In Greek Waters: A Story of the Grecian War of Independence

Three hearty cheers rang out from the sailors. They had all been on shore at Zante, and had heard enough from the soldiers they fraternized with there to fill them with disgust and indignation at the conduct of the Greeks, and this announcement that they would henceforth put a stop to such cruelty, even if they had to fight for it, filled them with satisfaction.

“We had hard work of it,” Martyn said to Horace, talking over his visit ashore. “In the first place they wanted us to hand over all prisoners we took, and half the plunder and value of the prizes, to their miserable government. We told them that we would see them at the bottom of the sea first. I was with your father at a meeting with the fellows they call Kolokotronis and Odysseus, and half a dozen other of their leaders, and you should have seen how your father spoke out. He got upon his legs and he just poured it out. I did not know, of course, what he was saying, but he told me a little about it afterwards, and I could see by their faces that it was hot and strong.

“He told them that their countrymen had disgraced their cause by conduct worthy only of the lowest savages, and that if they did not give him the authority he demanded, to interpose to save Turks from massacre, he would sail on to Constantinople, hoist the Turkish flag, and fight against the ships that behaved like bloodthirsty pirates rather than Greek patriots, and that they would find his ship a very different opponent to the Turks. I did not think your father had it in him. It was splendid, I can tell you, and the faces of those fellows were worth seeing. I don’t expect they ever had such a straight talking to before. I believe altogether he spent about a thousand pounds in bribing a dozen of them; anyhow he got what he wanted. In the first place we are authorized to hoist the Greek flag, and to capture and destroy Turkish vessels; and in the second, to dispose as we please of all prisoners. We may take on board Turkish fugitives and dispose of them at our pleasure, free from all interference from any Greek authorities or Greek ships. We are to pay a quarter of the value of all prizes and booty into the treasury of the central government, and are to send ashore to-morrow five thousand muskets and twenty rounds of ammunition for each.

“Your father has had a hard time of it. I don’t believe there has been a single Greek politician or leader who hasn’t called upon him privately, to what they call borrow money from him. At last I had to regularly mount guard over him and set Zaimes at his door to tell all comers that he was too unwell to see anyone, which was not far from the truth, for he was regularly upset at the meanness and trickery of the people he had come to spend his fortune to assist. However, thank goodness it is all over. I am precious glad that I am back, I can tell you, for I believe if I had stayed there much longer I should not have been able to have prevented myself from walking into some of them. Your father has been trying to find out whether they have got any general plan of defence; but they have no more plan than a lot of children would have if they got up a rebellion. Everyone wants to be a leader; everyone complains of everyone else. They scarcely seem to give the Turks a thought. All their energies are occupied by their own miserable squabbles and rivalry. Well, I don’t want to set foot on shore again as long as we are out here, unless it is on some real expedition.”

“What about the Turks in the Acropolis, Martyn?”

“They are negotiating, but the poor beggars know there is no faith to be placed in the Greeks, and that so far there is not a single instance in which they have kept their promises for the safety of garrisons who have surrendered. They want the guarantee of the European consuls for their safety, but they can’t give it, as they have no force here to protect them. I told our consul that we would lend him the whole of our crew if he liked, and that I thought we could pretty well clear out the town; but he said that that would be well enough if there was no one to protect. But that as there are something like two thousand men, women, and children up in the citadel, fifty men could never protect them against the mob. However, I hope the Turks will be able to hold out for some time yet. The Greeks only guess that their provisions are running short, and if a man-of-war, French, or English, or Austrian, comes into the harbour the consuls will ask its commander to protect the Turks, and will then guarantee their safety.”

“When are we going to sail?” Horace asked.

“To-morrow. The two Greeks will go ashore the first thing in the morning to lay in a fresh stock of meat and vegetables. As soon as all are on board we will get up anchor. I have heard lots of shocking stories on shore from Greeks who have escaped from Asia Minor and the Turkish islands. There have been massacres in almost every city where there were Greeks; at Smyrna, Adrianople, Salonika, Cos, Rhodes, in Crete and Cyprus, and as far as I can hear the Turks have altogether massacred nearly as many men, women, and children as the Greeks have done. I saw General Gordon, who is a warm friend of the Greeks, and he said that it was impossible to justify the ferocity of the Greeks, or to deny that a comparison between them and the Turks would give the latter the palm of humanity; that is, if the term humanity could be employed to either.

