THE MACEDONIAN.

They now avoided encounters with the Turks, travelled by night and rested by day. At the limit of each revolutionary district the band were met by a guide, who conducted them on to the next. They found the local organisations, disarmed the ‘irregulars,’ and secreted the rifles and munitions. They dropped almost due south, passing along the crest of the mountain range to the east of Lake Presba, which Bakhtiar Pasha’s forces were then ‘driving’; but Sarafoff, with several other bands, slipped through and proceeded in safety down around Florina, then up across the Monastir-Salonica railway, and north by a zigzag trail past Prelip to the Vardar above Kuprili.

At the side of the Vardar runs the railway from Servia to Salonica, utilising the cuts the water has made in centuries of flow through the mountains. At every mile-post along the railway was a military camp or a blockhouse. Here was the first failure of the organisation.

The local guide did not appear at the appointed meeting-place, and the band waited in vain. What happened to the peasant was never known, but shortly after the appointed hour several voices were heard. Lest the party who were approaching should be Turks, the insurgents took the precaution to remain silent.

The voices became distinct, and the insurgents were relieved to hear the Bulgarian tongue. One of Sarafoff’s lieutenants, named Detcheff, also an ex-Bulgarian officer, was sent out to meet the newcomers. A call of ‘Halt!’ was heard, and in quick succession the crack of several rifles. Detcheff did not return.

The number of the enemy was evidently small, and they took themselves off hurriedly in the direction they had come. The band were much attached to Detcheff, and hotheads among the men were for following the Turks; but Sarafoff, seeing the folly and danger of this, led them off at once towards the river, travelling fast to escape possible trackers.

It was difficult marching in the dark without a man who knew the ground, and the insurgents dared not light a match to look at a map. Suddenly the band came to the edge of a yawning chasm. A stout rope which they carried was unrolled and slung around a tree, both ends trailing down the precipice. Two by two, one on each line of the rope, the men dropped down to a watercourse below. Then one end of the rope was pulled, and the other went up around the tree, and fell. The rope had to be saved.

The insurgents arrived at the river before morning, but did not dare to cross without a survey. They laid themselves down on an elevation covered with a thick growth of shrub, speaking only in whispers throughout the next day. It was a tantalising day, for every half-hour a patrol of Asiatic or Albanian soldiers would pass at a languid pace—and an enticing range—along the railway below. The hiding-place of the band overlooked the river and the railway for about a mile in each direction, and, with the aid of Austrian military maps, Sarafoff planned his crossing and the route to be taken thereafter.

To the south, about half a mile away, was a camp of half a dozen tents guarding a bridge; to the north, about a quarter of a mile, was another, of tents and brush huts. Almost immediately below the band was a narrow, walled waterway which carried flood-water from the mountain, down under the tracks into the river. The waterway was now dry.

The night train passed south about nine o’clock. Then the Turks relaxed their vigilance. And there was about two hours left before the moon rose. As soon as the puff of the engine had died away in the distance, two strong swimmers descended to the river with the rope and fastened it securely from one shore to the other. This done, they returned and informed the chief, and one by one the men climbed down through the culvert and launched out into the stream. Arriving on the opposite bank, they scurried into the woods. Four of the men, more fastidious than the others, took off their clothes to make the passage, and attempted to hold them, with their guns, over their heads. The Vardar is not very deep, but its current is terrific, and all four, finding that they needed both hands to the rope, lost their clothes. This quartet arrived at the point of reassembling dressed in cartridge belts; but they had saved these, their guns and dynamite bombs. Very like Kipling’s warriors who ‘took Lungtungpen naked!’ The other men suppressed their laughter at the discomfited group only because of the dangerous proximity of the camp to the north, and made up between them costumes for the shivering four.

The last man to cross the stream loosened the rope at the other side, and two others pulled him over; and the ‘trek’ was immediately renewed.

Before day dawned, the insurgents drew up at a sheepfold on a mountain-side. The barking of the dogs woke the old shepherd, who, discovering the nature of his guests, roused his sheep and drove them out; and the insurgents crept in under the low brush roofs on to the warm straw. The insurgents took two sheep and roasted them whole for their evening meal.

One morning, by accident, the band lay down to rest within two hundred yards of a vast camp of soldiers. At sunset, the Mohamedans offered up the three evening cheers for their Padisha, and the insurgents uttered three curses upon ‘his Sultanic Majesty.’

It had come to be known to the Turks that Sarafoff was making his way to the Bulgarian border; a reward was offered for his head, and cavalry patrols were sent out to intercept him. But it was not difficult to elude these, for the cavalry could not leave the roads; and it broke the monotony of the days in hiding to watch the patrols pass on the highways below.

