Yuri sees me and calls back to me. “Sit and rest for a while! Then, come and take over from the professor for a few minutes, to give him a break when he gets tired.”
I lie flat on a boulder for five minutes, resting as much as I can. Then I cross the bridge to the far side, where they are working. Yuri looks at me between strokes of his ax.
“See what we are doing here. Agnes. The bridge is made of wooden planks nailed on top of two long beams laid across the ravine. The beams are too big and thick for us to cut. But we can render the bridge unusable, by getting rid of all the planks.
So we are chopping here, at the edge of each plank. Once the blade of the ax is well under the plank, pull the handle to lever it up until the plank comes away from the beams. Then throw the plank down into the ravine.”
“After a few planks are gone—”
“Yes, you’re right. Then, we step back and do the next section. We work backwards, taking up planks as we go. And being careful not to fall.” Yuri points down into the gully, where a foaming mountain stream rushes among steep rocks.
I chop; Axelson rests, lying on the ground in exhaustion. Then he takes over from me. Soon, four planks are gone, then six. It’s backbreaking work. The sun feels hot, and it is climbing high in the sky by the time we’ve taken up all the planks. I look down into the ravine, where the planks lie piled in a pit-like rocky slot a hundred feet below us. Yuri is smiling.
“Good work. They can’t cross that bridge with vehicles, or on horseback. And even if they arrive here soon, and climb across the ravine on foot, they won’t catch the Armenians. Let’s rest for a few minutes. Then we’ll set off for the Ararat saddle and the route to the Aras River.”
We all lie utterly still; I feel my breathing, like gentle waves on a beach, gradually relaxing. Levering those planks reminded me of when I first met Yuri, when I got through the planks that were nailed across the windows of that cottage in the woods. But then, I was in terror, and my nostrils were full of smoke. Now I’m surrounded by fresh mountain air, under a sky like a blue jewel, and I smell the scents of wild flowers. The snowy cone of Ararat towers over the peaceful scene.
I hear the rumble of a truck. My heart seems to stop.
“There’s no cover on the road leading back up to the village. If we go now, they’ll see us.” Yuri hisses at us as he picks up the two axes. “We’ll have to hide behind those rocks, there. Leave no trace that we’ve been here.”
He points upstream, along the edge of the ravine, to a pile of huge boulders. The rumble grows closer. We scamper over to the cover of the rocks.
Through a gap between two boulders, we watch the soldiers arrive. First, a strange car appears, its engine snorting. It’s covered with iron plates, like a kind of metal tortoise. A heavy gun is mounted above the driver. A soldier stands and holds the gun, his legs braced to keep steady as the car jolts along. The car pulls to a halt on the far side of the ravine.
Then a truck arrives, and parks alongside the car. Its front looks like a large car, but its body is like a covered wagon in the Old West, with a canvas covering stretched over high hoops. A group of soldiers emerges from it; every one of them has a rifle. Moments later, they are all fixing the familiar saw-toothed bayonets to the muzzles.
An officer in a tall fez steps out of the armored car, walks over to the edge of the ravine, and peers at the remains of the bridge. He shakes his head angrily in frustration, then goes back to his men and begins to shout orders.
One by one, the soldiers start to descend the rocky slopes of the ravine. The gully is deeply cut, but not impossible to scramble down into. After a few minutes, soldiers’ heads appear above the near edge of the ravine. After half an hour all of them, including the officer, are gathered on the road just a few yards from us. Thankfully, they seem to have no suspicion that we are nearby. The officer gives more orders: the soldiers form into a column and begin to march up the road, bayonets shining in the midday sun. I watch them recede, the fading sound of their marching, and I breathe.
Yuri gets up; he stands, looking down into the gully as if tracing the lines of the rocks with his eyes.
“We’re lucky: they have left no-one behind to guard this area. The ravine looks quite easy to cross, if we’re careful.”
I don’t understand him. “Why should we cross the stream? We need to go back up the road towards the villages, as soon as the soldiers have gone. Surely that’s the quickest way to Armenia?”
“We don’t know how long the soldiers will be searching for people in this valley. I’d guess a day at least, but quite possibly more. Then, when the troops give up and leave, we have a fifteen-mile walk to the Armenian border, including a three-thousand foot climb up to the saddle, over very rough hillsides.”
“So?”
Yuri smiles. “Professor – do you have any idea how far it is to Iran?”
“A day’s walk to the border, I would think, if we went down this road. Just below here, the road will descend into a deep canyon. Then it should lead into the main valley, and join the Persian Road from Istanbul to Tehran. Tabriz, an important city of Iran, is on that road, beyond the border.”
“One day’s walk to Iran. Or, a couple of hours’ drive.”
Yuri points across the ravine, at the armor-plated car.
34
The Persian Road
We all look at the squat iron vehicle. Yuri continues. “It’s worth scrambling across this stream, to see if we can get the car started. If it won’t start, all we’ve lost is a few minutes.”
We cross the ravine; it’s not too difficult, even in my long dress. But we can’t get the armored car to start.
“What about the truck?” I suggest.
Axelson nods thoughtfully. “The truck will be slow and difficult to drive on this mountain road. But once we get into the valley, and onto the main road, it should be all right. Let’s try it.”
There’s room for the three of us to sit side by side in the cab. Yuri sits in the driver’s seat and turns a key; the professor turns the starting-handle. The engine fires up immediately, and the truck lumbers forward.
The road twists around corners, edging its way above yawning drops. Even though the sun is high, the canyon below us is deeply shadowed. We pass more ravines cut into the slope, and cross more rickety wooden bridges. The road itself is made of piled rocks, and we bump and bounce over them. Yuri’s eyes scan for boulders and potholes. He smiles as the professor and I shake in our seats. “It feels worse than it is. This thing has solid tyres and very primitive suspension. But look ahead; there’s the main road.”
Sooner than we expected, we are out of the shadowed jaws of the canyon into a wide main valley. Our dirt road joins a highway, made of smooth, sun-baked clay. Yuri turns the wheel to the left, and the truck eases out into the road. He puts his foot on the gas pedal, pressing it to the floor; I can feel the movement in my stomach. The professor peers around for any sign of Ottoman guards.
“Have we got enough gasoline, Captain Sirko?”
“The gauge says we’ve got plenty.”
We’re on the valley floor, speeding alongside flat, tilled fields. Mount Ararat has disappeared. Above and behind, all I can see are the brown-grey bluffs edging the canyon we descended. Even they now look small and far behind us. The clay road runs straight ahead, towards a distant jumble of buildings. I see roofs and gables, and the tall minaret and dome of a mosque. The professor points. “That must be Doğubayazıt; I noticed it on Rufus’s map. The last Turkish settlement before the border of Iran.”
Yuri slows the truck as we approach the first houses of the town. I see faces in the doorways, and children playing by the roadside. They stand up excitedly, shouting and waving to us. We wave back. Soon we’re at the centre of the little town, and Yuri slows the truck to a walking pace as we weave through busy crowds. Everyone’s heads turn to look: in this remote settlement, a military truck must be a rare sight. In our Western dress, the three of us are clearly visible inside the cab. People look surprised, but not alarmed. Everyone smiles, and street sellers shout to us, offering flatbreads, pomegranates and oranges.