The Eye of Zeitoon, Talbot Mundy [fantasy books to read txt] 📗

specious plea that excuses
Greed in necessity's name;
Studied indifference; scorn that amuses;
Cleverness, shifting the blame;
Selfishness, pitying trust it abuses—
Treason and these are the same.
Finally, when the last lees ye shall turn from
(E'en intellectuals flinch in the end!)
Ashes of loneliness then ye shall learn from—
All that's worth keeping's the faith of a friend.

Never to be forgotten is that journey to Zeitoon. We threaded toward the heart of opal mountains along tracks that nothing on wheels—not even a wheel-barrow—could have followed. Perpetually on our right there kept appearing brilliant green patches of young rice, more full of livid light than flawless emeralds. And, as in all rice country, there were countless watercourses with frequently impracticable banks along which fugitives felt their way miserably, too fearful of pursuit to risk following the bridle track.

There is a delusion current that fugitives go fast. But it stands to reason they do not; least of all, unarmed people burdened with children and odds and ends of hastily snatched household goods. We found them hiding everywhere to sleep and rest lacerated feet, and there was not a mile of all that distance that did not add twenty or thirty stragglers to our column, risen at sight of us out of their lurking places. We scared at least as many more into deeper hiding, without blame to them, for there was no reason why they should know us at a distance from official murderers. Hamidieh regiments, the militia of that land, wear uniforms of their own choosing, which is mostly their ordinary clothes and weapons added.

With snow-crowned Beirut Dagh frowning down over us, and the track growing every minute less convenient for horse or man, word came from the rear that the hamidieh were truly on our trail. Then we had our first real taste of what Armenians could do against drilled Turks, and even before Fred and I could get in touch with Will and Gloria we realized that whether or not we took part with them there was going to be no stampede by the men-folk.

Nothing would persuade Gloria to go on to Zeitoon and announce our coming. Kagig came galloping back and found us four met together by a little horsetail waterfall. He ordered her peremptorily to hurry and find Monty, but she simply ignored him. In another moment he was too bent on shepherding the ammunition cases to give her a further thought.

Men began to gather around him, and he to issue orders. They had either to kill him or obey. He struck at them with a rawhide whip, and spurred his horse savagely at every little clump of men disposed to air their own views.

"You see," he laughed, "unanimity is lacking!" Then his manner changed back to irritation. "In the name of God, effendim, what manner of sportmen are you? Will not each of you take a dozen men and go and destroy those cursed Turks?" (They call every man a Turk in that land who thinks and acts like one, be he Turk, Arab, Kurd or Circassian.)

It was all opposed to the consul's plan, and lawless by any reckoning. To attack the troops of a country with which our own governments were not at war was to put our heads in a noose in all likelihood. Perhaps if he had called us by any other name than "sportmen" we might have seen it in that light, and have told him to protect us according to contract. But he used the right word and we jumped at the idea, although Gloria, who had no notions about international diplomacy, was easily first with her hat in the ring.

"I'll lead some men!" she shouted. "Who'll follow me?" Her voice rang clear with the virtue won on college playing fields.

"Nothing to it!" Will insisted promptly. "Here, you, Kagig—I'll make a bargain with you!"

"Watch!" Fred whispered. "Will is now going to sell two comrades in the market for his first love! D'you blame him? But it won't work!"

"Send Miss Vanderman to Zeitoon with an escort and we three—"

"What did I tell you?" Fred chuckled.

"—will fight for you all you like!"

But Gloria had a dozen men already swarming to her, with never a symptom of shame to be captained by a woman; and others were showing signs of inclination. She turned her back on us, and I saw three men hustle a fourth, who had both feet in bandages, until he gave her his rifle and bandolier. She tossed him a laugh by way of compensation, and he seemed content, although he had parted with more than the equivalent of a fortune.

"That girl," said Kagig, from the vantage point of his great horse, "is like the brave Zeitoonli wives! They fight! They can lead in a pinch! They are as good as men—better than men, for they think they know less!"

Fred swiftly gathered himself a company of his own, the older men electing to follow his lead. Gloria had the cream of the younger ones—men who in an earlier age would have gone into battle wearing a woman's glove or handkerchief—twenty or thirty youths blazing with the fire of youth. Will went hot-foot after her with most of the English-speaking contingent from the mission schools. Kagig had the faithful few who had rallied to him from the first—the fighting men of Zeitoon proper, including all the tough rear-guard who had sent the warning and remained faithfully in touch with the enemy until their chief should come.

That left for me the men who knew no English, and Ephraim was enough of a politician to see the advantage to himself of deserting Fred's standard for mine; for Fred could talk Armenian, and give his own orders, but I needed an interpreter. I welcomed him at the first exchange of compliments, but met him eye to eye a second later and began to doubt.

