And now, while the stately troopship Urgent is passing under the guns of old Gib, and ploughing the waters of the Mediterranean, I may explain that which may have been a puzzle to the non-military reader--the meaning of "the Red Dragon." In the breasts of all who serve or have served in the army there exists anesprit de corps, a filial attachment, to all that belongs to their regiment, to its past history, its conduct in peace and war, its badges won in battle--those honours which are the heraldry of the service, and connected with the glory of the empire--in its officers and soldiers of all ranks. This sentiment is more peculiar to some regiments, perhaps, than others, especially those which, like the Scottish and Irish, have distinct nationalities to represent and uphold; but to none is it more applicable than the old Fusileers, whose motto is at the head of this chapter. Byesprit de corpsthe good and brave are excited to fresh feats of valour, and the evil-disposed are frequently deterred from risking disgrace by a secret consciousness of the duty it inculcates, and what is required of them by their comrades; for, like a Highland clan, a regiment has its own peculiar annals and traditions. It is a community, a family, a brotherhood, and should be the soldier's happy though movable home, while a regiment great in history "bears so far a resemblance to the immortal gods as to be old in power and glory, yet to have always the freshness of youth."
So it is and has been with mine, which was first embodied at Ludlow, in Shropshire, in 1689, from thirteen companies of soldiers, raised specially in Wales, under Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, whose cousin, Colonel Charles Herbert, M.P. for Montgomery, was killed, at the head of the Fusileers, in his buff coat and cuirass, at the battle of Aughrim, after having led them through a bog up to the waist belt, under a terrible fire from the Irish. His successor, the valiant Toby Purcell, who had been major of the regiment, greatly distinguished himself at the battle of the Boyne, and the huge spurs, worn by him on that memorable occasion, arestillpreserved in the corps, being always in possession of the senior major for the time being.
To attempt a memoir of the regiment would be to compile a history of all the wars of Britain since the Revolution. Suffice it to say, that on every field, in the wars of the Spanish Succession, those of Flanders (where "our army swore so terribly"), at Minden, in America, Egypt, and the ever-glorious Peninsula, the Welsh Fusileers have been in the van of honour, and, like their Scottish comrades, might well term themselves "second to none."
Among the last shots firedafterWaterloo were those discharged by the Fusileers, when, on the 24th of June, six days subsequent to the battle, they entered Cambrai by the old breach near the Port du Paris. As it is common for corps from mountainous districts to have some pet animal--as the Highlanders often have a stag--as a fond symbol to remind them of home and country, the regiment has the privilege of passing in review preceded by a goat with gilded horns, adorned with ringlets of flowers, and a plate inscribed with its badge.
No record is preserved of the actual loss of the regiment at Bunker's Hill, though the assertion of Cooper, the American novelist, that on that bloody day "the Welsh Fusileers had not a man left to saddle their goat," which went into action with them, would seem to be corroborated by the fact that onlyfivegrenadiers escaped; while Mrs. Adams, in a letter to her husband, the future President of the United States, says of that battle, "our enemies were cut down like grass;and but one officer of all the Welsh Fusileers remains to tell his story." When old Billy, the favourite goat of the 23rd, departed this life in peace in the Caribbean Isles, whence he had accompanied the regiment from Canada in 1844, her Majesty the Queen, on learning that he was greatly lamented by the soldiers, sent to them, from Windsor Park, a magnificent pair of the pure Cashmerian breed, which had been presented to her by the Shah of Persia. On every 1st of March, on the anniversary of their tutelary patron--St. David--the officers give a splendid entertainment; and when the cloth is removed, and the leek duly eaten, the first toast is a bumper to the health of the Prince of Wales; the memory of old Toby Purcell is not forgotten, and, as the order has it, the band plays "'The noble Race of Shenkin,' while a drum-boy mounted on the goat, which is richly caparisoned for the occasion, is led thrice round the table by the drum-major."
