Chapter IX: The Third Battle of Plevna

The Third Battle of Plevna--Turkish Genius for
Fortification--How the Redoubts were built--Description of an
Earthwork--Sleeping Underground--Living Men in Holes in the
Clay--The Triple Tier of Fire--Commencement of the Battle--The
"Mammoth Battery"--Lauri and the Live Shell--Radishevo on
Fire--The General Assault--Turkish Civilians join in the
Fight--Attack on the Grivitza Redoubt--The Brushwood Shelter
takes Fire--I visit the Redoubt--The Sight from the Parapet--A
Word to Sadik Pasha--I ride towards Krishin--Turkish Fugitives
from our Redoubt--A Compliment from a Civilian--Panic among
the Troops--Fall of the Grivitza Redoubt and Capture of Two
Krishin Redoubts by Skobeleff--The Counter-attacks--Parapets of
Dead Bodies--Tewfik Bey Invincible--The Krishin Redoubts
recaptured--A Glorious Victory--Delirious Excitement--Russian
Sortie from the Grivitza Redoubt--Repulsed with Terrible
Slaughter--Hospital Work heavy once more--Some Stoical
Sufferers--Russian Bravery--Osman Pasha and the
Wounded--Departure of Drew Gay to run the Gauntlet--A War
Correspondent and his News--Perilous Ride from Plevna 219

CHAPTER X.
THE INVESTMENT OF PLEVNA.

Lauri and the Sausage--A Diet of "Poiled Peans"--The Ways of a
_Parlementaire_--Politeness on the Battle-field--Indefatigable
Burrowing by the Turks--Skobeleff's Annoyance--A Visit to a
Redoubt--Russian Artillery Practice--I lose my Groom--Geese,
and how to get them--I go out reconnoitring--We have a Hot Ten
Minutes--Looking out for a New Horse--A Grand Charger lost--We
retire on Netropol--The Use of Artillery--The Russians attack
our Convoy--We lose our Medical Stores--A Humorous Russian
Prisoner--Afternoon Coffee with Sadik Pasha--A Call made under
Difficulties--The Uninvited Guest--Kronberg my Colleague--He
saves a Supposed Spy--In my Hospital again--Fearful Scenes of
Suffering--Wounds, Filth, and Disease--Heavy
Mortality--Antiseptics exhausted--Appearance of Gangrene--My
Anatolian Soldier--Pyæmia Rampant 248

CHAPTER XI.
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 277

CHAPTER XII.
FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ERZEROUM.

Life in Constantinople--Sir Collingwood Dickson--Visit to the
Seraskierat--Roving Englishmen--A Typical Adventurer--War
Correspondents--General Berdan--Colonel Valentine Baker--A
Picnic on the Gulf of Ismet--On Board H.M.S. _Achilles_--The
Turks as Paymasters--A Heavy Fee--Round the _Cafés
Chantants_--An Invitation to Erzeroum--Road to Plevna closed--I
join the Stafford House Ambulance--A Farewell Banquet--A Voyage
in the Black Sea--Trebizond--In the Cradle of Humanity--The
Road of Xenophon's Ten Thousand--Lazistan--Dog and Wolf--An
Ancient Mining Town--The Valley of Pear Trees--Baiburt--Cross
and Crescent in Former Days--A Mountain Road--Genoese Ruins--A
Hasty Descent--On the Kopdagh--The Garden of Eden--First
Glimpse of the Euphrates--Sir Arnold Kemball--Erzeroum at
Last--English Doctors--Mr. Zohrab--Mukhtar Pasha--Organizing
our Hospitals--Sunlight and Shadow--A Presage of Trouble 303

CHAPTER XIII.
A BELEAGUERED CITY.

The Scourge of Typhus--Pyæmia and Pneumonia--Terrible
Cold--Outposts frozen to death--Fall of Kars--The March of the
Wounded--One Hundred and Eighty Miles over the Snow--Ghastly
Effects of Frostbite--The Skeleton Hands--Overcrowding in the
Hospitals--Dr. Fetherstonhaugh falls Ill--A Strange
Delusion--"After Long Years"--Edmund O'Donovan--A Circassian
Dinner Party--Sucking-pig _à l'Irlandaise_--A Novel
Target--Departure of Mr. Zohrab--We move into the
Consulate--Exodus to Erzinghan--An Awful Sacrifice--Christmas
in a Besieged Town--A Remarkable Plum Pudding--Illness of
Pinkerton--Funerals in Erzeroum--Casting out the Dead--"The
Lean Dogs beneath the Wall"--An Army Surgeon's Death--I fall
Sick with Typhus--Heroic Devotion of James Denniston--Some of
my Nurses--How I recovered--A Scientific Experiment--The Brain
of a Comatose Person--Vachin's Discomfiture 330