The siege of Sebastopol was quite out of the ordinary run, and about as curious a business as ever was. For one usually thinks of a besieged town as surrounded by the enemy and cut off from the rest of the world. And, that was never the case with Sebastopol.
The allied forces drew a ring round the south and east sides of the town, and the sea guarded it on the west, but by way of the north and north-east the Russians had free passage at all times, and could introduce fresh troops and provisions and all the material of war at will, and so the defence was in a state of continuous renewal, and fresh blood was always pouring in to replace the terrible waste inside.
By those open ways also they sent out army after army to creep round behind the besiegers, to harry and annoy them, and this it was that led to some of the fiercest battles of the campaign. The knowledge also that great bodies of Russians were at large in their rear, and only waiting, opportunity to attack them, kept the Allies perpetually on the strain, and hurried musters in the dark to repel, at times imaginary, assaults were of almost nightly occurrence.
Failing complete investment--when starvation, added to perpetual and irretrievable wastage, must in time have brought about a surrender--the Allies could only pound away with their big guns, and hope to wear down the heart and pride of Russia by the sheer dogged determination to pound away till there was nothing left to pound at.
The later attempts to breach and storm, to which all these gigantic efforts were directed, were but a part of the same policy. Russia was to be crushed by the combined weight of England and France and Turkey, and, later on, Sardinia. It was very British, very bull-doggy, but it was also terribly wasteful and costly all round.
The Russians had expected the attack on the north side, and had made it almost impregnable. When, by their flank march, the Allies came round to the south, the town was absolutely open and unprotected, the streets running up into the open country. Before the Allies could gird up their loins for a spring, earthworks and forts had sprung up in front of them as though by magic, and the only means of approach was by the slow, hard way of parallels, trenches, and zigzags. And all this it was that made up the Crimean War.
But our boys were busy, and so kept happy in spite of discomforts without end.
Every single thing the army heeded, either for fighting or for sheer and simplest living, had to be brought to it by sea, and the one door of entrance was tiny Balaclava Bay--with the natural consequence that Balaclava Bay became inextricably blocked with shipping discharging on to its narrow shores, and its shores became inextricably piled with masses of war material and stores, with no means of transport to the camps six and eight and ten miles away. And so confusion became ten times confounded, and brave men languished and died for want of the stores that lay rotting down below. Add to this the fact that every British official's hands were bound round and round, and knotted and thrice knotted, with coils of stiffest red tape, and no man dared to lift a finger unless a dozen superiors in a dozen different departments had authorised him to do so, in writing, on official forms, with every "t" crossed and every "i" carefully dotted, and you have the simple explanation of the horrors of the Crimea.
Our own red-tape and sheer stupidity wrought far more evil on our men than all the efforts of Menchikoff and Gortschakoff with all the might of Russia at their backs.
The trenches wormed their zigzags slowly down the slope, towards the Russian lines, and never was there more zealous zigzager than Jack. The Russians poured shot and shell on him and his fellow moles; but they dug on, mounted their heavy guns, and dosed him with pointed Lancaster shells, which were new to him, and impressed him most unpleasantly.
And Jim galloped to and fro and worried more over his horse's feeding than his own, and kept very fit and well.
He went over now and again to the Heavies, to see how George Herapath and Ralph Ruben were standing it, and found them generally on the growl at having so little to do and none too much to eat, and they all condoled with one another, and expressed themselves freely on such congenial subjects as the Transport and Commissariat Departments, and felt the better for getting it out.
Letters from home came with fair regularity now, and they swapped their news and had time to write long letters back--except Jack, whose whole soul was in his trenches, and who was too tired and dirty for correspondence when he came out of them.
So upon Jim devolved the duty of keeping Carne and Wyvveloe posted as to the course of the war, and his painfully produced scrawls were valued beyond their apparent merits by the anxious ones at home, and treasured as things of price.
For Gracie, at all events, said to herself, when each one came, "It may be the last we shall ever get from him"; and, "They may both be lying dead at this moment. This horrible, horrible war!"
