In his Saki biography, A.J. Lagguth recounts a particularly hairy episode from Munro’s time as the Morning Post‘s Special Correspondent in the Balkans:

As Hector’s thoughtful piece was on its way to London, Bulgarian rebels drove carriages past the leading banks in Salonica and threw out bombs. The Ottoman Bank was totally destroyed, another was badly damaged, as was the German Club. Hector left at once for the scene but his trip was interrupted dramatically. “While traveling from Uskub to Salonica,” he confided to his readers, “I was seized by a railway picket and had a narrow escape of being shot, as I was suspected of being a dynamiter.”

With an American reporter he had gone south at about two in the afternoon, passing by many guards and encampments to reach Salonica by nightfall. There he was told that the city was under a state of siege and no one could leave the station.

(Langguth 96)

The book continues by quoting from Munro’s own words:

“In the hope of slipping out by a side exit we therefore picked up our valises and made for an apparent outlet some five hundred yards distant across a waste of inconveniently overgrown grass. As a slight precaution against being mistaken for prowling Komitniki we turned down the collars of our overcoats so as to display the white collar, if not of a blameless life, at least of a business that did not call for concealment.

“About four hundred yards of the distance had been covered when a frantic challenge in Turkish brought us to a standstill, and five armed and agitated figures sprang forward in the starlight and began to interrogate us at a distance, which they seemed disinclined to lessen. As five triggers had clicked and five rifles were covering us we dropped our valises and ‘uphanded,’ but without reassuring our questioners, who seemed to be possessed of a panic which might more reasonably have been displayed on our part.”

(Langguth 97)

Langguth does not identify who Munro’s travelling companion was but I have managed to identify him as Frederick Ferdinand Moore (1881–1947), who at the time was working for the San Francisco Examiner. Moore definitely had an adventurous life (and an unlucky end). Wikipedia describes him as an early 20th century American novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher, soldier and war correspondent. I’d recommend reading the whole article.

What’s more, he also wrote a book titled The Balkan Trail about his time reporting from Europe, published in 1906.

Here is Moore’s account of the same episode:

All of the special correspondents—gathered like vultures in Macedonia to prey on the harvest of death—knew of the prediction for Salonica; but correspondents flock together, and we all followed the leader to Uskub with our hawk eyes set upon Albania. And there we were, in Uskub, when the dynamiting took place. The news reached us about noon of the morning after the event. Instead of eating luncheon, I got a travelling bag ready and boarded the south-bound train at half-past two, with one other correspondent—an Englishman. Happily, we were not rivals: he represented a London daily and I was working for America: otherwise we might have resented each other’s presence. As it was we rejoiced together at having a clear start of twenty-four hours on the others, for there is but one train to Salonica each day.

By nightfall the Englishman was bored by my conversation and I was bored by his, and, having nothing to read, we stretched ourselves out on the seats of our compartment and went to sleep soon after dark. It was in this condition that we arrived in Salonica at half-past ten o’clock; but nobody woke us, and we slept on. The few other passengers—all Turks, as Bulgarians were restricted in travelling at the time—left the train quietly and repaired to a khan across the road to spend the night. The train hands, frightened Christians, lost no time in ‘shunting’ the train, and after placing it on a ‘siding’ a quarter of a mile from the station, deserted it, us included, and joined the Turks in the crowded café.

