Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  Juliette saw at once that these strenuous efforts were very bad for Iskuhi's looks. Her cheeks had begun to lose their color, her face was peaked, her eyes as huge as when she had first emerged from the hell of the convoy. And Juliette strove with all her might to rid Iskuhi's heart of its zeal for duty. She only managed to shock and puzzle her. How, in this crisis of her whole people, could she shirk so absurdly easy a task? On the contrary! She wanted more work for the afternoons. Juliette turned her back on her.

  At present Juliette spent half the day lying on her bed. The narrow tent stifled her. Two pestering sunbeams forced their way through chinks in the canvas door. She had not the energy to get up and cover them. "I shall be ill," she hoped. "Oh, if I were only ill already." Her pounding heart threatened to burst, with unassuageable longings -- longings for Gabriel. But not for the present Gabriel -- no! For Gabriel the -- Parisien, that sensitive, gentle, and considerate Gabriel, whose tact had always made her forget the things which are not to be bridged over. She longed for the Gabriel of the Avenue Kléber, in their sunny flat, sitting down good-temperedly to lunch. Her distant world enveloped her in its sounds: its hooting cars, the subterranean rattle of the Metro, its delicious, chattering bustle; the scents of its familiar shops. She buried her face in the pillow, as though it were the one thing left, the one handsbreadth of home that remained to her. She was seeking herself in its odorous softness, striving with all her senses to hold fast to these fugitive memories of Paris. But she did not succeed. Rotating splotches of sunbeam forced themselves in, between closed lids. Colored disks with, in the center of each, a piercing eye -- eyes that reproached and suffered, forcing themselves in on her from all sides; Gabriel's and Stephan's Armenian eyes, which would not let go of her. When she looked up, the eyes were really bending over her, in the wildly bearded face of a strange man. She stared in alarm at Gabriel. He seemed remote, his nights all spent out of doors, the reek of damp earth clinging to him. His voice was the hurried voice of a man between two urgent duties.

  "Are you all right, chérie? Nothing you want? I've just looked in to see how you're getting on."

  "I'm all right -- thank you."

  She offered him a dream-enveloped hand. For a while he sat next her, saying nothing, as though there was nothing they could discuss. Then he stood up.

  But she sat up irritably. "Do you really think me so empty, so materialist, that you only ever need worry about externals?"

  He did not understand at once. She sobbed: "I can't go on living like this."

  He turned back with a very serious face. "I quite see you can't live like this, Juliette. One just can't live in a community, when one puts oneself entirely apart from it. You ought to do something. Go into the camp, try to help. Be human!"

  "It's not my community."

  "Nor mine as much as you seem to imagine, Juliette. We belong far less to what we've come from than to what we're doing our best to reach."

  "Or not to reach," she wept.

  When he had gone, Juliette pulled herself together. Perhaps he was right. It really couldn't go on like this. She begged Mairik Antaram to ask the doctor to let her work in the hospital hut. The thought that a thousand Frenchwomen were doing the same, at that very minute, for their wounded, helped her to come to this decision. At first the old doctor jibbed, then he accepted her. Juliette, that very same day, made her first appearance in the hut (it was still in process of being built) suitably attired in coif and apron. There were luckily very few cases of serious illness on the Damlayik. One or two fever patients swathed in rags lay on mats and cushions, still stiff with damp from the recent storm. They were mostly very old people. Grey, mysterious faces, already half out of the world. "Not my sort," felt Juliette, with a certain pity, a vast repugnance. She could see how unsuited she was to such works of mercy. It was as though she had been lifted above herself. She had all the available bedding brought from the tents -- anything she could possibly spare.

