Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom — Chapter 12, Part 2 - Down to the Sea

Food-hunting was now becoming a vice, of which, in our hungry condition, we found it difficult to cure ourselves.

Though we had still some of the food bought at the big village on August 24, we eased our consciences with the thought that we might have to spend some days on the coast before we found a boat.

Moreover, in these isolated tents, dotted about in so unfrequented a district, we might with safety try to obtain additional supplies, for there was not much likelihood of meeting gendarmes, and there was no town very near where the tent-dwellers could give information about us.

The next few hours, therefore, were spent in searching for these isolated dwellings.

But our luck had changed, for at four tents we were received with a very bad grace.

One old woman, in particular, who, without any make up, could have played with great success the part of one of the witches in "Macbeth," showed great animosity towards us, and ended her tirade by saying that nothing would induce her to give food to Christians.

Thus rebuffed, we marched on.

A mile to our left front were the ruins we had seen earlier in the day.

Their fluted columns were immense, and the capitals richly carved; but a closer inspection would mean going out of our way, and a few minutes later they were lost to view.

Only two of us went to the fifth tent that we saw.

The remainder walked on a few hundred yards, and waited hidden in a small valley, easily recognisable, because it led up to a conspicuous tree.

Half an hour later the two rejoined the main body, having bought 1½ lb.

of crushed wheat and the dixie half full of porridge made with plenty of sour milk.

This was divided amongst the six, as the purchasers had had a few spoonfuls in the tent.

Continuing, we came across some dry wells and also a few fruit trees.

The fruit was unripe, unpleasant to taste, and unknown to any of us;

but we ate it.

The trees may have been plum-trees, which after many decades had reverted to the wild state.

At 1 P. M.

we found a well containing a little water, and not far from another tent.

Once more only two went to buy supplies, while the others stayed at the well.

Here, after much talk, the old woman in the tent let our agents have a dozen chupatties and some good cheese.

The latter she took out of a goat-skin bag from under a millstone, where it was being pressed.

Though rather strong, it was very good indeed, and tasted like gorgonzola.

Near the tent was a bed of water-melons and a patch of Indian corn; but the good lady refused to sell any of these.

Judging by the heap of melon-skins lying in a corner of the tent, she and her better-half were very partial to this fruit; hence, no doubt, her disinclination to part with any.

We now decided that we were becoming demoralised by this "yourt-hunting," and that we would not visit any more tents; so when, half an hour after resuming our march, we passed close to one, we walked by it without taking any notice of the occupants.

All this time the going was very bad.

Countless small nullahs crossed our path.

The ground was rocky and thickly covered with thorny bushes the height of a man, so that it was necessary to take a compass-bearing every few minutes.

For a long time we had been steering a very zigzag course, when at 2. 15 P.

M.

we arrived at the head of one of these many nullahs and saw beneath us a deep ravine running in a south-east direction.

Through the undergrowth at the bottom it was possible to recognise the dry stony bed of a river, and this we decided to follow.

A little north of where we were the ravine made a right-angled turn, and at this bend we were able to find a track to the bottom.

Elsewhere the sides were sheer precipice, impossible to descend.

On our way down we passed a massive sarcophagus hewn out of the solid rock.

The lid had been moved to one side, and the chamber was empty--a result, perhaps, of the visit of the German archæologists of whom the old Turk had spoken that morning.

An eerie place for a tomb it looked, perched on the side of a steep cliff.

It was a relic of a former civilisation.

That part of Asia Minor was once fertile and well populated, but some underground disturbance of nature had diverted or dried up the water without which the land could no longer live.

Now it is a dead country.

The terraced gardens near the coast still retain their step formation, but that is all.

Only the wild locust-tree can find enough moisture to produce its fruit, and bird and animal life have almost ceased to exist.

On reaching the bottom of the ravine in safety, we allowed ourselves nearly an hour's rest before we followed the slope of the stream.

This in the main continued to take us in a south-easterly direction, though at times it ran due east.

Along the bottom ran a rough and stony track, crossing frequently from one side of the river-bed to the other as the valley twisted and turned.

