Chapter XV: The Tower of Segreti

The next day happened to be the festival of a very important saint, and it was of course out of the question that any drill should take place. A burst of heavy firing early in the morning suggested that the Roumis were presuming on the piety of the insurgents to make an attack in the belief that they would not fight, but Wylie was able to reassure his friends when he came to breakfast.

“Nothing but powder-play,” he said. “Simple wicked waste of cartridges in honour of St Elijah, or whatever his name is. I have put a stop to it, of course, but the men are very sick. The Assembly is summoned for noon, Prince, and I’m afraid we shall have a long job.”

The Assembly was held by desire both of Maurice and of the men who had taken part in the capture of Ahmed Pasha. He wished to impress upon the whole body of insurgents the humanitarian principles held in such high esteem by the Powers, and the heroes of the assault were eager to defend themselves and claim the applause and support of their fellows. They had not taken at all kindly to the indignant lecture Maurice bestowed on them after his interview with the envoys from the fleet, and it was evident that Prince Romanos sided with them in his heart, though the sentiments to which he gave utterance were the most civilised possible. There was a great deal at stake, and Zoe, who had listened attentively to all the discussions beforehand, sat waiting anxiously in the shadow of the gateway to hear what was decided. The deliberations of the Assembly were unusually brief on this occasion, but it was past five o’clock before she saw Wylie coming up the hill.

“Well?” she asked him eagerly.

“Oh, horribly unsatisfactory,” he replied, taking a seat beside her. “Your brother and I simply lammed into the fellows about their methods of barbarism, but they don’t see it a bit. Of course it’s perfectly natural from their point of view. None of them would dream of asking for quarter from a Roumi, and they have no idea of offering it. Why, then, should they give quarter if a Roumi so far forgets the rules of the game as to ask for his life? As to killing the wounded, they themselves are just as dangerous wounded as sound--or rather more so, since down on the ground they might escape notice--and the Roumis are the same. And suppose they humoured your brother’s incomprehensible scruples, what should they do with prisoners if they got them? There was a wild ray of hope that he might wish to torture them for the sake of extracting information, and they were ready to promise any number, but that soon faded away. The idea of keeping them safe and treating them kindly, merely for the sake of letting them go again, struck them as sheer lunacy, and they insisted that there was no question of the exchange of prisoners, because the Roumis never took any--or got any; I don’t know which they meant to imply. It was no use whatever appealing to them on the moral side, for they declared in all good faith that Roumis were not human beings.”

“But Prince Romanos?” cried Zoe. “He seems to have such influence with them, and he can’t believe all these absurd things.”

“I fancy there’s a good deal of the original Archipelago pirate left under the Parisian poet,” said Wylie incautiously. “Not that I would say a word against him,” he added hastily; “he stands in with us in this like a man, whatever his personal views may be. As it is, your brother has had to go in for simple expediency, very much against the grain, but perhaps it made it easier for Prince Christodoridi to back him. To turn the neutrality of the Powers into active hostility appealed even to our children of nature as foolishness, though there was some disposition to receive the warning as they did Admiral Essiter’s on board the _Magniloquent_. But we got to a working compromise--nominally, that is. I fear it only means that our fellows will be more careful to finish off any wounded Roumis before we appear in the neighbourhood.”

“But they don’t seem to have an idea of discipline,” said Zoe despairingly. “How can you expect them to obey an order they don’t like?”

“Ah, that is where our Sikhs will come in--when we get them. At present the best we can do is to maintain order among the Slavs with the help of the Greeks, and among the Greeks with the help of the Slavs, so keeping the old sore open all the time--and with the risk that at any moment Greek and Slav may come to the conclusion that they dislike us rather worse than each other, and combine against us. Your brother spoke his mind strongly on the refusal of quarter and the killing of wounded men, and vowed that any man concerned in anything of the kind after this should be shot without benefit of clergy, but that’s a thing easier said than done. There’s hardly a man you could depend upon to help arrest another in such a case, and if it came to shooting--why, two revolvers are not many against a whole crowd with rifles. The fact is, physical force is the only thing that appeals to these fellows at their present stage, and your brother is coming to see that they can’t be ruled by reason.”

Zoe had turned pale. “You mean that he--and you--are only safe among them because you are known to be armed?” she said.

