Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom — Chapter 13, Part 1 - On the Coast

ON THE COAST.

There was still, however, no time to be lost in discovering and obtaining the motor-tug or other boat, seeing that we had arrived on the coast with barely three days' supply of food.

That same night, then, Cochrane and Nobby carried out a reconnaissance, continuing to follow our ravine down towards the sea, in the hope that they would come out opposite the bay into which the tug and her tow had disappeared that afternoon.

The remainder settled down to sleep as best they could, without a dinner and on hard and stony beds, taking it in turns at half-hour intervals to keep watch.

This was necessary to prevent the two scouts passing them unawares should they return in the dark.

The whole party had reached the coast on their last legs.

In the case of Grunt especially, nothing short of the certainty of being able to walk on board a boat could have moved him that night.

He had still not recovered from the effects of the blow on the head.

As for Cochrane and Nobby, it must have been pure strength of will which enabled them to carry on, after the trying day in the damp heat.

Cochrane, indeed, had undertaken what proved beyond his powers; upon him more than any had fallen the brunt of the work of guiding the little column night after night and day after day.

It was not to be wondered at that on this occasion he had not proceeded a mile before his legs simply gave way beneath him, and he had to allow Nobby to proceed alone.

Soon afterwards the ravine took an almost northerly direction.

When it eventually petered out it was at some distance to the north of the probable position of the motor-boat.

Nobby now found himself crossing the coast road; this we had assumed would be guarded.

On the way out he saw no one; but on his return journey next morning he proved our assumption correct by almost stepping on the face of a man who lay sleeping on the road.

He was presumably on duty.

The propensity of the Turkish sentry for going to sleep at his post once more stood us in good stead.

During the night it had been too dark to see much, and Nobby had had to return without having discovered a boat.

After hunting round, he had settled down on the edge of a small creek running into the sea, where he remained till the first streak of dawn enabled him to pick his way back to the mouth of the ravine.

His main difficulty that night had been to keep himself awake.

All the time he was in deadly terror of falling asleep and awaking to find himself stranded on the coast in broad daylight.

[Illustration: _Sketched to Authors' description by Hal Kay.

_ LIFE IN THE RAVINE.

] He tried to occupy himself with fishing.

He had taken with him the line and hooks which were an item of the party's equipment on leaving Yozgad; but no bites came to keep up his flagging interest.

Before long he had a midnight bathe, to the great envy of the rest of the party when they heard of it next morning; but the water, he said, had been almost too warm to be really refreshing; the rocks, too, were unpleasantly sharp to stand on.

He next picked at an exposed nerve in one of his teeth, and the acute pain thereby inflicted served to keep him awake for the rest of the night.

At long length the sky began to lighten, and Nobby, after his narrow escape while re-crossing the road, once more entered the ravine and picked up Cochrane.

The two then rejoined their anxious comrades.

It was now 5 A. M.

Dawn was slow to reach our hemmed-in hiding-place; but when it was light enough to see, we discovered that the sides of the ravine were covered with trees bearing what Ellis fortunately recognised as "carobs" or locust beans.

We were soon doing what we could to stifle the gnawing pains of hunger by eating quantities of this wild fruit.

Some people believe that this is what is meant by the "locusts" eaten by John the Baptist.

To our taste they seemed wonderfully sweet and had something of the flavour of chocolate, so that throughout our stay on the coast they formed an unfailing dessert after, and often before our meals.

When we eventually reached Cyprus we found that there the tree is cultivated, and that thousands of tons of carobs are exported yearly for use in cattle foods.

However humble their use, in our case at any rate they were not to be despised, and as a matter of fact the cultivated beans are used to some extent in the manufacture of certain chocolates.

The night reconnaissance having failed to solve the question of the motor-boat's anchorage, at 7 A. M.

on this last day of August, Johnny and Looney set out on a search for the elusive bay by daylight.

Climbing up the southern side of the ravine, they had to keep out of sight of the men who were known to be below them, so they at first remained at some distance from the coast, moving parallel to it for over a mile.

They then turned towards the sea until they reached a terrace below which the ground fell away rather steeply to the shore.

