The staff at the principal operating hospital included, besides Osman Effendi and myself, Weinberger, Kustler, Gebhardt, Kronberg, Waldemann, and Rookh. We had also a lot of jarra bashis with a rudimentary idea of surgery to assist us. Each man brought to us for an operation had to wait his turn, and such was the pressure of the work that many of the poor fellows were kept there for four or five days before we could attend to them. Still, at this period a large percentage recovered from their wounds, owing principally to the fact that the accommodation was not overcrowded and that we had few cases of septic disease. We were able to give them a liberal diet, as we had plenty of broth, milk, rice, and biscuits. These biscuits when soaked and steamed proved most useful.
Osman Pasha has been liberally accused of inhuman neglect towards the wounded; but those accusations have been made against him by people who had no opportunity of forming an accurate judgment, and who mistook his inflexible determination to get the wounded away from Plevna for cruelty and want of consideration for their sufferings. I had many opportunities of observing the Muchir during my stay in Plevna, and I can definitely refute these charges of neglect and apathy in the presence of anguish. Unsparing of his troops in battle, Osman Pasha never forgot his wounded men when the fighting was over. At this period, after the third battle, he constantly visited the hospitals, encouraging the wounded by his presence and by his kindly words. He let it be understood, too, that all those members of the medical staff who worked well would be decorated; and it is only bare justice to say that all of them cheerfully performed long hours of very hard work on insufficient food and with little or no sleep during the trying days and nights that followed upon our greatest victory.
When the brunt of the work was over, I went back to my quarters, and Czetwertinski and Victor Lauri went with me—Czetwertinski because he was very delicate, and Lauri because he had no servant of his own, and did not know where else to go. About four days after the battle, Czetwertinski, who was in touch with the headquarters staff, heard that Osman Pasha was looking for some one who would endeavour to run the gauntlet of the Russians, posted all round Plevna, and carry his despatches to Constantinople. The gallant young Pole brought me the news, and asked me if I would join him in an attempt to get through with the papers. We sat up most of the night talking the matter over, and Czetwertinski carefully explained to me that, while we should certainly be hanged if we fell into the hands of the Russians, we should be rewarded with the highest decorations if we were successful in the attempt.
We agreed to offer our services as despatch-carriers to Osman Pasha, and next morning Czetwertinski waited on the commander-in-chief and formally represented our decision. Osman Pasha thanked us warmly, but declined our offer, preferring to entrust the task to a Circassian, who, being more intimately acquainted with the country, would stand a better chance of getting through the enemy's lines.
Gay, the Daily Telegraph correspondent, however, was extremely anxious to get away. He had shut himself up in his own room as soon as the battle was over, and had been writing all day and all night ever since, preparing a glowing description of the stirring events which had taken place. He had completed a fine budget of work, and was naturally burning to get it into his paper; for it meant a great journalistic coup for the Telegraph, as Gay was the only correspondent with the Turkish army, though Forbes, MacGahan, and many others were with the Russians. The first step was to engage a guide, and Gay selected a smart young Circassian, who willingly undertook the job for the munificent reward of three thousand piastres, which he was promised as soon as Sofia was reached. Sitting in his room in Plevna, Gay wound up his despatch for the Daily Telegraph by describing his plans for getting it to Sofia. "To-day, September 15," he wrote, "the cannonade goes forward languidly, nor is it at all likely that it will end so long as the Russians have a gun or a man anywhere near us. But it is comparatively harmless, so far as affecting the Turkish position goes, and will some day, when Osman Pasha is reinforced, as he shortly will be, come to an untimely end. For my own part I am about to endeavour to-night to break the blockade which surrounds Plevna. For two days I have sought for Circassians who would undertake the task of piloting me over the mountains in the dark and failed. Last evening Osman Pasha found a one-eyed chieftain, who with a comrade has engaged to conduct me if the feat is at all practicable, and according to present arrangements I am to start to-night about the time it begins to get dark. Mr. Victor Lauri too is anxious to go with me; and a Turkish officer also desires to be one of the party, which will thus consist of two Circassians, a Turkish sergeant, and my servant, an Ionian lad, a Greek groom, Mr. Lauri, the Turkish officer, and myself—in all a party of eight well armed. At the moment of my writing the Circassians and the Greek are out on a voyage of exploration, with a view to seeing whether there is the possibility of our accomplishing the task, in which case they will be back by evening ready to pilot us. As the risk is great, the Circassians are to be amply rewarded directly Sofia is reached, that is, if the work be faithfully done, and upon their report now all rests. For myself I am determined to go if they will take me. What the result will be time alone can show. But if you get this letter safely, I shall have run the gauntlet, and will then telegraph you the history of our risky ride across country."
As a matter of fact Gay did not start on that night. Czetwertinski and I went out with him to the outposts to see him off; but it was plain that the psychological moment was not yet. It was a bright moonlight night, and we could see the Russian vedettes sitting on their horses all round us. A cat could not have got through the lines without being seen, let alone a man on horseback; and the captain in command of our outpost absolutely refused to allow the attempt to be made, pointing out that it meant certain capture and death for all the party.
On the following night, however, Gay and his escort got away. We heard afterwards that they had a lively time of it, for they were chased by Cossacks, and fired on repeatedly by startled Russian sentries. It was only through the speed and bottom of their horses that they reached Orkhanieh in safety, and thence made their way to Sofia. Gay had a quarrel with Lauri before he went, and the result was that the little German artist stayed behind with me.
Lauri and the Sausage—A Diet of "Poiled Peans"—The Ways of a Parlementaire—Politeness on the Battle-field—Indefatigable Burrowing by the Turks—Skobeleff's Annoyance—A Visit to a Redoubt—Russian Artillery Practice—I lose my Groom—Geese, and how to get them—I go out reconnoitring—We have a Hot Ten Minutes—Looking out for a New Horse—A Grand Charger lost—We retire on Netropol—The Use of Artillery—The Russians attack our Convoy—We lose our Medical Stores—A Humorous Russian Prisoner—Afternoon Coffee with Sadik Pasha—A Call made under Difficulties—The Uninvited Guest—Kronberg my Colleague—He saves a Supposed Spy—A Visit to Sadik Pasha—Coffee under difficulties—In my Hospital again—Fearful Scenes of Suffering—Wounds, Filth, and Disease—Heavy Mortality—Antiseptics exhausted—Appearance of Gangrene—My Anatolian Soldier—Pyæmia Rampant.
Amid the recollection of all those scenes of bloodshed, the memory of the little German artist's yearning for the unattainable stands out clear and distinct. It was connected with a German sausage; but in order to make the matter plain, it is necessary to point out that Gay and Lauri had expended about thirty pounds in equipping a private commissariat department before they came to Plevna. In Constantinople they had bought provisions of all kinds: English kippered herrings, American canned beef, potted vegetables of strange and fearful hues, portable meat lozenges, and last, but not least, a magnificent German sausage—not one of those insignificant cylinders of suspicious ingredients which are exposed for sale in the piping times of peace, but a sausage which was constructed, so to speak, on a war footing. It was about four feet long and one foot six inches in circumference, and it was enclosed in a metal case of the kind generally used to carry maps and charts. This noble specimen of wurst was the apple of little Lauri's artistic eye. But, alas! I was ignorant of this. Before Gay went away, being incensed with Lauri over some trivial dispute, he presented me with the remains of the commissariat, which, it appeared, had been bought with his money, and which included the famous sausage. He also gave me several other things, including a capital bell tent, which, I am sorry to say, was afterwards stolen from me.
