Recollections by David Christie Murray — Read

The memories of that adventurous year in Turkey come thronging back so quickly that it is hard to choose amongst them. In the retrospect it looks as if it had been in the main a rather jolly sort of picnic, and at least there were streaks of splendid enjoyment in it Even our hardships made fun for us at times. I suppose you can know more about a man in a month if you go campaigning with him than you might find out in the course of years in a mere stay-at-home existence. Little generosities and selfishnesses display themselves more freely when commons are running short and shelter is scanty than they do amongst those who, in the phrase of Tennyson's northern farmer, "has coats to their backs, and takes their regular meals. " One British gentlemen we had with us during the siege of Plevna was a perpetual source of joy to me.

He was a sort of human jackdaw, the picker-up of unconsidered trifles; and especially in the way of provender and of medical comforts he took care to be well provided whatever might befall the rest of us. It happened one day during the siege that some member of our party discovered in some huckster's shop in the village a couple of bottles of rum. He bore these triumphantly to the two-storeyed hut in which the greater number of us lived together, and that night we held a symposium. The liquor was vile stuff, but we set fire to it and burned most of the malice out of it. I made a ballad about that night a year or two later, and perhaps I may be forgiven if I quote a verse or two of it here. It gives at least a fair picture of the scene.