But she wrote continually to both of them; and if the dreadful feeling that she might only too possibly be writing to dead men was with her as she wrote, she took good care that no sign of It appeared in her letters. They were brave and cheery letters, telling of the little happenings of the neighbourhood, and always full of the hope of seeing them again soon. And if she cried a bit at times, as she wrote and thought of it all, be sure no tear-spots were allowed to show. They had quite enough to stand without being worried with her fears.
And she prayed for them every night and every morning with the utmost devotion, though, indeed, at times she remained long on her knees, pondering vaguely. For she knew that what must be, must be, and that her most fervent prayers could not turn Russian bullets from their destined billets--that if God saw it well to take her boys, they would go, in spite of all her asking. And so she came to commending them simply to God's good care, and to asking for herself the strength to bear whatever might come to her.
When the Alma lists came out, she and the Rev. Charles scanned them with feverish anxiety, and with eyes that got the names all blurred and mixed, and hearts that beat muffled dead marches, and only let them breathe freely again when they had got through without finding what they had feared.
And both of them, grateful at their own escape, thought pitifully of those whose trembling fingers, stopping suddenly on beloved names, had been the signal for broken hearts and shattered hopes and desolated lives.
And, any day, that might be their own lot too; and so, like many others in those times, they went heavily, and feared what each new day might bring.
Margaret Herapath spent much of her time with them, and Sir George was able to bring them news in advance of the ordinary channels.
And the grim old man up at Carne read the news-sheets and the lists, which smelt of snuff when he had done with them, and was vastly polite and unconcerned about it all when Gracie and Eager went to visit him; but Kennet led somewhat of a dog's life at this time, and had to find consolation for a ruffled spirit where he could.
The Cavalry, Light and Heavy, but more especially the Light, were, as we have seen, rankling bitterly under quite uncalled-for imputation of showy uselessness, and chafing sorely at their enforced inaction during the siege operations. The campaign, so far, had offered them no opening, nor did it seem likely to do so. Moreover, forage was scarce, their horses were on short rations, and before long, unless those infernal transport people woke up, they would be padding it afoot like the toilers on the heights, who were having all the fun--such as it was--and would reap all the glory.
But Fortune was kind, and sore, on them.
For some days past they had, from time to time, caught the sound of distant bugles among the hills to the north and east of the valley in which their camp lay, and their hopes had been briefly stirred.
It might mean nothing more, however, than the passage of reinforcements into Sebastopol, for those northern ways by Inkerman gorge were always open and impossible of closing.
In front of them on the plain was a line of small redoubts occupied by Turks. Behind them on the way to Balaclava lay the 93rd Highlanders under Sir Colin Campbell.
Jim Carron was awakened from a very sound sleep one morning by a lusty kick from Charlie Denham, and the information that "Lucan wanted him."
Five minutes later he was pressing his horse to its utmost, with the word to Head-quarters that the Russians were pouring down the valley towards Balaclava, that they had already captured Redoubt No. 1, that the Turks could not possibly hold the others against them, and that unless our base at Balaclava was to go, the sooner the army turned out to stop them the better.
Lord Raglan sped Jim on at once to French Head-quarters with the news; and as he galloped back in headlong haste lest they should be starting without him, all the camps were a-bristle and troops hurrying from all quarters to the scene of action.
As he came over the hill leading down to the Balaclava road, he could see the vast bodies of, Russians pouring out of the hills, the Turks from the redoubts were running across the plain towards the long thin line of Highlanders, and the Cossacks and Lancers were in among them cutting them down as fast as they could chop.
All this he saw at a glance, as he sped on to join his own men, drawn up on the left of the Heavies. And as he took his place, panting, both he and his big brown, like steam-engines, he heard the roll of the Highlanders' Miniés on the right as they broke the rush of the Russian cavalry.
The next minute a great body of horsemen, brilliant in light blue and silver, topped the slope in front of the Heavies, and looked down on their Insignificant numbers as Goliath did on David.
