At our Stafford House Hospital in Erzeroum we had a continual stream of fresh cases, for the cavalry were continually making dashes against the Russians, and small affairs between outposts came off nearly every day; so that as fast as one lot of patients died or were discharged cured, a second lot were brought in. Cases of frostbite became very numerous, and many a time I had to lop off a man's feet or hands the flesh of which was simply rotting on the bones. Rations too were getting scarce, and as there was not enough food for every one the prisoners in the gaol were the first to suffer. The interior of that Erzeroum gaol was a sight not soon to be forgotten. Crowded together in a state of indescribable filth, the prisoners fought with the ferocity of wild beasts for the few handfuls of raw grain that the guard threw to them occasionally. Still, we continued to get beef tea and mutton broth for our wounded, and I made a point of going round the wards and administering it myself to those who needed it.
It was in connection with a matter of rations that I remember Edmund O'Donovan especially. O'Donovan was one of the wildest, most brilliant, and original geniuses who ever left Ireland to follow up the avocation of a war correspondent. He came to dinner with us one night, and his wit and versatility made a great impression upon me. The next time that I saw him was in response to an urgent request that I should call upon him and get him out of a scrape. His adventure was so thoroughly characteristic that I may be excused for narrating it.
O'Donovan, it seemed, with the warm-hearted generosity of his race, had invited half a dozen Circassian officers to dine with him, and had prepared an appetizing banquet for them. Among the dishes was an entrée so savoury, so succulent, so entirely satisfying to the palate of an epicure, that the Circassians, like the simple children of nature that they were, sent back their plates again and again for more. There was something new and strange yet delightful withal about that entrée. The meat was white and delicate and tender, the gravy was of a luscious brown, and in a fit of absence of mind the Circassian officers loaded up the whole cargo, while they laughed politely at O'Donovan's best Dublin stories, which were chiefly remarkable for having points where one never expected them.
Then O'Donovan expressed a hope that they had enjoyed the dinner, and the Circassians were most effusive in their thanks. Really they had never eaten anything like that entrée before, and would their host mind telling them the recipe?
"Begorra, I can tell ye that aisy enough," spluttered O'Donovan, with a mighty laugh. "Ye've been atin' the natest slip of a pig I've ever seen out of Connaught, and beautifully cooked he was too." Then he explained to them in Turkish more clearly, and these good Mussulmen burst into eruption. What a shindy there was at that dinner-table! The Circassians could not have been quicker if they had been at Donnybrook Fair, and they rushed at their host with the first weapons that came handy. O'Donovan did very well with the bottles for a minute or two, and afterwards with the leg of a chair; but they were too many for him, and when the table was upset and the lamps put out there was a fairly lively five minutes round the wreck of the dinner-table and of the empty dish that had once contained a sucking-pig à l'Irlandaise. The Moslem Circassians, full to repletion with the flesh of the accursed creature, fought under a disadvantage; and when O'Donovan's servants rushed in and took their master's part, the issue was no longer in doubt. Although the revolvers were going freely, only one man was hurt, and it appeared that O'Donovan had shot him in the arm. The affair created a great deal of excitement at the time, and the Circassians vowed vengeance for the insult; but we managed to pacify them eventually, and there were so many other things requiring attention that the trouble soon blew over.
This was not the only occasion that O'Donovan got into a scrape, for not long afterwards, while promenading on the roof of his house, the idea occurred to him that a little revolver practice might improve his aim. Drawing his six-shooter, he proceeded to blaze away at a dog that was gnawing a bone in the middle of the street; but like another famous character in fiction, he "missed the blue-bottle and floored the Mogul." In other words, a bullet which went wide of the dog found its billet in a fleshy part of the body of a very stout Turkish woman, who on receiving this flank attack fled in great disorder screaming loudly.
O'Donovan sent for me to help him out of this difficulty too, and we had to give the woman £10 to square her. The erratic marksman was then the war correspondent of the Daily News; but I never saw an account of this incident in his graphic descriptive sketches. He left Erzeroum in December, and afterwards, when the army of Hicks Pasha was cut to pieces in Egypt, O'Donovan met a soldier's death.
At this time we lost the services of Mr. Zohrab, the consul; for after the fall of Kars, Lord Derby, desiring to avoid any complications in the event of the Russians occupying Erzeroum, instructed the British consul to retire at once to Constantinople. Mr. Zohrab and his wife and sons accordingly left the town, much to our regret, for they had been very helpful to us. When he went, however, he handed over to us his house, which was fully provisioned, amply supplied with fuel, and provided with a well stocked cellar. We took possession at once, and after the poor kind of way in which we had been living our new quarters were most luxurious.
Although we personally were much better off than before, yet the condition of the bulk of the people in the town was getting steadily worse every day. Stores of every kind were getting scarce, and Kurd Ismael Pasha, who replaced Mukhtar Pasha as commander-in-chief when that officer was ordered to Constantinople, had a difficult task in administration. Towards the end of December it became necessary to relieve the town of a portion of the population, and an expedition consisting of four hundred men and two hundred women and children was ordered to start for Erzinghan, a town which was supposed to be five days' journey distant from Erzeroum.
This march rivalled in its horrors the march of the wounded men from Kars; for before the expedition had gone a day's journey from Erzeroum a fearful snowstorm swept down upon the hapless creatures, and when the miserable remnant had dragged themselves back to their starting-point it was found that of the two hundred women and children not a single soul remained. All died where they fell, including the wife of the colonel commanding the expedition, and were buried under the drifting heaps of snow that the wind piled high over the uncoffined remains. Of the soldiers who got back to Erzeroum the greater number perished from frostbite, dysentery, and exposure. It was an awful holocaust.