Frank Forester: A Story of the Dardanelles

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER XIII

  SHARING A SEPULCHRE

  Keeping well under cover, Frank worked his way upwards through the scrubround the north-east shoulder of Sari Bair. Every now and then hestopped, as it were to "sniff the air." He smiled to himself, thinkinghow like his movements must be to those of a fox that knows that thehounds are out. "I can believe now," he thought, "the huntsman's theorythat the enjoyment is not all on one side."

  From the height to which he had now ascended he had a bird's-eye view ofthe pretty little village of Biyuk Anafarta, surrounded by tall andstately cypresses, lying below him in a gap in the hills to the north.He paused for a moment to admire the scene. Just above him was the headof a nullah forming a ravine on the northern face of Sari Bair, andjoining as a tributary a larger nullah running westward past the villageto the sea. A hundred yards up the hill a large cedar jutted out fromthe side of the nullah, here only a few feet deep, and towered above theprevailing scrub. Six or eight paces from the tree, near the bank ofthe nullah, there appeared the stone door of an ancient sepulchre,probably dating back before the Christian era. The stones wereperfectly cut and squared, and solidly cemented together. The weatherof twenty centuries had but lightly touched them.

  At this point Frank redoubled his precautions. The vegetation grewclosely about the sepulchre; this solitude was apparently never visitedby men; but he could not afford to leave anything to chance. He droppedinto the nullah some eighty yards below the tree, and carefully workedhis way up the bed of the ravine. Arriving at the tree, he took a finallook round, pulled himself up by the roots, and climbed up on thewestern side, having the massive trunk between him and the men who werehunting for him far away to the east.

  At the first big fork the tree was hollow. Letting himself down withinthe hollowed trunk, he stood upon a litter of leaves, brushwood, andsoft detritus, which he stooped in the semi-darkness to stir over. Aftera while he uncovered a hole about two feet across. Through this hewriggled, into a narrow passage not high enough to walk erect in, endingin a small square room a little higher than the passage, but still toolow for the upright posture.

  The air was full of the sickly odour of decay. A feeble light filteredthrough a number of tube-like orifices bored in the stone on one wall ofthe room. At the further end, reaching almost from the floor to theroof, stood two enormous earthen jars. They were filled with humanbones. This little room was the interior of the sepulchre.

  Frank had discovered the place by accident a day or two before. He hadclimbed the tree to learn, if he could, the whereabouts of his pursuers,and discovered the hollow trunk. Thinking that this would afford asecure hiding-place in case of need, though the quarters would in truthbe rather cramped, he had dropped down and started to clear a space forsleeping. It was then that, in lifting a mass of brushwood, he haddiscovered the passage and the chamber beyond.

  The discovery set his imagination at work. The building was obviouslyso much older than the tree that this strange connection between themmust be an afterthought. Within the sepulchre he found some articles ofGreek pottery which suggested an explanation. Back in the middle agesthe peninsula of Gallipoli, then a Greek possession, was overrun by theconquering Ottoman Turks. Was it not possible that some Greek fugitive,fleeing before the barbarians, had lighted upon this hollow tree just ashe himself had done, and cut a passage through it into the ancient andforgotten tomb? How many centuries had passed before the Byzantinefugitive, if such he was, had intruded upon the solitude of itsfleshless inhabitants?

  The stories which the Anatolian captain had related to Abdi did notexaggerate the truth. Frank had acted on the impulse of the moment inhurling Abdi into the ruins of Benidin's bomb-shelled house. He had nottaken a moment's thought for the future, nor indeed, after hisshattering experiences, was he in a condition to think collectedly. Allthat he was conscious of was a desperate anxiety to get as far from theKurd as possible. He ran into the gathering dusk, retaining just enoughpresence of mind to direct his course away from the lower town.Benidin's house was on the outskirts, and in a few minutes he came intoopen country. He had met no one, but hearing the rumble of anapproaching wagon ahead, he left the road and struck off into the roughground at the side.

  It was now dark. He checked his pace, to recover breath andself-possession. What was he to do? Kopri had perhaps returned by thistime in the vessel which was to convey him back to Constantinople, butto retrace his steps and seek the harbour was more than he dared. Onregaining his senses the Kurd would certainly raise the hue and crythrough the town: Gallipoli would be too hot for the fugitive. Whatthen was left? It had been suggested that he should seek safety inBulgaria, but the frontier was far away, he had no guide, and he hadbeen so shaken by the recent explosion that he felt a nervous dread ofthe encounters that were inevitable if he attempted to find his waythrough strange country. A better course, he thought, was to hide amongthe hills for a few days, until he had recovered his nerve andwill-power. With money in his pocket and a command of the Turkish tonguehe might purchase food in some hill village or at some outlying farm.

