THE HORRORS OF THE HOSPITAL.
Some of my Hospital Cases--A Death from Jaundice--Small-pox and
Typhoid Fever--Hospital Gangrene--Waiting for the Burial
Parties--Horrible Depression--I am slightly wounded--Turkish
Florence Nightingales--A Ghastly Case--I am powerless for want
of Stores--The Men die off like Sheep--Arrival of a Party of
English Doctors--A Welcome Visit--Dr. Bond Moore and Dr.
Mackellar--Dr. George Stoker Sick--Interview with Osman
Pasha--His Reception of the English Doctors--Osman Pasha's
Position--The English Doctors indignant--Osman Pasha
justified--A Ride to the Krishin Redoubts--The English Doctors
under Fire--My Reasons for leaving Plevna--A Farewell
Supper--Mustapha Bey and the Whisky--The Departure of the
Wounded--Good-bye to Plevna.
One very peculiar case came under my notice in the principal ward. It
was that of a man who had been struck by a spent bullet over the region
of the liver. The wound had not penetrated the flesh, and there was
nothing but a small, sloughing sore over the liver to indicate the spot
where the man had been hit. Two days afterwards he developed acute
jaundice, and died in three days. I could not understand it at the time,
but it struck me afterwards that the blow from the bullet had ruptured
the liver.
To add to the horrors of the general situation, confluent small-pox made
its appearance among the wounded; and as I had no means of isolating the
patients, it quickly spread. Then several cases of typhoid fever broke
out, owing to the insanitary conditions; but strangely enough the
disease did not spread, and the mortality from it was small. Imagine the
miseries of an unhappy man, who, while suffering from a smashed thigh
which prevented him from even moving to resist the maggots that assailed
him, was then smitten with small-pox or typhoid fever!
Little by little the septic troubles increased, and at last the crown of
misery was reached when hospital gangrene made its appearance. Few
civilian medical men now practising have ever seen hospital gangrene;
but the records of the terrible mischief which it produced in the days
before the discovery of the antiseptic treatment are still extant. The
patients who took the hospital gangrene usually suffered considerably,
while they rotted away before my eyes, and I was powerless to help them.
The men also got covered with body lice; and as I spent fourteen hours a
day as a rule lifting them up, washing them, and dressing their wounds,
the noxious insects attacked me too, and during the whole of my
subsequent stay in Plevna I was never absolutely free from them. I had
only two flannel shirts, and one of these was boiled every day by my
servant; but in spite of all precautions, I could never keep free from
the insect pests.
Every morning when I went to the hospital the first thing that met my
eyes as I opened the little wicket-gate leading into the garden was the
row of corpses of the men who had died during the previous night. They
were put out there to wait for the burial parties, and the sight never
failed to make a profound impression on me. As I walked past them up the
path the sight of those dead faces fascinated me; and when I found among
them men who were my special favourites, and who had told me the stories
of their simple, uneventful lives, and of their wives and children
waiting for them in distant parts of the Turkish Empire, a feeling of
overpowering depression came over me. I was so utterly helpless to save
them, and I was fighting such a hopeless battle, that once or twice I
sat down in the hospital and cried like a child. As fast as the men died
fresh ones were brought in, and often I found that twenty old faces had
gone during the night and that the same number of new ones awaited me in
the morning. Skirmishes were always going on between the outposts, and
the intermittent bombardment claimed a daily quota of victims, a
considerable proportion of whom were sent to me for treatment.
It was at this period that I was wounded for the first and last time out
of all the scores of occasions that I have been under fire. It was a
mere flesh wound, little more indeed than a scratch; but as I was in a
very low state of health from continuous overwork and under-feeding, the
flesh wound set up a local condition which still further reduced my
strength, and contributed eventually to my leaving Plevna for a short
rest. As I was unable to get back again, owing to the Russians closing
the road, I was prevented from witnessing the last pathetic scene of
all, when Osman Pasha's heroic defence was exhausted, and he had to
surrender to the invader.