However, when I got this sausage Lauri was away, camping, I fancy, in one of the redoubts, and I at once invited every good fellow that I knew in the place to come to the banquet. We had two meals off it, and then—where, oh, where was that triumph of the sausage-maker's art? "Where," asks that inspired bard Hans Breitmann, "is dat little cloud that fringed the mountain brow?" We procured some raki, the pungent Turkish spirit which burns a hole in the membrane of the throat as it passes down, and we had dinner. Then we procured some more raki, and we had supper. After that we looked round for the sausage; but it was gone—"gone where the woodbine twineth." Lauri came back to my quarters next day, and behaved with contumely when invited to sit down to our usual fare of boiled beans and rice. He consigned every individual boiled bean in Turkey to a place where it would soon become unpleasantly scorched, and then he mourned for the sausage, which he believed Gay had eaten in the silence of the night all by himself. "If only he had left me my peautiful sausage!" he wailed, while I said never a word, but only winked at Czetwertinski. When Lauri had continued every day for a week making lamentation over the loss of that satisfying yard and a quarter of food, I broke the news gently to him that we had eaten it in his absence. Contrary to my expectation, he was not seized with an apoplectic attack, and at last even became reconciled again to the "verdammte poiled peans."
One day when I rode up to the headquarters camp at about two o'clock in the afternoon, I found the whole place in a simmer of suppressed excitement, and addressed myself to Tewfik Pasha, who had been promoted to that rank after the battle, in order to ascertain the cause of the commotion. He told me that the Russians had sent forward a parlementaire to invite Osman Pasha or some officer representing him to meet a Russian general at a certain place and discuss a matter of interest to both. I asked what the subject of discussion was to be, and Tewfik replied that he did not know. He also told me that Osman Pasha wished to go himself, but that his staff were endeavouring to dissuade him, pointing out to him that he would impair his dignity by consenting to meet any officer of lower grade than the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, who at this time was Prince Charles of Roumania.
As I sat on my horse at the headquarters camp I saw that Osman Pasha was ready to start. His best horse, a magnificent chestnut charger with a saddlecloth heavily embroidered with gold, was champing the bit in front of the Muchir's tent, and presently Osman Pasha emerged, dressed in his full State uniform, and actually wearing, what I should never have expected to see in Plevna at that grim period, a pair of white kid gloves. It was arranged that if he went he should be accompanied by Tewfik Pasha.
At the last moment, however, Osman Pasha yielded to the advice of his staff, and decided to remain behind; so Tewfik Pasha and Czetwertinski went forward with a small escort. They rode out about a mile and a half from Plevna, where they met two Russian officers, and after an elaborate exchange of polite courtesies the business of the conference was broached. It appeared that during the attack on the Grivitza redoubt and the subsequent night attack on the Bash Tabiya many hundreds of men had been killed; and as the Grivitza redoubt remained in the hands of the Russians, and the Bash redoubt, only one hundred and eighty yards away, was still held by the Turks, the corpses both of Turks and Russians which lay between the two works had been left unburied, with the result that the stench had become almost unbearable, and was a serious annoyance to the defenders of both forts. The Russian officers politely pointed out that a removal of the nuisance would be as welcome to them as it would be to the Turks, and courteously offered to send out a burial party and inter all the bodies lying between the Grivitza and the Bash redoubts, if the occupants of the latter work would incommode themselves so far as to abstain from potting at the military gravediggers while they were pursuing their melancholy occupation. Tewfik Pasha and Czetwertinski begged that the Russian officers would excuse them for a moment while they considered the subject, and then, after a brief consultation in Turkish, Czetwertinski as spokesman took up his parable in reply. It was with feelings of the most profound regret, he explained, that Tewfik Pasha was obliged to deny himself the pleasure of accepting the generous offer of the Russians. Certainly the odour from the ill fated corpses, both of the Turks and of their so gallant and courageous assailants, was decidedly offensive; but it would not be fair to allow the Russians to incur the whole of the annoyance which would attach to the burial of so many patriots who had fallen on the field of honour. In effect he would propose as an alternative that if the Russians would inconvenience themselves to the extent of sending out a party of men to bury all the corpses within ninety yards of their redoubt, the Turks on their side would feel it a pleasure and an honour to bury all the bodies within a similar distance of the work which they occupied. Thus the labour would be equally divided and the interment carried out most satisfactorily.
The wily Tewfik had seen at a glance the object of the Russians in proposing this generous action. If they had been allowed to advance one hundred and twenty yards from their redoubt on the pretence of burying the bodies, they would surmount the crest of the hill, and would be able to see into Plevna, besides securing most valuable observations as to the position of the various defences. Hence his polite reply.
The Russian officers were overwhelmed of course with admiration for the generous proposal made by Tewfik Pasha, but were desolated at their inability to accept it. After further parleying in the same strain it was plain that the parlementaires would be unable to come to terms, so the Russians produced a flask of excellent brandy which they pressed upon their visitors. Tewfik Pasha did not drink, but Czetwertinski politely drained a glass to the health of his entertainers, and all sat down for a few minutes' pleasant chat about the weather and the crops, the latest story from the clubs, and the legs of the last new ballet-dancer at the Paris opera-house. Then Tewfik Pasha took out his watch, and thought that it was really time to be going; so the Russian officers bowed, and wished their visitors au revoir, while Tewfik Pasha and Czetwertinski with their escort of a couple of troopers trotted back towards the Turkish lines. It is pleasant to reflect that the disagreeable necessities of war cannot blunt the exquisite politeness of true diplomacy.
Day by day the Russians, who were beginning to recover their lost morale, worked up closer and closer towards our entrenchments. Taught by the example of their adversaries, they began to make a more extensive use of the entrenching spade which had already revolutionized the art of warfare; and seeing the completeness with which the Turks protected themselves by means of the shield which they carried with them, the Russians too rapidly adopted the same practice.
One morning the Russian outposts were so close to our lines that they could see our men laying out fresh lines of shelter trenches, and working parties commencing their tasks with a will. Skobeleff accompanied by his staff, was examining these works, and, feeling irritated by the tenacity of the Turks, he ordered a gun to be brought up to the outposts. The gun was placed in position, and fired several rounds of case shot at the working parties, killing a couple of men and wounding three others. Our fellows replied energetically, and the workers presently returned to their burrowing with fresh zest.
Day and night a desultory bombardment continued. During the night the Russians used to fire from ten to twenty shells into the town, and at intervals during the day also the shells arrived, knocking down a few houses and killing a good many men, more Bulgarians, however, than Turks.
Very shortly after the battle we found that the 4th division of the Roumanian army was entrenched about six hundred yards to the east of the Bash Tabiya. Owing to the terrible stench caused by the dead bodies which lay unburied, we had to change the entire garrison of the Bash Tabiya, numbering four thousand men in all, every forty-eight hours; and as the approach to the Bash Tabiya was exposed for about thirty yards to the fire of the Russians, the operation of relieving the guard was always exciting.
