The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

Who could it be? It was hardly possible, though still just possible, that this man was some Greek of the clan – yet such would surely have shouted to him – coming from Petrobey with a message, or it might be some benighted peasant; yet, again, for fear it might be a Turk he must needs go carefully, and with redoubled caution he crept out of the hut, still keeping in the shadow, and looked round the corner. Whether it was the rustle of his moving in the dead silence, or the faint shimmering of his white trousers in the darkness, that betrayed him, was only a thing for conjecture, but the next moment, from some fifty yards in front, he saw the flash of a gun, and a bullet sang viciously by him, cracking in half one of the upright posts which bound the sides of the hut together. Mitsos stood up, as he knew he was seen, and called out, cocking his pistol, yet seeing no one, "Speak, or I fire," and in answer he heard the sound of another charge being rammed home. At that he bolted back round the corner of the tent and waited. The steps advanced closer; clearly the man, whoever he was, finding that he did not fire, concluded that he had no arms – the truth, however, being that Mitsos, having seen nothing but the flash of the gun, thought it more prudent to wait until he had a more localized target. But presently the steps paused, and after a moment he heard them retreating with doubled quickness up the hill towards the pass. Then a solution flashed upon him – this could be no patriot, nor would a wandering peasant have fired at him; it could only be some Turk who had seen the Greek army advancing, had somehow eluded them, and was going hotfoot to Sparta with the news. He must be stopped at all costs, and next moment Mitsos was stretched in pursuit up the hill after him, keeping as much as possible in the cover of the trees. Clearly the man had missed his way in the darkness, and had come unexpectedly upon the Greek camp, and seeing some one there had fired.

In three minutes or so Mitsos' long legs had gained considerably on him, and he now saw him, though duskily, with his gun on his shoulder still making up the hill. Another minute saw them within about fifty yards of each other; but Mitsos had the advantage of position, for while he was running between scattered trees the other was in the open. He apparently recognized this, and changed his course towards the belt of wood; but then suddenly, seeing Mitsos so near, he halted and fired, and Mitsos felt the bullet just graze his arm. On that he ran forward, while the man still stayed reloading his piece, and sent a pistol bullet at him. The shot went wide, and Mitsos with a grunt of rage ran desperately on to close with him. But the other, while he was still some yards distant, finished loading, and his gun was already on the way to his shoulder, when Mitsos, partly in mere animal fury at the imminence of death, but in part with reasonable aim, took hold of his heavy pistol by the barrel and flung it with all his force in the Turk's face. He reeled for a moment, and, the blood, like the red of morning, streaming over his face in a torrent that blinded him, Mitsos was on him and had closed with him. When it came to mere physical strength the odds were vastly in his favor, and in a moment, in the blind gust of the fury of fighting, he wrested the man's gun from him and, without thinking of firing, had banged him over the head with the butt end. He fell with a sound of breaking, and Mitsos, still drunk and beside himself with the lust of slaughter, laughed loud and hit him again with his full force as he lay on the ground. There was a crack, and a spurt of something warm and thick came out in a jet against his trousers and over his hand. He paused only one moment to make sure that this was a Turk he had killed, and then without giving him another thought, or waiting to brush the clotted mess off his clothes, he ran down again to set about the beacon.

The wound on his arm was but slight, though it bled profusely and smarted like a burn, and only stopping to tear off a piece from his shirt-sleeve, which he bound tightly round it, tying the knot with his teeth and his right hand, he again put the charcoal, which was burning well, into his cap, and with the flask of brandy set off for the top of the hill. The rain had come on again, hissing down in torrents, and Mitsos, knowing that the fear of failure strode faster every moment, tore the cover of boughs off from the core of moss and furze, but found to his dismay it was quite damp and would not light. It was necessary to get a flame somehow; the spirits and the moss would do the rest if once he could get that; and to get a flame, he must have something dry, though it were but a twig. There was no time to waste; already a big raindrop had made an ominous black spot on the middle of the glowing charcoal, and meantime everything was getting rapidly wetter. In a moment of hopelessness he clutched at his hair despairingly; the thing seemed an impossibility.

