As I had received no orders to remain in camp, I rode off in the direction of the firing, and after going a couple of miles I saw three or four mounted officers. Fearing that I might be sent back, I went a little aside, and passed them, as I thought, unnoticed; but they speedily ordered me to halt, and when I went up to them I found that one was Hassib Bey, the principal medical officer.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" he said to me; "you are the very man we want."
I told him that I was anxious to see the fun, and he advised me, with a laugh, to curb my ardour, and ordered me to remain with him.
We rode on together for another couple of miles, when we came to an ambulance at work. It was the only ambulance that I ever saw in the field with the Turkish troops, and was a very simple affair, managed by four surgeons, who had brought tables, instruments, water, basins, and bandages with them. A number of wounded men were waiting to be treated, and a long stream of others were coming in from the direction of the fighting. Hassib Bey ordered me to assist the other surgeons working at the ambulance, and I took up my duties among the wounded forthwith. We were stationed on the lee side of a hill in comparative safety and out of the line of fire; but the battle was so close to us that we could hear the roar of the heavy guns, the sharp rattle of the breech-loaders, and the loud hurrahs of the troops engaged.
Presently a rumour reached us that our men had captured two Russian guns on the crest of the long ridge between Pelischat and Sgalevitcha and a few minutes later those field-pieces, which were made of bronze and were the first Russian guns that we had yet seen closely, were taken past us at a gallop by Turkish drivers heading for Plevna. When the wounded men who were lying all round us waiting for their turns saw the captured guns, they were excited to the wildest enthusiasm. Many of them rose to their feet in spite of their wounds, and many more propped themselves up painfully on their rifles as they cheered the capture that had been made.
I remained with the ambulance for several hours, and the record of work there shows how much can be accomplished in the way of surgery under active-service conditions. I had a small chamois-leather bag in my pocket which I used generally for carrying coffee; but I devoted it on this occasion to holding the bullets which I extracted from my patients. I was the only operator; and when the afternoon's work was done, I counted nineteen bullets in it—not a bad record of operations all performed within three hours.
If a wounded man came in with the bullet in anything like a handy place I whipped it out at once, and in no case did we give chloroform. Most of the men were walking back or crawling along as well as they could, and a few were being brought in on stretchers by their comrades.
Among the wounded arrivals was an infantry captain who was a nephew of Hassib Bey. He was shot through the calf of the leg, and he was able to give us some details of the fighting. He told us that the Turks had taken a Russian redoubt, or rather a small entrenchment fortified with sandbags, and that there were a good many wounded men there, but no doctor.
I saluted Hassib Bey, and asked him if I could go forward.
"All right," he replied, "you can go; but, for goodness' sake, take care of yourself."