The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-10
A WAR CORRESPONDENTS WOES.
The Reality of His Experience Differs
from the Tales of Romance.
MS, in London Daily Mail.

G. w Stevens, in London Daily Mail.
1t is a noteworthy phenomenon of war
that time goes with it about a dozen times
as slowly anywhere else. Perhaps il
would be more correct to say that there is
a dozen times as much time packed into it.
Pharsala and VOlo gave such crowded,
old and Volo two days, and Volo has dwin-
died a generation back and Pharsala a
century. There has been nothing since of
interest to the world. But there has been
a vast deal of interest to me.
In war, when no arrangements hold,
institutions of society hung up in allegiance,
when you come down to the very bedrock
and bottom of things, and all the little.
civilization suddenly vanish clean away,
and leave you to depend for your bare
necessities upon your bare naked self-in
short, when it comes to this, that if you
are hungry you have got to find a sheep
and kill it and cook it before you can fill
your stomach. and if you are sleepy you
have to find something to keep out cold
and wet, enough to let you sleep. and you
don't care in the least whose sheep it is.
or whose shelter-why when 1t comes to
all this there are events happening once
and twice and all day long far more i'm
portant than scores of battles and captured
critics There have been half dozen mile
stones in my life since Pharsala and Volo.
The night after the battle, as / think /
explained. / too tired to do anything
but eat the food / had and drink all the
drink my numerous friends left me, and lie
down and sleep on a solid mud bank-I
learn they are neither less nor more civ
lied than similar erections in Ashanti
such as the peasantry of this country build
their novels. But then there was the night
after. l had ridden all day over a quarter
country or of battle field and | was
hungry and / had nothing to eat. I must
own that / was not quite much alone
with my bedrock self as / have suggested
above. l had Charlie and Asian who had
just returned from taking a telegram to
Larissa, and Georghi, Greek groom l
picked up on the way to ElassOna. and the
only Industrious one in this country. And
| must also own that my part in the strug-
gle with the naked forces of nature was
rather that Of the directing mind than the
executing hand.
I called to Charlie and gave him a Med
jideh, value IS. ID Get a lamb, Charlie, "
1 said with Homeric simplicity. No got,
was Charles ready out unexpected re-
sponse Then GET mo can buy" Then
mounted the galumpning flea bitten gray
baggage pony which he regards as the best
horse in the Turkish army. lie galumphed
away with vague but watchfu eye tXed
speculatiVely on the horizon. In half an
hour he returned with not one, but two
black lambs slung in front of his saddle.
OF one he tied the legs together and left
it bleating on the ground; the other ne
carried away. What have you done with
it?' / asked when he came back. Give him
TO the servant of the one Pasha, he cried,
with a grin of expansive triumph; ten
piastres backsheesh." In the art of making
war support war and hedging loot there
with, Charlie could learn nothing from Han
nibal or Napoleon.
But let US eat There was no difficulty
about the killing and skinning and cut
ting up and cooking. A podgy
brown-beared soldier appeared from
nowhere, stripped off his coat
and cut off the lambs head. The little
black head still bleated and the little black
body still kicked, and il was the most gro
tesquely pathetic sight bar the Karya Hos
pital / have seen in the whole war. Then
the soldier made an incsion in the skin OF
one leg and blew into it until the little
black lamb was like a full-grown water
ii off in a wink. Every man to his trade. "
he grinned. and went off well satisfied with
his work and sixpence. He was butcher