THE FIASCOS OF PELISCHAT AND LOVTCHA.
A Circassian and a Pig--A Call on Olivier Pain--His Photographs
surprise me--A View of Sydney Harbour in Plevna--The Story of a
French Journalist--A Lonely Death in the Soudan--"The
Butter-making Prince"--Bulgarian Fleas--The Expedition to
Poradim--Going to the Front--An Ambulance at Work--Capture of
Russian Guns--A Diabolical Circassian--Attack on a Redoubt--A
General Retreat--Wounded Men left in the Redoubt--I help them to
escape--An Exciting Moment--My Horse has to carry Double--Death
takes one of the Riders--Battle of Pelischat--The March to
Lovtcha--A Scrimmage in a Wheat-field--Sleeping in a
Wheat-stook--Weinberger and I are apprehensive--A Delightful
Surprise--Drawing a Covert--Lovtcha in the Distance--A Council
of War--An Appalling Sight--Our Mutilated Comrades--The Sergeant
and his Cigarette--A Night Alarm--Ammunition Boxes blow up--A
Disastrous Explosion--Lauri and Drew Gay.
My own Circassian servant, Ahmet, was an excellent attendant, and I
seldom had any trouble with him. Once, however, an incident occurred
through which I nearly lost him. It all arose through a pig. Next door
to my quarters, and between them and the house occupied by Dr. Robert,
was the residence of a Bulgarian, who was rather more affable than most
of his compatriots, and who allowed me to use a right-of-way through his
place to get to Dr. Robert's, so as to avoid the necessity of going a
long way round. I often saw this Bulgarian as I went through his garden,
and one day he told me that he was going to kill a pig, and that if I
sent Ahmet in to him he would give him some fresh pork for me. When I
conveyed my wishes to Ahmet, I was met by an unexpected obstacle. Ahmet
was a good Mussulman, and hated pork as the devil hates holy water. He
refused to touch the accursed thing, and it was in vain that by turns I
bullied and entreated, threatened and cajoled him to fetch the material
for an appetizing plateful of pork chops. He positively refused, and at
last I told him that if he would not obey my orders I would have to send
him back to his regiment. This was an unpleasant alternative, for with
me he had light duties, comfortable quarters, plenty to eat and drink,
and no fighting, whereas if he were sent back to his regiment he would
have to spend long hours digging in the trenches, with the certainty of
being sent under fire on the first reappearance of the Russians. In
spite of all this he steadily refused to fetch the pork, and I admired
his steadfastness so much that at last I went and fetched it myself. I
took it over to Dr. Robert's, and we had a splendid dinner.
It was about this time that I first met that remarkable adventurer
Olivier Pain, whose history forms one of the strangest pages in the
book of political martyrs. Tewfik Bey told me one morning that a
Frenchman had arrived in Plevna; and as I was extremely anxious for some
news of the outside world, I determined to call on the visitor. He was
established in the Bulgarian house which I had not long quitted, and was
receiving the scant attention which the black-eyed daughter of the house
found time to bestow upon him, and the conversational treat which her
one remark "London" occasionally afforded. When I visited the stranger
in my old well known quarters, I found a tall, sallow man, apparently
about twenty-five years of age, with a small, pointed beard, and an air
of intelligence and almost of distinction. He was arranging his few
possessions in the room when I entered and introduced myself to him. As
my eyes wandered round the room, I was thunderstruck to see this
Frenchman pinning upon the wall a photograph of Sydney Harbour, and I
asked him at once if he knew Sydney. He replied that he did; and when I
told him that I was a native of Melbourne, he said that he had also been
in Melbourne, and knew it well. He seemed somewhat troubled at my
recognition of the photograph, and at last, speaking in very tolerable
English, he said to me, "Sir, I have a very high idea of the honour of
an English gentleman, and I take you to be one. If you will promise not
to betray me, I will tell you who I am."
"Like yourself," I replied, "I am alone here, and it does not matter a
straw to me who you are. You are evidently an intelligent and educated
man, and that is quite enough for me." Then he told me that he was
Olivier Pain, and that during the stormy days of 1871 in Paris he had
embraced the cause of the Commune, and been deported for life to New
Caledonia, in company with the fiery and _intransigéant_ Henri
Rochefort. He had escaped in 1874 with Rochefort to the Australian
coast, and had reached Sydney in safety, afterwards making his way to
Melbourne, and thence to America, where for some time he lay _perdu_.
