A Circassian and a Pig—A Call on Olivier Pain—His Photographs surprise me—A View of Sydney Harbour in Plevna—The Story of a French Journalist—A Lonely Death in the Soudan—"The Butter-making Prince"—Bulgarian Fleas—The Expedition to Poradim—Going to the Front—An Ambulance at Work—Capture of Russian Guns—A Diabolical Circassian—Attack on a Redoubt—A General Retreat—Wounded Men left in the Redoubt—I help them to escape—An Exciting Moment—My Horse has to carry Double—Death takes one of the Riders—Battle of Pelischat—The March to Lovtcha—A Scrimmage in a Wheat-field—Sleeping in a Wheat-stook—Weinberger and I are apprehensive—A Delightful Surprise—Drawing a Covert—Lovtcha in the Distance—A Council of War—An Appalling Sight—Our Mutilated Comrades—The Sergeant and his Cigarette—A Night Alarm—Ammunition Boxes blow up—A Disastrous Explosion—Lauri and Drew Gay.

My own Circassian servant, Ahmet, was an excellent attendant, and I seldom had any trouble with him. Once, however, an incident occurred through which I nearly lost him. It all arose through a pig. Next door to my quarters, and between them and the house occupied by Dr. Robert, was the residence of a Bulgarian, who was rather more affable than most of his compatriots, and who allowed me to use a right-of-way through his place to get to Dr. Robert's, so as to avoid the necessity of going a long way round. I often saw this Bulgarian as I went through his garden, and one day he told me that he was going to kill a pig, and that if I sent Ahmet in to him he would give him some fresh pork for me. When I conveyed my wishes to Ahmet, I was met by an unexpected obstacle. Ahmet was a good Mussulman, and hated pork as the devil hates holy water. He refused to touch the accursed thing, and it was in vain that by turns I bullied and entreated, threatened and cajoled him to fetch the material for an appetizing plateful of pork chops. He positively refused, and at last I told him that if he would not obey my orders I would have to send him back to his regiment. This was an unpleasant alternative, for with me he had light duties, comfortable quarters, plenty to eat and drink, and no fighting, whereas if he were sent back to his regiment he would have to spend long hours digging in the trenches, with the certainty of being sent under fire on the first reappearance of the Russians. In spite of all this he steadily refused to fetch the pork, and I admired his steadfastness so much that at last I went and fetched it myself. I took it over to Dr. Robert's, and we had a splendid dinner.

It was about this time that I first met that remarkable adventurer Olivier Pain, whose history forms one of the strangest pages in the book of political martyrs. Tewfik Bey told me one morning that a Frenchman had arrived in Plevna; and as I was extremely anxious for some news of the outside world, I determined to call on the visitor. He was established in the Bulgarian house which I had not long quitted, and was receiving the scant attention which the black-eyed daughter of the house found time to bestow upon him, and the conversational treat which her one remark "London" occasionally afforded. When I visited the stranger in my old well known quarters, I found a tall, sallow man, apparently about twenty-five years of age, with a small, pointed beard, and an air of intelligence and almost of distinction. He was arranging his few possessions in the room when I entered and introduced myself to him. As my eyes wandered round the room, I was thunderstruck to see this Frenchman pinning upon the wall a photograph of Sydney Harbour, and I asked him at once if he knew Sydney. He replied that he did; and when I told him that I was a native of Melbourne, he said that he had also been in Melbourne, and knew it well. He seemed somewhat troubled at my recognition of the photograph, and at last, speaking in very tolerable English, he said to me, "Sir, I have a very high idea of the honour of an English gentleman, and I take you to be one. If you will promise not to betray me, I will tell you who I am."

"Like yourself," I replied, "I am alone here, and it does not matter a straw to me who you are. You are evidently an intelligent and educated man, and that is quite enough for me." Then he told me that he was Olivier Pain, and that during the stormy days of 1871 in Paris he had embraced the cause of the Commune, and been deported for life to New Caledonia, in company with the fiery and intransigÉant Henri Rochefort. He had escaped in 1874 with Rochefort to the Australian coast, and had reached Sydney in safety, afterwards making his way to Melbourne, and thence to America, where for some time he lay perdu. Venturing back to Europe, however, after many adventures he reached Geneva, and on the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war was engaged as a war correspondent by one of the principal Geneva newspapers.

