Robert Michael Ballantyne
In the Track of the Troops
Chapter Eleven.
Refers to two Important Letters, and a Secret Mission
It is a curious coincidence that, about the very time when my servant was appointed to serve in the Turkish Ambulance Corps, I received permission to act as a surgeon in the Russian army. Through the influence of Nicholas Naranovitsch, I was attached to his own regiment, and thus enjoyed the pleasure of his society for a considerable time after the breaking out of the war.
I preferred this course to that of returning home, because, first, I could not bear the thought of leaving the country without making every possible exertion to ascertain the fate of my yacht’s crew, and rendering them succour if possible; and, secondly, because I felt an irresistible desire to alleviate, professionally, the sufferings of those who were certain to be wounded during the war. I also experienced much curiosity to know something more of the power and influence of modern war-engines. Perhaps some people will think this latter an unworthy motive. It may have been so; I cannot tell. All I can say is that it was a very secondary one, and would not, of itself, have been sufficient to induce me to remain for an hour to witness the horrors and carnage of battle-fields. Still, putting the various motives together, I felt justified in remaining.
In order that I might render still more effective service to the cause of humanity, I wrote, immediately after my appointment as surgeon, to an intimate friend, north of the Tweed, offering my services as war correspondent to a paper of which he was editor, namely, the Scottish Bawbee.
That celebrated journal,—well known on the east, west, and north coasts of Scotland, and extensively circulated in the centre and south of the country, including England,—is liberal in its principles, conservative in reference only to things that are good, and violently radical when treating of those that are bad. It enjoys the credit of being curt in its statements, brief in the expression of its opinions, perfectly silent in reference to its surmises, distinctly repudiative of the gift of prophecy, consistently averse to the attribution of motives, persistently wise in giving the shortest possible account of murders and scandalous cases, and copious in its references to literature, art, and religious progress, besides being extremely methodical in its arrangement.
In regard to the latter quality, I cannot refrain from referring to its sensible mode of treating births, marriages, and deaths, by putting the Christian and surname of the born, married, or defunct as the first words in each announcement, so that one’s digestion at breakfast is aided by reading with some comfort of the joys and sorrows of one’s friends, instead of having incipient dyspepsia engendered by a painful search for the main facts in confusing sentences.
The editor’s reply came by return of post. It contained the acceptance of my services, and a proposal of extremely liberal terms, allowing me, besides a handsome retaining fee, two horses, and such travelling attendants as might be found necessary. There were also certain emphatic stipulations which are worth recording. I was not, on any pretext whatever, to attempt the divination, much less the revelation, of the future. I was never, upon any consideration, to be seduced into lengthy descriptions of things that I did not see, or minute particulars about matters which I did not know. I was utterly to ignore, and refuse to be influenced by, personal predilections or prejudices in regard to either combatant. I was to say as little about scenery as was consistent with a correct delineation of the field of war, and never to venture on sentimental allusions to sunsets, moonlights, or water-reflections of any kind. I was not to forget that a newspaper was a vehicle for the distribution of news, the announcement of facts and the discussion thereof, not a medium for the dissemination of fancies and fiddlededee. Above all, I was never to write a column and a half of speculation as to the possible and probable movements of armies; to be followed “in our next” by two columns of the rumoured movements of armies; to be continued “in our next” by two columns and a half of the actual movements of armies; to wind up “in our next” with three columns of retrospective consideration as to what might, could, would, or should have been the movements of armies; but that I was, on the contrary, to bear in remembrance the adage about “brevity” being the “soul of wit,” and, when I had nothing to write, to write nothing. By so doing, it was added, I should please the editor and charm the public, one of whose minor griefs is, as regards newspapers, that it is brought into a state of disgust with every event of this life long before it has happened, and thoroughly nauseated with it long after it is past,—to say nothing of the resulting mental confusion.
In case any gentleman of the press should feel injured by these statements, I must remind him that I am not responsible for them. They are the sentiments of the Scottish Bawbee, which must be taken for what they are worth. It is true, I heartily agree with them, but that is an entirely different subject, on which I do not enter.
I readily agreed to fall in with the wishes of the editor, and thenceforward devoted myself, heart and soul, to correspondence and surgery. In both fields of labour I found ample scope for all the powers of body and mind that I possessed.
