The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence by E. F. Benson
CHAPTER VIII
THE MESSAGE OF FIRE
The Greek camp which was being formed here, nestled airily on theunfrequented side of Taygetus, was square, half of it lying on eachside of a rattling stream (loud at this time from the melting snows)which flowed down a steep ravine into the plain of Kalamata. It layabout five hundred yards below the site of the beacon, a conspicuousand stony plateau on the top of an isolated hill, separated on allsides by steep, narrow gullies from the main mass of the mountain. Itwas Nicholas who had chosen the spot, and chosen wisely, for while thecamp itself lay concealed and sheltered from the northern winds, thetop of the hill just above it, from which a man could run down in twominutes to headquarters, was an eyry for observation. On the north itcommanded the Arcadian plain, the corner of which Mitsos and Yannihad just crossed; on the west, the whole valley of Messenia, with itscapital, Kalamata, lay unfurled like a map; and directly under it tothe south wound the Langarda pass over Taygetus from Messenia to Sparta.
The camp was walled with a robust barrier of brushwood and peopledwith small huts, built on a framework of poles, between which wereinterwoven branches of fir and heather, and roofed with reeds or furze.In the centre, just on the right of the stream, stood the hut sharedby Petrobey and Nicholas, built in exactly the same manner as theothers, and only distinguished by a blue-and-white flag which floatedover it, bearing prophetically the cross of Greece risen above thecrescent of Turkey. Towards the top of the enclosure had stood a beltof pines, most of which had been felled for building purposes, one hereand there only having been left to give support to a structure of muchmore solid and weather-proof workmanship. It was divided inside intotwo chambers, in one of which were stored powder and ammunition; in theother the rifles and swords. Additional protection was given to thepowder-magazine by a coat of felt which was nailed on above the boardsof its roof.
The camp was all alive and humming like a hive of bees when the threearrived, for a train of mules from the district round which Yanniand Mitsos had made their first journey had just come in, bringingthe secret grindings of the mills from Kalyvia and Tsimova. Thiswas the first consignment of powder which had arrived, and Petrobeywas superintending its stowage in the magazine. Elsewhere the thinblue smoke of wood fires, over which men were cooking their coffeefor breakfast, rose up straight into the air, and the flicking andflashing of axes in the morning sun showed others still at work onpine-felling. During the last two nights many parties of the clan andthe patriots from the villages round had been arriving with theirarms and provisions, and a herd of sheep and goats were browsing onthe scrub-clad sides of the ravine below the camp. Already there werenot fewer than two hundred men there, and before three days Petrobeyhoped that the whole depot, consisting of eight hundred men with armsand ammunition, would be assembled. Farther along the sides of themountain there were three similar camps, and thus the total number ofmen who would march down from Taygetus onto Kalamata would be a tale ofover three thousand. These were all drawn from Laconia, Argolis, andthe south of Arcadia, and the number would be raised to close on fivethousand by additions from the populous Messenian plain. The patriotsin the north of Greece would, at the beacon-signal, rise simultaneouslyin Achaia as soon as the camps all contained their complement of men.
In the camp discipline and organization were thoroughly ordered andcarried out. A body of the younger and more active were stationed onthe top of the hill with instructions to report at once any movementthey might observe in the country round, and to stop _vi et armis_ anyTurk who was seen going up the pass from Messenia into Sparta, for fearof news being taken to Tripoli of the assembling of the patriots. Thisdanger, however, was inconsiderable. All the camps were nestled awayfrom view in hollows of the unvisited mountain-sides, and the onlycircumstance of suspicion was that within a few days many Greeks hadleft their villages with laden mules, and with their flocks. Even thiswas not unusual at the spring-time of the year, for it was common, whenApril opened up the hills, to drive the flocks higher up to the juiciermountain pasture, where the shepherds would spend weeks at a timecutting down pines and burning them for charcoal. But this flight ofPetrobey and Nicholas and the escape of Yanni might easily have becomea signal of warning to the Turks, and until all was ready it was mostimportant that no communication of alarm should pass from Kalamata toTripoli. For the last few weeks the fortification of Tripoli had beenundergoing repair, and it was evidently expected that if a rising tookplace the first attack would be directed there; or at any rate theTurks thought it was safer to have some fortress in a fairly centralposition, where the families of their countrymen scattered about thecountry could take refuge from local disturbances.
