Of course all conveyances were placed on runners while the snow was on the ground, and the little sleighs which served as dead-carts passed our house every morning at about ten o'clock with their mournful loads collected from the various hospitals. The bodies of the dead soldiers were stripped of their clothing and wrapped in clean white sheets according to the Moslem custom. Each little sleigh contained ten or twelve bodies, and as I looked out in the morning I could see the burial parties going out on duty. The white-sheeted corpses were packed closely together; and as the sleighs had no tailboards and were very small, the naked feet of the corpses projected out at the back in a horribly grotesque fashion. As the little vehicles, which were dragged by the fatigue squads, glided in ghostly silence over the frozen snow a long howl in the distance broke the stillness. This was taken up by another, and another, and another, until the voices of fully fifteen hundred famished dogs came through the crisp, clear wintry air with terrible significance, chilling the marrow of the listener as he watched the long procession of helpless, white-sheeted corpses moving slowly over the white-sheeted ground. A Parsee's obsequies, when the filthy vultures flap their wings and gather to the feast, must be an eerie sight; a Gussein's funeral in the Ganges, where the great flat-nosed alligators swarm expectantly, must stir even the sluggish imagination of the impassive Hindoo. But surely no man ever had more dreadful burial rites than were celebrated daily over hundreds of the dead inside the walls of Erzeroum, where the famished dogs disputed the possession of the poor mutilated remnants with sickening ferocity, and where the only prayers over the bodies of the dead were the muttered growls of the worrying pack. There is a short passage in "The Siege of Corinth" which exactly describes the grisly scene. Lord Byron wrote of Alp the renegade as he paced under the walls of Corinth these lines:
In this passage the poet has described with more detail than one cares to give in a plain narrative the scene which was enacted every morning in the early part of that month of January within the walls of Erzeroum.
It was about January 8 that I took the fever, which was by this time ravaging both the civil and military population. At first I tried to shake it off, and continued to walk about with aching head and quaking limbs in the hope that it might not have got a fair hold of me. On the second day I became quite stupid, though I still refused to go to bed, and on the evening of that day Pinkerton died.
Next morning we buried him. Wood was so difficult to get, that we were put to great straits to make a coffin for him; but at last we contrived one out of an old packing-case. Pinkerton was a very tall man, and the flimsy coffin was hardly big enough for the body. There was scarcely enough wood to make the lid fit properly. When we were making the preparations for the burial, I was myself nearly delirious with typhus, and almost the last thing that I can remember before going off altogether was the sight of the miserable coffin with a gaping crevice in the top, through which the end of poor Pinkerton's silky fair beard was protruding. Denniston notified Hakki Bey, the civil governor, of our loss; and an escort of soldiers came down and buried our comrade by the side of Dr. Guppy, who had died on duty in the same place before we arrived there. The burial service was read by the Rev. Mr. Cole, an American missionary, who was in Erzeroum, accompanied by his wife and family and by a young American lady, also engaged in missionary work among the Armenians. Then the soldiers fired a volley over the grave, and the career of the fine young army surgeon was closed.
When I was put to bed, the whole strength of the medical and assisting staff of the two English hospitals, Lord Blantyre's Hospital and that of the Stafford House Committee, was reduced to one man, namely, Dr. Denniston. Guppy and Pinkerton were dead, and Williams, Morisot, and myself were down with typhus. Under these circumstances, Denniston was left with the two hospitals full of patients to look after as well as us three at home, and he rose to the occasion most heroically.
Of course at that time I was unconscious of everything, but I found out afterwards what happened. Denniston handed the English hospital back to the Turkish administration which had managed it before our arrival, and he secured an assistant from the French consul to help him with the other one and with us. He told me afterwards that I made a very good patient, but I doubt it. I can just remember him coming in to see me one day and giving me a pill, which, though I was almost delirious, I made a great pretence of swallowing, but really kept it under my tongue and spat it out as soon as he had left the room!
The American missionary, Mr. Cole, used to come and sit with me sometimes. I had known him before I was ill, and admired his character greatly. He seemed to me to be a very fine type of man and a true Christian. In Erzeroum at that time the healing of souls was attended with as much danger as the healing of bodies, and there were martyrs in both causes. Mr. Cole lost one of his children from typhus, and the bright, winning, and enthusiastic young American lady who was working as a missionary in conjunction with him and Mrs. Cole also laid down her life in the noble service in which she had engaged.
During the day, while Denniston was away at the hospital fighting a desperate single-handed battle against wounds and disease of every kind, we patients at home had many kindly visitors. Morisot and Williams got over the worst of the illness sooner than I did; but for some time we all required watching.
I am sorry to say that during my illness I grievously erred against good taste, and quite forgot the esteem and regard which I venture to believe I had always hitherto shown towards ladies. The fact of the matter was that I had seen so few ladies in the past eighteen months that the sight of them irritated and annoyed my disordered brain exceedingly. So it came about that, when two sweet-faced French nuns, who had heard from Dr. Denniston of his desperate need for nurses, called in and visited me, I viewed their presence with the profoundest suspicion and distrust. I had been working for so long among great, strong, hairy-faced Turks that my delirious imagination failed to recognize these two young nuns, with their rustling skirts and their soft white hands, as fellow creatures at all, and I expressed such terror and alarm at their appearance that the poor things were obliged to fly. In the Ingoldsby Legends there is a picture of François Xavier Auguste, the gay mousquetaire, sitting up in bed in an attitude of horror, while on chairs at each side of his pillow sit duplicate images of Sister Thérèse. I must have looked very much like that when the well meaning nuns came in to sit by me, and found my language and demeanour so terrifying that they had to decamp at once, leaving me to the less exciting ministrations of a dear old Capuchin monk called Father Basilio, who was sent to take their place. He used to sit up with me in the long night watches and humour all my fancies, kindly old soul that he was; but I think he never expected that I would pull through.
Though young in years, I was a veteran as far as horrors were concerned, and I can truthfully say that I was absolutely without fear of death. Possibly it was this that saved me, for I remember telling Denniston at the worst period of my illness that he need have no fear on my account, for I had not the slightest intention of "pegging out."
I was very bad for about twelve days, and the events of that time of illness impressed themselves on my brain in the vaguest and most indistinct manner. Still, it is interesting from the scientific point of view to note that impressions can be made even upon a semi-comatose brain which are sufficiently strong to be of subsequent use. The negatives on the convolutions of the brain were not very sharply outlined; but the will, like a skilful photographer, could retouch them afterwards until they made a perfect picture. This scientific fact I was able to demonstrate myself, to the great confusion of our Armenian dragoman Vachin.
It happened this way. When I recovered from the fever, I was helping Denniston to make an inventory of poor Pinkerton's personal effects, so that we could send them to his relatives, when we made the unpleasant discovery that a sum of £20 which he had in his possession was missing. Pinkerton used to carry the money in Turkish liras in the pocket of his trousers; and as I had been shifted into his room after his death because it was larger and airier than my own, his trousers were hanging on a nail on the wall right opposite my bed. We examined the pockets, but they were empty.