“We went up and saw some of the troops, as they call them, active, hardy-looking fellows. They seem in earnest enough, and are ready, as a French officer said to me, to submit to anything but discipline. He said that the Klephts and armatoli are as fine material for mountain warfare as one could wish to see; one day honest, hard-working peasants, the next engaged in partisan war, or in raids on their neighbours; frugal, hardy, active, and in their way brave; men who would never storm a position or stand against the attack of Turkish infantry or cavalry, as the war has everywhere shown so far; but who would defend a hillside or hold a ravine against good troops, and when driven out, make another stand at the first position they came to. Anyhow they are worth a lot more than the townspeople, who brag and vapour and go about armed to the teeth, but who take precious good care never to get within range of a Turkish musket.”

Early the next morning some large boats came off, and the muskets and ammunition were transferred to them, and at noon the two Greeks brought off a boat-load of fresh meat, vegetables, fowls, eggs, fruit, and other stores. As soon as these were slung on board, the anchor was got up, and the Misericordia, under a gentle breeze, stole out to sea.

“That is better, Miller,” Will Martyn said as he looked over the side. “She has not gone like that since we shook out our sails for the first time. I should say she is just about in her right trim now, and is ready to fight or sail anything of her size afloat. How easily she goes through the water. There is scarcely a ripple in her wake. She is a beauty.”

“Which port now, Martyn?”

“I was talking it over last night with Mr. Beveridge, and as soon as we get well off land I am going to shape a course that will take us down between Cyprus and Alexandria. It is of no use cruising about here. The Turks only move about under a convoy of their men-of-war, and it would not be much better across on the other side, for the Greek vessels are everywhere on the look-out. But they don’t like going far from home, and if we cruise well to the south we shall have a good chance of falling in with craft bound for Alexandria from Cyprus, Crete, and Syria, and any or all of them will be likely to be carrying Greeks captives to the slave-markets at Alexandria, Tunis, or Tripoli.”

“Those are the sort of craft to meet with,” Miller said. “I suppose they are sure to be armed. Of course one would be glad to rescue captives and save them from their horrible fate. But there will be much more satisfaction in doing it if we have a bit of a fight first.”

“Yes, I should say they were certain to be armed. No Turk would venture to sea at present unless he thought himself strong enough to beat off the attack of at least two or three of these Greek vessels. After cruising about for a bit we intend to dodge about Cyprus and the other Turkish islands, keeping near the coast so as to give Greek fugitives a chance of coming on board. We know that there have been massacres at all these islands, and may be again, and there must be thousands of unfortunate creatures who would give anything for such a chance of getting away. We can anchor in quiet bays, for we need have no fear of any boat attack; and if the Turks come out in force we have always the option of running away or fighting.”

“That is a very good programme, Martyn. We are not likely, as you say, to find any Greek craft cruising about between Cyprus and Alexandria. Turkish vessels going up towards the Dardanelles, or coming down from there, are prizes worth taking, for they may have pashas and rich officials on board; but down there they would be less likely to have anything that would repay the Greeks for the risks of a fight. As for risking anything to save their countrymen, Mr. Beveridge was saying he heard that at the massacre of the Greeks at Kydonia, although the Greek fleet, under Tombazes, was close at hand, and their launches went on shore and rescued four thousand of their countrymen, they compelled them all to purchase their passage to the nearest Greek island by giving up the greater part of the property they had saved.”

“Brutes!” Martyn exclaimed with great emphasis. “How these fellows can be descendants of the old Greeks beats me altogether.”

“The old Greeks were pretty cruel,” Horace, who had just joined them, said. “They used to slaughter their captives wholesale, and mercy wasn’t among their virtues. Besides, my father says that except in the Morea very few indeed are descendants of the Greeks; the rest are Bulgarian or Albanian, neither of whom the Greeks of old would have recognized as kinsmen.”

