We set out by the light of the moon. Our party consisted of a small
force of Russian light cavalry. The officer in command was evidently
well acquainted with our route, for he rode smartly ahead without
hesitation or sign of uncertainty for several hours.
At first Nicholas and I conversed in low tones as we cantered side by
side over hill and dale, but as the night advanced we became less
communicative, and finally dropped into silence. As I looked upon
village and hamlet, bathed in the subdued light, resting in quietness
and peace, I thought sadly of the evils that war would surely bring upon
many an innocent and helpless woman and child.
It was invariably in this course that my thoughts about war flowed. I
was, indeed, quite alive to the national evils of war, and I will not
admit that any man-of-peace feels more sensitively than I do the fact
that, in war, a nation's best, youngest, and most hopeful blood is
spilled, while its longest lives and most ardent spirits are ruthlessly,
uselessly sacrificed--its budding youths, its strapping men, its
freshest and most muscular, to say nothing of mental, manhood. Still,
while contemplating war and its consequences, I have always been much
more powerfully impressed with the frightful consequences to women and
children, than anything else. To think of our wives, our little ones,
our tender maidens, our loving matrons, and our poor helpless babes,
being exposed to murder, rapine, torture, and all the numerous and
unnameable horrors of war, for the sake of some false, some fanciful,
some utterly ridiculous and contemptible idea, such as the connection of
one or two provinces of a land with this nation or with that, or the
"integrity of a foreign empire," has always filled me with sensations of
indignation approaching to madness, not unmingled, I must add, with
astonishment.
That savages will fight among themselves is self-evident; that Christian
nations shall defend themselves from the assaults of savages is also
obvious; but that two Christian nations should go to war for anything,
on any ground whatever, is to my mind inexplicable and utterly
indefensible.
Still, they do it. From which circumstance I am forced to conclude that
the Christianity as well as the civilisation and common-sense of one or
the other of such nations is, for the time, in abeyance.
Of course I was not perplexed in regard to the Turks. Their religion is
not Christian. Moreover, it was propagated by the sword, and teaches
coercion in religious matters; but I could not help feeling that the
Russians were too ready to forsake diplomacy and take to war.
"My dear fellow," said Nicholas, rousing himself, when I stated my
difficulty, "don't you see that the vacillating policy of England has
driven us to war in spite of ourselves? She would not join the rest of
Europe in compelling Turkey to effect reforms which she--Turkey--had
promised to make, so that nothing else was left for us but to go to
war."
"My dear fellow," I retorted, somewhat hotly, "that Turkey has behaved
brutally towards its own subjects is a well-known fact. That she has
treated the representatives of all the great powers of Europe with
extreme insolence is another well-known fact, but it is yet to be proved
that the efforts of diplomacy were exhausted, and even if they were, it
remained for Europe, not for Russia, to constitute herself the champion
of the oppressed."
"Jeff, my boy," returned Nicholas, with a smile, "I'm too sleepy to
discuss that subject just now, further than to say that I don't agree
with you."
He did indeed look sleepy, and as we had been riding many hours I
forbore to trouble him further.
By daybreak that morning we drew near to the town of Giurgevo, on the
Roumanian--or, I may say, the Russian--side of the Danube, and soon
afterwards entered it.
Considerable excitement was visible among its inhabitants, who, even at
that early hour, were moving hurriedly about the streets. Having parted
from our escort, Nicholas and I refreshed ourselves at the Hotel de
l'Europe, and then went to an hospital, where my companion wished to
visit a wounded friend--"one," he said, "who had lately taken part in a
dashing though unsuccessful expedition."
This visit to Giurgevo was my first introduction to some of the actual
miseries of war. The hospital was a clean, well-ventilated building.
Rows of low beds were ranged neatly and methodically along the
whitewashed walls. These were tenanted by young men in every stage of
suffering and exhaustion. With bandaged heads or limbs they sat or
reclined or lay, some but slightly wounded and still ruddy with the hue
of health on their young cheeks; some cut and marred in visage and
limbs, with pale cheeks and blue lips, that told of the life-blood
almost drained. Others were lying flat on their backs, with the soft
brown moustache or curly brown hair contrasting terribly with the grey
hue of approaching death.
In one of the beds we found the friend of Nicholas.
He was quite a youth, not badly wounded, and received us with
enthusiasm.
"My dear Nicholas," he said, in reply to a word of condolence about the
failure of the expedition, "you misunderstand the whole matter.
Doubtless it did not succeed, but that was no fault of ours, and it was
a glorious attempt. Come, I will relate it. Does your friend speak
Russian?"
"He at all events understands it," said I.
On this assurance the youth raised his hand to his bandaged brow as if
to recall events, and then related the incident, of which the following
is the substance.
While the Russians were actively engaged in preparing to cross the
Danube at a part where the river is full of small islands, the Turks
sent monitors and gunboats to interrupt the operations. The Russians
had no vessels capable of facing the huge ironclads of the enemy. Of
the ten small boats at the place, eight were engaged in laying torpedoes
in the river to protect the works, and two were detailed to watch the
enemy. While they were all busily at work, the watchers in a boat named
the _Schootka_ heard the sound of an approaching steamer, and soon after
descried a Turkish gunboat steaming up the river. Out went the little
_Schootka_ like a wasp, with a deadly torpedo at the end of her spar.