I often paid a visit to the Bash Tabiya in the afternoon to have a cup of coffee and a cigarette with old Sadik Pasha, who was in command, and these afternoon calls were always attended with a certain amount of risk. The fellows in the Grivitza redoubt used to keep a look out for visitors; but the range was over eight hundred yards, and I used to skip across those thirty yards of exposed space, dodging like a strong blue rock before the barrels of the pigeon-shooter, and always coming through safely. It did not take me more than three seconds to cover the distance, and before they could sight their rifles I was across.
At about three o'clock every afternoon Ahmet brought my horse down to the hospital, and I went for a ride out to the redoubts, and paid my respects to one or other of the commanders. One day a Turkish major in one of them consulted me about an eruption on his chin. He was mightily concerned about it, and I promised to bring him some ointment to allay the unpleasant symptoms. As a matter of fact, I believe it was barber's itch that he had. Accordingly I rode out on the following day with the ointment to the redoubt, which was commanded by a Russian redoubt built on the slope of a hill about a thousand yards away. As I got up to our redoubt there were three soldiers sitting on the rear wall smoking cigarettes, and I called to one of them to come and hold my horse. The one who came was a magnificently built fellow. He was in great good humour, laughing and chatting with his comrades, and he came out of the redoubt and held my bridle while I walked into the work. As I did so the officer in command of the Russian redoubt, seeing a horseman approaching the work opposite to him, thought that it would be good fun to have a shot at him; so he let drive at me with three field-guns. I saw the three puffs of smoke together as I walked into the redoubt. One shell buried itself in the front wall of the redoubt without exploding, another burst in the redoubt, and the third passed over the redoubt and exploded just behind it. The casing of the shell that exploded inside wounded a man in the heel, taking half the boot off and cutting the heel to the bone. He was a black soldier, a Nubian. I was looking after him, when some one called out to me to come outside; and the first thing I saw was my horse quietly grazing about fifty yards at the rear of the redoubt. The man who had been holding him had been cut in two by the third shell. He was quite dead. I went back into the redoubt, and dressed the Nubian's heel. Then the Turkish major and I had coffee and cigarettes together, and I gave him the ointment for his chin, whereat he was much gratified. We were so much accustomed to whole hecatombs of victims in those days, that we were callous to a single casualty.
We were beginning to get a little short of food in Plevna; and though I was not very particular about my cuisine and got on fairly well on boiled beans and rice, I felt sorry for poor Czetwertinski, who had been very bad with dysentery, and for whom I prescribed nourishing food in vain, for there was no one to make up the prescription. However, one morning I noticed a fine flock of geese in the yard of a Bulgarian house between my place and the hospital, so I approached the proprietor with an eye to purchase. He was a sour-tempered fellow; and though I offered him a medjidie apiece for the geese, he declined to trade. When I got home again that night and sat down to more boiled beans, I casually mentioned to Ahmet that there were a nice lot of geese in a Bulgarian house not far away. Next night all the geese were in our yard. I did not inquire too closely the motive which impelled the toothsome birds to seek for change of scene; but it flashed across me that Ahmet and his mate Faizi were young and strong, and also that they were Circassians. We ate four of the geese in our house, and gave the rest away to my brother surgeons. There were a dozen of them originally, and I sent the Bulgarian goose-farmer a couple of Turkish liras for them, so that he did not do so badly after all out of his forced sale.
Although big engagements seemed at an end for the present, and the Russians evidently intended to starve us out, instead of attempting to take Plevna by assault, still we had plenty of casual skirmishes to keep us in form and remind us that we were not at a picnic. Towards the end of September, Mustapha Bey was ordered to go out with a squadron of cavalry across the Vid and reconnoitre the Sofia road, to see what sort of a force the Russians had placed there. I was a great favourite with old Mustapha, and he made an application to Osman Pasha that I should be allowed to accompany the column.
Permission was readily granted, and one beautiful morning I found myself cantering out of Plevna, with Mustapha Bey and Czetwertinski at the head of a troop of four hundred regular cavalry and three hundred Circassians. We rode out to the foot of the Janik Bair colline below Opanetz, and from that point we could see the village of Dolni-Netropol, about a mile away.
As we were riding towards that village the troop suddenly halted, and Czetwertinski declared that he could make out a regiment of infantry drawn up about three-quarters of a mile away. We held a consultation, and Czetwertinski said that he could see a battery of Russian artillery in position as well. I had a great reputation for being sharp-sighted in those days, and was generally the first to see the enemy; but I fancied that what Czetwertinski saw was really a herd of the small black cattle of the country.
"Wait here a moment while I go on and have a look," I shouted; and sticking the spurs into my horse, I galloped forward by myself.
When I had gone about two hundred yards, I caught sight of a Russian vedette, galloping for his life towards Netropol. The Circassians saw him too, and in a second they were after him like greyhounds coursing a hare. The whole troop followed them; but before we had gone a furlong we heard the sharp crack of the rifles, and the piff-paff of the bullets striking the ground all round us.
Old Mustapha was taken by surprise, and was quite disconcerted for the moment; but we galloped on to the next ridge, and we found that the Circassians had thrown themselves on the ground at the top of the ridge in skirmishing order, and were busily blazing at a Russian cavalry regiment about five hundred yards away. We all took up the same order, lying down and firing away as fast as we could pull our triggers at the dense masses of the enemy scarcely a quarter of a mile away. I was on the extreme right, and I kept at it with my Winchester, vaguely wondering how long that sort of thing could last before we were driven back by the vastly outnumbering Russian force.
The fusillade only lasted about ten minutes; but during that time no fewer than thirteen Russian horses came galloping towards us riderless, showing that we had emptied that number of saddles at least. The Russians were giving us volley after volley; but they had not got the range, and our casualties were few.
I saw a very fine roan charger, which had lost his rider, come galloping towards us; and I started out to catch him, reckoning that he would do capitally for an extra mount, and to give my own horse a spell. Circassians, however, are keen judges of a horse, and a fellow on my left started out at the same time as I did and with the same object. It was a curious experience to be dodging bullets between the two lines; but the prize was worth the risk. However, when the roan saw the Circassian and myself running up with outstretched arms to stop him, he took fright, and, wheeling round, galloped back to his own lines, sending the earth flying behind him in all directions. The Circassian and I, looking rather sheepish, bolted back to the cover of the friendly ridge, which we both reached in safety. We only had two casualties so far. One man was shot through the thigh and another through the shoulder. I treated them both on the spot; but the man who was wounded in the shoulder died almost immediately.
The Russians brought up their infantry and artillery, and we retired as hard as we could upon the village of Netropol with the enemy in hot pursuit. We were only a handful, and things were looking pretty serious, when, to my great relief, I heard the boom of answering artillery and caught the sound of shells screaming overhead. I found that we were under the protection of our own guns, which commanded the whole of the plain, and had opened on the advancing Russians. We exchanged a few shots in the main street of Netropol, a dirty little Bulgarian village from which the population had fled; and at one time the Russians were so close to us that we fired our revolvers at them. We retreated towards our own lines, and the Russians dispersed under the fire of our artillery.
As we were riding back to Plevna, we looked down towards the Sofia road about a mile away, and saw a long train of arabas winding along like an enormous snake towards Plevna. This was the great train of provisions and supplies of all sorts that Hakki Pasha brought up from Sofia and Orkhanieh, opening up communication again with Plevna, and forcing a passage through the Russian opposition with reinforcements of six thousand fresh troops. The train of arabas was more than a mile long, and the extent of the convoy may be gauged from the fact that there were about three hundred waggons full of ammunition, rations, drugs, and medical stores.
