The line held yesterday by the Turco-German forces has bent
northwards at its western extremity, and southwards at its eastern
end. Jaffa, the ancient Port of Jerusalem, has been occupied by
Allenby's forces. Junction Station, the key of the north, now being
in British hands, the enemy's Army, cut in two, has retired partly
east into the mountains towards Jerusalem, and partly northwards
along the Coastal Plain. The nearest line upon which its several
portions can re-unite is the line Tul-Keram, Shechem. Reports from
the Royal Flying Corps indicate the intention of Djemal Pasha and the
other Corps Commanders to evacuate Jerusalem and withdraw to organise
on the line Tul-Keram, Shechem.
It being vital to obtain a hold of this invaluable artery of
thoroughfare, which traverses the Judæan range from north to south
from Shechem to Jerusalem,--our Advance has wheeled to the right, and
struck into the Hills with the object of wresting from the enemy the
Jerusalem-Shechem Road.
At the eastern end of the long fish-shaped valley, whose sides are
shagged with olive-woods and running with springs, and in which lies
Shechem, is a grassy, level expanse in the shape of an isosceles
triangle--one of its longer sides being the road that runs east and
west past the new Turkish Barracks, the Arsenal and the Hospital--and
the other the road that--north of this--passing the Mohammedan
Cemetery and the ancient Tombs that are upon the fringe of the
limestone robe of Ebal, runs into an ancient Roman road, that
completing the shape of the isosceles, goes north along the eastern
flank of Mount Ebal to the little hamlet of Sichar, and south to the
Holy City,--leaving on the left a Mohammedan well that has been built
over the Tomb of Joseph, and some quarter of a mile farther on, a
hillock shaded by mulberries and figs, and covered with ruins,
enclosing _Bir Samariyeh_, or the Samaritan Woman's Well.
The top of the triangular patch of waste ground ends at the very gate
of Shechem, being lost in the great mounds of immemorial ashes,
brought down in ancient days from the Temple on Mount Gerizim. Wild
fig and mulberry, olive and tamarisk--and thickets of the _zizyphus_
set with formidable thorns, that give the tree its name of Spina
Christi--make a shabby jungle of the Ash Heaps, haunted by kites,
crows and owls, pariah-dogs and jackals, who come to feast where the
offal and refuse of the town are thrown. Here, too, lepers
congregate; sick animals are thrust to die, dead ones are thrown to
bleach and putrefy; and sometimes--even before the War--bodies of
people robbed and murdered, or too destitute of friends to be given
burial--huddle amongst the rank weeds and tangled undergrowth, or lie
stark and dreadful, with blind eyes beaten by the lashing rains of
Palestine, or staring at its pitiless sun.
When Allied War Prisoners first came to the town of Shechem, the
isosceles triangle of waste ground--its shortest side indicated by
the road that runs by the Tomb of Joseph towards the Well of the
Samaritaness--was enclosed within a twelve-foot double fence of
German barbed-wire, for the keeping of certain French and British
officers, who declined to give parole. These lived in Turkish Army
tents and messed in a ramshackle wooden hut near the eastern end of
the enclosure; their rations, such as they were, being brought from
the Turkish Barracks twice a day. Those officers who gave parole,
causing less trouble to the authorities--were somewhat better
treated, it may be allowed. The old stone prison near the Suk was
alloted as their quarters. They were permitted to take exercise
within certain bounds, even to visit the Latin Fathers, and the
headquarters of the Protestant Mission, and better their diet by
making purchases in the town bazar. To-day, Shechem, with her
numerous mosques and her flat-brown roofs embowered in orange and
pomegranate-trees--is bursting full of Turkish troops, and their
German military masters; and destined ere long to rival Tul Keram as
an Army H.Q. No British War Prisoners are left in her since the
exodus of early morning, save four Berkshire and Devon Yeomen lying
desperately sick at the Turkish Hospital--two London Territorials,
and three Indian troopers in the charitable care of the Sœurs de
la Sainte Croix....
Ah, and the solitary captive of the leaky wooden shanty in the Wired
Enclosure, from which the Turkish Army tents have been removed,
leaving round yellow patches of parched and trampled grass. Saving
the Bey, certain of his German friends, several Mounted Police, and a
guard of infantry from the mud Barracks--no other persons in Shechem
suspect that Father Julian Forbis did not leave yesterday for Aleppo
with the other British officers,--though possibly that dust-like one,
the Mother of Ugliness, may have a certain inkling of the truth.