A chance shot from a Russian field-gun did it for me, during the
desultory firing that went on languidly from day to day between the
opposing redoubts. I was riding out one morning to visit Sadik Pasha,
and was cantering leisurely across to the Bash Tabiya, when I heard the
scream of a shell, and recognized instinctively that it was coming my
way. One got so used to estimating the course of shells from constant
practice that one could pretty well tell by the sound where a particular
shell was likely to fall. My charger too was a perfect old war-hardened
veteran, and he took no more notice of a shell exploding five yards in
front of his nose than if it had been a custard-apple. When I heard the
whistle of the shell, I stuck the spurs in and tried to get out of the
way in time; but I did not succeed, and when it exploded a bit of the
casing took me in the back of the neck with a sharp, burning shock that
felt as if I had been struck with a piece of red-hot iron. When I put my
hand up to the place, I drew it back covered with blood; but I quickly
discovered that it was a mere surface wound, and when I got back to town
and bandaged it, I found that it did not in the least interfere with the
performance of my medical duties. However, an abscess formed on the
place, and troubled me a good deal.
I was very much overworked. Neither food nor rest was plentiful. I never
saw a compatriot, and I spent all my waking hours in the midst of
horrible sufferings which I was powerless to alleviate. It was no
wonder, under these circumstances, that I became despondent; and after
this lapse of time I may as well confess that the thought occurred to me
whether it would not be better to blow my brains out than go on in the
misery any longer. But when I looked round on those magnificent
men--more long-suffering, patient, and courageous men I have never seen
in my life--I banished the dark thought, and went back to the work with
all the spirit I could muster. Sometimes even now when I lie awake at
night I see myself again dressed in a blood-stained shirt and pair of
trousers, as I picked my way among the huddled forms with their ashen
faces bound up in those fantastic bandages of coloured print. I see the
pools of curdled blood on the floor, the staring whitewashed walls, and
the little squares of blue sky through the latticed windows. I hear the
stifled moans and I catch the delirious murmurs of that Anatolian Turk
as in his death-throes, like Falstaff "he babbled o' green fields."
Although we had no female nurses, still I found that the Turkish women,
whenever they had an opportunity, attended to the wounded with the
devotion of a Florence Nightingale. There was a small outbuilding in the
grounds that surrounded the hospital, and this also was filled with
wounded. One day I found two Turkish women there, and learned that they
were frequent visitors, bringing milk and broth to the wounded. When I
saw them, they were moving silently about in their long white robes,
with only the eyes showing through their thick yashmaks. One
exceptionally hideous case in the outbuilding received attention from
them. The man had been struck on the side of the face by a shell, which
carried away the whole of his upper and lower jaws. Only his eyes
remained, looking plaintively out above the mangled mass that had once
been a human face. The Turkish women could just see by the roots of the
tongue the position of the gullet, and they kept the unfortunate wretch
alive for four days by pouring milk down his throat.
One evening, as I was leaving the hospital almost heart-broken, three
men were brought in, and I went back to attend to them. One man had
both his legs taken off by a shell from a heavy siege-gun, and was
blanched from loss of blood; the second had been struck by a shell,
which had carried away arm and shoulder together; the third was shot
through the lungs by a rifle-bullet. Next morning, when I returned to
the hospital, I saw the three men lying out dead on the path as soon as
I opened the gate. Some idea of the hopelessness of my position may be
gathered by the medical reader, when he learns that I had forty-seven
compound comminuted fractures under my hands at one time, and all were
suppurating, while I had no appliances of any kind for dressing them
properly.
This was the state of affairs when Chefket Pasha opened up the road from
Sofia again with a relief column bringing up under his escort a supply
of medical stores and a party of English doctors who desired to
volunteer their services. The head of the medical party was Dr. Bond
Moore; and very picturesque he looked when he arrived in his Circassian
dress. With him was Dr. Mackellar, who had gained a reputation in the
Franco-Prussian war, and was a well known authority on gunshot wounds.
Then there was Mr. David Christie Murray, who was at that time a war
correspondent, but was introduced to me as a medical student, and in
that capacity had an opportunity of inspecting my hospital, which he
afterwards described very graphically in the _Scotsman_. A man named
Smith, who was in the Indian Civil Service, and who had come up for the
sake of the adventure, was another member of the party, which also
included my old friend George Stoker, now a Harley Street physician.
