If M. Jardin had not been an exceedingly decorous as well as polite Frenchman, I feel sure he would have jumped with joy when I capitulated, and he went off forthwith to interview Denniston and Stoker. What occurred at that interview I cannot precisely say, because both my comrades were strangely reticent upon the subject. I conjecture, however, that M. Jardin praised their courage and their chivalry in a truly generous spirit, and I am convinced that he dwelt with all his astonishing eloquence upon the grace and loveliness of this poor Spanishbeauty in distress. At any rate, Denniston and Stoker agreed to let her travel with us.
Just before we started, and when the pack-horses upon which we were to ride to Erzeroum were at the door, M. Jardin brought up his beautiful Spaniard and introduced her to us. I hope I shall not be considered impolite when I confess that our jaws all dropped simultaneously. No doubt the lady had been beautiful in her youth; but her particular style of beauty had not been proof against the devastating power of years, and I doubt whether any man in Erzeroum, except that very polite French consul, would have seen extraordinary loveliness in the lady who was handed over to our care at the very last moment. However, there was nothing for it but to hoist her upon a pack-saddle, to mount ourselves upon similar uncomfortable seats, and to start the melancholy procession. We said good-bye with real regret to Pizareff, who had been a capital friend and a most charming and genial companion. Fully thirty or forty other Russian officers came to see us off, and we parted on the very best of terms. They told us laughingly that they intended to drop in upon the British army in India some day, and we assured them that we would be there to meet them when they came. Then we waved our last adieux, and turned the heads of those long-suffering pack-horses towards Trebizond.
Our party consisted of Denniston, Stoker, Morisot, myself, and Williams our trusty dragoman, while last, but not least, came the lady. We had hired twelve horses to carry ourselves and our baggage, contracting to pay the headman of the caravan four pounds per horse for the journey to Trebizond; and accordingly when we started we formed an important section of the whole caravan of about fifty horses which set out from Erzeroum. Besides the headman, who was a most forbidding-looking Persian, there were fifteen drivers who accompanied us; each, I think, dirtier, hungrier, and more truculent-looking than the other. We guessed when we started that the journey would not be exactly a pleasure excursion; but the reality far exceeded our anticipations, and the next time that any one asks me to make an overland journey with a widow, a still small voice within will whisper, "Beware! Remember Erzeroum and the Spanish doña."
Riding on a pack-saddle, which consists of two plates of hard wood joined by hinges at the apex where it fits over the horse's spine, is not the most agreeable way of taking horse exercise; and the doña, who was necessarily ridingen cavalier, began to give tongue before she had gone a hundred yards. We made a cushion out of an old sack filled with hay, and our incubus heaved a sigh of relief when we placed it between her ill used anatomy and the bare boards whichshe bestrode. Then the procession went forward again, the horses stepping out in single file on the first stage of the long journey of one hundred and eighty miles that lay between us and the sea.
We left Erzeroum on March 31, intending to catch the Messageries steamerSimois, which was due to leave Trebizond on April 10, and fancying that by giving ourselves ample time we would have three or four days in Trebizond to recruit before going on board. However, we reckoned without our host, or on this occasion, to speak more accurately, without our guest—the lady. She spoke every continental language except English with equal facility, and her vocabulary in each was surprisingly extensive. Day and night for one consecutive fortnight her shrill falsetto voice poured forth a never failing stream of complaint and invective, abuse and lamentation in half a dozen languages. What she suffered no one knew except herself, although this was not her fault, to be sure, for she lost no opportunity of imparting the information, sometimes in Spanish, and when she had exhausted the resources of that noble language in the slang of half the capitals of Europe. We found too late that our doña had not been cast in the heroic mould. She had never learnt how beautiful it is to suffer—and be silent.
A few miles from Erzeroum we came to the village of Ilidja, which was occupied by theRussians; and there we halted for half an hour, and had a glass of wine with a party of jovial officers, who were keeping up their spirits as well as they could in the lonely, God-forsaken place. On a dunghill in the village we counted eleven dead Russians; so we guessed that the typhus was not confined to Erzeroum.
