In submitting to the popular verdict this book, which aims at being a plain, straightforward account of the experiences of a young Australian in the last great battles which have been fought in Europe, I feel that a few words of explanation are necessary.
In the first place, it may be asked why I have allowed twenty years to elapse before giving these reminiscences to the world. I must answer that, as a hard-working surgeon leading a very busy life, I had but little "learned leisure" at my disposal; and I must also admit that I did not feel myself equal to the literary labour of writing a book. Indeed it might never have been written if my friend Mr. Sandes had not agreed to my suggestion that he should reproduce in a literary and publishable form the language of the armchair and the fireside, and so enable me to relate to the world at large some of the incidents which my own immediate friends, when listening over the cigars to my recollections, have been good enough to call interesting. So much for the matter of the book, and also for its manner.
In the second place, military critics as well as the general public may be inclined to wonder how it was that a young army surgeon, a mere lad in fact, should have been allowed to play such an independent part in the field operations at Plevna as is disclosed in the following pages, and should have been permitted to move about the battle-field and engage in active service, with the apparent concurrence of the general staff and of the officers commanding the different regiments. In reply, I have to explain that the Ottoman army was not guided by the hard-and-fast regulations which no doubt would render it impossible for a junior surgeon in any other European army to act on his own volition and carry on his work as he might think best himself. Furthermore, I may mention that through my close friendship with Prince Czetwertinski, who was the captain of Osman Pasha's bodyguard, I was always kept in touch with the progress of the military operations; and I am also proud to say that I enjoyed the confidence of Osman Pasha himself, and was on terms of the closest intimacy with that gallant and true-hearted soldier Tewfik Bey, who won the rank of pasha for his magnificent courage when he led the assault that drove Skobeleff from the Krishin redoubts.
These facts may explain many of the adventures narrated in this book which would be inexplicable to critics accustomed to the rigid discipline under which medical officers do their work in other European armies.
It is only right to say, in conclusion, that I consider myself singularly fortunate in my coadjutor, who, while he has brightened this narrative of my early adventures with all the resources of the practised writer, has nevertheless left the truth of every single incident absolutely unimpaired. At a time when the Eastern Question looms like a huge shadow over Europe, and when the very existence of the Turkish Empire is once more threatened, may I hope that this story of the military virtues of the Ottoman troops may not be found without real interest?
PAGE CHAPTER I. FROM MELBOURNE TO SOFIA. CHAPTER II. THE PRELIMINARIES TO THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.CHAPTER III. THE IMMINENCE OF WAR. CHAPTER IV. FROM WIDDIN TO PLEVNA.CHAPTER V. THE FIRST BATTLE OF PLEVNA.CHAPTER VI. THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND BATTLES. CHAPTER VII. THE SECOND BATTLE OF PLEVNA (JULY 30).CHAPTER VIII. THE FIASCOS OF PELISCHAT AND LOVTCHA. CHAPTER IX. THE THIRD BATTLE OF PLEVNA.CHAPTER X. THE INVESTMENT OF PLEVNA. CHAPTER XI. THE HORRORS OF THE HOSPITAL.CHAPTER XII. FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ERZEROUM. CHAPTER XIII. A BELEAGUERED CITY.CHAPTER XIV. THE SURRENDER OF ERZEROUM.CHAPTER XV. THE END OF THE WAR. CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION.
Autobiographical—My Wanderjahr—First Glimpse of Servians—Rome—A Prospective Mother-in-law—Sad Result of eating Chops—A Spanish Poet—The Chance of a Lifetime—How I seized it—Garcia's Gold Watch—The Via del Poppo—Off to London—Engaged by the Turkish Government—Vienna revisited—Stamboul—Origin of the Crescent—Misserie's Hotel—The Turkish Character—A Splendid Belvedere—View from the Seraskierat Tower—Scutari and Florence Nightingale—Stamboul by Day and Night—Scene in a Bazaar—Three Sundays a Week—A Trip to Sweet Waters—Veiled Beauties—I am gazetted to a Regiment—An Official Dinner—Off to the Front—A Compulsory Shave—My Charger—The March to Sofia—My First Patient—Prescription for a Malingerer—Mehemet Ali—My Soldier Servant—Diagnosing my Cases—Bulgarians at Home—At Sofia—MacGahan the War Correspondent—Learning Turkish—A Dinner in Camp—Leniency to Bulgarians—A Lady Patient—So near and yet so far—From Pirot to Nish—The Wounded—My First Operation.
People have often asked me how it was that I, an Australian, came to take a part in the defence of the Ottoman Empire, and to serve as a military surgeon under the Red Crescent, which, as every one knows, is the Turkish equivalent of the Red Cross of the Geneva Convention. Red Cross and Red Crescent are alike the symbols of a humanitarian spirit, in which philosophers and students of ethics profess to see the small beginnings of a future age of universal peace; but as for me, I have seen how Cossacks and Circassians fight, and I cannot help regarding the future prophesied by the philosopher as an impossible dream. When one has seen a soldier of a civilized force sawing off the head of a wounded but still living enemy with the edge of his sword-bayonet, it requires an unusually optimistic nature to believe in the abolition of war and a perpetual comity of nations.