It is generally with the bands to fight or not to fight; but sometimes they are surprised by the Turks. Sarafoff and his band succeeded in eluding the troops until they arrived in the neighbourhood of a little town named Bouff, where, being worn out with a week’s hard marching, they elected to rest for thirty-six hours.

The first day was uneventful, but as the second began to dawn on the heights one of the pickets, a boy of fourteen, rushed into camp with the news that the Turks were entering the little valley in which the insurgents were camped. The boy had hardly delivered this news when a picket from the summit of the ridge to the east rushed in breathless, and announced that soldiers were climbing the slope on his side. And from various other points soon came sentries with similar information.

The insurgents were about their chief in an instant to hear his command. Sarafoff had studied the lie of the land overnight, and it required but a moment for him to decide upon his plan of battle.

The band were occupying the base of a narrow ‘dip,’ one end of which was closed by an insurmountable wall of sheer stone, and the other now blocked by probably two hundred Turkish soldiers. Another body of Turks, perhaps three hundred strong, were already coming over one of the two mountain crests. The other slope—the only way of escape open to the band—was so steep as to be impossible of ascent except by aid of the low bush that covered it. The surprise was complete, and the trap was tight.

There was a huge rock, lodged half-way up the open mountain-side, which would offer some protection. Sarafoff picked eight men from his band and started for this boulder, leaving the others, in charge of a lieutenant, to lie low in the bushes until he and his party attained the eminence. By climbing fast and taking the shelter of the shrubs, the nine men got to the rock with the loss of but one of their number. Not until then did they return the fire of the Turks, now descending the opposite slope. As soon as the main body of the band heard the fire of their comrades, they scattered, and started to pick their way up around the rock to the summit of the peak. It took them two hours to make the ascent, and during this time some of the Turks wound around to the right of Sarafoff’s position on the boulder, and a few got far above him to his left. Between these two raking fires the place would have been untenable had not the insurgents above kept these parties of Turks replenishing their numbers every minute. When the Turks succeeded in picking off three more of Sarafoff’s men, leaving him now but four—though all of the other insurgents had not yet reached the point of the peak—he vacated the boulder. The four men scattered, as the others had done, and scurried up the ascent. All five succeeded in gaining the little fort at the top, and, without waiting to take breath, dropped beside the main body, and took up the fusillade which these had already begun.

While waiting for Sarafoff, the band had been surrounded. The heights were a mass of broken boulders which afforded protection to their enemies as well as to the insurgents. Only one spot, to the south, was smooth and bare, and this space the Turkish commander took the precaution not to occupy, for two reasons. First, his men would have been picked off as fast as they filled it, and the sacrifice evidently did not appear to him to be necessary; secondly, the opening acted as a bait for the hard-pressed insurgents, tempting them into the passage, on each side of which soldiers were massed in strong force. Sarafoff surmised that this was a trap, and, while realising the hopelessness of his position, chose to fight it out where the lives of the band would cost the Turks dearest.

Until ten o’clock the Turks, certain of success, made no attempt to storm the position. They had taken up secure places behind rocks, and keeping up a desultory firing, they awaited the arrival of reinforcements, for which they had sent to a near-by town. The reinforcements came—for the sake of speed, in the shape of cavalry and artillery. The cavalry could not get into action because of the roughness of the ground, and was deployed as a patrol to prevent any other band which might be in the neighbourhood from coming to the relief of Sarafoff. The artillery could not be brought into close quarters for the same reason, but it was posted on an eminence quite within range.

Shortly before noon the cannon opened fire. The target was rather small and decidedly indefinite, and for nearly an hour the shells went over or fell short of the insurgent position; but when the artillerymen finally succeeded in getting the range, the flying splinters of shell and stone meant certain death to anyone who dared to put his head above the rocks. The insurgent fire slackened under this hail, and the Turkish commander, evidently supposing that the band had been materially reduced in number, ordered an assault from all sides. The cannon fire was discontinued for fear of working slaughter among the charging soldiers, and the Turks came forward to the attack, dodging from rock to rock, and closing in on all sides—except in the space purposely left open. Sarafoff ordered half of his men to lay down their guns and prepare their dynamite, and cautioned the others to make every rifle shot strike its mark. He himself, expecting a hand-to-hand encounter at the last, laid aside his gun, drew his sword, and strapped it to his hand. The riflemen did their work well. Turks fell on every side; but on they came! When the foremost of them got to within twenty yards of the little fort, the insurgents began to throw their bombs. The Turks have a terror of the dynamite bomb, and these ‘infernal machines’ checked their advance for a time. At a lull in the din there were repeated shouts from the Turks in Bulgarian (which many of them speak), ‘Lay down your arms and surrender, Sarafoff! the Padisha is good, and will surely pardon you!’ But the leader had no thought of allowing himself and his men to fall alive into the hands of the Turks; his knowledge of how they respect promises to ‘infidels’ precluded any idea of his accepting the tempting offer.