From this point of observation it was possible to see the greater part of the series of capes and bays into which the coast was divided.

Still no sign of the tug gladdened their eyes.

A closer approach by day would involve considerable risk.

A couple of motor-lorries and a mounted patrol had already been observed moving along the road.

The two scouts sat down awhile on some boulders behind a large bush, and while Johnny peered between the branches through the field-glasses, Looney drew a rough panorama so as to be able if necessary to indicate to the rest of the party any particular bay.

It was about 10 A. M.

: the two were about to seek some point of vantage from which it would be possible to see more of some of the bays, when suddenly they heard the hum of a motor.

Next moment the tug shot into view from the hidden portion of one of the bays to the N.

E.

Once more she towed a cutter full of men and stores, and through the glasses it was possible to recognise the Turkish flag flying at her stern.

The two remained where they were, watching her until she disappeared round a bend far up the coast towards Mersina.

Possibly she made daily trips, carrying working parties and material to some scene of activity, so the two decided to try to overlook the head of the bay in which she had appeared, in order to discover something definite about the anchorage.

To reduce the risk of detection, they first withdrew out of sight of the road and worked their way more to the north before cutting down again towards the shore.

On the way out from the ravine they had passed near some ruins, and these they now took in their course to see if there might be a well there with water in it.

It was unfortunate that there was not, for in this dead city there was one enormous and very deep amphitheatre, into which it was possible to descend by a path cut in the rocky side.

Here shade from the sun would have been obtainable at all hours of the day, and altogether it would have been a better hiding-place than the ravine, if only it had contained a water supply.

But though they found the remains of one well, it was absolutely dry.

The two now made their way cautiously towards the place whence the boats had been seen to emerge.

The slope of the ground, however, became more and more pronounced as they approached the coast, so that they were able to see little more of the bay than had been visible from their earlier observation point; although by this time they were within sight of the tents seen on the previous day.

These stood a little way out on a small cape.

Dodging from cover to cover amongst the patches of scrub, sometimes on hands and knees, they finally found themselves close to the coast road itself.

Leaving Looney screened from view, Johnny now went on alone.

He was not twenty yards from the road when a Turkish soldier passed along it.

A

moment later four or five others were seen skirting the seaward edge of a rocky headland to the south, apparently engaged in looking for mussels.

It was now obvious that opposite the head of the bay which they sought, the coast rose so sheer, that to obtain a view of the whole would entail going forward across the road to the edge of the cliff beyond.

With so many people moving about, this, by daylight, was out of the question, and after seven hours' reconnaissance in the hot sun the two had to be satisfied with bringing back the information that they knew which bay the boats had entered the day before, but that they were there no longer.

Meanwhile another party of two--to wit, the Old Man and Perce--had gone forth from the ravine in a last search for food.

Without a further supply of this we should be compelled to give ourselves up unless we at once discovered a boat.

Of inhabited villages there appeared to be none, even should we have dared to attempt another entry after the experiences of "the three Huns."

The Circassian encampments, too, had ceased.

It is a fairly well-known fact that in the East if villagers are driven away from their homes for any cause, such as a punitive expedition, they usually take steps to bury any valuables which they are unable to carry away, the most common of which is grain.

We had bethought ourselves of the deserted village some miles back, near to which we had halted just before our first glimpse of the sea.

It occurred to us that the occupants might have been compelled by the Turkish authorities to quit on the outbreak of war, as being within too short a distance of the coast.

In this case, then, there might be food there, buried or otherwise concealed.

In this, providentially, we were to find ourselves not mistaken, although the search party set off with little hopes of success.

It required a five-mile climb up the series of ridges to reach the village, and the track was very rough to the feet.

On the previous day even the descent had been trying enough in the oppressive heat which seemed to prevail on the coast; so the ascent was doubly so.

Moreover, the village itself did not come into view until one was within a mile of it, and as there were remains of other tracks branching off at frequent intervals, it was not easy for the Old Man and Perce to keep to the right one.

Great was their relief when, after a good deal of wandering, they found themselves safely within the farm enclosure; for really the "village" comprised only one house with its outbuildings, all within a square walled enclosure.