When we got to Purnekapan, we camped for the night in the town, intending to make an early start, so as to negotiate the Kopdagh Pass before the sun spoiled the road. An unexpected difficulty, however, presented itself, for our Persian headman refused to go on, declaring that it was necessary to rest his horses for a day. In vain did we cojole, threaten, or bully him. He had come under the spell of a fixed idea, and nothing that we could say seemed to have the slightest effect upon his diseased intelligence. But at last I found a way to move him. There was a Turkish regiment in the village, and I sought an interview with the colonel, who had heard something about our work, and was very well disposed towards us. Tapping the butt of his revolver significantly, he suggested to the Persian that it was high time to start, and the hint was accepted with alacrity. However, all this had taken time, and before we left the foot of the mountain and began the ascent it was eleven o'clock, and the sun's rays were ruining the track.
It was as exciting a bit of mountaineering asI have ever gone through, and we had to strain every nerve to climb the pass. In many places the track was only a couple of feet wide, a winding path cut round the side of the mountain, with a cliff on one side and a precipice on the other. As we mounted slowly and cautiously up the path, every nerve was at tension and every sense on the alert. Now and then, as the Persian drivers shouted and urged the frightened horses with voice and whip to face the slippery rising ground, one of the animals would slip, and for a second or two one's heart was in one's mouth. In spite of every effort we lost three pack-horses before we won the summit. A slip on the glassy surface, a couple of frightened plunges in the loose snow near the edge, and then the unfortunate creatures disappeared over the side, falling upon a lower spur four hundred feet beneath us. One of the horses that we lost in this way was loaded with my personal effects. The presents that I was taking back to my friends, some beautiful turquoises from the Tiflis mines, as well as the Russian furs, the Russian leather cigar-cases, and the other keepsakes that the warm-hearted officers in Erzeroum had given me, all vanished with that hapless pack-horse into some inaccessible ravine far below the Kopdagh peak. However, all the Persian drivers came through safely, and there were no missing faces in our party when we reached the summit,nine thousand feet above the level of the sea. The widow was still with us, numbed with the cold, exhausted with fatigue, and half shaken to death on her pack-saddle, but voluble as ever, and, like the person in the Greek play, "full of groans and not devoid of tears."
Just as we neared the summit I saw a Turkish woman climbing slowly and painfully up the track; but when we got to the shelter-house erected on the crest of the mountain, I lost sight of her. As we resumed our march, I noticed tracks in the snow in front of us, and drew the attention of Williams the dragoman to the impressions which had evidently been made by a woman. The dragoman disappeared for ten minutes on a tour of exploration, and when he returned he brought back a strange piece of intelligence. A Turkish baby had been born in a shed near the shelter-house while we were there, and the mother, whom we had seen climbing the pass, was already walking off with her newborn infant to her own village five miles away across the snow. Surely the cares of maternity lie lightly on those hardy Turkish mothers in the mountains of Asia Minor.
As may be guessed, we found a good deal of difficulty in replenishing our commissariat during this eventful journey. The Turkish troops had pretty well swept the board; and if the villagers had not hidden away some of their scanty stockfrom the foraging parties, we should have come off very badly. We managed to get eggs occasionallyen route, and onions were also obtainable. I used to stuff my pockets with these delicacies and munch them raw. I found them very sustaining, and I have no doubt that my companions when they ventured near me could testify that my diet was strong. When we reached the village at the foot of the Kopdagh where we were to camp for the night, we were all ravenously hungry, and as I shot a keen glance round the village in search of supplies I espied a kid. It was a very nice-looking kid, and it frisked and gambolled most alluringly. I slipped off my pack-horse, and approached the kid in a friendly manner that disarmed suspicion. Then I grabbed it by the ear, drew my big clasp knife, and cut its throat on the spot. I skinned it and cleaned it with my own experienced hands, and Williams the dragoman made an excellentragoût. I gave the owner of the kid a Turkish lira as compensation for his loss, which was truly our gain, for the kid was a succulent little creature, and tasted very much like venison.
