We became very intimate with Captain Pizareff, and also made the acquaintance of a number of Russian officers, whom we invited round to our quarters in the evenings.
We found ourselves much sought after by the Russian officers; and, in fact, the English Consulate, where we lived, became to all intents and purposes a Russian club. It got to be quite the thing for them to drop in during the evening; and we occasionally gave little dinner parties, which were much appreciated. Our house, furnished as it was with Mr. Zohrab's excellent supply of provisions, and with his admirable and carefully selected stock of wines and liquors, was the only place in Erzeroum where a decent dinner was obtainable. An invitation to dine with us was very acceptable, as may be imagined, to these young Russian aristocrats, who had been half starving in the snow for several months past.
Most of those who came to us were friends of Pizareff, who practically lived at our place. He was a fine type of young fellow, with the frank and dashing manner of the born soldier, and with a nature widened and improved by travel. Like my other great friend, poor Czetwertinski, he was a brilliant horseman, and his charger was the envy of the regiment. This horse was an extremely handsome white stallion, which, as the advertisements say, was formerly the property of a gentleman, and had been parted with simply because the owner had no further use for him. The original owner happened to be a notorious brigand in Daghistan, who for a long time defied all efforts to capture him, but was taken at last and summarily hanged. Pizareff was offered enormous sums for this famous animal, which added to his undoubted worth as a charger something of the extrinsic sentimental value that might have attached to Dick Turpin's Black Bess.
Another charming man who used to come to our house was the colonel commanding the Orenburg Cossacks. We saw a great deal of him, and also of his adjutant, Captain Anisimoff, who spoke English like an Englishman, and looked exactly like a British naval officer. They all drank brandy at a rate that threatened to deplete our stock of this medical comfort in an alarming manner; and I remember that one evening a party of them polished off three bottles between them, which made me open my eyes, especially as brandy was worth two pounds a bottle in Erzeroum at that time. One of the party was a young Russian prince, whose name I have forgotten. He had never tasted brandy before, and was so proud of his achievement that he insisted upon sending a telegram to his father at St. Petersburg announcing that he had been drinking eau-de-vie in Erzeroum at the house of three English doctors—a highly important despatch from the seat of war.
About this time I received a telegram one day from Constantinople informing me that the Sultan had been pleased to confer upon me the decoration of the fourth order of the Medjidie in recognition of my services. Mere lad as I was, I felt very proud of my decoration, and Denniston, Stoker, and myself had a great consultation about the matter. They opined that there was only one course open to me, and that it was incumbent upon me to give a party in celebration of the event. As the guests would be all Russians, I felt bound in honour to do the thing properly, and determined to go outside Mr. Zohrab's cellar in order to provide materials befitting the occasion. Mr. Zohrab had forgotten to lay in a stock of champagne before he went, and it was clear that champagne was the only liquor which would meet the requirements of the case. Now I knew that there was no champagne in Erzeroum before the arrival of the Russians; but I guessed that the sutlers and purveyors who followed the Russian army would not have forgotten to bring the wine which is so much favoured in Russia. Old Tom Rennison, a campaigner whose vast experience enabled him to live in luxury in places where a goat would starve, thought that he knew where to get some "fizz"; so I despatched him to bring in half a dozen bottles coûte que coûte. Still, it was a bit staggering to find that, when he brought back the required quantity, he also had a little bill of eighteen pounds to render for the half-dozen of Moet and Chandon which some enterprising purveyor had carted on a sledge over the snow from Tiflis, four hundred miles away. About a dozen Russian officers came round to my party, and we made a great night of it. Denniston proposed my health in English, and I responded in the same language. Then Pizareff proposed it in French, and I made shift to reply in that tongue. Some one else made a few complimentary remarks in German, and several speeches were added in Russian. Before the evening was half over we were paying the most extravagant compliments to each other, and I have an indistinct recollection of trying somewhere about midnight to teach a big, fair-bearded captain "Auld lang syne," and to render "We twa ha' paid'lt i' the burn" into my own peculiar French, a task in which I was entirely unsuccessful.
We had quite a number of little dinner parties after this. One night General Komaroff, who afterwards commanded the Russians at the famous fight which goes down to history as the "Pendjeh incident," invited us to dine with him; and Stoker and I accepted, though Denniston was sick and obliged to stay at home. The general, who was then a young man, although he wore a beard and spectacles, treated us very hospitably, and had evidently spared no pains to make the entertainment a success. A regimental band stationed in the courtyard outside played English airs as a compliment to the visitors; and the menu, which began with a zacuska of caviare and anchovies, was a capital one. A small tumbler of raw absinthe was poured out for each guest to begin with; and as they insisted that I must drink mine in spite of all my protestations, I was nearly poisoned. Later on English bottled stout was served round gravely in wine glasses. How on earth it got to Erzeroum I could not make out, for the Russians do not drink stout; but it was evidently intended as a compliment to us, so I tossed mine down, much wondering.
Captain Pizareff, who lived in General Melikoff's house, asked me to go round and dine with him one night as the general was going out, and with great thoughtfulness my host sent round a Cossack with a spare horse for me. We had a capital dinner; but the only thing to drink was a big stone bottle full of Benedictine, which we finished between us. Pizareff was equal to the emergency. Late at night he sent me back to my own quarters with my Cossack guard doubled. I had a Cossack riding on each side of me to hold me on. They were jolly, good-humoured fellows, clad in heavy sheepskin overcoats; and they laughed immoderately every time I fell off my horse, which occurred three times during the journey of about a mile. On each of these occasions, as I sat disconsolately in the frozen snow, a melancholy figure in a long overcoat, boots, and spurs, and a sword which insisted in getting between my legs, my Cossacks replaced my fez on my head, deftly disentangled me from my sword, and hoisted me once more into the saddle. In spite of the terrible stories that one hears about them sometimes, I shall always have a warm corner in my heart for Cossacks.
Although we got on capitally with the Russian officers, the rank and file of the army of occupation behaved very badly to the few unfortunate Turkish soldiers who were left behind to recover from their wounds when the bulk of the sufferers were sent away. Whenever the Russian linesmen came across these poor devils crawling about the streets, they would jeer them and mock them first, and then beat them cruelly. I have seen half a dozen Russians attack a couple of wretchedly weak and emaciated Turks who were painfully creeping along the street, and kick them brutally, leaving them half dead by the side of the road.
Once Denniston, Stoker, and myself had a narrow escape. We had gone for a walk by ourselves outside of the town proper towards the redoubts, when we came upon a party of Russian infantrymen who were undisguisedly hostile. One fellow came up to me, said something in Russian, and then hit me a crack over the head which annoyed me so much that I went for him with my fists. Denniston and Stoker sailed in at the others; but the soldiers had their side arms with them, and it would have fared badly with us but for the sudden appearance of a Russian captain, who saw the affair, and came running to our assistance, revolver in hand. He knocked down my assailant with the pistol-butt for a start, and discharged such a volley of remarks at the others that they slunk off like beaten curs. We were grateful for his timely intervention, without which we would probably have been killed outright; and we paid due attention to his warning that it was dangerous to come unprotected so far from the town.