All the cattle, all the arms, the mules and horses brought to the camp,were put under the disposal of Petrobey. As he was the head of the clanof Mavromichales, of whom the camp was chiefly composed, Nicholas hadfelt it better that he should have absolute supremacy in all matters,and, as he had said to Priketes, all that he asked for himself was theright to serve. Petrobey was loath to take advantage of his generosity,and only did so on condition that Nicholas would promise to give himadvice and counsel on all points, dissent from him freely and promptlywhere his judgment did not coincide with his own, and at the wish ofhis men be willing himself to take over the sole command. Meantime,would he take in charge the outposts and messenger corps of the camp,on which devolved the duty of watching the roads and of carrying newsfrom one camp to another?
Nicholas's company had been relieved at the watch on the beacon-stationwhen the two boys arrived, and the three went together to Petrobey. Hewas busy with the unlading of the powder-carrying mules when they cameup, but as they drew near he saw them and ran towards them.
"Now the Blessed Virgin be praised," he cried, "that you have come! Weexpected you earlier. How was it you did not come before? Ah, Yanni,but your father has wearied for you! Is it a long bill we have withMehemet? Oh, admirable little Mitsos, the Holy Father reward you forbringing him safe. We will breakfast together when I have finished thisjob. Get you to my tent with Nicholas."
The unlading of the powder was an operation in which, so Petrobeythought, no caution would be superfluous. It arrived in big mulepanniers, covered over with charcoal or some country produce, and thepanniers were taken off and carried singly by men barefoot into themagazine. Here others were stationed, whose duty it was to take offthe stuff under which the powder was concealed and empty it into smallskin bottles, which could be carried by a man, and held more than theordinary powder-flasks. There were eight hundred of these, one foreach man in the camp, and when they were full the remainder were to bestored in light wooden boxes of handier shapes than the panniers fortransport on the ammunition mules.
All day fresh bands of men in eights and tens from the Maina countryarrived in camp, and news was passed from the other stations along themountain-side that they, too, were filling rapidly. Among others fiftymen had joined the patriots from Nauplia and the plain of Argos, oneof whom was Father Andrea, an incarnated vengeance more than priest,and another was Mitsos' father. Mitsos himself, however, was to remainin the camp of the Mavromichales, acting as aide-de-camp to Nicholas,but otherwise the disposition of the men was strictly geographical,since Petrobey's experience told him that men who have known each otherfight best side by side. Each camp was organized on the pattern of theMavromichales, and the captains of each had voluntarily put themselvesunder the supreme command of Petrobey, for the dissensions whichsubsequently broke out in the army had not yet appeared. Moreover, theHetairist Club, since the flight of Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, hadgiven express orders that the direction of affairs in the south was tobe in the hands of some local chieftain, suggesting for that officeeither Petrobey or Nicholas.
A week passed, and the camps were all nearly full, and Petrobey waitedimpatiently for the completion of his preparations. Partly by extremecaution, and partly by good luck, there had as yet been no collisionwith the Turks, and apparently no uneasiness felt in Kalamata. A reporth
Then Petrobey rose, and his gray eye was fire.
"At last, at last!" he cried. "Oh, Nicholas, the vintage is ripe!"
He waited no longer. Yanni, who was his aide-de-camp, was despatchedat top speed to the next station, with orders that an hour beforesunset the army was to start on its march to Kalamata, and all theafternoon the stir of going was shrill. The clan were half wild withexcitement and eagerness; but all were absolutely in control, and wentabout their duties methodically and in perfect order, and the work oflading and marshalling the ammunition and baggage-mules was finishedby four o'clock. Meanwhile another party had carried up to the top ofthe hill the fuel for the beacon, which Petrobey had arranged was tobe the signal, not only across to the hill above Bassae, but to thepatriots collected lower down in the villages of the Messenian plain.Mitsos, who was charged with the lighting of it, was to let loose thetongue of fire which should shout the word all over Greece as soonas dark fell, and then follow straight down the hill-side after themain body. The whole disposition of the force round Kalamata, and theroutes by which, converging as they went, they were to march there, hadbeen already arranged, and by five o'clock the clan set out, spreadingthemselves in open order over the hill-side, the mules alone followingthe road of the pass, so as to prevent any one leaving the town byother mountain-paths over Taygetus.