Upon a native _anghareb_, a short-legged, palm-wood bed-frame with
coarse sacking laced upon it, he lies within the hut that used to be
the Mess. Although it leaks in the winter rains, its timbers are of
solid oak, and its door is heavy, and secured on the outside by a
huge wooden lock. A padlocked iron fetter on the priest's ankle is
linked to a chain finishing in a ring, running on an iron bar,--the
ends of which, being bent, have been driven into the corner-posts at
the end of the hut that is farthest from the door. Having thus
secured the prisoner, the _bash-châwush_ of Mounted Police went away
with his troopers and the escort. That was yesterday morning,
possibly in the neighbourhood of nine o'clock. The common watch of
gun-metal on the priest's wrist has stopped--as the result of brutal
usage.... He can only calculate Time by the prayer-call from the
mosques of the town....
No hint of the possible length of his confinement has been given, the
_bash-châwush_ being an old hand and quite thoroughly understanding
the torture of Uncertainty. No food was brought the prisoner
yesterday or to-day; they have not even given him water.... Nothing
has passed the man's lips--since on that morning of the Bey's visit
he broke fast with the thin boiled wheat-porridge and the black bread
on which War Prisoners are fed.
Mere hunger he can endure.... As a Religious of a strict Order he is
well inured to fasting. But the thirst, aggravated by mental
distress, sleeplessness and anxiety, is torture. His lips are
cracked, and his throat and tongue so dried and leathery, that the
effort to speak above a whisper would be positive pain.
The two narrow apertures that serve as windows are some eight feet
above the floor-level. It is not possible to see out of them.
Through chinks and knot-holes in the walls of stout though ancient
timbers--it might be possible to get a glimpse through the
twelve-foot fence of barbed-wire--out upon the road running east from
the gates of the city, and the road running north and east by the
Wadi Farab to the Jordan Valley, and southwards from Shechem to
Jerusalem.... But the man chained to the iron bar lies in a feverish
stupor on the sacking of the _anghareb_. There are strange noises in
his ears like the clamour of voices in many tongues--like the clatter
of innumerable hoofs, the rattle of wooden wheels and the vibrating
grind and din of heavy motor-traffic; but he is too faint and weary
to be curious as to their cause.
We know, that even as reinforcements of Turkish troops of the Redif
and Mustaphiz are being rushed from the Caucasus to form reserves
upon the fissured Plain of Ephraim--has begun the exodus of such
inhabitants of Jerusalem as are not strict Mohammedans--or known to
be Turco-German in views and sympathies.... Since the noon
prayer-call, vehicles of every type, loaded with fugitives of the
better class, have been rolling into Shechem, the roads leading to
the town are blocked--a haze of dust envelops everything since the
sun dried up the torrents of rain that fell at break of day....
Came yesterday, Von Geierstein, the once famous War Minister--now
Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief on Germany's Battle Front in
Asia--post haste from his Great Headquarters at the red city of
Aleppo. To meet Enver Pasha, Djemal, and the other Turkish
Commanders at Jerusalem, harangue the defeated generals, and
reorganise the Turco-German War Plan on more successful lines....
Fallen into eclipse at the Court of Berlin as the result of his
military failures at Verdun, horribly disconcerted by the disaster of
the Vulkan Pass, inexpressibly sickened by the taking of Beersheba,
the fall of Gaza and the loss of Junction Station,--the brilliant
ex-favourite of Imperial Majesty (whose ambition has had more to do
with the kindling of the brand of War than that of any other man in
Germany--saving Von Tirpitz)--after warning Enver and Djemal of the
uselessness of endeavouring to hold Jerusalem now the Gaza Line has
been broken--left the Holy City this morning for Shechem, in his
Œstler-Daimler, another with his Staff Officers, following, half
his escort of armoured Scheff cars preceding him--the remainder, with
his servants, bringing up the rear.
Even as the Governor, Izzet Bey, and Ali Fuad Pasha, Commander of
Turkish Forces in the Holy City--issue the proclamations of their
masters to the people, our troops are pushing up the passes into the
Judæan Highlands; the sound of British guns comes even from the Vale
of Sorek, thenceforward the din of battle grows louder hour by
hour....
Already in Shechem, in Samaria and in Jericho--whither the Latin,
Greek, Armenian and Coptic Patriarchs have been forcibly deported,
with other ecclesiastics and notables, and wealthy Zionist
Hebrews--the reign of terror that has prevailed in Jerusalem since
Turkey joined issues with Germany--has begun. Ten Turkish pounds are
asked, and got, by Mohammedan drivers for a seat in a carriage.
Large numbers of the wealthier inhabitants, with the remaining chiefs
of religious communities, have been warned by the Turkish Police to
be in readiness for exile. No more vehicles being available for the
transport of the victims, Djemal Pasha--venomous always, seasons the
order with the intimation that the deported population will be
compelled to travel on foot....
