FLORENCE
May 16, 1897.
[DEAR FAMILY:]
Here I am safe and sound again in the old rooms in
Florence. I was gone twenty-three days and was traveling
nineteen of them, walking, riding; in sailboats, in the cars,
and on steamers. I have had more experiences and adventures
than I ever had before in three months and quite enough to
last me for years.
After my happy ride through Turkey and the retreat of the
Greek army in Arta, of which I wrote you last, I have been in
Thessaly where I saw the two days' battle of Velestinos from
the beginning up to the end. It was the one real battle of
the war and the Greeks fought well from the first to the last.
I left Athens on the 29th of April with John Bass, a Harvard
graduate, and a most charming and attractive youth who is, or
was, in charge of the Journal men; Stephen Crane being among
the number. He seems a genius with no responsibilities of any
sort to anyone, and I and Bass left him at Velestinos after
traveling with him for four days. Crane went to Volo, as did
every other correspondent, leaving Bass and myself in
Velestinos. As the villagers had run away, we burglarized the
house of the mayor and made it our habitation while the
courier hunted for food. It was like "The Swiss Family
Robinson," and we rejoiced over the discovery of soap and
tablecloths and stray knives and forks, just as though we had
been cast on a desert island. Bass did the cooking and I laid
the table and washed up and made the beds, which were full of
fleas. But we had been sleeping on chairs and on the floor
for a week so we did not mind much.
The second day we were awakened by cannon and you can
imagine our joy and excitement. We had it all to ourselves
for eight hours, as it took the other correspondents that long
to arrive. It was an artillery and infantry battle and about
20,000 men were engaged on both sides. The Greeks fought from
little trenches on the hills back of the town and the Turks
advanced across a great green prairie. It was very long range
and only twice did they get to within a quarter of a mile of
our trenches. Bass and I went all over the
Greek lines, for you were just as safe in one place as in
another, which means that it wasn't safe anywhere, so we gave
up considering that and followed the fight as best we could
from the first trench, which was the only one that gave an
uninterrupted view of the Turkish forces. It was a
brilliantly clear day but opened with a hail storm, which
enabled the Turks to crawl up half a mile in the sudden
darkness. It also gave me the worst attack of sciatica I ever
had. Fortunately, it did not come on badly until I reached
Volo, when it suddenly took hold of me so that I could not
walk. The trenches were wet with the rain and we had no
clothes to change to, and two more showers kept us more or
less wet all day. We had a fine view of everything and I
learned a lot.
We were under a heavy fire for thirteen hours and
certainly had some very close escapes. At times the firing
was so fierce that if you had raised your arm above your head,
the hand would have been instantly torn off. We had to lie on
our stomachs with our chins in the dirt and not so much as
budge. This was when the Turkish fire happened to be directed
on our trench. At such times all the other trenches would
fire so as to draw the attack away, and we would have to wait
until it was over. The shells sounded like the jarring sound
of telegraph wires when one hits the pole they hang from with
a stone; and when the shells were close they sounded like the
noise made by two trains passing in opposite directions when
the wind is driven between the cars. The bullets were much
worse than the shells as you could always hear them coming,
and the bullets slipped up and passed you in a sneaking way
with a noise like rustling silk, or if some one had torn a
silk handkerchief with a sharp pull. One shell
struck three feet from me and knocked me over with the dirt
and stones and filled my nose and mouth with pebbles. I went
back and dug it out of the ground while it was still hot and
have it as a souvenir. I swore terribly at the bullets and
Bass used to grin in a sickly way. It made your hair creep
when they came very close. One man next me got a shot through
the breast while he was ramming his cleaner down the barrel,
and there were three killed within the limits of our fifty
yards. We could not get back because there was a cross fire
that swept a place we had to pass through, just about the way
the wind comes around the City Hall in the times of a
blizzard. We called it Dead Man's Curve, after that at
Fourteenth Street and Union Square, because it was sprinkled
with dead ammunition, mules and soldiers. We came through it
the first time without knowing what we were getting into and
we had no desire to go back again. So we waited until the sun
set. I took some of the finest photographs and probably the
only ones ever taken of a battle at such close range.
Whenever the men fired, I would shoot off the camera and I
expect I have some pretty great pictures. Bass took some of
me so if there is any question as to whether I was at the
Coronation, there will be none as to whether I was at
Velestinos.
Our house was hit with two shells and bullets fell like
the gentle rain from heaven all over the courtyard, so we
would have been no safer there than behind the trenches. We
sent off the first account of the battle written by anybody by
midday, and stayed on until the next day at four when the
place was evacuated in good order because, as usual, the
Crown Prince was running away — from Pharsalia this time.
They say in Greece "Lewes, the peasant, won the race from
Marathon, but Constantine the prince, won the race from
Larissa."
I was all right until I got to Volo when my right leg
refused absolutely to do its act and I had to be carried on a
donkey. A Greek thought I looked funny sitting groaning on
the little donkey; which I did — I looked ridiculous. So he
laughed, and Bass and a French journalist batted him over the
face and left me clinging to the donkey's neck and howling to
them to come back and hold me up. But they preferred to
fight, and a policeman came along and arrested the unhappy
Greek and beat him over the head, just for luck, and marched
him off to jail, just for laughing.
They took me to the hospital ship which was starting, and
I came to Athens that way with one hundred and sixteen
wounded; the man on my right had his ankles gone and the man
on the left had a bullet in his side. They groaned all night
and so did I. Then when the sun rose they sang, which was
worse. I never saw anything more beautiful than the red-cross
nurses, and I guess that is the most beautiful picture I shall
ever see — those sweet-faced girls in blue and white bending
over the dirty frightened little peasant boys and taking care
of their wounds. I made love to all of them and asked three
to marry me. I was in bed for two days after I got to Athens
but had a fine time, as all the officers from the San
Francisco, from the admiral down, came to see me, and the
minister, consul and the rest did all that could have been
done. I am now all right and was bicycling in the dear old
Cascine this morning. On the whole it was a most successful
trip. Sylvester Scovel and Phillips of The
World arrived just as it was all over, and so Bass and I are
about the only two Americans who were in it.
The train from Brindisi stopped at Rome on the way back
and I went to see the Pages. They took me out and showed me
Rome by moonlight in one hour. It was like a cinematograph.
They are here now and coming to dinner tonight. Last night
the consul had all our friends to dinner to welcome me back,
and maybe I was not glad. I had been living on cheese and
brown bread and cold lamb for two weeks, with no tobacco, and
sleeping five hours a night on floors and sofas. Sometimes
the officers and men fought for food, and we never got
anything warm to eat except occasionally tinned things which
we cooked in my kit. It was the most satisfactory trip all
round I ever had. I have been twenty years trying to be in a
battle and it will be twenty years more before I will want to
be in another.
On the eighteenth I start for London, stopping one day in
Paris to see the Clarks and Eustises. It is going to be
bigger than the Coronation for crowds, and Mother need not
worry, I shall keep out of it. The Minister to Russia sent me
word that the Czar's prime minister has given him my article
and that the Czar said thank him very much. So that is all
right. Also Hay is to present me to the Prince at the levee
on the 31st of May, and I shall send him a copy, too. I am
looking forward to London with such joy. Tell Mother to send
me the Bookbuyer with her article in it. I have only read
the reviews of it, and they are so enthusiastic that I must
have the whole thing quick. It was such a fine thing to do
about Poe, and to give those other two fetishes the coup de
grace. It reads splendidly and I want it all. What did Dad
think of
the Inauguration article? I send you all my dearest love and
will have lots to tell you when I get back this time.
God bless you all.
DICK.
Richard left Florence the latter part of May, and went to
London where he had made arrangements to report the Queen's
Jubilee. He began his round of gayeties by being presented at
Court. The Miss Groves and Miss Wather to whom he refers in
the following letter were the clerks at Cox's hotel.
