CHAPTER XXIII.
THE DIARY.
October 27.[72]—Our new corps have covered themselves with glory to-day. About noon Tissaphernes himself appeared with a large force of cavalry. He had his own regiments with him; among the others we recognized some of Cyrus’ Persian troops. They want, I suppose, to make the King forget their rebellion. The satrap did not wish to come to close quarters; but he found after all that the quarters were closer than he liked. He was well within range; and as his men were posted in great masses every arrow and every bullet told. It would, in fact, have been impossible to miss, with such a mark to aim at. As for the Persian archers they did no damage at all. But we found their arrows very useful. Our men are now well-equipped, for we discovered an abundant store of bow-strings and lead for the sling bullets in the villages.
November 3.—Things have not been going so well to-day. The barbarians occupied a post of vantage on our route and showered down darts, stones, and arrows upon us as we passed. Our light-armed were easily driven in. When the heavy-armed tried to scale the height, they found the climbing very hard work, and of course the enemy were gone by the time that they reached the top. Three times this was done, and I was never more pleased in my life than when at last we got to the end of our day’s march. Eight surgeons are busy attending to the wounded, of whom there is a terrible number. We are going to stop here three days, Xenophon tells me. Meanwhile we are in a land of plenty. There are granaries full of wheat, and cellars of wine, and barley enough to supply our horses if we had fifty times as many. Hereafter we are to follow a new plan. As soon as we are attacked, we halt. To march and fight at the same time puts us at a disadvantage. And we are to try to get as far in advance as possible.
November 9.—We had our three days’ rest, and then three days’ quick marching. To-day, however, there has been a smart brush with the enemy. They had occupied a ridge commanding our route, which just then descended from the hills into the plain. Chirisophus sent for Xenophon to bring his light-armed to the front. This, of course, was a serious thing to do, as Tissaphernes was not far from our rear. Xenophon accordingly galloped to the front to confer with his colleague. “Certainly,” he said, when he saw how the enemy was posted, “these fellows must be dislodged, but we can’t uncover our rear. You must give me some troops, and I will do my best.” Just at that moment he caught sight of a height rising above us just on our right—he has a true general’s eye—and saw that it gave an approach to the enemy’s position. “That is the place for us to take,” he cried. “If we get that, the barbarians can’t stay where they are.” As soon as the troops were told off for service, we started; and lo! as soon as we were off, the barbarians seeing what we were after started too. It was a race who should get there first. Xenophon rode beside the men, and urged them on. “Now for it, brave sirs!” he cried. “’Tis for Hellas! ’Tis for wives and children! Win the race, and you will march on in peace! Now for it!” The men did their best, but of course it was hard work. I never had harder in my life. At last a grumbling fellow in the ranks growled out, “We are not on equal terms, Xenophon. You are on horseback, and I have got to carry my shield.” In a moment Xenophon was off his horse. He snatched the fellow’s shield from him, and marched on with the rest. That was hard work indeed, for he had his horseman’s cuirass on; still he kept up. Then the men fell on the grumbler. They abused him, pelted him, and cuffed him, till he was glad enough to take his shield again. Then Xenophon re-mounted, and rode on as before as far as the horse could go. Then he left him tethered to a tree, and went on foot. In the end we won the race; and the barbarians left the way clear.
November 10.—We had a great disappointment to-day. The route lay either across a river which was too deep to ford—we tried it with our spears, and could find no bottom—or through a mountainous region inhabited by a set of fierce savages whom the King has never been able to subdue. He once sent an army of a hundred thousand men among them, they say, and not a single soldier ever came back! First we considered about crossing the river. A Rhodian had a grand plan, he said, for taking the army across. He would sell it for a talent. I must confess, by the way, that I am more and more disgusted by the manner in which everything is for sale. Citizen soldiers think of the common good, though, it must be confessed, they are not so sturdy in action as these fellows; mercenaries think only of the private purse. However, the Rhodian never got his talent. His plan was clever enough, making floats of skins, but impracticable, seeing that the enemy occupied the other shore in force. Nothing, then, remained for it but to take to the mountains. We must do our best to fight our way through them, if the mountaineers won’t be friends. This done, we shall find ourselves in Armenia; once there, we shall be able to go anywhere we please.