The gun-boat saw and sought to evade her, put on full steam and hugged
the Turkish shore, where some hundreds of Circassian riflemen kept up an
incessant fire on the Russian boat. It was hit, and its commander
wounded, but the crew and the second in command resolved to carry out
the attack. The _Schootka_ increased her speed, and, to the
consternation of the Turks, succeeded in touching the gun-boat just
behind the paddle-boxes, but the torpedo refused to explode, and the
_Schootka_ was compelled to haul off, and make for shelter under a heavy
fire from the gun-boat and the Circassian riflemen, which quite riddled
her. While she was making off a second Turkish gun-boat hove in sight.
The _Schootka_ had still another torpedo on board, one on the Harvey
principle. This torpedo may be described as a somewhat square and flat
case, charged with an explosive compound. When used it is thrown into
the sea and runs through the water on its edge, being held in that
position by a rope and caused to advance by pulling on it sidewise.
Anglers will understand this when I state that it works on the principle
of the "otter," and, somewhat like the celebrated Irish pig going to
market, runs ahead the more it is pulled back by the tail. With this
torpedo the daring Russians resolved to attack the second gunboat, but
when they threw it overboard it would not work; something had gone wrong
with its tail, or with the levers by which, on coming into contact with
the enemy, it was to explode. They were compelled therefore to abandon
the attempt, and seek shelter from the Turkish fire behind an island.
"So then," said I, on quitting the hospital, "torpedoes, although
_terrible_ in their action, are not always _certain_."
"Nothing is always certain," replied Nicholas, with a smile, "except the
flight of time, and as the matter on which I have come requires
attention I must now leave you for a few hours. Don't forget the name
of our hotel. That secure in a man's mind, he may lose himself in any
town or city with perfect safety--_au revoir_."
For some time I walked about the town. The morning was bright and calm,
suggesting ideas of peace; nevertheless my thoughts could not be turned
from the contemplation of war, and as I wandered hither and thither,
looking out for reminiscences of former wars, I thought of the curiously
steady way in which human history repeats itself. It seems to take
about a quarter of a century to teach men to forget or ignore the
lessons of the past and induce them to begin again to fight. Here, in
1829, the Russians levelled the fortifications which at that time
encircled the town; here, in 1854, the Russians were defeated by the
Turks; and here, in 1872, these same Russians and Turks were at the same
old bloody and useless game--ever learning, yet never coming to a
knowledge of the great truth, that, with all their fighting, nothing has
been gained and nothing accomplished save a few changes of the men on
the chess-board, and the loss of an incalculable amount of life and
treasure.
As the day advanced it became very sultry. Towards the afternoon I
stopped and gazed thoughtfully at the placid Danube, which, flowing
round the gentle curve of Slobosia, reflected in its glittering waters
the white domes and minarets of the opposite town of Rustchuk. A low,
rumbling sound startled me just then from a reverie. On looking up I
perceived a small puff of smoke roll out in the direction of the Turkish
shore. Another and another succeeded, and after each shot a smaller
puff of smoke was seen to hang over the Turkish batteries opposite.
A strange conflicting rush of feelings came over me, for I had awakened
from dreaming of ancient battles to find myself in the actual presence
of modern war. The Russian had opened fire, and their shells were
bursting among the Turks. These latter were not slow to reply. Soon
the rumbling increased to thunder, and I was startled by hearing a
tremendous crash not far distant from me, followed by a strange humming
sound. The crash was the bursting of a Turkish shell in one of the
streets of the town, and the humming sound was the flying about of
ragged bits of iron. From the spot on which I stood I could see the
havoc it made in the road, while men, women, and children were rushing
in all directions out of its way.
Two objects lay near the spot, however, which moved, although they did
not flee. One was a woman, the other a boy; both were severely wounded.
I hurried through the town in the direction of the Red-Cross hospital,
partly expecting that I might be of service there, and partly in the
hope of finding Nicholas. As I went I heard people remarking excitedly
on the fact that the Turks were firing at the hospital.
The bombardment became furious, and I felt an uncomfortable disposition
to shrink as I heard and saw shot and shell falling everywhere in the
streets, piercing the houses, and bursting in them. Many of these were
speedily reduced to ruins.
People hurried from their dwellings into the streets, excited and
shouting. Men rushed wildly to places of shelter from the deadly
missiles, and soon the cries and wailing of women over the dead and
wounded increased the uproar. This was strangely and horribly
contrasted with the fiendish laughter of a group of boys, who, as yet
unhurt, and scarcely alive to the real nature of what was going on, had
taken shelter in an archway, from which they darted out occasionally to
pick up the pieces of shells that burst near them.
These poor boys, however, were not good judges of shelter-places in such
circumstances. Just as I passed, a shell fell and burst in front of the
archway, and a piece of it went singing so close past my head that I
fancied at the first moment it must have hit me. At the same instant
the boys uttered an unearthly yell of terror and fled from under the
archway, where I saw one of their number rolling on the ground and
shrieking in agony.
Hastening to his assistance, I found that he had received a severe flesh
wound in the thigh. I carried him into a house that seemed pretty well
protected from the fire, dressed his wound, and left him in charge of
the inmates, who, although terribly frightened, were kind and
sympathetic.
Proceeding through the marketplace, I observed a little girl crouching
in a doorway, her face as pale as if she were dead, her lips perfectly
white, and an expression of extreme horror in her eyes. I should
probably have passed her, for even in that short sharp walk I had
already seen so many faces expressing terror that I had ceased to think
of stopping, but I observed a stream of blood on her light-coloured
dress.