does not understand us Russians. He should make him come five times and then not give it him. That is the only way to get respected."
Davidson took me over the whole camp to all his hospitals, and showed all there was to be seen. Wrangel's army seemingly arrived with nothing. One might have expected to see a hopeless rabble, all dirty and living in rags and filth, insubordinate and unkempt. How surprising to find the very opposite—an army apparently of picked men, very clean, well-disciplined and orderly, living in an encampment on which every human care was lavished. Apparently the lower their hopes the greater had become their discipline and amour propre. On a daily ration of half-a-pound of bread and two ounces of very inferior "mince," the men still preserved the stamina to do daily drill, dress with care, and keep their tents in order. The tents had been mostly lent by the American Red Cross, and the beds inside were improvised from dried weeds. In the large green marquees, officers' quarters were divided off from the men's by evergreens. In the hospital tents, little wooden bedsteads had been framed everywhere of rough wood cut from the trees with sabres and bayonets. In other tents regimental chapels had been arranged, and religious paintings on cotton stretched upon hanging military blankets. Stove-pipes for fires had been made of old "Ideal" milk-tins stuck to one another in tens and twelves, with the bottoms all cut out. Outside the various headquarters, behold formal gardens of various-coloured stones, new cypress avenues planted, a rostrum in a sort of park for Wrangel to make his speeches from, new-built sentry-boxes with pleasant shades, a sun-clock, and the like.
The soldiers mostly wear their medals, and naturally have a large number of them. Each has a war-history which all might envy to possess and none envy to go through. Questioned individually, one found them loyal to their chief, but complaining bitterly of their rations. Not many were preparing for Brazil or for a return to Russia. Their future presented itself as a strange and difficult problem—both collectively and individually.
Of the people in the married quarters one did not obtain such a favourable impression. Rooms were divided into three parts by hanging army blankets, and a family was in each part. Windows were lacking, insects very plentiful, and dirt unavoidable. Here were a number of typhus hospitals in charge of the Red Cross, a children's feeding-station and nursery, a lying-in hospital. Two mosques were used as hospitals and presented a remarkable picture, the patients lying in a circular group amid columns covered with Arabic inscriptions. Russian doctors were at work, and disease had been well stemmed. Mortality was very low. Only when the hot weather comes—if the army is still here—one fears for the ravages of dysentery and fever.
Of course there were discontented spirits in the army, and some who talked of marching on Constantinople should rations cease, but there were only a few rifles and little ammunition left in the men's hands. By sheer weight of numbers they might achieve something, but Constantinople is a hundred miles away, and that is a great distance for famished men to go.
Two nights lying on the deck of one of Wrangel's transports brought me back to Constantinople. This vessel was controlled by French officers, but captained by one-eyed Admiral Tsaref, of what was once the imperial Fleet of Russia. She did five knots an hour when the weather was fine; the railings at the stern had been carried away, and many parts of the ship were tied together with rope. The five French officers on board each had a cabin to himself; Russian officers, American Red Cross, and myself, slept where we could. The French also had their meals served to them separately. Nevertheless, we were a jolly company on board, and played an absurd wild game of solitaire each night, and the only tedium was the slow way we splashed like a lame duck up the narrow seas.
In the harbour in Constantinople in the morning a bright sun shone on four hulks packed from stem to stern with Georgians, the latest comers to Imperial City. They waited and stared whilst we slowly steamed to the French base. Then in a short while we were in the great capital again amid the surging masses of humanity.
I was asked by Count Tolstoy, the aide-de-camp, and also by Treloar, if I would see the General, and accordingly did so, boarding a caique at Galata, and being rowed to his yacht "Luculle." First I saw the Baroness Wrangel, a bright, bird-like lady, trim and neat and cheerful, speaking English like one of us. Baron Wrangel is a tall, gaunt, and very remarkable-looking personage. His Cossack uniform with ivory-topped cartridge-cases intensifies the length of his body and of his face. He has all the medals there are, but only wears two, a Vladimir Cross at the centre of his collar, like a brooch, and a Georgian on his chest. His head is long, and his cheeks seem to curve inwards from his temples. There is sparse grey hair on his whitish scalp, and lifting his full-sleeved arm he scratched his head with an open penknife whilst he talked.
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