It was as the outcome of my Wanderjahr—the sweet old German custom which sends every young man roaming when he has completed the technical training of his future avocation—that I first smelt powder and saw the glint of the Russian bayonets. The Wanderjahr of the German seems to be an unconscious survival of the nomadic instinct of primitive man—a small concession, as it were, to the roving habits that took his ancestors the Huns and Visigoths to Rome. It lets a young man escape from the fixed atmosphere of "staying point," as our American friends call it in one locality, into the "largior æther," the wider life of travel. And here I must be excused for introducing a little bit of necessary autobiography.
I must record that, after spending three years at the Melbourne University, I went to Edinburgh to finish my medical course; and having taken my degree there, I was launched at the age of one and twenty, as an expressive colloquialism puts it, "on my own hook." Thus it was that I began a period of wandering over Europe which ultimately landed me in my ambulance at Plevna in July, 1877. I need not dwell upon those early travels, except to say that the allowance which my father made me enabled me to go far and to see much. Like Odysseus of old, I could say that "many were the men whose manners I saw and whose cities I knew."
After a run round Norway and Sweden, I spent a few months in Bohemian Paris, and then went on to Bonn, where I attended the clinic of Professor Busch, and indulged in all sorts of romantic visions under the shadow of the castled crag of Drachenfels and the Sieben Gebirge. Next I made my way down to Vienna, where the sight of some Servians in their national costume gave me my first glimpse into the romance of the proud and chivalrous peoples of the Balkan States, and fired me with a desire to see Constantinople itself. During those months at Vienna I knew my "Schöne Blaue Donau" well, and often made excursions as far as Pressburg and Buda-Pesth, looking forward to the day when I could get an opportunity to follow the great water-way down to Rustchuk, and so into Turkish territory. But for the time being I got no chance, and travelled instead through Styria and Bavaria, finally turning southward, and finishing in Rome.
It was about this time that I met a Spanish surgeon, Senhor Garcia C——, who was connected incidentally with the events immediately leading up to my appointment as a surgeon to the Turkish troops. He was a delightful companion, but improvident in money matters; and I hope he will pardon me after this lapse of years for disclosing the fact that he made me his banker, inasmuch as it reduced me to such a low financial ebb that, had it not been for his gold watch, I am afraid I should never have seen the inside of the Grivitza redoubt. I remember that he and I put up when at Rome in a very fashionable and exclusive "pension," to which I had been introduced by a French count whom I met in Paris. I was always regarded, perhaps on account of my name, as a good Roman Catholic; and but for an unfortunate little contretemps I might have married into a princely Italian family there and then, and never had to eat dead horse on a campaign at all.
It was this way. Among the other residents in the "pension" was an old Italian marchioness, who had brought her two daughters to Rome to introduce them to his Holiness the Pope. She was kind enough to take a great interest in me; and there is no knowing what might have happened—the elder daughter was really a charming girl—if it had not been for that unlucky incident of the mutton chops. On the second Friday that I was there an elderly Scotch lady, who was a rigid Presbyterian, and took no trouble to conceal the aversion with which she regarded all Papists, ordered mutton chops in the middle of the day for her lunch. When I came in from a visit to the Vatican I was very hungry. The chops were brought in, and they smelt very good; so, as the Scotch lady was late, I forgot the consideration due to age and rigid Presbyterianism, I forgot my scruples as a supposed good Catholic, I forgot that it was Friday—and I ate them. Next day the marchioness stuck me up in a corner, and asked me how I could disgrace myself by eating grilled chops on a Friday; she led me to understand that I had deceived her, and she withdrew an invitation which she had given me to visit her and renew my acquaintance with her charming daughter. Thus ended my first and last chance of a dukedom.
After a few weeks in Rome, I began to get seriously embarrassed from a financial point of view. Garcia was a charming fellow; but he was a poet, and, like all poets, he had expensive habits. He even challenged me to a duel once for laughing at some of his verses; but when I threatened to kick him, he fell on my neck and embraced me. However, my purse was not long enough to sustain the two of us, and I was sitting in a little café one day considering the position and glancing idly over the Times, when my eye fell on an advertisement announcing that the Turkish Government had vacancies for twenty military surgeons, and inviting applications. I read the advertisement again with delight, and at once determined to send in an application. Here was a chance of seeing life with a vengeance. But my spirits fell at once. I had only a few liras in my pocket; and how on earth was I to get to the Turkish Embassy in London? C—— was in his usual poetic condition of impecuniosity, and I was afraid to think how much he owed me. But I could not afford to be chivalrous, or I might lose the opportunity of a lifetime; so I tackled him at once. He assured me with tears in his eyes that he had not even the price of a flask of Chianti in his pockets; but I was inexorable. I pointed out to him that he had a very fine gold watch—it was really a remarkably valuable timepiece, and had come down to him as an heirloom from some haughty old Castilian grandee. I impressed upon him that a gold watch is a most unsuitable adornment to a penniless person, who is moreover in debt, and I indicated to him a means by which it could be converted into currency of the realm. I think he felt it very much, poor fellow; but it was not a time for being over-scrupulous, and the heirloom of the Hidalgo of old Castile was duly deposited with the Roman equivalent for "my uncle" in a small and stuffy establishment situated in a narrow street with the suggestive name of the Via del Poppo. In return we received twenty-five napoleons—it was certainly an extremely handsome watch. Garcia gave me enough to take me to Neuchâtel, where I counted on receiving fresh supplies, and I let him keep the balance. So I left my Spaniard with a flask of wine before him in the city of the Cæsars, and I never saw him again. Peace be to his soul! He was intended by nature for an Irishman.