Just about this time I received a letter from my dear mother, who was aware of my plans. It cost me some anxiety, as it was utterly impossible that I should comply with the injunctions it contained. “Jeffry, my dear boy,” she wrote, “let me entreat you, with all the solemnity of maternal solicitude, to take care of your health. Let Russians and Turks kill and expose themselves as they please, but ever bear in remembrance that it is your duty to avoid danger. Whatever you do, keep your feet dry and your— I need not go further into particulars; medical allusions cannot always be couched in language such as one desires. Never sleep on damp ground, nor, if possible, without a roof or a covering of some sort over your head. Even a parasol is better than nothing. If, despite your precautions, you should catch cold, tie a worsted sock—one of the red and black striped ones I have knitted for you—round your neck, and take one drop of aconite—only one, remember—before going to bed. I know how, with your allopathic notions, you will smile at this advice, but I assure you, as your mother, that it will prove an infallible cure. Never sit in a draught when you can avoid it. If you ever come under fire, which I trust you never may, be sure to get behind a house, or a wall, or a stone, if possible; if you cannot do so, get behind a soldier, one larger than yourself would be preferable of course, but if you have not the opportunity of doing this, then turn your side to the enemy, because in that position you are a much narrower target, and more likely to escape their bullets. I need not caution you not to run away. I would rather see you, dear boy, in a premature grave, than hear that you had run away. But you could not run away. No Childers ever did so—except from school.
“Let the phial of globules which I gave you at parting be your bosom friends, till their friendship is required in another and a lower region. They are a sovereign remedy against rheumatism, catarrh, bronchitis, dyspepsia, lumbago, nervous affections, headaches, loss of memory, debility, monomania, melancholia, botherolia, theoretica, and, in short, all the ills that flesh is heir to, if only taken in time.”
It struck me, as I folded my mother’s letter and that of the editor, that there never was a man who went into any course of action better guarded and advised than myself. At the moment when this thought occurred to me, my friend Nicholas burst into my room in a state of unusual excitement.
“Come, Jeff,” he said, “I’m detailed for another secret duty. People seem to have inordinate faith in me, for all my duties are secret! Are you willing to go with me?”
“Go where?” I asked.
“That I may not tell,” he replied; “anywhere, or nowhere, or everywhere. All I can say is, that if you go, it will be to act as surgeon to a squadron of cavalry. I see you have letters. Good news from home—eh? What of Bella?”
“Yes” I replied, “good news and good advice—listen.”
I reopened the letters and read them aloud.
“Capital!” exclaimed Nicholas, “just the thing for you. No doubt my expedition will furnish a column and a half, if not more, of unquestionable facts for the Scottish Bawbee. Get ready, my boy; I start in half-an-hour.”
He swung off in the same hearty, reckless manner with which he had entered; and I immediately set about packing up my surgical instruments and note-books, and making other preparations for a journey of unknown extent and duration.
Chapter Twelve.
My First Experience of Actual War, and my Thoughts Thereon
We set out by the light of the moon. Our party consisted of a small force of Russian light cavalry. The officer in command was evidently well acquainted with our route, for he rode smartly ahead without hesitation or sign of uncertainty for several hours.
At first Nicholas and I conversed in low tones as we cantered side by side over hill and dale, but as the night advanced we became less communicative, and finally dropped into silence. As I looked upon village and hamlet, bathed in the subdued light, resting in quietness and peace, I thought sadly of the evils that war would surely bring upon many an innocent and helpless woman and child.
It was invariably in this course that my thoughts about war flowed. I was, indeed, quite alive to the national evils of war, and I will not admit that any man-of-peace feels more sensitively than I do the fact that, in war, a nation’s best, youngest, and most hopeful blood is spilled, while its longest lives and most ardent spirits are ruthlessly, uselessly sacrificed—its budding youths, its strapping men, its freshest and most muscular, to say nothing of mental, manhood. Still, while contemplating war and its consequences, I have always been much more powerfully impressed with the frightful consequences to women and children, than anything else. To think of our wives, our little ones, our tender maidens, our loving matrons, and our poor helpless babes, being exposed to murder, rapine, torture, and all the numerous and unnameable horrors of war, for the sake of some false, some fanciful, some utterly ridiculous and contemptible idea, such as the connection of one or two provinces of a land with this nation or with that, or the “integrity of a foreign empire,” has always filled me with sensations of indignation approaching to madness, not unmingled, I must add, with astonishment.