Then I began to think back and to think hard. Gradually there appeared before the eye of my mind the picture of a shadowy, misty, unsubstantial figure, that wobbled grievously from side to side as it walked, and seemed to turn round and round with the room, the bed, the chair, and the window, which all swung and oscillated like the engines of the little Messageries steamer that brought us up to Trebizond. What on earth was the captain of the Messageries steamer going to do! and how the little tub was rolling, to be sure! Was it the captain, though, or some one else? I fastened all the will power of my brain, healthy once more, upon the misty shadow cast upon its disordered surface during illness. I saw the scene again, more distinctly now, and noted that the wobbling figure approached the wall exactly at the spot where the trousers hung on the nail opposite my bed. The engines seemed to be slowing down, little by little the room ceased to revolve, and at last the figure turned round towards my bed, and I saw the face. It was not the captain of the steamer, but it was Vachin, our dragoman, and he was deliberately counting out money from poor Pinkerton's trousers pocket.
All this came back to me with greater clearness the longer I thought over it; and at last I felt morally certain that Vachin was the thief, and that he had cynically taken the money before my eyes, knowing that I was delirious, and confident that I would never recover to bear witness against him.
We taxed the Armenian with the theft; and when I told him that it was no use denying it, for I had seen him take the money, he confessed his guilt. A short consultation between Denniston and myself was followed by the despatch of a note to Hakki Bey, the civil governor; and as a punishment for misdeeds in the past and an incentive to virtue in the future, Vachin was consigned to the Erzeroum general prison pending the pleasure of the governor. We got back the £20 from him before he went, and for three weeks we left him in a place, from which the Black Hole of Calcutta would have been a pleasant change, to meditate upon the instability of human happiness. We sent him some blankets and also food at intervals, besides going up occasionally to see how he was getting on and whether he was truly repentant. The condition of the unfortunate wretch, however, was so deplorable, and the interior of that prison, with its gangs of half-frozen, half-starved prisoners fighting fiercely among themselves for the scanty dole of raw grain and old rags that were thrown among them by the gaolers, was so distressing, that we relented, and procured a release for our thievish dragoman from Hakki Bey. On the night that he was discharged from prison he deserted to the Russians, and we never saw him again. And so farewell to Vachin.
Convalescence—Membra Disjecta—Mortality among the Medical Staff—"En haut Mystère, en bas Misère"—Arrival of Dr. Stoker and Dr. Stiven—A Desperate Journey—In the Hands of the Russians—Free under the English Flag—I resume Duty—An Archæological Curio—Antiques for Sale—An Armistice declared—Appearance of the Russians—The Gates thrown Open—Entry of the Russian Army—Our Russian Confrères—The Advantage of knowing French—A Friend in need—Captain Pizareff—An Impressive Review—Under the Russian Eagles—War or Peace?—Interview with General Melikoff—An Unpleasant Type of Consul—Charming Russian Visitors—I receive a Decoration—Celebrating the Occasion—Our Russian Guests—A Series of Dinner Parties—Duties of a Cossack Escort—A Perilous Adventure—The Hero of Devoi Boyun—We leave the Consulate—Fate's Irony at the Last—Death of General Heymann.
When I rose from my sick-bed I was very thin and weak; but under Denniston's care I soon picked up my strength, and at last he allowed me to go out for a walk. It was the first week in February, and the snow was beginning to melt on the low ground; although beyond the valley in which Erzeroum stood it still lay thick upon the hills, and Kopdagh in the distance rose to a crystal spear-point of dazzling whiteness outlined sharply against the sky.
Contrasted with the serene purity of the mountain heights, the squalid horrors of Erzeroum in the valley struck home to the imagination with redoubled force. Here and there, as I paced through the streets with the unsteady gait and the frequent pauses of a man scarcely yet recovered from fever, I could see in the dirty, brownish, melting slush grim evidences of disease and death. The hordes of dogs which infested the town had dragged the bones of the dead men who had been abandoned to them into the very streets; and as the snow which hid the poor remains for a time began to melt, the bones reappeared in ghastly fashion. Close to the doorstep of our own quarters I saw a skull picked as clean as a piece of ivory; and before I had gone a hundred yards another pitiable sight met my eyes. It was the bone of a man's arm, from which the hand was missing, and the cleanness of the cut showed that it had been amputated during life. Probably it had been a case of frostbite. On every side, as I walked on feebly and slowly, I saw these human remains peeping shamefacedly from the snow that would no longer cover them; and a few inquiries showed me that while I was raving with the fever and unconscious of all around me, terrible things had been happening in Erzeroum. The place had become a veritable pesthouse; and while the civil and military population had alike fallen under the scourge of typhus, by far the heaviest losses had occurred in the ranks of the medical staff. No fewer than twenty-seven doctors had been attacked by the disease; and the malignant form in which it appeared may be gauged from the fact that of these twenty-seven more than half had succumbed. Of the survivors I was one. I knew then—and have remembered it ever since—that I owed my life to the skill and care of that devoted surgeon James Denniston.
Looking round the fever-stricken town, I saw on every hand dead men lying in the snow, and living men, worn to shadows like myself, crawling feebly about the streets; while outside the gates the Russians were waiting grimly until the thaw should enable them to bring up their artillery and complete the work that sickness had begun. Then lifting my eyes to the mountains, I saw them rearing their unapproachable pinnacles to the sky, far above human suffering and weakness. The shadows of the clouds moved across the face of one great snow-field to the southward, but the ice-peak that pierced the blue above was iridescent in the sunlight. It seemed like an illustration of the words of that French poet who wrote:
As I drew near our quarters again after my short walk, I saw a small crowd gathered near the door; and next minute I was shaking hands, with a heart too full for words, with my old friends Dr. Stoker and Dr. Stiven, who had come up from Constantinople on a mission of relief.
When I fell ill and Denniston was left alone, he managed to get a letter away to Constantinople through the Russian lines announcing the precarious position in Erzeroum, and Dr. Stoker and Dr. Stiven at once volunteered to come up as a rescue party. Reaching Trebizond on January 27, they pushed forward at once, preparations for the journey having been expedited by Mr. Biliotti; but they had to stop most of the first night at Jevislik to rest the post-horses, and here the hazardous nature of their undertaking was brought home to them. An early start was made next morning, and all that day these two heroic men pushed on with tired horses, a reluctant guide, and one hundred and fifty miles of snow and ice in front of them. The road was excessively difficult, for the little pathway, about two feet wide, was frozen and slippery, and wound along the edge of a cliff about nine hundred feet high, while snowdrifts, which in some places were twenty feet deep, threatened to engulf them. Several times the baggage-horses fell, and the whole party had to halt and unpack and reload the animals; so that the march was much delayed, and it was two hours after dark before they reached the summit of the Zegana Pass, where they camped for the night. The next day they reached Ghumish Khané, and there for the first time since leaving Trebizond they got a relay of post-horses. A long struggle of eighteen hours brought the relief party from Ghumish Khané to Baiburt; and after procuring fresh horses with some difficulty, they pushed on to the Kop village at the foot of the worst pass on the whole road.