I wanted to go through to Neuchâtel; but when I got to Turin, there was a fresh difficulty to be overcome. The Po had overflowed its banks, and the railway was washed away, so that there was no possibility of continuing the journey until next morning. I had not enough money to go to a hotel, so I walked about the streets of Turin all night. Shakespeare has something to say about people who
And as I wandered through the cold, dark streets of Turin, I warmed myself by imagination in the sunbeams that played on the gilded pinnacles of the Seraglio and the marble towers of St. Sophia in far away Stamboul.
At Neuchâtel I found supplies awaiting me at the post office, and I hurried across to London at once, where I sought out the late Mr. J. E. Francis, of Melbourne, who was an old friend of my father, and asked his advice about going to Constantinople. "Go by all means, my dear boy," was his cheery reply; "and I will tell your father that I advised you to take the chance." I had excellent credentials from my professors in Edinburgh; and armed with a letter of introduction to Dr. Forbes, who was the doctor to the Turkish Embassy, I presented myself at the embassy, and sought an interview with Musurus Pasha, then the Turkish ambassador in London. The ambassador was engaged; but I had an audience with one of his sons, and two days afterwards I was en route for Constantinople, with £25 for expenses in my pocket, and an agreement with the Turkish Government to perform the duties of a military surgeon at a salary of £200 a year, paid monthly in gold. They gave me a letter to the Seraskierat, or War Office, at Constantinople, and instructed me to report myself there for duty forthwith. Among the other nineteen selected applicants were two whom I knew, one named Geoffrey, and a fellow named Stephenson, who had been at Edinburgh with me. Naturally I was in high spirits at my success; and when I reached Vienna and looked up all my old pals, we had a great day on the Danube on the occasion of the first regatta held there, and finished up with fireworks and other jollifications in the evening. After a couple of days at Vienna, we went through Buda-Pesth and Belgrade to Bazias, where we took steamer and voyaged down the Danube to Rustchuk.
What a magnificent trip it was! I knew the Rhine pretty well while I was at Bonn: I remembered the great stream that tumbled over the falls of Schaffhausen beyond Mainz, swept along past St. Goar and Bingen, the home of that soldier of the legion who lay dying in Algiers, down to Coblenz, where Marceau fell, and Ehrenbreitstein, the great fortress that now no longer frowns threateningly out towards France. I remembered the castles perched high on the beetling cliffs, and how strange the setting sun used to look when seen through their deserted windows. I recalled the haunted spot where the Loreley used to sing, and the towering heights of the Drachenfels, where the hills finally ceased, leaving the river to broaden out and flow more sluggishly between the low-lying banks down to Bonn and to Cologne, and thence away towards the misty flats and the grey distances of Holland. But to my excited fancy, fired as I was by the prospect of being brought under the spell and the glamour of Islam and of serving under the Mussulman flag, the recollection of the fairy-like beauty of the Rhine faded before the dark grandeur of the river that was bearing me farther with every revolution of the paddle-wheels from European associations, and nearer to strange, new experiences among the subjects of the Shadow of God. At times we steamed through fairly open reaches, and at times through seething rapids, with the dark water swirling about the bows, and the still darker cliffs rising till they almost seemed to touch over our heads.
It was a two days' voyage down to Rustchuk; and I shall never forget my sensations when I caught my first glimpse of Turkish troops on one of the islands in the middle of the stream. Among my fellow passengers was a Mr. Jeune (now Sir Francis Jeune). He had been out in Australia as counsel in the Tichborne case, and had met my father. When he heard that I came from Australia, he took an interest in me, and I found in him a sympathetic listener as I confided my ambitions to him. Among the others on board with me were Captain the Honourable Randolph Stewart, a Queen's Messenger going down with despatches to Constantinople, and several of my professional brethren, including Dr. George Stoker, brother of Bram Stoker, Sir Henry Irving's manager, Dr. Simon Eccles, a well known London physician, and a Dr. Butler, an eccentric old fellow who had been in the Crimea. There were a number of pretty Roumanian women on board too, and altogether we had a jolly party.