As we were watching the train winding along the road, a trooper came galloping up and told Mustapha Bey that a couple of Russian regiments had swooped down upon the tail end of the convoy, shot a few men, and captured thirty waggons full of stores. We were ordered to go in pursuit, and away we went at a gallop, with the object of intercepting the Russian cutting-out party and recapturing the precious supplies. On the way we surprised a squadron of about sixty Russian cavalry who were camping in a maize-field. They had dismounted, and were resting when we came suddenly upon them; but they had time to mount and gallop off, many of them leaving their carbines behind in their hurry. As the cutting-out party had rejoined their main body, it was hopeless for us to attempt to recapture the waggons, and we had to return reluctantly to Plevna. It was a fairly exciting day's work, taking it all through, and when I got back I had spent fourteen hours continuously in the saddle.
We settled down to the routine of camp life afresh, with the prospect of a long winter siege before us, and I was much disheartened to find that our stock of medical supplies was already almost exhausted, and that there was no chance of replenishing them. The stock of drugs, bandages, and other appliances intended for our hospitals was unfortunately contained in the thirty waggons which the Russians carried off.
Although the prospect was gloomy enough, the troops continued in excellent spirits, and some of the daily incidents of the siege were decidedly humorous. Two days after the Netropol expedition I was riding out towards the Lovtcha road with Czetwertinski, when we came upon a party of about a dozen Turks jabbering away in a great state of excitement. They had got something with them, and from a distance I thought that they had caught a hare, but when we rode up we found that it was a Russian hussar. He spoke to Czetwertinski in Russian and told his story. It seemed that he was with his company when he got some vodka, and imbibed so freely that he speedily became drunk and went to sleep. When he woke up, he had not the faintest idea where he was, and, missing his company, walked right into our outposts, where the men on duty collared him. He was still very drunk when we saw him, and he regarded his adventure as a capital joke. The Turks had treated him very well, and he was smoking cigarettes which they had given him, surveying his captors with the fatuous smile of semi-inebriety, while they in their turn laughed heartily over their strange find. In due course he was escorted into Plevna, and lodged in durance as a prisoner of war. I never heard what became of him afterwards; but he was doubtless more comfortable than in the Russian trenches.
We were in hopes that we should be able to get our wounded men away from Plevna now that the road had been opened, and Osman Pasha sent orders to the medical quarters for us to select all the men who were able to travel. However, before we could get them ready the Russians barred the road again with a strong force, and once more we were in a state of siege. During the two days that the road was open, however, I sent Czetwertinski away invalided to Constantinople, and with him the German artist Victor Lauri. It was a very good thing for Czetwertinski that he left Plevna when he did, for as a Russian subject it would have gone hard with him when the Russians finally took the town. When the war was over, Czetwertinski met Skobeleff at San Stefano and lunched with him. Over the coffee and cigars the conversation naturally turned upon the recent experiences of both, and Czetwertinski ventured to ask his host with a smile what would have happened if they had met earlier.
"Oh!" said Skobeleff pleasantly, "we knew that you were in Plevna all the time, and we were always on the look out for you. If I had happened to come across you there, I should have had you shot of course."
Kronberg was one of the most companionable of my medical colleagues. He was a regular dare-devil, always ready for any adventure; and one afternoon he and I decided to go and pay a visit to the Bash Tabiya, the second redoubt opposite Grivitza which commanded the main Grivitza redoubt, at this time in the hands of the Russians. We rode up the slope of the Janik Bair, tied our horses to a tree under cover from the enemy's fire, and advanced cautiously over the exposed ground. We had to run the gauntlet as usual for about thirty yards; and though it did not take us more than three or four seconds, several bullets whistled past us from the Russian works. They used to watch the exposed space with field-glasses, and never missed an opportunity of having a "pot" at any one who showed himself either there or above the parapets of the redoubt or trenches. Our men of course used to return the compliment from the Bash Tabiya. When Kronberg and I had safely passed this dangerous Tom Tiddler's ground, we struck the trenches in which my regiment was encamped, facing north, and I went to call on my colonel. I found him living like a prehistoric troglodyte in a neatly dug hole in the ground about four hundred yards from the redoubt. The hole was connected by a trench with the redoubt, so that the colonel could go forward and come back without drawing the fire of the enemy's rifles. It was about seven feet deep, and comfortably furnished with Turkish rugs and brightly coloured praying-mats to keep out the damp. After a cup of coffee and a chat, I walked along the connecting trench, which was about six feet deep, and wide enough to allow the men to move about freely. In the clay inner walls tiers of bunks had been hollowed out like sleeping-berths on board ship, and the "watch below" were lying asleep, wrapped in their great-coats and looking like mummies, while the watch on deck kept their eyes open for squalls. Steps were constructed to enable the firing parties to aim over the parapet, and taking off my fez so as not to attract fire I cautiously peered over the parapet. I took up a rifle and had a few shots without seeing the result, and then I walked on through the trench and entered the redoubt. The first sight that met my eyes was a gruesome one, for the bodies of ten men who had been killed that day were lying at the entrance awaiting burial.
On my way to Sadik Pasha's abode I saw a Turkish soldier wearing a very fine pair of Russian high boots that had evidently belonged to a Russian officer, and without inquiring too closely how they had been procured I proceeded to do a deal. My own boots were thin patent leather riding-boots, which looked very nice, but were quite unsuitable for walking; so I persuaded the Turk to accept them, together with three piastres, or sixpence, in return for the more useful if less ornamental pair. The faithful servant of the Prophet was delighted with his bargain, and strutted about in my fashionable Bond Street patent leathers admiring himself, while I, for my part, had changed my nationality by stepping literally into the boots of a Russian.
Old Sadik Pasha gave me a warm welcome. I found him squatting on his haunches, with a praying-mat under him, looking the picture of contented cheerfulness. As the weather was pretty hot, he had rigged an awning over the top of his subterranean domicile to keep the sun off, and Kronberg and I squatted down beside him to hear all the news.
It was like dropping in to see a man at his club—with one or two slight differences. Sadik Pasha ordered coffee for three; and though we were six feet underground, the Roumanians in the Grivitza redoubt must have divined instinctively that we were having refreshments, for they decided to serve dessert. Finding it impossible to do much with the ordinary shells, they had pressed a mortar into the service, and just as the man was coming with the coffee they fired another projectile from this ingenious engine of warfare. Now the specific charm of the mortar is that it throws a shell with a very high trajectory, so that the projectile can soar like a hawk into the heavens and swoop down perpendicularly upon its prey. With all their ingenuity the Turks had not succeeded in devising a protection from this mode of annoyance; and as the Turkish soldier was coming along like a well drilled waiter with a tray on his arm containing three cups of coffee, the mortar-shell exploded in the redoubt. No one was killed, but a fragment of the casing knocked the tray and the cups and saucers into smithereens, and Sadik Pasha had to order "The same again, please." This time the coffee reached the consumer without any interruption in transit; and I was in the act of drinking mine when another shell exploded in the redoubt about ten feet distant from where we were sitting, and made a hole in the ground big enough to bury a man in. I was so startled that I poured the greater part of my coffee over my breeches instead of into my mouth, and old Sadik Pasha chuckled mightily over my want of sang-froid. He gave me a cordial invitation to come and stop with him for a week, assuring me that I would soon get used to little accidents like that.
