Another arrant coward was the Turkish doctor, Remsi Seki. He was said to be a son of Abdul Hamid. Whether that is true I do not know; but at any rate his mother had been in the Sultan’s harem and had afterwards been married off to a high official. He was the most contemptible poltroon I have ever met. At a certain stage in the reconvalescence from typhus an abscess often forms in the neck, and death ensues from suffocation if it is not lanced in time. It is a very simple operation, which anybody can perform. When cases of this kind occurred, Remsi Seki used to stand wringing his hands, looking at the patient in terror, unable to move. At last, after a number of patients had died through his incompetence, the orderlies themselves, untrained as they were, would rush in and do the lancing. After a while he was dismissed from the hospital as utterly useless. He was the typical “unspeakable Turk,” a man of gentle and winning manners, affecting shyness as good form in Turkey requires, shrewd at judging the weaknesses of others, but incapable of strong action himself, though tenacious in his purposes, given over to unmentionable vice, and at heart terribly cruel. When he heard of the Armenian massacres he expressed his joy and said they were quite justified. None of his bad qualities prevented him from being a prime favourite with the Germans, who used to extol his fine and noble character. [SN: ALL SOULS’ DAY] But it must not be supposed that all the doctors were like these Jews and Turks. There was another side to the medal. The Austrians worked manfully to stem the tide of disease. And there were examples of heroic self-sacrifice, worthy to rank with any deeds on the battlefield. There was the Austrian officer Herrman, who at the outbreak of the epidemic volunteered to help in disinfecting the barracks. He was over forty, and he must have known that he had little chance of life if he caught the disease. He went from barracks to barracks, doing his utmost to better the circumstances of the men, always ready with a joke or a cheery word of advice. He fought the causes of the disease, the dirt, the bad air, the vermin, the prisoners’ sloth and the indifference they displayed to their condition. Such a fight could not last long, the inevitable happened, and he perished of the disease. Other Austrian medical students also succumbed. Of these we may surely use the phrase so hackneyed in Germany and say that they died a hero’s death for the Fatherland. Their gravestone stands on the bleak Siberian hillside, an enduring memorial to their courage, a reproach to their less worthy comrades. Every year on All Souls’ Day, the Catholics in Austria and Germany celebrate their Feast of the Dead. Lights are placed on the graves and sometimes food is set out. In old days the people thought that on this festival the spirits of the dead revisited the earth, and the lights were to guide and the food to sustain them on their long journey.