At Rustchuk we took the train for Varna, the seaport on the Black Sea which was our point of embarkation for Constantinople; and here I remember old Dr. Butler lost his ticket, and the Queen's Messenger had to use all his influence to prevent an angry little Turkish station-master from "running him in." At last, however, we were all safely on board an Austrian Lloyd's steamer for the last stage of our journey, a short voyage of twelve hours; and I got my first insight into polygamous Turkey by discovering an aged Turk who came on board with his harem, a huddling little band of beauties veiled to the eyes, who were housed in a sort of canvas tent on deck, and at whose faces I made several unsuccessful attempts to get a peep.
Next morning we saw Stamboul rising out of the Bosphorus, and my dreams were at last fulfilled. Fresh, as one might say, from Melbourne, which forty years before was a camping-ground for blacks, I saw before me in this gorgeous vision of mosques and minarets, dark green cypress groves, towers of gleaming marble, and gilded pinnacles of the far Seraglio, a city of unknown antiquity. The story goes that, more than three hundred years before the Christian era, the Athenians, inspired by the burning eloquence of Demosthenes, fought to defend it against Philip of Macedon. One dark night, so the veracious historians of that period tell us, the Macedonians were on the point of carrying the city by assault, when a shining crescent appeared in the sky, disclosed the creeping forms of the enemy, and enabled the beleaguered forces to repel the attack with such vigour that the Macedonians raised the siege and retired. Such was the origin of the crescent which figures on old Byzantine coins, and when the Osmanlis captured Constantinople they adopted it as their national device. It is a pretty story, and well—"si non é vero é ben trovato." I saw before me a city which had already been besieged twenty-four times since its foundation and captured six times. Among others, Persians, Spartans, Athenians, Romans, Avars, Arabs, Russians, Crusaders, and Greeks had besieged it before it fell at last under the terrific assault of the forces of Mahomed II. in 1453. I landed at Galata, the port of Pera, which is separated from Stamboul proper by the Golden Horn, and went straight up to Misserie's Hotel, which is to Constantinople what Shepheard's Hotel is to Cairo, one of the famous hostelries of the world.
Next day we reported ourselves at the War Office. We were shown into a room where four or five old pashas were sitting cross-legged on divans, and we handed in our credentials. We presented our respects through the medium of an interpreter, and I was told to leave my address and hold myself in readiness for active service at once in the Servian war, which had then been going on for about six weeks.
I was no longer a civilian. I was now commissioned as a military surgeon in the service of the Sublime Porte, and engaged in a practice which included some three hundred thousand patients more or less, of whose language I was entirely ignorant, and of whose manners all previous impressions had taught me to be suspicious. It is right to say here, at the outset, that my experience of over two years among the Turks proved to me that the estimate formed of their character by other reputedly more civilized nations was entirely false and misleading. That there was a large amount of corruption in the officialdom of Turkey at that time was no doubt true; but the real samples of national character, the men in the rank and file of the army, I found to be simple-minded, courteous, honourable, and honest in time of peace, while braver men on the battle-field than those who fought under Osman Pasha at Plevna are not to be found in Europe. The magnificent physique and robust constitution of the ordinary Turkish private soldiers I believe to be due mainly to two causes. In the first place they never touch alcohol, and in the second the traditions of Turkish social life and the rigid guardianship exercised over Turkish women have effectually kept out the scrofulous taint which has so appreciably affected the populations of other European nationalities.
Having been gazetted at once as an army surgeon with the rank of colghassi, or major, which entitled me, among other privileges, to draw rations for four men, I left the luxuries of Misserie's Hotel behind me, and installed myself in the barracks close to the War Office, with a determination to see as much as possible of Stamboul before we were ordered to the front.
There are few cities in the world where nightfall makes such a difference as in Stamboul. By day the surroundings of the city as well as the city itself make up a kind of earthly paradise. I climbed the tower of the Seraskierat, and gazed with astonishment at the panorama which lay before me. I saw two seas, the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora; two straits, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles; two gulfs, the Gulf of Ismet and the Gulf of Nicodema. At my feet lay twenty different cities, the houses of which, painted with the true Oriental love of bright colours, nestled against a background of hills clothed with patches of dark cypress and tall, spiry pines. Before me was the spot where two continents meet; and as my eye passed from the streets of Stamboul in Europe to Scutari lying yonder across the mouth of the Bosphorus in Asia, I realized how the tide of Eastern thought had swept across the waters of this narrow strait, and left its mark indelibly upon the strange people among whom I had come to take the chances of the battle-field. I knew too that across there in Scutari was the burial-ground where the bones of those English officers and men who died in hospital after the Crimea lay buried, and I felt that with the brave dead of my own race so near me I was in good company. The old military hospital at Scutari has been turned into barracks now; but the room which Miss Florence Nightingale occupied while she was performing her mission of mercy to the wounded there is still preserved untouched, while her name is kept in affectionate remembrance by the sons of many whom she nursed back to life, or whose last hours she soothed with womanly ministering. As I looked out upon the landscape, I saw it set in the clear atmosphere of Southern Europe, so that every separate minaret stood sharply out and the marble domes of St. Sophia glistened in the bright sunlight.