Now war correspondents were regarded with the utmost distrust in Turkey, while Osman Pasha positively hated them, and strict instructions were given that no stranger should be allowed into Plevna without a special firman from the Sultan. It was characteristic of the audacity of Olivier Pain that he should have made his way from Constantinople unprovided with the necessary firman, and should have "bluffed" himself into Plevna, in the belief that among the hundreds of departing wounded men and arriving reinforcements his presence would not at first be noticed. As a matter of fact, however, he was noted at once, and eventually had to leave the town temporarily; but for a fortnight he continued to inhabit my old quarters, and I saw a good deal of him.

Little skirmishes between our pickets and the Russian vedettes used to occur from day to day, and Pain began to exercise his mÉtier as war correspondent at once, writing the most picturesque descriptive articles to his Geneva newspaper. I was shown afterwards a copy of that journal, in which a long account appeared written by him, and purporting to be a description of some heroic exploits performed by myself. Upon the slender foundation of my participation in one of the trifling cavalry skirmishes which were constantly taking place, he had built up a remarkable narrative, in which he portrayed me, I am afraid with more vividness than veracity, cutting down Russian troopers by the score. However, fortunately for himself, Pain was an enthusiastic admirer of everything Turkish, and he found in Osman Pasha a model of all the military virtues. It was fortunate for him that he adopted this view in his letters, for unknown to him they were all opened and read by Tewfik Bey before being despatched from Plevna. Of course Tewfik Bey apprised his superior officer of the contents of the letters, and the result was that Osman Pasha's antipathy to war correspondents was mollified in this particular case. War correspondents are not usually thin-skinned; and when at last it became necessary absolutely to turn Pain out of Plevna because he had no authority to be there, Osman Pasha himself gave him a letter to the executive in Constantinople recommending that the necessary permission should be given to him to return to Plevna. He was unable to return at once as the road was blocked; but Chefket Pasha, coming up in October with fresh troops, reopened it, and with him came back Olivier Pain. He survived all the horrors of the fall of Plevna, and lived to seek for new adventures in the service of the Mahdi in the Soudan. The quixotism of Pain's politics was well revealed in his conduct in going to the Soudan as a colleague of Rochefort's, with the idea that he could assist the Mahdi against England, and so injure the traditional antagonist of France. In that book of fascinating interest Fire and Sword in the Sudan, Slatin Bey tells the story of Olivier Pain's appearance in the Mahdi's camp while his troops were marching on Khartoum, and of his acceptance with suspicion both by the Mahdi and the Khalifa. A few days after Pain joined in the march he became ill with fever, and was placed on an angareb, or couch, slung upon a donkey. Growing weaker and weaker, he slipped at last from the donkey, fractured his skull, and died miserably when the column was within three days' march of Khartoum.

As I knew him at Plevna, Pain was capital company. He told us what Europe was thinking of us set there to repel the repeated assaults of the Russians; and he gave us many stories of wild life as a political convict in New Caledonia and a refugee ever since in half the countries of the world.

My friend Czetwertinski had come to stay in my quarters as his health was very delicate and he could not live under canvas; so he and Pain and myself generally dined together, and gathered for a smoke and a chat in the evenings. One night a slight contretemps occurred which came near depriving me of one of my friends, if not both. Czetwertinski conceived the brilliant idea of converting some of the milk which the Bulgarian boy used to bring me into butter, and with this object he extemporized a small churn and turned himself into an impromptu butter factory. The volatile Frenchman could not resist giving his communistic feelings expression, and he made some remark about "the butter-making prince" which grievously incensed the haughty Pole. An instant challenge to a duel followed, and I had the greatest difficulty in preventing my two friends from exchanging shots according to the recognized code. Finally I pacified them, and had the satisfaction of seeing them fall upon each other's necks in a cordial embrace. When Pain finally left us in response to a peremptory order from headquarters, he bequeathed his stock of firewood to me as an acknowledgment of the hospitality which he had received; and I secured possession of this coveted luxury in spite of the loud objections of Pain's Bulgarian landlord, who regarded the wood, which was now becoming a scarce commodity in Plevna, as his lawful perquisite.

