Эдвард Бенсон
The Vintage: A Romance of the Greek War of Independence

Part III
THE TREADING OF THE GRAPES

CHAPTER I
TE DEUM LAUDAMUS

During the night the wind swept the floor of heaven clean of clouds, and an hour of clear starlight and setting moon preceded dawn. Before starting, after an hour's halt about midnight, Petrobey called together the captains of the other three camps and gave them their final instructions. Three companies, those from Maina, Argolis, and Laconia, were to besiege the citadel, while the company from Arcadia was to join the two from Messenia, which would meet them on the plain, and invest the harbor, destroy all the shipping except three or four light-built boats which were to be kept in readiness for other purposes, and watch for the coming of the two Turkish ships-of-war. The Messenians, with a loyal and patriotic spirit, had asked Petrobey to name them a captain for the three companies which would be employed on this work, instead of pressing a local candidate; and in order to prevent jealousy or dissent among them, he nominated one Niketas, of Sparta, who was well known to most of the men, popular, and had seen service on an English ship, where he had worked for two years abroad, for a price had been placed on his head by the Turks for supposed brigandage. He had returned to his country a month ago from the Ionian Isles, and had hastened to put himself in the service of the patriots.

The citadel of Kalamata stood on rising ground about a mile from the harbor, but it was small, and a large, unfortified suburb, chiefly employed in commerce and the silk industry, had spread out southward from its base, making a continuous street between harbor and citadel. The latter was defended by a complete circuit of wall, and on three sides out of the four the rocks on the edge of which the walls stood were precipitous for some thirty feet. Under the western of these, and directly below the wall, ran a torrent-bed, bringing down the streams from the mountains to the north – dry in summer, but now flowing full and turbid with the melting of the winter snows on the heights. On this side the town was impregnable to the Greeks, who at present had no field-pieces or arms of any kind larger than the ordinary muskets then in use, and similarly it would have been waste of time and lives to attack it either on the north or east. On the north, however, was a picket-gate in the wall, communicating with a steep flight of steps cut in the rock. Petrobey's plan, therefore, was to take possession at once of the lower undefended town and blockade the citadel from that side, for thus with a body of men to guard the northern picket, the east and west sides being impassable both from within and without, the blockade would be complete. Meantime the three companies, consisting of Messenians and Arcadians, would cut off the harbor from the town, leaving the Mainats, Argives, and Laconians to deal with the citadel itself.

When day broke the secrecy of their advance was favored by a thick mist, which rose some ten feet high from the plain, and under cover of this, manoeuvring in some fields about a mile eastward from the town, the army split in two, and one half marched straight down to the shore of the bay, and from there, turning along the coast, ranged itself along the harbor shore and on the breakwater, made of large rough blocks of stone, which sheltered the harbor from southerly winds, and the other three, leaving the citadel on their right hand, went straight for the lower town. Half an hour afterwards the heat of the sun began to disperse the morning mists, and as they got to the outskirts of the town the vast vapor was rolled away, and the sentries on the citadel looking out southward saw three companies of soldiers not half a mile off. The alarm was given at once and spread through the lower town like fire. From all the houses rushed out men, women, and children, some still half clad or just awakened from their morning sleep, mothers with babies in their arms, and old men almost as helpless, who ran this way and that in the first panic terror, but gradually settled down into two steady streams – the one up to the citadel to find refuge there, the other to the harbor to seek means of flight. But the army came on in silence, making its way slowly up the narrow streets towards the citadel, without being attacked by the terrified and unarmed inhabitants, and in its turn neither striking a blow nor firing a shot. Two companies only had entered the town, the third remaining on the outskirts to the east, acting like a "stop" in cover-shooting, to drive the inhabitants back again, lest any should convey the alarm to Tripoli.

