The Red Rugs of Tarsus Part 7

I have been sewing and helping care for the wounded.

Mrs. Christie gave me the first Relief money that came, a Turkish gold-piece, worth four dollars and forty cents. With it I bought a roll of flannel. On Jeanne's balcony I fixed a hand-run sewing machine. There I basked in the sunshine as I worked on baby night-gowns all day Sunday.

When I tell you that I made twelve nighties in a day you know the machine did speed-work. Our caldrons are all in use heating water so that mothers can wash their children and their children's clothes, and take advantage of the sunshine to dry things. Every time I finish a nightie, it means another baby can have a bath. We have contrived sanitary arrangements, and small trenches have been dug for drainage.

Queer the Turks never thought of turning off our water. It could have been done easily through the surface pipes.

Dr. Peeples of the Covenanter Mission was the first doctor to come through. He got here before his supplies. I shall never forget his face when I showed him my table with the Red Cross kit. He appropriated the medicine-case and some bandages and marched off with them. Dr. Peeples and I dressed wounds. But Mother Christie stopped that on account of "my condition." Afterwards we compromised. I installed a table inside my door and worked away preparing medicines and dressings. I handed these out to the doctor on a tray, curving my wrist around the door-jamb and so was spared the pain of seeing the patients. I do not take stock in the popular notion that I might "mark the child." Only the pleasant things that happen to me can touch that child.

The arrival of the British battleship _Swiftsure_ has saved Mersina.

Yesterday the commander went to Adana by special train. On his return he stopped at Tarsus and invited Dr. Christie and Herbert to accompany him to Mersina. They accepted with alacrity. Early this morning Herbert boarded the _Swiftsure_ and had a chat with the captain. As a result, the captain allowed six officers to come to Tarsus with Herbert by special train to-day. We had them for lunch and took them all over the city, showing them the work of the mob. When the refugee children saw these officers arrive, the poor kiddies were terrified. Many ran and hid, and the wee ones found their mothers as quickly as possible. The officers' uniforms were the cause, according to the kiddies' own words.

How is that for proof that Turkish soldiery helped in the ma.s.sacring!

We believe that one hundred were killed in Tarsus and four hundred in villages nearby. Adana's murders are in the thousands. The killing of Miner brings the tragedy right into our mission family. Mary is supernaturally calm and brave. Not only does she do everything for her baby, but she is in the midst of all the relief work.

While Herbert was in Mersina, Mrs. Dodds of the Covenanter Mission urged him to take me there so as to get me away from the danger of contracting some disease. She also urged that the discomfort of our now crowded quarters at Tarsus was not good for me. We have nearly five thousand refugees on the college grounds. If railroad communication is reestablished before my baby comes, we are going to accept the invitation of Mrs. Dodds. I do not know from day to day and cannot plan.

Mother, if I am not ready for the skeptics, and for those who smile and jeer, yes, jeer is the word, at missionaries! The stick-in-the-muds who thought we came all this long way because we wanted adventure must be wagging their narrow little heads and wagering that we are getting more than we bargained for. I am a great believer in letting every one have his point of view. But generally one finds that the people who boast that they are liberal and broad-minded are the most bigoted people on earth. They a.s.sert their point of view, but are unwilling to admit another's right to his. One does not have to believe in missions or want to be a missionary. But one does not have to ridicule missionary effort and missionaries, either. Among the missionaries here, women as well as men, not a single one has shown the white feather. Quite the contrary, I doubt if any other score of Americans in the United States would have upheld better the glorious traditions of our race for coolness, resourcefulness, and ability to grapple suddenly with a crisis. The American women here are made of the same stuff as my several times great-grandmother in Lebanon Valley, who carried the gun around the room together with the broom as she did her sweeping.

I can never think of the Armenians without a stirring of the heart in affection and admiration. How can Americans resist the call to help people who have the courage to die for their faith? One has to be brought to their level of suffering, to be put into the situation in which they have lived during centuries of Turkish oppression, to understand them. Mother, they are heroes--these Armenians, children and grand-children of heroes. It is nothing spectacular that they have done, except in periods of ma.s.sacre like this. But all along _they have kept the faith_, they have preserved their distinct nationality, when an easy path lay before them, were they willing to turn from Christ to Mohammed.

I see now so vividly what they have been born to, what they grow up from early childhood fearing. Is not the greatest heroism in the world the silent endurance of oppression that cannot be remedied, the bending of the neck to the yoke when there is no other way, the living along normally under the shadow of a constant and justified fear of death and worse?