A curious superstition on the part of the Turks came under my notice one night soon after Pain's departure. I was tossing about feverishly in bed, suffering agonies from the assaults of the domestic insects which in Bulgaria attain to stupendous proportions, when I heard a tremendous volley of guns, and for the moment I believed that a night attack was taking place. However, after a few minutes of independent firing, the noise died away, and I went to sleep again. Next morning it appeared that there had been an eclipse of the moon on the previous night, and the townspeople were acting in accordance with an ancient superstition when they fired off every available gun, believing that in doing so they would scare away the monstrous animal which was endeavouring to devour the silver queen of night. They were curiously alive to an empty superstition, yet curiously insensible to hard facts, for they appeared to tolerate the ever-present annoyance of the insects with equanimity. When I resorted to the device of putting the legs of my bed in vessels full of water, so that the fleas and other hopping and crawling visitors could not climb up to attack me, the pertinacious creatures thought out a way to circumvent me. They simply crawled up the wall and along the ceiling until they were in a position to drop down upon me, which they did. It was the most marked display of reasoning power in the lower creatures that ever forced itself upon my notice. The only way that I could baffle the voracious crowd was by moving my bed out into the open air, and this I did.

In the forenoon of August 31, while I was pottering about my hospital, I heard guns at a distance of about five miles, and jumping on my horse I galloped off to the headquarters camp, only to find it deserted. Information was obtainable, however, showing that Osman Pasha had suddenly moved off eastward in the direction of Poradim before daybreak with nineteen battalions of infantry, three batteries of artillery, and all the cavalry at his disposal. He had gone out really for the purpose of getting information and ascertaining the position of the Russians. It was a huge reconnaissance ending in a battle.

As I had received no orders to remain in camp, I rode off in the direction of the firing, and after going a couple of miles I saw three or four mounted officers. Fearing that I might be sent back, I went a little aside, and passed them, as I thought, unnoticed; but they speedily ordered me to halt, and when I went up to them I found that one was Hassib Bey, the principal medical officer.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" he said to me; "you are the very man we want."

I told him that I was anxious to see the fun, and he advised me, with a laugh, to curb my ardour, and ordered me to remain with him.

We rode on together for another couple of miles, when we came to an ambulance at work. It was the only ambulance that I ever saw in the field with the Turkish troops, and was a very simple affair, managed by four surgeons, who had brought tables, instruments, water, basins, and bandages with them. A number of wounded men were waiting to be treated, and a long stream of others were coming in from the direction of the fighting. Hassib Bey ordered me to assist the other surgeons working at the ambulance, and I took up my duties among the wounded forthwith. We were stationed on the lee side of a hill in comparative safety and out of the line of fire; but the battle was so close to us that we could hear the roar of the heavy guns, the sharp rattle of the breech-loaders, and the loud hurrahs of the troops engaged.

Presently a rumour reached us that our men had captured two Russian guns on the crest of the long ridge between Pelischat and Sgalevitcha and a few minutes later those field-pieces, which were made of bronze and were the first Russian guns that we had yet seen closely, were taken past us at a gallop by Turkish drivers heading for Plevna. When the wounded men who were lying all round us waiting for their turns saw the captured guns, they were excited to the wildest enthusiasm. Many of them rose to their feet in spite of their wounds, and many more propped themselves up painfully on their rifles as they cheered the capture that had been made.