Here another misfortune befell them; for the guide, who had been showing an inclination to give in for several stages past, refused when they were half-way up the mountain to go a step farther, declaring that it was madness to attempt the pass in such weather, and that they were courting certain death from the avalanches that they could hear at intervals thundering down into the valley below.
Taking their lives in their hands, the two doctors left the guide to make his way back as best he could, and faced the rising path again, taking the pack-horses with them. Once the whole party were submerged in a snowdrift, but managed to get clear again; and after a great struggle of nine hours, they passed the Kopdagh, and arrived at a place called Purnekapan, where they learnt that they were close to the Russian outposts. At the top of the pass the snow lay so thick that, had it not been for the telegraph poles, the whole party must have lost their way and perished; but by dint of following the track thus marked out they were able to advance as far as Ashkaleh, where a Cossack guard was stationed. Hoisting the British flag and also the ambulance flag, the intrepid doctors were escorted by the Cossacks to Ilidja, where they were well received by the Russian general Sistovitch; and after some delay, caused by the necessity of telegraphing to the Grand Duke Michael for permission, they were allowed to go on to Erzeroum, which they reached on February 3. Surely that hazardous relief march of seven whole days, undertaken voluntarily, and carried out with unswerving resolution in the face of every danger, should live in the annals of the medical profession as an example of the unflinching devotion of the two brave men who made it.
Stoker and Stiven told me that the news of my illness had been received in Constantinople with great regret, and they had orders if they found me alive on their arrival at Erzeroum to send me down to the capital at once to recuperate. They also brought me an invitation from Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Commerell, who was stationed in the Gulf of Ismet, to pay him a visit on board his ship for the purpose of regaining my health.
However, it went against the grain with me to think of leaving a sinking ship; and at last we arranged that Stiven should go back, taking Captain Morisot with him, and that Stoker should remain with Denniston and me to look after the hospitals. So we said good-bye to Stiven and Morisot, and devoted ourselves anew to the hospital work. During my illness the Stafford House Hospital, which had been handed back to the Turkish authorities, had been allowed to go to the bad very much; but after four or five days' hard work we soon had everything ship-shape again.
At this period the sickness in the city was at its worst, and the ravages of typhus and typhoid were fearful. We three English doctors had our hands full, and whenever we had an hour to spare from the military hospital our time was taken up in attending upon the poorer Armenians in the city. We could have earned large fees if we had chosen to attend the wealthier classes; but we thought it right to devote all our spare time to the poor people, who had no one else to look after them.
Among our patients was the Catholic Armenian archbishop of the place, a dear old fellow, who was most grateful to Denniston and myself for attending him. When he recovered he wanted us to take a fee, but we declined; and then he insisted on presenting us with the only article of value which he possessed. This was a bracelet which had been excavated from a subterranean village of great antiquity at the foot of Mount Ararat, and consisted of a large ring of bronze, ornamented with two serpents' heads. It was supposed to be about two thousand three hundred years old or thereabouts. We accepted this strange old ornament, which might have been fashioned by some cunning artificer whose father saw the sunlight flashing on the Athenian helmets at Marathon or watched the beak of a Greek galley come crashing through the Persian ship in which he laboured at the oar at Salamis. The serpents on the old bronze bracelet had slumbered on in the subterranean village while centuries came and went and dynasties flitted past like shadows; but at last they were restored again to the light of day. Denniston and I regarded our new acquisition with curiosity not unmixed with awe. Then in our simple, unpoetical way we decided to toss up for it, and the spin of a Turkish piastre, minted so to speak but yesterday, gave Denniston possession of this souvenir of the times of mighty Xerxes.
As soon as it leaked out that archæological objects were regarded with interest by the English doctors, an extraordinary variety of ancient curiosities were pressed upon our notice; and owing to the precarious situation in the town, the owners were all ready to sacrifice their treasures at an alarming reduction. There was something pathetic in the eagerness of a few of these collectors to realize upon their treasures. I was offered an iron signet ring supposed to have belonged to an exalted personage in the time of Alexander the Great for the price of a few doses of quinine; and half a bottle of brandy would have purchased me a curious black stone bearing an inscription that would puzzle the antiquity experts at the British Museum. One day an Armenian named Magack, who held an official position in the British Consulate, brought me a gold coin stamped with a bull's head. He explained to me that it was coined in the reign of the second Persian king, and that it was worth £70 in London; but the evidence on one point seemed to me as inconclusive as on the other, and I declined to purchase it at the price of £30.
Although the snow had begun to melt in the streets, it was still bitterly cold, and we knew that the Russians were only waiting for a regular thaw in order to bring up their artillery. However, we were fortunately not called upon to undergo a bombardment; for with the fall of Kars and Plevna the war was virtually at an end both in Asia Minor and in Europe, and rumours of an armistice were already beginning to be put about.
At last one day I saw a couple of Russian cavalry officers in the town; and hurrying back to my quarters as fast as possible, I sent old Tom Rennison up to headquarters to find out what had happened. He brought back news that they were two parlementaires, who brought telegrams from Constantinople viâ St. Petersburg, notifying the commander-in-chief that the town would be occupied by Russian troops in accordance with the terms of an armistice.
When old Kurd Ismail Pasha heard this news, he wept tears of rage and tore his beard in a frenzy of grief. The troops also, in spite of their terrible losses by wounds and sickness, were very despondent at the prospect of the town being occupied by the enemy without another blow being struck in its defence. Lamentations, however, were useless; and two days later the gates were opened, and General Melikoff, surrounded by his staff, rode into Erzeroum, and took up his quarters in the town.
On the same night, just as Denniston, Stoker, and myself were sitting down to a good dinner in our comfortable quarters, four Russian doctors, who had come in with Melikoff, called at our house. They belonged to the Russian Red Cross Society, and explained that they did not know where to go for the night; so we sent their horses round to our stable, and we invited them to dine with us and stay the night—an invitation which they gladly accepted. We gave them a capital dinner, which they enjoyed very much; and the only thing that marred the complete success of the gathering was the difficulty under which conversational intercourse had to be carried on.
