In the Track of the Troops Part 20

"The Bashi-Bazouks have been at our village!" cried the man wildly, as he wiped the blood out of his eyes.

"Ha!" exclaimed Dobri, with a fierce look; "we can succour--"

"No, no, no," interrupted the man: with a strange mixture of horror and fury in his blood-streaked face; "too late! too late!"

He raised his head, stammered as if attempting to say more, then, lifting both arms aloft, while the outspread fingers clutched the air, uttered an appalling cry, and fell flat on the ground.

"Not too late for revenge," muttered the officer commanding the detachment. "Dress his wounds as quickly as may be, Mr Childers."

He gave the necessary orders to get ready. In a few minutes the horses were saddled, and I had done what I could for the wounded man.

"You know the village he came from, and the way to it?" asked the commanding officer of Petroff.

"Yes, sir, I know it well."

"Take the man up behind you, then, and lead the way."

The troop mounted, and a few minutes later we were galloping over a wide plain, on the eastern verge of which the light of the new day was slowly dawning.

An hour's ride brought us to the village. We could see the smoke of the still burning cottages as we advanced, and were prepared for a sad spectacle of one of the effects of war; but what we beheld on entering far surpa.s.sed our expectations. Harvests trampled down or burned were bad enough, so were burning cottages, battered-in doors, and smashed windows, but these things were nothing to the sight of dead men and women scattered about the streets. The men were not men of war; their peasant garbs bespoke them men of peace. Gallantly had they fought, however, in defence of hearth and home, but all in vain. The trained miscreants who had attacked them form a part of the Turkish army, which receives no pay, and is therefore virtually told that, after fighting, their recognised duty is to pillage. But the brutes had done more than this. As we trotted through the little hamlet, which was peopled only by the dead, we observed that most of the men had been more or less mutilated, some in a very horrible manner, and the poor fellow who had escaped said that this had been done while the men were alive.

Dismounting, we examined some of the cottages, and there beheld sights at the mere recollection of which I shudder. In one I saw women and children heaped together, with their limbs cut and garments torn off, while their long hair lay tossed about on the b.l.o.o.d.y floors. In another, which was on fire, I could see the limbs of corpses that were being roasted, or had already been burnt to cinders.

Not one soul in that village was left alive. How many had escaped we could not ascertain, for the wounded man had fallen into such a state of wild horror that he could not be got to understand or answer questions.

At one cottage door which we came to he stood with clasped hands gazing at the dead inside, like one petrified. Some one touched him on the shoulder, when we were ready to leave the place, but he merely muttered, "My home!"

As we could do no good there, and were anxious to pursue the fiends who had left such desolation behind them, we again urged the man to come with us, but he refused. On our attempting to use gentle force, he started suddenly, drew a knife from his girdle, and plunging it into his heart, fell dead on his own threshold.

It was with a sense of relief, as if we had been delivered from a dark oppressive dungeon, that we galloped out of the village, and followed the tracks of the Bashi-Bazouks, which were luckily visible on the plain. Soon we traced them to a road that led towards the mountainous country. There was no other road there, and as this one had neither fork nor diverging path, we had no difficulty in following them up.

It was night, however, before we came upon further traces of them,-- several fires where they had stopped to cook some food. As the sky was clear, we pushed on all that night.

Shortly after dawn we reached a sequestered dell. The road being curved at the place, we came on it suddenly, and here, under the bushes, we discovered the lair of the Bashi-Bazouks.

They kept no guard, apparently, but the sound of our approach had roused them, for, as we galloped into the dell, some were seen running to catch their horses, others, scarcely awake, were wildly buckling on their swords, while a few were creeping from under the low booths of brushwood they had set up to shelter them.

The scene that followed was brief but terrible. Our men, some of whom were lancers, some dragoons, charged them in all directions with yells of execration. Here I saw one wretch thrust through with a lance, doubling backward in his death-agony as he fell; there, another turned fiercely, and fired his pistol full at the dragoon who charged him, but missed, and was cleft next moment to the chin. In another place a wretched man had dropped on his knees, and, while in a supplicating att.i.tude, was run through the neck by a lancer. But, to say truth, little quarter was asked by these Bashi-Bazouks, and none was granted.

They fought on foot, fiercely, with spear and pistol and short sword.

It seemed to me as if some of my conceptions of h.e.l.l were being realised: rapid shots; fire and smoke; imprecations, shouts, and yells, with looks of fiercest pa.s.sion and deadly hate; shrieks of mortal pain; blood spouting in thick fountains from sudden wounds; men lying in horrible, almost grotesque, contortions, or writhing on the ground in throes of agony.

