CHAPTER XXIX
EN ROUTE FOR CONSTANTINOPLE—A NIGHT AT BILIDJIK UNDER THE FROST-LADEN SKIES
One does not expect comfort in an unheated railway carriage, with snow a foot and a half deep, and the temperature 15° below zero. As we left Angora we also noticed that one of the carriage windows was missing, and a courteous official kept back the train to insert one from another compartment! We were grateful, indeed, for even then the cold was hard to bear.
The little engine is now ploughing its way downhill but still slowly, since halts are needed to renew its strength for the double task of “traction” and sweeping away the snow.
We are well supplied with food for a five-days’ journey, so that over a cheerful meal we can almost forget to feel frozen, and soon find we have covered the thirty-five hours to Eski-Chéir.
From Eski-Chéir to Kada-Keuy, where the lines have been cut, is a short distance; but, mercifully, it is not so cold as in the mountains. From there we travel in a yaili (native carriage) which has evidently seen better days and, let us hope, better springs. They have been removed altogether from one side, and we should have been easier without the worn remnants on the other! As there are no seats, one has to be propped up by any available rugs or cushions, unless you prefer lying down at full length. But the little cart is lined with red-cotton brocade, while green curtains, looking-glasses, and tassels complete the “decoration”! It must be delightful to saunter along on a summer’s day; and draw your curtains for a night in the open; but even the straw, the mattress, and many rugs cannot transform the yaili to a train de luxe in winter.
To catch “the express” at Bilidjik we have to drive in two and a half hours a distance that requires a much longer time. So, with good horses and a fearless driver, we rattle away, up hill and down, over bumps and stones. The luggage is thrown out, my thermos is shaken to pieces, and we are flung violently against the roof! Bruised and bleeding, we hold on in grim silence; since time, too, flies.
The Yaili, or Native Carriage, with Drawn Curtains.
Even at this pace we cannot escape the oppression of desolation. On every side lie smashed engines, burnt railway carriages, and villages in cinders. As dusk falls, only a fatalist, in a country of fatalists, could venture the rush down sharp descents cut through a precipice of 800 feet!
Fate, indeed, preserved us, only to prove its irony; for when we reached the once prosperous Bilidjik, still beautiful in its ruins, we hear that a landslip on the line has made traffic impossible for some days to come. In Anatolia, one must be ready to do as the Anatolians; and we are faced with the prospect of a night under the frost-laden skies. There is not even a chair to be found, though “kindness” quickly contrives a seat for me from a pile of logs. Here I can rest awhile; and by brisk walks at short intervals probably keep up my circulation until the welcome dawn....
Someone, however, suggested that we should beg for shelter in one of the luggage-vans already crowded with men and women—naturally, in separate compartments. One thought of the poor villagers we had seen huddled together in their holes on the mountains; and realised that even the floor of a luggage-van may be a “luxury.”
Here turban-headed men are sitting on their prayer-carpets, some sound asleep in that uncomfortable attitude, others eating, and others praying, but none uttering a word of complaint.
Looking around for a seat amidst the wilderness of food and bed-clothes, I suddenly hear a few cheery words in English, to my amazement and delight. Here is one of the American Relief Workers, prepared and thankful to spend the night among the strange crowd. With the resourcefulness of his nation, he is provided with a large hat-box that will serve as seat or table, and contains both food and bed-clothes. From his “seat,” therefore, he quickly extracts some sandwiches of most delicious pea-nut butter, making a cup of tea for me on his “table.”
All eyes are drawn to the neat dispatch of these preparations and the marvellous ingenuity of his packing. From that veritable box of Pandora came solid alcohol, tins, kettles, goblets and card-board plates. The food itself was kept in clean, little linen bags.
It was, indeed, a strange lesson in efficiency and practical hygiene, delivered in the wilderness! His unpractical, Eastern neighbour is meanwhile struggling with a bit of old newspaper, from which a most unappetising collection of honey and eggs and nuts and bread are tumbling in dirty confusion, as the broken eggs and printer’s ink trickle in a discoloured stream on the floor.
“If only you would send out a good company of missionaries in hygiene,” I cried out, in my excitement, “the other gospels would follow as a matter of course. The world will be a far better place when America comes to the East and preaches the need for exterminating the house-fly and other insects with the fine zeal she is now devoting to the extermination of the Turk.”
My new friend—I had almost said compatriot—laughs good-naturedly at my enthusiasm; and in a few moments, despite my sympathy with Anatolia, I am again compelled to recognise that I am, after all, a woman of the West.
When someone brought in a blazing mangal and carefully closed every door of the crowded luggage-van, the American soon found a polite excuse to jump out. Five minutes later I, too, ventured to open the door and call out to ask him for a helping hand. Both of us knew it was far better for us to die of cold in the fresh air than to choke in those thick charcoal fumes. I will hold a light while he digs out a hole, for sleep on the bosom of Mother Earth.
But now two charming Turkish boys, the sons of Moueddine Pasha, in our party, are telling me that they are terribly distressed at my discomfort. It is in vain for me to assure them that no one could blame them. Somehow, they find the Commandant de la place; and, at his direction, gallantly tramp back for two and a half hours, to bring me a mattress from the Governor’s house which, placed on three standard oil-boxes, forms my bed. Meanwhile, the Commandant, who is familiar with Europe and speaks fluent German, earnestly begs me to excuse this terrible reception. “It is the work of Lloyd George,” he adds, as for every disaster in Anatolia the same cause is proclaimed. Ask a peasant who killed his sons, and he will reply without hesitation, “Lloyd George.” Our late Premier has now become super-bogeyman of the Near East for Moslems and Christians alike.
All through the night strains break on my ears of the Anatolian folk-songs; the expression of that strangely resigned happiness of a long-suffering people which we of the West must half-envy and, at the same time, half-despise. Average human nature is only too apt to neglect those who never complain; and if others appeal for them, to say—as even America has said—“It is too big a problem for us to tackle.”
With so much goodwill around me, the night passed far more quickly than even my natural optimism could have foretold. And before stepping into the yaili that will carry us on to Broussa, I try to express to the kindly peasants a little of the gratitude and admiration in my heart.
“We do not lack anything,” they assure me. “All we want is to save our Fatherland. It would be wrong of us to use up the wood and material for building houses that may be required in the war.”
Then, for farewell, the old Bible-greeting of “God be with you.”... “And bring us peace,” is all I can find voice to reply.