With Our Army in Palestine Part 16

Resistance was for the most part unorganised; but at Semakh, a town at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, the Turks made a most determined effort to save the railway. The Australians, however, were in a hurry; they wanted to be the first troops to reach Damascus, and would brook no delay. Semakh was taken by a brilliant and impetuous charge which carried the Australians through the defences and ended in the Sea of Galilee, as also did large numbers of the enemy!

Royal Tiberias was occupied next, after which both the eastern and western forces started on the hundred-mile ride to Damascus, which necessitated a climb from six hundred feet below sea level to nearly three thousand above.

Again there was some desultory but bitter fighting, notably at the Jordan soon after the march had begun, but the cavalry carried everything before them, and, riding day and night, reached Damascus on October 1st, after a final burst of thirty-six hours in the saddle. In the ten days since the opening of the offensive they had covered upwards of two hundred and fifty miles, a feat which for endurance alone on the part of men and horses has not been equalled in this War.

In that time they had cleared the greater part of Syria of the enemy, and had captured or driven into the hands of the more slowly advancing infantry over eighty thousand prisoners, with practically all the guns and transport in the Turkish Army. Virtually the fighting was over, since almost the entire enemy force had been accounted for, the few thousands still at large being a disorganised rabble, incapable of further resistance.

But news of a greater peril than War reached Haifa. Famine stalked naked through the land of Lebanon; and it was urgently necessary to send help to the starving inhabitants of Beyrout and the surrounding country. Political reasons, too, demanded that we should occupy as much territory as possible.

On October 3rd, therefore, we marched out of Haifa and began the long journey north.

CHAPTER XXI

OVER THE LADDER OF TYRE

Behold us, then, once more on the high road--or, to be more accurate, the broad firm sands leading to Acre. We were all mighty pleased to be on the move again, partly because Haifa was not a deliriously exciting place to be in, but chiefly because the neighbourhood of the famous river Kishon was singularly uninviting, and when the rains came, would be a veritable plague-spot of malaria and blackwater fever.

We did not need the history books to tell us that Acre was, and is, a fortress; for the great battlements are still standing, and the ma.s.sive walls show little signs of decay. Magnificently situated on a promontory at the northern end of the bay, it rears its head proudly, as becomes a city that in twelve hundred years has withstood more sieges than almost any city in Palestine. It is, too, essentially English in its a.s.sociations: from the time of the Crusaders, whose chief stronghold it was, down to within hailing distance of our own day.

Except for an itinerant stone-merchant the country around has few attractions; and as we proceeded it grew rougher and more difficult to negotiate, until it reached a point where all progress seemed likely to come to an abrupt end. A huge spur of rock, jutting far out into the sea and shutting off the beach, completely blocked the way; it was as though we had come to the limits of one country with this great sentinel to bar our entrance into another. It was the Ladder of Tyre, the geographical barrier between Palestine and the Land of Canaan; and we had to climb over it somehow.

Having negotiated a small hill in the foreground we descended into a steep gully with innumerable twists and turns, ever growing more difficult and dangerous. As the place was strewn with boulders the camels had great trouble in finding a foothold, particularly with the additional handicap of two bales of tibben or sacks of grain, which oscillated dangerously with the uneven movement. Presently the slope became more gradual, though not less rough in surface, and finally the path began to ascend towards the Ladder itself. Cut in the face of the rock were broad but shallow steps, in some places worn almost flat by the pa.s.sage of countless thousands of feet.

Indian pioneers were hard at work on the Ladder and had already, in the short time at their disposal, done wonders in the way of removing the litter of stones that covered the steps, blasting away portions of overhanging rock, and building rough ramparts on the side nearest the sea.

The camels approached it very gingerly at first, but after one or two had "refused," tackled the climb. About half-way up the cliff there was a sort of platform which marked the turn in the Ladder; here a false step meant destruction, for it was a sheer drop down to the sea three hundred feet below.

A pioneer chose the precise moment at which I reached this platform to touch off a small blasting charge, the noise of which so startled my mare that she very nearly stepped off the edge; and a piece of rock hit a camel and all but started a stampede. After that, being a person of small courage, I dismounted and walked.