  Till midday, the fourth of August passed like the days that had preceded it. When in the early morning Gabriel scanned the valley with his field-glass, the villages looked quiet and deserted. It seemed almost a permissible thought that everything would work out smoothly, world peace be signed, and the return to normal life secured for them. So that he left his observation post in quite a hopeful frame of mind, and went on from sector to sector on a surprise inspection of the work and discipline of the decads. Towards midday, entirely satisfied, he returned to his own headquarters. A few minutes later scouts came running in from all sides. Report: a big dust cloud on the road from Antioch to Suedia -- lots and lots of soldiers -- in four detachments -- behind them saptiehs and a big crowd of people! . . . They were just turning into the valley and already marching through Wakef, the first village. Gabriel dashed to the nearest observation post and established the following: the column of march of an infantry company at war strength was on its way down the village street. He recognized them at once as regulars, from the mounted captain who led them, and the fact that they were marching in four platoons, which seemed almost able to keep in step. They came swaying onwards. They must therefore be trained, and perhaps even front-line troops, garrisoned in the barracks of Antakiya, part of Jemal Pasha's newly conditioned army. About two hundred saptiehs dribbled along, far behind the company, while the scum of the plains, the human dregs of Antioch, raised its dust on either side of this column of march. The advance of so warlike a contingent of nearly four hundred rifles, including the saptiehs, was carried out in such God-forsaken indifference to exposure through this open country that Gabriel was inclined for a time to think that these troops had another objective. Only when the column, after a short pause and officers' consultation, moved forward northwest, behind Bitias, into the mountains, was it quite certain that this was a campaign against the villagers. The Turks seemed to imagine that they were doing policemen's work, less dangerous even than the usual hunt for deserters -- that all they would have to do would be to surround an unarmed encampment of miserable villagers, smoke them out, and herd them into the valley. For such a task they must have felt superlatively strong, as indeed they were, when one considers that the Armenians only had a hundred good rifles, scarcely any munitions, and few trained men. By the time they were in Yoghonoluk, Gabriel had sounded the major alarm, practised daily with his decads and the camp. The münadirs, the drummers, gathered together the Town Enclosure. The orderly group of the cohort of youth went darting all over the mountain plateau with orders to the section leaders. A few of these lads even ventured down into the valley, to find out the formation and movements of the enemy. Ter Haigasun, the seven mukhtars, the elder members of the council, stayed with the people, in the center of the camp, as had been arranged. No one dared to breathe. Even babes in arms seemed to stifle their wailings. Reservists, armed with axes, mattocks, and spades, encircled the camp in a wide ring, to be ready in case they were wanted. Gabriel stood with Chaush Nurhan and the other leaders. The whole event had been foreseen.

  But, since this was a first encounter, and no other point was directly menaced, he emptied his supports of all but their most necessary defenders, and threw every decad at his disposal into the trenches of the North Saddle. The system had four lines. First and foremost the main trench, which blocked the entrance to the Damlayik, on the uneven summit of the left slope of the Saddle. A few hundred yards behind it the second trench, dug along very uneven ground. On the frontal side of the slope, beyond the trenches, flank protection, with thrust out sniping-posts. Finally, on the side facing the sea, the barricades, luckily too high to see across, of jagged limestone rock.

  About two hundred, armed with the best rifles and, it was to be hoped, the best of the fighters, manned the front-line trench. Bagradian himself was to lead them. Nor had he allowed Sarkis Kilikian, or any other deserter, into this garrison. Men from carefully picked decads were placed under Chaush Nurhan, in the rock barricades. Another two hundred stood in the second trench, ready in case things should go ba
dly. Every fighter received three sets of five cartridges -- only fifteen bullets apiece.

  Bagradian insisted: "Not one unnecessary bullet. Even if the fighting lasts three days, you've all got to make your three cartridge clips do. Save -- or we're done for. And -- listen carefully -- this is the most important thing of all. No one to open fire without my orders. All keep your eye on me. We must let the Turks, who won't even know we're there, come on, till they're ten paces off us. And then -- aim steadily at the head, and fire steadily. And now, keep thinking of all the horrible things they've done to us. And of nothing else."

  Gabriel's heart, as he said it, beat so hard that his voice shook. He had to pull himself together to prevent their noticing. It was more than any excitement of coming battle; it was the clear knowledge of this crazy, monstrous defiance of the forces of a world-army by a handful of half-trained men. There was not a trace in him of hatred. He awaited an impersonal enemy, no longer the Turk, no longer Enver, Talaat, the police chief, the müdir -- simply "the enemy," whom one slaughters without hate.

  And, as Bagradian felt, so did all the rest. Tension seemed to have stopped their very heartbeats when the boys came crawling back out of the thickets and, with wild gestures, announced the near approach of the Turks. This excitement froze at once to a glacial calm as the sound of infantry boots came nearer, over crackling twigs, with bursts of most imprudent noise, without any prescience of danger in it. Little by little, puffing from the climb, their column of march broken up, the Turkish soldiers approached the Saddle. The captain in charge seemed quite persuaded that this was a job for the police. Otherwise he would surely not have neglected the most obvious precautionary measures, the basic tactical principles for a force in enemy country. Unshielded by any patrols, advance guard, flank or rear protection, a disordered swarm of laughing, gossiping, smoking infantrymen had come straggling up, to collect on the ridge, and get their breaths after the climb.

  Chaush Nurhan crawled to Bagradian, down the trench, and tried, in a sharp, loud whisper, to persuade him to attack, surround the Turks, and cut them off. But Gabriel, clenching his teeth, merely put a hand over Nurhan's mouth, and pushed him away. Their captain, a stout, good-looking man, had taken off his lambskin kepi, with the half-moon, and was dabbing up the sweat that streamed down his forehead. His lieutenants collected round him. They stood disputing over a sketch-map, all arguing, in rather unsoldierly fashion, as to the probable hiding-place of the wasps' nest. Fiery eternities for Bagradian. The puffing captain would not so much as take the trouble to climb the highest point and survey the terrain. At last he ordered his bugler to sound the "fall-in," in several strident repetitions, no doubt in order to put the fear of Allah into cringing Armenians. The four lines formed up two deep, in extended order, as if on a barrack-square. The corporals dashed in front of the men and reported to the officers. A lieutenant drew his sword to report to the captain.