I was too polite to tell Sadik Pasha that, much as I liked his company, the smell round his house was so unpleasant that I felt obliged to decline his invitation. Owing to the inability of the parlementaires to come to terms at the conference which I have already described, the bodies of the Turks and Russians lying between Sadik's redoubt and the Grivitza work remained unburied, and the stench was so terrible that Kronberg was actually sick while we were calling on our hardy little entertainer, and I myself was very nearly guilty of the same solecism.
Owing to the vigilance of nos amis les ennemis, who saluted us so warmly on our arrival at the redoubt, Kronberg and I prolonged our call until it was dusk, and amused ourselves as well as we could in the redoubt. Occasionally we elevated a fez on a bayonet, and drew the fire of a dozen Roumanian rifles at once. Then we returned the compliment with much empressement. In this pleasant interchange of civilities the day wore to a close; and when it was dark we said au revoir to Sadik Pasha, slipped out at the back, found our horses, and rode into the town again.
Kronberg was, as I have said, a capital fellow, plucky as a lion and generous to a fault. He hated the Bulgarians bitterly, but never allowed his detestation of them as a class to outweigh his sense of justice. There was a Bulgarian of some rank and standing in Plevna whom Osman Pasha suspected of allowing his Russophile inclinations to go too far. In fact, the Muchir believed that the man was a Russian spy, and he gave orders to have him shot. Kronberg and Rookh were quartered in this Bulgarian's house; and when the sentence was made known, the man's wife went to them in a terrible state of grief and anxiety, imploring them on her knees to save her husband, and swearing with the most solemn protestations that he was absolutely innocent. Kronberg and Rookh were of the same opinion; and knowing that I had a little influence with the headquarters staff, they came to me and asked me to see Osman Pasha on the subject, and ask him to reconsider his decision. Osman Pasha listened to my representations very courteously, and I was so far successful that he consented to the man being simply locked up instead of being shot. The Bulgarian's life was spared, and he was sent down as a prisoner to Constantinople when the road was opened up by Chefket Pasha.
It was at this period that my hospital work, which had previously proceeded on regulated lines, with a hopeful measure of success attending my efforts, began to degenerate into a desperate, single-handed struggle against wounds, want, filth, disease, and death.
I was sent to take charge of a large building which had been converted into a hospital, and was already overcrowded with the most pitiable cases. The building stood in several acres of ground on the bank of the Tutchenitza, and about a quarter of a mile from the town, up stream. It had previously been occupied by a wealthy Turk, and consisted really of two large houses, one behind the other, and connected by a passage. The house in the rear had been the harem, while the one in front had been occupied by the old Turk and the male members of the household. There was a small well kept garden leading up to the central entrance, and a picket fence with a gate shut it off from the road. There were two large rooms, one on each side of the front door, and two more behind the staircase, with others upstairs and in the building attached at the rear. Altogether there must have been about twelve large rooms, high, fairly well ventilated, and whitewashed; but more than half of them had no beds, and the forms of the tortured soldiers were huddled together in their clothes on the bare boards. When I went there first, I had two hundred and fifty men to look after, and the task appeared such a hopeless one that my heart sank within me.
We had a hundred beds in the hospital, and a small supply of extra mattresses and blankets; but those were soon apportioned, and for the other unfortunates nothing remained but to lie huddled up on the floor in the clothes in which they had been shot. They lay on the floor of the passages as well as in the rooms, and were packed so closely that it was most difficult to pick one's way through the hospital without treading on them. In one room, fifteen feet by fifteen feet, I had sixteen men, all hideously wounded, dying hard on the hard boards. The bare, whitewashed walls were splashed with blood, which had turned to rusty dark brown stains, and the horrors of the place can only be faintly hinted at. I was the only medical man on duty in that hospital, with a couple of jarra bashis, or dispensers, to assist in dressing, and a squad of Turkish soldiers as hospital nurses. I had chloroform, it is true, but no other drugs of any kind; for the first supply of medicines, as I have explained before, fell into the hands of the Russians when they captured the tail waggons of the convoy. Worse than all, I saw with dismay that the stock of antiseptic dressings was giving out, and that unless it could be replenished the fearful scourge of hospital gangrene was already threatening us closely.
In the large room in which sixty men were lying, some on stretcher-beds, some on mattresses, and many on the floor, the boards were covered with blood and filth like a shambles. Round many of the sufferers pools of pus had formed on the floor, and the smell was terrible. Here, where these brave men were dying, the atmosphere was intolerable, stifling, asphyxiating. As their eyes roamed round that house of suffering instinctively searching for relief, they rested at intervals on small glass windows set high up in the staring whitewashed wall. Through the latticed panes they could see small squares of far blue sky, and now and then there flitted past one of the white doves that Moslems regard as sacred, on its way to the willows on the bank of the Tutchenitza.
Presently the antiseptic dressings were exhausted altogether, and I had to fall back upon coloured prints from the bazaars for bandages, and to plug the wounds with plain cotton-wool, of which we had a large supply. This was non-absorbent, and naturally when treated in this way the wounds became frightfully repulsive. It was impossible to keep the tissues healthy, and all I could do was to go round on my hands and knees from one man to another, literally scraping the maggots out of the wounds either with my finger or an instrument. The unfortunate men were saturated with blood and pus from their wounds, and covered with maggots which lodged in the festering tissues. Often and often, as I went round the "wards"—save the mark—plodding on almost in despair against the dreadful odds, I have taken the plugging of cotton-wool out of a gaping wound, and found underneath it a nest of maggots, feeding on the flesh of the still living man, who would thank me with a look for temporarily relieving him of the torture.
In one small ward with five beds in it, I had five men who were the finest specimens of humanity that I ever saw in my life. I became greatly attached to them, as they did also to me; and it was pathetic to see their gratitude for the most trifling service. One of them, with his strong aquiline face and piercing eyes, reminded me very much of a statue of Dante which I had seen in the market-place of Verona. My patient had been shot through the thigh. The bone had been dreadfully smashed, and the whole leg was a mass of gangrened flesh. If I could have operated, I might have saved his life; but without antiseptic dressings, and without the possibility of subsequent careful nursing, an operation was out of the question, and I had to watch him suffering day by day dying literally by inches.
In the next bed was an Asiatic Turk, whose wound was a peculiar one. A rifle-bullet had struck the top of his skull, and cut a groove longitudinally from front to back through it. I could do but little for the man, except to keep the wound as clean as possible, and the poor fellow suffered great pain. He used to be continually telling me of his wife and children, in some distant Anatolian village, which he knew he would never see again, and he was very grateful for a sympathetic listener. I was always afraid of brain trouble developing, and after about a week of suffering he became delirious through inflammation of the membranes of the brain, and died at last in fearful convulsions.
Next to him was a man who had been hit in the shoulder by a piece of a shell. The bone was smashed to pieces, and several days after the battle I took a piece of iron as large as a hen's egg from a great hole near the man's armpit. I asked him to let me amputate the arm at the shoulder joint; but he would not let it be done, and he was still alive some weeks afterwards when I finally left Plevna. The fourth man had been shot in the thigh, and the wound had no chance of healing without proper dressing. I used to squeeze out about a pint of matter from it every day. The fifth patient had been shot in the clavicle, and had a huge ragged wound in the shoulder. I used to stuff it with cotton-wool, and try to keep the maggots from collecting in the cavity; but when I took out the plug of wool, there were always maggots underneath it. Four out of the five were dead before I left the town.