It was now after one o’clock. If the band could hold out until nightfall, there was a slight chance for some of them to cut their way through the Turkish lines with bombs; but the Turks would certainly make any sacrifice to storm the position before dark—the great Sarafoff was cordoned and would not have another opportunity to escape.

The day was inclement, and thick, black clouds hung over many of the mountains. Perhaps the Turks longed for one of these to break from its hold on another peak, and float over to this, for they abated their fire when a dense, all-enveloping wreath followed this course. Sarafoff judged that they would storm his shelter in the protecting mist, and laid his plans accordingly. At the moment that the blackness was complete, the insurgents began again to cast their dynamite, and kept a zone about their little fortress hot with exploding shells. The Turks waited until this cannonade should conclude; but while they waited, all the insurgents dispersed except Sarafoff and fifteen of his men, and, each acting for himself, dashed for the open space left by the Turks with such precision. A pistol was loaded for each of the wounded men who could not escape, in order that they might blow out their own brains; and then, lighting the last half-dozen bombs with long fuses, to hold off the Turks yet a few minutes, Sarafoff gave to the men who had stayed with him the order to fix bayonets and follow those who had gone before.

When night fell, less than fifty men of the original ninety gathered together in the dense forest on the far side of the mountain appointed as the place of meeting. They were blackened from smoke, and down some of the drawn and haggard faces streaks of blood were trickling. Their throats were parched, and they were famished with hunger, and a few of them were off their heads with fatigue and excitement, and had to be gagged.

They all lay as quiet as mice throughout the night, and the next day two of the most innocent-looking members of the band, stripped of their insurgent paraphernalia, and in the garb of ordinary peasants, went down into Bouff for food.

When they got to the village, they found it had been visited with the vengeance of the Turks. On returning to garrison, the Turkish soldiers passed through Bouff and murdered a few old men and defenceless women whom they found there (the other inhabitants being still in the mountains). They fired many of the houses and pillaged the town, and there was very little of anything valuable left. There was much coarse, uncooked flour scattered about, and some Indian corn, and of these commodities the two insurgents collected as much as they could carry and returned to their comrades.

At nightfall of the day after the fight the band resumed their march. The insurgents filed out of the woods in a long, single line, the local guide leading, and made their way to the edge of the next revolutionary district, where the chief thereof was awaiting them. They replenished their spent supply of ammunition from the secret stores of the villagers in the mountains, and proceeded on their way. Their course now was to the north-east, and they made tracks for their destination as straight as the Turkish camps and patrols would permit, arriving without further adventure at the friendly frontier.

The Turkish guard would certainly be on the watch for the band, so the leader decided to cross the border close to one of the smaller posts, where, he judged, the patrols would be less active, not expecting such audacity. He selected a passing place within earshot of a blockhouse, which could be seen plainly in the moonlight. A sentinel sat in Turkish fashion before the door, wailing a doleful dirge through his nose, a way Turkish sentinels have. To the time of the Turk’s music the insurgent band filed over the border, guns loaded and cocked, bayonets fixed, and arrived in Kustendil, whence to Sofia their march was a triumphant procession.

I received orders late one evening to proceed at once to Sofia and prepare to accompany the Bulgarian army, which was mobilising on the Turkish frontier. I was glad to get this order, and obeyed instructions, though I knew there would be no war. The British Consul then secured a passavant for me, by which I was described as a man of a round figure and black moustaches. In a civilised country my identity would have been challenged, but the instrument passed me over the Turkish border.

The streets of Sofia were crowded with committajis, in brown uniforms, fur caps, white woollen leggings, and sandals. They were mostly members of General Tzoncheff’s committee who had fought along the Struma. Later, bands from Grueff’s organisation began to arrive. There were several leaders who had been prominent in the revolution. I sought the count again, and, with my old interpreter, spent many hours among the insurgents. They were generally to be found at the cheaper cafÉs, sitting over the rough tables recounting their adventures. It was at a cafÉ that I got the story of Sarafoff’s Trail.

These soldiers of fortune had become indifferent to everything but revolution. They did not care how they looked or what they did, and a worse gang of beggars I never saw. Pride had flown. Work! Not they. They are hunters of men.