Venturing back to Europe, however, after many adventures he reached
Geneva, and on the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war was engaged as a
war correspondent by one of the principal Geneva newspapers.
Now war correspondents were regarded with the utmost distrust in Turkey,
while Osman Pasha positively hated them, and strict instructions were
given that no stranger should be allowed into Plevna without a special
firman from the Sultan. It was characteristic of the audacity of Olivier
Pain that he should have made his way from Constantinople unprovided
with the necessary firman, and should have "bluffed" himself into
Plevna, in the belief that among the hundreds of departing wounded men
and arriving reinforcements his presence would not at first be noticed.
As a matter of fact, however, he was noted at once, and eventually had
to leave the town temporarily; but for a fortnight he continued to
inhabit my old quarters, and I saw a good deal of him.
Little skirmishes between our pickets and the Russian vedettes used to
occur from day to day, and Pain began to exercise his _métier_ as war
correspondent at once, writing the most picturesque descriptive articles
to his Geneva newspaper. I was shown afterwards a copy of that journal,
in which a long account appeared written by him, and purporting to be a
description of some heroic exploits performed by myself. Upon the
slender foundation of my participation in one of the trifling cavalry
skirmishes which were constantly taking place, he had built up a
remarkable narrative, in which he portrayed me, I am afraid with more
vividness than veracity, cutting down Russian troopers by the score.
However, fortunately for himself, Pain was an enthusiastic admirer of
everything Turkish, and he found in Osman Pasha a model of all the
military virtues. It was fortunate for him that he adopted this view in
his letters, for unknown to him they were all opened and read by Tewfik
Bey before being despatched from Plevna. Of course Tewfik Bey apprised
his superior officer of the contents of the letters, and the result was
that Osman Pasha's antipathy to war correspondents was mollified in
this particular case. War correspondents are not usually thin-skinned;
and when at last it became necessary absolutely to turn Pain out of
Plevna because he had no authority to be there, Osman Pasha himself gave
him a letter to the executive in Constantinople recommending that the
necessary permission should be given to him to return to Plevna. He was
unable to return at once as the road was blocked; but Chefket Pasha,
coming up in October with fresh troops, reopened it, and with him came
back Olivier Pain. He survived all the horrors of the fall of Plevna,
and lived to seek for new adventures in the service of the Mahdi in the
Soudan. The quixotism of Pain's politics was well revealed in his
conduct in going to the Soudan as a colleague of Rochefort's, with the
idea that he could assist the Mahdi against England, and so injure the
traditional antagonist of France. In that book of fascinating interest
_Fire and Sword in the Sudan_, Slatin Bey tells the story of Olivier
Pain's appearance in the Mahdi's camp while his troops were marching on
Khartoum, and of his acceptance with suspicion both by the Mahdi and the
Khalifa. A few days after Pain joined in the march he became ill with
fever, and was placed on an _angareb_, or couch, slung upon a donkey.
Growing weaker and weaker, he slipped at last from the donkey, fractured
his skull, and died miserably when the column was within three days'
march of Khartoum.
As I knew him at Plevna, Pain was capital company. He told us what
Europe was thinking of us set there to repel the repeated assaults of
the Russians; and he gave us many stories of wild life as a political
convict in New Caledonia and a refugee ever since in half the countries
of the world.
My friend Czetwertinski had come to stay in my quarters as his health
was very delicate and he could not live under canvas; so he and Pain and
myself generally dined together, and gathered for a smoke and a chat in
the evenings. One night a slight contretemps occurred which came near
depriving me of one of my friends, if not both. Czetwertinski conceived
the brilliant idea of converting some of the milk which the Bulgarian
boy used to bring me into butter, and with this object he extemporized a
small churn and turned himself into an impromptu butter factory. The
volatile Frenchman could not resist giving his communistic feelings
expression, and he made some remark about "the butter-making prince"
which grievously incensed the haughty Pole. An instant challenge to a
duel followed, and I had the greatest difficulty in preventing my two
friends from exchanging shots according to the recognized code. Finally
I pacified them, and had the satisfaction of seeing them fall upon each
other's necks in a cordial embrace. When Pain finally left us in
response to a peremptory order from headquarters, he bequeathed his
stock of firewood to me as an acknowledgment of the hospitality which he
had received; and I secured possession of this coveted luxury in spite
of the loud objections of Pain's Bulgarian landlord, who regarded the
wood, which was now becoming a scarce commodity in Plevna, as his lawful
perquisite.