All is warmth and colour, life and brightness, in Stamboul by day. By night, however, the difference is appalling. The streets were never lighted, and people were not supposed to be out after nine o'clock. If one went out at all, one went at one's own risk, and took the chance of attack by any of the thousands of stray dogs that prowl at will about the city and camp undisturbed in the streets. To one who had been accustomed to Paris and Vienna, where it is never night in this sense, where gas and arc lamps form an admirable substitute for sunlight, and where the patter of feet on the trottoirs and the hum of human life in the cafés are practically ceaseless, the sensation of wandering through these dark, deserted streets among hordes of starving curs was a strange one. By day Constantinople is modern, pulsating, alive. By night, with those dogs about, it is like one of those deserted cities of a long forgotten civilization, in which Briton Rivière shows us the panther and the tiger that have taken the place of man.
During my stay in Stamboul I often walked through the bazaars, where solemn old Turks in baggy breeches sought to swindle me with polite decorum, and where the whole atmosphere breathed of the Arabian Nights. One half expected to see Prince Camaralzaman come swaggering down the street, with his scimitar clanking on the pavement behind him; or Amina or Zobeide, heavily veiled, and with only her dark eyes showing through the yashmak's folds, slide past demurely with a sidelong glance at the stranger from the West.
The population of Constantinople do not believe in overwork; and for business purposes there are practically three Sundays in the week—namely, the Turkish Sunday, which falls on our Friday; the Jewish Sunday, which falls on Saturday; and the Christian Sunday. I went out one day to the "Sweet Waters," a favourite picnic place near the head of the Golden Horn, where the Turkish women and children enjoy their holiday under the trees, and the real Turkey lolly-men drive a thriving trade in sweetmeats and sherbet. It was curious to note how the veneer of Western social routine was superimposed upon the changeless institutions of the East. I saw the ladies from the harems of sundry wealthy Turkish gentlemen driving out to "Sweet Waters" in the afternoon in carriages as perfectly appointed as any that roll through Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne in the height of the London or Paris season. Two ladies from one harem generally occupied one carriage; and the gigantic eunuch on the box, who was responsible for them while they were out under his charge, would use his London carriage whip without hesitation on the heads and shoulders of any young Turkish or Giaour mashers who attempted to make eyes at the closely guarded beauties.
I spent many a pleasant hour too in the long, narrow caïques that plied for hire on the waters of the Golden Horn like the gondolas of Venice; but I still had much to see when, after a week's stay, an official communication was handed to me informing me that I had been appointed regimental surgeon to the Kyrchehir Regiment, so named from the town in Asia Minor where it had been raised. I packed my portmanteau at once, and followed the messenger, who led me to the barracks where the regiment was quartered, and where I was introduced to my new colonel. He was most polite, and invited me to have supper with him; and then it was that I had my first really Turkish meal. I cannot truthfully say that I enjoyed it; and when my host, to mark the warmth of his hospitality, picked up a piece of chicken off his own plate in his fingers and placed it in my mouth, I must confess that I almost spoilt all my chances of a distinguished military career by an instantaneous attack of nausea. I spent the night in the barracks tossing sleeplessly on a divan, and soon after daybreak marched down with my regiment to the railway station.
The regiment, which was eight hundred strong, was officered by a colonel, two majors, eight captains, sixteen lieutenants, and a paymaster. When the process of entraining was completed, I found myself en route at six o'clock in the morning for a destination of which I knew nothing, and in company with a regiment of troops who were as ignorant of English as I was of Turkish. I was accommodated in a compartment with the colonel, the two majors, and the paymaster, Mehemet Ali, with whom I afterwards chummed up and lived on terms of the closest friendship. It was decidedly awkward, however, at first; for as the Turkish officers could speak neither French nor German, all communications between us had to be by signs. The men were packed closely together, and the train crawled slowly on towards the terminus, stopping for one hour in every three. We were three days and two nights on the journey towards Tatar Bazardjik, and I had plenty of time and opportunities for forming an opinion as to the kind of men with whom my lot was cast. I found that these men, who were all conscripts, formed the second regiment which had been raised at Kyrchehir, and fine fellows they were. I could have picked fifty men from among them who were as grand specimens of physical humanity as could be found anywhere in the world. They were all well clothed in the serviceable infantry uniform, and were armed with the Martini-Peabody rifle.
We camped each night at a railway station, and I remember on the morning of the second day seeing an old pasha who was organizing troops locally come galloping down to inspect us. Our regiment was paraded, and the pasha rode down the lines scanning the men closely. Presently he spotted me, and, seeing at a glance that I was not a Turk, he addressed a question to the colonel, who evidently replied that I was their new English surgeon. The pasha trotted up to where I stood at attention, and addressed some incoherent query to me; but as I could not even conjecture what it was all about, I imitated the gentleman whom Tennyson speaks of, and "smiling put the question by." I thought that the old pasha looked hurt; but the mystery was soon cleared up by the arrival of his own private barber with razor, soap, and brush. It seemed that "side boards" were not allowed in the Turkish army, and the small hairy appendages which covered my youthful cheeks, and of which, to tell the truth, I was rather proud, had deeply offended the old pasha's trained sense of order. So I had to submit myself to the pasha's barber, and in a few minutes the offensive adornments were removed, and I could no longer be distinguished from any of my Turkish colleagues.