He saw old Scarlett haranguing his men, and then with a roar--he knew just how they felt!--like starving tigers loosed at last on long-desired prey--the Greys and Enniskillens dashed at them and through them, and wheeled, and through again, first line, second line, and out at the rear. And then, as the broken first line gathered itself again to swallow the tigers, the rest of the Heavies, the Royals, and Dragoons shot out like a bolt and scattered them to the winds.
And Jim and all about him yelled and cheered in a frenzy--but down below it all was a bitter sense of regret at being out of it. Truly it seemed as though malignant fate had the Light Brigade on her black books and was bent on defrauding them of their rightful chances.
By this time the allied troops were coming up from their distant camps, and the rout of the Russian horse enabled them to take up their positions in the valley.
It looked like being a pitched battle. All hearts beat high, and none higher than those of the Hussars and Light Dragoons. Their chance might come after all. They twitched in their saddles. Give them only half a chance and they would show the world what was in them.
And it came.
Messengers sped in haste to and from the Chief, on the heights above, to the various commanders down below. And then came young Nolan of the 15th, Lord Raglan's own aide, his horse in a white sweat, himself aflame.
He spoke hurriedly to Lord Lucan, and Jim saw his lordship's eyebrows lift in astonishment. He seemed to question the order given.
Nolan waved a vehement arm towards the Russians. Lord Lucan spoke to Lord Cardigan, and his brows too went up. Every tense soul among them, whose eyes could see what was passing, watched as if his life depended on the outcome.
Then in a moment the word rang out, and they were off.
Where? He had not the remotest idea nor the slightest care. Enough for him that they were off and that they meant business.
And away in front of them, where he had no earthly right to be, since he did not belong to them and had only brought a message, went young Nolan, waving them on with insistent arm.
They swept along at a gallop in two long lines, and the rush and the rattle got into Jim's blood, and the blood boiled up into his head, and he thought of nothing--nothing, but the fact that their chance had come at last--least of all of fear for himself.
Fear? There were Russians ahead there!----them all!--and every faculty in him, every nerve and muscle, every drop of boiling blood, every desire of his mind and heart and soul rushed on ahead to meet them. He wanted at them, he wanted to hew and thrust and kill. He wanted blood.
Head down, forward a bit, sword-hilt fitting itself to his hand as it had never done before, knees so lightly tight to the saddle that he could feel the great brown shoulders working like machinery inside them, a glance forward from under his busby and an impression of a vast multitude of men--and the roar and crash of numberless guns in front and on both flanks--a scream just ahead, and young Nolan's horse came galloping round at the side, with young Nolan still in the saddle--but dead--his chest ripped open by a shell.
Men were falling all round now, men and horses hurling forward and down in rattling lumbering heaps.
Jim's face was cast-iron, his jaw a vice. Not the Jim we have known--this! His dæmon--nay, his demon, for he had but one thought, and that was to kill. No man who knew him would have known him.
Belching guns in front. Shot and bullets coming like hail. Men falling fast. Lines all shattered and anyhow. But the thick white smoke and the venomous yellow-red spits of flame were close now, and so far it had not struck him as wonderful that he still rode while so many had gone down.
He had felt hot whips across his face, something had tipped his busby to the back of his head, several other somethings had plugged through the flying jacket which covered his bridle arm. Then he had to swerve suddenly from the smoking black muzzle of a gun, and he was among flat-caps and gray-coats, and his sword was going in hot quick blows, and every blow bit home.
A big gunner struck heavily at him with a smoking mop. He had an honest brown hairy face and blue eyes. The sweep of Jim's sword took him in the neck, and . . . .
An infantryman behind had his gun-stock at his chest to fire. Jim drove the big brown at him, the man went down in a heap, arms up, and the gun went off as he fell.
Then it was all wild fury and confusion. Deseret's sword was wonderful, as light as a lath and as sure as death. He was through the smoke, fighting the myriads behind--singlehanded it seemed to him.
--!--!--!--!--he could not tackle the whole Russian army! He whirled the big brown round and plunged back through the smoke, saw the others riding home, and bent and dashed away after them.
