Under the Red Crescent / Adventures of an English Surgeon with the Turkish Army at Plevna and Erzeroum 1877-1878

by Charles S. Ryan; John Sandes

When I fell ill and Denniston was left alone, he managed to get a letter away to Constantinople through the Russian lines announcing the precarious position in Erzeroum, and Dr. Stoker and Dr. Stiven at once volunteered to come up as a rescue party. Reaching Trebizond on January 27, they pushed forward at once, preparations for the journey having been expedited by Mr. Biliotti; but they had to stop most of the first night at Jevislik to rest the post-horses, and here the hazardous nature of their undertaking was brought home to them. An early start was made next morning, and all that day these two heroic men pushed on with tired horses, a reluctant guide, and one hundred and fifty miles of snow and ice in front of them. The road was excessively difficult, for the little pathway, about two feet wide, was frozen and slippery, and wound along the edge of a cliff about nine hundred feet high, while snowdrifts, which in some places were twenty feet deep, threatened to engulf them. Several times the baggage-horses fell, and the whole party had to halt and unpack and reload the animals; so that the march was much delayed, and it was two hours after dark before they reached the summit of the Zegana Pass, where they camped for the night. The next day they reached Ghumish Khané, and there for the first time since leaving Trebizond they got a relay of post-horses. A long struggle of eighteen hours brought the relief party from Ghumish Khané to Baiburt; and after procuring fresh horses with some difficulty, they pushed on to the Kop village at the foot of the worst pass on the whole road.

Here another misfortune befell them; for the guide, who had been showing an inclination to give in for several stages past, refused when they were half-way up the mountain to go a step farther, declaring that it was madness to attempt the pass in such weather, and that they were courting certain death from the avalanches that they could hear at intervals thundering down into the valley below.

Taking their lives in their hands, the two doctors left the guide to make his way back as best he could, and faced the rising path again, taking the pack-horses with them. Once the whole party were submerged in a snowdrift, but managed to get clear again; and after a great struggle of nine hours, they passed the Kopdagh, and arrived at a place called Purnekapan, where they learnt that they were close to the Russian outposts. At the top of the pass the snow lay so thick that, had it not been for the telegraph poles, the whole party must have lost their way and perished; but by dint of following the track thus marked out they were able to advance as far as Ashkaleh, where a Cossack guard was stationed. Hoisting the British flag and also the ambulance flag, the intrepid doctors were escorted by the Cossacks to Ilidja, where they were well received by the Russian general Sistovitch; and after some delay, caused by the necessity of telegraphing to the Grand Duke Michael for permission, they were allowed to go on to Erzeroum, which they reached on February 3. Surely that hazardous relief march of seven whole days, undertaken voluntarily, and carried out with unswerving resolution in the face of every danger, should live in the annals of the medical profession as an example of the unflinching devotion of the two brave men who made it.

Stoker and Stiven told me that the news of my illness had been received in Constantinople with great regret, and they had orders if they found me alive on their arrival at Erzeroum to send me down to the capital at once to recuperate. They also brought me an invitation from Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Commerell, who was stationed in the Gulf of Ismet, to pay him a visit on board his ship for the purpose of regaining my health.

However, it went against the grain with me to think of leaving a sinking ship; and at last we arranged that Stiven should go back, taking Captain Morisot with him, and that Stoker should remain with Denniston and me to look after the hospitals. So we said good-bye to Stiven and Morisot, and devoted ourselves anew to the hospital work. During my illness the Stafford House Hospital, which had been handed back to the Turkish authorities, had been allowed to go to the bad very much; but after four or five days' hard work we soon had everything ship-shape again.

At this period the sickness in the city was at its worst, and the ravages of typhus and typhoid were fearful. We three English doctors had our hands full, and whenever we had an hour to spare from the military hospital our time was taken up in attending upon the poorer Armenians in the city. We could have earned large fees if we had chosen to attend the wealthier classes; but we thought it right to devote all our spare time to the poor people, who had no one else to look after them.

Among our patients was the Catholic Armenian archbishop of the place, a dear old fellow, who was most grateful to Denniston and myself for attending him. When he recovered he wanted us to take a fee, but we declined; and then he insisted on presenting us with the only article of value which he possessed. This was a bracelet which had been excavated from a subterranean village of great antiquity at the foot of Mount Ararat, and consisted of a large ring of bronze, ornamented with two serpents' heads. It was supposed to be about two thousand three hundred years old or thereabouts. We accepted this strange old ornament, which might have been fashioned by some cunning artificer whose father saw the sunlight flashing on the Athenian helmets at Marathon or watched the beak of a Greek galley come crashing through the Persian ship in which he laboured at the oar at Salamis. The serpents on the old bronze bracelet had slumbered on in the subterranean village while centuries came and went and dynasties flitted past like shadows; but at last they were restored again to the light of day. Denniston and I regarded our new acquisition with curiosity not unmixed with awe. Then in our simple, unpoetical way we decided to toss up for it, and the spin of a Turkish piastre, minted so to speak but yesterday, gave Denniston possession of this souvenir of the times of mighty Xerxes.

As soon as it leaked out that archæological objects were regarded with interest by the English doctors, an extraordinary variety of ancient curiosities were pressed upon our notice; and owing to the precarious situation in the town, the owners were all ready to sacrifice their treasures at an alarming reduction. There was something pathetic in the eagerness of a few of these collectors to realize upon their treasures. I was offered an iron signet ring supposed to have belonged to an exalted personage in the time of Alexander the Great for the price of a few doses of quinine; and half a bottle of brandy would have purchased me a curious black stone bearing an inscription that would puzzle the antiquity experts at the British Museum. One day an Armenian named Magack, who held an official position in the British Consulate, brought me a gold coin stamped with a bull's head. He explained to me that it was coined in the reign of the second Persian king, and that it was worth £70 in London; but the evidence on one point seemed to me as inconclusive as on the other, and I declined to purchase it at the price of £30.

Although the snow had begun to melt in the streets, it was still bitterly cold, and we knew that the Russians were only waiting for a regular thaw in order to bring up their artillery. However, we were fortunately not called upon to undergo a bombardment; for with the fall of Kars and Plevna the war was virtually at an end both in Asia Minor and in Europe, and rumours of an armistice were already beginning to be put about.