November 14.—We have had three awful days. The Carduchians—so they call the barbarians—are as hostile and as fierce as they can be. It seems unreasonable, for they must hate the Great King as much as we do. Still they will not listen to our overtures for friendly intercourse, but keep up an incessant attack. To-day there was very near being a positive disaster. We in the rear-guard had, of course, the worst of it. Generally when we find our work particularly hard we pass on the word to the van, and they slacken their pace; otherwise we should get divided from the main army. To-day no attention was paid to our messages; Chirisophus did nothing but send back word that we must hurry on. Consequently our march became something very like a rout, and we lost two of our best men. At the first halt Xenophon rode to the front.
“Why this hurry?” he asked. “It has cost us two men, and we had to leave their bodies behind.” “See you that?” said Chirisophus, and he pointed to a height straight before us, which was strongly held by the enemy. “I wanted to get there first, for the guide says that there is no other way.” “Says he so?” said Xenophon. “Let us hear what my fellows have to say. I laid an ambush, you must know, and caught two barbarians. They would be useful, I thought, as guides!” The two were brought up and questioned. “Is there any other way than what we see?” “No,” said the first. Try all we could, he would make no other answer. At last Chirisophus had him killed. “Now,” he said, turning to the other, “can you tell us anything more?” “O yes,” said the man, “there is another way, and one that horses can pass over. But the other would not say anything about it, because he had kinsfolk living near it, and was afraid that you would do them an injury.” Poor fellow! I was sorry for him, when I knew how loyal he had been. But I don’t know what else could have been done. The second man told us that there was a height which we must occupy if we would make the new route practicable. Two thousand men have set off to get hold of it. If they fail, we shall be in terrible straits.
November 16.—The army is safe for the present, but some—I among the number—have had a very narrow escape. The two thousand found their work very much harder than at first they thought it was going to be. They took the first height without any difficulty, and fancied they had done all that was wanted. But there were no less than three heights beyond, and each of these had to be stormed. My part in the business was this. Xenophon thought that the second of the four heights—there were four in all—ought to be held permanently till our army had passed. Some two hundred men were told off for this duty, and I volunteered to be one of them. All of a sudden we found ourselves attacked by a whole swarm of mountaineers. They outnumbered us by at least ten to one. It was a case for running, for there was really no position that we could hold. But running was no easy matter. Our only chance was to climb down a very steep mountain side to the pass below, where the last columns of the van-guard were just making their way. Some of the men did not like to try it; and, indeed, it did look desperately dangerous. While they were hesitating, the barbarians were upon them. As for myself, I felt that I would sooner break my neck than fall into the enemy’s hands, so I started off at full pace, and was safe. Nor do I think that any who followed my example were seriously hurt, though some got very nasty falls. Those who stayed behind were killed to a man. Just now we are in comfortable quarters. Wine is in such plenty hereabouts that positively the people keep it in great cisterns.
November 19.—We have crossed the Centrites, which is the Eastern branch of the Tigris.
November 30.—The march through Armenia has been on the whole as pleasant as we had hoped. The Lieutenant Governor, one Tiribazus, made an agreement with our generals that he would do us no harm, if we would not burn the houses, but content ourselves with taking such provisions as we wanted. Four days ago, we had a heavy fall of snow, and the general thought it as well to billet out the army in the villages, which are very thick in these parts. There was no enemy in sight, and, as we had no tents, bivouacking in the open would be neither pleasant nor safe. We all enjoyed it vastly, particularly as the villages were full of good things, oxen, and sheep, and wine, some of the very best I ever tasted, and raisins, and vegetables of all kinds. But after the first night we had an alarm. A great army was reported in sight; and certainly there were watchfires in every direction. The generals thereupon determined to bring the army together again, and to bivouac on the plain. The weather too, promised to be fine. But in the night there was another heavy snow fall, so heavy that it covered us all up. It was not uncomfortable lying there under the snow; in fact, it felt quite warm; but of course it was not safe. I have heard of people going to sleep under such circumstances and not waking up again. Anyhow Xenophon set the example of getting up, and setting to work splitting wood. Before long we were all busy. But there was no more bivouacking in the open. We went to the villages again; and some foolish fellows who had wantonly set their houses on fire were now punished for their folly.