From the west of the town a bridge led over the torrent, and here Petrobey stationed some hundred men to prevent any one leaving the town across the river; but before long, wishing to concentrate all his forces in the town, Yanni was sent to the party picketed there with orders to destroy the bridge. This was made of wood, but preparations were in hand for replacing it with one of iron, and several girders were lying about on the bank for the approaching work. With one of these as a lever, and twenty men to work it, it was an affair of ten minutes only to prize up some half-dozen planks of the wooden structure, and after that to saw in half a couple of the timber poles on which it rested. The bridge thus weakened drooped towards the water, and soon was caught by the swift stream below. Then, as some monstrous fish plucks at a swimmer's limbs, it twitched and fretted against the remaining portion, and soon with a rush and swirl of timbers and planks it tore away a gap of some twenty feet across, sufficient to stop any would-be fugitives.

Here and there in their passage up the town a house was shut and barred against them, but for the most part the inhabitants streamed out like ants when their hill is disturbed. Once only was resistance offered, when from the upper window of a house a Turk fired upon the soldiers, killing one man; and Petrobey, heading a charge himself, burst in the door, and a couple of shots were heard from inside. Then, without a word, he and the three others who had gone in with him took their places again, and the column moved forward up the street.

The square of the lower town stood just at the base of the rising ground leading up to the citadel, and on its north side was built a row of big silk-mills, all of which had been deserted by their owners on the first alarm, and in these the Maina division took up its quarters. As soon as they and the Argives had made their passage through the town, driving the inhabitants up into the citadel, or down to the harbor, where they were taken by the Messenian division, Petrobey sent to the Laconian corps, who had been acting as a "stop" on the east to prevent the people escaping into the country, and brought them up on the right to complete the line which they had drawn along the south front of the citadel. The Argive corps, meantime, had been divided into two, one-half of which blockaded the picket-gate on the north, while the other was drawn up on the left of the Mainats, between them and the river. This done, the blockade of the citadel was complete; on the west the besieged were hemmed in by their own impregnable rock, below which ran the current; on the south and southeast by the Greek army; on the east again by the precipitous crags; and on the north their escape through the picket-gate was impracticable, owing to the detachment of Argives guarding it.

Three courses were open to them: to make a sortie as soon as the expected Turkish ships would appear and regain communication with the sea; or, by engaging and defeating the Greeks, establish connection with Tripoli; or to support the siege until help came. In the utter confusion and panic caused by the sudden appearance of the Greeks the inhabitants had simply fled like a quail-flock, and the citadel was crammed with a crowd of unarmed civilians. Each thought only for himself and his own personal protection. Mixed in this crowd of fugitives had been hundreds of Greek residents – some of whom, possessed merely by the wild force of panic and without waiting to think what this army was, had rushed blindly with the others into the citadel; but the larger number had joined their countrymen – men, women, and children together – imploring protection with horrible tales of outrage and cruelty on their lips. All those who were fit for active service and willing Petrobey enlisted, and employed them in making a more careful search through the town for any Turks who might remain in hiding. These were not to be killed or ill-treated, but merely kept as prisoners. But the wild vengeance of those who had so long been slaves burst all bounds when they saw their masters in their power, and all who were found were secretly put to death.

The weakness of the citadel lay in its bad water supply. There was only one well in the place, and that was not nearly sufficient for the wants of the crowds who had taken refuge within it. But about mid-day Demetri, the mayor of Nauplia, who was in charge of the division on the north, observed buckets being let down from the top of the citadel wall into the river and drawn up again full. The rocks here overhung a little, and, taking with him some ten men, they dashed right under the walls and to the corner abutting on the river. At that moment two more buckets appeared close in front of them, and he and another, taking hold of them, quietly undid the knots which tied them to the rope. The grim humor of this amused him, and in half an hour there was a row of some twenty buckets, which they had untied or cut. The besieged then attempted to get water farther down, but the rocks there being not so precipitous and sloping outward, the buckets stuck on some projection of rock before reaching the water.