We could not have travelled fast under the most favourable conditions, and hampered as we were by the Spanish widow our progress became very slow indeed. It was not an easy task, even for one accustomed to riding, to remain on the wooden pack-saddle when a rough horse wasplunging about in the snow; but for the Spanish widow it was literally impossible—a fact which she demonstrated by falling off five times during the journey over the Kop. It always happened in the same way. The hind legs of her pack-horse would slip down in the loose snow up to the hocks, while the fore feet remained steady for just one second on a harder patch, so that the animal's back described an angle of forty-five degrees with the surface of the ground. During that one second the widow seized the opportunity of slipping off backwards over the horse's tail; and so quickly did she accomplish the feat that the watchful Williams, whom I specially told off, much to his disgust, to look after her, only arrived in time to pick her up. The sight of that middle-aged, sallow-faced Spanish person, in short skirts and blue goggles, sitting helplessly in the snow while Williams patiently collected her once more, would have made us laugh heartily were it not for the "damnable iteration" of the occurrence.
The presence of the widow caused us much annoyance whenever we camped for the night, because sleeping accommodation was usually scanty, and we always had to find a room for the lady before we turned in ourselves. Once, when we reached the village where we were going to camp for the night, we found that there were only two sleeping-rooms available for the whole party, so that we had to give one to the widow,and camp—all five of us—in the other. First we showed the lady to her apartment, and then we went to look at our own. It was not a cosy bedroom, with French bedsteads, dimity curtains on the windows, and roses creeping up the walls outside. On the contrary, it was a small, square room, that would have made an excellent dog-kennel. The floor was of mud, and in a corner there was a heap of dirty straw, on which lay two dead Turkish soldiers who had died of confluent small-pox. We put the bodies outside the house, and Denniston, Stoker, Morisot, and myself, with Williams the dragoman, all went to sleep on the straw.
As we travelled along day after day the glare on the snow was very trying to the eyes; and though we all wore blue goggles, we suffered a good deal of inconvenience, while our faces were dreadfully blistered by the sun. The Persian headman was always wanting to stop and rest his horses; so that what with perpetually working at him to keep him up to the mark, pacifying the Spanish widow, and foraging for our daily bread, we had plenty of occupationen route. All our drivers of course were eager to rob us whenever the opportunity offered; and in addition to the furs and turquoises which I had already lost through a pack-horse going over the precipice, I was also deprived of two very fine cats from the province of Van. I had purchased these creatures,which were very much like Persian cats, in Erzeroum, and I had hired a pack-horse specially to carry them. They were transported in a wooden box fixed to the pack-saddle, and Williams fed them with milk whenever we halted at a village. A couple of days before we reached Trebizond, however, my beautiful cats disappeared; and the only consolation that was vouchsafed me for my bereavement was the vague lie of a Persian driver, who averred that they had escaped from their box during the night. Of course he had planted them somewhere for subsequent conversion into ill gotten piastres.
When we commenced to get down towards Trebizond, we left the snow behind us on the mountains, and entered a tract of well timbered country, which was looking its best in the first flush of the early spring. The sides of the hills were gorgeous with pink cyclamen, and with a beautiful blue bulb which I could not identify. At last we entered the avenue of pear trees which were laden with juicy fruit when I passed up to Erzeroum six months previously. When I retraced my steps to Trebizond with new companions, I found the pear trees in full bloom. Since I had seen them bending under the burden of the ripening fruitage, fire and sword and frost and fever had brought many hundreds of men to death before my eyes, and I myself had been down to the very borders of the Valley of theShadow. But now the war was over, the winter was done, and the scent of the white pear blossoms that filled all the valley blended with the first faint fragrance of the breezes from the ever nearing waters of the Black Sea.
Trebizond at last!
We fly from the Widow—Arrival at Constantinople—English Philanthropy—The Baroness Burdett-Coutts—First Acquaintance with a well known Actress—Osman Pasha back again—The Turkish Skobeleff—A much perforated Paletot—Captain Morisot's Career—A Romantic Escape—On Board theGamboge—We reach Smyrna—Mr. and Mrs. Zohrab—A Sympathetic Englishwoman—Zara Dilber Effendi—Back in London—Patriotic Ditties—An Incredulous Music-hall Proprietor—Non é Vero—Bowling out a Story-teller.
