New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-02-01
General Sherman's Description Totally lnad-
equate, Applied to Present Day
Conditions
AN EYEWITNESS PLAIN TALE
Robert W. Service Canadian Volunteer in the Red Crescent
Tells of the Manifold Horrors Of Ward in One
Of the Many Makeshift Turkish Hospitals
Worms Writhe in Mems Wounds

putatlon. he looks at YOU very sadly
and you o;onder how you would feel if
you were going to have leg taken off.
Alongside him is a comrade who had
one amputated yesterday at the hip
joint. too. a few hours after he re-
gained consciousness and asked for a
cigarette. He is smoking now, but his
eyes burn wildly, and in the night he
VIII die. This you know as surely as
you know there will De coffee for
breakfast AS you note the bedding
sag in the place Of the missing limb you
shudder and pass on.
BY way of a change here is a tur-
baned fellow who sturdily sits up in
bed. He has jaw broken where an
ammunition wagon ran over it, and he
IS now trying TO feed himself with a
spoon. He is one OF the lucky ones
who will recover.
You cannot say as much for his
neighbor there, with head enswathed
in blood-cOrroded clouts. This man
was peering out of a trench, when a
bullet took off the top of his skull just
as YOU would chip your matutinal egg
He is conscious and speaks sensibly
but his brain is wofully exposed, and
there is no hope.
See. on his left, another doomed one.
a poor beggar who had his inside torn
open by a she'll Through that jagged
hole you can see the inner workings Of
the machine. and it's not pretty.
The Black Shadow Of Death.
SO much for one little corner i'm one
little ward in this city of many hospi-
tails. And mostly the wounded come
10 die. Staring at the hopeless agony
Of them in the black shadow of death.
one wonders If the bullet, the gun butt
and the barbarous boot heel are not.
when all is said. the kindest and the
best.
What is remarkable about these men
is their grip on life. But perhaps it is
a case of the survival Of the fittest, and
but for their vital tenacity they would
fhave died in the trenches. BE il remem-
gered thev must have lain for days and
nights with neither food nor shelter ere
they reached a transport train, for in
nearly all cases full-grown worms
were writhing in their wounds. Then
there was that hideous jolting journey
in a crammed and cumbrous train, so
that when they arrived at last with
rotted clothing and with filthy bodies
they bordered on delirium. No wonder,
after such exposure. such contamina-
tion many died in the agonies Of
tetanus. Yet bad as they were, they
were loath to mount the operating
table. Better. they thought, TO go to
go clean but minus a limb.
THOR Stoieism Under Pain.
Another remarkable thing is their
stoicism under pain. In all that weary
caravanserai of woe ii is rare to hear
murmur or a groan. A surgeon, ex-
tracing a bullet from a patients shout
der, also pulled away large fragment
Of the bone in which il was embedded.
yet that Turk never made whimper.
And nearly every one OF them is
equally good stuff.
But most remarkable OF all is that
those who recover are frantic TO get
back to the front. When you consider
that they are treated like dogs. that an
Ioligarchic government. selfish. graft
obscssed, will hardly be likely TO recog
nize their devotion. you marvel at such
patriotism. Yet. perhaps, II is because
they look on this as a war for their re-
ligion perhaps because they think that
a glorious death on the battlefield will
be a passport to that houri-haunted
heaven Of their dreams. Callous. pro-
crastinating, incapable the Turk may
be, but surely he is no coward.
Something Hore PIeasant-choIera.
If 1 have dwelt too long on these
things IL is because I can see only the
dark side Of war. But now I will go
on to speak of something more pleas
ant-to wit, the cholera.
For some days past | have been in
charge OF a transport Of supplies be-
tween STEAMBOAT and the great cholera
camp at San Stefano. I have procured
one of the hateful fcz things. which
don when there are no Europeans near
to witness my shame, but which find
TO be the open sesame to many door
hitherto barred.
San Stefano is little coast town
all of an hours trip by boat from Pera.
steaming out Of the craft-crowded
Golden Horn. we round the point on
which glowers that monument of
bloodshed and mystery. the Old serag-
Ito. We are now in the mouth Of the
Bosporus and on the Asiatic shore
the minarets of Scutari glisten in the
sun. Across these blue waters on this
bright morning STEAMBOAT Itself sur
prises us with. strange, bizarre
beauty. Rising in terraced splendor