It was on this occasion that my deplorable deficiencies in the matter of conversational French actually endangered my life, which I had managed to preserve up till then, in spite of shot and shell, fever and frostbite. Neither Stoker nor Stiven had pursued his studies in the language of diplomacy much farther than the irregular verbs which tormented them in their fourth-form days at school; and my own French, painfully acquired during my early days in Australia, and never afterwards improved by practice, was distinctly of the Stratford-atte-Bow variety. Consequently the natural embarrassment of finding conversation for the enemy within our gates as well as dinner was increased by the difficulty which we experienced in achieving any remark which we considered it in good taste to utter. Drifting naturally to professional subjects, I made a reference to our colleagues Dr. Casson and Dr. Buckby, who were captured by Cossacks on their way from Kars to Erzeroum, after having been under fire with Mukhtar Pasha's troops at the fighting round Eolia-tepe and Nalban-tepe. I wanted to say that I had heard that the Russians treated the two doctors who were taken prisoners with great kindness, and made things as pleasant as possible for them. What I did say, however, falling into the common schoolboy error of attempting to render an idiom in one language by a phrase of similar sound in another, was this. "J'ai entendu," I remarked, with a smile intended to convey grateful appreciation of services rendered, but which was interpreted as a sinister and sardonic grimace denoting a deliberate intention to insult, "que vous avez fait beaucoup de plaisanteries pour nos deux amis." There was an awkward pause. It was just that sort of pause which occurs at a large dinner party when you inquire audibly from your neighbour the name of the hideously ugly woman who is sitting opposite, and he replies that it is his wife. Then the four Russian doctors began to jabber excitedly to each other, and one of them, jumping to his feet, hurled half a dozen rapid sentences at me, which I dimly felt denoted astonishment, anger, and a demand for satisfaction. It was very clear that I had put my foot in it somehow; but to correct my mistake I strove in vain. The more I said the less it pleased our guests, who loudly insisted upon a duel. This was a pretty go. Morisot, who would have been my best friend in this emergency, was unfortunately in Constantinople; but necessity sharpens one's wits wonderfully, and it flashed upon me in a moment that Magack, the owner of the gold coin with the bull's head that was stamped during the reign of the second Persian king, could speak French admirably. Accordingly the invaluable numismatist was summoned in hot haste; and although I am sure that he never forgave me for not buying that bull's head, he condescended to explain to our guests the difficulty in which the defects of my education had landed me. The Russian doctors turned out to be very good fellows after all, and when they left us General Melikoff sent an aide to thank us for the hospitality which we had shown to them.
Captain Serge Pizareff was the name of the aide-de-camp who came to call on us, and a very pleasant young fellow he was. He told us that the Russians would make a formal entry into the town next day; and that if we liked to see the spectacle, he would send us horses and place himself at our disposal, an offer which, needless to say, we accepted.
There was one thing about Captain Serge Pizareff which struck me very favourably. He had been to England, and spoke English as well as most Englishmen. I argued from that circumstance that the Russian doctors must have dropped a hint as to our deficiencies in the matter of French; but I was prepared to overlook the humiliation for the sake of the convenience.
We got a capital view of the spectacle, thanks to the kindness of Captain Pizareff; for some Cossacks brought us horses in the morning, and we rode out to the large open space inside the walls where the demonstration was to take place. It was a most impressive demonstration. Outside the town a corps d'armée of sixty thousand Russian troops, belonging to all branches of the service, was stationed in the various villages. It was not deemed advisable to bring them all in at once; but detachments from every regiment, including cavalry, infantry, and artillery, were marched forward and brigaded outside the gates. Then at the word of command, while the bands played the regimental quicksteps, they came forward, with colours flying, and entered Erzeroum without striking a blow, across the ground where those same regiments had been swept by the fire from the redoubts along the walls a couple of months before, and had been hurled back in terrible disorder.
General Melikoff reviewed his troops in the great open space between the town and the redoubts which defended the walls. It was a crisp, clear, exhilarating day, and the hard, smooth surface of the glistening snow was still strong enough to bear the troops without sinking in, though here and there an officer's horse would put his foot through the solid crust into the soft powdery snow below and flounder back again, plunging and snorting.
We three Englishmen sat there on the Cossacks' shaggy, hardy little horses, and watched with mingled feelings the triumphant military display of the great Northern power which was celebrating the close of a victorious campaign. We guessed by a kind of instinct that England herself had come within measurable distance of war with the same great power; but we scarcely realized that the issue was still hanging in the balance, and that the steady hand of one man held the scales of war and peace. The treaty of San Stefano had just been signed. This document, which the Sultan ratified on March 3, concluded the war between Russia and Turkey; but the Ottoman Government had to buy peace at a price. Not only was an indemnity of three hundred million roubles secured to Russia, but she also took large possessions in Asia Minor and enormous advantages in Europe.
While we sat on the horses of the Cossack irregulars listening to the huzzas of the Russian troops, Lord Beaconsfield, with the provisions of the treaty before him, was evolving the policy of England. It was not until May 15 that he returned to London with Lord Salisbury, after the Berlin Congress, bringing back "peace with honour."
As we dangled our feet in the big Cossack stirrups watching the Russian standards that made shadows on the snow as they waved lazily in the breeze, a British squadron was steaming to Besika Bay, and the Government of India was preparing to despatch a strong force of Indian troops to Malta. That was because Russia refused to submit the treaty of San Stefano to the other powers in accordance with the peremptory demand of Beaconsfield, and held on her course until the determined attitude assumed by England forced her to modify her claims in Europe.
Although we did not know all this at that time, yet we knew enough to realize that possibly we might see the Russian troops very shortly under quite different circumstances; and this reflection lent piquancy to the situation.
We watched the Russians as they marched in on parade and formed up in a great hollow square, with General Melikoff and the headquarters staff sitting on their horses inside it, and the imperial standards of yellow silk embroidered with the black eagles flaunting in the air.
Then at a given signal the massed bands of all the regiments struck up the Russian national anthem, and the huzzas of the soldiery were given with a goodwill that showed how welcome was the close of the campaign. Our troubles had been severe enough in Erzeroum; but the sufferings of the Russian army camped outside in the snow transcended anything that we had undergone, and General Melikoff told me himself that he had lost 40 per cent. of his army from typhus fever and exposure.
A cleric, or "pope," as he was called, who accompanied the troops in the capacity of an army chaplain, delivered an excited harangue, declaring that the Almighty had given the soldiers of the cross the victory over the infidels; and then the men were dismissed from parade, and allowed to go where they liked. Several carts full of wine were brought in, and the champions of Christendom embarked on a glorious carouse.
All the Turkish troops who were able to travel had been sent away to Erzinghan or Baiburt in order to make room for the Russian army; but we still had about two thousand men in hospital, and these it was impossible to remove, so that Stoker, Denniston, and myself had plenty of work before us. There was a great deal of sickness among the poorer Armenians in the town, and these unfortunate creatures were almost entirely dependent upon us for medical aid; so it may readily be guessed that we had our hands full.
On the day after the review General Melikoff invited Stoker, Denniston, and myself to call on him. Piloted by our excellent friend Captain Pizareff, who was the general's aide-de-camp, we found our way to headquarters, and were introduced to the Russian field-marshal in the big house which he had selected for his residence.
General Melikoff at that time was a man of striking appearance, and looked every inch a soldier. His tall, well knit figure, his aquiline nose, and dark, flashing eyes marked him out at once as a military leader. He received us with the greatest courtesy, and told us that he had heard how hard we had worked, not only in aid of the sick and wounded soldiers, but also in aid of the poverty-stricken civil population of the town. He assured us of his sympathy, and promised to do everything in his power to help us, asking us to make any suggestions with regard to improvements that might be desirable in conducting the sanitation of the city, and expressing his willingness to meet our views in every way. Encouraged by the kindly and considerate attitude of the general, I ventured to approach him by letter a few days afterwards, and once again my unfortunate deficiencies in the matter of French exposed me to treatment which I shall never believe was authorized by General Melikoff.