Then suddenly an idea struck him, and, tearing off his jacket, he removed his shirt, which had been kept quite dry, and kneeling down with his back bare to the cold, scourging rain put the two lumps of charcoal in the folds of it and blew on them. For a couple of seconds the linen smouldered only, but then – and no Angel Gabriel would have been a gladder sight to him – a little tongue of flame shot up. Mitsos took the brandy bottle, and with the utmost care shook out a few drops onto the edge of the flame. These it licked up, burning brighter, and soon the whole of the back of the shirt took the fire. He crammed it under the thick core of moss and brushwood, and feeding them plentifully with brandy coaxed the flame into the driest part of the stuff. Now and then a little spark would go running like some fiery insect through the fibres, leaving a gray path of ash behind, only to perish when it reached the damper stuff, and once even the flame seemed to die down altogether; but meantime it had penetrated into the centre of the pile, and suddenly a yellow blade of smoky fire leaped out and licked the dripping branches of fir outside. These only fumed and cracked, and Mitsos pulled them off, for they were but choking the flames; and, running down to the edge of the wood, he tore up great handfuls of undergrowth, which had been partially protected from the rain by the trees, and threw them on. Then the fire began to take hold in earnest, and through the thick volumes of stinging smoke, which were streaming away westward, shot lurid gleams of flame. Now and then with a great crash and puff of vapor some thicker branch of timber would split and break, throwing out a cloud of ignited fragments, or again there would rise up a hissing and simmering of damp leaves, like the sound of a great stewing over a hot fire. The place where he had first lit the beacon was all consumed, and only a heap of white frothy ash, every now and then flushing red again with half-consumed particles as some breeze fanned it, remained, and from the fir branches which Mitsos had taken off ten minutes ago, but now replaced, as every moment the hold of the fire grew steadier, there were bursting little fan-shaped bouquets of flame.

Meantime, with the skin of his chest down to the band of his trousers reddened and scorched by the heat, his back cold and dripping, and lashed with the heavy whisp of rain which had so belabored him in those first few moments of struggle between fire and water, his hair tangled and steaming with heat and shower, his eyes blackened and burned with the firing, Mitsos worked like a man struggling for life; now pushing a half-burned branch back into the fire; now lifting a new bundle of fuel (as much as he could carry in both arms), which pricked and scratched the scorched and bleeding skin of his chest; now glancing northward to see whether Bassae had answered him. With the savage frenzy of his haste, the excitement of the deed, and the fury and madness of the blood he had shed dancing in his black eyes, he looked more like some ancient Greek spirit of the mountains than the lover of Suleima and the boy who was so tender for Yanni.

In ten minutes more the rain had stopped, but Mitsos still labored on until the heat of the beacon was so great that he could scarcely approach to throw on the fresh fuel. The flames leaped higher and higher, and the wind dropping a shower of red-hot pieces of half-burned leaves and bark was continually carried upward, peopling the night with fiery sparks and falling round him in blackened particles, or floating away a feathery white ash like motes in a sunbeam. And as he stood there, grimy and panting, scorched and chilled, throwing new bundles of fuel onto the furnace, and seeing them smoke and fizz and then break out flaring, the glory and the splendor of the deeds he was helping in burst in upon him with one blinding flash that banished other memories, and for the moment even Suleima was but the shadow of a shadow. The beacon he had kindled seemed to illuminate the depths of his soul, and he saw by its light the cruelty and accursed lusts of the hated race and the greatness of the freedom that was coming. Then, blackened and burned and sodden and drenched, he sat down for a few moments to the north of the beacon to get his breath and scoured the night. Was that a star burning so low on the horizon? Surely it was too red for a star, and on such a night what stars could pierce the clouds? Besides, was not that a mountain which stood up dimly behind it? Then presently after it grew and glowed; it was no star, but the fiery mouth of message shouting north and south. Bessae had answered.