A curious superstition on the part of the Turks came under my notice one
night soon after Pain's departure. I was tossing about feverishly in
bed, suffering agonies from the assaults of the domestic insects which
in Bulgaria attain to stupendous proportions, when I heard a tremendous
volley of guns, and for the moment I believed that a night attack was
taking place. However, after a few minutes of independent firing, the
noise died away, and I went to sleep again. Next morning it appeared
that there had been an eclipse of the moon on the previous night, and
the townspeople were acting in accordance with an ancient superstition
when they fired off every available gun, believing that in doing so they
would scare away the monstrous animal which was endeavouring to devour
the silver queen of night. They were curiously alive to an empty
superstition, yet curiously insensible to hard facts, for they appeared
to tolerate the ever-present annoyance of the insects with equanimity.
When I resorted to the device of putting the legs of my bed in vessels
full of water, so that the fleas and other hopping and crawling visitors
could not climb up to attack me, the pertinacious creatures thought out
a way to circumvent me. They simply crawled up the wall and along the
ceiling until they were in a position to drop down upon me, which they
did. It was the most marked display of reasoning power in the lower
creatures that ever forced itself upon my notice. The only way that I
could baffle the voracious crowd was by moving my bed out into the open
air, and this I did.
In the forenoon of August 31, while I was pottering about my hospital, I
heard guns at a distance of about five miles, and jumping on my horse I
galloped off to the headquarters camp, only to find it deserted.
Information was obtainable, however, showing that Osman Pasha had
suddenly moved off eastward in the direction of Poradim before daybreak
with nineteen battalions of infantry, three batteries of artillery, and
all the cavalry at his disposal. He had gone out really for the purpose
of getting information and ascertaining the position of the Russians. It
was a huge reconnaissance ending in a battle.
As I had received no orders to remain in camp, I rode off in the
direction of the firing, and after going a couple of miles I saw three
or four mounted officers. Fearing that I might be sent back, I went a
little aside, and passed them, as I thought, unnoticed; but they
speedily ordered me to halt, and when I went up to them I found that one
was Hassib Bey, the principal medical officer.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" he said to me; "you are the very
man we want."
I told him that I was anxious to see the fun, and he advised me, with a
laugh, to curb my ardour, and ordered me to remain with him.
We rode on together for another couple of miles, when we came to an
ambulance at work. It was the only ambulance that I ever saw in the
field with the Turkish troops, and was a very simple affair, managed by
four surgeons, who had brought tables, instruments, water, basins, and
bandages with them. A number of wounded men were waiting to be treated,
and a long stream of others were coming in from the direction of the
fighting. Hassib Bey ordered me to assist the other surgeons working at
the ambulance, and I took up my duties among the wounded forthwith. We
were stationed on the lee side of a hill in comparative safety and out
of the line of fire; but the battle was so close to us that we could
hear the roar of the heavy guns, the sharp rattle of the breech-loaders,
and the loud hurrahs of the troops engaged.
Presently a rumour reached us that our men had captured two Russian guns
on the crest of the long ridge between Pelischat and Sgalevitcha and a
few minutes later those field-pieces, which were made of bronze and were
the first Russian guns that we had yet seen closely, were taken past us
at a gallop by Turkish drivers heading for Plevna. When the wounded men
who were lying all round us waiting for their turns saw the captured
guns, they were excited to the wildest enthusiasm. Many of them rose to
their feet in spite of their wounds, and many more propped themselves up
painfully on their rifles as they cheered the capture that had been
made.
I remained with the ambulance for several hours, and the record of work
there shows how much can be accomplished in the way of surgery under
active-service conditions. I had a small chamois-leather bag in my
pocket which I used generally for carrying coffee; but I devoted it on
this occasion to holding the bullets which I extracted from my patients.
