East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1913-02-24
STRIKING STOICISM
OF DYING TURKS
Robert w. Service Tells of Horrible
Scenes In Hospitals Where
Sixty Die Each Day.
MosLEMs ARE NOT CowARDs
Dismembered by ShrapnelI, With In
fected Wounds, They Seldom
Utter "a GrOan.

Pera, Turkey.-When the famous |
American general made his memorable |
pronouncement that war is hell' it |
is my humble belief that he expressed
himself in a manner inadequately
mild and conservative, for the hap
penings of the last few days have con-
vinced me that war is hell indeed, but
hell in a special de luxe edition with
cuts, steel engravings and the auto
graph of Lucifer himself. For long
and long will the sights l have seen
stay vitriol-bitten on the plates of
memory, and the belief grows in me
that those responsible for war should
forthwith stake their places in the
lurid front of battle itself.
Thinking that by so doing 1 might
succeed in getting to the fighting
lines, volunteered for the Red Cres-
cent which is the Mohammedan equi-
lvalent for the Red Cross. Further
more, I pledged myself on being ac-
Icepted to say nothing unkind of my
dear friend, the Turk so l will have
to tell what a wonderful fellow he is,
how full of resource, energy, decis-
ion, how solicitous of his wounded,
how admirable in the conduct of his
field hospitals.
Sees Plenty of Red Horrors.
Those there are who may assure
that he had no field hospitals. that
his men deserted in thousands, know
ing that if they fell they would never
be picked up, that those who reached
us managed somehow to writhe un-
: aided to a train and jolt their way
: Stamboulward, that on the battlefield
the swing of a gun butt of a boothee
) jammed in the mouth of an uncon.
} scious man saved lots of trouble, tha
: in short, there was the absence o
l provision for the wounded that char
! acterizes a barbarian horde.
: And you will hear a Stamboul sur
geon bitterly comment, II haven
i cut off leg in two weeks, the inter
= esting cases never reach us" But il
truth, there are enough interesting
cases to give one a faint idea of tn
y red horrors of it all.
Let me take you through one o
the wards of one of our many make
shift hospitals. 1t is the ancient mu
\ scum whose lofty halls are being pu
in strange uses in these evil days.
Between two rows of cots you pass
and from the depths of fevered pill
, lows the tired brown eyes peer at yor
II over their gulf of pain they peer an
" you gaze at them, wondering, notin
y
70 suffering. Then as you move, tn
eyes in the tired brown faces folio
you. follow you. shining and dark an
piteous. They never leave you. thes
" haunting eyes; they beseech you wit
the infinite appeal of dumb brute
+, stricken unto death.
1t is the shrapnell that makes a
It, the trouble Ugly stuff, that shraI
Of nell. The bullet is gentleman
But, this shrapnell is a coarse felloy
IN a brute, a butcher in the art of d.
"a struction. Here, for instance, Is
d. naked man lying on his face, with or
st of his hips shot lavshly away. Fl
Id days he lies like that, and sometime
f. you wish he would hurry up and d
n, because there is no hope, and his boo
y, where he rests is raw with bed sore
", Maybe the Gunbutt Is the Kindest
rs In the next cot, is a man who h;
'ir just had his leg shaved to prepare f
ct amputation. He looks at you We
'ly sadly.
Staring at the hopeless agony
ne these men in the black shadows
ne death, one wonders IL the bullet. Il
an gunbutt and the barbarous boothe
X are not when all Is said, the kinde
Va and the best.
What is remarkable about the
'' men Is their grip on life. But pc
haps, 1t Is a case of the survival of t
-, fittest, and but for their vital tie
acity they would have died in t
trenches. Be it remembered, tn
,as must have lain for days and nigh
he without neither food nor shelter e
they reached a transport train.
in nearly all cases fullgrown worr
No were writhing in their wounds.
Then there was that hideous jolti
by Tourney in crammed and cumbe
he Gus train, so that when they arriv
AK at last with rotted clothing and wi
nd filthy bodies, they bordered on de
he rum. No wonder, after exposure a
M such contamination, many died in I
he agonies of tetanus. Yet, bad as tn
~ were, they were loath to mount t
Tor operating table. Better, they thong
est to go to Allah full of pus and ma
le- gots than to go clean but minus
De limb.
sS Murmurs or GrOans Rare.
Another remarkable thing Is tn,
fS stoicism under pain. In all that wea
paravansary of woe, 1t is rare to he
murmur or a groan. A surgeon, e
tracing a bullet from a patien
yD shoulder, also pulled away a lar
fragment of the bone in which 1t W
n. embedded, yet that Turk never ma
de a whimper. And nearly every one
wn them is equally good stuff. But me
rs. remarkable of all is that those w
of recover are frantic to get back to t