In the large room, which contained sixty men, though the space would not properly accommodate more than twenty, I had several cases of blood-poisoning due to the colours "running" in the cheap prints which I was obliged to use for bandages. The dyes got into the wounds, and pyæmia carried off the men like rotting sheep. The food up to this period was still fairly good, and we had plenty of good water.
Some of my Hospital Cases—A Death from Jaundice—Small-pox and Typhoid Fever—Hospital Gangrene—Waiting for the Burial Parties—Horrible Depression—I am slightly wounded—Turkish Florence Nightingales—A Ghastly Case—I am powerless for want of Stores—The Men die off like Sheep—Arrival of a Party of English Doctors—A Welcome Visit—Dr. Bond Moore and Dr. Mackellar—Dr. George Stoker Sick—Interview with Osman Pasha—His Reception of the English Doctors—Osman Pasha's Position—The English Doctors indignant—Osman Pasha justified—A Ride to the Krishin Redoubts—The English Doctors under Fire—My Reasons for leaving Plevna—A Farewell Supper—Mustapha Bey and the Whisky—The Departure of the Wounded—Good-bye to Plevna.
One very peculiar case came under my notice in the principal ward. It was that of a man who had been struck by a spent bullet over the region of the liver. The wound had not penetrated the flesh, and there was nothing but a small, sloughing sore over the liver to indicate the spot where the man had been hit. Two days afterwards he developed acute jaundice, and died in three days. I could not understand it at the time, but it struck me afterwards that the blow from the bullet had ruptured the liver.
To add to the horrors of the general situation, confluent small-pox made its appearance among the wounded; and as I had no means of isolating the patients, it quickly spread. Then several cases of typhoid fever broke out, owing to the insanitary conditions; but strangely enough the disease did not spread, and the mortality from it was small. Imagine the miseries of an unhappy man, who, while suffering from a smashed thigh which prevented him from even moving to resist the maggots that assailed him, was then smitten with small-pox or typhoid fever!
Little by little the septic troubles increased, and at last the crown of misery was reached when hospital gangrene made its appearance. Few civilian medical men now practising have ever seen hospital gangrene; but the records of the terrible mischief which it produced in the days before the discovery of the antiseptic treatment are still extant. The patients who took the hospital gangrene usually suffered considerably, while they rotted away before my eyes, and I was powerless to help them.
The men also got covered with body lice; and as I spent fourteen hours a day as a rule lifting them up, washing them, and dressing their wounds, the noxious insects attacked me too, and during the whole of my subsequent stay in Plevna I was never absolutely free from them. I had only two flannel shirts, and one of these was boiled every day by my servant; but in spite of all precautions, I could never keep free from the insect pests.
Every morning when I went to the hospital the first thing that met my eyes as I opened the little wicket-gate leading into the garden was the row of corpses of the men who had died during the previous night. They were put out there to wait for the burial parties, and the sight never failed to make a profound impression on me. As I walked past them up the path the sight of those dead faces fascinated me; and when I found among them men who were my special favourites, and who had told me the stories of their simple, uneventful lives, and of their wives and children waiting for them in distant parts of the Turkish Empire, a feeling of overpowering depression came over me. I was so utterly helpless to save them, and I was fighting such a hopeless battle, that once or twice I sat down in the hospital and cried like a child. As fast as the men died fresh ones were brought in, and often I found that twenty old faces had gone during the night and that the same number of new ones awaited me in the morning. Skirmishes were always going on between the outposts, and the intermittent bombardment claimed a daily quota of victims, a considerable proportion of whom were sent to me for treatment.
It was at this period that I was wounded for the first and last time out of all the scores of occasions that I have been under fire. It was a mere flesh wound, little more indeed than a scratch; but as I was in a very low state of health from continuous overwork and under-feeding, the flesh wound set up a local condition which still further reduced my strength, and contributed eventually to my leaving Plevna for a short rest. As I was unable to get back again, owing to the Russians closing the road, I was prevented from witnessing the last pathetic scene of all, when Osman Pasha's heroic defence was exhausted, and he had to surrender to the invader.
A chance shot from a Russian field-gun did it for me, during the desultory firing that went on languidly from day to day between the opposing redoubts. I was riding out one morning to visit Sadik Pasha, and was cantering leisurely across to the Bash Tabiya, when I heard the scream of a shell, and recognized instinctively that it was coming my way. One got so used to estimating the course of shells from constant practice that one could pretty well tell by the sound where a particular shell was likely to fall. My charger too was a perfect old war-hardened veteran, and he took no more notice of a shell exploding five yards in front of his nose than if it had been a custard-apple. When I heard the whistle of the shell, I stuck the spurs in and tried to get out of the way in time; but I did not succeed, and when it exploded a bit of the casing took me in the back of the neck with a sharp, burning shock that felt as if I had been struck with a piece of red-hot iron. When I put my hand up to the place, I drew it back covered with blood; but I quickly discovered that it was a mere surface wound, and when I got back to town and bandaged it, I found that it did not in the least interfere with the performance of my medical duties. However, an abscess formed on the place, and troubled me a good deal.
I was very much overworked. Neither food nor rest was plentiful. I never saw a compatriot, and I spent all my waking hours in the midst of horrible sufferings which I was powerless to alleviate. It was no wonder, under these circumstances, that I became despondent; and after this lapse of time I may as well confess that the thought occurred to me whether it would not be better to blow my brains out than go on in the misery any longer. But when I looked round on those magnificent men—more long-suffering, patient, and courageous men I have never seen in my life—I banished the dark thought, and went back to the work with all the spirit I could muster. Sometimes even now when I lie awake at night I see myself again dressed in a blood-stained shirt and pair of trousers, as I picked my way among the huddled forms with their ashen faces bound up in those fantastic bandages of coloured print. I see the pools of curdled blood on the floor, the staring whitewashed walls, and the little squares of blue sky through the latticed windows. I hear the stifled moans and I catch the delirious murmurs of that Anatolian Turk as in his death-throes, like Falstaff "he babbled o' green fields."
Although we had no female nurses, still I found that the Turkish women, whenever they had an opportunity, attended to the wounded with the devotion of a Florence Nightingale. There was a small outbuilding in the grounds that surrounded the hospital, and this also was filled with wounded. One day I found two Turkish women there, and learned that they were frequent visitors, bringing milk and broth to the wounded. When I saw them, they were moving silently about in their long white robes, with only the eyes showing through their thick yashmaks. One exceptionally hideous case in the outbuilding received attention from them. The man had been struck on the side of the face by a shell, which carried away the whole of his upper and lower jaws. Only his eyes remained, looking plaintively out above the mangled mass that had once been a human face. The Turkish women could just see by the roots of the tongue the position of the gullet, and they kept the unfortunate wretch alive for four days by pouring milk down his throat.
One evening, as I was leaving the hospital almost heart-broken, three men were brought in, and I went back to attend to them. One man had both his legs taken off by a shell from a heavy siege-gun, and was blanched from loss of blood; the second had been struck by a shell, which had carried away arm and shoulder together; the third was shot through the lungs by a rifle-bullet. Next morning, when I returned to the hospital, I saw the three men lying out dead on the path as soon as I opened the gate. Some idea of the hopelessness of my position may be gathered by the medical reader, when he learns that I had forty-seven compound comminuted fractures under my hands at one time, and all were suppurating, while I had no appliances of any kind for dressing them properly.