He was almost the last. A thunder of hoofs on his flank, and a vicious lance-head came thrusting in between his right arm and his body. His sword swept round backwards--and the Lancer's empty horse raced neck-and-neck with his own, its ears flat to its head, its eyes white with fear.
Then the guns behind opened on them again, and bullets came raining in on each side as well--on Russian Lancers and British Hussars and Dragoons alike.
Jim was swaying in his saddle, he did not know why, But dashing at those guns was one thing, and retiring was another, and the hell-fire had burnt out of him and left him spent.
He saw the long unbroken lines of the Heavies sweeping up to meet and cover them, and wondered dizzily if he could hold on till they came.
There were Lancers ahead of him, thrusting at his men as they rode. A whole bunch of them went down in a heap just in front of him, riddled by the murderous fire of their comrades behind, and he lifted the brown horse over them as if they had been a quick-set.
The Heavies parted to let them through, and the splendid fellow on the thundering big horse at the side there, who stood high in his stirrups cheering on his men, was good old George. There was no mistaking him, he was such a size and weight.
A couple of Lancers, who had been making for Jim, swerved to face the new attack and made for George instead, bold in the advantage of their longer reach. And Jim would have been after them to equalise matters but that it was all he could do to keep his seat.
He saw George rise in his saddle, with his great sabre swinging to the blow. Then a whirling blast of canister shore them all down, and they lay in a heap, men and horses riddled like colanders. And Jim, with a sob, clung to the pommel of his saddle and let the brown horse carry him home.
Jack had just got up to camp from night duty in the trenches when the alarm sounded in the valley, and he made his way with the rest to the edge of the plateau to see what was going on.
When he saw the cavalry drawn up for action he hurried down the hill as fast as he could go, hung spell-bound halfway at the terrible and amazing sight below, and then tumbled on with a lump in his throat to learn the worst, as the broken riders came reeling back in twos and threes.
It was he lifted Jim out of his saddle, and found it all sticky with blood from the lance-thrust in his side. His face was streaming from a graze along the scalp, and he had a bullet through the left shoulder--small things indeed considering where he had been.
The miracle of that awful ride was, not that so many fell, but that any single man came back alive.
As soon as matters settled down, Colonel Carron rode over at once for news of his boy, He knew he must have been in that brilliant madness, about which every tongue in the camps was wagging, and he feared he had seen the last of him.
He had some difficulty in finding what was left of the Light Brigade, for the Russians still held the lowlands in force. They had, in fact, drawn a cordon round the allied forces and were, to an extent, besieging the besiegers, and the cavalry camps had to be moved up on to the plateau.
But he came at last on the handful of laxed and weary men, lying about their new quarter's, some fast asleep with their faces in their arms, while willing hands did all their necessary work for them, and every man of them still bore in him the very visible effects of that most dreadful experience.
He almost feared to ask for Jim, lest it should kill his last spark of hope.
"You had a terrible time," he said, to one on his knees by a big brown horse, which stood there with an occasional shiver as he applied healing ointment to its many wounds. "The whole world will ring with it."
"Alt blamed foolishness, sir," growled the man--who had lost his own horse and most of his chums in the foolishness, and so was in a mighty bad humour--and lifted a casual sticky finger in recognition of the Colonel's brilliant uniform.
"I'm afraid it was, but you did it nobly. Can you tell me anything of Cornet Carron? Was he in it?"
"In it and out of it, sir, thanks be! He's too good a sort to lose. He's inside there. This is his horse I'm patching up, 'cos he wouldn't lie quiet till I done it." And the Colonel dived into the tent with a grateful heart, and found Jim fast asleep on a hastily made couch. His wounds had been bound up, and there were even mottled white streaks on his face where a hasty sponge had made an attempt to clean it. But he was sleeping soundly, and it was the very best medicine he could have.
The Colonel went quietly out again to wait. He gave the horse-mender a very fine cigar, and lit it for him along with his own.
"Bully!" said the man. "Best thing I've tasted since I left Chelsea."
"Your losses must be very heavy."