At last we reached Tatar Bazardjik at eleven o'clock at night; and as there was no accommodation at the railway station, camp-fires were lit, and the regiment bivouacked for the night. Next morning at five o'clock I was roused up, and the colonel brought up four horses, giving me to understand by signs that I was to select one for a charger. I chose a little grey stallion, a powerful animal, with a look of endurance about him. He had a heavy Turkish peaked saddle on him, a most uncomfortable thing to ride in until one gets used to it; but there was no choice in the matter, so I had to make myself as comfortable in it as I could. Then we started on the march for Sofia, and a very unpleasant march it was at first.
It was then the month of June, and the weather was intensely hot; while, to add to our discomforts, a terrific duststorm swept down on us soon after leaving the bivouac, filling eyes, noses, and ears with fine, impalpable powder, and getting down the men's throats so that they could hardly breathe. The regiment marched all day, and of course I assumed that a good many of the men would be knocked up; but at five o'clock we halted, and pitched camp for the night, having covered about twelve miles of the journey.
Soon after the tents were pitched I had my first patient to attend. They brought up a man who had all the symptoms of an ordinary fit, and I had to make up my mind at once whether it was a genuine fit or whether he was malingering to avoid duty. It seemed to be a real fit, and then again there was something suspicious about it. I knew that if I was imposed upon at the outset I should have endless trouble, so I took my resolution at once, and explained by signs to Colonel Suleiman, who was standing by, that the man was shamming. The colonel's remedy for cases of this kind was drastic, but very effective. He had the patient sent to the rear, and given a round three dozen with a stick on that part of the person which schoolmasters have found to be especially suited for the receipt of chastisement. Of course the word was quickly passed round, and I had no more cases of fits to attend to during the march.
I shared a tent with Mehemet Ali, the paymaster, who turned out to be a really good fellow. He was a little man with a very fair complexion—his mother was a Circassian—and he had twinkling steel grey eyes. He was the strongest man I ever met. I had a horse, but I still wanted a servant, so Mehemet Ali brought up four men for my inspection. I chose a man named Ahmet, an Asiatic Turk and a married man with five children. He turned out a splendid servant; but, poor fellow, he never saw his home again, and his bones lie buried with those of many of his countrymen on the banks of the Danube at Widdin.
Next morning I was given to understand that I should have to see a number of patients; however, I fortified myself with two or three Turkish phrases, and went my rounds without trepidation. My diagnosis was in each case remarkable for simplicity, and I asked few needless questions. My first remark was invariably, "Dilli nitchika," which means, "Put out your tongue." If the man seemed really feverish and bad, I remarked authoritatively, "Hoiti araba," which means, "Go to the waggon," and I allowed him to ride in the waggon instead of route-marching. If I had any doubts as to the genuineness of the indisposition, I ejaculated sharply, "Hoiti balook," which means, "Go to your company." Of course all the men who were really ill I made to take two paces to the rear, and when my inspection was finished I prescribed for them, and dispensed my prescriptions from the well equipped regimental medicine chest.
It took the regiment five days altogether to march to Sofia, the colonel, the two majors, the paymaster, an adjutant, and myself being the only mounted officers. At first the route lay through mountainous and very picturesque country, heavily timbered with pines, beeches, elms, and walnuts. The walnut trees seemed to grow wild throughout the country, and the nuts were in great profusion.
One night we stopped at the Bulgarian village of Ichtiman, and for the first time I saw Bulgarians at close quarters and slept in a Bulgarian house. Dirt appeared to be the national characteristic of Bulgaria, and a cheerful disregard of all sanitary rules a leading feature in the national disposition. For size and ferocity I have never seen the domestic insects of Bulgaria equalled; and in the brief armistices which occurred in the unequal combats of that horrible night, I longed for my clean and cosy quarters in the paymaster's tent again. The Bulgarian men are tall and fair, and the samples that came under my notice wore huge bonnets of black sheepskin and baggy garments of a kind of coarse yellow frieze of their own weaving. Instead of boots they wore sandals laced to the knee in Spanish fashion, and their whole appearance was grimy and forbidding to a degree. Most of the inhabitants of the village disappeared into the surrounding hills on our arrival, and the few who remained forbore to present us with an address of welcome or to erect a triumphal arch in our honour. Sullenly and suspiciously they offered us bowls of yuoart to eat, a horrible sticky mess made of curdled milk, of which I partook to my subsequent sorrow.
At last we came in sight of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. It lay at the farther end of a great plain dotted here and there with Bulgarian villages, well watered by a river running through it, and nicely timbered like a great park. Against the dark background of the hills, to use a pretty line of Tennyson's, "the city sparkled like a grain of salt." Sofia was then a place of about twenty thousand inhabitants, and the seat of government. At one time the famous Midhat Pasha was the governor of this vilayet.