This was the state of affairs when Chefket Pasha opened up the road from Sofia again with a relief column bringing up under his escort a supply of medical stores and a party of English doctors who desired to volunteer their services. The head of the medical party was Dr. Bond Moore; and very picturesque he looked when he arrived in his Circassian dress. With him was Dr. Mackellar, who had gained a reputation in the Franco-Prussian war, and was a well known authority on gunshot wounds. Then there was Mr. David Christie Murray, who was at that time a war correspondent, but was introduced to me as a medical student, and in that capacity had an opportunity of inspecting my hospital, which he afterwards described very graphically in the Scotsman. A man named Smith, who was in the Indian Civil Service, and who had come up for the sake of the adventure, was another member of the party, which also included my old friend George Stoker, now a Harley Street physician. Last, but not least, there was Captain Morisot, a charming fellow, who was afterwards with me at Erzeroum.
The visitors hunted me up when they arrived, and we had a great supper at my quarters. It was an intense relief to meet some of my own countrymen at last, and I was so glad to see them that I distributed all my curios among them, presenting to these strangers the crosses in bronze and gold, the lockets, and the other trinkets that had belonged to Russian owners before they were sold in the Plevna bazaars as grim treasure-trove of the battle-field.
Dr. Mackellar was an old friend, for I had met him before the war when I was in Vienna; and I was delighted also to meet George Stoker, who was one of my fellow passengers when I came down the Danube. It is difficult for any one who has never been placed in such a position to form an idea of the delightful sensation which I experienced at meeting with English-speaking men again after a period of seventeen months spent out of the hearing of my mother tongue. Imagine the feelings of an Englishman when he first catches sight of the white cliffs of Dover after long travelling in foreign lands; or think of the sensations of an Australian returning after a couple of years in Europe when he sees the lights at Port Phillip Heads or the entrance to Sydney Harbour again. My feelings were similar when I dropped my Turkish and picked up my half-forgotten English once more in the presence of men of my own race, whose cheerful talk dispelled the gloomy thoughts which my daily struggle against the ever increasing forces of suffering and disease had engendered.
The wound on the back of my neck was very painful, and the large abscess which had formed on it had still further reduced my system. Dr. Mackellar lanced it for me the first night he was in Plevna, and this gave me great relief.
George Stoker had a bad attack of dysentery when he arrived, and he arranged to stop at my place so that I could look after him more easily. I opened up negotiations with my little fair-haired Bulgarian boy, who managed, with a good deal of trouble, to get me some milk, and thus I was enabled to provide proper diet for the invalid.
On the morning after the arrival of the English medical party, Dr. Bond Moore, with Mr. Harvey, a man of English parentage, who was born in the Levant and spoke Turkish like a Turk, together with Dr. Mackellar, waited upon Osman Pasha in his tent. Dr. Bond Moore explained to Osman Pasha through Mr. Harvey that they had been sent out by the Stafford House Committee, a large national organization in London which had collected £50,000 for the purpose of relieving the sufferings caused by the war in Turkey. They desired to undertake the care of the wounded Turks then in Plevna.
Now Osman Pasha was essentially a man of action. Though there was plenty of the fortiter in re about him, there was little of the suaviter in modo; and Bond Moore and Mackellar, who did not know him as well as I did, jumped to the conclusion that he was intentionally discourteous in his reception of them and in his reply to their representations. He pointed out to them that of the four thousand wounded men who were then in the hospitals, more than two-thirds would be sent away to Sofia on the following day, now that the road had been opened up by Chefket Pasha. This determination on his part, he explained, was dictated by consideration for the wounded as well as for the rest of the troops in Plevna. They would receive better treatment at Sofia, they would leave more rations for the fighting men, and there would again be room in the hospitals available for the wounded men who might be expected after future engagements. Probably, continued Osman, not more than four hundred wounded men would be left in the hospitals when the ambulance train went away, and meanwhile the medical staff at his disposal was quite strong enough to cope with the work. He also had another powerful reason for sending away the wounded in the overcrowding of the hospitals, which was causing terrible devastation by septic disease; and we knew that if the congested wards were relieved, we might get the upper hand of the gangrene and pyæmia which were doing all the damage.
Naturally enough Bond Moore and Mackellar were staggered to find that, after travelling all the way from England and incurring a good many hardships on the way, they were not to be allowed to do the work for which they had been sent. They represented to Osman Pasha the danger of sending away on a long and terrible journey wounded men who were quite unfit to travel; and Bond Moore, as the spokesman, entered a vigorous protest against the "gross inhumanity" of the course proposed by the Turkish commander-in-chief. Osman Pasha, however, was inexorable; and always a brusque and stern man at the best, he became still more forbidding in his manner when the English doctors reiterated their protests. The deputation left the tent in high dudgeon at what they regarded as the discourtesy of their reception, and were thoroughly disappointed after reaching Plevna in safety to be peremptorily ordered to quit it at once.
As a further protest, Dr. Mackellar waited upon Hassib Bey, our principal medical officer, and I was present at the interview, in which the English surgeon told the old Turk that it was a disgrace to humanity to send the wounded away by carts in the condition in which they were. The conversation was carried on in French, and Dr. Mackellar spoke very strongly, declaring that it was a barbarous and brutal thing to send the wounded men away, many of whom he considered, as a surgeon of large experience, to be quite unfit to travel. I felt quite sorry for poor old Hassib Bey, especially as I myself, with a full comprehension of the whole position, was thoroughly in accord with Osman Pasha's view. It was perfectly plain to me that the wisest course was to despatch the wounded men from out the crowded hospitals into the fresh air and away to Sofia. No doubt a percentage of them would die on the road from the actual hardship of travel; but if they were left in Plevna, a far larger proportion would inevitably die of septic diseases, while the congested condition of the hospitals would be still further aggravated, and slow starvation would add shortly to the sufferings of the unfortunates. The proof of the wisdom of Osman Pasha's action was very manifest afterwards; for though he was starved out eventually, he could not have held the town nearly as long as he did if he had not seized the opportunity when the road was open to send the wounded away.
Hassib Bey listened deprecatingly to Dr. Mackellar's spirited protest; but the fiat had gone forth from headquarters, and he was powerless to accede to his visitor's request even if he had the inclination.