I was the only operator; and when the afternoon's work was done, I
counted nineteen bullets in it--not a bad record of operations all
performed within three hours.
If a wounded man came in with the bullet in anything like a handy place
I whipped it out at once, and in no case did we give chloroform. Most of
the men were walking back or crawling along as well as they could, and a
few were being brought in on stretchers by their comrades.
Among the wounded arrivals was an infantry captain who was a nephew of
Hassib Bey. He was shot through the calf of the leg, and he was able to
give us some details of the fighting. He told us that the Turks had
taken a Russian redoubt, or rather a small entrenchment fortified with
sandbags, and that there were a good many wounded men there, but no
doctor.
I saluted Hassib Bey, and asked him if I could go forward.
"All right," he replied, "you can go; but, for goodness' sake, take care
of yourself."
I promised to do so, and galloped off towards the sound of the fighting.
On my way I passed a long string of wounded men making their way back to
the ambulance, and was able to stanch their bleeding in many cases, and
place them in a better condition for continuing their journey. Presently
I came across several dead men, and the shells began to fly about. As I
advanced farther the numbers of the dead increased, and the bodies of
several Russians among the Turks marked the spot where the fighting had
been hand-to-hand. Soon I saw the Russian camp about a mile away. It
consisted of a number of little wooden huts on a slight slope in front
of the village of Pelischat, and there were a good many tents as well. I
could see the Turkish troops engaged; but as I came up to them, they
were beginning for the second time to fall back under a hot fire from
the Russians.
The country was very open, and lightly timbered, with here and there a
few beeches and walnut trees, under which little groups of wounded men
were resting on their way to the rear. It was plain that the Russians
had recently occupied the ground which our troops at this moment were
holding, for lying on the plain were many wounded Russians who had been
left behind when their regiments fell back, and those hapless creatures
received short shrift from the irregular troops fighting under the
Turkish flag.
One instance of the savagery with which the conflict was conducted I
witnessed personally; and though it shows the Turkish irregulars in very
lurid colours, I can vouch for the performance of similar and even worse
atrocities on the part of the Cossacks a few days later.
As I was looking at the firing and wondering how much longer our men
would be able to hold the advantage which they had gained, I saw a
Circassian, with a most diabolical expression on his face, stooping down
to pluck some of the long grass that grew there abundantly and wiping
his _camer_, or short sharp sword, upon it. I rode up to see what he was
doing, and found that he had just cut the head off an unfortunate
wounded Russian. The headless trunk, still quivering with muscular
contractions, lay on the ground at his feet, and he was holding up his
horrid trophy by the hair.
I rode on to the small earthwork which our men had captured. The
regiment which had taken it still held possession, and the Russian
troops were advancing in strong force to recapture it. I gathered that
desperate fighting had gone on here, and that the redoubt had already
been captured and recaptured two or three times. The men who were then
holding it were the remnant of the attacking party, and when I was about
a hundred yards from the fortified spot I passed an immense number of
Turkish dead. They were the first company in the column of assault which
perished to a man. The Russians in the redoubt must have reserved their
fire, for nearly every man of the first company had five or six bullets
through him. The redoubt itself was full of dead and dying men, and the
Russians, having rallied, were already coming back beyond their foremost
line, being within about five hundred yards of the redoubt. It was plain
that if our men did not retire they would be annihilated, and they began
to fall back in good order, taking as many of the wounded with them as
possible.
One of the first men I saw was Czetwertinski, who was captain in a
cavalry troop. He told me that a few minutes before I arrived his horse
had been killed under him by a shell which ripped the animal's side
open. So perished the magnificent black charger which no man in the
squadron could ride but Czetwertinski; the horse to whom he really owed
his commission. Czetwertinski had been left unmounted for a minute or
two; but he speedily took the horse ridden by his servant Faizi, who had
to find his way back as best he could.
The shells began to come pretty thickly among us, and the Russian
gunners were making very fair practice. I saw a Turkish regiment lying
down close by some trees, when a couple of shells exploded almost
simultaneously among them, killing seven men and wounding many more,
whom I attended on the spot.