There was still a little spirits left, and between his wetting and his scorching Mitsos felt that he would be none the worse for it, and he left his jacket to dry by the beacon while he went back to where the body of the Turkish soldier lay to look for his pistol, which he had till then forgotten. He searched about for some little while without finding it, for it had fallen in a tangle of undergrowth; and taking it and the man's gun, which might come in useful, he turned to go. Then for the first time a sudden feeling of compassion came over him, and he broke off an armful of branches from the trees round, and threw them over the body in order to cover it from the marauding feeders of the mountain; and then crossing himself, as the Greeks do in the presence of the dead, he turned away; and going once more up to the beacon to fetch his jacket, which had grown dry and almost singed in that fierce heat, he ran off down the hill to join the clan.

They had gone but slowly, for they did not wish to reach Kalamata till an hour before daybreak, and had, when Mitsos came up, halted at the bottom of the range where the foot-hills begin to rise towards Taygetus. He was challenged by one of the sentries, and for reply shouted his own name to them; and finding Demetri was his challenger, stopped to tell him of the success of the beacon and the answer flared back from Bassae, and then went on to seek for Nicholas or Petrobey to report his return.

Petrobey was sitting by a camp-fire when he came up, talking earnestly to Nicholas and Father Andréa, who had come in from the Nauplia contingent, and only smiled at Mitsos as he entered.

"That is the order, father," he was saying; "we want to take the place at all costs, but the less it costs us the better. I should prefer if it capitulated, and not waste lives which we can ill spare over it. All the Turks inside the walls will be our prisoners, and them – "

"Yes?"

"Perhaps the moon will devour them," said Petrobey. "I shall make no conditions about surrender. Good-night, father. And now, little Mitsos; the beacon, we know, got lit. How in the name of the Virgin did you manage to do it?"

Mitsos unbuttoned his jacket and showed the sore and reddened skin beneath.

"There is much in a shirt," he said, laughing, and told his story.

When he had finished Petrobey looked at Nicholas with wonder and something like awe in his eye.

"Surely the blessing of the Holy Saints is on the lad," he said, in a low voice.

Part III

THE TREADING OF THE GRAPES

CHAPTER I

TE DEUM LAUDAMUS

During the night the wind swept the floor of heaven clean of clouds, and an hour of clear starlight and setting moon preceded dawn. Before starting, after an hour's halt about midnight, Petrobey called together the captains of the other three camps and gave them their final instructions. Three companies, those from Maina, Argolis, and Laconia, were to besiege the citadel, while the company from Arcadia was to join the two from Messenia, which would meet them on the plain, and invest the harbor, destroy all the shipping except three or four light-built boats which were to be kept in readiness for other purposes, and watch for the coming of the two Turkish ships-of-war. The Messenians, with a loyal and patriotic spirit, had asked Petrobey to name them a captain for the three companies which would be employed on this work, instead of pressing a local candidate; and in order to prevent jealousy or dissent among them, he nominated one Niketas, of Sparta, who was well known to most of the men, popular, and had seen service on an English ship, where he had worked for two years abroad, for a price had been placed on his head by the Turks for supposed brigandage. He had returned to his country a month ago from the Ionian Isles, and had hastened to put himself in the service of the patriots.

The citadel of Kalamata stood on rising ground about a mile from the harbor, but it was small, and a large, unfortified suburb, chiefly employed in commerce and the silk industry, had spread out southward from its base, making a continuous street between harbor and citadel. The latter was defended by a complete circuit of wall, and on three sides out of the four the rocks on the edge of which the walls stood were precipitous for some thirty feet. Under the western of these, and directly below the wall, ran a torrent-bed, bringing down the streams from the mountains to the north – dry in summer, but now flowing full and turbid with the melting of the winter snows on the heights. On this side the town was impregnable to the Greeks, who at present had no field-pieces or arms of any kind larger than the ordinary muskets then in use, and similarly it would have been waste of time and lives to attack it either on the north or east. On the north, however, was a picket-gate in the wall, communicating with a steep flight of steps cut in the rock. Petrobey's plan, therefore, was to take possession at once of the lower undefended town and blockade the citadel from that side, for thus with a body of men to guard the northern picket, the east and west sides being impassable both from within and without, the blockade would be complete. Meantime the three companies, consisting of Messenians and Arcadians, would cut off the harbor from the town, leaving the Mainats, Argives, and Laconians to deal with the citadel itself.