What saved the Tarsians the other night? Any dread of international complications? Any respect for our Government? What do the Kurds know about us? Nothing. Last summer when we were camping far up in the Taurus mountains above the timber-line, a fellow of the type who has been doing the dirty work for the party in power at Stambul, came along to talk with us. We had chopped down a scrub pine-tree to build a fire and were sitting around the fire after supper. We were eating walnuts. I offered him some. With them I gave salt. He took both walnuts and salt, touched them to his forehead by way of thanks, and began to eat. Socrates expressed satisfaction that the man had done this--said we could be surer now that he would not turn fierce dogs loose the next day, when we broke camp. In talking to the man, I asked him what he knew about my country. He was a shepherd, and had never seen a town bigger than Tarsus. He replied, "There are a great many Americans in America, at least five thousand, all very rich and all very kind."

What saved the Tarsians? St. Paul's College. Those people have had the vision held up before them, and some of its light must have got into their dark hearts. I keep thinking of the way Jesus forgave people because they just didn't know what they were doing. I do not believe for a minute that it was the American flag that saved the Christian population of this town. The Stars and Stripes mean nothing to them. It is the way Daddy and Mother Christie have lived before these Turks all these years that did it.

Listen to this, and you will see what I mean. Three hundred refugees owe their lives directly to one act of thoughtful kindness. Sometime before the ma.s.sacre, Dr. Christie heard that the only son of a village Sheik had died. He got on his horse and went straight out to comfort the old father. The news came late in the day, so that Daddy Christie was obliged to make the trip in the night. I have seen the Sheik several times myself. He came one day and invited Herbert and me to go hunting with him. He is a superb specimen. In the midst of the heat and hatred of last Friday, the Sheik appeared with some three hundred Armenians.

The order to ma.s.sacre had come, "and a ma.s.sacre is good hunting, you know," he blandly remarked. "As I was about to go forth, I reflected that the people here were Dr. Christie's friends. Cannot see why you like them," he added, "but seeing you do, here they are." The old man, of course, is a Moslem. He told us he found some of those he brought in hiding in the swamps, not far from his home, "lying in the water, with just their noses sticking out to breathe," he laughingly explained.

ABDUL HAMID'S LAST DAY

_Mersina, April twenty-fifth._

Mother dear:

I wish you knew right now that we are at the Dodds in Mersina. It would relieve your mind of anxiety that must be weighing on you. But we cannot send an optimistic, rea.s.suring cablegram. In the first place it would not be true. Then no message must go out whose chance publication in the newspapers would tend to make the world believe that danger here is pa.s.sed. The Powers might relax what diplomatic pressure they are exercising at Constantinople--might even recall warships or stop others that we hear are coming. Herbert is getting out the news by smuggling to Cyprus. He feels the responsibility of every word that is telegraphed.

So we send you no message at all. There is still fear of a second and a worse outbreak. The ma.s.sacre is not over yet.

Early yesterday morning we learned that a train would go down the line to Mersina at the usual hour. I packed what baby things I had left, and a steamer trunk with a few of our clothes. Miss Talbot said she was ready. My Armenian physician saw that the chance was excellent to get to the coast in our company. He had a valid reason for accompanying me. We took his whole family under our wing. His brother, a boy just turning into the twenties, has lost his mind--we hope only temporarily--as a result of the strain we have been under. The boy got it in his head that I alone could save him. He has been camping outside our door, and fumbling with our shutters at night. My Sub-Freshmen kept an eye on him, but I have had to humor him. As he is my physician's brother, and there has been no way of secluding him, I have had to do this. The boy insisted on sitting in my compartment on the journey yesterday. He kept me in sight. Once arrived in Mersina, they were able to take him away to a friend's house.

We reached Mersina in time for lunch, where Mrs. Dodds--the soul of kindness and solicitude--had kept rooms for us in her apartment. Mrs.

Dodds' little daughter, Mary, is a wonderful child--just like her mother in wanting to be constantly doing things for other people. The atmosphere of this home is so sweet and wholesome that it makes me proud of my Covenanter ancestry and wonder if certain religious beliefs I have always thought were narrow and absurd have not their place and their reason. I asked Herbert about Covenanters last night, and found that he knew less than I did. For a parson just out of Princeton Seminary, my husband is astonishingly ignorant of theology. He doesn't seem to know or care any more about doctrines than I do. Until last night, we had never talked about theology, and then the conversation languished after a few sentences.