Last, but not least, there was Captain Morisot, a charming fellow, who
was afterwards with me at Erzeroum.
The visitors hunted me up when they arrived, and we had a great supper
at my quarters. It was an intense relief to meet some of my own
countrymen at last, and I was so glad to see them that I distributed all
my curios among them, presenting to these strangers the crosses in
bronze and gold, the lockets, and the other trinkets that had belonged
to Russian owners before they were sold in the Plevna bazaars as grim
treasure-trove of the battle-field.
Dr. Mackellar was an old friend, for I had met him before the war when I
was in Vienna; and I was delighted also to meet George Stoker, who was
one of my fellow passengers when I came down the Danube. It is difficult
for any one who has never been placed in such a position to form an idea
of the delightful sensation which I experienced at meeting with
English-speaking men again after a period of seventeen months spent out
of the hearing of my mother tongue. Imagine the feelings of an
Englishman when he first catches sight of the white cliffs of Dover
after long travelling in foreign lands; or think of the sensations of an
Australian returning after a couple of years in Europe when he sees the
lights at Port Phillip Heads or the entrance to Sydney Harbour again. My
feelings were similar when I dropped my Turkish and picked up my
half-forgotten English once more in the presence of men of my own race,
whose cheerful talk dispelled the gloomy thoughts which my daily
struggle against the ever increasing forces of suffering and disease had
engendered.
The wound on the back of my neck was very painful, and the large abscess
which had formed on it had still further reduced my system. Dr.
Mackellar lanced it for me the first night he was in Plevna, and this
gave me great relief.
George Stoker had a bad attack of dysentery when he arrived, and he
arranged to stop at my place so that I could look after him more easily.
I opened up negotiations with my little fair-haired Bulgarian boy, who
managed, with a good deal of trouble, to get me some milk, and thus I
was enabled to provide proper diet for the invalid.
On the morning after the arrival of the English medical party, Dr. Bond
Moore, with Mr. Harvey, a man of English parentage, who was born in the
Levant and spoke Turkish like a Turk, together with Dr. Mackellar,
waited upon Osman Pasha in his tent. Dr. Bond Moore explained to Osman
Pasha through Mr. Harvey that they had been sent out by the Stafford
House Committee, a large national organization in London which had
collected £50,000 for the purpose of relieving the sufferings caused by
the war in Turkey. They desired to undertake the care of the wounded
Turks then in Plevna.
Now Osman Pasha was essentially a man of action. Though there was plenty
of the _fortiter in re_ about him, there was little of the _suaviter in
modo_; and Bond Moore and Mackellar, who did not know him as well as I
did, jumped to the conclusion that he was intentionally discourteous in
his reception of them and in his reply to their representations. He
pointed out to them that of the four thousand wounded men who were then
in the hospitals, more than two-thirds would be sent away to Sofia on
the following day, now that the road had been opened up by Chefket
Pasha. This determination on his part, he explained, was dictated by
consideration for the wounded as well as for the rest of the troops in
Plevna. They would receive better treatment at Sofia, they would leave
more rations for the fighting men, and there would again be room in the
hospitals available for the wounded men who might be expected after
future engagements. Probably, continued Osman, not more than four
hundred wounded men would be left in the hospitals when the ambulance
train went away, and meanwhile the medical staff at his disposal was
quite strong enough to cope with the work. He also had another powerful
reason for sending away the wounded in the overcrowding of the
hospitals, which was causing terrible devastation by septic disease; and
we knew that if the congested wards were relieved, we might get the
upper hand of the gangrene and pyæmia which were doing all the damage.
Naturally enough Bond Moore and Mackellar were staggered to find that,
after travelling all the way from England and incurring a good many
hardships on the way, they were not to be allowed to do the work for
which they had been sent. They represented to Osman Pasha the danger of
sending away on a long and terrible journey wounded men who were quite
unfit to travel; and Bond Moore, as the spokesman, entered a vigorous
protest against the "gross inhumanity" of the course proposed by the
Turkish commander-in-chief. Osman Pasha, however, was inexorable; and
always a brusque and stern man at the best, he became still more
forbidding in his manner when the English doctors reiterated their
protests. The deputation left the tent in high dudgeon at what they
regarded as the discourtesy of their reception, and were thoroughly
disappointed after reaching Plevna in safety to be peremptorily ordered
to quit it at once.