I remained with the ambulance for several hours, and the record of work there shows how much can be accomplished in the way of surgery under active-service conditions. I had a small chamois-leather bag in my pocket which I used generally for carrying coffee; but I devoted it on this occasion to holding the bullets which I extracted from my patients. I was the only operator; and when the afternoon's work was done, I counted nineteen bullets in it—not a bad record of operations all performed within three hours.

If a wounded man came in with the bullet in anything like a handy place I whipped it out at once, and in no case did we give chloroform. Most of the men were walking back or crawling along as well as they could, and a few were being brought in on stretchers by their comrades.

Among the wounded arrivals was an infantry captain who was a nephew of Hassib Bey. He was shot through the calf of the leg, and he was able to give us some details of the fighting. He told us that the Turks had taken a Russian redoubt, or rather a small entrenchment fortified with sandbags, and that there were a good many wounded men there, but no doctor.

I saluted Hassib Bey, and asked him if I could go forward.

"All right," he replied, "you can go; but, for goodness' sake, take care of yourself."

I promised to do so, and galloped off towards the sound of the fighting. On my way I passed a long string of wounded men making their way back to the ambulance, and was able to stanch their bleeding in many cases, and place them in a better condition for continuing their journey. Presently I came across several dead men, and the shells began to fly about. As I advanced farther the numbers of the dead increased, and the bodies of several Russians among the Turks marked the spot where the fighting had been hand-to-hand. Soon I saw the Russian camp about a mile away. It consisted of a number of little wooden huts on a slight slope in front of the village of Pelischat, and there were a good many tents as well. I could see the Turkish troops engaged; but as I came up to them, they were beginning for the second time to fall back under a hot fire from the Russians.

The country was very open, and lightly timbered, with here and there a few beeches and walnut trees, under which little groups of wounded men were resting on their way to the rear. It was plain that the Russians had recently occupied the ground which our troops at this moment were holding, for lying on the plain were many wounded Russians who had been left behind when their regiments fell back, and those hapless creatures received short shrift from the irregular troops fighting under the Turkish flag.

One instance of the savagery with which the conflict was conducted I witnessed personally; and though it shows the Turkish irregulars in very lurid colours, I can vouch for the performance of similar and even worse atrocities on the part of the Cossacks a few days later.

As I was looking at the firing and wondering how much longer our men would be able to hold the advantage which they had gained, I saw a Circassian, with a most diabolical expression on his face, stooping down to pluck some of the long grass that grew there abundantly and wiping his camer, or short sharp sword, upon it. I rode up to see what he was doing, and found that he had just cut the head off an unfortunate wounded Russian. The headless trunk, still quivering with muscular contractions, lay on the ground at his feet, and he was holding up his horrid trophy by the hair.

I rode on to the small earthwork which our men had captured. The regiment which had taken it still held possession, and the Russian troops were advancing in strong force to recapture it. I gathered that desperate fighting had gone on here, and that the redoubt had already been captured and recaptured two or three times. The men who were then holding it were the remnant of the attacking party, and when I was about a hundred yards from the fortified spot I passed an immense number of Turkish dead. They were the first company in the column of assault which perished to a man. The Russians in the redoubt must have reserved their fire, for nearly every man of the first company had five or six bullets through him. The redoubt itself was full of dead and dying men, and the Russians, having rallied, were already coming back beyond their foremost line, being within about five hundred yards of the redoubt. It was plain that if our men did not retire they would be annihilated, and they began to fall back in good order, taking as many of the wounded with them as possible.

One of the first men I saw was Czetwertinski, who was captain in a cavalry troop. He told me that a few minutes before I arrived his horse had been killed under him by a shell which ripped the animal's side open. So perished the magnificent black charger which no man in the squadron could ride but Czetwertinski; the horse to whom he really owed his commission. Czetwertinski had been left unmounted for a minute or two; but he speedily took the horse ridden by his servant Faizi, who had to find his way back as best he could.

The shells began to come pretty thickly among us, and the Russian gunners were making very fair practice. I saw a Turkish regiment lying down close by some trees, when a couple of shells exploded almost simultaneously among them, killing seven men and wounding many more, whom I attended on the spot.