That savages will fight among themselves is self-evident; that Christian nations shall defend themselves from the assaults of savages is also obvious; but that two Christian nations should go to war for anything, on any ground whatever, is to my mind inexplicable and utterly indefensible.
Still, they do it. From which circumstance I am forced to conclude that the Christianity as well as the civilisation and common-sense of one or the other of such nations is, for the time, in abeyance.
Of course I was not perplexed in regard to the Turks. Their religion is not Christian. Moreover, it was propagated by the sword, and teaches coercion in religious matters; but I could not help feeling that the Russians were too ready to forsake diplomacy and take to war.
“My dear fellow,” said Nicholas, rousing himself, when I stated my difficulty, “don’t you see that the vacillating policy of England has driven us to war in spite of ourselves? She would not join the rest of Europe in compelling Turkey to effect reforms which she—Turkey—had promised to make, so that nothing else was left for us but to go to war.”
“My dear fellow,” I retorted, somewhat hotly, “that Turkey has behaved brutally towards its own subjects is a well-known fact. That she has treated the representatives of all the great powers of Europe with extreme insolence is another well-known fact, but it is yet to be proved that the efforts of diplomacy were exhausted, and even if they were, it remained for Europe, not for Russia, to constitute herself the champion of the oppressed.”
“Jeff, my boy,” returned Nicholas, with a smile, “I’m too sleepy to discuss that subject just now, further than to say that I don’t agree with you.”
He did indeed look sleepy, and as we had been riding many hours I forbore to trouble him further.
By daybreak that morning we drew near to the town of Giurgevo, on the Roumanian—or, I may say, the Russian—side of the Danube, and soon afterwards entered it.
Considerable excitement was visible among its inhabitants, who, even at that early hour, were moving hurriedly about the streets. Having parted from our escort, Nicholas and I refreshed ourselves at the Hôtel de l’Europe, and then went to an hospital, where my companion wished to visit a wounded friend—“one,” he said, “who had lately taken part in a dashing though unsuccessful expedition.”
This visit to Giurgevo was my first introduction to some of the actual miseries of war. The hospital was a clean, well-ventilated building. Rows of low beds were ranged neatly and methodically along the whitewashed walls. These were tenanted by young men in every stage of suffering and exhaustion. With bandaged heads or limbs they sat or reclined or lay, some but slightly wounded and still ruddy with the hue of health on their young cheeks; some cut and marred in visage and limbs, with pale cheeks and blue lips, that told of the life-blood almost drained. Others were lying flat on their backs, with the soft brown moustache or curly brown hair contrasting terribly with the grey hue of approaching death.
In one of the beds we found the friend of Nicholas.
He was quite a youth, not badly wounded, and received us with enthusiasm.
“My dear Nicholas,” he said, in reply to a word of condolence about the failure of the expedition, “you misunderstand the whole matter. Doubtless it did not succeed, but that was no fault of ours, and it was a glorious attempt. Come, I will relate it. Does your friend speak Russian?”
“He at all events understands it,” said I.
On this assurance the youth raised his hand to his bandaged brow as if to recall events, and then related the incident, of which the following is the substance.