“Oh no, it’s not quite as bad as that. There is such a thing as moral influence, you know. Besides, I believe our fellows themselves would condemn to death--and execute--any man that tried to murder him or me, if it was done in an underhand way, that is, not in the course of a gentlemanly argument in the Assembly. Any one attempting to blow up one of the warships would be treated in the same way, because that’s the sort of thing the Powers might naturally resent; but they can’t see why the Powers should take it upon themselves to interfere with their domestic customs. Your brother can only back his orders by the threat of leaving the insurgents to themselves, and in some moods they would a good deal rather be without him. So we may yet find ourselves in more danger from our own men than from the Roumis--certainly more than from the Powers.”

He stopped abruptly, and Zoe looked at him in surprise. He was pulling at his moustache in an undecided way.

“I want to speak to you on a personal matter,” he said, in a notably unconciliatory tone.

“Personal to you, or to me?” asked Zoe.

“To you.”

Zoe raised her eyebrows. “I can only promise to listen to you, not to take your advice--which I have not asked for.”

“I know that. You sent Christodoridi back his flag?”

“Most certainly. I never liked the idea of keeping it, and when I found it was the trophy of an ‘infamous massacre,’ I returned it to him at once.”

“Meaning to snub him as horribly as possible?”

“Meaning to show him that attentions from him were distasteful.” Zoe’s words came out with great clearness.

“Do you think you are treating the poor wretch properly?” Wylie spoke with the first approach to diffidence he had shown, and she triumphed.

“Yes, I think I am taking the right and honourable course,” she said, slowly and thoughtfully. “As nothing would induce me to marry him, I think it is only fair to let him see it plainly. But really, what this has to do with you----”

He raised his hand, and she wondered whether the gesture spelt appeal or command. He seemed to be wavering between the two. “You ought to marry him,” he said. “It is your duty--the best thing for you.”

“Then I am quite sure I shall not do my duty,” said Zoe calmly. “But since you are taking this kind interest in my future, perhaps you will explain why it should be the best thing for me?”

She had herself well in hand, and spoke with extreme precision, while he brought out his words with difficulty. She could have pitied him if he had not been so persistently wrong-headed, so determined to make misery for himself. “It is in case of trouble--if anything happened,” he said incoherently. “If he married you, it would be his duty to take you away from here at once. No one could think the worse of him for it.”

“Except his wife. That wouldn’t signify, of course. And you still think I would escape and leave Eirene here?”

“Oh, the Princess and Con would go too, naturally.”

“Very naturally. And you and Maurice?”

“Oh, you know what your brother is. I should stay with him, of course.”

“And now you will know what I am. I shall stay with him too, of course.” The conversation should have ended with this retort, but Zoe was incapable of letting matters remain as they were. The man deserved punishment, and he should have it. “And now that I have answered your questions, perhaps you will let me know the reason of your sudden concern for me?” she asked.

“As your brother’s friend--servant----”

“Indeed! If you had said that the memory of old times, or the fear that another deserving young man might be as badly treated as you were, had made you speak, it would be a different thing. It would have given you a personal standing in the matter. But to say what you have said, merely as a servant or friend of the family, is unpardonable. It is a piece of gross impertinence.”

She expected an outburst of anger, but he controlled himself admirably. “You can say what you like to me,” he said, and once again Zoe’s heart played her false. Severity was obviously the proper course, but she could not be severe when he was meek.

“There is one other reason--only one--that might justify you,” she said hurriedly, looking on the ground. “If you could say honestly, ‘I have a part to play, and I have made up my mind to play it. I will not be tempted to throw it up, and I am afraid of being tempted--I am tempted----’”

Her voice failed, and her head had sunk so low that he could not see her face. If she could have forced herself to look up, and their eyes had met, the barrier between them must have been broken down; but he had time to recover himself, and his voice was harsh as he answered--

“You have no right to say that. Such a supposition is unpardonable. It is a piece of----”

“Oh!” cried Zoe, covering her ears as she recognised the echo of her own words, and shrinking away from him. The humiliation of his presence was intolerable, and she was stung at last into speaking again. “Would you kindly go?” she asked, still not looking at him.

“Forgive me. I was a--a cad to say it.” He brought out the odious word with a fierce satisfaction, as if he desired to hear Zoe confirm his self-condemnation. But she looked steadily away from him.

“I will forgive you when you forgive yourself,” she said, and Wylie left her, cursing his own evil temper, the memory of his past wrongs, the present danger, and all the other circumstances that had conspired to make him behave like a brute, when he had honestly intended to play a high and heroic part. It had seemed such a suitable punishment--well, not exactly punishment; say recompense--to carry the unselfish sentiments he had enunciated when Zoe refused him long ago to the point of promoting this politically desirable marriage for her, and they ought both to have felt it an excellent arrangement. But Zoe saw fit to object, and what was more absurd still, he discovered that in his use of moral suasion he had hurt himself as much as he had her. Very wisely, but a little late, he registered a vow to leave Prince Romanos to fight his own battles in future.

