My own Circassian servant, Ahmet, was an excellent attendant, and I seldom had any trouble with him. Once, however, an incident occurred through which I nearly lost him. It all arose through a pig. Next door to my quarters, and between them and the house occupied by Dr. Robert, was the residence of a Bulgarian, who was rather more affable than most of his compatriots, and who allowed me to use a right-of-way through his place to get to Dr. Robert's, so as to avoid the necessity of going a long way round. I often saw this Bulgarian as I went through his garden, and one day he told me that he was going to kill a pig, and that if I sent Ahmet in to him he would give him some fresh pork for me. When I conveyed my wishes to Ahmet, I was met by an unexpected obstacle. Ahmet was a good Mussulman, and hated pork as the devil hates holy water. He refused to touch the accursed thing, and it was in vain that by turns I bullied and entreated, threatened and cajoled him to fetch the material for an appetizing plateful of pork chops. He positively refused, and at last I told him that if he would not obey my orders I would have to send him back to his regiment. This was an unpleasant alternative, for with me he had light duties, comfortable quarters, plenty to eat and drink, and no fighting, whereas if he were sent back to his regiment he would have to spend long hours digging in the trenches, with the certainty of being sent under fire on the first reappearance of the Russians. In spite of all this he steadily refused to fetch the pork, and I admired his steadfastness so much that at last I went and fetched it myself. I took it over to Dr. Robert's, and we had a splendid dinner.
It was about this time that I first met that remarkable adventurer Olivier Pain, whose history forms one of the strangest pages in the book of political martyrs. Tewfik Bey told me one morning that a Frenchman had arrived in Plevna; and as I was extremely anxious for some news of the outside world, I determined to call on the visitor. He was established in the Bulgarian house which I had not long quitted, and was receiving the scant attention which the black-eyed daughter of the house found time to bestow upon him, and the conversational treat which her one remark "London" occasionally afforded. When I visited the stranger in my old well known quarters, I found a tall, sallow man, apparently about twenty-five years of age, with a small, pointed beard, and an air of intelligence and almost of distinction. He was arranging his few possessions in the room when I entered and introduced myself to him. As my eyes wandered round the room, I was thunderstruck to see this Frenchman pinning upon the wall a photograph of Sydney Harbour, and I asked him at once if he knew Sydney. He replied that he did; and when I told him that I was a native of Melbourne, he said that he had also been in Melbourne, and knew it well. He seemed somewhat troubled at my recognition of the photograph, and at last, speaking in very tolerable English, he said to me, "Sir, I have a very high idea of the honour of an English gentleman, and I take you to be one. If you will promise not to betray me, I will tell you who I am."
"Like yourself," I replied, "I am alone here, and it does not matter a straw to me who you are. You are evidently an intelligent and educated man, and that is quite enough for me." Then he told me that he was Olivier Pain, and that during the stormy days of 1871 in Paris he had embraced the cause of the Commune, and been deported for life to New Caledonia, in company with the fiery and intransigéant Henri Rochefort. He had escaped in 1874 with Rochefort to the Australian coast, and had reached Sydney in safety, afterwards making his way to Melbourne, and thence to America, where for some time he lay perdu. Venturing back to Europe, however, after many adventures he reached Geneva, and on the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war was engaged as a war correspondent by one of the principal Geneva newspapers.
Now war correspondents were regarded with the utmost distrust in Turkey, while Osman Pasha positively hated them, and strict instructions were given that no stranger should be allowed into Plevna without a special firman from the Sultan. It was characteristic of the audacity of Olivier Pain that he should have made his way from Constantinople unprovided with the necessary firman, and should have "bluffed" himself into Plevna, in the belief that among the hundreds of departing wounded men and arriving reinforcements his presence would not at first be noticed. As a matter of fact, however, he was noted at once, and eventually had to leave the town temporarily; but for a fortnight he continued to inhabit my old quarters, and I saw a good deal of him.