At Boston, in 1775, a goat somewhat resented this exhibition, by breaking away from the mess-room, and rushing into the barracks with all his trappings on. There are few battlefields honourable to Britain where the Welsh Fusileers have not left their bones. The colours which wave over their ranks show a goodly list of hard-won honours--"bloody and hard-won honours," says a writer. "Arthur himself, Cadwallader, Glendower, and many an ancient Cambrian chief, might in ghostly form--if ghosts can grudge--envy their bold descendants the fame of these modern exploits, and confess that the lance and the corselet, the falchion and the mace, have done no greater deeds than those of the firelock and the buff-belt, the bayonet and sixty rounds of ball-cartridge." On their colours are the two badges of Edward the Black Prince--the Rising Sun and the Red Dragon; "a dragon addorsed gules, passant, on a mountain vert," as the heralds have it. This was the ancient symbol of the Cambrian Principality, with the significant motto,Ich dien, "I serve." And now, at the very time the Urgent was entering the Mediterranean, the regiment was on its way, with others, to win fresh laurels by the shores of the Black Sea; and with his horns gaily gilded, and a handsome, regimental, silver plate clasped on his forehead, Cameydd Llewellyn, whilom the caressed pet of the gentle Winny Lloyd, was landing with them at Kalamita Bay, and the hordes of Menschikoff were pouring forward from Sebastopol.[2]
We came in sight of Malta at daybreak on the 28th of September, and about noon dropped our anchor in the Marsamuscetta, or quarantine harbour, where all ships under the rank of a frigate must go. This celebrated isle, the master-key of the Mediterranean, the link that connects us with Egypt and India, was a new scene to me. Mostyn and some others on board the Urgent had been quartered there before, and while I was surveying the vast strength of its batteries of white sandstone, with those apparently countless cannon, that peer through the deep embrasures, or frownen barbetteover the sea; the quaint appearance of those streets of stairs, which Byron anathematised; the singular architecture of the houses, so Moorish in style and aspect, with heavy, overhanging balconies and flat roofs all connected, so that the dwellers therein can make a common promenade of them; the groups of picturesque, half-nude, and tawny Maltese; the monks and clerical students in rusty black cloaks and triangular hats; the Greek sailors, in short jackets and baggy blue breeches; the numbers of scarlet uniforms, and those of the Chasseurs de Vincennes (for two French three-deckers full of the latter had just come in); the naked boys who dived for halfpence in the harbour, and jabbered a dialect that was more Arabic than Italian--while surveying all this from the poop, through my field-glass, Mostyn was pointing out to me the great cathedral of St. John, some of the auberges of the knights, and anticipating the pleasure of a fruit lunch in the Strada Reale, a drive to Monte Benjemma, a dinner at Morell's, in the Strada Forni, a cigar on the ramparts, and then dropping into the opera-house, which was built by the Grand-master Manoel Vilhena, and where the best singers from La Scala may be heard in the season; and Price of ours was already soft and poetical in the ideas of faldettas of lace, black eyes, short skirts, and taper ankles, and anticipating or suggesting various soft things. While the soldiers clustered in the waist, as thick as bees, the officers were all busy with their lorgnettes on the poop, or in preparation for a run ashore, when the bells of Valetta began to ring a merry peal, the ships in the harbour to show all their colours, and a gun flashed redly from the massive granite ramparts of St. Elmo, a place of enormous strength, having in its lower bastions a sunk barrack, capable of holding two thousand infantry.
"Another gun!" exclaimed little Tom Clavell, as a second cannon sent its peal over the flat roofs, and another; "a salute, by Jove! What is up--is this an anniversary?"
It wasnoanniversary, however, and on the troopship coming to anchor in the crowded and busy harbour, and the quarantine boat coming on board, we soon learned what was "up;" the news spread like lightning through the vessel, from lip to lip and ear to ear; the hum grew into a roar, and ended in the soldiers and sailors giving three hearty cheers, to which many responded from other ships, and from the shore; while the bands of the Chasseurs de Vincennes, on board the three-deckers, struck up the "Marseillaise."
News had just come in that four days ago a battle had been fought by Lord Raglan and Marshal St. Arnaud at a place called the Alma in Crim Tartary; that the allied troops after terrible slaughter were victorious, and the Russians were in full retreat. That evening a few of us dined at the mess of the Buffs, a battalion of which was quartered in the castle of St. Elmo. The officers occupied one of the knights' palaces--the Auberge de Bavière--near that bastion where the Scottish hero of Alexandria is lying in the grave that so becomes his fate and character. This auberge is a handsome building overlooking the blue sea, which almost washes its walls; and there we heard the first hasty details of that glorious battle, the story of which filled our hearts with regret and envy that we had not borne a share in it, and which formed a source of terrible anxiety to the poor wives of many officers who had left them behind at Malta, and who could only see the fatal lists after their transmission to London. We heard the brief story of that tremendous uphill charge made by the Light Division--the Welsh Fusileers, the 19th, 33rd, 88th, and other regiments--supported by the Guards and Highlanders; that the 33rd alone hadnineteenreliefs shot under their two colours, which were perforated by sixty-five bullet-holes. We heard how Colonel Chesters of ours, and eight of his officers, fell dead at the same moment, and that Charley Gwynne, Phil Caradoc, and many more were wounded.