"Under two hundred at roll-call, sir, and we went in over six."
"Awful!"
"Set of ---- fools we were, sir; but we showed 'em what was in us, an' now mebbe they won't talk about us any more as they have bin doen."
"They'll talk about you to the end of time," said the Colonel heartily.
"That's all right, sir. That's a different kind of talk."
"We knowed it was all a mistake," he went on, with his head on one side, as he laid on artistic patches of ointment; "but we'd bin aching for a slap at the beggars, just to put a stopper on the mouth-wagglers nearer home. And wedidslap 'em too, by----!"--and he lost himself for a moment in admiring contemplation of their prowess. "But they're vermin, them Roosians! Shot down their own men when we got all mixed up with 'em coming home, so they say."
"Yes, they did that. We saw it all from the heights."
"Well, that's not what I call right, sir."
"It was barbarous and damnable. No civilised nation would do such a thing."
"That's it, sir--barbarous and damnable and no civilised nation would do such a thing." And he said it over and over to himself, and gained considerable éclat by the use of it in discussion with his fellows later on.
"Jackson!" said a drowsy voice inside the tent. "How's Bob? And what the deuce are you preaching about?" And the brown horse gave a whuffle at sound of the voice.
"That's it. Thinks more of his hoss than he does of himself," said Jackson, with a wink at the Colonel. "Bob's patching up fine, sir. He's a good bit ripped up, but no balls gone in, s'far as I can see. He'll be ready for you, sir, by time you're ready for him, I should say. Gentleman called to see you, sir."
"My dear lad," said the Colonel, sitting down by his side on a stained-red saddle. "I am grateful for the sight of you. We doubted if one of you would come back alive."
"I don't know that we expected to, sir. But we hadn't time to think about it."
"Whose mistake was it? Lucan's?"
"I don't think so, sir," he said thoughtfully, as he strove to recall it all. "I remember the look that came on his face when Nolan brought him the order. . . . I think both he and Cardigan knew there was something wrong. But Nolan was hot to have us go----"
"Is it true that he and Lucan were not on good terms?"
"I don't know anything about that, sir. There's so much talk. He's dead, anyway. His horse came galloping back with him still in the saddle and all his chest ripped open. It was horrid."
"He had no earthly right to go with you. There was some strong talk about it up there. A brave fellow, from all accounts, but hot-headed. . . . I'm going to take you to my quarters, my boy. We want you on your legs again as soon as possible."
"All right, sir. I don't think it's much. A rip or two here and there and some bullet-grazes. And the doctor's patched me up nicely."
"It's a wonder there's anything left to patch."
"You'll bring old Bob along too?"
"Oh yes, we'll take you both together. I'm glad it's in life you're not to be divided, not in death."
"He went like a bird," said Jim. And then, as the recollection of it all came back on him--the belching guns, the hairy brown gunner, the venomous Lancers, George Herapath,--"My God!" he said softly; "I wonder we ever got back at all."
In the comparative luxury of Colonel Carron's quarters, which were far beyond anything he could have got in the English camps, Jim pulled round rapidly. He was in the best of health, his wounds showed every intention of healing readily, and the Colonel saw to it that he lacked nothing.
He found himself, somewhat to his confusion, something of a lion there, and never lacked company anxious to discuss with him the details of that mad ride up the Valley of Death and back again.
His French visitors were unanimous in their grave disapproval and admiration; and Jack, whenever he could get away from his trenches for a chat with the invalid, reported the same feeling everywhere.
Jack himself had had a hand in the tussle with the enemy, the day after Jim's affair. But he came out of it untouched, and made light of it.
He reported Harben severely wounded, in the second charge when George Herapath was killed, and the body of the latter had been recovered and buried.
It was sad to think of old George gone right out like that. He had died bravely, hastening to the rescue of his fellows, and the boys hardly dared to think of the bitter sorrow at Knoyle and Wyvveloe when the news should get there. It would, they knew, bring right home to them all the dreadful possibilities of the war, as nothing else could have done. George gone, Ralph sorely wounded. Who would be the next to go?