Osman Pasha with Tewfik Bey and his staff were there in the thick of it. The commander-in-chief had had three horses shot under him that day. Presently our men began to retire in earnest, under a perfect storm of shot and shell from the returning Russians. All our wounded men had been got away except two who were left behind in the redoubt. I saw them there, and, realizing what their fate would be when the Russians should have retaken the redoubt, I decided to make an effort to save them. I got into the redoubt, and found that one of the men had been shot through the neck by a rifle-bullet. He was bleeding terribly, and was already blanched to the colour of death. The other man had been struck in the left thigh by a fragment of shell which had shattered the bone. I got them both out, and managed to get the man who was shot in the neck upon my horse. I placed him in the saddle, and I put the man with the shattered leg up behind him. I held the second man in position with my right hand, and led the horse by the bridle with the left. The man with the broken leg was suffering terrible agony, but he held up his comrade in front of him and prevented him from falling off. In this way we started to rejoin our troops, who were now nearly half a mile away, retreating slowly and firing as they went. The Russians were within about four hundred yards of the redoubt when I left it with the two wounded men and the horse.

The Russians were pouring in a hot fire on our retreating troops, and our men were answering at intervals, so that I was caught between two fires. I could hear the Russian shells screaming over my head as I made my way back. Our pace was necessarily slow, for I had to walk the horse all the way, and to take the utmost care lest the men should fall off. When we had got about half a mile from the redoubt, the man in front fell off the horse dead, and I left him there. I put the other man into the saddle; and after a period that seemed like a lifetime, I reached our foremost lines and went on through them, and out of the line of fire, without having received a scratch.

We saw several regiments of Russian cavalry detach themselves from the main body and come galloping down as if to cut off our retreat; so our officers ordered the field-guns into action, and we opened a destructive shell fire on them which stopped their pursuit. The main body of the Russians also drew back, and did not pursue us farther; so that without further misadventure we reached the site of the field ambulance, and I placed my man in one of the waggons after bandaging up his leg. When I took him off the saddle, I noticed a little pyramid of clotted blood, about three or four inches high, on the horse's wither. It had been caused by the slow drip-drip from the neck of the first man before he fell off dead.

I stopped at the field-ambulance depot attending to the wounded men until about six o'clock in the evening, when we all cleared off and went back to Plevna. This was the battle of Pelischat, otherwise named Sgalevitcha. We had about one thousand three hundred men killed and wounded, and we had gained absolutely nothing. I never could understand the exact object of this sortie from Plevna, since even if we had succeeded in capturing the Pelischat-Sgalevitcha position we could never have held it.

Early on the morning of September 4 an orderly came to my quarters before I was up, and said to me, "At eleven o'clock you will see some troops advancing by the Lovtcha road, and you will follow them."

I asked him where they were going, and he said that he did not know. I inquired how long we were likely to be away, and he said that he had no idea, adding that I had better take my instruments with me because I should probably want them.

After I had done my work at the hospital, I went up to the headquarters camp, and found that Osman Pasha and a number of officers, Hassan Labri Pasha, Emin Bey, Tahir Pasha, Tewfik Bey, Osman Bey, and Yalaat Bey, with sixteen battalions and three batteries, were marching out along the Lovtcha road, and I joined them at once. About a mile from Plevna on this road were some large vineyards laden with clusters of ripe grapes, which had attracted the attention of our troops some days before this. In fact, the Turkish soldiers, in their desire to get the ripe fruit, had been in the habit of stealing out by night past our vedettes into the vineyards, and several of them had been shot by the Russian outposts; strict orders had accordingly been given to the troops to refrain from indulging their appetite for grapes under the circumstances, and the Turkish sentries had been instructed to shoot any men who attempted to pass them during the night for the purpose of getting into the vineyards.