Osman Pasha with Tewfik Bey and his staff were there in the thick of it.
The commander-in-chief had had three horses shot under him that day.
Presently our men began to retire in earnest, under a perfect storm of
shot and shell from the returning Russians. All our wounded men had been
got away except two who were left behind in the redoubt. I saw them
there, and, realizing what their fate would be when the Russians should
have retaken the redoubt, I decided to make an effort to save them. I
got into the redoubt, and found that one of the men had been shot
through the neck by a rifle-bullet. He was bleeding terribly, and was
already blanched to the colour of death. The other man had been struck
in the left thigh by a fragment of shell which had shattered the bone. I
got them both out, and managed to get the man who was shot in the neck
upon my horse. I placed him in the saddle, and I put the man with the
shattered leg up behind him. I held the second man in position with my
right hand, and led the horse by the bridle with the left. The man with
the broken leg was suffering terrible agony, but he held up his comrade
in front of him and prevented him from falling off. In this way we
started to rejoin our troops, who were now nearly half a mile away,
retreating slowly and firing as they went. The Russians were within
about four hundred yards of the redoubt when I left it with the two
wounded men and the horse.
The Russians were pouring in a hot fire on our retreating troops, and
our men were answering at intervals, so that I was caught between two
fires. I could hear the Russian shells screaming over my head as I made
my way back. Our pace was necessarily slow, for I had to walk the horse
all the way, and to take the utmost care lest the men should fall off.
When we had got about half a mile from the redoubt, the man in front
fell off the horse dead, and I left him there. I put the other man into
the saddle; and after a period that seemed like a lifetime, I reached
our foremost lines and went on through them, and out of the line of
fire, without having received a scratch.
We saw several regiments of Russian cavalry detach themselves from the
main body and come galloping down as if to cut off our retreat; so our
officers ordered the field-guns into action, and we opened a destructive
shell fire on them which stopped their pursuit. The main body of the
Russians also drew back, and did not pursue us farther; so that without
further misadventure we reached the site of the field ambulance, and I
placed my man in one of the waggons after bandaging up his leg. When I
took him off the saddle, I noticed a little pyramid of clotted blood,
about three or four inches high, on the horse's wither. It had been
caused by the slow drip-drip from the neck of the first man before he
fell off dead.
I stopped at the field-ambulance depot attending to the wounded men
until about six o'clock in the evening, when we all cleared off and went
back to Plevna. This was the battle of Pelischat, otherwise named
Sgalevitcha. We had about one thousand three hundred men killed and
wounded, and we had gained absolutely nothing. I never could understand
the exact object of this sortie from Plevna, since even if we had
succeeded in capturing the Pelischat-Sgalevitcha position we could never
have held it.
Early on the morning of September 4 an orderly came to my quarters
before I was up, and said to me, "At eleven o'clock you will see some
troops advancing by the Lovtcha road, and you will follow them."
I asked him where they were going, and he said that he did not know. I
inquired how long we were likely to be away, and he said that he had no
idea, adding that I had better take my instruments with me because I
should probably want them.
After I had done my work at the hospital, I went up to the headquarters
camp, and found that Osman Pasha and a number of officers, Hassan Labri
Pasha, Emin Bey, Tahir Pasha, Tewfik Bey, Osman Bey, and Yalaat Bey,
with sixteen battalions and three batteries, were marching out along the
Lovtcha road, and I joined them at once. About a mile from Plevna on
this road were some large vineyards laden with clusters of ripe grapes,
which had attracted the attention of our troops some days before this.
In fact, the Turkish soldiers, in their desire to get the ripe fruit,
had been in the habit of stealing out by night past our vedettes into
the vineyards, and several of them had been shot by the Russian
outposts; strict orders had accordingly been given to the troops to
refrain from indulging their appetite for grapes under the
circumstances, and the Turkish sentries had been instructed to shoot any
men who attempted to pass them during the night for the purpose of
getting into the vineyards.