As soon as the clan had started, Mitsos, left to himself, ate hissupper, and sat down to wait till the darkness of the birthnight ofGreece should fall. It had been a hot, sultry day, with a heavy air,and he had packed up and sent on with the mules a heavy woollen cloak,which Nicholas had given him to replace the one he had left behindin his race to Tripoli, and was dressed only in his linen trousers,shirt, and open Albanian jacket. The still air hung like a blanket onthe mountain-side, but he saw that clouds had gathered on the top ofTaygetus and were moving down westward in the direction of the camp.But they remained as yet high, and though before sunset they hadstretched right over from the mountain-top behind to the peak of Ithomein the west, a gray floor of mottled marble, flushed here and there,where they were thinner, with the reflected fire of an angry sunset,the northern heaven was still clear, and his beacon-point close abovehim stood out black and sharp-cut. Long before dark fell he had alreadybeen up to the beacon, in order to arrange the brushwood and firingmost handily; the lighter and drier wood he put on the windward side,so that such breeze as there was might drive the flames inward againstthe larger bushes, which would take the flame less easily. He alsotore a quantity of dry moss from the sides of a couple of plane-trees,which grew to the leeward of the hill, and made a core of this withinthe brushwood, adding a train, in the manner of a fuse, leading outwardto where he would apply the light. He had just finished this to hissatisfaction, and was about to return to the camp to fetch up theburning lumps of charcoal which he had fed during the afternoon, andwhich in this wind that had sprung up would soon kindle the moss intoflame, when a few large raindrops fell splashing on the ground, and hehurriedly covered the dry, tinder-like furze with thick branches ofpine, in order to keep it protected; then for a few moments the rainceased again, but Mitsos, looking up, saw that the clouds had grownblack and swollen with an imminent downpour, and that the storm mightbreak any minute. His next thought was for the burning charcoal below,and he ran quickly down the hill-side in order to carry it under coverof the ammunition magazine; but before he had gone fifty yards thestorm broke in a sheet of hissing rain, driven a little aslant in thewind--but for heaviness a shower of lead. However, in hopes of savingthe charcoal, he ran on, and raking about in the embers of his fire,already turning to a black slush under the volleying rain, he found alump of charcoal not yet extinguished. Then sheltering it in his cap,he nursed it tenderly, and carried it into the ammunition magazine.There he sat for half an hour, and from it managed to kindle a few morelumps, while the noise of the rain continued as of musketry on theresounding roof. Then looking out he saw that night had come, heavy andlowering.
The position was sufficiently critical. The beacon fuel would besoaked, and the dry kindling in the centre, he thought, would beinsufficient to start a blaze. Then he remembered a flask of spiritswhich Petrobey had told him to keep with him in case of emergency, andhe ran across to fetch it from his hut. The clouds had lifted a little,though the downpour was still heavy; but, looking up, he still saw theoutline of the beacon-hill a shade blacker than the sky, showing thatit was clear, at any rate, of mists. He groped about the walls of thehut for some little time before finding the flask, and just as he puthis hand on it the wind fell dead, the rain stopped as when a tap isturned back, and in the stillness he heard the sound of the footstep ofsome man unfamiliarly stumbling up the stony hill-side just below. Atthat he stopped, and then creeping cautiously to the entrance of thehut, peered out. He could see nothing; but the step still advanced,drawing nearer.
