Hassib Bey listened deprecatingly to Dr. Mackellar's spirited protest; but the fiat had gone forth from headquarters, and he was powerless to accede to his visitor's request even if he had the inclination.
Dr. Bond Moore sent in a formal written protest to Osman Pasha, who vouchsafed no reply, and the Stafford House surgeons spent the rest of the day examining my hospital. In connection with this incident of the expulsion of the Stafford House doctors from Plevna, I may reproduce the report on the subject, which I afterwards sent to Mr. V. B. Kennett, the Stafford House commissioner. My report, which was published in the Times of November 15, 1877, ran as follows:
"At your request I write to you a short account of the state of Plevna on the occasion of the visit of Dr. Bond Moore, Stafford House section, and the circumstances attending the evacuation of the wounded. When Drs. Bond Moore and Mackellar arrived in Plevna, we had in our hospitals there between four and five thousand wounded, probably three thousand five hundred of them having received their wounds between September 5 and October 12, the remainder being the graver cases of our former fighting which were considered too serious to send on to Sofia. We have always received orders after any heavy fighting to send off all who were not too gravely wounded to Sofia, and so we have by this means never had more than five or six hundred in our hospitals. But unfortunately, during the hard fighting in September, we were completely surrounded by the Russians, and were actually, so to speak, in a state of siege, so that we had the accumulation of nearly a month's fighting in addition to the graver cases of our earlier battles. Such was the state of affairs when Chefket Pasha relieved Plevna, and when Drs. Moore and Mackellar arrived and kindly offered to form hospitals in Plevna. On presenting themselves to Osman they were received quite courteously. He told them he was very glad to see them, but that if they were sent in the real cause of humanity, and to assist his wounded, he much preferred them leaving for Sofia and establishing themselves there; if, however, they wished to remain and see the fighting, they were perfectly welcome to do so, but if they did they would have very little work to do, as he was sending nearly all the wounded to Sofia, and for those who were remaining he had a sufficient staff of surgeons. His reasons for sending away the wounded must appear most obvious to any one knowing the circumstances of the case. I believe that it is always one of the first considerations of a general, after a battle, to send off as soon as possible all wounded who are in a state to travel, in order to make room for further fighting. In addition to this main consideration, I must state that our accommodation was very insufficient, that many of our hospitals consisted of houses without windows, and we were fearfully overcrowded, often having thirty men in a room only large enough for ten. Then, again, we had no beds, and could not procure them as there was no wood to make them of. Another great consideration was that we had not sufficient nor proper food, having only the bare necessaries of life, such as biscuits and meat. From a sanitary point of view, it was also extremely desirable to remove them as quickly as possible, thereby lessening the chances of an epidemic, which is always liable to break out when such a large population is confined in a small area. It was, I believe, in 1866 that a very serious epidemic of cholera broke out in Plevna. Of the four thousand five hundred wounded I believe that all but two hundred and fifty were sent off, the wounds of those remaining being of the very gravest character. Most of the wounds of those sent away were very slight, being flesh wounds caused by bullets, which would be perfectly healed in from twenty to thirty days. I believe in all about sixty or seventy cases of fracture were sent off; in most of them union had already occurred, and in those in which it had not I am of opinion that they stood a better chance of recovery by their removal from a hospital impregnated with septic germs into a purer atmosphere and where they could have more attention paid to them. Dr. George Stoker took with him in his ambulance to Orkhanieh forty cases, but it must be remembered that these were the very gravest. Three of them died on the way; but as they were cases out of my own hospital I can speak about them with confidence, and can say that in the most favourable circumstances recovery would have been impossible. Osman Pasha also acted with foresight from a military point of view; for had he not sent off his wounded, and had Stafford House and the Red Crescent retained them in hospitals established there, what would be their position at present now that Plevna is again surrounded by the Russians? It must be a matter of satisfaction to Osman Pasha to have sent off as many of the non-combatant population as possible, for it must be a great drain on one's commissariat to have to feed four or five thousand non-combatants in a place like Plevna where provisions are so difficult to procure. I may add that I consider I am in a position to speak with authority on such a subject, as I have been for fifteen months in the Turkish service, and for the last five have been in Plevna."