Spies swarm everywhere. Fear presses like a heavy hand upon the
public mouth. Arrests, confiscations and requisitions
redouble--populations quail under the lash of tyranny. Gallows are
set up at the Jaffa Gate--there are hangings and shootings daily.
The bodies of the victims of the last battue are left exposed for
hours, to impress upon the population that, after four centuries of
oppression, the Tartar is not disposed to surrender one of the Holy
Cities of the Turkish Caliphate without a final orgie of extortion,
brow-beating and blood.
The day wears on, no succour comes, and the priest's stupor of
exhaustion deepens. Towards sunset there is a heavy knock upon the
door of the hut.
"Come in!"
The captive's first effort to speak aloud results in a croaking
whisper. The heavy Turkish lock scroops in its wooden mortice, and
something like a smile twitches the lips of Julian Forbis. Is it not
the very brutality of irony to knock upon a starving prisoner's door?
Now the door swings inwards, letting in a wedge of noon-tide
brightness, but the visitors delay a moment on the threshold. And a
strange voice says, as though in answer to a question, speaking in
cultured Arabic, softly and melodiously:
"No! Nothing may be done in the Holy City; the influences there are
too adverse. But at Banias!--and here on Mount Gerizim--"
Even as the utterance strikes with a strange, premonitory shock and
thrill upon the consciousness of the prisoner, the door is pushed
open to admit three men.
Two German Staff officers, tall, burly and swaggering, and a slight
man, dark-hued as smoke, bearded, and of forbiddingly handsome
countenance, arrayed in a dazzlingly white brocaded silk _kaftan_,
girt with a gold embroidered crimson cincture, and a flowing
_kuffiyeh_ or head-drapery of the same fierce sanguinary colour,
bound with a thick twist of silver and gold cords.
Two German officers of inferior rank, with a lieutenant and
sergeant-major of Turkish Mounted Police and several troopers, are
seen beyond the threshold. Now the heavy door shuts the four men in
together.... The priest lowers his feet to the stamped earth floor
and rises to receive the visitors. But so weak is he that he
totters, and sways as though about to fall.
His giddiness passing with the dimness of his sight, he discerns that
one of his visitors is the tall, sunburned, trap-mouthed German
general who visited the Barracks yesterday in company of the Bey, and
whose order put the period of a shot from a gendarme's repeating
Winchester, to Govan's crazy song.
His companion is a handsome person, as yet in the early fifties,
superbly built and of heroic size and stature. The grey-green Field
Service dress suits him to admiration; not a button or buckle is out
of its true alignment; his gloves, belts, revolver-holsters and boots
are of immaculate earthy-brown. His spurs are of steel and gold; his
single-breasted Norfolk-shaped Service jacket shows, as does the
other man's, the narrow silver lace, the crimson collar-edging and
shoulder-cords of the Great General Staff--the Iron Cross dangling at
the buttonholes of both by its ribbon of black and white. Both wear
the ribbons and brochettes of many decorations. But the taller man
displays, in addition to these, the Order of the Prussian Black Eagle
with diamond swords, hanging by a swivel under his collar-hook. And
noting this distinction, together with the wearer's physical
beauty--for he is yellow-haired, blue-eyed, straight-featured,
handsome still, as the Viking hero of some old Teutonic Saga--it
flashes on the priest as his own blue eyes, set in hollow caves of
exhaustion and hunger, encounter the visitor's--that the man can be
no other than the fallen favourite of the Emperor of Germany, now
Commander-in-Chief of his army in Palestine....
Nor is the priest's conjecture wrong. It is the man, weary and
disgruntled, sick with conscious failure, savage at the fancied
triumph of old rivals and ancient enemies--wounded in the one
vulnerable spot of his hard, vain, shallow heart by the death of his
son, a brave young Flying Officer--killed in a duel with a British
airman in January, 1915.
He spent last night at the old Army Headquarters, the Kaiserin
Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. Ah, with what
heartiness has Von Geierstein cursed the Turks as he turned his back
upon the Holy City; as his fleet of cars ate distance upon the road
to Shechem--where he is to dine, and sleep, if he can. He is keenly
alive to their military blunders. For there are good Teutonic brains
behind the brilliant eyes that light the handsome face to which he
owes his rescue from bankruptcy--and his subsequent promotion from
the rank of Chief of the General Staff of the 4th Army Corps,
Magdeburg, to the dignity of Prussian War Minister--and the more
dubious position of alter ego to William of Hohenzollern.
Over, over, the meteoric and splendid career. Fallen, beaten,
ruined. Rich in the world's goods still, but bankrupt in the world's
envying admiration. Left by the tide of Success on which he has
floated so buoyantly,--he sees himself once more high and dry on the
mudbank of Failure--not by the utmost expenditure of cleverness to be
floated off again. His magnificent blue eyes are dark with wrath.
