CHAPTER XIV
CAPTURE OF MIANEH
Armoured car causes consternation—Reconnoitring the road—Flying column sets out—An easy capture at the gates of Tabriz—Tribesmen raid the armoured car—And have a thin time—Turks get the wind up.
Zinjan having thus passed into our hands without the firing of a shot, the Wagstaff column established its headquarters in a garden villa a mile north of the town, near the junction of the road to Mianeh. The Indo-European Telegraph Company had an office in Zinjan, and we were speedily in communication with Kasvin, eighty miles to the south-east.
Osborne's small party soon turned up, having failed to round up any Turks. Indeed, the latter bolted from Zinjan with amazing celerity, so much so that their commandant, Major Ghalib Bey, left behind some of his papers and personal effects.
During our march on Zinjan, Dunsterville headquarters had moved up from Hamadan to Kasvin in order the more effectively to co-operate with Bicherakoff and his Russian volunteers in the impending operations against Kuchik Khan and his Jungalis, who were holding the Manjil-Resht road.
A few hours after we had taken peaceable possession of Zinjan, Lieutenant Pierpont, with a light armoured car mounting a machine-gun and a Ford convoy bringing supplies for our force, arrived from Kasvin. The car, as it lumbered through the narrow bazaar streets, scraping its way round sharp corners where there was scarcely room to swing a cat, visibly impressed the susceptible native mind, and damped the pro-Turkish enthusiasm of the militant local Democrats. Its presence exercised a salutary moral influence, and although there were mutterings of discontent at our unceremonious seizure of the town, the stodgy barrel of the machine-gun peeping from the turret of the armoured car was in itself sufficient to overawe all the anti-British hotheads of Zinjan.
On the morning following our arrival in Zinjan Major Wagstaff sent me off with the armoured car to reconnoitre the road towards Mianeh. I had with me Lieutenant Pierpont, who was in charge of the car and its crew of three, and Lieutenant Poidebard of the French Army, who was attached to our column. In addition to the car there were a couple of Ford vans carrying spare petrol and stores for the journey. Official road reports in our possession covering the section of the route between Zinjan and Mianeh were indefinite and even conflicting. The road ahead was in places reputed to be "good for wheeled transport," but whether it was passable for an armoured car was highly problematical.
Our first day's journey was devoid of thrill. We forded the shallow waters of the Zinjan Rud and one of its tributary streams, towed the car in places with the two Fords as tugs, and at others built a plank bridge to carry it over deep mud holes.
At the village of Nik Be, or Nikhbeg, which is about thirty miles from our starting-point, the inhabitants fled in terror at the sight of the strange iron-clad monster moving down the village high street. The very dogs took fright and set out for some remote part of Azerbaijan with their tails between their legs. Even the usually placid transport donkey was not proof against the prevailing infection of fear, and kicking his load free, he betook himself elsewhere. The general impression appeared to be that the Evil One himself had dropped in for a morning call. In five minutes from our entry into the village not a human face was to be seen, and a silence as of death itself reigned everywhere. Presently we dug out some of the terrified villagers from various subterranean hiding-places and prevailed upon them to inspect the "monster" at close range. Finding it now stood the test well, and that it behaved in a rational way, they grew bolder, and patted its khaki-painted sides affectionately, as one would stroke a dog of dubious friendliness.