"O G.o.d!" thought I, "and all this is done for the amelioration of the condition of the Christians in Turkey!"

"Ha! ha-a!" shouted a voice near me, as if in mockery of my thought. It was more like that of a fiend than a man. I turned quickly. It was Andre Yanovitch, his young and handsome face distorted with a look of furious triumph as he wiped his b.l.o.o.d.y sword after killing the last of the Bashi-Bazouks who had failed to escape into the neighbouring woods.

"_These_ brutes at least won't have another chance of drawing blood from women and children," he cried, sheathing his sword with a clang, and trotting towards his comrades, who were already mustering at the bottom of the dell, the skirmish being over.

The smooth-faced, tender-hearted youth, with the lock of auburn hair in his bosom, had fairly begun his education in the art of war. His young heart was bursting and his young blood boiling with the tumultuous emotions caused by a combination of pity and revenge.

The scout also galloped past to rejoin our party. I noticed in the _melee_ that his sword-sweep had been even more terrible and deadly than that of Andre, but he had done his fearful work in comparative silence, with knitted brows, compressed lips, and clenched teeth. He was a full-grown man, the other a mere boy. Besides, Dobri Petroff had been born and bred in a land of rampant tyranny, and had learned, naturally bold and independent though he was, at all times to hold himself, and all his powers, well in hand.

Little did the scout imagine that, while he was thus inflicting well-deserved punishment on the Turkish Bashi-Bazouks, the Cossacks of Russia had, about the same time, made demands on the men of his own village, who, resisting, were put to the sword, and many of them ma.s.sacred. Strong in the belief that the country which had taken up arms for the deliverance of Bulgaria would be able to fulfil its engagements, and afford secure protection to the inhabitants of Yenilik, and, among them, to his wife and little ones, Dobri Petroff went on his way with a comparatively easy mind.

It was evening when we reached another village, where the people had been visited by a body of Russian irregular horse, who had murdered some of them, and carried off whatever they required.

Putting up at the little hostelry of the place, I felt too much fatigued to talk over recent events with Nicholas, and was glad to retire to a small room, where, stretched on a wooden bench, with a greatcoat for a pillow, I soon forgot the sorrows and sufferings of Bulgaria in profound slumber.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

SIMTOVA--NEW VIEWS OF WAR--LANCEY GOES TO THE FRONT, AND SEES SERVICE, AND GETS A SCARE.

Shortly afterwards our detachment reached the headquarters of General Gourko, who, with that celebrated Russian general, Skobeleff the younger, was pressing towards the Balkans.

Here changes took place which very materially altered my experiences.

Nicholas Naranovitsch was transferred to the staff of General Skobeleff.

Petroff was sent to act the part of guide and scout to the division, and I, although anxious to obtain employment at the front, was obliged to content myself with an appointment to the army hospitals at Sistova.

As it turned out, this post enabled me to understand more of the true nature of war than if I had remained with the army, and, as I afterwards had considerable experience in the field, the appointment proved to be advantageous, though at the time I regarded it as a disappointment.

When I had been some weeks at Sistova I wrote a letter to my mother, which, as it gives a fair account of the impressions made at the time, I cannot do better than transcribe:--

"Dearest Mother,--I have been in the hospitals now for some weeks, and it is not possible for you to conceive, or me to convey, an adequate description of the horrible effects of this most hideous war. My opinions on war--always, as you know, strong--have been greatly strengthened; also modified. Your heart would bleed for the poor wounded men if you saw them. They are sent to us in crowds daily, direct from the battle-fields. An ordinary hospital, with its clean beds, and its sufferers warmly housed and well cared for, with which you are familiar enough, gives no idea of an army hospital in time of war.

"The men come in, or are carried in, begrimed with powder, smoke, and dust; with broken limbs and gaping wounds, mortifying and almost unfit for inspection or handling until cleansed by the application of Lister's carbolic acid spray. Some of these have dragged themselves. .h.i.ther on foot from that awful Shipka Pa.s.s--a seven days' journey,-- and are in such an abject state of exhaustion that their recovery is usually impossible. Yet some do recover. Some men seem very hard to kill. On the other hand, I have seen some men whose hold on life was so feeble as to make it difficult to say which of their comparatively slight wounds had caused death.