  Gabriel took a good look at this captain's face. It was not an unpleasant one. It was a broad, friendly face, in gold-rimmed pince-nez, planted well up the nose. Now the captain, too, was drawing his sword and, in a high, weak voice, giving his order: "Fix bayonets." A clatter of rifles. The captain twirled his sword once round his head, before thrusting its point towards the ridge of the Armenian Saddle. "First and second platoons, in extended order -- follow me." The senior lieutenant pointed his sword in the opposite direction: "Third and fourth platoons, in extended order -- follow me." So that the Turks were not even certain whether the fugitives had encamped on the Damlayik or the northern heights of Musa Dagh. The Armenians stood breast-high in their trenches. The thrown-up escarpe in front of them, in the slots of which they rested their guns, had been fully camouflaged, as had also the lines of visibility, hewn out in the undergrowth and knee-high grass which strewed the incline. In ragged extended order the unwitting Turks toiled up the height. The first-line trench was so brilliantly masked that it would have been perceptible only from a much higher observation point; a point which, however, did not exist, except in the tallest tree-tops of the counter-slope. Gabriel raised his hand, and drew all eyes in his direction.

  The Turks were making slow progress through the undergrowth. The captain had lit a fresh cigarette. Suddenly he started and stopped. What was the meaning of that turned-up soil, over there? It was still a few seconds before it flashed upon him -- that's a trench. And it still seemed to him so incredible that again he delayed, before he shouted: "Get down! Take cover!" Too late. The first shot was already fired, and indeed before Bagradian's hand had dropped for it. The Armenians fired reflectively, one after another, without excitement. They had time to aim. Each of them knew that not one cartridge must be wasted. And since their victims, rigid with surprise, were still only a few paces off them, not one bullet missed its mark. The stout captain with the good-natured face shouted again: "Down! Take cover." Then he looked up in amazement at the sky, and sat on the ground. His glasses tumbled off, before he sank over on his side. Discipline suddenly broke in the Turkish ranks. The men, shouting wildly, ran down the slope again, leaving dead and wounded, among whom were the captain, a corporal, and three onbashis. Gabriel did not fire. Suddenly he felt raised above the earth. Reality around him had grown as unreal as it always is, in its truest essence.

  The Turks took a long time to collect themselves. Their officers and non-coms had a hard job to hold up the retreat. They had to chivvy back their protesting men with blows from the flats of their swords and rifle-butts. Meanwhile, the two ranks which had taken no fire were advanced. But, instead of first discovering a practical line of attack, these riflemen sought their cover haphazard, behind bushes and blocks of stone, without the vaguest inkling of an Armenian trench almost under their rifles. A mad shower of spattering bullets was released from behind bushes and dwarf shrubs, which did the trench not the slightest damage. Only now and again did a stray shot ping over the heads of the defenders.

  Gabriel sent an order down the trench: "Don't shoot. Take good cover. Wait till they come back."

  At the same time he sent word to his flank positions; anyone daring to fire a shot, or even so much as show his face, would be punished as a traitor. No Turk must have the smallest suspicion of the presence of any flank protection. The Armenian slope seemed as dead and empty as ever. It looked as though all its defenders had succumbed to the fierce peppering of the Turks. After an hour of this savage wasting of munitions, the company, four madly daring extended lines of it, attempted a fresh assault. The Armenians, now surer than ever of themselves, again allowed them to come up close before they again opened fire: a fire far worse, far bloodier, than the last. Now the non-commissioned officers found it impossible to keep control of a wild retreat. In an instant the whole Saddle was swept clear. Only the cursing of wounded came out of the bushes. A few Armenians were about to climb out of their trenches when Gabriel shouted to them that no one had had orders to leave his post.

  After a while some Turkish stretcher-bearers gingerly advanced between the trees and began to wave a red-moon flag. Gabriel sent Chaush Nurhan a few steps out to them. He beckoned them nearer; then he bellowed: "You can take away your dead and wounded. Rifles, munitions, packs, cartridge belts, bread rations, uniforms, and boots to be left here."

  Upon which, under the threat of barrels turned on them, the stretcher-bearers were forced to undress each corpse, and leave all this, in untidy heaps. Then, when they had cleared away these victims -- it took a long time, because they had always to keep coming back -- all the fighters, including Chaush Nurhan, were of opinion that the attack had been routed, and that no further attempt need be feared. Gabriel did not heed these deceptive voices. He ordered Avakian to collect the nimblest lads among the scouts and some of his own group of orderlies. These were sent out to collect the plundered stores and scramble back behind the line with them. He picked out the slipperiest of his spies. They were to follow the companies and watch their movements very closely. Even before the orderlies finished collecting, Haik, a
youngster not much older than Stephan, was already back with his report. Some of the Turks were climbing the mountain, farther north, at a place where there was nothing for them to find.