When, however, we were marching out towards Lovtcha in the daytime, it was impossible to keep the troops out of the vineyards; and many of the men who had not been too plentifully supplied with rations for some time past gorged themselves with fruit to such an extent that they became ill with dysentery, and I had to attend to them. On the outskirts of Plevna also I noticed many Turkish professional beggars who pestered the troops for money; and as it was considered lucky to give something in charity before going into action, the soldiers were very liberal, and the beggars reaped a rich harvest of piastres.

Almost as soon as we were well clear of Plevna and out into the open country, we fell in with some Russian cavalry vedettes, and began a period of intermittent fighting which continued all that day. When the vedettes saw that we were in strong force, they fell back upon a field where the corn had been cut and stood piled up at intervals in stooks. It was quite interesting to watch them dodging for cover from one stook to another, while our men tried to pick them off with their rifles. A good many of the Cossacks fell in the wheat-field, and the remainder were driven back without difficulty. Hardly had we got rid of those, however, when three or four Russian infantry regiments put in an appearance with a couple of batteries of artillery, and opened fire on us. We were drawn up in very open order, and Osman Pasha sent a couple of batteries up to the crest of some rising ground, and we started to shell the enemy, still continuing to push forward with the main body. There was a small creek to cross, and we had a hard task to get the guns over the bridge under a heavy fire from the Russians. It was very exciting work; and as Tewfik Bey was directing the passage of the bridge, his horse was killed under him by a shell. At last, however, we got safely over, just as it was growing dusk, and sending out skirmishers in front we continued to advance. The firing went on for some hours, sudden sheets of flame appearing on both sides in the twilight as the opposing troops discharged volley after volley; but our casualties were very few, and at last there was a cessation of hostilities.

We camped in a wheat-field which had just been reaped, and Weinberger and I sat all night in one of the stooks, holding our horses. We had no rations with us; but I had had a good feed of grapes in the morning, and with some cobs of maize that I had put in my pocket before starting we managed to satisfy our hunger. As we squatted in the stook together, Weinberger and I discussed the situation seriously, and came to the conclusion that it was by no means reassuring. In point of fact we made up our minds that our last hour was all but come, for we made sure that before morning the Russians would bring up their troops and we should have to be struck by a flank attack. Our communication with Plevna would no doubt be cut off during the night, and we apprehended that when the morning came our force would probably be annihilated. When day broke, however, we looked out of our stook, and found to our intense relief that there was not a Russian in sight anywhere. It was the most beautiful morning that I remember to have ever seen; and after the bare hills round Plevna and the narrow streets of the town, the well timbered, undulating country was a delightful sight.

The march was resumed soon after daybreak, and it must have been midday before we halted in the doghole Bulgarian village of Kakrinka, a little distance eastward of Lovtcha. A number of pigs belonging to the fugitive villagers were roaming about among the empty cottages, and the Circassians, who, like all good Mussulmen, regard the pig as a filthy and abominable creature, showed their religious zeal by shooting several of them. On the outskirts of the village we met a Bulgarian woman with two children, and from her we learnt the fatal news that Lovtcha had fallen two days before. Our march from Plevna had been with the object of relieving Rifaat Pasha, who commanded the garrison at Lovtcha; but we had arrived too late, for he had been attacked by an overwhelming Russian force, and the Turkish troops in Lovtcha had been cut to pieces.

What had happened was this. Skobeleff had advanced upon Lovtcha on September 1, with about twenty-one thousand men and eighty-four guns, exclusive of the Cossacks and their batteries. Aware that he was vastly outnumbered, Rifaat Pasha had sent an urgent request to Osman Pasha in Plevna for immediate assistance; but the commander-in-chief apparently considered that the Lovtcha position could hold out for a few days, and delayed to send reinforcements at once.

During the night of September 1, Skobeleff had thrown up entrenchments and established batteries on a hill two miles from Lovtcha, and opened fire early on the morning of the 2nd upon the position. Later in the day the main Russian body had come up, and thrown up entrenchments to prepare for the general attack, which took place on September 3. After three hours of desperate fighting, the position was carried, and the Turks withdrew their left wing across the river Osma. The attack on the second Turkish position was then commenced, and the citadel of Lovtcha was at last carried by Skobeleff and his Russians, after a general rush from all sides late in the evening.