Meantime a column of smoke, rising from the harbor, showed that the Messenians were at their work. One corps had deployed along the shore and took in hand the work of burning all the shipping, while the other was employed in making prisoners of the fugitives from the lower town, who hoped to escape by sea. A few of these, striking eastward across the plain, tried to get into the mountains, and were shot, but the majority, finding themselves between two divisions of the army, cut off from the citadel by Petrobey's division and from the sea by the Messenians, and also being unarmed, surrendered to Niketas, who, knowing no Turkish, but being proud of his English, merely said "All-a-right" to their entreaties and prayers, and had them incontinently stowed away in batches in the harbor buildings. The Arcadians, meantime, had ranged themselves along the breakwater, where they kept watch for the Turkish ships, and, having no work to hand, spent the morning in smoking and singing.

About two in the afternoon word was brought to the captain of the troops within the citadel – one Ali Aga – that two Turkish ships had been seen in the offing approaching Kalamata. A steady south breeze was blowing, and a couple of hours would see their arrival. Ali had watched, in white, contemptuous anger that morning, the destruction of the shipping by the Greeks. The ammunition within the walls was very scanty, and the water supply for this irruption of fugitives was wholly inadequate. Indeed, unless news of their straits was already on the road to Tripoli – and this he could scarce hope, so swift and complete had been the beleaguer – unless a relief expedition was even now imminently starting, he saw that the only chance of saving the town lay in concerted action with the approaching ships, and thus making an attack on the Greek lines from both sides – the citadel and the sea. Thus he determined to wait until the ships came up and engaged the detachment of Greeks on the shore.

The wind still holding, in half an hour the Arcadian contingent on the breakwater could see even from the beach the hulls of the approaching ships, beyond all doubt Turkish men-of-war. The breakwater along which the Greeks were ranged was still only half completed, and masses of rough masonry lay piled and tumbled on the seaward end. Niketas rubbed his hands gleefully as he made the dispositions for their welcome, and exclaimed many times "This is very all-a-right"; then, relapsing into Greek, he gave his orders, and mingled with them a chuckling homily.

"The Turk made the breakwater," he said, "but God and the holy saints, having the Greeks in mind, were the designers. Hide yourselves ever so thickly among these beautiful great stones, like anchovies in a barrel, and when the ship turns into the harbor we will all talk loud to it together. The water is very deep here; they will sail close to our anchovy barrel, and they will see none of us till they turn the corner, for the breakwater which God planned hides us from the sea."

He called up one division of Messenians to join the Arcadian corps, leaving the other to guard the beach, and the sixteen hundred men ranged themselves among the blocks of masonry along the inside of the breakwater, so that until the ships turned the corner not one could be seen, but once round they would be exposed to a broadside of muskets at close range from marksmen concealed by the stones. Niketas himself – for the foremost ship was now not more than a few hundred yards out – crawled with infinite precaution to the end of the breakwater, and smilingly watched its unsuspicious approach. It carried, he saw, many heavy guns; but that was a small matter.

The wind was now light, and the ship was nearly opposite the end of the breakwater when she began to take in sail, and a moment afterwards her helm was put hard aport, and she slowly swung round, crumpling the smooth water beneath her bow, and came straight alongside the wall at a distance of not more than fifty yards. Niketas had told the men to fire exactly when the ship came opposite them. She would pass slowly down the line, and would be raked fore and aft again and again as she went along.

Sixteen hundred men were crowded like swarming bees among the lumps of tumbled stone. As many muskets waited hungrily. Overhead, above the shelter of the breakwater, hummed the breeze; the little wavelets tapped on the edge of the masonry; the stage was ready.