Hussein Effendi, the Turkish principal medical officer, was the original cause of the trouble; for he ordered the wounded to be removed from the English hospital and sent away when they were in such a weak condition that many of them died in consequence of this heartless treatment. We reported the matter to Hakki Bey, and Hussein Effendi was at once sent for; and having no satisfactory explanation to give of his conduct, was imprisoned. At the same time, remembering General Melikoff's injunction that I should let him know of anything that required seeing to in the hospitals, I wrote to him explaining the circumstances. The letter was really the joint production of Denniston, Stoker, and myself. We wrote it in the best French that we could muster; and as there was no cream-laid notepaper left in Erzeroum, we were obliged to use the only kind of stationery available, which happened to be a bit of blue foolscap. We surveyed our joint production with pardonable pride, and despatched it without delay to General Melikoff. When next I saw the unfortunate letter, it was in the hands of the Russian consul, who had returned to Erzeroum with the army of occupation, having left the town in the first instance on the outbreak of hostilities. He was a tall man, with a very pale face and a thick black beard. His manners were in striking contrast to those of the Russian officers whom we had met, for he was an insolent fellow, who had not wit enough to conceal the signs that betokened an ignorant Jack-in-office unaccustomed to mix with men of the world or in polite society. This individual came to me next day, holding in his hand my letter to General Melikoff, which he flung in my face, remarking at the same time that it was not usual to write to a field-marshal of the Russian army on a dirty bit of foolscap and in atrociously bad French. I was relieved to find from Captain Pizareff, whom I apprised of the circumstance, that such a message was never sent by General Melikoff. Probably the facts of the case were that Melikoff handed the letter to this uncouth personage with instructions to attend to the matter, and that the Jack-in-office, annoyed by the duty, vented his spite upon the writer.
We became very intimate with Captain Pizareff, and also made the acquaintance of a number of Russian officers, whom we invited round to our quarters in the evenings.
We found ourselves much sought after by the Russian officers; and, in fact, the English Consulate, where we lived, became to all intents and purposes a Russian club. It got to be quite the thing for them to drop in during the evening; and we occasionally gave little dinner parties, which were much appreciated. Our house, furnished as it was with Mr. Zohrab's excellent supply of provisions, and with his admirable and carefully selected stock of wines and liquors, was the only place in Erzeroum where a decent dinner was obtainable. An invitation to dine with us was very acceptable, as may be imagined, to these young Russian aristocrats, who had been half starving in the snow for several months past.
Most of those who came to us were friends of Pizareff, who practically lived at our place. He was a fine type of young fellow, with the frank and dashing manner of the born soldier, and with a nature widened and improved by travel. Like my other great friend, poor Czetwertinski, he was a brilliant horseman, and his charger was the envy of the regiment. This horse was an extremely handsome white stallion, which, as the advertisements say, was formerly the property of a gentleman, and had been parted with simply because the owner had no further use for him. The original owner happened to be a notorious brigand in Daghistan, who for a long time defied all efforts to capture him, but was taken at last and summarily hanged. Pizareff was offered enormous sums for this famous animal, which added to his undoubted worth as a charger something of the extrinsic sentimental value that might have attached to Dick Turpin's Black Bess.
Another charming man who used to come to our house was the colonel commanding the Orenburg Cossacks. We saw a great deal of him, and also of his adjutant, Captain Anisimoff, who spoke English like an Englishman, and looked exactly like a British naval officer. They all drank brandy at a rate that threatened to deplete our stock of this medical comfort in an alarming manner; and I remember that one evening a party of them polished off three bottles between them, which made me open my eyes, especially as brandy was worth two pounds a bottle in Erzeroum at that time. One of the party was a young Russian prince, whose name I have forgotten. He had never tasted brandy before, and was so proud of his achievement that he insisted upon sending a telegram to his father at St. Petersburg announcing that he had been drinking eau-de-vie in Erzeroum at the house of three English doctors—a highly important despatch from the seat of war.
About this time I received a telegram one day from Constantinople informing me that the Sultan had been pleased to confer upon me the decoration of the fourth order of the Medjidie in recognition of my services. Mere lad as I was, I felt very proud of my decoration, and Denniston, Stoker, and myself had a great consultation about the matter. They opined that there was only one course open to me, and that it was incumbent upon me to give a party in celebration of the event. As the guests would be all Russians, I felt bound in honour to do the thing properly, and determined to go outside Mr. Zohrab's cellar in order to provide materials befitting the occasion. Mr. Zohrab had forgotten to lay in a stock of champagne before he went, and it was clear that champagne was the only liquor which would meet the requirements of the case. Now I knew that there was no champagne in Erzeroum before the arrival of the Russians; but I guessed that the sutlers and purveyors who followed the Russian army would not have forgotten to bring the wine which is so much favoured in Russia. Old Tom Rennison, a campaigner whose vast experience enabled him to live in luxury in places where a goat would starve, thought that he knew where to get some "fizz"; so I despatched him to bring in half a dozen bottles coûte que coûte. Still, it was a bit staggering to find that, when he brought back the required quantity, he also had a little bill of eighteen pounds to render for the half-dozen of Moet and Chandon which some enterprising purveyor had carted on a sledge over the snow from Tiflis, four hundred miles away. About a dozen Russian officers came round to my party, and we made a great night of it. Denniston proposed my health in English, and I responded in the same language. Then Pizareff proposed it in French, and I made shift to reply in that tongue. Some one else made a few complimentary remarks in German, and several speeches were added in Russian. Before the evening was half over we were paying the most extravagant compliments to each other, and I have an indistinct recollection of trying somewhere about midnight to teach a big, fair-bearded captain "Auld lang syne," and to render "We twa ha' paid'lt i' the burn" into my own peculiar French, a task in which I was entirely unsuccessful.
We had quite a number of little dinner parties after this. One night General Komaroff, who afterwards commanded the Russians at the famous fight which goes down to history as the "Pendjeh incident," invited us to dine with him; and Stoker and I accepted, though Denniston was sick and obliged to stay at home. The general, who was then a young man, although he wore a beard and spectacles, treated us very hospitably, and had evidently spared no pains to make the entertainment a success. A regimental band stationed in the courtyard outside played English airs as a compliment to the visitors; and the menu, which began with a zacuska of caviare and anchovies, was a capital one. A small tumbler of raw absinthe was poured out for each guest to begin with; and as they insisted that I must drink mine in spite of all my protestations, I was nearly poisoned. Later on English bottled stout was served round gravely in wine glasses. How on earth it got to Erzeroum I could not make out, for the Russians do not drink stout; but it was evidently intended as a compliment to us, so I tossed mine down, much wondering.