Most of the Turkish fugitives had already fled towards Mikren, twelve miles south-west of Lovtcha, hotly pursued by Cossacks and artillery. Cut down by the Cossacks or killed by Russian shells, the Turkish force was practically wiped out. Ignorant of the details, however, and knowing only the bare fact that Lovtcha was in the hands of the Russians, we pressed on towards the position; and when we were about five miles from Lovtcha, we saw a couple of regiments of cavalry and a regiment of infantry drawn up on the bank of the Osma. They advanced over the plain to meet us; and as we were well posted on a fairly high eminence, we opened fire on them with artillery. I saw one of the shells drop right in the middle of a squadron of cavalry, and five or six men with their horses were all down on the ground together.

Under the stress of the artillery fire the cavalry scattered and retired, some remaining to pick up their wounded. We continued to fire upon these, and killed about twenty-five or thirty more of them. Below the eminence upon which our troops were drawn up was a wood of dwarf oaks, walnuts, and beeches running down into the plain which form the valley of the Osma; and Osman Pasha, believing that a Russian force was concealed in the wood, sent down a couple of battalions to clear it.

I sat on my horse on the top of the hill, and watched this interesting operation. There were little open spaces here and there in the wood, and I could see the red fezzes of the soldiers bobbing about among the trees as they worked the cover exactly like a pack of foxhounds. There was a great deal of shouting and indiscriminate firing, and we all expected to see the Russians bolting out of the wood on the other side. It was intensely exciting; but at last we saw the fezzes emerging on the far side of the wood, and we realized that they had drawn it blank. There was not a Russian in the place; but I had three wounded Turks to attend to who had been shot by their own comrades when the promiscuous firing was going on in the wood.

As we looked over upon Lovtcha from the hill where we were halted, the town appeared as if it was on the stage of a vast theatre, while we were in the dress circle. Below us was a long green plain with the silver thread of the river Osma meandering through it, and farther away was the town of Lovtcha nestling in the ranges. On the banks of the river were two Bulgarian villages, and we could see Russian troops in both of them.

Osman Pasha held a council of war on the top of the hill, and all the principal officers attended, the question debated being whether an attempt should be made to recapture Lovtcha or not. The general opinion was that it was inadvisable to make the attempt, and Hassan Labri Pasha alone was in favour of an attack. At last, after discussing all the arguments for and against, it was decided not to attack such a strong position occupied by an immensely superior force; and Osman Pasha, much against his will, was obliged to order a return to Plevna.

Meanwhile our cavalry and Circassians were sent down the hill to make a reconnaissance, and I went with them. After going some little distance, we came across a ghastly evidence of the ferocity of the fighting, for we counted nearly four hundred Turks all lying dead together. They had apparently tried to break away when Lovtcha fell, and had been cut down by the Cossacks when making a last stand under the walnut trees. Every corpse was fearfully disfigured. The faces had been slashed with sabres even after death, and the corpses had been subjected to the horrible indignities which are usually supposed to be practised only by the hill tribes of Afghanistan. Whether those atrocities were committed by the Russians or by the Bulgarians I could not definitely determine; but the sight enraged the Circassians to an appalling extent, and their threats boded ill for any Russians who might fall into their hands alive.

It was impossible for the column to return to Plevna by the same way that it had come, because we knew that the Russians had seized some important positions on the road, fortified them with earthworks, and brought up their artillery. Consequently Osman Pasha decided to make a dÉtour; and as Lovtcha was about due south of Plevna, we headed at first in a westerly direction and gradually worked round to the north.

It was an intensely hot day, and we all suffered severely from thirst, having been without water for several hours. I managed to find a pool of dirty water, however, and I drank as much as I could, not knowing when the next opportunity for a drink might arrive. As for food, all that we had consisted of the cobs of maize that we gathered in the fields as we passed.