About midnight I awoke and wondered where I was. It gradually dawned upon me that I was aboard a train, and I rose and looked out of the window. Every light was out: they must have been extinguished from above or we should have been discovered. I could discern, indistinctly, in the faint light of a new moon, a waving line of high grass on both sides of the train, and here and there a low, thick tree, but not a house was visible. I woke the Englishman. Towards the city, usually aglow with little lights from the water’s edge all the way up to the wall on the hills, only a few dim lamps now shone. The gas main to the town had been cut by the committajis the night before, and they had also attempted, in their dynamite revel, to destroy a troop train not far from the spot where ours now stood. We knew that the railways were patrolled everywhere and doubly guarded in the vicinity of Salonica, and there was little chance of our getting out of the train without being seen. We also knew that the Turk is averse from taking prisoners on any occasion, and naturally supposed that the deeds of the dynamiters—for many of whom they were still hunting—had not tended to lessen this Mohamedan characteristic. But to remain in the train and be discovered in the small hours of the morning by some excited Asiatic seemed a greater danger, and we decided to take to the open at once. Whereupon we gathered our bags, quietly opened the door, jumped to the ground and scurried through the high grass in the direction of the town. Fortunately we escaped from the train without detection. But we had gone hardly a hundred yards when a Turkish shout went up that was both a challenge and an alarm. We saw the Turk who gave the yell, for the moon was behind him, but I am sure he only heard us. He was near a tent, and the first to respond to his call for assistance were his companions from within. Six of them rolled out from under the canvas in their clothes, rifles in hand, and in a minute more there were twenty others by his side, all jabbering high Turkish. We had dropped our bags at the challenge and thrown up our hands, but still they did not seem to see us. They evidently thought we numbered forty—the usual size of an insurgent band—and it took us some time to convince them that we were only two Englishmen.

‘Inglese Effendi’ was the extent of our Turkish, and this we shouted to them with every variation of accent we could contrive, trusting they would comprehend our meaning in one form or another. I had not forgotten in the excitement that I was an American, but neither had I forgotten that the Turks consider an American a peculiar species of Englishman, and the situation was such that I was willing to forgo detail in explanation. They located us at once from the noise we were making, and, as soon as they had loaded and cocked their rifles, spread out single file like Red Indians, and wound a circle about us—keeping at a safe distance from our dynamite. During this manœuvre an animated discussion took place as to whether—we judged—it were not better to shoot us first and find out afterwards whether we were Bulgarians or not. This process was boring, for our arms were growing numb, and yet we dared not lower them. They shouted to us a score or more questions, but we could understand not a word. And we, concluding our Turkish had failed, tried them with English, French, and German, and the Englishman (who was the linguist) in a rash moment discharged a volley of Bulgarian. It was well for us then that these soldiers (as we learned later) had arrived from Asia Minor only a few days before, and knew not even the tone of the insurgents’ language. They had understood one variation of our ‘Inglese Effendi,’ and though they could not imagine what ‘English gentlemen’ were doing on a railway line beyond the city in the dead of night, there was one among them willing to take the chance of capturing us alive. But the bold fellow was not without grave fears, as the manner in which he performed this task amply demonstrated. All guns were turned on us:

Rifles to front of us,
Rifles to back of us,
Rifles all round us,
But nobody blundered.

The Turks signed to us to keep our hands up. We could lift them no higher so we stood on our toes—to show how willing we were to comply with all suggestions. Then the brave man who had volunteered to take us prisoners made a long détour and approached us from behind stealthily, lest we should turn upon him suddenly and cast a bomb. I was made aware of his arrival at my back by a thump in the spine with the muzzle of a loaded and cocked rifle. The finger on the trigger was nervous—if it was anything like its owner’s voice—and I dared not even tremble lest the vibration should drop the hammer of his gun. I being thus in my captor’s power, the other Turks approached. One unwound the long red sash from his waist and with an end of it bound my hands. Meantime, the Englishman had been surrounded, and two curly-bearded fellows, gripping his hands tightly, dragged him to my side and bound his wrists with the other end of the red sash. Our proud captor then seized the centre of the sash, and, carefully avoiding our baggage, led us away to the camp in exactly the same manner as he would have led a pair of buffaloes, and the other soldiers followed, jabbering, at our heels. Our captor’s tugging pulled the sash off my wrists, but I held on to it and pretended I was still shackled, considering the fright it would give the Turks to discover me mysteriously at liberty again.

We were kept but a few minutes at their camp, then taken through the railway station, now deserted, across a road to the Turkish café where the other passengers and the train crew were spending the night. It was a peaceful spectacle we entered upon, but we soon disturbed the composure of the Christians in the place. The train crew was stretched out on the floor snoring lustily, and the passengers, because of their race, sat on the tables, their feet folded under them, occupied in sucking hookahs. Our dramatic entrance, on the ends of the red sash and surrounded by ragged soldiers, did not distract the Mohamedans from their hubble-bubbles, but the snoring ceased immediately.