The descent was even worse than the ascent for the camels, for the steps were not only broad but wide from back to front, and it needed a big stride successfully to negotiate them. I found it difficult enough on foot; how the camels accomplished it without mishap, carrying their heavy burdens, will ever remain a mystery.

Eventually we reached the level ground on the other side, and continued along the sh.o.r.e as far as Tyre, a town nowadays of poverty-stricken fishermen, with scarcely anything visible of the ancient city. "I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord G.o.d"; thus spoke Ezekiel the Prophet concerning the fate of Tyre, and his words are literally true to-day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VALLEY OF CHAOS--AFTER THE BOMBING RAID (see p. 255).

[_To face p. 272._]

We began shortly to come upon the real beauties of the Land of Canaan. The road was bordered in many places by fruit trees of all kinds, overhanging so far that you had only to reach out your hand to pick the fruit as you rode along. Also, there were numerous orchards and kitchen-gardens with whose owners we used to bargain for the produce. Curiously enough we had extraordinary difficulty in persuading the people to take Egyptian money: they would insist on having Turkish money in spite of our reiterated a.s.sertions that it had suffered a serious slump in value. One old lady to whom I showed a Turkish one pound note--worth about the cost of printing--simply jumped at it, and immediately fished out an enormous bag of small change. She was quite upset at my refusal to part with the note; and we haggled for a quarter of an hour about whether she would give me, roughly, sixteen s.h.i.+llingsworth of Turkish silver for a piece of worthless paper, or whether she would accept five piastres Egyptian in exchange for a hatful of limes.

The camel-drivers thoroughly enjoyed this part of the trek; indeed, they were in amazingly high spirits the whole way, despite the long daily march.

They had as much water as they could drink, a great thing for the Egyptian native, there was fruit for the picking on the trees, and everything was free! So they imagined, but the exasperated ladies who were continually coming to complain that a sportsman in a blue galabeah was rifling their orchards evidently thought otherwise.

All the camel-men had the predatory instinct strongly developed, and they were adepts at concealing the "evidence," which sometimes was very much more than fruit or eggs. On one occasion the convoy pa.s.sed an old man driving a flock of sheep, of which one mysteriously disappeared. I happened to be riding immediately behind the flock and saw nothing unusual, yet some time after the old man caught us up at the midday halt and complained that one of the camel-men had stolen a sheep. We searched the convoy from end to end and found no trace; we even went so far as to search the men's clothing! and ultimately the old man had to go away without his sheep.

Curiously enough, a leg of mutton appeared in the mess that night; and a very welcome change it was, too, from bully-beef.

I can offer no explanation of the phenomenon; I only know that we searched the convoy conscientiously and thoroughly and there was no sign of mutton, dead or alive. It must have needed marvellous sleight-of-hand to conceal a full-grown sheep from view!

That was the reverse side of the medal: the obverse was much brighter. It was impossible not to admire the extraordinary endurance of the camel-men.

They would march fifteen to twenty miles a day for days, and even weeks at a time, provided only that they had enough water; and, well led, they would go anywhere and do anything.

On the fifth day out from Haifa we marched into Sidon, whose inhabitants turned out _en ma.s.se_ and welcomed the column with great and spontaneous enthusiasm, which left no doubt as to its genuineness, though at times it became a trifle embarra.s.sing. On the surface the people looked little the worse for four years' privations and ill-treatment at the hands of the Turks, but a glance into the shops as we pa.s.sed showed little else but fruit in the shape of food; and this is not very satisfying as a sole diet.

In some parts of the town pinched faces and wan cheeks were frequent; and one group consisting of an elderly man with his wife and two daughters especially attracted my attention. Their faces were dead-white, as if they had been living below ground for years, and the dull, stunned look of misery in their eyes was terrible to see; obviously they had not yet fully realised their deliverance. The old gentleman, a French Syrian, told me that when, three years before, he had heard of the coming of German troops to Sidon, he gave out to his neighbours that he and his family were going to the north, leaving the empty house in charge of the native caretaker.

The family disappeared, and until the hurried departure of the Germans nothing more was seen of them, when they--apparently--returned once more to their home.

