The Jewish bootblacks had fixed upon Easter as the day for the dynamiting: that was a Christian festival, they knew. But the Easters of both calendars came and went without disturbance—though the garrison of the town was augmented on every ‘appointed’ day, to be ready to suppress the ‘rising’ of Bulgarians in an expeditious manner, while every Bulgarian barred his door lest the suppression should come without the dynamiting. It was after many appointed days had passed by without mishap, and most of the Asiatic soldiers had been withdrawn from Salonica and sent to join the army for the penetration of Albania, that the promises of the insurgents were at last fulfilled. Someone has said ‘Fools lie; wise men deceive by telling the truth.’
ASIATIC SOLDIERS: ‘REDIFS.’
WAITING FOR DYNAMITERS, SALONICA.
All of the special correspondents—gathered like vultures in Macedonia to prey on the harvest of death—knew of the prediction for Salonica; but correspondents flock together, and we all followed the leader to Uskub with our hawk eyes set upon Albania. And there we were, in Uskub, when the dynamiting took place. The news reached us about noon of the morning after the event. Instead of eating luncheon, I got a travelling bag ready and boarded the south-bound train at half-past two, with one other correspondent—an Englishman. Happily, we were not rivals: he represented a London daily and I was working for America: otherwise we might have resented each other’s presence. As it was we rejoiced together at having a clear start of twenty-four hours on the others, for there is but one train to Salonica each day.
By nightfall the Englishman was bored by my conversation and I was bored by his, and, having nothing to read, we stretched ourselves out on the seats of our compartment and went to sleep soon after dark. It was in this condition that we arrived in Salonica at half-past ten o’clock; but nobody woke us, and we slept on. The few other passengers—all Turks, as Bulgarians were restricted in travelling at the time—left the train quietly and repaired to a khan across the road to spend the night. The train hands, frightened Christians, lost no time in ‘shunting’ the train, and after placing it on a ‘siding’ a quarter of a mile from the station, deserted it, us included, and joined the Turks in the crowded café.
About midnight I awoke and wondered where I was. It gradually dawned upon me that I was aboard a train, and I rose and looked out of the window. Every light was out: they must have been extinguished from above or we should have been discovered. I could discern, indistinctly, in the faint light of a new moon, a waving line of high grass on both sides of the train, and here and there a low, thick tree, but not a house was visible. I woke the Englishman. Towards the city, usually aglow with little lights from the water’s edge all the way up to the wall on the hills, only a few dim lamps now shone. The gas main to the town had been cut by the committajis the night before, and they had also attempted, in their dynamite revel, to destroy a troop train not far from the spot where ours now stood. We knew that the railways were patrolled everywhere and doubly guarded in the vicinity of Salonica, and there was little chance of our getting out of the train without being seen. We also knew that the Turk is averse from taking prisoners on any occasion, and naturally supposed that the deeds of the dynamiters—for many of whom they were still hunting—had not tended to lessen this Mohamedan characteristic. But to remain in the train and be discovered in the small hours of the morning by some excited Asiatic seemed a greater danger, and we decided to take to the open at once. Whereupon we gathered our bags, quietly opened the door, jumped to the ground and scurried through the high grass in the direction of the town. Fortunately we escaped from the train without detection. But we had gone hardly a hundred yards when a Turkish shout went up that was both a challenge and an alarm. We saw the Turk who gave the yell, for the moon was behind him, but I am sure he only heard us. He was near a tent, and the first to respond to his call for assistance were his companions from within. Six of them rolled out from under the canvas in their clothes, rifles in hand, and in a minute more there were twenty others by his side, all jabbering high Turkish. We had dropped our bags at the challenge and thrown up our hands, but still they did not seem to see us. They evidently thought we numbered forty—the usual size of an insurgent band—and it took us some time to convince them that we were only two Englishmen.
‘Inglese Effendi’ was the extent of our Turkish, and this we shouted to them with every variation of accent we could contrive, trusting they would comprehend our meaning in one form or another. I had not forgotten in the excitement that I was an American, but neither had I forgotten that the Turks consider an American a peculiar species of Englishman, and the situation was such that I was willing to forgo detail in explanation. They located us at once from the noise we were making, and, as soon as they had loaded and cocked their rifles, spread out single file like Red Indians, and wound a circle about us—keeping at a safe distance from our dynamite. During this manœuvre an animated discussion took place as to whether—we judged—it were not better to shoot us first and find out afterwards whether we were Bulgarians or not. This process was boring, for our arms were growing numb, and yet we dared not lower them. They shouted to us a score or more questions, but we could understand not a word. And we, concluding our Turkish had failed, tried them with English, French, and German, and the Englishman (who was the linguist) in a rash moment discharged a volley of Bulgarian. It was well for us then that these soldiers (as we learned later) had arrived from Asia Minor only a few days before, and knew not even the tone of the insurgents’ language. They had understood one variation of our ‘Inglese Effendi,’ and though they could not imagine what ‘English gentlemen’ were doing on a railway line beyond the city in the dead of night, there was one among them willing to take the chance of capturing us alive. But the bold fellow was not without grave fears, as the manner in which he performed this task amply demonstrated. All guns were turned on us:
Rifles to front of us,