Later in the afternoon, however, we had another meal with a different menu. As I passed through a Bulgarian village with an advance party of Circassians, we came to a farmhouse on the top of a ridge well timbered with walnut trees. The Circassians made a hurried investigation of the premises, and then set fire to some outbuildings which were thatched with straw. They had found a hive of bees in the shed, and calmly burnt the place down to smoke them out, so that we secured an excellent meal of walnuts and honey.

Osman Pasha was very strict in putting down pillaging, and an instance occurred on the same afternoon of the severity with which he punished any infraction of orders in that respect. As the column passed through one of the small Bulgarian villages which were sprinkled at frequent intervals along the line of route, a small field of tobacco enclosed by a brushwood fence was espied, and a Turkish sergeant who was pining for a cigarette could not resist the temptation, but climbed through the fence and filled his pockets with the dry leaf. Osman Pasha happened to see the incident; and, putting his horse at the fence, he jumped over into the tobacco-field, seized the sergeant and tore the stripes from his shoulder, degrading him to the ranks for his insubordination.

After we had marched about five miles beyond the farmhouse where we had got the honey, we camped for the night, and a very unpleasant night it was. The bivouac was pitched in the middle of a wide expanse of swampy ground, which was so moist that the water oozed through as one sat on the grass. I procured a plank, and lay on it all night, snatching a few minutes of fitful slumber at intervals.

At about eleven o'clock I was roused by a terrific rattle of infantry fire, and we all leaped to our feet firmly convinced that the long expected Russian attack had come at last. All was confusion as the men hastily threw themselves into formation and rammed the cartridges into their rifles; but the firing stopped as unexpectedly as it had begun, and we were left staring into the darkness in anxious suspense. Soon we discovered that it was a false alarm. A white horse which had been wounded in the fighting round Lovtcha had dragged himself painfully all the way from that vicinage after our column, recognizing the bugle calls of the army to which he belonged. But the poor brute paid the penalty of devotion, for our sentries mistook him in the darkness for a Russian vedette, and an alarm was sounded which brought about a volley of musketry fire that put him out of his pain at once.

Next morning the column started very early, and marched through beautifully timbered, undulating country. We saw a couple of Russian vedettes galloping away from one of the Bulgarian villages, and guessed that the enemy were in the neighbourhood. But they kept out of our way, and did not provoke an engagement.

At about two o'clock in the afternoon, as I was riding with the Circassians in front of a battery of field artillery, I heard a terrific explosion, and, looking round, saw a column of smoke behind me fully a hundred feet in height. There were a number of small black fragments falling through the smoke, and I found that an explosion had taken place in one of the gun carriages. The ammunition had gone off in some mysterious way, and the black fragments falling through the air were all that was left of the two unfortunate gunners who had been sitting on the ammunition box. Both the wheel horses were killed on the spot, and one of the drivers was badly injured. No one ever knew how that mysterious explosion occurred. That night we camped in the open again, and at eleven o'clock next morning we arrived at Plevna. I went to my quarters, had a wash, and then resumed my work at the hospital. But there was not much to do, and at two o'clock I was free to take a walk through the town.

To my intense surprise I saw a man who looked like an Englishman; and as I had not seen an Englishman for several months, I shouted to him, half in Turkish and half in English, to ask him who he was. He proved to be a man called Drew Gay, the correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, and he wore an extraordinary nondescript get-up, including a little forage cap, patent leather riding-boots, and an enormous cavalry sword. He was on his way to pay a visit to the kaimakan, and was accompanied by a German artist named Lauri.

This little Lauri was a charming fellow, and full of the spirit of adventure. He was a great friend of Hamdi Bey, who was the son of Edim Pasha, the grand vizier, and in this way he was able to exercise sufficient influence to secure a firman authorizing him to visit Plevna. Lauri had lived in Cairo for some time, and had earned some notoriety by painting a portrait of the Khedive.

Next day occurred the third and greatest battle of Plevna—a battle in which the enormous value of the breech-loader when backed by entrenchments was fully demonstrated, as were also the magnificent pluck and endurance of the Turkish troops.