Captain Pizareff, who lived in General Melikoff's house, asked me to go round and dine with him one night as the general was going out, and with great thoughtfulness my host sent round a Cossack with a spare horse for me. We had a capital dinner; but the only thing to drink was a big stone bottle full of Benedictine, which we finished between us. Pizareff was equal to the emergency. Late at night he sent me back to my own quarters with my Cossack guard doubled. I had a Cossack riding on each side of me to hold me on. They were jolly, good-humoured fellows, clad in heavy sheepskin overcoats; and they laughed immoderately every time I fell off my horse, which occurred three times during the journey of about a mile. On each of these occasions, as I sat disconsolately in the frozen snow, a melancholy figure in a long overcoat, boots, and spurs, and a sword which insisted in getting between my legs, my Cossacks replaced my fez on my head, deftly disentangled me from my sword, and hoisted me once more into the saddle. In spite of the terrible stories that one hears about them sometimes, I shall always have a warm corner in my heart for Cossacks.
Although we got on capitally with the Russian officers, the rank and file of the army of occupation behaved very badly to the few unfortunate Turkish soldiers who were left behind to recover from their wounds when the bulk of the sufferers were sent away. Whenever the Russian linesmen came across these poor devils crawling about the streets, they would jeer them and mock them first, and then beat them cruelly. I have seen half a dozen Russians attack a couple of wretchedly weak and emaciated Turks who were painfully creeping along the street, and kick them brutally, leaving them half dead by the side of the road.
Once Denniston, Stoker, and myself had a narrow escape. We had gone for a walk by ourselves outside of the town proper towards the redoubts, when we came upon a party of Russian infantrymen who were undisguisedly hostile. One fellow came up to me, said something in Russian, and then hit me a crack over the head which annoyed me so much that I went for him with my fists. Denniston and Stoker sailed in at the others; but the soldiers had their side arms with them, and it would have fared badly with us but for the sudden appearance of a Russian captain, who saw the affair, and came running to our assistance, revolver in hand. He knocked down my assailant with the pistol-butt for a start, and discharged such a volley of remarks at the others that they slunk off like beaten curs. We were grateful for his timely intervention, without which we would probably have been killed outright; and we paid due attention to his warning that it was dangerous to come unprotected so far from the town.
The comfort in which we lived at the consulate had not escaped the envy of some of the Russians, and one man in particular was consumed with jealousy when he saw the fine house in which we were quartered. This was General Heymann, who commanded the Russian column of assault at Devoi Boyun, and showed conspicuous bravery during the engagement. In fact, he was generally spoken of afterwards as the hero of Devoi Boyun. It seemed that about twenty years before the war he had been in Erzeroum, and had occupied the house, which was afterwards turned into the English Consulate. During the long months of discomfort while the army was encamped in the stinking little villages outside Erzeroum, General Heymann had buoyed himself up with the hope that as soon as the inevitable occupation arrived he would go back to his old quarters again; and when at last he got into the town, he was disgusted to find the house upon which he had set his heart in the occupation of some English doctors. His first move was to send an aide-de-camp to us with a request that we would vacate the house, which we at once declined to do. Then the trouble began. Although the fascinating pursuit of "draw poker" is not practised to any great extent in Russia, still that aide-de-camp was fully conversant with one of its leading features, and he set himself to play the game of bluff with great vigour. He began to bluster in great style, hoping that I would throw up my hand at once; but I went one better every time. At last he remarked that might was right, that the Russians were an army of occupation, and that if we did not go out of our house we would be turned out. I said that we certainly would not go unless turned out by force, and that as the Russian troops occupied the town under the terms of an armistice, and not as a consequence of a successful assault, they could not disturb us in our quarters. I closed the conversation by saying that if they turned Denniston, Stoker, and myself out of our house, I would telegraph to Lord Derby requesting him to make representations at St. Petersburg on the subject. Then I bowed out General Heymann's aide-de-camp. Next day, however, a communication arrived from the konak announcing that the general insisted that we should be turned out, and that the civil authorities of the town would be glad if we would leave quietly. This was rather too much, and I went up to the konak next day, taking Tom Rennison as an interpreter. I was shown into a room where Hakki Bey, the civil governor, and a number of Turkish and Armenian officials were discussing the situation. Here I stood up and made a speech, which was interpreted as I went along by Tom Rennison. I told them that we had come out there to help their sick and wounded, that two of our number had already died in their cause, and that the rest of us had risked our lives for them over and over again.
"We have done all this for you," I said; "we have cared for your wounded, and eased their sufferings; we have tended your sick, and sent them food and wine from our own table; and now, you ungrateful beggars, you want to turn us out of our own house. Well, we won't go." They listened very courteously to my exordium, which was translated into Turkish by the faithful Rennison; and when it was finished, I could see that I had made an impression. Our eviction was no longer insisted upon, and General Heymann had to content himself with a large house immediately opposite our quarters.
Some little time after this the French consul, M. Jardin, approached us, and used his influence with us, asking us if possible to humour the old general by granting his wish. Finally we agreed to do so, and I wrote a letter to General Heymann, saying that as a personal compliment to his excellency we would give him up the house. At the same time I warned him that there would be a risk attached to his occupancy, as we had had several cases of typhus in the house. He came over the same afternoon in great glee, bringing his dragoman with him to thank us, as he himself spoke nothing but Russian. He said that, being an old campaigner, he had no fear of typhus; and he marked his appreciation of the favour shown to him by presenting us with a box of four hundred cigars, which were most acceptable. Next day he sent us twenty soldiers to remove our baggage to the house which he was giving up; and when the moving was accomplished he entered into possession of the consulate. He went to bed feeling poorly on the very day that he got into his new quarters, and four days afterwards he was dead of typhus. Denniston, Stoker, and I all attended the poor old fellow's funeral, wondering at the strange fate that had allowed him to live through many a hard-fought fight only to let him die in his bed when the campaign was over.
Helping Sick Russians—A Squalid Scene—Work of the Russian Doctors—Melikoff's Appreciation—Arrival of the Red Cross Staff—A Novel Candlestick—Great Explosion—The Erzeroum Fire Brigade—Preparations for our Departure—A Practical Joke on a Persian—A Pleasant Interlude—The Princess at Erzeroum—Mr. Zohrab's Library comes in Useful—Our Spanish Widow—Riding on a Pack-saddle—A Slow March—The Widow meets with Accidents—Restricted Sleeping Accommodation—We turn Two Corpses out of Bed—End of a Pack-horse—My Cats from Van—The Valley of Pear Trees—Trebizond at last.
While the Turks and Armenians in Erzeroum were dying by hundreds from typhus, the Russian soldiers also suffered severely; and as I went round the town, I found many of them lying sick and untended, not from any want of care on the part of the Russian doctors, but simply because the soldiers stole away and hid themselves when they fell ill.
Captain Pizareff would not believe it when I told him that his men were dying like sheep, and declared that it was impossible for such a thing to happen without the knowledge of the colonel of the regiment. In order to convince the aide-de-camp, I asked him to go with me and see the state of things with his own eyes.