We fly from the Widow—Arrival at Constantinople—English Philanthropy—The Baroness Burdett-Coutts—First Acquaintance with a well known Actress—Osman Pasha back again—The Turkish Skobeleff—A much perforated Paletot—Captain Morisot's Career—A Romantic Escape—On Board theGamboge—We reach Smyrna—Mr. and Mrs. Zohrab—A Sympathetic Englishwoman—Zara Dilber Effendi—Back in London—Patriotic Ditties—An Incredulous Music-hall Proprietor—Non é Vero—Bowling out a Story-teller.
We had time to call on Mr. Biliotti again, and to thank him for all his kindness; and then we went on board theSimois, which was ready to cast off her moorings and head out for Constantinople. Our Spanish widow was consistent to the last. The real hardships of the journey had not improved her temper; and when we resolutely declined to pay her passage to Constantinople in the steamer, she cursed us up and down Trebizond, each and severally, with the comprehensive particularity that was devoted to the historic cursing of the Jackdaw of Rheims. She was indeed that rare—or somewhat rare—phenomenon, an ungrateful woman.
When we reached Constantinople the whole place was full of excitement, for the Russian army was at San Stefano, only a few miles away, and Pera was almost like a Russian town. Every day hundreds of Russians might be seen clanking up and down the streets in full uniform, when they came in on leave from San Stefano.
English philanthropy was displayed as generously at this stage as it had been throughout the entire course of the war, and English gold was freely spent on the relief of starving and fever-stricken refugees from the Turkish provinces as well as on the sick and wounded troops. We got into touch with the philanthropic scheme undertaken by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who had sent out a large sum of money for the relief of the refugees; and we also met Mr. William Ashmead-Bartlett, the administrator of the fund, who afterwards married the baroness. He was ill with typhoid fever contracted from some of the refugees, and was under treatment at the English hospital, where his brother (now Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett) was looking after him. Denniston, Stoker, and I paid a visit of inspection to the temporary hospitals established with the money supplied by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and furnished a report upon them.
It is to Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett that I owe my first introduction to a very charming Americanlady, who has since become known to a wide circle through her career on the stage. When I first met her she was an extraordinarily pretty woman, and she and her husband were on their honeymoon trip. He was a very gentlemanly man, with a rather retiring disposition; while she was about twenty years of age, and a perfect model of youthful womanhood. Every glance of her brightly flashing eyes and every line of her finely moulded figure told of bounding life and vivacity. Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett and I saw a good deal of her and her husband for a week or two. We had lunch together often, and took part in several picnics up the Bosphorus, in that spring-time nineteen years ago, when the blue waters of the strait and the bright eyes of La belle Americaine laughed in harmony, while Europe was waiting with beating heart for the verdict—peace or war. I met the B—— P——s again on board the steamer which took me away from Constantinople. Then our paths in life divided, and I had almost forgotten the vivacious American lady, when one evening a year or two ago I dropped into the Princess's Theatre in Melbourne to see Sardou's great playLa Tosca. In the actress who was playing the name part I recognized my acquaintance of the stirring times of the war. It was Mrs. B—— P——.
Osman Pasha, who had been a prisoner ofwar in Russia, had been sent back into Turkey at the cessation of hostilities, and I went up to call on him at the Seraskierat. He was never a very communicative man, and the mental strain which the magnificent defence of Plevna and ultimately the tragic fall of the town imposed upon him seemed to have deepened his natural reserve. However, he gave me a hearty welcome, and appeared to be much interested in my account of our doings in Erzeroum. I told him that if war broke out again on a larger scale than before, I would return to my old comrades; and I said that if I ever came back to Constantinople, I would like to bring him a little present from England. When I asked him what he would choose, he said that there was nothing which he would like so much as a real English saddle and bridle. Osman Pasha was a thorough soldier in his love for a first-class equipment, and I was sorry that I never had the opportunity of seeing him again to make him the present.
Dear old Hassib Bey, the principal medical officer in Plevna, was quite affected when he saw me again, and we had a great chat over old times.