"On, on, my gallant 23rd!" were the last words of Chesters, as he fell from his horse.
We heard how two of our boy ensigns, Buller and little Anstruther of Balcaskie, were shot dead with the colours in their hands; how Connelly, Wynne, young Radcliffe, and many more, all fell sword in hand; how the regiment had fought like tigers, and that Sir George Brown, after his horse was shot under him, led them on foot, with his hat in his hand, crying, "Hurrah for the Royal Welsh! Come on, my boys!"
And on they went, till Private Evans planted the Red Dragon on the great redoubt, where nine hundred men were lying dead. The heights were taken by a rush, and the first gun captured from the Russians was by Major Bell of ours, who brought it out of the field. A passionate glow of triumph and exultation filled my heart; I felt proud of our army, but of my regiment in particular, for the brave fellows of the Buffs were loud in their commendations of the 23rd; proud that I wore the same uniform and the same badges in which so many had perished with honour. None but a soldier, perhaps, can feel or understand all this, or thatesprit de corpsalready referred to, and which sums up love of country, kindred, pride of self and profession, in one. But anon came the chilling and mortifying thought that I enjoyed only reflected honours. Why was I now seated amid the splendour and luxury of a mess in the Auberge de Bavière? Why was I not yonder, where so many had won glory or a grave? How provoking was the chance, the mere chain of military contingencies, by which I had lost all participation in that great battle, the first fought in Europe since Waterloo--this Alma, that was now in all men's mouths, and in the heart of many a wife and mother, fought and won while we had been sailing on the sea, and while the unconscious folks at home throughout the British Isles were going about their peaceful avocations; when thousands of men and women, parents and wives, whose tenderest thoughts were with our gallant little host, were ignorant that those they loved best on earth perhaps were already cold, mutilated, and buried in hasty graves beneath its surface, in a place before unheard of, or by them unknown.
So great was the slaughter in my own regiment, that though I was only a lieutenant, there seemed to be every prospect of my winning ere long the huge spurs won by Toby Purcell at the Boyne Water; but my turn of sharp service was coming; for, though I could not foresee it all then, Inkermann was yet to be fought, the Quarries to be contested, the Mamelon and Redan to be stormed, and Sebastopol itself had yet to fall. Had I shared in that battle by the Alma, I might have perished, and been lost to Estelle for ever; leaving her, perhaps, to be wooed and won by another, when I was dead and forgotten like the last year's snow. This reflection cooled my ardour a little; for love made me selfish, or disposed to be more economical of my person, after my enthusiasm and the fumes of the Buffs' champagne passed away; and now from Malta I wrote the first letter I had ever addressed to her, full of what the reader may imagine, and sent with it a suite of those delicate and beautiful gold filigree ornaments, for the manufacture of which the Maltese jewellers are so famed; and when I sealed my packet at the Clarendon in the Strada San Paola, I sighed while reflecting that I could receive no answer to it, with assurances of her love and sorrow, until after I had been face to face with those same Muscovites whom my comrades had hurled from the heights of the Alma.
Three days after this intelligence arrived we quitted Malta, and had a fair and rapid run for the Dardanelles. The first morning found us, with many a consort full of troops, skirting, under easy sail, the barren-looking isle of Cerigo--of old, the fabled abode of the goddess of love, now the Botany Bay of the Ionians; its picturesque old town and fort encircled by a chain of bare, brown, and rugged mountains, whose peaks the rising sun was tipping with fire. As if to remind us that we were near the land of Minerva, and of the curious Ascalaphus,
"Begat in Stygian shadesOn Orphnè, famed among Avernal maids,"
many little dusky owls perched on the yards and booms, where they permitted themselves to be caught. Ere long the Isthmus of Corinth came in sight--that long tract of rock connecting the bleak-looking Morea with the Grecian continent, and uniting two chains of lofty mountains, the classical names of which recalled the days of our school-boy tasks; thence on to Candia, the hills of which rose so pale and white from the deep indigo blue of the sea, that they seemed as if sheeted with the snow of an early winter; but when we drew nearer the shore, the land-wind wafted towards us the aromatic odour that arises from the rank luxuriance of the vast quantity of flowers and shrubs which there grow wild, and form food for the wild goats and hares.
