Our commander acted on a principle which is said to be usually adopted by General Skobeleff. He reserved his fire until the Turks were within a hundred yards, and then gave the order to commence. The scene that followed is indescribable. Eight hundred men fell at once before the withering blast of lead. The firing was continuous. No troops on earth could have stood it. The Turks were instantly shattered and repulsed.
When they had retired, and the smoke had partially cleared away, I saw the plain covered with slaughtered men. Some were prone and motionless in death. Some were moving slightly. Others were struggling, as if in a delirium of agony, which it was frightful to witness. A few had life enough to rise, stagger forward several paces, fall and rise again to repeat the process until death ensued.
I stood fascinated.
“God help us!” I exclaimed aloud; “these murdered hundreds represent thousands of bleeding hearts At Home, and yet the maniacs continue to kill each other as if human lives were of no account and human souls not worth a thought.”
“Pardon me, sir,” said a voice at my side, “the maniacs who cause all this are not here, but at the place you mentioned just now—at home. These fine fellows are their unhappy tools, who, with untold depths of enthusiasm and kindliness in their nature, and a good deal of devilment too, are compelled, willing or not willing, to fight for what is called ‘religion and country’!”
I found that the speaker was the special correspondent of a Scotch newspaper. As brother “specials” we fraternised immediately; but we had scarcely had time to exchange a few rapid queries and replies when our men were ordered to advance to the attack.
Very soon the ambulance corps was busily employed, and I had to devote my entire energies to the wounded who came pouring in.
Oh! it was pitiful to see the hundreds of strong and stalwart youths, who might have been the glory of succeeding generations, brought in with frames shattered beyond recovery, with brave lip compressed to check the rising cry of agony, with eyes glaring in the terrible conflict between lusty manhood and sudden death, or, with nerves utterly unstrung, giving vent to the shrieks of the maniac.
Several surgeons and students among us had extemporised an hospital in the shelter of a cliff.
One of the students, whose mind was in advance of his years and whose spirit seemed roused, came suddenly to me, during a brief interval in our labours.