While the Russians were actively engaged in preparing to cross the Danube at a part where the river is full of small islands, the Turks sent monitors and gunboats to interrupt the operations. The Russians had no vessels capable of facing the huge ironclads of the enemy. Of the ten small boats at the place, eight were engaged in laying torpedoes in the river to protect the works, and two were detailed to watch the enemy. While they were all busily at work, the watchers in a boat named the Schootka heard the sound of an approaching steamer, and soon after descried a Turkish gunboat steaming up the river. Out went the little Schootka like a wasp, with a deadly torpedo at the end of her spar. The gun-boat saw and sought to evade her, put on full steam and hugged the Turkish shore, where some hundreds of Circassian riflemen kept up an incessant fire on the Russian boat. It was hit, and its commander wounded, but the crew and the second in command resolved to carry out the attack. The Schootka increased her speed, and, to the consternation of the Turks, succeeded in touching the gun-boat just behind the paddle-boxes, but the torpedo refused to explode, and the Schootka was compelled to haul off, and make for shelter under a heavy fire from the gun-boat and the Circassian riflemen, which quite riddled her. While she was making off a second Turkish gun-boat hove in sight. The Schootka had still another torpedo on board, one on the Harvey principle. This torpedo may be described as a somewhat square and flat case, charged with an explosive compound. When used it is thrown into the sea and runs through the water on its edge, being held in that position by a rope and caused to advance by pulling on it sidewise. Anglers will understand this when I state that it works on the principle of the “otter,” and, somewhat like the celebrated Irish pig going to market, runs ahead the more it is pulled back by the tail. With this torpedo the daring Russians resolved to attack the second gunboat, but when they threw it overboard it would not work; something had gone wrong with its tail, or with the levers by which, on coming into contact with the enemy, it was to explode. They were compelled therefore to abandon the attempt, and seek shelter from the Turkish fire behind an island.
“So then,” said I, on quitting the hospital, “torpedoes, although terrible in their action, are not always certain.”
“Nothing is always certain,” replied Nicholas, with a smile, “except the flight of time, and as the matter on which I have come requires attention I must now leave you for a few hours. Don’t forget the name of our hotel. That secure in a man’s mind, he may lose himself in any town or city with perfect safety—au revoir.”
For some time I walked about the town. The morning was bright and calm, suggesting ideas of peace; nevertheless my thoughts could not be turned from the contemplation of war, and as I wandered hither and thither, looking out for reminiscences of former wars, I thought of the curiously steady way in which human history repeats itself. It seems to take about a quarter of a century to teach men to forget or ignore the lessons of the past and induce them to begin again to fight. Here, in 1829, the Russians levelled the fortifications which at that time encircled the town; here, in 1854, the Russians were defeated by the Turks; and here, in 1872, these same Russians and Turks were at the same old bloody and useless game—ever learning, yet never coming to a knowledge of the great truth, that, with all their fighting, nothing has been gained and nothing accomplished save a few changes of the men on the chess-board, and the loss of an incalculable amount of life and treasure.
As the day advanced it became very sultry. Towards the afternoon I stopped and gazed thoughtfully at the placid Danube, which, flowing round the gentle curve of Slobosia, reflected in its glittering waters the white domes and minarets of the opposite town of Rustchuk. A low, rumbling sound startled me just then from a reverie. On looking up I perceived a small puff of smoke roll out in the direction of the Turkish shore. Another and another succeeded, and after each shot a smaller puff of smoke was seen to hang over the Turkish batteries opposite.
A strange conflicting rush of feelings came over me, for I had awakened from dreaming of ancient battles to find myself in the actual presence of modern war. The Russian had opened fire, and their shells were bursting among the Turks. These latter were not slow to reply. Soon the rumbling increased to thunder, and I was startled by hearing a tremendous crash not far distant from me, followed by a strange humming sound. The crash was the bursting of a Turkish shell in one of the streets of the town, and the humming sound was the flying about of ragged bits of iron. From the spot on which I stood I could see the havoc it made in the road, while men, women, and children were rushing in all directions out of its way.
Two objects lay near the spot, however, which moved, although they did not flee. One was a woman, the other a boy; both were severely wounded.
I hurried through the town in the direction of the Red-Cross hospital, partly expecting that I might be of service there, and partly in the hope of finding Nicholas. As I went I heard people remarking excitedly on the fact that the Turks were firing at the hospital.
The bombardment became furious, and I felt an uncomfortable disposition to shrink as I heard and saw shot and shell falling everywhere in the streets, piercing the houses, and bursting in them. Many of these were speedily reduced to ruins.
People hurried from their dwellings into the streets, excited and shouting. Men rushed wildly to places of shelter from the deadly missiles, and soon the cries and wailing of women over the dead and wounded increased the uproar. This was strangely and horribly contrasted with the fiendish laughter of a group of boys, who, as yet unhurt, and scarcely alive to the real nature of what was going on, had taken shelter in an archway, from which they darted out occasionally to pick up the pieces of shells that burst near them.