The regiment moved in column of route along the main road through the plain towards the white houses glinting in the sunshine, every man stepping jauntily as the close of the long march drew near. But Sofia looked better at a distance than it did under our noses. At that time there was only one hotel in the place, a filthy little cabaret kept by a Greek, whose views with regard to beds and meals were most primitive. The railway runs right through from Stamboul to Sofia and beyond now, and French cooking has replaced the black bread and beans which formed the Spartan fare placed before his guests by that "base scion of a noble stock" who took us in and "did for us" in '76.
The first English-speaking person whom I met in Sofia was MacGahan, the war correspondent for a London newspaper, and from him I learnt at last where I was and what was happening round us. We dined together, and he told me how the Servians had been beaten all along the line. I found that there were four other Turkish regiments besides my own quartered in Sofia; and among the English surgeons attached to the troops I was glad to find an old friend named Stiven, with whom I could exercise my tongue at last after my enforced silence of the previous week.
However, I was already able to speak a few words of Turkish, and the paymaster used to give me lessons regularly, pointing to the different articles in our tent and repeating the Turkish word for each until I had grasped it thoroughly. I conformed to Turkish customs of course in everything, and soon accustomed myself to my new surroundings. What strikes a new chum in Turkey very much at first is the absence of chairs. I never saw a chair there; but I soon learned to sit down to dinner on my own haunches on the ground with my brother officers. A Turkish dinner was a curious meal. First my servant brought me a basin of water, soap, and towel, and I washed my hands, preparatory to attacking the soup with my wooden spoon. Mehemet Ali and I used to eat out of the same bowl, dipping our wooden spoons in alternately. The pièce de résistance was invariably pilaf, or boiled rice, with little bits of meat cut up in it, and sometimes scraps of chicken or turkey when we could get hold of any. The pilaf was eaten with the fingers; and the dexterity with which an experienced Turk would fossick out a tender bit of the liver, wing, or a satisfying "drumstick," from the superincumbent mass of rice reminded one strongly of a digger unearthing nuggets in a patch of rich alluvial.
It was astonishing at Sofia to notice the humane way in which the Turks treated the Bulgarians, who were to all intents and purposes a hostile people, and who never lost an opportunity of showing their hostility whenever they could do so with safety to themselves. During the whole of the time that I was in Sofia I never saw a Bulgarian ill treated; and I think it only right to emphasize this point, because, either from want of knowledge or from that tendency to take omne ignotum pro malefico which is so common to mankind, the other nations of Europe have contrived to affix the stigma of barbarous cruelty to the Turks in such a manner that it is difficult to remove or even to lessen the impression. All I can say is that, as an unprejudiced observer with ample opportunities, I never saw any cruelties inflicted during a state of peace, nor any punishments dealt out to Bulgarians except in cases where they were fully deserved. The Turk when under fire does not fight with rose-water any more than the soldier of reputedly more civilized nations; but if needless barbarities were committed by both Turks and Russians when their blood was up, one has to remember the grim remark of the great Frenchman that one cannot have an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
It was in Sofia that I was called in to attend my first lady patient; and the case is worth noting as an illustration of the difference between Eastern and Western methods of diagnosis. In Turkey a practitioner does not get much to go on in forming an opinion. A wealthy old Turk in the town who had an extensive harem wanted advice for one of his wives, and I was asked to call and see her. I gladly accepted the opportunity, and followed my guides, a couple of eunuchs, and an interpreter to a fine house, where they took me upstairs and halted outside a thick, heavy curtain reaching from the ceiling to the floor. Inside was the harem, an institution which I had always had a scientific curiosity to see, and at last I felt that my ambition in this direction was to be realized. A few low spoken words in Turkish were whispered at the edge of the curtain by a tall black-garbed eunuch, and then I heard the rustle of draperies approaching on the other side. A low toned colloquy ensued between the eunuch, who seemed to be threatening, and my interesting patient, whose accents had in them a touch of plaintive entreaty. Presently a white and beautifully moulded arm was shyly insinuated through the space between the wall and the edge of the curtain, while the eunuch bade me, through the mediumship of the interpreter, diagnose the complaint from which the fair one suffered and prescribe a remedy. The hand was small and finely formed, and above the wrist was a heavy bangle of beaten gold. I felt the pulse, which was fluttering and unsteady, and clasped the white and tremulous fingers, feeling that with such slight data to go upon any treatment that I could prescribe would not be likely to enhance my reputation. Accordingly I demanded to be admitted, in order that I might see and question the patient, whom I judged to be a Circassian or a Georgian girl certainly not more than one and twenty, and probably pretty. A long debate ensued, in which the eunuchs, the interpreter, and myself took part; but all my arguments beat unheeded against the rocks of their Oriental stolidity, and the logic of the whole British Medical Society would not have sufficed to persuade the principal eunuch to let me see that unknown lady's tongue. With that thick curtain between us, it was a case of Pyramus and Thisbe and the wall; so I abandoned my quest after the unattainable, and lost the only chance that I—plausible Giaour though I was—ever obtained of seeing the inside of a real Turkish harem. Probably the lady was eventually treated by a hakem bashi, or Turkish physician and surgeon, many of whom are very clever in their own way, or by a jarra bashi, a sort of "legally qualified medical practitioner," who is recognized as a person entitled to prescribe, but whose abilities do not go much further than drawing teeth or fixing up sore feet.
