A True Story

A WAR correspondent was riding over the blood-soaked plains of central Macedonia; his horse was tired and stumbled occasionally, but was still sufficiently wide-awake to shy and wince uneasily when an unburied corpse lay across its path or the stench of some unusually large pool of blood reached its twitching nostrils. The correspondent, however, paid no attention; such sights and smells were customary. For days he had ridden with the Greek troops in the wake of the flying Bulgarian army — he had passed through the burnt and devastated villages where dogs fed on charred remains, he had seen the awful well where the bodies of women and children were piled so thick and so high that the Bulgar murderers had pressed and forced down with tombstones wrenched from the adjoining Turkish cemetery the recalcitrant heads and limbs that would protrude over the margin. So toward the close of his long day’s ride, he sat loosely in his saddle and nodded wearily.

Suddenly, something attracted his attention,—a very simple thing: two new white wooden crosses on two freshly turned graves. Of graves there were plenty in this land of death, — death that was glorious or ignominious or pitiful, — but of crosses there were none: the Greek army, hot in pursuit of the panic-struck enemy had little time to mark the burial places of the brave who had already fallen by thousands in the great battles of Kilkish Lachana and Doiran. The cry was ever ‘Forward! Faster and faster still! Forward, to cleanse the land of our fathers from the savage murderous breed! Vengeance for the slaughtered and liberty for the living! Later we will count our dead and mourn for them!’

Those who were buried in these two graves must be men of note, officers of high rank, perhaps. Well, he would rest his tired horse a while and ask.

The graves were on the top of a hill, and as he drew nearer he noticed that a soldier knelt beside them praying. Only a few yards away stood six Bulgarian guns, and around the guns a knot of Greek soldiers sat talking and smoking in the cool of the evening. They greeted him courteously, made room for him, and offered him cigarettes.

The correspondent had been a long time in Greece and understood the language perfectly; when he mentioned the graves a soldier rose and spoke to his comrade who was still praying, heedless of all else. The man stood up immediately and came towards the correspondent; his face was white and drawn and his eyes glittered, but there were no tears in them.

‘We were four brothers,’ he said, ‘three of us served in the same footregiment; I am an artilleryman. On the first day of the battle of Kilkish, my brother Nicolas fell. When the enemy was driven back the others searched everywhere for him, hoping to find him alive. They found him — ah, God!’ (The man ground his teeth and shook his clenched fists.) ‘ May the lowest hell take those devils! They found his corpse savagely, hideously mutilated. Then they swore a great oath; they swore by the Holy Virgin and by the salvation of their souls, to have vengeance; such vengeance as the whole world should hear of. Two days later, our troops were ordered to take these guns; Bulgar infantry was intrenched below — see the trenches — and the guns wrought fearful havoc amongst our men; rank after rank went down; the first attack was repulsed. But my brothers contrived to slip unseen through the enemy’s lines — we are mountaineers and know how to hide behind a rock or a bush or a stone. They gained the foot of the hill and rushed up; those below did not notice them, the guns above could do them no harm. Up they went at full speed. The gunners were unarmed. With their bayonets, and then with their knives, my brothers fell upon them, and slew and slew! Holy Virgin! how they thrust and hacked and hewed! The spirit of the slaughtered one stood beside them and was glad. The guns were black with blood and silent, sir, silent, for there was no one left to fire them. Thirty-seven gunners they killed, and took six guns; my brothers, two men alone; six great guns that will slay no more Greek soldiers! And then the end came, for three officers ran up with revolvers.

‘Below, the Bulgar infantry broke and fled, and our men came up at the double. They found my brothers lying dead on a heap of corpses; their bodies were pierced through and through with bullets, but they were well content; I saw them later, they were smiling.

‘Our king has promised that those guns shall be melted down into medals; medals for those who, like my brothers, have done great deeds.

‘And now, I am the only one left; I think God will spare my life, so that I may take the tale home to my village and to my mother. My mother! she will be proud and she will not weep for her sons, for they kept their vow and they were very brave men.’

The correspondent said not a word; he rose to his feet and with uncovered head stood for a few minutes beside the graves. Then he took out his pencil and scrawled a few words on a sheet of paper; he also would take the tale home, — not to a small village in the Greek mountains, but to the great cities, so that the brothers’ vow should be completed and the whole world should hear.

The correspondent knew now why he had come upon the graves in the twilight.