When the medical men went round my hospital, they saw the horrors among which I had been working for the previous month, and then I took them out to our operating theatre under the blue sky on the banks of the Tutchenitza. Here Dr. Mackellar performed several operations, and showed us some brilliant surgery, including four disarticulations of the shoulder joint.
Next day we all rode out to the Krishin redoubt which Skobeleff had taken, and which was soon afterwards recaptured with fearful loss. I was able to point out the exact spot where the heaviest of the fighting had taken place to Dr. Bond Moore, Dr. Mackellar, and Mr. David Christie Murray, who were naturally interested in making a personal inspection of the scene of such a great historical fight.
As the four of us rode away in a southerly direction to the Ibrahim Bey redoubt, the Russian artillerymen saw us, and in a couple of seconds the Stafford House doctors and the war correspondent had an experience which struck them with all the force of the novel and the unexpected. The Russians fired six shells at us, and it certainly was a wonder that some of us were not killed, for the artillerymen had found the range by long practice at the redoubts, and their shells fell all round us. It was no novelty for me to hear the projectiles whizzing about, but I was surprised at the courage and coolness with which the visitors behaved, and luckily all four of us came out of it without a scratch.
That evening I thought the whole position over, and determined to apply for a short leave of absence, and take a trip down to Constantinople with the intention of returning to Plevna in a couple of weeks. I should not have dreamed of leaving the position so long as I could be of any real service there; but most of the wounded men were about to be sent away, and there would be nothing left for me to do. In addition to this, I was in a very bad state of health. I had a large suppurating cavity at the back of my neck from my wound, and my system had completely run down. My mother, whom I had not seen for years, was then in Europe, and I thought that it would be a capital opportunity to run down and see her. Moreover, my agreement with the Turkish Government was for only one year, and I had already been serving for seventeen months. It was these considerations, and not, as was afterwards stated in various newspapers, the refusal of Osman Pasha to avail himself of the assistance of the Stafford House doctors, that induced me to interview Hassib Bey and apply for leave of absence. I asked him for leave of absence for two or three weeks, pointing out that nearly all the wounded would be sent away, and that there was no immediate likelihood of any more fighting before I returned. Hassib Bey said that he would give me leave with very great pleasure, and he voluntarily gave me a letter to the Seraskierat, in which he was good enough to express the very highest appreciation of my services. In fact, it was practically impossible for any man to get a higher testimonial than that which Hassib Bey gave me on the eve of my departure from Plevna. He suggested that I should ask Osman Pasha to ratify the leave of absence; and Tewfik Pasha having conducted me into Osman Pasha's presence, I repeated my application to him, assuring him that I would not think of leaving as long as there was any work for me to do. The Muchir thanked me for my services, of which he expressed high appreciation, and hoped to see me back in Plevna.
If I could have foreseen that the road would be blocked again by the Russians, and that it would be impossible for me to return once I left the town, I would have stayed by the troops at all costs. I was devoted to the Turkish army and the Turkish cause. I never spared myself in carrying out my duties, and I was bound by the strongest ties of attachment to my patients, as they were also, I felt and knew, to me. I positively loved the great, rough barbarians who bore their sufferings with such noble fortitude in my hospital, and during the whole of my time in Plevna I never had the slightest unpleasantness with a single one of them, and received always the greatest gratitude from them all. At that time there was no Turk in Plevna more Turkish in sympathies than I was. I threw my whole heart and soul and all my energies into the Turkish cause, and no one could have gone through all that I had without being impressed with a feeling of the most profound admiration for the patience, courage, and heroic patriotism of the Turkish private soldier. Intending as I did to remain away for a couple of weeks at most, I felt that the parting was only temporary; and when I went to say good-bye to the colonel of my regiment, Suleiman Bey, he wished me a cheery au revoir, expecting to see me soon back again. I had quite an affecting farewell with dear old Hassib Bey, and I also went round and said good-bye to all my intimate friends and the men with whom I had been brought most closely into contact. It was a great disappointment to me that I could not find the regimental barber, a little red-headed Turk, who used to shave me every Sunday, whether there was firing in progress or not, making me sit down on the ground and taking my head between his knees for the better performance of his task. Anxious as I was to make him a little present in recognition of his skill and punctuality, I was unable to find him. Like his brethren of the craft in other countries, he was a most loquacious conversationalist, and I got all the gossip of the trenches during the ten minutes that I was under his hands every Sunday.