Under the Red Crescent: Adventures of an English Surgeon with the Turkish Army at Plevna and Erzeroum 1877-1878Ryan, Charles S. (Charles Snodgrass)
History
Under the Red Crescent: Adventures of an English Surgeon with the Turkish Army at Plevna and Erzeroum 1877-1878
Ryan, Charles S. (Charles Snodgrass)
Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878 -- Personal narratives
myself out of our house, I would telegraph to Lord Derby requesting him
to make representations at St. Petersburg on the subject. Then I bowed
out General Heymann's aide-de-camp. Next day, however, a communication
arrived from the konak announcing that the general insisted that we
should be turned out, and that the civil authorities of the town would
be glad if we would leave quietly. This was rather too much, and I went
up to the konak next day, taking Tom Rennison as an interpreter. I was
shown into a room where Hakki Bey, the civil governor, and a number of
Turkish and Armenian officials were discussing the situation. Here I
stood up and made a speech, which was interpreted as I went along by Tom
Rennison. I told them that we had come out there to help their sick and
wounded, that two of our number had already died in their cause, and
that the rest of us had risked our lives for them over and over again.
"We have done all this for you," I said; "we have cared for your
wounded, and eased their sufferings; we have tended your sick, and sent
them food and wine from our own table; and now, you ungrateful beggars,
you want to turn us out of our own house. Well, we won't go." They
listened very courteously to my exordium, which was translated into
Turkish by the faithful Rennison; and when it was finished, I could see
that I had made an impression. Our eviction was no longer insisted upon,
and General Heymann had to content himself with a large house
immediately opposite our quarters.
Some little time after this the French consul, M. Jardin, approached us,
and used his influence with us, asking us if possible to humour the old
general by granting his wish. Finally we agreed to do so, and I wrote a
letter to General Heymann, saying that as a personal compliment to his
excellency we would give him up the house. At the same time I warned him
that there would be a risk attached to his occupancy, as we had had
several cases of typhus in the house. He came over the same afternoon in
great glee, bringing his dragoman with him to thank us, as he himself
spoke nothing but Russian. He said that, being an old campaigner, he had
no fear of typhus; and he marked his appreciation of the favour shown to
him by presenting us with a box of four hundred cigars, which were most
acceptable. Next day he sent us twenty soldiers to remove our baggage
to the house which he was giving up; and when the moving was
accomplished he entered into possession of the consulate. He went to bed
feeling poorly on the very day that he got into his new quarters, and
four days afterwards he was dead of typhus. Denniston, Stoker, and I all
attended the poor old fellow's funeral, wondering at the strange fate
that had allowed him to live through many a hard-fought fight only to
let him die in his bed when the campaign was over.
Chapter XV.
THE END OF THE WAR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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