In reality, they had never left it. They had retired to a disused wing of the house, barricaded themselves in so skilfully that no one but the old caretaker who looked after the supplies suspected their presence; and there they had lived for three years, never venturing out except to walk at night in their extensive garden! On one occasion the house was occupied by a German staff-officer, and their walks ceased for three weeks; but for the greater part of the time it had remained untenanted. During the period previous to our coming they had been almost entirely without food, other than fruit and dried legumes.

That was the story told to me as nearly as I can remember it, and the lifeless pallor of the old Frenchman's face and those of his family certainly gave colour to the narrative. It is very hard to believe in starvation when you are surrounded on all sides by beautiful gardens and orchards abounding in fruit; and those at Sidon were surely the loveliest on earth. All round the town stretched great ma.s.ses of green, in the midst of which, like diamonds in a sea of emeralds, were white cupolas and summer-houses, with scores of fountains playing all day long. On the hills behind the gardens were many modern houses admirably built after the Italian fas.h.i.+on, whose mellow terra-cotta blended effectively with the green ma.s.s below. Riding through the umbrageous lanes between countless orchards you could believe anything but that people here were starving.

The division had been promised a rest at Sidon for the remainder of the day, but shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon an urgent message came ordering us to make a forced march in order to reach Beyrout, thirty-five miles away, the following night! At four o'clock we left the beach and climbed steadily past those glorious gardens, until we struck the highroad.

A few miles outside Sidon, we pa.s.sed an inn which could not have changed much in character since the time of Christ. It formed a bridge across the road, and thus gave shelter to the pa.s.ser-by from the noonday heat in summer and the torrential rains in winter; on one side there were the living rooms for the traveller and on the other side the stables wherein his a.s.s or his horse could rest for the night. There were a few men lying in the shade of the "bridge" as we pa.s.sed, and, peering into the stable, I could just see a donkey contentedly munching at the manger: the whole scene seemed to have come straight out of the New Testament.

Later in the afternoon I noticed a beautiful little house standing in its own garden, and rode over to examine it more closely. One thing only I saw; the rest was blotted out. Nailed to his door was the body of the owner, and beneath lay the charred--yes, charred--remains of what had once been his legs. He had been crucified and burnt alive; the twisted body, and the awful, tortured expression on the martyred man's face, left no room for doubt.

After a halt for a couple of hours at midnight we began the final stage.

While it was yet dark we had tremendous difficulty with those camel-drivers who were unable to see at night, the "mush-shuf-bi' leil's" ("can't see-at-nights") we used to call them; and as we had a few blind camels as well the situation called for some ingenuity. The only way to solve the problem was to tie the men's wrists to the saddles of the camel immediately in front of them. They then allowed themselves to be towed along, keeping the rope just taut enough to act as a guide.

The blind camels were similarly treated, though even then there were accidents. One came shortly before dawn as we were crossing a viaduct with neither wall nor protection of any kind against a thirty-foot drop. A blind camel blundered towards the edge, slipped, and crashed down into the riverbed, and as he had 200 lbs. of biscuits on his back to speed his fall, it looked like a certain casualty. With some difficulty we clambered down to him, and found him not only alive but calmly grazing on the herbage around! And when the biscuits were removed he got up, grunting and snarling, but absolutely uninjured and ready to carry his load again.

As we approached Beyrout the signs of distress among the people grew more and more p.r.o.nounced. Along the route were several tiny villages whose inhabitants gathered by the roadside to beg for food, and it was awful to see the wolfish way they ate the biscuits we gave them. At many places women stood with jars of water which they offered to the camel-drivers, not, I am sure, as a _quid pro quo_, but because it was all they had to offer.

Just at the entrance to the olive-groves, which extend for six miles out of Beyrout, I saw a dead child lying by the roadside, and from that point the journey became a succession of heartrending sights. Gaunt, lean-faced men, women thin to the point of emaciation, and children whose wizened faces made them look like old men, lined the route weeping for joy at their deliverance. Every one of our men as he pa.s.sed handed over his day's rations of bully-beef and biscuits to the starving people; I saw one woman hysterically trying to insert a piece of army biscuit into the mouth of the baby in her arms, and groups of little boys fighting for the food thrown to them. It was pitiful to see the grat.i.tude of people who succeeded in catching a biscuit or a tin of bully; and the way they welcomed our camel-drivers, who, of course, spoke Arabic like themselves, was a revelation.