Every hour produced some new, or rather ancient, object of interest as we ploughed the classic waters of the Ægean Sea, and no man among us, who had read and knew the past glories, traditions, and poetry of the shores we looked on, could hear uttered without deep interest the names of those isles and bays--that on yonder plain, as we skirted the mainland of Asia, stood the Troy of Priam; that yonder hill towering in the background, a purple cone against a golden sky, was Mount Ida capped with snow, Scamander flowing at its foot; Ida, where Paris, the princely shepherd, adjudged the prize of beauty to Venus, and whence the assembled gods beheld the Trojan strife; for every rock and peak we looked on was full of the memories of ancient days, and of that "bright land of battle and of song," which Byron loved with all a poet's enthusiasm. Dusk was closing as we entered the Hellespont; the castles of Europe and Asia were, however, distinctly visible, and we could see the red lights that shone in the Turkish fort, and the windmills whirling on the Sigean promontory, as we glided, with squared yards, before a fair and steady breeze, into those famous straits which Mohammed IV. fortified to secure his city and fleets against the fiery energy of the Venetians; and now, as I do not mean "to talk guide-book," our next chapter will find us in the land of strife and toil, of battle and the pest; in that Crim Tartary which, to so many among us, was to prove the land of death and doom.
The 4th of October found me with my regiment (my detachment "handed over," and responsibility, so far as it was concerned, past) before Sebastopol, which our army had now environed, ononeside at least. And now I was face to face with the Russians at last, and war had become a terrible reality. Tents had been landed, and all the troops were fairly under canvas. Our camp was strengthened by a chain of intrenchments dug all round it, and connected with those of the French, which extended to the sea on their left, while our right lay towards the valley of Inkermann, at the entrance of which, on a chalky cliff, 190 feet high at its greatest elevation, rose the city of Sebastopol, with all its lofty white mansions, that ran in parallel streets up the steep acclivity. In memory I can see it now, as I used to see it then, from the trenches, the advanced rifle-pits, or through the triangular door of my tent, with all its green-domed churches, its great round frowning batteries, forts Alexander and Constantine and others, perforated for cannon, tier above tier; and far inland apparently, for a distance after even the suburbs had ceased, were seen the tall slender masts of the numerous shipping that had taken shelter in the far recesses of the harbour, nearly to the mouth of the Tchernaya, from our fleets (which now commanded all the Black Sea). And a pretty sight they formed in a sunny day, when all their white canvas was hanging idly on the yards to dry.
Nearer the mouth of the great harbour were the enormous dark hulls of the line-of-battle ships--the Three Godheads of 120 guns, the Silistria of 84, the Paris and Constantine, 120 each, and other vessels of that splendid fleet which was soon after sunk to bar our entrance. Daily the Russians threw shot and shell at us, while we worked hard to get under cover. The sound of those missiles was strange and exciting at first to the ears of the uninitiated; but after a time the terrible novelty of it passed away, or was heard with indifference; and with indifference, too, even those who had not been at Alma learned to look on the killed and wounded, who were daily and nightly borne from the trenches to the rear, the latter to be under the care of the toil-worn surgeons, and the former to lie for a time in the dead-tents. The siege-train was long in arriving. "War tries the strength of the military framework," says Napier. "It is in peace the framework itself must be formed, otherwise barbarians would be the leading soldiers of the world.A perfect army can only be made by civil institutions." Yet with us such was the state of the "framework," by the results of a beggarly system of political economy, that when war was declared--a war after forty years of peace--our arsenals had not a sufficient quantity of shells for the first battering-train, and the fuses issued had been in store rotting and decaying since the days of Toulouse and Waterloo. This was but one among the many instances of gross mismanagement which characterised many arrangements of the expedition. And taking advantage of the delays, nightly the Russians, with marvellous rapidity, were throwing up additional batteries of enormous strength, mounted with cannon taken from the six line-of-battle ships which, by a desperate resolve of Prince Menschikoff's, were ultimately sunk across the harbour-mouth, where we could see the sea-birds, scared by the adverse cannonade, perching at times on their masts and royal-yards, which long remained visible above the water. Occasionally our war-steamers came near, and then their crews amused themselves by throwing shells into the town. Far up the inlet lay a Russian man-of-war, with a cannon ingeniously slung in her rigging. The shot from this, as they could slue it in any direction, greatly annoyed our sappers, and killed many of them, before one well-directed ball silenced it for ever.