When day broke the secrecy of their advance was favored by a thick mist, which rose some ten feet high from the plain, and under cover of this, manoeuvring in some fields about a mile eastward from the town, the army split in two, and one half marched straight down to the shore of the bay, and from there, turning along the coast, ranged itself along the harbor shore and on the breakwater, made of large rough blocks of stone, which sheltered the harbor from southerly winds, and the other three, leaving the citadel on their right hand, went straight for the lower town. Half an hour afterwards the heat of the sun began to disperse the morning mists, and as they got to the outskirts of the town the vast vapor was rolled away, and the sentries on the citadel looking out southward saw three companies of soldiers not half a mile off. The alarm was given at once and spread through the lower town like fire. From all the houses rushed out men, women, and children, some still half clad or just awakened from their morning sleep, mothers with babies in their arms, and old men almost as helpless, who ran this way and that in the first panic terror, but gradually settled down into two steady streams – the one up to the citadel to find refuge there, the other to the harbor to seek means of flight. But the army came on in silence, making its way slowly up the narrow streets towards the citadel, without being attacked by the terrified and unarmed inhabitants, and in its turn neither striking a blow nor firing a shot. Two companies only had entered the town, the third remaining on the outskirts to the east, acting like a "stop" in cover-shooting, to drive the inhabitants back again, lest any should convey the alarm to Tripoli.

From the west of the town a bridge led over the torrent, and here Petrobey stationed some hundred men to prevent any one leaving the town across the river; but before long, wishing to concentrate all his forces in the town, Yanni was sent to the party picketed there with orders to destroy the bridge. This was made of wood, but preparations were in hand for replacing it with one of iron, and several girders were lying about on the bank for the approaching work. With one of these as a lever, and twenty men to work it, it was an affair of ten minutes only to prize up some half-dozen planks of the wooden structure, and after that to saw in half a couple of the timber poles on which it rested. The bridge thus weakened drooped towards the water, and soon was caught by the swift stream below. Then, as some monstrous fish plucks at a swimmer's limbs, it twitched and fretted against the remaining portion, and soon with a rush and swirl of timbers and planks it tore away a gap of some twenty feet across, sufficient to stop any would-be fugitives.

Here and there in their passage up the town a house was shut and barred against them, but for the most part the inhabitants streamed out like ants when their hill is disturbed. Once only was resistance offered, when from the upper window of a house a Turk fired upon the soldiers, killing one man; and Petrobey, heading a charge himself, burst in the door, and a couple of shots were heard from inside. Then, without a word, he and the three others who had gone in with him took their places again, and the column moved forward up the street.

The square of the lower town stood just at the base of the rising ground leading up to the citadel, and on its north side was built a row of big silk-mills, all of which had been deserted by their owners on the first alarm, and in these the Maina division took up its quarters. As soon as they and the Argives had made their passage through the town, driving the inhabitants up into the citadel, or down to the harbor, where they were taken by the Messenian division, Petrobey sent to the Laconian corps, who had been acting as a "stop" on the east to prevent the people escaping into the country, and brought them up on the right to complete the line which they had drawn along the south front of the citadel. The Argive corps, meantime, had been divided into two, one-half of which blockaded the picket-gate on the north, while the other was drawn up on the left of the Mainats, between them and the river. This done, the blockade of the citadel was complete; on the west the besieged were hemmed in by their own impregnable rock, below which ran the current; on the south and southeast by the Greek army; on the east again by the precipitous crags; and on the north their escape through the picket-gate was impracticable, owing to the detachment of Argives guarding it.