As a further protest, Dr. Mackellar waited upon Hassib Bey, our
principal medical officer, and I was present at the interview, in which
the English surgeon told the old Turk that it was a disgrace to humanity
to send the wounded away by carts in the condition in which they were.
The conversation was carried on in French, and Dr. Mackellar spoke very
strongly, declaring that it was a barbarous and brutal thing to send the
wounded men away, many of whom he considered, as a surgeon of large
experience, to be quite unfit to travel. I felt quite sorry for poor old
Hassib Bey, especially as I myself, with a full comprehension of the
whole position, was thoroughly in accord with Osman Pasha's view. It was
perfectly plain to me that the wisest course was to despatch the wounded
men from out the crowded hospitals into the fresh air and away to Sofia.
No doubt a percentage of them would die on the road from the actual
hardship of travel; but if they were left in Plevna, a far larger
proportion would inevitably die of septic diseases, while the congested
condition of the hospitals would be still further aggravated, and slow
starvation would add shortly to the sufferings of the unfortunates. The
proof of the wisdom of Osman Pasha's action was very manifest
afterwards; for though he was starved out eventually, he could not have
held the town nearly as long as he did if he had not seized the
opportunity when the road was open to send the wounded away.
Hassib Bey listened deprecatingly to Dr. Mackellar's spirited protest;
but the fiat had gone forth from headquarters, and he was powerless to
accede to his visitor's request even if he had the inclination.
Dr. Bond Moore sent in a formal written protest to Osman Pasha, who
vouchsafed no reply, and the Stafford House surgeons spent the rest of
the day examining my hospital. In connection with this incident of the
expulsion of the Stafford House doctors from Plevna, I may reproduce the
report on the subject, which I afterwards sent to Mr. V. B. Kennett, the
Stafford House commissioner. My report, which was published in the
_Times_ of November 15, 1877, ran as follows:
"At your request I write to you a short account of the state of Plevna
on the occasion of the visit of Dr. Bond Moore, Stafford House section,
and the circumstances attending the evacuation of the wounded. When Drs.
Bond Moore and Mackellar arrived in Plevna, we had in our hospitals
there between four and five thousand wounded, probably three thousand
five hundred of them having received their wounds between September 5
and October 12, the remainder being the graver cases of our former
fighting which were considered too serious to send on to Sofia. We have
always received orders after any heavy fighting to send off all who
were not too gravely wounded to Sofia, and so we have by this means
never had more than five or six hundred in our hospitals. But
unfortunately, during the hard fighting in September, we were completely
surrounded by the Russians, and were actually, so to speak, in a state
of siege, so that we had the accumulation of nearly a month's fighting
in addition to the graver cases of our earlier battles. Such was the
state of affairs when Chefket Pasha relieved Plevna, and when Drs. Moore
and Mackellar arrived and kindly offered to form hospitals in Plevna. On
presenting themselves to Osman they were received quite courteously. He
told them he was very glad to see them, but that if they were sent in
the real cause of humanity, and to assist his wounded, he much preferred
them leaving for Sofia and establishing themselves there; if, however,
they wished to remain and see the fighting, they were perfectly welcome
to do so, but if they did they would have very little work to do, as he
was sending nearly all the wounded to Sofia, and for those who were
remaining he had a sufficient staff of surgeons. His reasons for sending
away the wounded must appear most obvious to any one knowing the
circumstances of the case. I believe that it is always one of the first
considerations of a general, after a battle, to send off as soon as
possible all wounded who are in a state to travel, in order to make room
for further fighting. In addition to this main consideration, I must
state that our accommodation was very insufficient, that many of our
hospitals consisted of houses without windows, and we were fearfully
overcrowded, often having thirty men in a room only large enough for
ten. Then, again, we had no beds, and could not procure them as there
was no wood to make them of. Another great consideration was that we had
not sufficient nor proper food, having only the bare necessaries of
life, such as biscuits and meat. From a sanitary point of view, it was
also extremely desirable to remove them as quickly as possible, thereby
lessening the chances of an epidemic, which is always liable to break
out when such a large population is confined in a small area. It was, I
believe, in 1866 that a very serious epidemic of cholera broke out in
Plevna. Of the four thousand five hundred wounded I believe that all but
two hundred and fifty were sent off, the wounds of those remaining being