Who could it be? It was hardly possible, though still just possible,that this man was some Greek of the clan--yet such would surely haveshouted to him--coming from Petrobey with a message, or it might besome benighted peasant; yet, again, for fear it might be a Turk he mustneeds go carefully, and with redoubled caution he crept out of thehut, still keeping in the shadow, and looked round the corner. Whetherit was the rustle of his moving in the dead silence, or the faintshimmering of his white trousers in the darkness, that betrayed him,was only a thing for conjecture, but the next moment, from some fiftyyards in front, he saw the flash of a gun, and a bullet sang viciouslyby him, cracking in half one of the upright posts which bound the sidesof the hut together. Mitsos stood up, as he knew he was seen, andcalled out, cocking his pistol, yet seeing no one, "Speak, or I fire,"and in answer he heard the sound of another charge being rammed home.At that he bolted back round the corner of the tent and waited. Thesteps advanced closer; clearly the man, whoever he was, finding that hedid not fire, concluded that he had no arms--the truth, however, beingthat Mitsos, having seen nothing but the flash of the gun, thoughtit more prudent to wait until he had a more localized target. Butpresently the steps paused, and after a moment he heard them retreatingwith doubled quickness up the hill towards the pass. Then a solutionflashed upon him--this could be no patriot, nor would a wanderingpeasant have fired at him; it could only be some Turk who had seen theGreek army advancing, had somehow eluded them, and was going hotfoot toSparta with the news. He must be stopped at all costs, and next momentMitsos was stretched in pursuit up the hill after him, keeping as muchas possible in the cover of the trees. Clearly the man had missed hisway in the darkness, and had come unexpectedly upon the Greek camp, andseeing some one there had fired.
In three minutes or so Mitsos' long legs had gained considerably onhim, and he now saw him, though duskily, with his gun on his shoulderstill making up the hill. Another minute saw them within about fiftyyards of each other; but Mitsos had the advantage of position, forwhile he was running between scattered trees the other was in theopen. He apparently recognized this, and changed his course towardsthe belt of wood; but then suddenly, seeing Mitsos so near, he haltedand fired, and Mitsos felt the bullet just graze his arm. On that heran forward, while
The wound on his arm was but slight, though it bled profusely andsmarted like a burn, and only stopping to tear off a piece from hisshirt-sleeve, which he bound tightly round it, tying the knot with histeeth and his right hand, he again put the charcoal, which was burningwell, into his cap, and with the flask of brandy set off for the topof the hill. The rain had come on again, hissing down in torrents, andMitsos, knowing that the fear of failure strode faster every moment,tore the cover of boughs off from the core of moss and furze, but foundto his dismay it was quite damp and would not light. It was necessaryto get a flame somehow; the spirits and the moss would do the rest ifonce he could get that; and to get a flame, he must have something dry,though it were but a twig. There was no time to waste; already a bigraindrop had made an ominous black spot on the middle of the glowingcharcoal, and meantime everything was getting rapidly wetter. In amoment of hopelessness he clutched at his hair despairingly; the thingseemed an impossibility.
Then suddenly an idea struck him, and, tearing off his jacket, heremoved his shirt, which had been kept quite dry, and kneeling downwith his back bare to the cold, scourging rain put the two lumps ofcharcoal in the folds of it and blew on them. For a couple of secondsthe linen smouldered only, but then--and no Angel Gabriel would havebeen a gladder sight to him--a little tongue of flame shot up. Mitsostook the brandy bottle, and with the utmost care shook out a few dropsonto the edge of the flame. These it licked up, burning brighter, andsoon the whole of the back of the shirt took the fire. He crammedit under the thick core of moss and brushwood, and feeding themplentifully with brandy coaxed the flame into the driest part of thestuff. Now and then a little spark would go running like some fieryinsect through the fibres, leaving a gray path of ash behind, onlyto perish when it reached the damper stuff, and once even the flameseemed to die down altogether; but meantime it had penetrated into thecentre of the pile, and suddenly a yellow blade of smoky fire leapedout and licked the dripping branches of fir outside. These only fumedand cracked, and Mitsos pulled them off, for they were but choking theflames; and, running down to the edge of the wood, he tore up greathandfuls of undergrowth, which had been partially protected from therain by the trees, and threw them on. Then the fire began to take holdin earnest, and through the thick volumes of stinging smoke, which werestreaming away westward, shot lurid gleams of flame. Now and then witha great crash and puff of vapor some thicker branch of timber wouldsplit and break, throwing out a cloud of ignited fragments, or againthere would rise up a hissing and simmering of damp leaves, like thesound of a great stewing over a hot fire. The place where he had firstlit the beacon was all consumed, and only a heap of white frothy ash,every now and then flushing red again with half-consumed particles assome breeze fanned it, remained, and from the fir branches which Mitsoshad taken off ten minutes ago, but now replaced, as every moment thehold of the fire grew steadier, there were bursting little fan-shapedbouquets of flame.