At many points, too, it had been overgrown by the thick brushwood which had sprung up in the scanty soil at the foot of the ravine, and often we had to push our way through.

By this time, in fact, marching was altogether a most painful performance.

Our footgear was at an end.

Uppers had all but broken away from the soles, which were nearly worn through, so that walking over stones was a refined torture.

After two hours' going in the ravine we saw a side valley running into the left bank.

Here was a camel with two foals, which were picking up a scanty living in the main river-bed.

We also heard the bells of goats and the voice of a small boy shouting to them somewhere on the top of the ravine.

Assuming there was a tent village not far off, we made as little noise as possible.

Nothing however appeared.

Towards six o'clock we came to a very sharp bend, where the track we had been following climbed up the side of the ravine in a southerly direction.

At the time we debated whether to follow the track or the river-bed, and finally decided on the latter course.

As we proceeded, the bed became rougher and rougher and the track less and less defined, and just before dark we halted.

We had walked for many hours that day, but could only credit ourselves with five miles in the right direction.

Moonlight, for which we had decided to wait, did not reach us in our canyon till after 2 A. M.

next morning, though the moon itself had risen some time before.

In the meantime we had cooked a little porridge and obtained a few hours' sleep.

Now we retraced our steps till we came to where the track had left the ravine, and up this we climbed into the open.

At the top we found ourselves in an old graveyard near a few deserted and ruined huts.

Halting for five or six minutes, we ate a few mouthfuls of food and lightened our water-bottles.

We then followed the track till 5 A. M.

, when we came to another deserted village.

Near this was a well; so we replenished our stock, and halted in some thick scrub a few hundred yards farther on.

Here Grunt, to his consternation, discovered that he had lost a small cloth bag containing one and a half chupatties and two sovereigns.

The loss of the coins was nothing, but the bread was all-important.

Grunt therefore decided to go back to the deserted village near the graveyard, where he had last eaten from the bag, and Nobby went with him.

A couple of hours later the searchers returned with the coveted bag, and said they had seen the sea; the rest could raise no enthusiasm, and were very sceptical.

At a quarter to eight we set forth from our hiding-place, and five minutes later the party as a whole had its first view of the sea.

The morning sun was on it, making sky and sea one undivided sheen.

It was difficult to realise that at last we were near the coast.

From the point where we were to the shore could be barely six miles.

Within forty miles of the coast we had been at a height of something approaching 5000 feet, but each ridge we had passed had in front of it another to hide the sea from us.

Thus it was that not until we had marched for twenty-three nights and twenty-two days did we first look on it.

As we scanned the water through the field-glasses, it looked as dead as the adjacent country.

Not a sail was in sight anywhere, not a single ripple disturbed the shining sheet of glass in front of us.

With heads uncovered, and with thankful hearts, we stood gazing, but without being in any way excited.

Thus it was that no shout like the "Thalassa!

Thalassa!"

of Xenophon's Ten Thousand broke from the lips of our little band that still August morning; although here was the end of our land journey at last in sight after a march of some 330 miles.

Had we seen a single boat it would have been different.

There was nothing.

Our great desire now was to get down to the coast itself.

We thought that there must surely be a village somewhere down on the shore, where we should be able either to get hold of a boat at night or to bribe a crew with a promise of much money if they would land us at Cyprus.

Before us, the intervening country was covered with bare rocks, stunted trees, and scrub, and fell away to the sea in a series of small ridges and terraces.

Still following the track, our party, weary and hot, came to a halt at 11 A. M.

on the 30th August, two miles from the shore, in the shade of a ruined stone tower.

There were similar square towers dotted along the coast; perhaps their ancient use, like that of our own Martello towers, had been to ward off a foreign invasion should need arise; or, in less exciting times, to show lights towards the sea to guide at night the ships in those waters.

We stopped at the tower, because we thought it was unsafe to go farther and risk being seen by any coastguard that might happen to be stationed there.

It was well we did so.

From here Cochrane went on alone, and while he was away we saw our first boat.

Coming round a headland of the coast, a few miles east of us, a motor-boat passed across our front and disappeared into a narrow bay a mile and a half to our west.

She towed a cutter full of men.