“It is a case of distance lending enchantment to the view,” Miller laughed; “our illusions are gone.”

“Never mind, we must make the best of them, Miller; they are not Greeks, but at any rate they are all that is left of the Greeks. Their actions show that their Christianity is a sham, but at the same time they are an intelligent race capable of some day becoming a great people again, and they are struggling to throw off the yoke of a race intellectually their inferiors and incapable of progress in any sort of way. That is what my father said to me as we were walking up and down the deck this morning. That is the light I mean to look at it in the future. It is a capable people struggling with an incapable one, and if they are savage and vindictive and debased it is the faults not of themselves but of those who have so long been their masters.”

“Good,” Martyn said; “that is the most satisfactory view of the thing, and we will stick to it and shut our ears as much as possible in future against all stories to the Greeks’ disadvantage.”

In the afternoon a fleet of vessels were seen standing out from the land.

“There is one of the Greek fleets,” Captain Martyn said. “Now we will try her rate of sailing with them. Stand on for a little bit longer and then haul her wind on the same tack they are sailing.”

The trial was perfectly satisfactory. By nightfall the Greek fleet were far behind, and the Misericordia again shaped her course for Cyprus. For a week they cruised backwards and forwards under easy sail about midway between Cyprus and Alexandria, without meeting with a single craft flying the Turkish flag. Half a dozen vessels were overhauled, but these were all Austrian, Italian, or British. The appearance of the schooner evidently excited profound distrust in the minds of the masters of all these vessels, for they all hoisted every rag of sail they could set and did their best to escape from her, but Captain Martyn had no difficulty in overhauling them and satisfying himself of their nationality. The astonishment of the masters when the smart gig manned by six English sailors rowed alongside was unbounded, and was only equalled by their satisfaction.

“You have given us a nice fright,” the master of one of the English ships said to Miller, who, accompanied by Horace, had boarded him. “What on earth are you flying that Greek flag for? We took you for a pirate, for half these fellows are no better when they get the chance.”

“We are a Greek privateer.” Miller said, “and carry letters of marque issued by the Greek government. We only wanted to assure ourselves that you were not Turks.”

“Turks be jiggered!” the master said angrily. “I should have thought anyone with half an eye could have seen that we weren’t one of those lubberly Turks.”

“Quite so, captain, we made that out some time ago, and we have only overhauled you to ask whether you know of a Turkish ship likely to be sailing from any of the Eastern ports. Our object is to rescue Greek women and children on their way to the slave-markets.”

“Then give us your flipper,” the master said; “that is a business an English sailor needn’t be ashamed of, though, as for sailing under a Greek flag, I would almost as lief sail under the skull and cross-bones, for nine cases out of ten it means pretty nearly the same thing. I have known many a ship sail in among those Greek islands and never be heard of again when there had been no storm to account for her disappearance. I would as lief anchor a ship near land in the Malay Archipelago as among the Greek islands. Still the women and children ain’t to blame for that. I was at Broussa two months ago and the slave-market was chock-full of Greek girls and children, and I thought then what a burning shame it was that Europe didn’t interfere to put down such villainous doings. Well now, as to Turkish ships, I don’t think you are likely to meet with any hereabouts. The Greeks have given them a bad scare, and I fancy that all the ships from Cyprus and from Aleppo and the other Syrian ports will run down due south till they sight land, and will hug that as near as they dare go till they get within shelter of the batteries of Alexandria. If you are after Turkish vessels you must stand south and anchor as close inland as the water will let you. Get down those lofty spars of yours. You don’t want them. That craft of yours sails like a witch. We think the Scarborough is a fast brig. You went through the water three feet to our two, so you can do without your topsails. I can tell you the look of your craft is enough to frighten one fifteen miles away; a more rascally-looking vessel I never saw, she looks like a pirate all over.”

“She was a slaver at one time,” Miller said.