Just after lunch two Turkish transports appeared off Mersina. They came inside the line of warships, and began to disembark troops in the barges that went out immediately to greet them. From the windows of the Dodds'

living-room we could see the barges returning laden with soldiers. My eyes would not shut tight enough to dim the flash of the sunshine on the waves and on the blood-red fezzes. Herbert declared that he must go down to the _scala_ to see them land. I did not want to prevent him, for I felt just as he did. Why couldn't I go too? It didn't seem to be "just the thing for one in my condition," but you know, Mother, that I can't live without exercise, and I have been impressing now for nearly a year upon Herbert two things: that I need out-of-doors as much as a fish needs water; and that I can go anywhere and do anything he does. I shall never let him get the idea into his head that I am barred from phases of his life just because I am a woman! Not a bit of it! Herbert had to take his wife along.

A disreputable looking lot they were, wretchedly clad and shod, and topped off with mussy, faded fezzes. We were told that they had come from Beirut to restore order in Cilicia. They had taken part in the Macedonian movement last summer, and were regiments whose officers adhered to the "Young Turk" movement, and could be relied upon to check any attempt to renew the ma.s.sacres. There was much effervescence in the town. Groups were talking excitedly. Herbert and I were crazy for news.

The last we heard was that Mahmud Shevket Pasha's army was moving on Constantinople. The regiments lined the main street on the way to the railway station. Something was going on--we could not tell what.

Suddenly they cheered--all together. The cheering was taken up by the crowd. The band began to play. The regiments wheeled from attention, and continued their march.

We went into a Greek shop. "What does all this mean?" we asked. The proprietor eyed us in astonishment. "Don't you understand?" he answered.

"Abdul Hamid has been deposed, and his imprisoned brother proclaimed sultan. The soldiers are cheering for Mohammed V. The authorities here kept back the news. They didn't want to make the announcement until the troops unquestionably loyal to the New Regime were landed."

There was much anxiety during the rest of the afternoon. The Christians were nervous, Greeks and Syrians as well as Armenians. The British have landed a few marines, and established a wig-wag station on top of a house near us. People began to come for refuge to the American mission at nightfall.

We have rumors of a second ma.s.sacre at Adana this morning.

THE YOUNG TURKS AND THE TOY FLEET

_Mersina, April twenty-ninth._

Dear Mother:

I suppose that baby doesn't come because I'm too busy and the time is not propitious. There are more important things to think about and to do. Sounds unmaternal and abnormal, doesn't it? But just like other girls I had my dreams of how these days of waiting would be. And up to several weeks ago I plied the needle vigorously, and thought a lot about how many of each wee garment would be necessary, and what sort of blanket would wash best. I hesitated a long time before deciding which dress was the prettiest for IT to be baptized in. Now I don't know how many garments I have. I haven't even made a complete inventory of what we brought from Tarsus. We are too engrossed in the duties and problems that each day brings forth to think at all about the morrow. Honestly, Mother, during the four days we have been in Mersina, maternity hasn't had much of a place in my mind--I mean, of course, my own maternity.

Heaven knows we have the babies coming in abundance all the time around us, and there is everything to be done for them.

I wrote you of the landing of the Turkish regiments from Beirut on the day we learned of Abdul Hamid's deposition. They went to Adana the same day, and started that night a second ma.s.sacre more terrible than the first. The Armenians had given up their arms. On the advice of the foreign naval officers--trusting in the warships here at Mersina--they accepted the a.s.surance of the Government that the "rioting" was over. So they were defenseless when the Young Turk regiments came. The butchery was easier. I spare you details. I wish to G.o.d I could have spared them to myself. Most of our Adana friends who escaped the first ma.s.sacre must have been killed since last Sat.u.r.day. The few who have reached Mersina are like the messengers that came to Job. Adana is still h.e.l.l. The soldiers set fire to the French Mission buildings, and are going each night after other foreign property. The American Girls' Boarding School was evacuated. The teachers and some girls who were saved arrived yesterday, and are with us. One of our American teachers has typhoid, and reached us on a stretcher.

Herbert brought me here from Tarsus to get away from the contagion that might come from the crowding of refugees in our compound. It is now worse here than it was in Tarsus. And this morning word came to us that we must be ready at any moment to move to the French Consulate. The captains of the warships had a meeting last night, and decided to defend the French and German consulates in case of trouble. They notified the local authorities that if killing began in Mersina three hundred German, French and British sailors would be landed with machine-guns to _protect foreigners_. The idea is to gather the foreigners together, and let the Armenians and other native Christians shift for themselves. Of course we could not enter into any such scheme as that. The Dodds would under no circ.u.mstances desert those who have taken refuge with them. Anyway, we Americans are invited only by courtesy. Ships of the other Great Powers are here. American ships are supposed to be en route. But we have not seen them yet. We wonder if the new Administration is going to continue the supine policy of Mr.

Roosevelt, who always refused to do anything for Americans and American interests in this part of the world. I used to think that missionaries looked to Washington for help and protection. Now I know that the United States is known in Turkey only by the missionaries. If our flag has any prestige or honor, it is due to men like Daddy Christie, and not to the Emba.s.sy in Constantinople or the few Consuls scattered here and there.

