The Balkan Trail

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

We suggested that the Governor-General was making a mistake; if we were not allowed to visit Garbintzi we must conclude that the reports that massacre and arson had accompanied the fight were true. The Englishman added that, if the Turkish version were based on fact, it would be well to let us verify it. But the kaimakam shook his head; he had his instructions.

We left the house extremely disappointed, and on the way to the khan—for he had said nothing about putting us up—began to think out a plan for getting to Garbintzi. We went to our guide, and, feigning extreme dejection, instructed him to saddle, and be ready himself at eight o’clock next morning; we were going back to Veles. An officer visited us during the evening to ascertain what time an escort should be ready to take us back. The information we gave him agreed with that we had given the Turkish guide—which had been imparted to him. Putting the question to us was only a point of politeness: the horses were being watched.

We rose at five o’clock next morning, dressed hurriedly, and went to the stables. Two soldiers had slept there, and one set off at a run to the Konak. But the hour was early for the Turks, and we got out of town without a soldier on our heels.

We passed the sentinels on the border of the town and rode hard in the direction of Veles until we had passed out of sight of a blockhouse which stood high on a hill a few miles beyond, and would, no doubt, report that we had fairly gone by towards the railway. It was a ride of barely ninety minutes from Istip to Garbintzi by road; with a good hour’s start, we calculated that we could get there before being overtaken, even though we went by a roundabout route. But we did not reckon with our guide. When we called a halt and asked him if there was not a road over the mountains to Garbintzi, he was frightened. He answered that there was a way, but the road was bad, and it would take four hours to go by it from the spot where we stood.

‘Lead us over it,’ we said to the dragoman, who repeated the words to the guide.

There was a parley of ten minutes, during which our nerves were at high tension. Every minute we expected to see a troop of cavalry coming after us. At last we got the information. ‘He won’t go.’ There was no time for argument, when it had taken so much time and all the Turkish which we had heard to convey that fatal negation.

‘How much does he want?’ the Englishman demanded.

‘He will not go at any price,’ came the reply. ‘He has a wife and children depending on him, and an officer has been to him last night and told him that he should lead us to Veles and nowhere else.’ It was no use arguing. We turned our horses’ heads towards a village of some ten houses a few miles off, half way up a mountain side. The dragoman followed. The guide would not leave the road to Veles, literally following instructions.

It was Sunday, and the peasants were all in their brightest clothes. They were dancing a horo, but our appearance among them broke up the festivities. Every man, woman, and child in the village collected about these queer travellers. They understood the dragoman’s Bulgarian, as was apparent by the state of alarm into which they fell. Not for a hundred liras, said the headman of the village, would one of them guide us over the mountains.

‘Why?’ I asked.