Meantime, with the skin of his chest down to the band of his trousersreddened and scorched by the heat, his back cold and dripping, andlashed with the heavy whisp of rain which had so belabored him in thosefirst few moments of struggle between fire and water, his hair tangledand steaming with heat and shower, his eyes blackened and burned withthe firing, Mitsos worked like a man struggling for life; now pushing ahalf-burned branch back into the fire; now lifting a new bundle of fuel(as much as he could carry in both arms), which pricked and scratchedthe scorched and bleeding skin of his chest; now glancing northwardto see whether Bassae had answered him. With the savage frenzy of hishaste, the excitement of the deed, and the fury and madness of theblood he had shed dancing in his black eyes, he looked more like someancient Greek spirit of the mountains than the lover of Suleima and theboy who was so tender for Yanni.
In ten minutes more the rain had stopped, but Mitsos still laboredon until the heat of the beacon was so great that he could scarcelyapproach to throw on the fresh fuel. The flames leaped higher andhigher, and the wind dropping a shower of red-hot pieces of half-burnedleaves and bark was continually carried upward, peopling the night withfiery sparks and falling round him in blackened particles, or floatingaway a feathery white ash like motes in a sunbeam. And as he stoodthere, grimy and panting, scorched and chilled, throwing new bundles offuel onto the furnace, and seeing them smoke and fizz and then breakout flaring, the glory and the splendor of the deeds he was helping inburst in upon him with one blinding flash that banished other memories,and for the moment even Suleima was but the shadow of a shadow. Thebeacon he had kindled seemed to illuminate the depths of his soul, andhe saw by its light the cruelty and accursed lusts of the hated raceand the greatness of the freedom that was coming. Then, blackened andburned and sodden and drenched, he sat down for a few moments to thenorth of the beacon to get his breath and scoured the night. Was that astar burning so low on the horizon? Surely it was too red for a star,and on such a night what stars could pierce the clouds? Besides, wasnot that a mountain which stood up dimly behind it? Then presentlyafter it grew and glowed; it was no star, but the fiery mouth ofmessage shouting north and south. Bessae had answered.
"MITSOS TORE UP GREAT HANDFULS OF UNDERGROWTH AND THREWTHEM ON"]
There was still a little spirits left, and between his wetting and hisscorching Mitsos felt that he would be none the worse for it, and heleft his jacket to dry by the beacon while he went back to where thebody of the Turkish soldier lay to look for his pistol, which he hadtill then forgotten. He searched about for some little while withoutfinding it, for it had fallen in a tangle of undergrowth; and taking itand the man's gun, which might come in useful, he turned to go. Thenfor the first time a sudden feeling of compassion came over him, and hebroke off an armful of branches from the trees round, and threw themover the body in order to cover it from the marauding feeders of themountain; and then crossing himself, as the Greeks do in the presenceof the dead, he turned away; and going once more up to the beacon tofetch his jacket, which had grown dry and almost singed in that fierceheat, he ran off down the hill to join the clan.
They had gone but slowly, for they did not wish to reach Kalamatatill an hour before daybreak, and had, when Mitsos came up, halted atthe bottom of the range where the foot-hills begin to rise towardsTaygetus. He was challenged by one of the sentries, and for replyshouted his own name to them; and finding Demetri was his challenger,stopped to tell him of the success of the beacon and the answer flaredback from Bassae, and then went on to seek for Nicholas or Petrobey toreport his return.
Petrobey was sitting by a camp-fire when he came up, talking earnestlyto Nicholas and Father Andrea, who had come in from the Naupliacontingent, and only smiled at Mitsos as he entered.
"That is the order, father," he was saying; "we want to take the plac
"Yes?"
"Perhaps the moon will devour them," said Petrobey. "I shall make noconditions about surrender. Good-night, father. And now, little Mitsos;the beacon, we know, got lit. How in the name of the Virgin did youmanage to do it?"
Mitsos unbuttoned his jacket and showed the sore and reddened skinbeneath.
"There is much in a shirt," he said, laughing, and told his story.
When he had finished Petrobey looked at Nicholas with wonder andsomething like awe in his eye.
"Surely the blessing of the Holy Saints is on the lad," he said, in alow voice.
Part III
THE TREADING OF THE GRAPES