When, however, we were marching out towards Lovtcha in the daytime, it
was impossible to keep the troops out of the vineyards; and many of the
men who had not been too plentifully supplied with rations for some time
past gorged themselves with fruit to such an extent that they became ill
with dysentery, and I had to attend to them. On the outskirts of Plevna
also I noticed many Turkish professional beggars who pestered the troops
for money; and as it was considered lucky to give something in charity
before going into action, the soldiers were very liberal, and the
beggars reaped a rich harvest of piastres.
Almost as soon as we were well clear of Plevna and out into the open
country, we fell in with some Russian cavalry vedettes, and began a
period of intermittent fighting which continued all that day. When the
vedettes saw that we were in strong force, they fell back upon a field
where the corn had been cut and stood piled up at intervals in stooks.
It was quite interesting to watch them dodging for cover from one stook
to another, while our men tried to pick them off with their rifles. A
good many of the Cossacks fell in the wheat-field, and the remainder
were driven back without difficulty. Hardly had we got rid of those,
however, when three or four Russian infantry regiments put in an
appearance with a couple of batteries of artillery, and opened fire on
us. We were drawn up in very open order, and Osman Pasha sent a couple
of batteries up to the crest of some rising ground, and we started to
shell the enemy, still continuing to push forward with the main body.
There was a small creek to cross, and we had a hard task to get the guns
over the bridge under a heavy fire from the Russians. It was very
exciting work; and as Tewfik Bey was directing the passage of the
bridge, his horse was killed under him by a shell. At last, however, we
got safely over, just as it was growing dusk, and sending out
skirmishers in front we continued to advance. The firing went on for
some hours, sudden sheets of flame appearing on both sides in the
twilight as the opposing troops discharged volley after volley; but our
casualties were very few, and at last there was a cessation of
hostilities.
We camped in a wheat-field which had just been reaped, and Weinberger
and I sat all night in one of the stooks, holding our horses. We had no
rations with us; but I had had a good feed of grapes in the morning, and
with some cobs of maize that I had put in my pocket before starting we
managed to satisfy our hunger. As we squatted in the stook together,
Weinberger and I discussed the situation seriously, and came to the
conclusion that it was by no means reassuring. In point of fact we made
up our minds that our last hour was all but come, for we made sure that
before morning the Russians would bring up their troops and we should
have to be struck by a flank attack. Our communication with Plevna would
no doubt be cut off during the night, and we apprehended that when the
morning came our force would probably be annihilated. When day broke,
however, we looked out of our stook, and found to our intense relief
that there was not a Russian in sight anywhere. It was the most
beautiful morning that I remember to have ever seen; and after the bare
hills round Plevna and the narrow streets of the town, the well
timbered, undulating country was a delightful sight.
The march was resumed soon after daybreak, and it must have been midday
before we halted in the doghole Bulgarian village of Kakrinka, a little
distance eastward of Lovtcha. A number of pigs belonging to the fugitive
villagers were roaming about among the empty cottages, and the
Circassians, who, like all good Mussulmen, regard the pig as a filthy
and abominable creature, showed their religious zeal by shooting several
of them. On the outskirts of the village we met a Bulgarian woman with
two children, and from her we learnt the fatal news that Lovtcha had
fallen two days before. Our march from Plevna had been with the object
of relieving Rifaat Pasha, who commanded the garrison at Lovtcha; but we
had arrived too late, for he had been attacked by an overwhelming
Russian force, and the Turkish troops in Lovtcha had been cut to pieces.
What had happened was this. Skobeleff had advanced upon Lovtcha on
September 1, with about twenty-one thousand men and eighty-four guns,
exclusive of the Cossacks and their batteries. Aware that he was vastly
outnumbered, Rifaat Pasha had sent an urgent request to Osman Pasha in
Plevna for immediate assistance; but the commander-in-chief apparently
considered that the Lovtcha position could hold out for a few days, and
delayed to send reinforcements at once.
During the night of September 1, Skobeleff had thrown up entrenchments
and established batteries on a hill two miles from Lovtcha, and opened
fire early on the morning of the 2nd upon the position. Later in the day
the main Russian body had come up, and thrown up entrenchments to
prepare for the general attack, which took place on September 3. After
three hours of desperate fighting, the position was carried, and the
Turks withdrew their left wing across the river Osma. The attack on the
second Turkish position was then commenced, and the citadel of Lovtcha
was at last carried by Skobeleff and his Russians, after a general rush
from all sides late in the evening.