“Ah! that accounts for it. I thought that long low hull and those lofty spars were never put together for an honest purpose. You seem to carry mighty heavy metal,” he went on, looking at the Misericordia, which lay with her head sails aback a few hundred yards away. “Four each side and a pivot; they look like eighteens.”

“They are eighteens,” Miller said. “You see we have got to keep a sharp eye on friends as well as foes.”

“I should think so. Well, I have just come out from Larnaca. I heard from our consul that there were bad doings in the north of the island, and that the Christians were having a very rough time of it all through Cyprus. I have no doubt there are a lot of Christians hiding there who would give every stiver they have got in the world to be on board this craft.”

“And you say there were some massacres going on when you were there?”

“Yes, and I heard that the Turks were attacking one of the Christian villages on the north-western corner of the island. It was some way up on Mount Olympus, a few miles from the coast. Morphou Bay is the nearest point to it. I hear it is naturally a strong place, and Christians from other villages round have gone in there. The people attacking it are not troops, who I fancy have nothing to do with these massacres, but the natives of the Mussulman villages. Some of the poor devils may have got down to the coast, and you might pick some up if you were to cruise along there.”

“Perhaps we might,” Horace said; “at any rate it would be worth a try. We will go on board again at once.”

“Will you have a glass of wine first? I got hold of some good stuff at Larnaca. Good wine is cheap there now.”

“No, thank you, we will be off at once,” Miller said.

“Well, good-bye, gentlemen, and good luck to you! There is nothing I would like better than to be going for a cruise with you for a few months, for no vessel can do better work than that which you are engaged on.”

Miller and Horace dropped down into their boat, and were rowed back to the schooner.

CHAPTER VIII

A BESIEGED VILLAGE

AS soon as they gained the deck of the Misericordia Miller reported the advice the skipper of the English brig had given as to their taking their station near the southern coast, to pick up vessels hugging the shore on their way to Alexandria and the west.

“I have no doubt he is right,” Will Martyn said; “that accounts for our not having seen a single craft flying the Turkish flag. Well, Mr. Beveridge, I think we can’t do better than take his advice.”

“There is something else though,” Horace broke in; and he then told them what the captain had said about the fighting among the villagers on Mount Olympus.

“Don’t you think, father, we might go there first? With this wind we should not be much more than twenty-four hours getting there, and we might pick up a lot of fugitives in hiding and possibly bring off the people from that village. It would not be a great loss of time anyhow.”

“I think we might, Horace; hearing of it in the way you did, it seems almost like a call to help them. What do you say, Captain Martyn?”

“Just as you like, sir. As Horace says, it is no great loss of time anyhow, and we certainly may do some good.”

The order was given and the schooner was headed for Cyprus with a brisk wind on her beam that heeled her well over and sent her through the water at nine and a half knots an hour. The news was soon known through the vessel that there were massacres going on in Cyprus, and that there might be some work to be done, so there was an air of increased activity and animation among the crew. The wind held steadily, and next morning the mountains of Cyprus could be seen lying like a cloud in the distance, and by eleven o’clock the north-westerly point of the island was but five or six miles away. Rounding the point they entered the great indentation known as Morphou Bay. Martyn now ordered the topsails to be lowered.

“We will run along about a mile off shore,” he said; “they can make out the flag then. We will go along as far as the other end of the bay and then come back again. If there are any people in hiding in the woods they will keep an eye on us, and as we come back will come off in boats if they have got them, or will come down to the shore and signal. We can send our boats in for them.”

As they were still going through the water faster than they wished the foresail was also lowered, and they then went quietly along the coast, keeping a sharp look-out with their glasses on the shore. They passed several villages and could see that their appearance created much excitement, and that the population at once deserted their houses and made off.

“They are evidently all Mussulman villages,” Mr. Beveridge said.

