The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-05-15
SCENES OF WAR.
An English Correspondents Story Of
the Fighting.
WITH THE TURKS AT THE BATTLE
OF MILOUNA PASS.

The Advance on Larissa and What the Co r
respondent Saw There-Greek Priso-
ners Who Hailed Their Cap.ors With
Delight-The Correspondent Greeted
With Kisses.
Mr.. G.. w. Stevens, the correspondent of
the London Daily Mail, in one of his
letters to that paper from the seat Of war
in Greece, thus describes the fighting at
Karya and Milouna pass:
Zone band of Greeks came inside last
night, " remarked Charlie, as his large
red face met my awakening eyes.
"Where?" ''Karya; bin shoot all night;
bin shooting always
II thought it was only another Karnia
affair-Greek reservists disguised as
brigands, two days shooting, and the
matter handed over to be settled between
Constantinople and Athens. However,
Karya is not far-perhaps fifteen miles or
so. would go and spend the night. So
food and load it on pack saddle. l
mounted the Beetle, as my larger and
more brazen-mouthed pony is called,
mounted Charlie on the Flea, which is
the name of the one which trots like the
gas in siphon, and off we went to
Karya.
s'The road to Karya-which the Turks
call Koskut-is like the road to every
where else in this country Now up, now
down, here precipice on the right, there
torrent on the left, stones and prickles
and baggage animals everywhere. But as
we struggle on the Karya road there came
new experience. Pop. pop; pop, pop,
pop; pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. 1t was
not very different from the sound of
shooting pheasants, but 1 knew they were
shooting men, My heart began to try to
beat in time with the pops. When four
or five came together wondered how
many were down that time, and / hur-
ried on lest both sides should be killed
out before 1 got there. So turned a
corner, and came on the village of Karya
small and ram shackle and d irty,
wedged into recess under hills like cata-
raets suddenly turned to stone, above
these the solemn whiteness Of Olympus.
Olympus is the back scene of Karya; it's
foreground was the battle.
"There was a broad valley, perhaps a
mile to couple of miles across; at the
other side of gray green hills, part stones,
part young grass, part wood. The hills
rose to various summits-four or five in
all, though these were hardly individual
enough to make the whole thing more
than a crested ridge; you might as well
call it one hill as five. / suppose they are
5000 feet or 1000 feet high, and quite
steep. Along them runs the frontier;
you can recognize it by the little dabs of
white which stand for blockhouses.
A cross the valley came the pops-some-
times rare and distinct, sometimes a
rapid popple when all the separate reports
ran into each other. 1t sounded like
machine that was now going round
slowly, now quickly. Every now and
then the pops were varied by boom.
Here and there tiny patch of dirty
smoke curled languidly off the broad hill
side. That was the battle. Through a
glass / watched it for long time from
the Pasha's headquarters, and made out
some black dots on a tongue about one
third of the way up. That was a battery
of artillery. At the very top was line
rather like the leg of beetle under
microscope; that was a battalion of
infantry. Pop, popple, boom, little black
dots and little black streaks; that was all.
No; there was a little more of it. On
the other side of the trickling burn in,
which Karya does not wash was the hos
pital, and they were bringing in the
wounded. I went over and went in. OF
course it reeked of iodoform; hospitals
do. But though iodoform is not smell
that allows rivals to live with it, there
was distinctly another smell. Bloodl
And there was another sound besides,
the sort of rustic which rises out of the
swift, half -stea1thy movements of hos.
pital staff. Groans, wails,z sentences
cried out aloud, in strange thick Ian.
guages-a volume of sound like, a mans
voice, and fretful, passionate information
like a child's There came to meet me
at the door very young surgeon, an AL
bantam, as fair as an Englishman, with a
skin like strawberries and cream, hair
like vine tendrils, eyes as simple as a
baby's, and as compassionate as good
woman s-the most beautiful mani ever
saw He wore blue overall, his sleeves
were tucked above the elbow, and to the
elbow and above it they were clothed with
blood Yet, though it sounds like gush-
ing, that young man looked to me like
an angel. The wounded turned on their
beds and looked at me with eyes that felt
as if they would bore through me. One
man yelled aloud like beast and flung
off the coverings from his wound. A
white bearded captain shot through the
thigh showed his wohnd with a smile of
humorous patience But, beast or hui
morous gentleman, the beautiful young
Albanian looked at all with the same
clear, pitiful eyes, tormented them with
the same quick, unsparing, merciful
hand.
It was pleasanter to go out into the sun