Next morning I started out early to visit a poor Armenian woman whose child had been accidentally scalded, and I took Captain Pizareff with me. The woman lived in a miserable quarter of the town, inhabited only by the poorest people; and evidences of distress and semi-starvation were present on every hand. I found my patient easily enough; and after dressing the injuries of the scalded child, I took Pizareff on a tour of inspection down the street. The snow was piled high round the walls of the first dilapidated, tumble-down shanty that we entered; and at first, as we went inside out of the strong glare of the sun on the snow, we could hardly see at all. A small latticed window near the roof admitted a few gleams of light; and as our eyes became accustomed to the semi-obscurity, we could make out three Russians lying on a heap of straw in a corner of the room. They were all down with typhus. One was lying on his back, with his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. As we entered he looked at us, and seemed to recognize Pizareff. He made a feeble effort to rise from the straw and lift his hand in the military salute; but the strain was too much for him, and he fell back exhausted. The other two men were moaning and tossing from side to side, calling at intervals for water. An Armenian child about seven years old was playing with a dog in the snow which lay thickly in the yard at the back of the house. While I was looking at the men, the child came to the door, peered curiously in, and then returned unconcernedly to his game in the yard. The sight of sickness and death was not sufficiently novel to disturb the amusement of the moment.
In several other houses in the same street similar scenes were met with; and in one an Armenian family consisting of a father, mother, and three children were unconcernedly eating their dinner—a bowl of grain boiled into a kind of sticky porridge—while the corpse of a Russian soldier who had just died lay on the floor in the next room.
Captain Pizareff was petrified with astonishment, and reported the circumstances to General Melikoff at once. I sent word to the Russian Red Cross doctors, and they despatched a party of ambulance men to collect their sick and bring them into the hospitals. How it was possible for the absence of the men from roll call to remain unnoticed I cannot understand; but I heard afterwards that the colonel of the regiment to which these unfortunates belonged got into serious trouble over it.
Denniston, Stoker, and myself found plenty of work to do among the Russian sick as well as among our own men, and were glad to lend the Russian doctors our assistance. We found our Russian confrères capital fellows, and also excellent surgeons. They had worked on bravely while their army was outside Erzeroum and afterwards at Kars, though their resources were severely taxed by the number of the wounded at Devoi Boyun, as well as by the fevers and frostbite that decimated the troops during the long intervals between the different engagements.
They spoke of General Melikoff in terms of the highest admiration, praising his administrative ability as well as his military capacity; and I felt that their opinions were well founded, when I reflected upon the difficulties under which he had laboured, especially in the transport and commissariat department. On one occasion General Melikoff said to me himself, "I am prouder of having been able to feed my army than I am of any of my victories." When it is remembered that everything in the shape of supplies, including provisions and medical stores, had to be brought over the snow from Tiflis, four hundred miles away, it will be conceded that the general's pride in his achievement was justified. General Melikoff was most appreciative of our medical services on behalf of his troops, and told us on one occasion that he would recommend us for decorations at the hands of the Russian Government. However, during the anxious political times which ensued the Russian Government had something else to think about besides the services of three unknown English doctors in far away Erzeroum, and the decorations never came.
Gladly and willingly as I gave my services in the cause of humanity, it was nevertheless a real pleasure to find that they were appreciated by the Russian troops as well as by the Stafford House Committee, and also the Turkish Government. Captain Morisot, who returned to Erzeroum from Constantinople, brought me up, not only fresh supplies of money, but also the news that the Stafford House Committee had passed a special vote of thanks to myself and the other doctors of the Erzeroum section. The document setting forth this vote of thanks, signed by the Duke of Sutherland as chairman of the committee, is couched in most complimentary terms; and, needless to say, it forms one of my most cherished mementoes of the war. Similar special votes of thanks were accorded to Dr. Stiven and Dr. Beresford for their great bravery during the fighting at Rustchuk. I had already received the fourth order of the Medjidie, and to this the Turkish Government were afterwards pleased to add the fourth order of the Osmanli and also the Turkish war medal.
We were reinforced during March by the arrival of Dr. Roy and a party of doctors sent out by the Red Cross Society. They had undergone a good deal of hardship since they left Constantinople, and one of their number, a Dane named Price, had died. I shall always remember Roy through a remarkable incident of which I was informed by him some time after I had left Erzeroum. In my quarters I was accustomed to sleep on the floor on a mat, and even in a besieged town I had kept up the early habit of reading in bed. The usual military candlestick was a bayonet, which was stuck in the floor, with the candle jammed into the socket; but I found a more convenient receptacle in a Turkish conical shell, which I had picked up somewhere, and which made a capital candlestick when the brass cap at the end was unscrewed. Into the orifice of the shell I stuck my candle every night, and read Vanity Fair—which I got out of Mr. Zohrab's capital library—for the first time. I never can think of Becky Sharp to this day without a shudder, not on account of her treatment of Rawdon Crawley or her dubious relationship with the Marquis of Steyne, but simply owing to the circumstances under which I first met her. She was certainly a risky acquaintance for me. A week or two after I left Erzeroum my candlestick fell into other hands, and one night it exploded, fortunately in an empty room, which it wrecked without damaging any one in the house. My first introduction to Becky Sharp was effected by the light of a candle stuck in the mouth of a live shell!
Powder was unnecessarily burnt more than once during our last month in Erzeroum. One night I was awakened by a terrific explosion, and almost before I could collect my senses a frantic knocking at the door showed that somebody wanted the doctor in a hurry. We all jumped into our clothes, and followed the guide to a place where an Armenian house had stood a few minutes before, but which when we reached the spot was a mere heap of wreckage. One of the few survivors explained what had happened. He told us that a lot of Armenians had got hold of some Turkish cartridges, and were endeavouring to convert the powder to their own use. Sixteen men were sitting in a circle on their haunches in the middle of a big room, busily pulling the bullets out of the cartridges and emptying the powder into a heap, which was gradually increasing in size in the centre, when the desire for a cigarette came upon one of them, and he struck a match. The next instant the house was in the air, and ten of the Armenians were in paradise—or somewhere else. There was a good deal of confusion in the darkness; but I recollect finding myself down on my knees in a stable at the back of the house examining two of the sufferers who were still alive. One of them lay between the legs of a cow, and while he was in that position I dressed his injuries. The crowd had been very troublesome, and I had locked the door of the stable on the inside to keep them away, when I heard a tremendous hammering and some one demanding admittance. I called out that there was strictly no admittance; but in a very few minutes a file of soldiers burst the door in, and General Duhoffskoy, very angry at being kept out in the cold, stood before me. He was good enough to accept my apologies when I explained why I had locked the door, and also to thank me for attending to the sufferers. General Duhoffskoy was appointed to act as a kind of chief commissioner of police at Erzeroum in addition to his military duties, and whenever there was any excitement in the town he was always on the spot. One night we had a very big fire; in fact, half the street seemed to be burning. There was plenty of water, however; and if it had not been for the crowd, there would have been no difficulty in extinguishing the flames. An Armenian crowd at a fire is very much like any other crowd, and the people indulged in sudden stampedes and all sorts of "alarums and excursions" to such a degree that the work of the soldier firemen was greatly hindered. General Duhoffskoy took in the situation at a glance, and at once announced that if the crowd did not disperse it would be blown to pieces, as one of the burning houses contained an enormous quantity of powder and other explosives. The effect was instantaneous, and the miscellaneous mass of Turks and Armenians melted away as if by magic.