  Guiding himself, therefore, by the stars, he struggled on for a whiletowards the hilly district south-westwards, intending presently to takerefuge in some sheltered spot where he might pass the night. As he wenthe remembered that off the south-west extremity of the peninsula lay theBritish fleet; but at this moment the fleet seemed as remote from him asthe stars themselves. After a time he heard noises below him--thecreaking of carts, the voices of men; at short intervals he saw faintlights. Clearly there was a road beneath, and a convoy was on the road.He stood still; listened; watched. The convoy was moving in theopposite direction to his own course, and from the sound of the wagonshe inferred that they were empty. Then they must be returning from theforts at the further end of the peninsula. He knew nothing about thegeography of the interior of this tongue of land; but he was aware thata road ran close to the shore of the Dardanelles. That must be ashorter route to the forts than this second road, which apparentlytraversed the centre of the peninsula; and in a moment or two itoccurred to him that the Turko-Germans employed the longer road inreturning their "empties" in order to avoid congestion on the moredirect route.

  Frank waited until the convoy had passed, then groped his way down tothe road. It was so dark now that he might trudge the highway withlittle risk of discovery, and with a greater chance of finding a hovelwhere with good luck he might take shelter. But fatigue overcame himbefore he had gone more than a few miles, and he climbed up the hillsideagain, threw himself down under the lee of a rock upon a stretch ofmoss, and wrapping his sheepskin garment around him, slept until theverge of dawn.

  Resuming his way over the hills, within sight of the road, he saw by andby in the distance a village of considerable size. He was hungry, buthis heart failed him; he felt that he could not face inquisitivevillagers, and endure their cross-questioning. He passed above thevillage and went on. From the distance came the rumble of guns.Presently he caught sight of a farm in a hollow of the hills, and turnedhis steps towards it. As he drew nearer to it he became more and morenervous. How was he to account for himself? What story could he inventthat would pass muster with people who probably seldom saw a stranger,and would certainly be suspicious? He could not think of anything thatseemed plausible; yet he must have food, and at length, with the courageof desperation, he resolved to throw off the mask. He obtained foodthere at the point of his revolver, and betook himself with it to athicket on the hill-top beyond, where having assuaged his hunger heslept through the rest of the day and the night.

  Next morning he finished his provisions and set off again on hisjourney--no longer aimless, for during the night the idea had come tohim of making his way to the coast and swimming out to one of theBritish vessels whose guns he had heard. The project had seemed to him,in the hours of darkness, wonderfully easy; but in the cold light ofmorning it assumed, as such night th
oughts often do, a very differentcomplexion. "Silly ass!" he thought. "The ships will be miles out.I'd never get to them." And his mind was soon occupied with moreimmediate concerns.

  Looking back from his elevated position along the road, he perceived anumber of soldiers, not marching in orderly ranks on the highway, butdotted here and there on the heights on either side. In a moment itflashed upon him that the troops were on his trail. This convictionacted as a tonic. There was a definite danger to contend with, a problemon which to exercise his wits. To proceed directly on his former coursewould be fatal. His best chance of ultimate escape was to worry thepursuers in the difficult hill country and tire them out. And so he hadcommenced that brief career of semi-brigandage which had up to thepresent supplied his needs and stimulated his mental activity. Now andthen, of course, he was sunk deep in depression. He was very muchalone, surrounded by enemies, often hungry, still more often very cold;but the necessity for constant exertion helped him to conquerdespondency, and prevented him from dwelling over long on the darkerside of things.

  Now, as he squatted on the couch of leaves which he had made for himselfon the floor of the sepulchre, he pondered his situation seriously andwith anxiety. It was clear that a determined effort was being made tocapture him, and he ruefully acknowledged to himself that the verysuccesses he had had in obtaining food, clothes, and arms would tellagainst him: they furnished his pursuers with an additional motive. Thetroops would certainly begin a methodical search of Sari Bair. Theycould not fail to discover the door of the sepulchre, and though thiswas sealed, and there was no entrance to the place from the ground, theentrance through the tree might be discovered by one of them in the sameaccidental way as in his own case. Fortunately, the surrounding rockswere too hard to show tell-tale traces of his footsteps, but if thepursuers should continue to haunt the neighbourhood, he might findhimself compelled to remain in hiding, and the idea of being cooped upin these narrow gloomy quarters was far from inspiriting. The tomb wasin truth a dismal abode. The sepulchral vases were not cheerful piecesof furniture. On the previous night he had had an attack of nerves, andclimbed into the fork of the tree to sleep. But the physical discomfortdue to the attentions of innumerable insects was less endurable than theintangible companionship of ghosts, and ashamed of his weakness he hadclambered down again, and fallen asleep to the dull boom of British gunsbombarding the forts.

  "Well, I've got a rifle and ammunition now," he thought, as he settledhimself for his second night's sleep in the tomb. "But I dare not gogame-shooting with them. To-morrow I shall have to go foraging again.I'm getting tired of this."