“They are Mussulman villages at present, Mr. Beveridge,” Martyn agreed, “but the chances are they were Christian a short time ago. You see they have all got fishing boats either riding at anchor or hauled up, and I fancy that most of the fishing is done by the Greek inhabitants. I expect the Turks have cleared them out. What do you say, Mr. Beveridge, to our firing a shot or two at each of the villages as we pass? That will act as a warning to the Turks to keep out of range. If there are any Christians left they may take the opportunity of seizing the boats and coming off. We might lie-to for half an hour opposite each village to give them a chance of doing so.”

“That would be a very good plan, I think, Captain Martyn.”

As they were passing a village at the moment the Misericordia was at once brought round. Two of the broadside guns were loaded, and two shots were sent over the village. Then the craft was hove-to, and waited for half an hour. As there were no signs of life, she again proceeded on her way. Three more villages were fired at with the same result. Half a mile beyond the furthest Tarleton exclaimed: “There is someone swimming off, Captain Martyn; he has just put off from that point! There, do you see that black spot a little way off the point?”

Martyn turned his glass in that direction. “I see him,” he said. “Lower the small gig, Mr. Tarleton; take four hands, row off, and pick him up. You had better go too, Horace. The chances are he won’t speak anything but Greek.”

In a couple of minutes the boat left the side of the schooner and rowed in the direction of the swimmer, the vessel being again thrown up into the wind. Horace stood up while Tarleton took the tiller lines.

“Can you see him, Horace?” he asked.

“No, not yet. There is too much ripple on; but if you keep her head as it is now I shall make him out before long.” Three or four minutes later he exclaimed: “I see him, he is dead ahead!”

Five minutes later the swimmer was alongside. He was a lad of about Horace’s age.

“Are you Greek?” he asked in surprise and in some alarm, as he looked at the uniforms of the crew as Horace helped him on board.

“We are fighting for Greece,” Horace said, “although we are all English. We heard that there was some trouble here, and came to see if we could save any fugitives.”

“I saw the flag,” the lad said, “and heard you fire twice at the village. My mother and sisters, and twenty or thirty others, are hidden in the wood there. The Mussulmans came down from the mountain villages three days ago and killed all they could find; but we were expecting it, for they had gone to the next village first, and a man from there brought the news just before they arrived. We lived on the outskirts and had time to get away, but I think my father and brothers have been killed. Do go on shore and take them off.”

“We must go back to the ship first,” Horace said. “This boat is too small to be of any use; besides, we must send a stronger crew. No doubt the Turks are watching us, and will come down if they see us landing.”

The schooner had filled again and was following the boat, so that in two or three minutes they were on board. Horace lent the young Greek some of his clothes, and the schooner stood in towards the point, with a man in the chains sounding as they went.

“Ask him whereabouts they are, Horace.”

“Just on the other side of the point; but they will see us coming.”

“I see no signs of them yet,” Tarleton said when, having got within three hundred yards of shore, the anchor was let go.

“It is likely enough,” said Martyn, “that some of the Turks may have been coming down through the wood, and if the poor beggars heard them they would not dare show themselves. Now, Mr. Miller, you take charge of the long-boat with ten men. We will cover your landing.”

The four broadside guns were loaded with grape, and their crews mustered to quarters, while the rest, armed with muskets, lined the side.

“Take the boy with you, Mr. Miller, he can lead you to where his friends are hiding. Don’t stop to fire as you make for shore. We will dispose of any Turks there may be about.”

The boat had not rowed more than fifty yards before five or six musket shots were fired from the bushes near the edge of the water.

“Give them a round with the aftermost gun,” Captain Martyn said; and in a moment the water near the bushes was torn up with a shower of grape. “Give the next gun more elevation, boatswain. Send the shot well into the wood. That’s it. The same with the other two guns. That will clear them all out.”

There was no further firing at the boat. As soon as it touched the shore Miller jumped ashore with eight of the men, while the other two pushed the boat off a few yards. Led by the Greek boy, the party ran along the shore and were lost to view round the point. Two more rounds were fired into the wood, but everything was quiet there, and in five minutes Miller’s party made their appearance round the point with a number of fugitives. No time was lost in getting them into the boat, which at once rowed off to the schooner. There were but three men among them, the rest were women and children. Most of them were completely exhausted.