Tall and beautiful she came slowly on till her whole length appeared opposite the ambush. Her decks and rigging were alive with the sailors, who were swarming over the masts and furling sail, or stood ready to drop the anchor on the word of command. On the bridge stood the captain with two other officers, and, marshalled in rows on the aft deck, about two hundred soldiers, carrying arms. Simultaneously through the ambushed Greeks the same thought ran, "The soldiers first," and as the great ship glided steadily past the end of the breakwater the fire of a hundred men broke out, and they went down like ninepins. The ship moved on, and, like the echo of the first volley, a second swept the decks, and close on the second a third. The captain fell and two officers with him, and a panic seized the crew. They ran hither and thither, some seeking refuge below, some jumping overboard, some standing where they were, wide-eyed and terror-stricken. A few of the soldiers only retained their presence of mind, and with perfect calmness, as if they were practising at some sham-fight, brought a gun into position and proceeded to load it. But again and again they were mowed down by the deadly short-range fire of the Greeks, while others took up the ramrods and charge from their clinched hands, only to deliver it up from their death-grip to others. But still the great ship went on, running the gauntlet of the whole ambush, while every moment its decks grew more populous with a ghastly crew of death. The well-directed and low fire of the Greeks had left the half-furled sails untouched, and the wind still blew steadily. But in a few moments more there were none left to take the helm, and, swinging round to the wind, she changed her course and went straight for the low, sandy beach on the other side of the harbor. There, fifty yards off the shore, she grounded heavily, with a slight list to starboard, striking a sand-bank on the port side; and there, all the afternoon, she stood, white and stately, with sails bulging with the wind, but moving not, like some painted or phantom ship with wings that feel not wind nor any gale.

Not till then did Niketas, nor indeed any of his ambushed party, give a thought to the other ship, but when the first ship with its crew of dead turned in the wind and sailed ashore he looked round the corner for the other. It was still some quarter of a mile away, but there seemed to be some commotion on deck, and he was uncertain for a moment whether they were preparing to bring their big gun into play. But he was not left long in doubt, for in a couple of minutes more the ship swung round and beat out to sea again. This disgraceful piece of cowardice raised from the Greeks a howl, partly of derision and partly of rage at being balked of their prey, and a few discharged their muskets at the fleeing enemy until Niketas stopped them, telling them not to waste good powder on runaway dogs. On the first ship the body of soldiers had literally been destroyed, and of two hundred not more than thirty remained. But these, with a courageous despair, after the first few minutes of wild confusion were over, had sheltered themselves at different points behind the bulwarks and furniture of the ship, and were returning the fire coolly, while others began preparing the big gun for action. But these were an easy mark for the Greeks, for they were unprotected, and after five or six more men had been shot down they abandoned the attempt and confined themselves to their muskets. They were, however, fighting with cruel odds against them, for the men on whom they were firing were sheltered by the blocks of masonry on the pier, and hardly more could be seen than a bristling row of gun-barrels. Hardly any of those who had flung themselves into the sea lived to reach the shore, for they also were shot down as they swam, and all over the bay were stains of crimson blood and clothes which they had flung off into the water. One man, indeed, landed two hundred yards away, but even as he stood there wringing the water out of his clothes, which would clog his running, he was shot dead, and fell back into the water again.

Meantime, from the citadel Ali Aga had watched the destruction of one ship and the flight of the other. At the moment when the first had entered the harbor he had opened fire on the Mainat corps; but they, obeying Petrobey's direction, merely sheltered behind the mills, and did not even take the trouble to return it. Encouraged by this, and seeing heavy fighting going on below, Ali was just preparing to make a dash for the harbor with some half of the troops, in order to establish communication, when the firing on the shore suddenly slackened, and he saw one ship sail off without firing a shot, while the other drifted with half-furled sails across the bay, and then grounded. At that he resolved again to wait, for he had no intention of going to the rescue of those who should have rescued him, and indeed, without co-operation from the ship, the attempt would have been madness.

At dusk the firing below ceased altogether, for a boat had put off from the ship bearing the white flag of surrender, and all those who were left on board were removed, their arms taken from them, and they were put into custody. Niketas, who boarded the ship, felt a sudden unwilling admiration for the man who had gone on fighting against such fearful odds. The deck presented a fearful sight – it was a shambles, nothing less. The list of the ship as she struck had drained the blood in oily, half-congealed streams through the scuppers, and it was dripping sullenly into the sea. The small-arms and powder the Greeks transferred in boats to the land, where they were added to the stock, and they made several unsuccessful attempts to get out one or two of the larger guns, which might prove useful if Kalamata refused to capitulate. But all their efforts, in the absence of fit tackling and lifting apparatus, were useless, and after emptying the ship of all that could be of service to them, including a sum of five hundred Turkish pounds, which was found in the captain's cabin, they set light to it for fear it should be got off by its sister ship and so return into the enemy's fleet. All night long the hull blazed, and about midnight it was a pillar of fire, for the sails caught and the flames went roaring upward, mast high. And thus ended the first day of the siege.