Here, in the camps, with sudden death hurtling through the air night and day, and sickness still claiming more victims than all the whistling shells, they were getting somewhat case-hardened, and accustomed to sudden disappearances and vacant places. But, to the anxious scanners of the lists at home, each death in each small circle made all the other deaths seem more imminent, and weighted every heart with fresh fears.
The zigzags and trenches in which Jack held a proprietary interest were creeping nearer and nearer to the town, and he was well satisfied with the progress made. But on one other point he and his fellow Engineers were anything but content.
The right flank of their position, opposite the Inkerman cliffs and caves and very close to the road by which the Russian forces got in and out of the town, seemed to their experienced eyes but ill-defended and not incapable of assault from the lower ground. And such assault, if successful, must of necessity entail the most serious consequences on the Allies.
They spoke of the matter, harped on it, but nothing was done, save the erection of a small sand-bag battery on the slope of the hill, and no guns were mounted on it lest the sight of them should tempt the Russians to come up and take them; and so--that grim and deadly hand-to-hand struggle in the early morning fog, known as the Battle of Inkerman--which, for all who were in it, for ever stripped the fifth of November of its traditional glamour, and left in its place a blind, black horror--a nightmare struggle against overwhelming odds, which seemed as if it would never come to an end.
Oh, we won; we won of course--but, as we do win, at most dreadful cost which foresight might have saved.
Jack was in the midst of it. He had just come up from the front, soaked with rain and caked with mud, and was making a forlorn attempt at cold breakfast before lying down, when heavy firing, in the very place where they had all feared sooner or later to hear it, took him that way in haste to see what was up.
He could see nothing for the fog and rain, but a hail of shot and shell was coming from the heights across the valley and he bent and ran for the shelter of the sand-bag battery. And for many hours--and every hour an age--the sandbag battery was "absolute hell," as he told Jim that night, with a very sober face and no enthusiasm.
Endless hosts of gray-coats came surging up out of the fog, yelling like demons, and fighting with their bayonets as they had never fought before. They were slaughtered in heaps, but there always seemed just as many coming on, yelling and stabbing, and our men yelled and stabbed, and the piles of dead grew high.
But Jack saw very little. It was all a wild pandemonium of clashing steel and yells and groans and curses, with streaming rain above, swirling fog all round, and what felt like a ploughed field heaped with dead bodies below. He picked up a rifle and bayonet, and jabbed and smashed at the gray-coats with the rest.
Through the fog he could hear the same deadly sounds all round, but whether they were winning or losing, or indeed what was going on, he had not the slightest idea. All he knew was that hosts of Russians kept on coming up in front out of the fog, that they had to be stopped at any cost, and that, from the time it was lasting, the cost must be awful.
He stumbled inside the battery one time, after a bang on the head from a clubbed musket which made him sick and dizzy; and as he sat panting in a corner for a moment till his wits came back, he told Jim afterwards that he remembered wondering if he had died and this was hell; He had a flask in his pocket somewhere, and he tried to get it out, and found his left arm would not act, though he had felt nothing wrong with it till he sat down.
He was drenched with rain and sweat--and blood, though he did not know it at the time. He got out his flask with his right hand at last, and took a long pull at it and felt better. Blood out, and brandy in, made his bruised head feel light and airy. He picked up his heavy rifle and bayonet and staggered out to join the wild mêlée again--one hand was better than none where every hand was needed.
But he tumbled blindly down the slope and fell, and men trampled to and fro over his body till he felt all one big bruise. Then the grim dim struggle swayed off to one side for a moment, and he tried to crawl away.
A tall Russian--an officer by his sword--lunged down at him as he leaped past in the fog, but the point struck on his flask and the blow only rolled him over again, and the other had not time to repeat it.
And presently he crawled away up the hill, and got out of it all, and down the other side towards his own camp.