Soon after the return of Captain Morisot, I received a telegram from the Stafford House Committee saying that we had done enough for honour and glory, and that we had better go back to Constantinople, as the Turkish administration was able to cope with all the hospital work that remained to be done in Erzeroum. I was instructed to place the balance of our medical stores at the disposal of the Turks before leaving, and accordingly I handed everything over to Hakki Bey, receiving a receipt, and also a grateful acknowledgment of our services to the Turkish troops, together with a special letter for presentation to the Seraskierat.
My last week in Erzeroum was a busy one, as we had to make extensive preparations for the journey to Trebizond, which was quite a formidable undertaking. I had collected a great deal of personal baggage during my travels, and our equipment was considerable; so I arranged with a Persian caravan which was going down to Trebizond for the conveyance of the heaviest of our impedimenta, retaining only my valuables and the curios which I had got together to take down under my own supervision with the caravan. There were many Persians in Erzeroum, and as a rule they got on very well with the Turks, though occasionally racial antipathy was responsible for those minor persecutions known as practical jokes, of which the Turks were very fond. One day in the hammam, or Turkish bath, I met an old Persian, who was in a deplorable state of grief in consequence of the treatment which he had received from two young Turks. The Persians all grew very long beards, of which they were inordinately proud, and they were accustomed, after coming out of the bath, to dye them a fine rich brickdust colour with henna. One never saw a Persian with a white beard. Now this particular old Persian had carefully rubbed his beard with henna, in blissful ignorance of the fact that two mischievous young Turks had been to his henna-pot and had mixed a quantity of corrosive acid with the dye. The consequence was that when the Persian applied the dye the beard came away in pieces, and left the poor man beardless in his old age and disgraced.
On the day before we left Erzeroum I called on General Duhoffskoy, as the military governor of the town, in order to obtain from him a pass through the Russian lines and the necessary papers authorizing my departure. The general was a distinguished-looking man of about forty years of age, and he received me very courteously, expressing polite regret at my departure, and promising to facilitate my journey as far as possible. It struck me that I had never seen him in such good spirits before, and that there was a beam of sunshiny contentment in his face, which was an agreeable change from the rigid military look of his usually stern features. As I was inwardly wondering what could have happened to effect this change, the door opened, and a lady entered the room. "Permit me to present you to my wife, Dr. Ryan," said the general; and turning I bowed, there in remote, snow-clad, devastated Erzeroum, to one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.
Princess Duhoffskoy, née Princess Galitzin, was then about twenty years of age, and to my youthful imagination, with her beautifully chiselled features, complexion of exquisite fairness, and large blue eyes that looked me frankly in the face, she seemed like a visitant from another world. For a year and a half almost the only specimens of womanhood that I had seen were squat and swarthy Bulgarian girls, frowsy Armenians, or Turkish women closely veiled in their yashmaks. It was no wonder that this lovely Russian, with her delicate, refined beauty and her frank and gracious manner, made a profound impression upon me, and set my heart beating quickly with mingled surprise and delight.
The general returned to his writing-table, and I was left to talk to this beauteous vision alone. I stammered a few remarks in execrable German; for though I spoke that language fairly fluently on ordinary occasions, my sensations drove my vocabulary out of my head, and I felt that for one in my position at any rate the resources of that grave and elephantine tongue were exasperatingly inadequate.
"Oh, Doctor Ryan, would you not prefer to speak English?" said the Princess, to my intense astonishment, without the least trace of a foreign accent. Like many cultured Russians, she had learnt to speak English as well as French and German when a child; and she soon showed me that she could not only talk, but talk interestingly, in my own language. In her lips the Doric harshness of sound in spoken English disappeared, and the well known words took on something of the smooth, musical cadence of the softer Italian. She told me that she had only reached Erzeroum on the previous day, after travelling four hundred miles across the snow from Tiflis to join her husband, and she chatted away pleasantly of the incidents which occurred on the way as if there was nothing unusual in a delicately nurtured lady going through the hardships necessitated by such a journey in a sleigh. She expressed great interest in my work among the wounded, and listened attentively while I spoke of the bravery of the Turkish troops and their fortitude under pain. When I told her of an Anatolian Turk who died in my hospital at Plevna with his wife's name on his lips, the beautiful eyes of this Russian princess filled with tears. "Poor fellow," she whispered softly; "I hope it is not wrong for us to pity the sufferings of the enemy."
Coffee was brought in, and I sat there for about two hours chatting with the princess, while the general continued writing at his table. Every now and then he looked up with a glance which seemed to say, "Not gone yet? I wonder how much longer this confounded Englishman is going to stay." At last I managed to tear myself away, and I said good-bye to this beautiful Russian lady, with many regrets that I had to leave Erzeroum next day. I never saw her again; but when I got back to the consulate, I selected about fifty standard English books from Mr. Zohrab's excellent library, packed them on a little sleigh, and despatched them to Princess Duhoffskoy with my card, presenting my compliments, and hoping that the books would lessen the tedium of her stay in such a dull place as Erzeroum. General Duhoffskoy is now the governor of a province in Siberia, where he resides with his beautiful wife, whose visit to Erzeroum was the one gleam of real sunshine that I had seen throughout that terrible winter.
Before we started for Trebizond, a slight difference of opinion arose between myself and my comrades, Denniston and Stoker, upon a matter affecting our joint interest. It did not in the least disturb the friendly relations existing between us, and I only mention the matter now because it was all my fault that my companions were induced to assent to incurring the responsibility and inconvenience of escorting another traveller to Trebizond—and that traveller a lady.
M. Jardin, the French consul, was a true Frenchman of the best type, agreeable, polite, and above all things always anxious to oblige a lady. Accordingly, when he came to me with a pathetic appeal on behalf of a charming Spanish widow, whose husband had been an apothecary attached to the medical staff I found the greatest difficulty in turning a deaf ear to him. He explained to me that the beautiful Spaniard was most anxious to get to Constantinople, where she had friends who would arrange for her passage back to her own country, and that he would take it as a personal favour to him if we would allow the lady to join our party.
I foresaw the inconvenience of taking a lady on an extremely rough journey, which had to be accomplished entirely on horseback, over mountain tracks and passes deep in snow; so at first I gave a polite refusal to the French consul's request. But M. Jardin would not be denied. He minimized the difficulties of the journey, which he assured us would be nothing to such courageous and experienced men as ourselves. He extolled us for the services which we had already rendered in the cause of humanity, and he urged us not to decline at the last moment to still further add to our laurels in this direction. Finally he dwelt at great length upon the grace and beauty of this dark-eyed Spanish lady, whom none of us had ever seen, and he painted the despair with which she looked forward to the prospect of remaining widowed and alone in Erzeroum, perhaps to die, far from her country and from her own people. What could I say in answer to such an appeal? What could I do? There was nothing for it but to submit with some misgiving to the inevitable; and accordingly I informed M. Jardin that I would withdraw my own objections, and would consent to the arrangement if he could prevail upon Denniston and Stoker to agree also.