"I am now, alas! familiar with death and wounds and human agony in every form. Day and night I am engaged in dressing, operating, and tending generally. The same may be said of all connected with the hospital. The doctors under Professor Wahl are untiring in their work. The Protestant sisters of mercy, chiefly Germans, and the `Sanitaires,' who take the weary night-watches, are quite worn out, for the number of sick and wounded who pour in on us has far exceeded the computations formed. Everything in this war has been under-estimated. What do you think of this fact--within the last fifty days 15,000 men have been killed, and 40,000 sick and wounded sent to Russian hospitals? This speaks to 55,000 Russian homes plunged into mourning,--to say nothing of similar losses, if not greater, by the Turks,--a heavy price to pay for improving the condition of Bulgaria,--isn't it?

"There is a strong feeling in my mind that this is a war of extermination. `No quarter' is too frequently the cry on either side.

I do not say that the Russians mean it to be so, but when Bashi-Bazouks torture their prisoners in cold blood, and show fiendish delight in the most diabolical acts of cruelty, even going the length of roasting people alive, is it strange that a brutalising effect is produced on the Russians, and that they retaliate in a somewhat similar spirit at times? The truth is, mother, that one of the direct and most powerful effects of war is to dehumanise, and check the influence of, the good men engaged, while it affords a splendid opportunity to the vicious and brutal to give the rein to their pa.s.sions, and work their will with impunity.

"But, while this is so with the combatants, many of those outside the ring are stirred to pity and to n.o.ble deeds. Witness the self-sacrificing labours of the volunteer heroes and heroines who do their work in an hospital such as this, and the generous deeds evoked from the peoples of other lands, such as the sending of two splendid and completely equipped ambulance trains of twenty-five carriages each, by the Berlin Central Committee of the International a.s.sociation for the Relief of Sick and Wounded Soldiers in the field, the thousands of pounds that have been contributed by the Russians for the comfort of their sick and wounded, and the thousands contributed by England for that fund which embraces in its sympathies both Russian and Turk. It seems to me that a great moral war is going on just now--a war between philanthropy and selfishness; but I grieve to say that while the former saves its thousands, the latter slays its tens of thousands. Glorious though the result of our labours is, it is as nothing compared with the torrent of evil which has called us out, and the conclusion which has been forced upon me is, that we should--every one of us, man, woman, and child--hold and pertinaciously enforce the precept that war among civilised nations is outrageous and intolerable. Of course we cannot avoid it sometimes. If a man _will_ insist on fighting _me_, I have no resource left but to fight _him_; but for two CIVILISED nations to go to war for the settlement of a dispute is an unreasonable and childish and silly as it would be for two gentlemen, who should differ in opinion, to step into the middle of a peaceful drawing-room, b.u.t.ton up their coats, turn up their wristbands, and proceed to batter each other's eyes and noses, regardless of ladies, children, and valuables. War would be a contemptible farce if it were not a tremendous tragedy."

My mother's reply to this letter was characteristic and brief.

"My dear Jeff," she wrote, "in regard to your strictures on war I have only to say that I agree with you, as I have always done on all points, heart and soul. Don't forget to keep your feet dry when sleeping out at nights, and never omit to take the globules."

While I was busy at Sistova--too busy with the pressing duties of my post to think much of absent friends, my poor servant Lancey was going through a series of experiences still more strange and trying than my own.

As I have said, he had been appointed by Sanda Pasha to a post in connection with a Turkish ambulance corps. He was on his way to the front, when the detachment with which he travelled met with a reverse which materially affected his fortunes for some time after.

There were two Turkish soldiers with whom Lancey was thrown much in contact, and with whom he had become very intimate. There was nothing very particular in the appearance of the two men, except that they formed contrasts, one being tall and thin, the other short and thick.

Both were comrades and bosom friends, and both took a strong fancy to their English comrade. Lancey had also taken a fancy to them. It was, in short, the old story of "kindred souls," and, despite the fact that these Turks were to Lancey "furriners" and "unbelievers," while he was to them a "giaour," they felt strong human sympathies which drew them powerfully together. The name of the thick little man was Ali Bobo, that of the tall comrade Eskiwin.

That these two loved each other intensely, although Turks, was the first thing that touched Lancey's feelings. On discovering that Ali Bobo happened to have dwelt for a long time with an English merchant in Constantinople, and could speak a little of something that was understood to be English, he became intimate and communicative.

Not more tender was the love of David and Jonathan than was that of Eskiwin and Ali Bobo. As the screw to the nut, so fitted the one to the other. Eskiwin was grave, his friend was funny. Ali Bobo was smart, his comrade was slow. They never clashed. Jacob Lancey, being quiet and sedate, observed the two, admired each, philosophised on both and gained their esteem. Their friendship, alas! was of short duration.