It was there his father found him, late in the afternoon, spent and bruised, and weak from loss of blood, and he went off at once and got a litter, and took him away to his own tent and set him down beside Jim. For the English doctors had their hands very much more than full, and Colonel Carron, rightly or wrongly, had much greater faith in the nursing arrangements of his adopted service than in those of the British camps and field hospitals.
When he came in at night, Jack was all bandaged up and as comfortable as could be expected, with bayonet wounds in his arm and shoulder, a badly bruised head, and a bodyful of contusions.
"I was just thanking my stars and you, sir, that I was here, and not shivering to pieces over yonder," he said gratefully.
And with reason. For the Colonel's tent was as cosy a little habitation as even the French camps could show. He had taken advantage of a slight hollow, and had had it deepened and the earth piled high like a rampart all round it, so that only its top showed above ground-level, and the keen night winds whistled over it with small effect. And inside was a cheerful little stove, and Tartar rugs, of small value perhaps, and of crude and glaring colour and design without doubt, but very homely to look at to boys who had grown accustomed to bare trodden earth. And for couches, instead of waterproof cloth and a couple of blankets spread on the ground, they had clever little bedsteads, consisting of a springy network of string inside an oblong wooden frame which rested on folding legs like a campstool.
"We certainly know how to do for ourselves better than you do. Have you had anything to eat?" asked the Colonel.
"Just had the best dinner we've had since--well, since we dined with you last, sir," said Jim, with great satisfaction. "I don't know what it was, but it was uncommonly good."
And Jack asked anxiously: "Have you any news for us, sir? We heard they were driven back. Are any of our people left?"
"A few; but your loss is very heavy. Ours also; but you bore the brunt of it over there where the work was hottest. They came up out of the town at us, just below here, while you were busy there, and they made a feint also just above Balaclava. It has been a hot day all round. I hope they'll give us time to breathe now."
"I wonder what lies that fellow Menchikoff will stuff into the Tsar this time," said Jim.
"He can hardly claim a victory, anyway," said his father, with a smile.
"I bet he will, sir."
"Did you hear anything as to casualties, sir?" asked Jack, whose mind could not get far away from that grim struggle in the fog.
"Only outstanding ones. Your loss in big men is terrible. Cathcart is dead, and Strangways----"
"Poor old Strangways!"
"A dear old chap!" echoed Jim.
----"and Goldie,--all killed. George Brown and Codrington and Bentinck wounded, and I believe Torrens and Buller and Adams also. Some of your regiments are almost without officers. Our most serious loss is de Lourmel, down in front here, repulsing the sortie. They estimate 15,000 Russians killed and wounded----"
"There seemed millions of them lying round that battery," said Jack.
"They reckon there were 8,000 English and 6,000 of our men in the fight, and between 50,000 and 60,000 Russians. So that every one of our men put at least one of theirshors de combat--a remarkable performance indeed."
"I've been thinking, Jim," he said presently, "that a few days on the sea would set you up again quicker than anything else. What do you say?"
"I'd like it immensely, sir, if it could be managed. It's awfully good of you."
"You're creditable boys, you see, and I'm anxious not to lose either of you. I wonder how soon the medico would let you go, too, Jack?" And he looked at him with a practised eye. "Not for a week anyway, I expect."
"I feel as if I could sleep for a week, sir. It's so mighty comfortable here," he said drowsily.
"They've had such a stomachful to-day that I think they'll keep quiet for a time now. It was a great scheme and they did their best. It'll take them a little time to work up a new one. Well, we'll see about it to-morrow. You think you'll be able to sleep, Jack?"
"Sure, sir, when I get the chance. Jim's been talking ever since the doctor went."
The Colonel was away on business soon after sunrise, long before the boys were awake. The Russians had had enough for the moment and gave them a quiet night.
He came in while they were breakfasting, with a satisfied look on his face.
"Well, Jack, how goes it? You were both sleeping like tops when I left you."
"I feel like a jelly-fish on Carne beach, sir," said Jack. "I have a very great disinclination to move."
"Cuts twingy?"
"When I think of them, sir. At present I can think of nothing but this coffee. They give us ours green, you know, and nothing to roast or grind it with."