Most of the Turkish fugitives had already fled towards Mikren, twelve
miles south-west of Lovtcha, hotly pursued by Cossacks and artillery.
Cut down by the Cossacks or killed by Russian shells, the Turkish force
was practically wiped out. Ignorant of the details, however, and knowing
only the bare fact that Lovtcha was in the hands of the Russians, we
pressed on towards the position; and when we were about five miles from
Lovtcha, we saw a couple of regiments of cavalry and a regiment of
infantry drawn up on the bank of the Osma. They advanced over the plain
to meet us; and as we were well posted on a fairly high eminence, we
opened fire on them with artillery. I saw one of the shells drop right
in the middle of a squadron of cavalry, and five or six men with their
horses were all down on the ground together.
Under the stress of the artillery fire the cavalry scattered and
retired, some remaining to pick up their wounded. We continued to fire
upon these, and killed about twenty-five or thirty more of them. Below
the eminence upon which our troops were drawn up was a wood of dwarf
oaks, walnuts, and beeches running down into the plain which form the
valley of the Osma; and Osman Pasha, believing that a Russian force was
concealed in the wood, sent down a couple of battalions to clear it.
I sat on my horse on the top of the hill, and watched this interesting
operation. There were little open spaces here and there in the wood,
and I could see the red fezzes of the soldiers bobbing about among the
trees as they worked the cover exactly like a pack of foxhounds. There
was a great deal of shouting and indiscriminate firing, and we all
expected to see the Russians bolting out of the wood on the other side.
It was intensely exciting; but at last we saw the fezzes emerging on the
far side of the wood, and we realized that they had drawn it blank.
There was not a Russian in the place; but I had three wounded Turks to
attend to who had been shot by their own comrades when the promiscuous
firing was going on in the wood.
As we looked over upon Lovtcha from the hill where we were halted, the
town appeared as if it was on the stage of a vast theatre, while we were
in the dress circle. Below us was a long green plain with the silver
thread of the river Osma meandering through it, and farther away was the
town of Lovtcha nestling in the ranges. On the banks of the river were
two Bulgarian villages, and we could see Russian troops in both of them.
Osman Pasha held a council of war on the top of the hill, and all the
principal officers attended, the question debated being whether an
attempt should be made to recapture Lovtcha or not. The general opinion
was that it was inadvisable to make the attempt, and Hassan Labri Pasha
alone was in favour of an attack. At last, after discussing all the
arguments for and against, it was decided not to attack such a strong
position occupied by an immensely superior force; and Osman Pasha, much
against his will, was obliged to order a return to Plevna.
Meanwhile our cavalry and Circassians were sent down the hill to make a
reconnaissance, and I went with them. After going some little distance,
we came across a ghastly evidence of the ferocity of the fighting, for
we counted nearly four hundred Turks all lying dead together. They had
apparently tried to break away when Lovtcha fell, and had been cut down
by the Cossacks when making a last stand under the walnut trees. Every
corpse was fearfully disfigured. The faces had been slashed with sabres
even after death, and the corpses had been subjected to the horrible
indignities which are usually supposed to be practised only by the hill
tribes of Afghanistan. Whether those atrocities were committed by the
Russians or by the Bulgarians I could not definitely determine; but the
sight enraged the Circassians to an appalling extent, and their threats
boded ill for any Russians who might fall into their hands alive.
It was impossible for the column to return to Plevna by the same way
that it had come, because we knew that the Russians had seized some
important positions on the road, fortified them with earthworks, and
brought up their artillery. Consequently Osman Pasha decided to make a
_détour_; and as Lovtcha was about due south of Plevna, we headed at
first in a westerly direction and gradually worked round to the north.
It was an intensely hot day, and we all suffered severely from thirst,
having been without water for several hours. I managed to find a pool of
dirty water, however, and I drank as much as I could, not knowing when
the next opportunity for a drink might arrive. As for food, all that we
had consisted of the cobs of maize that we gathered in the fields as we
passed.