From Sofia our regiment pushed on to Pirot, close to the Servian border, where we were brigaded with two other regiments of infantry and strengthened by a battery of artillery, our mission being to defend the road into Servia in case of a flank attack. We camped in the hills; and as I had little work to do, I spent most of my time shooting hares with the colonel's double-barrelled gun, and also duck, which were very plentiful. In the evenings I learned to smoke the narghileh, and I also improved my scanty knowledge of Turkish as best I could with the aid of Mehemet Ali.
At last we got orders to leave, and at daybreak we struck camp. The last that we saw of this pleasant resting-place was the flame of our burning camp-stables of brushwood, to which we set fire before we started on our new march.
After a stay at Ak Palanka, we were moved on to Nish, the headquarters of the Turkish army; and here I met several English surgeons, who had been despatched to the seat of war by the Red Cross Society in England. Among them was Armand Leslie, who was afterwards killed in Egypt, in the rout and massacre of Baker's poltroon levies while marching from Trinkitat towards Tokar; and a couple of others, Litton Forbes and Dr. S——, whom I got to know very well. At this time Nish formed the base of our army, and the wounded were brought back to us from Alexinatz, where the fighting was going on. The first sight of those poor fellows, gashed with sabre and bayonet, torn with shell, and riddled with rifle-bullets, made me realize the actuality of the conflict in which I was there to assist.
Life in camp was irksome enough; but I found a difficulty in getting out of it, for while one of our majors, Edhim Effendi, was a jolly, good-humoured fellow, who was not above a glass of liquor when he could get it, the other, Izzet Effendi, was a dry, fanatical Turk, who spent most of his time at his prayers, and always looked upon me as an infidel. Izzet Effendi refused to allow me to go into the town; but I appealed to the colonel, and, having secured his permission, I took up my quarters in Nish with S—— and Litton Forbes. Then I was drafted to look after the general hospital, and I left the regiment altogether.
There were about twenty of us in all on the surgical staff, and the hospital arrangements were excellent. It was here that I performed my first big operation, the patient being a Turkish infantryman who was brought in from Alexinatz with his knee shattered by a shell. He refused to take chloroform, and I took his leg off above the knee without any anæsthetic. He never said a word, and went on smoking a cigarette all the time. When the captain came round with his notebook afterwards to take down the name, age, and regiment of each wounded man, my patient answered all the questions quietly and unconcernedly while I was stitching up the flap of skin over the stump. It was a marvellous exhibition of fortitude, and a striking illustration of the mettle of the men whom I was soon to see charging with such splendid courage upon the bayonets of the Russians.
Prince Czetwertinski—A Romantic Career—His First Commission—A Retrospect—The History of a Noble Pole—From Monte Carlo to Brisbane—A Prince as a Deck Hand on a Schooner—A Bush Tutor—He returns to Europe—The Load of Poverty—Lighter to Bear in Australia—A Big Win at Flemington—School Teaching in Batavia—Back to New South Wales—Death at Wagga—The Vale of Moravia—The Hot Spring—Bulgarian Blanchisseuses—Slavonian Folk-songs—How the Turks sing—A Bulgarian Sámadh—Foley's End—Infuriated Scavengers—A Mysterious Disturbance—Rough-and-tumble Fighting—A Turkish Hercules—Capturing a Prisoner—A Solitary Ride—A Bulgarian Farrier—Back to Sofia—Christmas in the Snow—A Maize Cob for a Christmas Dinner—Orkhanieh to Sofia—A Doctor frozen to Death—Bitter Experiences—Salutary Effects of a Good Dinner.
At Nish I first met a young soldier whose remarkable personality and singularly adventurous life could not fail to attract attention, and with whom I formed a close personal friendship, which was only ended by his death barely a year ago. Prince Czetwertinski, whom I first saw mounted on a magnificent black charger in the main street of Nish, belonged to one of the oldest families in Russian Poland, and was himself the head of the family. His mother had been living at Lemberg in Galicia, and the young prince had been educated in France, and afterwards at a military school in Prague, with the object of entering the Austrian army. At the last moment, however, the Russian Government intervened, deeming it unwise to allow a Polish prince, who, though a Russian subject, was as hostile at heart to Russia as were all his countrymen, to accept an Austrian commission. The official world of St. Petersburg set its face against Czetwertinski, and refused to furnish him with the necessary papers; so that when the Servian war broke out he gladly seized the chance of taking service against the Russians, the traditional foes of his Polish house, proud still, although its glories had been sadly tarnished.
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