He grinds his teeth, eminently white, and all his own--as he devotes
the Ottoman Allies of Imperial Germany to the uttermost depths of
Hell.
Unlucky favourite! never again to draw all eyes in the White Hall of
the Imperial Palace at Berlin, while morning sunshine, streaming
through the tall windows, shines upon the opening Session of the
Reichstag--makes glittering play with the silver livery of Prussian
State flunkeys, and strikes multi-coloured sparks of fire from the
decorations and military orders of the members of the Federal
Council, ranged on the left of the Throne. Never again to stand, the
dazzling centre of a blazing constellation of Generals, by the daïs
under the black, red and white Canopy--topped with the blazon of that
Bird of ill-odour, whose greedy claws and rapacious beak, and
insatiate maw are not yet glutted--though twenty millions of men and
women have perished to slake its quenchless thirst for human blood.
"The Herr General Von Krafft, that you speak good German has informed
me, Reverend Father? ..."
His own English is guttural, but passably decent. The priest, master
of several dead, and some half dozen modern tongues, replies as well
as his parched throat and palate will allow. His German, the
distinguished visitor concedes, is very good for an Englishman....
"Though you belong to a Scotch family, I am given to understand by
the Herr General.... I am deeply grieved that your much-desired
reunion with your relatives has been farther delayed by your own
unfortunate lack of tact. I refer to your regrettably-insolent
treatment of the Bey, Our Ottoman Ally, who should command respect."
He is sick to nausea of Germany's Ottoman Ally even as he says it.
His handsome lips twist with hatred of all things of the Turk
Turkish, under his glittering up-brushed moustache. He is revolted
by the fetid, stifling hut, by the pallid prisoner chained to the
dirty native bed, but most by the sense of Failure dominating
everything....
"_Over, over, over!_" says the voice that is always in his ears,
sounding above the roar of moving Divisions and the crashing of
artillery from the workshops of Krupp and Skoda, keeping time with
the throbbing of the blood in his temples and the irregular beating
of his wearied heart. "_Beaten, beaten, beaten! ... Fallen, fallen!
... Total Kaput! ..._"
"Sir--"
Not "Your Excellency" or other flattering title. Under his lowered
lids, set thickly with dark lashes,--they accused him of using
cosmetics, in his younger, more effeminate days,--he looks at the
wasted, high-bred face, and meets its pure glance. His dead son,
killed at twenty-two in the air battle with the English aviator, had
eyes like this man's.
"Sir, an accusation similar to this was brought against me yesterday
in the presence of," the blue eyes go dauntlessly to the other
German's face, "General Von Krafft. I said then, as I reiterate
now--that the charge is without foundation! As a man of honour and a
Catholic priest, I deny it absolutely. I can bring creditable
witnesses to refute it whenever there is need."
"Kindly name your witnesses. Where are they to be found, sir?"
They have all left for Aleppo, the priest remembers with a shock. He
says, with a sinking heart:
"The guards of the Barracks would give evidence in my favour."
"It is they who accuse you! and I myself heard
you-with-words-encourage, and saw you by gestures stimulate the
mutineers to fresh acts of violence!"
The harsh voice of the Bey's friend, the tall brick-faced General,
says this with a rasp of something like ill-will. The priest draws
himself proudly up and meets the glance of the false accuser.
"Sir, I can only say that you--are mistaken."
"Prisoner, though you be a priest, you shelter yourself behind a lie!"
The white face flushes scarlet, and the blue eyes blaze indignantly.
He draws from his tattered tunic-breast a small wooden Crucifix,
touches the Feet of the Victim with his pale lips, and lifts the
Crucifix high. As he does this the dark bearded man in the white
silk _kaftan_ and crimson kuffiyeh glides hurriedly towards the door.
"So help me God, I have spoken the truth!"
Very quietly the words have been uttered. Thrusting the sacred
symbol back within his breast, he confronts his enemies, awaiting
what may come. The momentary silence past, the highest in military
rank addresses the priest grandiloquently:
"Prisoner, as the Military Representative in the East of His Imperial
Majesty the Emperor of Germany, I assure you that investigation will
be made into this affair. But as the testimony against you is
absolutely unshakable," the tall and splendid personage who speaks
gracefully salutes the brick-faced general, "it is equally my duty to
tell you that the decision of your judges will go against your oath.
As a guest of the Turkish Empire you will naturally be considerately
treated--"
The blue eyes meet his again.... _Gott im Himmel!_ how like the dead
boy's.... The white lips smile ironically.... The weak voice rings
strong:
"Your words sound like sarcasm, sir, to the guest of the Turkish
Empire, who has been confined without food or even water since early
yesterday...."