"I'm going to hold these men in reserve," I told him, "until I know where they'll do most good. You know this country? Take high ground, then, where we can overlook what's going on and get into the fight to best advantage."

"But the others will get the credit," he began to object.

"I'll ask Kagig for another interpreter. Wait here."

At that he yielded the point and explained my orders to the men, who began to obey them willingly enough. But he went on talking to them rapidly as we diverged from the path the others had taken and ascended a trail that wild goats would have reveled in, along the right flank of where fighting was likely to take place. I did not doubt he was establishing notions of his own importance, and with some success.

Firing commenced away in front and below us within ten minutes of the start, but it was an hour before I could command the scene with field-glasses, and ten minutes after that before I could make out the positions of our people, although the enemy were soon evident—a long, irregular, ragged-looking line of cavalry thrusting lances into every hole that could possibly conceal an Armenian, and an almost equally irregular line of unmounted men in front of them, firing not very cautiously nor accurately from under random cover.

It became pretty evident, after studying the positions for about fifteen minutes and sweeping every contour of the ground through glasses, that the enemy had no chance whatever of breaking through unless they could outflank Kagig's line. I held such impregnable advantage of height and cover and clear view that the men I had with me were ample to prevent the turning of our right wing. Our left flank rested on the brawling Jihun River that wound in and out between the rice fields and the rocky foot-hills. There lay the weakness of our position, and more than once I caught sight of Kagig spurring his horse from cover to cover to place his men. Once I thought I recognized Fred, too, over near the river-bank; but of Will or of Gloria I saw nothing.

It was obvious that if reserves were needed anywhere it would be over on that left flank by the fordable Jihun. Ephraim saw that, and proceeded to preach it like gospel to the men before consulting me. Then, arrogant in the consciousness of majority approval, he came and advised me.

"Those—ah—hamidieh not coming this—ah—way. We cross over to—ah—other side. Then Kagig is being pleased with us. I give orders—yes?"

He did not propose to wait for my consent, but I detained him with a hand on his shoulder. It would have taken us two hours to get into position by the river-bank.

"Find out how many of the men can ride," I ordered.

Taken by surprise he called out the inquiry without stopping to discover my purpose first. It transpired there were seventeen men who had been accustomed to horseback riding since their youth. That would leave nine men for another purpose. I separated sheep from goats, and made over the nine to Ephraim.

"You and these nine stay here," I ordered, "and hold this flank until
Kagig makes a move." I did not doubt Kagig would fall back on Zeitoon
as soon as he could do that with advantage. Neither did I doubt
Ephraim's ability to spoil my whole plan if he should see fit. Yet
I had to depend on his powers as interpreter.

There are two ways of relieving a weak wing, and the obvious one of reenforcing it is not of necessity the best. I could see through the glasses a bowl of hollow grazing ground in which the dismounted Kurds had left their horses; and I could count only five men guarding them. Most of the horses seemed to be tied head to head by the reins, but some were hobbled and grazing close together.

"Tell these seventeen men I have chosen that I propose to creep up to the enemy's horses and steal or else stampede them," I ordered.

Ephraim hesitated. Glittering eyes betrayed fear to be left out of an adventure, disgust to see his own advice ignored, and yet that he was alert to the advantage of being left with a lone command.

"But we should—ah—cross to the—ah—other side and—ah—help Kagig," he objected. Perhaps he hoped to build political influence on the basis of his own account to Kagig afterward of how he had argued for the saner course.

"Please explain what I have said—exactly!"

He continued to hesitate. I could see the Kurdish riflemen responding to orders from their rear and beginning to concentrate in the direction of our left wing. Our center, where Gloria and Will were probably concealed by rocks and foliage, poured a galling fire on them, and they had to reform, and detach a considerable company to deal with that; but two-thirds of their number surged toward our left, and if my plan was to succeed almost the chief element was time.

"But Kagig will—"

One of the men had a hide rope, very likely looted from the village we had burned. I took it from him and tied a running noose in the end. Then I made the other end fast to the roots of a tree that had been rain-washed until they projected naked over fifty feet of sheer rock.

"Now," I said, "explain what I said, or I'll hang you in sight of both sides!"

I wondered whether he would not turn the tables and hang me. I knew I would not have been willing to lessen Kagig's chances by shooting any of them if they had decided to take Ephraim's part. But the politician in the man was uppermost and he did not force the issue.

"All right, effendi—oh, all right!" he answered, trying to laugh the matter off.

"Explain to them, then!"

I made him do it half a dozen times, for once we were on our way along the precipitous sides of the hills the only control I should have would be force of example, aided to some extent by the sort of primitive signals that pass muster even in a kindergarten. If they should talk Turkish to me slowly I might understand a little here and there, but to speak it myself was quite another matter; and in common with most of their countrymen, though they understood Turkish perfectly and all that went with