Dr. Bond Moore sent in a formal written protest to Osman Pasha, who vouchsafed no reply, and the Stafford House surgeons spent the rest of the day examining my hospital. In connection with this incident of the expulsion of the Stafford House doctors from Plevna, I may reproduce the report on the subject, which I afterwards sent to Mr. V. B. Kennett, the Stafford House commissioner. My report, which was published in the Times of November 15, 1877, ran as follows:
"At your request I write to you a short account of the state of Plevna on the occasion of the visit of Dr. Bond Moore, Stafford House section, and the circumstances attending the evacuation of the wounded. When Drs. Bond Moore and Mackellar arrived in Plevna, we had in our hospitals there between four and five thousand wounded, probably three thousand five hundred of them having received their wounds between September 5 and October 12, the remainder being the graver cases of our former fighting which were considered too serious to send on to Sofia. We have always received orders after any heavy fighting to send off all who were not too gravely wounded to Sofia, and so we have by this means never had more than five or six hundred in our hospitals. But unfortunately, during the hard fighting in September, we were completely surrounded by the Russians, and were actually, so to speak, in a state of siege, so that we had the accumulation of nearly a month's fighting in addition to the graver cases of our earlier battles. Such was the state of affairs when Chefket Pasha relieved Plevna, and when Drs. Moore and Mackellar arrived and kindly offered to form hospitals in Plevna. On presenting themselves to Osman they were received quite courteously. He told them he was very glad to see them, but that if they were sent in the real cause of humanity, and to assist his wounded, he much preferred them leaving for Sofia and establishing themselves there; if, however, they wished to remain and see the fighting, they were perfectly welcome to do so, but if they did they would have very little work to do, as he was sending nearly all the wounded to Sofia, and for those who were remaining he had a sufficient staff of surgeons. His reasons for sending away the wounded must appear most obvious to any one knowing the circumstances of the case. I believe that it is always one of the first considerations of a general, after a battle, to send off as soon as possible all wounded who are in a state to travel, in order to make room for further fighting. In addition to this main consideration, I must state that our accommodation was very insufficient, that many of our hospitals consisted of houses without windows, and we were fearfully overcrowded, often having thirty men in a room only large enough for ten. Then, again, we had no beds, and could not procure them as there was no wood to make them of. Another great consideration was that we had not sufficient nor proper food, having only the bare necessaries of life, such as biscuits and meat. From a sanitary point of view, it was also extremely desirable to remove them as quickly as possible, thereby lessening the chances of an epidemic, which is always liable to break out when such a large population is confined in a small area. It was, I believe, in 1866 that a very serious epidemic of cholera broke out in Plevna. Of the four thousand five hundred wounded I believe that all but two hundred and fifty were sent off, the wounds of those remaining being of the very gravest character. Most of the wounds of those sent away were very slight, being flesh wounds caused by bullets, which would be perfectly healed in from twenty to thirty days. I believe in all about sixty or seventy cases of fracture were sent off; in most of them union had already occurred, and in those in which it had not I am of opinion that they stood a better chance of recovery by their removal from a hospital impregnated with septic germs into a purer atmosphere and where they could have more attention paid to them. Dr. George Stoker took with him in his ambulance to Orkhanieh forty cases, but it must be remembered that these were the very gravest. Three of them died on the way; but as they were cases out of my own hospital I can speak about them with confidence, and can say that in the most favourable circumstances recovery would have been impossible. Osman Pasha also acted with foresight from a military point of view; for had he not sent off his wounded, and had Stafford House and the Red Crescent retained them in hospitals established there, what would be their position at present now that Plevna is again surrounded by the Russians? It must be a matter of satisfaction to Osman Pasha to have sent off as many of the non-combatant population as possible, for it must be a great drain on one's commissariat to have to feed four or five thousand non-combatants in a place like Plevna where provisions are so difficult to procure. I may add that I consider I am in a position to speak with authority on such a subject, as I have been for fifteen months in the Turkish service, and for the last five have been in Plevna."
When the medical men went round my hospital, they saw the horrors among which I had been working for the previous month, and then I took them out to our operating theatre under the blue sky on the banks of the Tutchenitza. Here Dr. Mackellar performed several operations, and showed us some brilliant surgery, including four disarticulations of the shoulder joint.
Next day we all rode out to the Krishin redoubt which Skobeleff had taken, and which was soon afterwards recaptured with fearful loss. I was able to point out the exact spot where the heaviest of the fighting had taken place to Dr. Bond Moore, Dr. Mackellar, and Mr. David Christie Murray, who were naturally interested in making a personal inspection of the scene of such a great historical fight.
As the four of us rode away in a southerly direction to the Ibrahim Bey redoubt, the Russian artillerymen saw us, and in a couple of seconds the Stafford House doctors and the war correspondent had an experience which struck them with all the force of the novel and the unexpected. The Russians fired six shells at us, and it certainly was a wonder that some of us were not killed, for the artillerymen had found the range by long practice at the redoubts, and their shells fell all round us. It was no novelty for me to hear the projectiles whizzing about, but I was surprised at the courage and coolness with which the visitors behaved, and luckily all four of us came out of it without a scratch.
That evening I thought the whole position over, and determined to apply for a short leave of absence, and take a trip down to Constantinople with the intention of returning to Plevna in a couple of weeks. I should not have dreamed of leaving the position so long as I could be of any real service there; but most of the wounded men were about to be sent away, and there would be nothing left for me to do. In addition to this, I was in a very bad state of health. I had a large suppurating cavity at the back of my neck from my wound, and my system had completely run down. My mother, whom I had not seen for years, was then in Europe, and I thought that it would be a capital opportunity to run down and see her. Moreover, my agreement with the Turkish Government was for only one year, and I had already been serving for seventeen months. It was these considerations, and not, as was afterwards stated in various newspapers, the refusal of Osman Pasha to avail himself of the assistance of the Stafford House doctors, that induced me to interview Hassib Bey and apply for leave of absence. I asked him for leave of absence for two or three weeks, pointing out that nearly all the wounded would be sent away, and that there was no immediate likelihood of any more fighting before I returned. Hassib Bey said that he would give me leave with very great pleasure, and he voluntarily gave me a letter to the Seraskierat, in which he was good enough to express the very highest appreciation of my services. In fact, it was practically impossible for any man to get a higher testimonial than that which Hassib Bey gave me on the eve of my departure from Plevna. He suggested that I should ask Osman Pasha to ratify the leave of absence; and Tewfik Pasha having conducted me into Osman Pasha's presence, I repeated my application to him, assuring him that I would not think of leaving as long as there was any work for me to do. The Muchir thanked me for my services, of which he expressed high appreciation, and hoped to see me back in Plevna.
If I could have foreseen that the road would be blocked again by the Russians, and that it would be impossible for me to return once I left the town, I would have stayed by the troops at all costs. I was devoted to the Turkish army and the Turkish cause. I never spared myself in carrying out my duties, and I was bound by the strongest ties of attachment to my patients, as they were also, I felt and knew, to me. I positively loved the great, rough barbarians who bore their sufferings with such noble fortitude in my hospital, and during the whole of my time in Plevna I never had the slightest unpleasantness with a single one of them, and received always the greatest gratitude from them all. At that time there was no Turk in Plevna more Turkish in sympathies than I was. I threw my whole heart and soul and all my energies into the Turkish cause, and no one could have gone through all that I had without being impressed with a feeling of the most profound admiration for the patience, courage, and heroic patriotism of the Turkish private soldier. Intending as I did to remain away for a couple of weeks at most, I felt that the parting was only temporary; and when I went to say good-bye to the colonel of my regiment, Suleiman Bey, he wished me a cheery au revoir, expecting to see me soon back again. I had quite an affecting farewell with dear old Hassib Bey, and I also went round and said good-bye to all my intimate friends and the men with whom I had been brought most closely into contact. It was a great disappointment to me that I could not find the regimental barber, a little red-headed Turk, who used to shave me every Sunday, whether there was firing in progress or not, making me sit down on the ground and taking my head between his knees for the better performance of his task. Anxious as I was to make him a little present in recognition of his skill and punctuality, I was unable to find him. Like his brethren of the craft in other countries, he was a most loquacious conversationalist, and I got all the gossip of the trenches during the ten minutes that I was under his hands every Sunday.