Little skirmishes between our pickets and the Russian vedettes used to occur from day to day, and Pain began to exercise his métier as war correspondent at once, writing the most picturesque descriptive articles to his Geneva newspaper. I was shown afterwards a copy of that journal, in which a long account appeared written by him, and purporting to be a description of some heroic exploits performed by myself. Upon the slender foundation of my participation in one of the trifling cavalry skirmishes which were constantly taking place, he had built up a remarkable narrative, in which he portrayed me, I am afraid with more vividness than veracity, cutting down Russian troopers by the score. However, fortunately for himself, Pain was an enthusiastic admirer of everything Turkish, and he found in Osman Pasha a model of all the military virtues. It was fortunate for him that he adopted this view in his letters, for unknown to him they were all opened and read by Tewfik Bey before being despatched from Plevna. Of course Tewfik Bey apprised his superior officer of the contents of the letters, and the result was that Osman Pasha's antipathy to war correspondents was mollified in this particular case. War correspondents are not usually thin-skinned; and when at last it became necessary absolutely to turn Pain out of Plevna because he had no authority to be there, Osman Pasha himself gave him a letter to the executive in Constantinople recommending that the necessary permission should be given to him to return to Plevna. He was unable to return at once as the road was blocked; but Chefket Pasha, coming up in October with fresh troops, reopened it, and with him came back Olivier Pain. He survived all the horrors of the fall of Plevna, and lived to seek for new adventures in the service of the Mahdi in the Soudan. The quixotism of Pain's politics was well revealed in his conduct in going to the Soudan as a colleague of Rochefort's, with the idea that he could assist the Mahdi against England, and so injure the traditional antagonist of France. In that book of fascinating interest Fire and Sword in the Sudan, Slatin Bey tells the story of Olivier Pain's appearance in the Mahdi's camp while his troops were marching on Khartoum, and of his acceptance with suspicion both by the Mahdi and the Khalifa. A few days after Pain joined in the march he became ill with fever, and was placed on an angareb, or couch, slung upon a donkey. Growing weaker and weaker, he slipped at last from the donkey, fractured his skull, and died miserably when the column was within three days' march of Khartoum.
As I knew him at Plevna, Pain was capital company. He told us what Europe was thinking of us set there to repel the repeated assaults of the Russians; and he gave us many stories of wild life as a political convict in New Caledonia and a refugee ever since in half the countries of the world.
My friend Czetwertinski had come to stay in my quarters as his health was very delicate and he could not live under canvas; so he and Pain and myself generally dined together, and gathered for a smoke and a chat in the evenings. One night a slight contretemps occurred which came near depriving me of one of my friends, if not both. Czetwertinski conceived the brilliant idea of converting some of the milk which the Bulgarian boy used to bring me into butter, and with this object he extemporized a small churn and turned himself into an impromptu butter factory. The volatile Frenchman could not resist giving his communistic feelings expression, and he made some remark about "the butter-making prince" which grievously incensed the haughty Pole. An instant challenge to a duel followed, and I had the greatest difficulty in preventing my two friends from exchanging shots according to the recognized code. Finally I pacified them, and had the satisfaction of seeing them fall upon each other's necks in a cordial embrace. When Pain finally left us in response to a peremptory order from headquarters, he bequeathed his stock of firewood to me as an acknowledgment of the hospitality which he had received; and I secured possession of this coveted luxury in spite of the loud objections of Pain's Bulgarian landlord, who regarded the wood, which was now becoming a scarce commodity in Plevna, as his lawful perquisite.
A curious superstition on the part of the Turks came under my notice one night soon after Pain's departure. I was tossing about feverishly in bed, suffering agonies from the assaults of the domestic insects which in Bulgaria attain to stupendous proportions, when I heard a tremendous volley of guns, and for the moment I believed that a night attack was taking place. However, after a few minutes of independent firing, the noise died away, and I went to sleep again. Next morning it appeared that there had been an eclipse of the moon on the previous night, and the townspeople were acting in accordance with an ancient superstition when they fired off every available gun, believing that in doing so they would scare away the monstrous animal which was endeavouring to devour the silver queen of night. They were curiously alive to an empty superstition, yet curiously insensible to hard facts, for they appeared to tolerate the ever-present annoyance of the insects with equanimity. When I resorted to the device of putting the legs of my bed in vessels full of water, so that the fleas and other hopping and crawling visitors could not climb up to attack me, the pertinacious creatures thought out a way to circumvent me. They simply crawled up the wall and along the ceiling until they were in a position to drop down upon me, which they did. It was the most marked display of reasoning power in the lower creatures that ever forced itself upon my notice. The only way that I could baffle the voracious crowd was by moving my bed out into the open air, and this I did.
In the forenoon of August 31, while I was pottering about my hospital, I heard guns at a distance of about five miles, and jumping on my horse I galloped off to the headquarters camp, only to find it deserted. Information was obtainable, however, showing that Osman Pasha had suddenly moved off eastward in the direction of Poradim before daybreak with nineteen battalions of infantry, three batteries of artillery, and all the cavalry at his disposal. He had gone out really for the purpose of getting information and ascertaining the position of the Russians. It was a huge reconnaissance ending in a battle.