All next day the blockade continued without incident, and no attempt was made on the part of the Turks to deliver an attack, nor on that of the besiegers to force their way into the citadel. The pass from Arcadia and that over Taygetus, across either of which any relief expedition from Tripoli must march, were carefully watched, and before such appeared Petrobey declined to make an attack, which must be expensive to the Greek army, when simply waiting would do their work for them; while Ali on his side would sooner capitulate, if the worst came to the worst, than with his fifteen hundred men, ill-supplied with ammunition, engage these six regiments of wolves; for such an engagement, as he knew, would only end in his utter defeat, and the massacre in all probability of all the Turks in the town.

Early on the third morning it was clear that help was not coming from Tripoli, or, at any rate, that it would come too late. The water supply had entirely given out and famine as well was beginning to make itself felt. For two days and nights the citadel had been packed like a crate of figs with defenceless and civilian humanity, more than half of whom had to lie out under the cold of the spring night exposed to the dews and the sun, some of them barely half clad, just as they had been awakened from their sleep when they had fled panic-stricken to the citadel. Below in the Greek army the utmost content and harmony still reigned. The men were well quartered and had all the supplies of the town in their hands, and a considerable amount of booty had been taken, half of which was divided between the men and half reserved by Petrobey for a war fund.

The first bugle had sounded half an hour, and they were preparing their breakfast when a white flag was hoisted on the corner tower, the gate opened, and Ali Aga, alone and unattended, except for a page who carried his chibouk, walked down into the camp. Some Greeks, who had lived under him and had felt his cruel and outrageous rule, saw him coming and surrounded him, spitting at him and reviling him; but here the devilish coolness of the man came to the front, a matter for admiration, and turning round on them he cursed at them so fiercely, calling them dogs and sons of dogs, that they fell back. By the side of the road was sitting a blind Greek, begging. Ali, with splendid unconcern, paused, threw open his red cloak trimmed with the fur of the yellow fox, which he had wrapped closely about him against the chill of the morning, and taking his pistol and string of amber beads out of his belt, felt in the corners of it for some small coins, which he gave the man and passed deliberately on, adjusting his fez with one hand. Once again before he reached Petrobey's quarters he paused, this time to take off one of his red shoes and shake a pebble out of it. Had he blanched or wavered for a moment his life would have been forfeit a dozen times before he reached Petrobey's quarters, but he treated the howling crowd as a man treats snarling curs, and he silently commanded one of the loudest-mouthed to show him the way to their commander.

Petrobey had seen Ali coming, and was sitting outside the house where he had taken up his quarters, and when the Turk appeared he arose and saluted him, telling a servant to bring a pipe for him; but Ali did not return the salute, and merely indicated with one hand that he had brought his own pipe with him, an insult of the most potent nature. To him the Greeks were "all of one bake," and he looked at Petrobey and spoke as if he were speaking to one of his own slaves.

"I find it necessary for me to capitulate," he said, in excellent Greek, "and I am here to settle the conditions."

Petrobey flushed angrily. He was not a meek man, and had no stomach for insults; so he sat down again, leaving Ali standing, and crossed one leg over the other.

"I make no conditions," he said, "except this one: I will order no general massacre; at the same time, it would be safer for all of you not to assume insolent and overbearing airs."

Ali raised his eyebrows, and before speaking again sat down and beckoned to the page who carried his pipe.

"You will not give us a safe conduct to Tripoli, for instance?"

"No."

"You will not allow us to retain our arms?"

Petrobey laughed.

"Such is not my intention. All I will do" – and his anger suddenly flared up at the perfectly unassumed insolence of the man – "all I will do is to forbid my men to shoot you down in cold blood. You will be wise to consider that, for we may not care to grant such terms, no, nor yet be able to enforce obedience to them if we did, on the day when Tripoli is crushed like a beetle below our heel."