At the station, soldiers are turning back the Armenians who have managed to slip into trains at Adana and Tarsus. From a long distance one can see, when riding in the train, the warships in the harbor, flying the flags of the "protecting" Powers, whose obligation to make secure life and liberty for Armenians was solemnly entered into by the Treaty of Berlin. One does not expect much of Russia: the treaty was imposed upon her. But England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy--they all have warships at Mersina. Armenian refugees, fleeing from the ma.s.sacre at Adana, which occurred right under the nose of the English, French, Germans, Austrians and Italians, see these warships as the train draws into Mersina station. Turkish soldiers, of the same regiments who ma.s.sacred them three days ago, bar the way. Back they must go to death.

Herbert and I meet the trains. We look for the chance to smuggle friends through. We got H---- B---- through yesterday. The Swiss stationmaster, Monsieur B----, remonstrated hotly with Herbert about allowing me to come to the station. "It is no place for your wife," he declared. "There might be bloodshed any minute, if a refugee resists." But I held my ground. I knew H---- B---- was going to try to get on this train. He had money to bribe with, and could travel first-cla.s.s. Mother, I managed to slip into the first-cla.s.s coach just as the train stopped, and came out the other end leaning heavily on H---- B----'s arm. We left the station through the waiting-room, and none said a word or stopped us. H---- B---- was safe. Herbert couldn't have done it. The Turks, for all their cruelty, have a curious chivalry upon which I banked. I was not mistaken. H---- B---- kept my arm all the way to the Dodds. The poor boy is in agony. He has just heard that his father, a wealthy merchant of Alexandretta, was killed, and his mother and sister--well, I'll leave it to you to guess.

But this adventure is nothing to one I had late in the afternoon of the twenty-seventh. Herbert had gone for news to the wigwagging station the British have established on a villa just in front of Major Doughty-Wylie's. I thought there might still be some oranges in the bazaar. It was an excuse to walk. I cannot stay indoors--no matter what happens. It wasn't far, anyhow. Just a little way down our street. As I was returning, I heard "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey," coming from somewhere. It struck me as curious. I stopped. The whistling continued staccato and insistent. It came from a narrow side street. I waited until the patrol had pa.s.sed along, and then whistled in turn, "Every night the papers say," and stopped. Immediately it was taken up: "There's a robbery in the park." I decided to investigate. Several houses along, I heard a whisper, "Mrs. Gibbons." Under the stoop was an American Armenian, whom I had met during the winter in Adana. He had been waiting for some one he knew to pa.s.s on the main street. He was in rags--had worked his way overland somehow from Adana. He would be arrested if he tried to make the Mission. Patrols were pa.s.sing constantly. I told him to wait where he was. I went back to the Dodds, put on Herbert's raincoat, stuffed a cap in the pocket, and returned to the side street. The Armenian refugee could cover himself completely in the coat. I told him to pull the cap well down over his ears. He walked back with me. It was no trouble at all. The young man has money, and an American pa.s.sport. The latter is no good to him. As he can pay, we think it possible to smuggle him somehow aboard a ship.[5]

Almost all who have reached Mersina, however, are women and children.

For the men are killed on sight. The refugees in the Dodds' compound are of my s.e.x. They are husbandless, fatherless, sonless. Now we know that the only difference between Young and Old Turks is that the Young Turks are more energetic and thorough in their ma.s.sacring. None would succeed in escaping the dragnet were it not for the fact that Armenians look and dress--and many of them speak--just like Turks. Refugees are not easily detected.

My doctor has gone. The day after we reached Mersina, he had a chance to get pa.s.sage with his family to Cyprus. I urged him to go. I had Miss Talbot, and I could not have on my mind the responsibility of his remaining just to take care of me. I am glad he left when the going was good. Now it is practically impossible. The _scala_, from which the little boats go out to the ships, is carefully guarded. The Young Turks are taking "strict measures" to put down "the rebellion"! Armenians who try to escape from the Adana butcher's pen are hauled before the court-martial. According to the Turkish reasoning, attempting to avoid death is proof of an Armenian's guilt.

As I write these awful things--a few weeks ago I should have called them incredible things--I see from my window the half-moon of warships a mile out to sea. They ride quietly at anchor. Launches are all the time plying to and fro between ships and sh.o.r.e. That is the extent of their activity.

FOOTNOTE:

[5] This was afterwards done, but I was unfortunately unable to have a part in it. I think I know one Armenian who believes the U.S.A. is the place to stay forever!

A NEW LIFE