream. There was an attractive-looking place near at hand, but a forbidding minaret stood high above the poplars; and we pushed on to the first Christian village.

We had slogged for two days, travelled for four; we were sore in every joint and muscle, wet to the skin, and chilled to the bone. We began to lose temper with each other, and vented our feelings upon Sandy. We spoke seldom, except at meals, when our spirits revived, and in the fresh hours of the morning. Now we were sour and snappish, and each disagreed with whatever the other proposed. The constant strain and the heavy marching were beginning to tell on our dispositions. And we had hardly begun our journey. I was sorry I lost the bet. Perhaps the other man was too.

IN A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE: BULGARIAN PEASANTS DANCING THE HORO.

The headman of a Bulgarian village received us with the hand-shake that is the sign of friendship. He thought we were insurgents. They were harbouring one in the village. Sitting on a wooden platform under the low thatch of his roof, we pulled off our wringing things to the last stitch, half the village looking on, absorbed and unabashed. Clad in our ‘other’ shirts (which were fortunately dry), we scrambled through the stable to an opening through which we could discern a fire burning. Our host’s wooden sandals were not easy to keep a balance on. With smarting eyes I groped through the smoke towards the ‘window,’ a two-foot hole for chickens in the wall on the ground level, and sat, feet outstretched towards the wood fire in the middle of the hard earth floor. By degrees I made out the hostess hanging up our garments to dry. The other man crawled towards me, and we sat coughing and blinking at the native bread-making. A flat, round, earthen dish was made red hot on the fire, then taken off and the dough slapped into it. A lid was then buried in the embers, and, when hot enough, put on the top of the dough. This primitive oven turns out a fine crust, but the middle of the loaf is very pasty.

Sandy now appeared with an armful of wet things, and hung the hats on a bundle of clothes and wrappings by the fire, which began to squeal. We discovered that this was the youngest member of the family, fast approaching a score in number.

After the row had died down we gathered that our ‘room’ was prepared. This consisted of the usual mud floor and walls, with a straw mat and home-made rugs to sleep on, and a couple of red bolsters. Here we sprawled and supped under the interested eyes of a donkey and a bundle of torch-lit natives who squatted outside the door.

In the morning our toilets caused much amusement. The assembly—which, for aught I know, watched us through the entire night—was much puzzled over what it seemed to think was an attempt on my part to swallow a small brush greased with pink paste. It broke into a general laugh when I parted my hair, being sure I was combing it for another reason.

One of the patrols which was sent out after us—we learned later—arrived at this village an hour after we left; but the peasants had no idea whither we had gone.

The torrential stream had subsided into a babbling brook when we forded it, about eight o’clock, and boldly took the high road to Kotchana. We were weary of rough mountain paths, and kept this course until within dangerous proximity of the town, then struck off into the fields—this time rice fields. It was the season when the fields were flooded, and the only way across was by the tops of the embankments, which held us high to the view of anyone in the neighbourhood. We had gone too far to retrace our steps when we discovered we were in Turkish fields. We came suddenly to a dry patch of ground. A score or more Turkish women, their veils slung back over their shoulders, their loose black cloaks laid to one side, were working the ground in their gaudy bloomers. At sight of us there was a wild flutter for veils—but not a sound.

We maintained our well-drilled blankness of expression and passed on, soldiers three, single file. I was in advance breaking through the weeds when I stumbled upon the husband of the harem. The bey was lying supine upon his back in the grass, a great umbrella shading his face. The rotund gentleman grunted, and slowly opened his eyes. He seemed uncertain for a moment whether I was man or nightmare, but when I spoke he knew he was awake. He scrambled to his feet, drew a great, gaudy revolver, and levelled it full in my face. Of course I did not pull my gun. I fell back, shouting quickly, as I had done on a previous occasion, ‘Inglese, Inglese effendi.’ Alexander to the rescue! That worthy, from a covered position in our rear, informed his Majesty the Mohamedan that we were English, as I had said. That we were foreign Christians was evident from the fact that we carried arms. The old Turk seemed rather ashamed of the fright he had displayed, and, slyly tucking his revolver into his red sash, stepped to one side and bowed us the right of way.

This day we encountered many pitfalls. How we escaped one after another seemed so incredible to the Turkish authorities, when we were finally rounded up, that they seriously suspected we had come by an ‘underground’ route.

We were afraid that the bey would hurry into Kotchana and inform the authorities that two strange Franks had passed, but as long as we could see him he still maintained his post, watching his women work. About three hours later, however, while we were enjoying a refreshing and much-needed wash in a cool mountain stream, Alexander keeping watch, a cavalry patrol of half a dozen men came up at full gallop. We had just time to duck behind a sandbank, almost beneath their horses’ hoofs.

Towards midday Sandy waxed mutinous. He was a most submissive servant while we travelled like gentlemen, but his spirit rankled under the dangers into which he was led like a lamb. ‘If you are killed,’ he would frequently remark, ‘your parents will receive much money, but what will the Turkish Government give my poor mother?’ We had not been fair to Sandy.

In skirting Vinitza the boy lay down in a corn patch and refused to budge. The soles had again gone from his shoes, and now the soul could go from his body. He was resigned; all Bulgarians must be martyrs. The Turks could take him.

Threats availed nothing; pleading was of no use. Finally we took his pack and carried it as well as our own, and promised to get a horse for him, by pay or intimidation, from the first unarmed Bulgarian we encountered. On this condition he struggled to his feet. Poor Sandy! the worst, for him, had not yet come.