of the very gravest character. Most of the wounds of those sent away
were very slight, being flesh wounds caused by bullets, which would be
perfectly healed in from twenty to thirty days. I believe in all about
sixty or seventy cases of fracture were sent off; in most of them union
had already occurred, and in those in which it had not I am of opinion
that they stood a better chance of recovery by their removal from a
hospital impregnated with septic germs into a purer atmosphere and where
they could have more attention paid to them. Dr. George Stoker took with
him in his ambulance to Orkhanieh forty cases, but it must be remembered
that these were the very gravest. Three of them died on the way; but as
they were cases out of my own hospital I can speak about them with
confidence, and can say that in the most favourable circumstances
recovery would have been impossible. Osman Pasha also acted with
foresight from a military point of view; for had he not sent off his
wounded, and had Stafford House and the Red Crescent retained them in
hospitals established there, what would be their position at present now
that Plevna is again surrounded by the Russians? It must be a matter of
satisfaction to Osman Pasha to have sent off as many of the
non-combatant population as possible, for it must be a great drain on
one's commissariat to have to feed four or five thousand non-combatants
in a place like Plevna where provisions are so difficult to procure. I
may add that I consider I am in a position to speak with authority on
such a subject, as I have been for fifteen months in the Turkish
service, and for the last five have been in Plevna."
When the medical men went round my hospital, they saw the horrors among
which I had been working for the previous month, and then I took them
out to our operating theatre under the blue sky on the banks of the
Tutchenitza. Here Dr. Mackellar performed several operations, and showed
us some brilliant surgery, including four disarticulations of the
shoulder joint.
Next day we all rode out to the Krishin redoubt which Skobeleff had
taken, and which was soon afterwards recaptured with fearful loss. I was
able to point out the exact spot where the heaviest of the fighting had
taken place to Dr. Bond Moore, Dr. Mackellar, and Mr. David Christie
Murray, who were naturally interested in making a personal inspection of
the scene of such a great historical fight.
As the four of us rode away in a southerly direction to the Ibrahim Bey
redoubt, the Russian artillerymen saw us, and in a couple of seconds the
Stafford House doctors and the war correspondent had an experience which
struck them with all the force of the novel and the unexpected. The
Russians fired six shells at us, and it certainly was a wonder that some
of us were not killed, for the artillerymen had found the range by long
practice at the redoubts, and their shells fell all round us. It was no
novelty for me to hear the projectiles whizzing about, but I was
surprised at the courage and coolness with which the visitors behaved,
and luckily all four of us came out of it without a scratch.
That evening I thought the whole position over, and determined to apply
for a short leave of absence, and take a trip down to Constantinople
with the intention of returning to Plevna in a couple of weeks. I should
not have dreamed of leaving the position so long as I could be of any
real service there; but most of the wounded men were about to be sent
away, and there would be nothing left for me to do. In addition to this,
I was in a very bad state of health. I had a large suppurating cavity at
the back of my neck from my wound, and my system had completely run
down. My mother, whom I had not seen for years, was then in Europe, and
I thought that it would be a capital opportunity to run down and see
her. Moreover, my agreement with the Turkish Government was for only one
year, and I had already been serving for seventeen months. It was these
considerations, and not, as was afterwards stated in various newspapers,
the refusal of Osman Pasha to avail himself of the assistance of the
Stafford House doctors, that induced me to interview Hassib Bey and
apply for leave of absence. I asked him for leave of absence for two or
three weeks, pointing out that nearly all the wounded would be sent
away, and that there was no immediate likelihood of any more fighting
before I returned. Hassib Bey said that he would give me leave with very
great pleasure, and he voluntarily gave me a letter to the Seraskierat,
in which he was good enough to express the very highest appreciation of
my services. In fact, it was practically impossible for any man to get a
higher testimonial than that which Hassib Bey gave me on the eve of my
departure from Plevna. He suggested that I should ask Osman Pasha to
ratify the leave of absence; and Tewfik Pasha having conducted me into
Osman Pasha's presence, I repeated my application to him, assuring him
that I would not think of leaving as long as there was any work for me
to do. The Muchir thanked me for my services, of which he expressed high
appreciation, and hoped to see me back in Plevna.
If I could have foreseen that the road would be blocked again by the
Russians, and that it would be impossible for me to return once I left
the town, I would have stayed by the troops at all costs. I was devoted
to the Turkish army and the Turkish cause. I never spared myself in
carrying out my duties, and I was bound by the strongest ties of
attachment to my patients, as they were also, I felt and knew, to me. I
positively loved the great, rough barbarians who bore their sufferings
with such noble fortitude in my hospital, and during the whole of my
time in Plevna I never had the slightest unpleasantness with a single
one of them, and received always the greatest gratitude from them all.
At that time there was no Turk in Plevna more Turkish in sympathies
than I was. I threw my whole heart and soul and all my energies into the
Turkish cause, and no one could have gone through all that I had without
being impressed with a feeling of the most profound admiration for the
patience, courage, and heroic patriotism of the Turkish private soldier.
Intending as I did to remain away for a couple of weeks at most, I felt
that the parting was only temporary; and when I went to say good-bye to
the colonel of my regiment, Suleiman Bey, he wished me a cheery _au
revoir_, expecting to see me soon back again. I had quite an affecting
farewell with dear old Hassib Bey, and I also went round and said
good-bye to all my intimate friends and the men with whom I had been
brought most closely into contact. It was a great disappointment to me
that I could not find the regimental barber, a little red-headed Turk,
who used to shave me every Sunday, whether there was firing in progress
or not, making me sit down on the ground and taking my head between his
knees for the better performance of his task. Anxious as I was to make
him a little present in recognition of his skill and punctuality, I was
unable to find him. Like his brethren of the craft in other countries,
he was a most loquacious conversationalist, and I got all the gossip of
the trenches during the ten minutes that I was under his hands every
Sunday.
My Circassian servant Ahmet had to go back to the ranks, much to his
disgust, when I went away, and from that time forward his lot was by no
means such a happy one as before. Instead of leisurely cooking my pilaf,
grooming my horse, and occasionally raiding the country for hay,
poultry, eggs, or anything else that he could get for his own benefit as
well as mine, the poor fellow had to take his place in the wet trenches,
with no bed but a hole scooped in the clay, and little to expect in the
way of breakfast except a bullet.
Dr. Stoker had about twenty smooth-running ambulance waggons specially
built for the conveyance of wounded men, and having loaded these up with
the most dangerous cases he set out on the long journey to Sofia. Having
no further use for a horse, I sold mine to Dr. Mackellar, and took my
passage in one of the ambulance waggons. Then the night before I left
Plevna the other fellows gave us a great send off and we had a splendid
supper at the house of Dr. Robert, who, I regret to say, became
hopelessly intoxicated, and insisted on yelling patriotic songs in half
a dozen languages, while he thumped his piano until the yellow-faced
Viennese housekeeper hauled him off in wrath and turned us all out. Poor
Robert! Long before this we had eaten all his zoological specimens, his
tame deer as well as his poultry; but he forgave us all. I never saw him
again.
Old Mustapha Bey was quite concerned when I told him that I was going
away. I had won the goodwill of this crusty old colonel of a regiment of
cavalry some weeks before by the promise of a gift of some real Scotch
whisky, which the old chap had read of but never tasted. He was an
inveterate toper when he got the chance, being in this respect quite a
rarity in the Ottoman army, and would drink raki or anything else with a
fine, generous disregard of quality as long as the quantity was there.
My friend Mr. Wrench, who was then the British consul in Constantinople,
and who has lately died, promised to send me up a case of real Scotch
whisky, and it came up in the previous train of arabas. At least the
case came up all right, but of the dozen bottles only two remained for
the disappointed consignee--myself. Of course we had a general
jollification, and the last drop of genuine Glenlivet had vanished down
the capacious gullet of an Austrian medico before I remembered with a
pang of regret my promise to Mustapha Bey. Fortunately he had never
tasted whisky, so there was still a possibility of keeping faith with
him, at any rate in appearance. I confided my predicament to my
comrades, and we brewed a special _cuvée réservée_ for the Turk. The
basis, I recollect, consisted of a decoction of prunes boiled with some
of the wine of the country, which was heavily loaded with kerosene or
some other mineral oil, and brought to the right amber hue by the
addition of a little harmless colouring matter. This salubrious beverage
I filtered through a sponge, bottled in one of the empty whisky bottles,
and sent to Mustapha Bey with my compliments. When I next met him, he
was smacking his lips with retrospective gusto, declaring that he had
never tasted anything so delicious in his life. Poor old fellow! I felt
quite guilty when I went to say good-bye to him, especially when he
added at the last, "Be sure when you come back to bring me up another
bottle of Scotch whisky."
Next morning I went away in one of the smoothly running ambulance cars
brought up by Dr. Stoker. I had a pair of horses, and drove them down to
Telish, where we stayed the first night. It was a mercy that we were
able to get on in front of the long line of about three hundred arabas,
each drawn by two small white oxen and laden with wounded. The carts
creaked along at about two miles an hour, and as we passed them the
groans and cries which the excruciating agony forced from the
unfortunate sufferers were most painful to hear. Some of the men had
fractures which remained unset, and the torture produced by the broken
ends of bone jarring together as the waggon jolted and bumped over the
rough road can be left to the imagination. Most of the men, however,
bore their dreadful sufferings with a grim silence that was as painful
as the cries. Oh that ghastly journey of wounded men to Sofia! And here
and there a cart would stop while the driver lifted out a dead man from
among his still living fellow travellers, and laid him down by the side
of the road, at rest at last from the fearful jolting of the araba.
There was no time to dig a grave, so the body was left there to soak in
the rain and bleach in the sun, along the white road that wound from
Plevna to Orkhanieh. I have no means of knowing accurately what
proportion of the wounded died on the road, but I should estimate it at
about 7 per cent. Had they been left behind at Plevna, probably at least
50 per cent, would have been swept away by septic disease and slow
starvation.
At Telish, where we spent the first night, I found Hakki Pasha in
command, and was very kindly treated by him. This was the scene of a
severe fight about a fortnight after we passed through.
After three days' travelling we reached Orkhanieh, our first
stopping-place of any considerable size; and here a number of the
wounded who could go no farther were placed in the hospital. At
Orkhanieh the hospital arrangements were a welcome change from those at
Plevna. I met a man named Temple Bey there, an Englishman, who had been
in the Turkish service for a great number of years. There were several
English surgeons, and suitable houses had been turned into hospitals. I
met a man named Roy, and another named Gill, now a well known
practitioner at Welshpool; a man named Pinkerton, working at the
hospitals in Orkhanieh; and there I said good-bye to my friend Dr.
Mackellar, who remained behind to perform some operations, and stayed
there for a considerable time. When I was leaving him, he kindly gave me
a letter to Baron Munday, an Austrian doctor, who was an enthusiast in
the cause of philanthropy, and who afterwards showed me great kindness
in Constantinople.
At Sofia I met Lady Strangford, who had a well equipped hospital, worked
by three or four English doctors and several English nurses. There were
fifty or sixty beds in it, and the contrast between this hospital and
the dreadful place that I had left behind at Plevna was as startling as
the difference between an "Inferno" and a "Paradiso." Lady Strangford
gave me a letter to the Baroness von Rosen, who had another hospital at
Adrianople, and I spent a couple of pleasant days with that enthusiastic
lady. Going on to Ichtiman, I met there Fano Bey, who was the second
military officer in charge of the hospitals at Widdin; and as he arrived
late at night, I was glad of the opportunity of repaying some of his
past kindnesses by giving up my room to him. Next day we went on to
Tatar Bazardjik, which was the terminus of the railway from
Constantinople; and there, in the company of half a dozen jolly war
correspondents, I shook off the last traces of the depression engendered
by the horrors of my hospital work in Plevna.