A man, haggard with want, came out of his little wine-shop and offered me a gla.s.s of aniseed, apologising courteously for its poor quality, and explaining that it was the only drink he had been able to obtain for sale during the War! A glance at the rows of empty bottles in his shop-window confirmed the statement. G.o.d knows how he had earned his living during the past three years.

Towards evening the head of the long column entered Beyrout: from miles behind on the hills we could see the swinging kilts of the Highlanders, while the sound of the bag-pipes floated faintly back to us. By eight o'clock, we, too, were marching into the town through crowds of delirious people, who clung to the troops as they pa.s.sed and kissed the boots of the mounted men; it was the most painful, pitiful experience of all. As we swung down the hill towards the beach a man said: "You are just in time, monsieur; in six days we should all have been dead."

That was the main thing: we had marched ninety-six miles in six days, we were dog-tired after a last continuous trek of eighteen hours, but--we were in time!

CHAPTER XXII

DESERTED VILLAGES IN LEBANON

Sixty thousand people died of starvation in Beyrout during the War, out of a total population of one hundred and eighty thousand. There is overwhelming proof that this was a part of the brutal policy of systematic extermination adopted by the Turco-Germans towards the weaker races of Syria and Palestine. When Beyrout was evacuated the enemy collected all the food they could lay hands on, including the recently garnered harvest; and what they were unable to carry away with them they dumped in the harbour rather than give it to the starving people. Four hundred tons of foodstuffs were wantonly destroyed in this manner; and as an example of callous and spiteful vengeance, towards a people whose chief fault apparently was that they were hungry, this would be hard to beat.

The mortality amongst children was appalling. You could not ride out of the town without seeing their dead bodies lying by the roadside, where they had dropped from the arms of mothers too weak to carry them, often enough themselves lying dead a few yards farther on. In the poorer quarters of the town, especially near the docks, the dreadful death-roll lengthened every day. The Turks had gone out of their way to destroy many of the houses, with the result that hundreds of people were wandering about, foodless, homeless, and utterly friendless. For the first few days most of our work was carried on in and around the docks, where crowds of women and children congregated daily in the hope of obtaining food. I saw one small boy walking in front of me with a curious, unsteady gait, and just as I drew level with him he pitched forward on to his face without a sound. He was stone-dead when I turned him over; and judging by the terrible emaciation of his body he had died of protracted starvation.

Until the foods.h.i.+ps arrived the British Army fed most of the people; I use the word "most" advisedly, for even here there were fat profiteers who had made fortunes out of the War, and who cared nothing for the sufferings of others. The poorer inhabitants literally thronged the various camps in search of food, and with characteristic generosity the troops tried to feed them all! They gave away bully-beef and biscuits to those most in need, and, whenever possible, their tea and sugar rations also; it was painful to see the grat.i.tude of the recipients.

Except amongst the very wealthy both tea and sugar had been literally unknown for four years. When we entered Beyrout the price of tea was four hundred piastres (4 2s.) per lb.--and chemically-treated stuff at that; and sugar, which was all but un.o.btainable by anybody, cost three hundred piastres per lb.! Within a week of our arrival you could buy both commodities in the shops at about twenty piastres and five piastres per lb.

respectively.

But distress and suffering were not confined to Beyrout alone. On the pleasant hills of Lebanon north of the town are numerous villages through which the Turks had swept like a plague. Here the policy had been not so much starvation as extermination: whole villages were stripped of their inhabitants, who had been forcibly carried away, the men to slavery or death; the women to something worse. You could ride through village after village without seeing a soul, save perhaps an old man who would tell you that he was keeping the keys of the houses for their owners--who would never return. It is impossible to describe the pall of desolation that hung over those silent villages, a desolation that seemed to be accentuated by the beauty of the surrounding country.

Upwards of a quarter of a million people were either deported or ma.s.sacred by the Turks in the Lebanon hills alone; and only in the villages occupied by Circa.s.sians, whom the Turks themselves had subsidised, were there any signs of even moderate prosperity. These people, moreover, showed marked hostility towards our troops, and had to be suppressed.