We pounced upon the conductor before he was on his feet, and through him, by means of French, explained to our captors who we were and how we happened to be in the train, and demanded our release. But the Asiatics threatened the Christian and he slyly deserted us and slunk out of the door. The passport officer, who records arrivals, a Mohamedan, took it upon himself to relieve us of the bondage of the red sash and returned it to its owner, whereupon he brought upon himself a storm of abuse from the Asiatics, and he too deserted us. One by one all the Christians escaped to the next khan, taking their snoring with them, but leaving the curly-bearded Anatolians and the ‘bashi-bazouks.’ These Turks remained perched on the tables, our only company through the whole long night, apparently without a thought of a thing but their gurgling pipes. Indeed, not even the occasional sound of an explosion in the town caused them so much as to lift their eyes.

The soldiers knew now that we were foreigners, and did not attempt to re-bind our hands, but they continued to keep us prisoners with the object of securing ransom money. Had we been subjects of their Sultan we should probably have had our pockets searched, but, being foreigners, our persons, at least, were favoured with a grudged respect.

We refused persistently to comply with their demands for money, until they became violent. When they had given our bags ample time to explode, one of the Turks fetched them to the café, but declined to surrender them unless we paid him. Even this we refused to do. Hereupon one truculent fellow whipped out his bayonet and shook the blade in our faces, at the same time drawing a finger significantly across his throat and gurgling in a manner that must have been copied from life. This realistic entertainment so impressed me that I rewarded the actor with all the small change I possessed, about six piastres. The amount did not satisfy him by any means, for he explained that he desired to divide the money with his companions, but I dreaded to show them gold, and handed over an empty purse—my money was in a wallet. Then they put pressure on the Englishman, but he flatly declined to reward them and pretended to prefer the alternative they offered. Bold Briton! they turned from him in disgust and proceeded to fight over the shilling I had given them. The individual who had drawn his bayonet carefully replaced it in its scabbard and slung his gun by a strap over his shoulder before entering the fray. And not once did he or any of the others use a weapon, though they punched each other’s faces viciously—not, however, disturbing the bashi-bazouks on the tables, whose rhythmic suck of the hubble-bubbles could be heard above the irregular sounds of the brawl.

The fight concluded and quiet restored, the Englishman got writing materials out of his bag and proceeded to take notes for despatches. But this proceeding did not meet with the approval of our guards. The truculent individual walked round behind him without a word, and drew his bayonet again. This time he was truly alarming, for he was alarmed himself. He suspected that we were making a report of the treatment we had received. Now this Englishman was none other than ‘Saki,’ author of ‘Alice in Westminster,’ a man who would write an epigram on the death of a lady love. In a few minutes Saki’s mind had risen above all earthly surroundings in search of an epigram on a capture by Turks, and he was oblivious to the presence of the Asiatic hovering over him. Perceiving my friend’s unfortunate plight, I came to the rescue, shook him back to earth, and persuaded him to destroy his papers. We could do nothing the rest of the night but sit and study the Turks and listen to the rhythmic gurgles of the hubble-bubble pipes.

Early in the morning two army officers arrived and came into the khan for coffee, and we appealed to them in French to relieve us from the tender mercies of our tormentors. But they sipped their coffee unaffected, and informed us that the soldiers were not of their command. Indeed, these Asiatics seemed to be of nobody’s command! Up to the hour they took it into their heads to return to the railway station, no superior officer came near them. It was about six o’clock when they departed, leaving us without ceremony. There were already cabs at the station, bringing passengers for the early train, and one of these took us into the city.

(Moore 106-115)

I’ll be posting a few more extracts from the book here in the coming weeks.

Sources

Langguth, A. J., Saki. A Life Of Hector Hugh Munro With Six Short Stories Never Before Collected (Oxford: OUP, 1982).

Moore, Frederick Ferdinand, The Balkan Trail (London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1906), online at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62947.

Moore, Frederick Ferdinand, Wikipedia article, online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Ferdinand_Moore.