Later in the afternoon, however, we had another meal with a different
_menu_. As I passed through a Bulgarian village with an advance party of
Circassians, we came to a farmhouse on the top of a ridge well timbered
with walnut trees. The Circassians made a hurried investigation of the
premises, and then set fire to some outbuildings which were thatched
with straw. They had found a hive of bees in the shed, and calmly burnt
the place down to smoke them out, so that we secured an excellent meal
of walnuts and honey.
Osman Pasha was very strict in putting down pillaging, and an instance
occurred on the same afternoon of the severity with which he punished
any infraction of orders in that respect. As the column passed through
one of the small Bulgarian villages which were sprinkled at frequent
intervals along the line of route, a small field of tobacco enclosed by
a brushwood fence was espied, and a Turkish sergeant who was pining for
a cigarette could not resist the temptation, but climbed through the
fence and filled his pockets with the dry leaf. Osman Pasha happened to
see the incident; and, putting his horse at the fence, he jumped over
into the tobacco-field, seized the sergeant and tore the stripes from
his shoulder, degrading him to the ranks for his insubordination.
After we had marched about five miles beyond the farmhouse where we had
got the honey, we camped for the night, and a very unpleasant night it
was. The bivouac was pitched in the middle of a wide expanse of swampy
ground, which was so moist that the water oozed through as one sat on
the grass. I procured a plank, and lay on it all night, snatching a few
minutes of fitful slumber at intervals.
At about eleven o'clock I was roused by a terrific rattle of infantry
fire, and we all leaped to our feet firmly convinced that the long
expected Russian attack had come at last. All was confusion as the men
hastily threw themselves into formation and rammed the cartridges into
their rifles; but the firing stopped as unexpectedly as it had begun,
and we were left staring into the darkness in anxious suspense. Soon we
discovered that it was a false alarm. A white horse which had been
wounded in the fighting round Lovtcha had dragged himself painfully all
the way from that vicinage after our column, recognizing the bugle calls
of the army to which he belonged. But the poor brute paid the penalty of
devotion, for our sentries mistook him in the darkness for a Russian
vedette, and an alarm was sounded which brought about a volley of
musketry fire that put him out of his pain at once.
Next morning the column started very early, and marched through
beautifully timbered, undulating country. We saw a couple of Russian
vedettes galloping away from one of the Bulgarian villages, and guessed
that the enemy were in the neighbourhood. But they kept out of our way,
and did not provoke an engagement.
At about two o'clock in the afternoon, as I was riding with the
Circassians in front of a battery of field artillery, I heard a terrific
explosion, and, looking round, saw a column of smoke behind me fully a
hundred feet in height. There were a number of small black fragments
falling through the smoke, and I found that an explosion had taken place
in one of the gun carriages. The ammunition had gone off in some
mysterious way, and the black fragments falling through the air were all
that was left of the two unfortunate gunners who had been sitting on the
ammunition box. Both the wheel horses were killed on the spot, and one
of the drivers was badly injured. No one ever knew how that mysterious
explosion occurred. That night we camped in the open again, and at
eleven o'clock next morning we arrived at Plevna. I went to my quarters,
had a wash, and then resumed my work at the hospital. But there was not
much to do, and at two o'clock I was free to take a walk through the
town.
To my intense surprise I saw a man who looked like an Englishman; and as
I had not seen an Englishman for several months, I shouted to him, half
in Turkish and half in English, to ask him who he was. He proved to be a
man called Drew Gay, the correspondent of the London _Daily Telegraph_,
and he wore an extraordinary nondescript get-up, including a little
forage cap, patent leather riding-boots, and an enormous cavalry sword.
He was on his way to pay a visit to the kaimakan, and was accompanied by
a German artist named Lauri.
This little Lauri was a charming fellow, and full of the spirit of
adventure. He was a great friend of Hamdi Bey, who was the son of Edim
Pasha, the grand vizier, and in this way he was able to exercise
sufficient influence to secure a firman authorizing him to visit Plevna.
Lauri had lived in Cairo for some time, and had earned some notoriety by
painting a portrait of the Khedive.
Next day occurred the third and greatest battle of Plevna--a battle in
which the enormous value of the breech-loader when backed by
entrenchments was fully demonstrated, as were also the magnificent pluck
and endurance of the Turkish troops.