The peasants along our route this day were numerous, for it was market day at Vinitza, and we had no difficulty in hiring a horse for Alexander. Then, however, we became too conspicuous. We gathered fellow-travellers to the number of probably fifty, both Bulgars and Turks, who asked the usual innumerable questions. Sandy, in spite of all admonitions, would tell all he knew to whoever asked. We heard him say ‘Skopia,’ ‘Palanka,’ ‘Kratovo’ in his soft Slav way. We cussed Sandy, and he lied. He said he had not told them whence we had come. But he knew no more than the natives whither we were bound!

A party of Turkish peasants, much armed, spurned Sandy, and would speak with us direct. When they discovered their dilemma their tone became surly and insulting.

We passed through a long, narrow defile most fragrant with honeysuckle and wild roses, and occasional cool breaths from the pines on the slopes above came down to us. A sense of peace pervaded the place, and, growing accustomed to our company, we enjoyed the relief of a comparatively good road and no towns or encampments. But the pass came to an abrupt termination, and there at its mouth sat a band of twenty soldiers! For a few minutes things looked rather nasty, but our British and American passports, with their huge red seals, were so impressive to the ignorant soldiers that they feared to lay hands on us. They asked whither we were going, and we replied, ‘Towards Pechovo.’ But on falling behind the next hill in that direction we deserted our peasant following and struck off on our own route.

This was the longest day’s track we made. We covered thirty miles in ten hours; during which our midday meal was off a loaf of bread bought for a metaleek from a peasant Turk. I gave him a piastre and he insisted on giving me change.

We encountered a Bulgarian who lived on a hillside about an hour off, joined him, and wended our way to his hut for our last night in hiding. I owed the Man of Yorkshire still another mijidieh.

We slept in the open, under a tree; the hut was too full.

We rose very early in the morning and started off on three miserable ponies gathered by our host from neighbouring mountain men. We had hardly proceeded two hundred yards when we were challenged by a Turkish post. A dilapidated blockhouse stood at the foot of the hill on which we had slept, and our slumbers would not have been so peaceful had either we or the Turks known of the others’ presence. The soldiers were unofficered and could not read, and an attitude of assurance, supported by our red seals, again passed us on.

The man who accompanied us to bring back the horses had just returned from Bulgaria, whither he had fled leaving a pretty wife and six small children.

‘Brute!’ observed the Man of Yorkshire.

‘Ah, well! One can always get another wife!’ said Sandy.

The mountain men had been able to give us only bread to put into our packs, but as we skirted Tsarevoselo, the peasant—who could enter the place without being noticed—went in and procured two large lumps of sugar. Sweetened bread and cool water from a fall made our lunch; after which we plodded on, until an hour after nightfall we entered Djuma-bala.

THE TURKISH QUARTER: DJUMA-BALA.

‘How long do you give the police?’ asked the Man of Yorkshire.

‘Fifteen minutes,’ I replied.

The first of them arrived in five.

We had done half our journey—the hardest half. We were certain of the rest. We expected some difficulty with the Turks, and we had much.

Sandy disappeared. We knew where to look for him. We went to the gaol and demanded his release. And the Turks released him. They were positive that he was the committaji who had brought us through their country, and they refused to let him proceed with us. After discussion by wire—which required several days—instructions came from our old friend Hilmi Pasha to send us back, without our Sandy. But we refused to go without Sandy. This deadlock lasted for a week. Meanwhile we telegraphed to the British Consul-General at Salonica, signing the telegrams in one instance ‘Moore and Booth,’ in another ‘Booth and Moore.’ Translated into Turkish the signatures arrived at the Consulate ‘Mor-o-bos’ in one case, ‘Bot-o-more’ in the other. We were known to our friends by these names thereafter.

The Consul visited Hilmi Pasha (who was then in Salonica), and got permission for us to proceed with our dragoman. Hilmi had some hard words for us, the least of which were ‘Ces vagabonds!’

We received a telegram in Turkish from the Consul, and took it to the kaimakam for interpretation. The kaimakam read, ‘Monsieur Boot et Monsieur Mo-ré, you may depart for Drama, as you desire, but your interpreter must be left behind.’

We felt somewhat sick.

Another telegram to the Consul-General.

The reply came at midnight. In the morning we took it to a Christian. We told him nothing of the kaimakam’s interpretation of the first. He puzzled over the characters for a few minutes, then wrote in French, ‘Telegraphed to you yesterday, Hilmi Pasha gives permission to proceed to Drama and take interpreter.’

We went back to the kaimakam. He offered us chairs, but we declined to sit. He offered us cigarettes, and we declined them.

‘Kaimakam Bey,’ said we, ‘we are going out of here to-morrow morning and our interpreter is going with us. Good-morning.’

We turned on our heels and left without salaaming to the bey or to any of his sitting satellites.

The kaimakam jumped to his feet and followed us to the door shouting, ‘Ce n’est pas ma faute, messieurs. Ce n’est pas ma faute!’

An hour later an officer who had been attached to us during our sojourn at Djuma was ushered in by Sandy. He came to present the kaimakam’s compliments and to say that by a strange coincidence the permission we sought had just arrived from the Governor-General.

RUINS OF KREMEN.

We rode away from Djuma-bala with a large escort, and made our way slowly through the wildest and most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. We worked around Perim Dagh to Mahomia; spent a night at Bansko, where Miss Stone had been ransomed; passed through the ruins of Kremen, the scene of a wicked massacre; dropped down the river Mesta by a long-untrodden path; crossed a trackless lava formation of many miles that resembled a vast boneyard of giant skulls and scattered skeletons. The trail was hard, and it took four days to get to Drama.