"So I heard. I would like to see what would happen if they sent ours like that; but,mon Dieu!I wouldn't like to be in their shoes! The good old fashion of hanging a commissary whenever anything went wrong was certainly effective. Jim, my boy, I've got your matter arranged all right. You are to get away to-morrow with a fortnight's leave. That should pull you round."
"It's awfully good of you, sir. It's just what I'm needing."
"Talking of hanging commissaries," said the Colonel, with a whimsical smile on his dark face, "it was all I could do to keep my hands off one of your pig-heads down at Balaclava yonder." And he switched his long mud-caked riding-boot with his whip as if it were the gentleman in question.
"I called on Lord Raglan to ask his permission to my plan, and at first he was a bit stiff and stand-offish. But he came round and spoke very nicely of you, my boy. He wouldn't discuss that foolish charge of yours, and I did not press It. He granted you leave at once, and gave me a written order for your passage to and from Constantinople by first ship that was leaving."
"But that's only the beginning of the story," he said, as Jim's mouth opened with thanks again. "I thought I'd make sure of the whole business, so I waded down to Balaclava.Mon Dieu!what a travesty of a road! My poor beast was up to his knees in the filth at times. And the place itself when I got there! The harbour is a cesspool, an inferno of evil smells and pestilence, And I think the evil vapours have got into the heads of your people there, I never saw such disorder and confusion in all my life. I found the harbour master at last, and asked him for information as to sailings. But he was only the Inner Harbour Master, it seems, and he referred me to the Head of the Transport. The transport people referred me to the Naval Authorities, and a naval officer, whom I caught on the wing, told me I would have to apply to the Outer Harbour Master, who was somewhere outside among the fleet. I was consigning them all to warmer quarters than Balaclava, when I spied a man I knew--Captain Jolly of theCarnbrea, who had brought some of our troops over to Kamiesch Bay. He was bursting with complaints and nearly mad, said he'd like to tie the heads of all the departments in one big bag and sink them in the cesspool. He said he was sailing to-morrow with a load of sick and wounded, and he'd been up trying to get a few stoves from the official who had charge of them, as the sick men were dying of the cold. 'He'd got hundreds of them lying there,' said old Jolly, almost black in the face, 'and he wouldn't let me have one. Said I must get a requisition and fill it up and get it signed at Head-quarters. I told him the men were dying meanwhile. He could do nothing without a requisition signed at Head-quarters. I asked him to lend me some stoves. He couldn't. I asked him to sell me some. He wouldn't. I told him those men's deaths would lie at his door. He said if I would get a requisition, etc., etc. So then I--well, I told him what I thought of him and all the rest, in good hot sailor-talk, and came away.'"
"I asked him if he could find room for one more on his ship, and told him about you, and, like a good fellow, he said, 'Send 'em both along and I'll make room for 'em.' So you're all right, Jim, and Jolly will make you comfortable, I know."
"It's awfully good of you, sir," said Jim once more. "I'm sorry we're such a bother to you."
"It's not every man can boast of two such young warriors, you see. On the whole I'm inclined to think Providence served us well in making me an ally, eh?"
"Your people are very much better off than ours, sir," said Jack. "Our camp is like London on a foggy day."
"And ours is like Paris," laughed the Colonel. "You see we understand the art of war better than you do, and, candidly, I think your officers are much to blame for the little interest they take in their men. Here we are allbons camarades, whereas your men are left entirely to themselves."
"We mix in the trenches," said Jack in defence.
"Of necessity, I suppose, since the space is limited. But even there you don't mix as we do."
"Your music alone is worth coming for," said Jim. "It did me as much good as the doctor almost."
"Yes; I notice a lot of your men come across to hear it whenever they get the chance. Great mistake shutting up your bands. The men always like music, and expect it."
"You don't think I'll miss anything by going, sir?" asked Jim anxiously.
"You'll gain a great deal more than you'll miss, my boy. I shouldn't wonder if we have a fairly quiet time here now."
"And you'll see to my horse?"
"He shall have every attention, I promise you."