Fortunately for Zoe, she was not called upon to meet Wylie again for the present. The Assembly, before receiving Maurice’s pronouncement on the subject of the usages of war, had declared emphatically in favour of retaining Ahmed Pasha and proceeding to the capture of the tower of Segreti. Maurice and Wylie had urged in vain the danger of finding their forces divided by a surprise attack delivered at the narrowest part of the isthmus; not a man would support them in withdrawing from the first spot liberated on the mainland. If Ahmed Pasha was to be held, it was very clear that Segreti must be taken, since its defenders, should they be well supplied with ammunition, could render the village untenable. That they had not done so already was presumably due to lack of supplies, since they had left off wasting cartridges on long shots, and only fired when they saw any considerable body of insurgents together, but this might be merely a ruse. Wylie had urged that since the tower was to be taken, it would be best to storm it, but this advice ran counter to all the instincts of his followers. A frontal attack on an enemy ensconced behind stone walls was out of the question in their eyes. A foe might be ambushed, surprised, taken in the rear, but never attacked in front. The cutting-off of the water-supply, now nearly completed, would soon begin to cause the garrison inconvenience, and the insurgents need only post themselves round the tower at a discreet distance, to see that no one escaped.

This last comforting doctrine Wylie opposed with more success. Jalal-ud-din’s apparent supineness hitherto had inclined the insurgents to consider him a negligible quantity, but they allowed themselves, after much argument, to be convinced that he could not possibly remain passive under the cutting-up of the Ahmed Pasha detachment. His obvious objective was the tower of Segreti, since to relieve that would mean also the recapture of the village, while to allow the garrison to be annihilated would expose him to eternal disgrace--as well as to very mundane penalties from his master. This fact having been impressed upon the minds of the Assembly, Wylie was empowered to take such means, short of storming the tower, as commended themselves to him for repulsing the expected Roumi force, and he transferred his headquarters to Ahmed Pasha the same evening. His first duty on the morrow was to try and induce the garrison of the tower to surrender, which he did by pointing out that their water was now cut off, and that they must be short both of provisions and ammunition. Their reply was simply to invite him to come up and attack them, assuring him that they had plenty of ammunition left to repel any force he could muster. In the meantime they jeered both at his promise of a safe-conduct to the Roumi lines if they surrendered, and his warnings of their certain fate if they remained obstinate. Since nothing would induce his unsatisfactory and independent troops to embark upon the series of harassing night assaults and feigned attacks with which he would have tried to tire out the defenders and exhaust their stores, his only hope was to prepare a warm reception for the relieving force.

In this course he had the satisfaction of finding that his men were thoroughly with him. A guerilla warfare was something they could understand, and his previous training had sharpened their natural faculty for taking advantage of the rugged nature of the country. There were two possible ways of approach for a force coming from the direction of Therma--one by paths through the hills, the other along the sea-shore--and under Wylie’s orders the insurgents rendered both as difficult as possible. The work on the shore had to be conducted with the greatest secrecy, in view of the presence of the warships, which were apt to turn their search-lights landwards at inconvenient moments during the night; but the track was already so rough, and so frequently interrupted by projecting headlands, that there was little likelihood of its being chosen for the advance. More attention was therefore bestowed on the inland route, and the two days which were all the breathing-space that Jalal-ud-din allowed his foes were turned to good account. Great excitement prevailed on the third night after the capture, when Wylie’s scouts came in to announce that a column was actually advancing with the Pasha himself in command, and that it was guarding a train of baggage-animals conveying supplies for the garrison of Segreti. Wylie made a final inspection of his force, saw that the members of the various bands were at the posts he had assigned them, and not at those to which their own sweet will inclined, and hurried back for a final conference with Maurice, who was in command at Karakula, lest the moment of the fight should be chosen for an attack upon the isthmus.