These poor boys, however, were not good judges of shelter-places in such circumstances. Just as I passed, a shell fell and burst in front of the archway, and a piece of it went singing so close past my head that I fancied at the first moment it must have hit me. At the same instant the boys uttered an unearthly yell of terror and fled from under the archway, where I saw one of their number rolling on the ground and shrieking in agony.
Hastening to his assistance, I found that he had received a severe flesh wound in the thigh. I carried him into a house that seemed pretty well protected from the fire, dressed his wound, and left him in charge of the inmates, who, although terribly frightened, were kind and sympathetic.
Proceeding through the marketplace, I observed a little girl crouching in a doorway, her face as pale as if she were dead, her lips perfectly white, and an expression of extreme horror in her eyes. I should probably have passed her, for even in that short sharp walk I had already seen so many faces expressing terror that I had ceased to think of stopping, but I observed a stream of blood on her light-coloured dress.
Stooping down, I asked—
“Are you hurt, dear?”
Twice I repeated the question before she appeared to understand me; then, raising a pair of large lustrous but tearless eyes to my face, she uttered the single word “Father,” and pointed to something that lay in the gloom of the passage beyond her. I entered, lifted the corner of a piece of coarse canvas, and under it saw the form of a man, but there was no countenance. His head had been completely shattered by a shell. Replacing the canvas, I returned to the child. Her right hand was thrust into her bosom, and as she held it there in an unnatural position, I suspected something, and drew it gently out. I was right. It had been struck, and the middle finger was hanging by a piece of skin. A mere touch of my knife was sufficient to sever it. As I bandaged the stump, I tried to console the poor child. She did not appear to care for the pain I unavoidably caused her, but remained quite still, only saying now and then, in a low voice, “Father,” as she looked with her tearless eyes at the heap that lay in the passage.
Giving this hapless little one in charge of a woman who seemed to be an inhabitant of the same building, I hurried away, but had not gone a hundred yards when I chanced to meet Nicholas.
“Ha! well met, my boy!” he exclaimed, evidently in a state of suppressed excitement; “come along. I expected to have had a long hunt after you, but fortune favours me, and we have not a moment to lose.”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Just think,” he said, seizing my arm and hurrying me along, but taking no heed of my question; “we are fairly over the Danube in force! The night before last three thousand men, Cossacks and infantry, crossed from Galatz in boats and rafts, and gained the heights above Matchin. Zoukoff has beaten the enemy everywhere, and Zimmermann is reported to have driven them out of Matchin—in fact we have fairly broken the ice, and all that we have now to do is to go in and win.”
I saw by the flush on his handsome countenance that the martial ardour of Nicholas was stirred to its depths. There was a noble look of daring in his clear grey eye, and a smile of what seemed like joy on his lips, which I knew well were the expression of such sentiments as love of country, desire to serve, like a brave son, that Emperor whom he regarded as a father, hatred of oppression, belief in the righteousness of the cause for which he fought, and delight in the prospect of wild animal excitement. He was full of high hopes, noble aspirations, superabundant energy, and, although not a deep thinker, could tell better than most men, by looking at it, whether the edge of a grindstone were rough or smooth.
We walked smartly to our hotel, but found that our servant had fled, no one knew whither, taking our horses with him. The landlord, however, suggested the railway station, and thither we ran.
A train was entering when we arrived. It was full of Russian soldiers. On the platform stood a Jew, to whom Nicholas addressed himself. The Jew at first seemed to have difficulty in understanding him, but he ultimately said that he had seen a man who must be the one we were in search of, and was about to tell us more, when a Turkish shell burst through the roof of the station, and exploded on the platform, part of which it tore up, sending splinters of iron and wood in all directions. The confused noise of shout and yell that followed, together with the smoke, prevented my observing for a moment or two what damage had been done, but soon I ascertained that Nicholas and myself were unhurt; that the Jew had been slightly wounded, and also several of the people who were waiting the arrival of the train.
The groans of some of the wounded, and the cursing and shouting of the soldiers just arrived, made a powerful impression on me.
“Come, I see our fellow,” cried Nicholas, seizing me suddenly by the arm and hurrying me away.