Cochrane also had seen them, and came back to the tower to tell us the news; unfortunately, he had not found the hoped-for village.

A few yards from the tower was a shallow stone-built well.

Its water, though very dirty, being merely a puddle at the bottom, for us was drinkable.

The day was very oppressive, with a damp heat, so we refreshed ourselves with a dixieful of tea.

After this, Cochrane, taking Ellis with him, again went forward, this time to try to find the exact anchorage of the motor-boat.

On their return they said there were tents on the shore.

In one of them were horses, and in the neighbourhood several Turkish soldiers were moving about.

Studying our map, we decided we were within three miles of Pershembé, a point for which we had headed for some days past.

The coast-line before us ran N.

E.

and S. W.

We were on a narrow plateau one and a half mile from the sea, and the high ground continued till within a few hundred yards of the water; in some places even to the edge of the coast itself, which was indented with small bays and creeks.

On the headland to the east, and gleaming white in the sunshine, stood a magnificent stone-built town, walled and turreted, but showing no signs of being inhabited.

Nearer to us, on the foreshore, was a small lagoon, spanned at one corner by an old bridge: on the water's edge could be seen green reeds and half a dozen palm-trees, and here three or four camels were feeding.

Opposite to the lagoon and some eight hundred yards off the shore was a small island fortress, its turreted and loopholed walls rising sheer from the sea.

It boasted fine bastioned towers, and when the sun was willing to act as master showman this dazzling gem was framed in a fit setting of sapphire.

This, though we did not know its name at the time, was Korghos Island.

Here may be mentioned a very peculiar coincidence, although we only learnt of it after our return to England.

This was, that Keeling, after his escape from Kastamoni, had spared himself no trouble in attempting to arrange schemes of escape for his former companions, and only a few weeks after our departure a number of his code messages reached the camp at Yozgad, amongst them one detailing our best route to this very island of Korghos.

Here were to be waiting either agents with a supply of food or a boat, between three different pairs of dates: one of those periods coincided with part of this very time that we were on the coast.

When we eventually reached Cyprus, we learnt also that two agents had been landed on Korghos Island, but that they had been seen and captured.

To continue the description of the coast at which we had arrived: immediately below us the ground fell away to a low-lying stretch of foreshore, which extended for nearly a mile between the end of our plateau and the sea.

Half a mile west of us lay a deep ravine, which looked as if it would run into the creek entered by the motor-boat.

Along the sea and lined by the telegraph poles the main coast road wound its way.

In the early evening Nobby, Looney, and Johnny went off to reconnoitre, but it was impossible to approach the coast by daylight because of the men moving about, and they had to return to the tower with little additional information.

There were five tents for men and a larger one for horses, and though no guns were visible it was very probable that here was a section of a battery for dealing with any boat that might attempt to spy out the nakedness of the land.

Two years before that time, Lord Rosebery's yacht, the _Zaida_, had been mined a few miles along the coast at a place called Ayasch Bay, which she had entered for the purpose of landing spies.

Four of her officers had come to the prisoners' camp at Kastamoni, and we heard from the three of them who survived that there had been some field-guns on the shore where they were captured.

Our resting-place near the tower was an unsatisfactory one.

We were close to water, it is true, but we were also close to a track leading down to the coast, and though we were soon to change our minds, we thought at the time that no flies in the world could be as persistent and insatiable as those which all day attacked us.

For these reasons, and the additional one of wishing to be nearer the creek which we thought the motor-boat had entered, we decided to move to the ravine half a mile west of our tower.

We would visit the well early in the morning and late at night for replenishing our water supply.

Accordingly at dusk we again packed up.

Our way led us through thick undergrowth along neglected terraces, and at about 6. 30 P.

M.

we were on the edge of the steep-sided valley.

By a stroke of luck we almost immediately found a way down to the bottom.

Although we were to become all too well acquainted with that ravine, we only found one other possible line of ascent and descent on the tower side, and one path up the western edge.

The river-bed, of course, was dry, and filled with huge boulders and thickly overgrown with bushes.

Pushing our way through these, we had only gone a quarter of a mile down the ravine when we decided to halt for the night.

CHAPTER XIII.