There seemed to be no one about, so they set to work to force the rough country locks with which all the doors were fastened.

They had brought the little adze with them, and for this work it was invaluable, although its steel edge was not thereby improved.

One of the upstair living-rooms was first invaded.

On entering they found the floor bare, but cupboards and lockers in the wall stuffed full of a wonderful variety of things--rolls of cloth (obviously made on the spot, for there were remains of the looms), coarse cotton-wool, a few handkerchiefs, cobbler's materials and tools, an old coffee-grinder in pieces, some hoop-iron, an enamelled mug, a dozen wooden spoons, and a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends such as seem to collect in all houses, English and Turkish alike.

The only items of present value were the handkerchiefs, a little prepared leather, the mug, and some of the spoons.

These they removed, and by dint of looking into many small cloth bags found something of greater value--namely, a couple of pounds of dry powdery cheese, and as much salt as we were likely to want if we stayed on the coast for a month.

These alone, however, were not going to keep eight hungry mortals alive, so the joy of the two searchers was proportionately great when, on breaking into an outhouse and stumbling over a litter of wooden staves, they discovered in the next room something over 300 pounds of wheat lying in a heap on the floor.

The grain was uncrushed and dirty, but that disadvantage could be overcome with a little trouble.

Further search revealed nothing more in the way of food, but it was noted that in other rooms there were several cooking-pots which might be worth taking down on a future visit.

For the present the two loaded up their packs with some grain, and hurriedly bundling back the things which they had turned out from the cupboards, set their faces once more towards the sea.

At 5. 45 that evening two weary figures staggered into view, being met by Cochrane, Nobby, and Johnny, who had gone up to the well near the tower to draw water.

They had reason to be happy, for this find of food postponed indefinitely our capitulation to hunger.

All five remained at the well till after dark in order to grind enough grain for an evening meal, using a heavy stone to beat a little of it at a time inside a hollowed-out slab, intended for use in watering sheep.

Nobby and Johnny, who stayed a few minutes after the other three, were accosted on their way back to the ravine by a couple of men riding away from the coast on donkeys.

They asked our two whether they belonged to the camp below, and seemed quite satisfied when they said they did.

This confirmed suspicions which some of us had had the previous day, that certain of the tents we had seen contained Germans;

for the two men could certainly not have taken any of us for Turks.

Crushing grain by pounding it with a primitive stone pestle and mortar is at best a fatiguing process, nor are the results favourable to easy digestion.

Not only did some of the grains escape being crushed, but chips of stone from the sides of the mortar became mixed with the food, which was none too clean in itself.

Cochrane said he would make the most worn-out old coffee-grinder do better work with the expenditure of half the energy, so we decided to have another expedition to the village next day to fetch the one which had been noticed there.

We could hardly hope to make a series of visits without eventual discovery; it was best therefore to fetch down at the same time as much more of the wheat as we were likely to want.

Accordingly at 7 A. M.

on the 1st September, four of the party started off carrying empty packs.

These were Nobby, Johnny, and Ellis, and the Old Man, who went for the second time to show the others the way.

On arrival they found distinct signs that the two men who had been met the previous evening had gone to the farmhouse and to the well just below it.

Whether they had noticed anything wrong, there was nothing to show.

In any case, the four lost no time in loading up and returning to a safer spot, reaching the ravine at about 3. 30 P.

M.

The other half of the party had gone in turns to the well, to fetch water and do some more crude grinding for the day's food.

It took an hour and a half to do a single trip for water alone.

Each time nearly an hour was spent in drawing up water mugful by mugful till all available receptacles were full.

So we were thankful when later on that day, Cochrane, scouting around, discovered another well.

This was not only a little nearer to our lair, but also had one place deep enough to permit the use of a canvas bucket.

This meant a great saving of time.

The water, too, held in solution rather less mud, and none of the bits of mouldy wood which formed a fair proportion of the hauls from the well by the tower.

Near the new well there were more ruins, in this case only a few low walls, and, standing apart, a semicircular arch of some twelve feet in diameter--just the bare ring of stones remained and nothing else.