Three courses were open to them: to make a sortie as soon as the expected Turkish ships would appear and regain communication with the sea; or, by engaging and defeating the Greeks, establish connection with Tripoli; or to support the siege until help came. In the utter confusion and panic caused by the sudden appearance of the Greeks the inhabitants had simply fled like a quail-flock, and the citadel was crammed with a crowd of unarmed civilians. Each thought only for himself and his own personal protection. Mixed in this crowd of fugitives had been hundreds of Greek residents – some of whom, possessed merely by the wild force of panic and without waiting to think what this army was, had rushed blindly with the others into the citadel; but the larger number had joined their countrymen – men, women, and children together – imploring protection with horrible tales of outrage and cruelty on their lips. All those who were fit for active service and willing Petrobey enlisted, and employed them in making a more careful search through the town for any Turks who might remain in hiding. These were not to be killed or ill-treated, but merely kept as prisoners. But the wild vengeance of those who had so long been slaves burst all bounds when they saw their masters in their power, and all who were found were secretly put to death.

The weakness of the citadel lay in its bad water supply. There was only one well in the place, and that was not nearly sufficient for the wants of the crowds who had taken refuge within it. But about mid-day Demetri, the mayor of Nauplia, who was in charge of the division on the north, observed buckets being let down from the top of the citadel wall into the river and drawn up again full. The rocks here overhung a little, and, taking with him some ten men, they dashed right under the walls and to the corner abutting on the river. At that moment two more buckets appeared close in front of them, and he and another, taking hold of them, quietly undid the knots which tied them to the rope. The grim humor of this amused him, and in half an hour there was a row of some twenty buckets, which they had untied or cut. The besieged then attempted to get water farther down, but the rocks there being not so precipitous and sloping outward, the buckets stuck on some projection of rock before reaching the water.

Meantime a column of smoke, rising from the harbor, showed that the Messenians were at their work. One corps had deployed along the shore and took in hand the work of burning all the shipping, while the other was employed in making prisoners of the fugitives from the lower town, who hoped to escape by sea. A few of these, striking eastward across the plain, tried to get into the mountains, and were shot, but the majority, finding themselves between two divisions of the army, cut off from the citadel by Petrobey's division and from the sea by the Messenians, and also being unarmed, surrendered to Niketas, who, knowing no Turkish, but being proud of his English, merely said "All-a-right" to their entreaties and prayers, and had them incontinently stowed away in batches in the harbor buildings. The Arcadians, meantime, had ranged themselves along the breakwater, where they kept watch for the Turkish ships, and, having no work to hand, spent the morning in smoking and singing.

About two in the afternoon word was brought to the captain of the troops within the citadel – one Ali Aga – that two Turkish ships had been seen in the offing approaching Kalamata. A steady south breeze was blowing, and a couple of hours would see their arrival. Ali had watched, in white, contemptuous anger that morning, the destruction of the shipping by the Greeks. The ammunition within the walls was very scanty, and the water supply for this irruption of fugitives was wholly inadequate. Indeed, unless news of their straits was already on the road to Tripoli – and this he could scarce hope, so swift and complete had been the beleaguer – unless a relief expedition was even now imminently starting, he saw that the only chance of saving the town lay in concerted action with the approaching ships, and thus making an attack on the Greek lines from both sides – the citadel and the sea. Thus he determined to wait until the ships came up and engaged the detachment of Greeks on the shore.

The wind still holding, in half an hour the Arcadian contingent on the breakwater could see even from the beach the hulls of the approaching ships, beyond all doubt Turkish men-of-war. The breakwater along which the Greeks were ranged was still only half completed, and masses of rough masonry lay piled and tumbled on the seaward end. Niketas rubbed his hands gleefully as he made the dispositions for their welcome, and exclaimed many times "This is very all-a-right"; then, relapsing into Greek, he gave his orders, and mingled with them a chuckling homily.

"The Turk made the breakwater," he said, "but God and the holy saints, having the Greeks in mind, were the designers. Hide yourselves ever so thickly among these beautiful great stones, like anchovies in a barrel, and when the ship turns into the harbor we will all talk loud to it together. The water is very deep here; they will sail close to our anchovy barrel, and they will see none of us till they turn the corner, for the breakwater which God planned hides us from the sea."