Tewfik Pasha, who was the Skobeleff of the Turkish army, was living in a house at Galata, and I went to call on him there. When I entered the room, he was deeply moved, and embraced me warmly. Tewfik was always in theforefront of the battle while I was in Plevna; and when the memorable attack was delivered in which he recaptured the Krishin redoubts from Skobeleff, it was Tewfik who headed the column of assault and cheered the Turks on to victory. He seemed to bear a charmed life; for in spite of all the hot fighting that he had done, he had come through the campaign without a scratch. When I mentioned that he had been extraordinarily lucky in all his fighting, he motioned to his soldier servant who was in the room to take down a big military paletot which hung on the wall. The man took down the overcoat which was the garment that Tewfik Pasha had worn all through the siege. It was fastened down the front with frogs instead of buttons, and was provided with ample skirts that would blow about in the wind when the coat was not fastened securely. At Tewfik's request I examined it, and counted no fewer than eleven different bullet-holes through the cloth. In some cases no doubt one bullet had made two holes; but it was evident that on a good many different occasions the gallant soldier who wore the garment was literally within an inch of death.
Captain Morisot and I were invited to go to dinner one day at San Stefano with a party of Russian officers; but, much to my disappointment, something interfered with the engagement, and I missed the only chance I ever had ofmeeting the famous Skobeleff, who was then quartered at the little port on the Dardanelles. I found Morisot a delightful companion; and now that we were not oppressed with hospital duties, I had plenty of time to enjoy his society. His career indeed was a most romantic and interesting one. He had been shut up in Metz with Bazaine during the Franco-Prussian war, seven years earlier; and when the much criticised marshal capitulated, Morisot became a prisoner of war with the rest of the garrison, and was sent away to Stettin on the Baltic. Though the prisoners were carefully watched, Morisot, who spoke English like an Englishman, managed to arrange a plan of escape; and one dark night he and another French officer eluded the guards, and pulled out in a dingy to a small Scottish schooner, trading between Glasgow and Stettin. The skipper, who was a "braw mon fra Glasgie," and hated the Prooshians with a deep and deadly hatred, received Morisot and his companion with enthusiasm, and landed them after a fair passage at Copenhagen, where they were given quite an ovation. The Schleswig-Holstein affair was still fresh in the minds of the Danes, and they were delighted at the opportunity of doing honour to men who had drawn the sword against Germany. Morisot afterwards went to England; and when the Russo-Turkish campaign broke out, he hurried to Constantinople in search offurther adventures. Animated as he was by the true spirit of a soldier of fortune, Morisot found a scope for his energies afterwards in the ideal field of military adventure. "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi," wrote an old historian; and the dashing young Frenchman, recognizing the truth of the remark even in these days, went to the Cape.
A feeling was creeping over me that it was high time I had a rest after all the storm and stress of battle; and when a letter came to me one day from my mother, who was in England, I packed up my things on a sudden impulse and stepped on board the Messageries steamerGamboge. Among my fellow passengers were Mr. and Mrs. B—— P——, who were bound on a trip through the Holy Land, and left us at Smyrna. I also met again Admiral Sir William Hewitt, who had entertained us on board his ship theAchillesbefore I went to Erzeroum. He and I occupied the same cabin on the voyage.
At Smyrna I found our old friend Mr. Zohrab with his wife. Mrs. Zohrab was a dear, kind, motherly Englishwoman; and when she saw me, the thought of the sufferings that we had all gone through in Erzeroum and the fate which had fallen upon so many of the people whom she knew quite overcame her. She flung her arms round my neck, and burst into tears. Of course Mr. Zohrab was very anxious to hear all thathad happened to us since he left Erzeroum, and whether we were comfortable in the house that he was obliged to desert. I told him that we did full justice to his provisions and his wines; and the expression of his face was quite pathetic when I described the delightful little dinner parties that we gave to the Russian officers out of his ample stores. Poor old Zohrab! He listened with much the same feelings that Ulysses might have had when the island princes, over-bold, were feasting on his substance and the steam of the roasting beef (which the poet avers is dear to the gods) rose up in his lordly halls.