Ali shrugged his shoulders and took his chibouk from the hands of the page who carried it.

"Oblige me with a piece of charcoal," he said to one of the Greeks who stood by, and he lit his pipe slowly and deliberately before replying.

"Your terms are preposterous," he said; "I do not, however, say that I will not accept them, but I wish for five hours more for consideration."

"Five hours more for relief from Tripoli, in my poor judgment," remarked Petrobey. "I am afraid that will not be convenient to me. I require 'yes' or 'no'; neither more nor less."

Ali inhaled two long breaths of smoke.

"If I will give neither 'yes' nor 'no,' what then?"

"This. You shall go back in safety, and then when you are starved out, or when we take the place, I will not grant any terms. And we have a long score against you. Your rule has not been popular among my countrymen; those who have lived here under you are full of very pretty tales."

"I suppose the dogs are. I accept your terms."

Petrobey rose.

"Consider yourself my prisoner," he said, not even looking at him. "Take charge of him, Christos, and Yorgi, and order all three corps out, Yanni."

"Another piece of charcoal, one of you," said Ali. "This tobacco is a little damp."

In half an hour's time all the Turkish soldiers and civilians were defiled out of the citadel unarmed between the lines of the Greeks. They were instantly divided up among the different corps, and from that moment became the property of the soldiers as much as the Greek slaves in the last years had been the property of their Turkish masters. Many who had friends were ransomed, many became domestic slaves, and many, in the Greek phrase, "the moon devoured." The flag of Greece was hoisted on the towers, and the work which Mitsos had cried aloud in fire from Taygetus to Bassae had begun.

And on that day which saw the dawning of the freedom of Greece it seemed to these enthusiastic hearts, who for years had cherished and fed the smouldering spark which now ran bursting into flame, that earth and sea and sky joined in the glory and triumph. From its throne in the infinite blue the sun shone to their eyes with a magnificence greater than natural; to the south the sea sparkled and laughed innumerably, and the meadows round the fallen town that day were suddenly smitten scarlet with the blowing of the wind-flowers. And when the work of distributing the prisoners was over, all the army went down to the edge of the torrent-bed, and gave thanks, with singing mouths and hearts that sang, to the Giver of Victory. There, half a mile above the citadel, in a church of which the sun was the light, and the soft, cool north wind the incense that wafted thanksgiving to heaven, stood the first Greek army of free men that had known the unspeakable thrill of victory since the Roman yoke had bound them a score of hundred years ago. Some were old men, withered and gray, and ground down in long slavery to a cruel and bestial master, and destined not to see the full moon of their freedom; in some, like the seed on stony ground, a steadfast heart had no deep root, and in the times of war and desolation, which were still to come, they were to fall away, tiring of the glorious quest; some were still young boys, to whom the event was no more than a mere toy; but for the time, at any rate, all were one heart, beating full in the morning of a long-delayed resurrection. Standing on a mound in the centre were four-and-twenty priests, in the front of whom was Father Andréa, tall, and eyed like a mountain hawk, with a heart full of glory and red vengeance. And, when lifting up the mightiest voice in Greece, he gave out the first words of that hymn which has risen a thousand times to the clash of victorious arms, the voice of a great multitude answered him, and the sound was as the sound of many waters. All the ardor and hot blood of the Greeks leaped like a blush to the surface, and on all sides, mixed with the noise of the singing, rose one great sob of a thankful people born again. Petrobey, with Nicholas on one side and Mitsos and Yanni on the other, hardly knew that the tears were streaming down his tanned and weather-beaten cheeks, and to the others, as to him, memory and expectation were merged and sunk in the present ineffable moment. There was no before or after; they were there, men of a free people, and conscious only of the one thing – that the first blow had been struck, and struck home and true, that they thanked God for the power He had given them to use.

And when it was over Petrobey turned to Nicholas, and smiling at him through his tears: