Gladly and willingly as I gave my services in the cause of humanity, it was nevertheless a real pleasure to find that they were appreciated by the Russian troops as well as by the Stafford House Committee, and also the Turkish Government. Captain Morisot, who returned to Erzeroum from Constantinople, brought me up, not only fresh supplies of money, but also the news that the Stafford House Committee had passed a special vote of thanks to myself and the other doctors of the Erzeroum section. The document setting forth this vote of thanks, signed by the Duke of Sutherland as chairman of the committee, is couched in most complimentary terms; and, needless to say, it forms one of my most cherished mementoes of the war. Similar special votes of thanks were accorded to Dr. Stiven and Dr. Beresford for their great bravery during the fighting at Rustchuk. I had already received the fourth order of the Medjidie, and to this the Turkish Government were afterwards pleased to add the fourth order of the Osmanli and also the Turkish war medal.
We were reinforced during March by the arrival of Dr. Roy and a party of doctors sent out by the Red Cross Society. They had undergone a good deal of hardship since they left Constantinople, and one of their number, a Dane named Price, had died. I shall always remember Roy through a remarkable incident of which I was informed by him some time after I had left Erzeroum. In my quarters I was accustomed to sleep on the floor on a mat, and even in a besieged town I had kept up the early habit of reading in bed. The usual military candlestick was a bayonet, which was stuck in the floor, with the candle jammed into the socket; but I found a more convenient receptacle in a Turkish conical shell, which I had picked up somewhere, and which made a capital candlestick when the brass cap at the end was unscrewed. Into the orifice of the shell I stuck my candle every night, and read _Vanity Fair_--which I got out of Mr. Zohrab's capital library--for the first time. I never can think of Becky Sharp to this day without a shudder, not on account of her treatment of Rawdon Crawley or her dubious relationship with the Marquis of Steyne, but simply owing to the circumstances under which I first met her. She was certainly a risky acquaintance for me. A week or two after I left Erzeroum my candlestick fell into other hands, and one night it exploded, fortunately in an empty room, which it wrecked without damaging any one in the house. My first introduction to Becky Sharp was effected by the light of a candle stuck in the mouth of a live shell!