Recollections of Osman Pasha's ball at Widdin came back to me when I met at Smyrna Zara Dilber Effendi, the skilful entertainer who arranged all the details of that never to be forgotten function. He and I spent the afternoon together, and had much to tell each other. The sight of this polished and dignified gentleman carried me back to my first experiences in Turkey, and his face was almost the last that I saw before I went on board ship again, and said good-bye for ever to that strange empire where the glow of romance and chivalry and the pure flame of passionate patriotism shone among the gathering shadows that have since almost obscured the "light of other days."
When I reached London, I found all England ringing with the tidings of the fighting, andthere were plenty of evidences of the interest taken in the political situation. The music-halls, where one may touch the pulse of popular feeling, were crowded every night with audiences who tumultuously applauded the patriotic ditties that were encored over and over again, especially the famous song which set forth that "The Russians shall not have Constantino-o-ple."
I happened one night to stroll into the newly built "Canterbury Theatre of Varieties," which, by means of the novelty of a sliding roof, combined with a programme illustrating scenes in the campaign which was just concluded, drew big crowds nightly. One of the items on the programme was a realistic scene depicting the taking of the Grivitza redoubt by the Russians, and I watched the gallant "supers" with mingled feelings as they charged home upon the cardboard bayonets. The scene was capitally done, and there was a prodigious expenditure of ammunition, which the audience applauded mightily. After the performance I sent my card round to Mr. Villiers, who was the proprietor of the show, intimating that I would like to see him. A tall, rather good-looking man, in the elaborate evening dress of a prosperous theatrical manager, and wearing an enormous diamond in his shirt front, made his appearance, and listened quietly while I complimented him upon the realism of the entertainment. I told him that it wasreally a very creditable show, but that there were one or two points in which it might be improved, and that, as I was the only Englishman in Plevna during the attack, I could give him some hints which would make the representation more accurate historically, while at the same time not impairing the spectacular effect. Mr. Villiers, who, by the way, was the uncle of my friend Fred Villiers, the war correspondent, did not seem very enthusiastic. In fact, his demeanour was distinctly discouraging. I felt that he had something to say, and waited anxiously for his answer. "Well, sir," he remarked, looking me straight in the face while he twiddled his heavy gold watch-chain, "I am not going to say that I don't believe you; but you are the eleventh man who has come round here with exactly the same story." I was crushed, and bowed myself out from the presence of the potentate, almost wondering whether I really ever had been to Plevna.
That there were plenty of impostors about, and that Mr. Villiers had ample ground for being suspicious of casual strangers professing to have Turkish military experience, I soon discovered for myself. I happened to be travelling up to Scotland a couple of days afterwards, when a gentlemanly looking individual got into the smoking carriage with me, and we fell to chatting upon the current topics of the day. The strangerbegan to interest me vastly, when he turned the conversation dexterously into a discussion of the Russo-Turkish campaign, and informed me that, though an Englishman, he had served in the artillery under Osman Pasha, and had been present in Plevna during the siege. I let him go on for fully a quarter of an hour recounting his apocryphal exploits, and then I thought it was time to speak. "Well, sir," I said, "it is a most extraordinary thing to think that you could have told that story to any other man in England except myself, and he might have believed you." I gave him my name, and told him that I knew all the artillery officers in Plevna, and that he certainly was not one of them. Never was an unfortunateraconteurso non-plussed. He threw up the sponge at once, and admitted that his story was a fabrication suggested to him by the fact that he had once made a holiday trip in Turkey.
And now the close of the book is reached; but before the last word is written, I should like to express my profound admiration for the soldierly qualities of the rank and file of the Turkish army, with whom I lived on terms of intimate companionship for nearly two years. Courageous in misfortune, uncomplaining under the most awful suffering, good-humoured in every situation, the Turkish troops, both officers andmen, showed throughout all the campaign the temper of true heroes. I need hardly say that for me it is deeply painful to think that the men whom I almost idealized, the men with whom I fought and suffered, with whom I tasted the glory of victory and the bitterness of defeat, should lie under the accusation of the atrocities which we must believe have been committed in 1896, not only in Armenia, but also in Constantinople. Yet through the black cloud that hangs over the Turkish Empire to-day I can still discern the distant stars; for I can look back with honest pride to the high sense of honour, the dauntless courage, the loyalty and true patriotism of those who were my comrades in arms in the earlier and brighter days.