In a few minutes we had caught our man, mounted our horses, rejoined our cavalry escort, which awaited us in the marketplace, and galloped out of the town.
It is a fact worthy of record that of all the people killed and hurt during this bombardment of Giurgevo, not one was a Russian! This arose from the fact that the soldiers were under the safe cover of their batteries. The Turkish shells did not produce any real damage to works or men. In short, all that was accomplished in this noisy display of the “art of war” was the destruction of many private houses, the killing and maiming of several civilians, including women and children, and a shameful waste of very expensive ammunition, partly paid for by the sufferers. In contemplating these facts, the word “glory” assumed a very strange and quite a new meaning in my mind.
Soon we were beyond the reach of Turkish missiles, though still within sound of the guns. Our pace showed that we were making what I suppose my military friends would style a forced march. Nicholas was evidently unwilling to converse on the object of our march, but at length gave way a little.
“I see no harm,” he said, “in telling you that we are about to cross the Danube not far from this, and that at least one of my objects is to secure a trustworthy intelligent spy. You know—perhaps you don’t know—that such men are rare. Of course we can procure any number of men who have pluck enough to offer themselves as spies, for the sake of the high pay, just as we can get any number of men who are willing to jump down a cannon’s throat for the honour and glory of the thing.”
“Yes,” said I, interrupting, “men like our friend Nicholas Naranovitsch!”
“Well, perhaps,” he replied, with a light laugh, “but don’t change the subject, Jeff, you’ve got a bad tendency to do so. I say there is no difficulty in getting spies; but it is not easy to find men well qualified for such work. Now one has been heard of at last, and, among other things, I am commissioned to secure him for the purpose of leading our troops across the Balkans.”
“The Balkans!” said I, in surprise; “you are a long way from that range.”
“The length of any way, Jeff, depends not so much upon the way as on the spirit of him who measures it. Ten miles to one man is a hundred miles to another, and vice versa.”
I could make no objection to that, for it was true. “Nevertheless,” said I, after a pause, “there may be spirits among the Turks who could render that, which is only a few days’ journey in ordinary circumstances, a six months’ business to the Russians.”
“Admitted heartily,” returned Nicholas, with animation; “if the Turk were not a brave foe, one could not take so much interest in the war.”
This last remark silenced me for a time. The view-point of my future kinsman was so utterly different from mine that I knew not what to reply. He evidently thought that a plucky foe, worthy of his steel, was most desirable, while to my mind it appeared obvious that the pluckier the foe the longer and more resolute would be the resistance, and, as a consequence, the greater the amount of bloodshed and of suffering to the women, children, and aged, the heavier the drain on the resources of both empires, and of addition to the burdens of generations yet unborn.
When, after a considerable time, I put the subject in this light before Nicholas, he laughed heartily, and said—
“Why, Jeff, at that rate you would knock all the romance out of war.”
“That were impossible, Nick,” I rejoined quickly, “for there is no romance whatever in war.”
“No romance?” he exclaimed, opening his eyes to their widest, and raising his black brows to their highest in astonishment.
“No,” said I, firmly, “not a scrap. All the romance connected with war is in spite of it, and by no means the result of it. The heroism displayed in its wildest sallies is true heroism undoubtedly, but it would be none the less heroism if it were exercised in the rescue of men and women from shipwreck or from fire. The romance of the bivouac in the dark woods or on the moonlit plains of foreign lands, with the delights of fresh air and life-giving exercise and thrilling adventure, is not the perquisite of the warrior; it is the privilege, quite as much, if not more, of the pioneer in the American backwoods and prairies, and of the hunter in the wilds of Africa. The romance of unexpected meetings with foreign ‘fair ones’ in out-o’’-the-way circumstances, with broken bones, perhaps, or gunshot wounds, to lend pathos to the affair, and necessitate nursing, which may lead to love-making,—all that is equally possible to the Alpine climber and the chamois-hunter, to the traveller almost anywhere, who chooses to indulge in reckless sport, regardless of his neck.—Of course,” I added, with a smile, for I did not wish to appear too cynical in my friend’s eyes, “the soldier has a few advantages in which the civilian does not quite come up to him, such as the glorious brass band, and the red coat, and the glittering lace.”