The day that followed was a long and exciting one. It seemed that Jalal-ud-din Pasha imagined that the mere sight of his array was sufficient to quell opposition, for he disdained to take the obvious precaution of searching the country ahead of him and on either side of his line of march. Therefore his progress was a succession of small fights. A burst of firing from a scarcely discernible trench on a hillside, or from a thicket that looked too small to shelter a single rifleman; then a halt, during which his troops blazed away lustily, while a detachment detailed for the purpose climbed the hill laboriously to clear out the hornets’ nest, and returned disappointed to report that the assailants had vanished. The number of wounded increased steadily, and the nerves even of the stolid Roumi rank-and-file became affected. There was no opportunity of catching the insurgents in a body, and it was very rarely that even an odd man or two showed themselves. Jalal-ud-din set his teeth and continued to advance. Once through these defiles, his force could sweep away anything that ventured to oppose it, and Segreti must be relieved, even if it were not now as dangerous to turn back as to go on. One more long narrow valley, and the relieving column would emerge on the comparatively level ground round Ahmed Pasha.

This last valley was full of terrors for the Roumi troops. There was no more haphazard firing from the heights; each man here was a marksman, and each bullet found its billet, until no attempt was made to care for the wounded as they fell, for the common impulse to get through and get out hurried every man on. It was a demoralised and disorderly body of men, encumbered and mixed up with driverless mules and horses which had lost their riders, that approached the mouth of the valley at last. The only way open before them was the one leading to the shore, for that to Ahmed Pasha was blocked by a rough barricade of earth, stones, sods, anything that could be obtained, and from it there broke a hail of fire, utterly unexpected. Jalal-ud-din tried to rally his men, but this last surprise was too much for them, and they hurried panic-stricken down the road to the shore, still galled by the fire from the barricade, which did terrible execution upon the mass pressed together in the narrow space. On the shore things were no better, for bullets came from the cliffs behind and the walls and roofs of Ahmed Pasha away to the left, while the defenders of the barricade were beginning to climb over it and form themselves into a line in front.

This was the crucial moment for Wylie’s scheme. Mere slaughter was not what he aimed at. If the provisions and stores convoyed by the column could be secured, Jalal-ud-din and the remains of his force were free to make the best of their way home by the beach. The insurgents’ orders were to strike for the baggage-animals, and let the soldiers alone unless they tried to make a stand, and if they had obeyed them a notable triumph might have been secured. But the sight of the hereditary foe, confused and in retreat, was too much for the mountaineers, and instead of following Wylie into the thickest of the press, they swerved, as if by instinct, to the right, so as to cut off the Roumi retreat. In the wild _mêlée_ which ensued all order was lost, and every man fought the nearest available foe with cold steel, for rifles were useless, save as clubs. Wylie, escaping imminent death over and over again almost by a miracle, used voice and whistle in vain to call off his men, but what he could not do was effected by an outside agent. There was a distant boom, and something came singing overhead, at the sound of which the Roumis promptly flung themselves on the ground. The insurgents, conspicuous in their white kilts or grey homespun among the darker uniforms, stared at them in amazement, but were about to take full advantage of their unlooked-for cowardice when there came another boom, and something fell into the mass of men on the right of the fight and exploded. Wylie was the first to realise what had happened. The Admirals had fulfilled their threat, and were shelling the rebels who had ventured to pass the limit they had laid down. All the ships in sight were firing now, the _Magniloquent_, as the nearest, leading, and dropping her shells, with terrible precision, exactly where the insurgents were thickest. For a moment they looked about them with a kind of stupid wonder, then, as Wylie had always known they would do if confronted with modern artillery, they broke and fled wildly, with shrieks and cries, the warships completing their discomfiture by planting more shells wherever ten or a dozen men ran together. Rather by good fortune than calculation, a considerable number sought refuge in the mouth of the valley through which the Roumis had come, and here, where shells could only be dropped by guesswork, Wylie got them into some sort of order, pointing out that Jalal-ud-din must run the gauntlet of their fire even now to reach Segreti.

The firing from the ships ceased, and Wylie expected every moment to see the head of the Roumi column appear, but he waited in vain. At last, followed in fear and trembling by one bold man, he crept out to reconnoitre, but to his astonishment found the scene of the battle left solitary. Looking along the seaside road to the right, he saw in the distance a disorderly crowd making its way back towards Therma. Jalal-ud-din’s force was in retreat, considering discretion the better part of valour in spite of the assistance of the ships. Another shell buried itself in the sand unpleasantly near Wylie and his kilted companion, and he returned hastily to his men, sending orders to Ahmed Pasha that a white flag was to be hoisted while he led the search for the dead and wounded. Segreti was not relieved, at any rate, but the supplies for which he had hoped were irrevocably lost, and the warships of the Powers had fired upon the insurgents.