Two thousand seamen with their officers, forming the Naval Brigade of gallant memory, were landed from our fleet, bringing with them a magnificent battering-train of ship-guns of the largest calibre; and these hardy and active fellows lent most efficient aid in dragging their ordnance and the stores over the rough and hilly ground that lies between Balaclava and the city. They were all in exuberant spirits at the prospect of a protracted "spree" ashore; for as such they viewed the circumstance of their forming a part of the combined forces destined to take Sebastopol, and they amused and astonished the redcoats by their freaks and pranks under fire, and their ready alacrity, jollity, and muscular strength. Guns of enormous weight and long range were fast being brought into position; the trenches were "pushed" with vigour; and now the work of a regular siege--the consecutive history of which forms no part of my narrative--was begun in stern earnest when the batteries opened on the 16th October. Our armies were placed in a semicircle, commanding the southern side of this great fortified city and arsenal of the Black Sea. They were in full possession of the heights which overlook it, and were most favourably posted for the usual operations of a siege, which would never have been necessary had it been entered after Alma was won. A deep and beautiful ravine, intersecting the elevated ground, extended from the harbour of the doomed city to Balaclava, dividing the area of the allied camp into two portions. The French, I have said, were on the left, and we held the right.
On the very day our batteries opened, I received the notification of my appointment to a company. This rapid promotion was consequent to the sad casualties of the Alma; and two days after, when the trench-guards were relieved, and I came off duty before daybreak, I crept back to my tent cold, miserable, and weary, to find my man Evans--brother of the gallant private of the same name who planted the Red Dragon on the great redoubt--busy preparing a breakfast forthree, with the information that Caradoc and Gwynne, who had been on board the Hydaspes, an hospital ship for officers, had rejoined the night before, and had added their repast to mine for the sake of society. But food and other condiments were already scarce in the camp, and tidings that they had come from Balaclava with their haversacksfull, caused more than one hungry fellow to visit my humble abode, the canvas walls of which flapped drearily in the wind, that came sweeping up the valley of Inkermann. Without undressing, as the morning was almost in, I threw myself upon my camp-bed, which served me in lieu of a sofa, and strove, with the aid of a plaid, a railway-rug, and blanket, to get some warmth into my limbs, after the chill of a night spent in the damp trenches; while Evans, poor fellow, was doing his best to boil our green and ill-ground coffee in a camp-kettle on a fire made of half-dried drift-wood, outside my tent, which was pitched in a line with thousands of others, on the slope of the hill that overlooked the valley where the Tchernaya flows. Though the season was considerably advanced now, the days were hot, but the nights were correspondingly chill; and at times a white dense fog came rolling up from the Euxine, rendering still greater the discomfort of a bell-tent, as it penetrated every crevice, and rendered everything therein--one's bedding and wearing apparel, even that which was packed in overlands and bullock-trunks--damp, while sugar, salt, and bread became quite moist. Luckily, somehow it did not seem to affect our ammunition. Then there came high winds, which blew every night, whistling over the hill-tops, singing amongst the tent-ropes, and bellowing down the valley of Inkermann.
These blasts sometimes cast the tent-ropes loose by uprooting the pegs, causing fears lest the pole--whereon hung the revolvers, swords, pans, and kettles of the occupants--might snap, and compel them, when hoping to enjoy a comfortable night's rest off duty, to come forth shivering from bed to grope for the loosened pegs amid the muddy soil or wet grass, and by the aid of a stone or a stray shot--if the mallet was not forthcoming--to secure them once more. This might be varied by a shower of rain, which sputtered in your face as you lay abed, till the canvas became thoroughly wetted, and so tightened. Anon it might shrink; then the ropes would strain, and unless you were in time to relax them, down might come the whole domicile in a wet mass on those who were within it. Now and then a random shot fired from Sebastopol, or the whistling shell, with a sound like t'wit-t'wit-t'wit, describing a fiery arc as it soared athwart the midnight sky on its errand of destruction, varied the silence and darkness of the hour. The clink of shovels and pickaxes came ever and anon from the trenches, where the miners and working-parties were pushing their sap towards the city. The sentinels walked their weary round, or stood still, each on his post shivering, it might be, in the passing blast, but looking fixedly and steadily towards the enemy. The rest slept soundly after their day of toil and danger, watching, starvation, and misery; forgetful of the Russian watchfires that burned in the distance, heedless of the perils of the coming day, and ofwherethe coming night might find them. And so the night would pass, till the morning bugle sounded; then the stir and bustle began, and there was no longer rest for any, from the general of the day down to the goat of the Welsh Fusileers; the cooking, and cleaning of arms, parade of reliefs for outpost and the trenches, proceeded; but these without sound of trumpet or drum, as men detailed for such duties do everything silently; neither do their sentries take any complimentary notice of officers passing near their posts. Ere long a thousand white puffs, spirting up from the broken ground between us and the city, would indicate the rifle-pits, where the skirmishers layen perdue, taking quiet pot-shots at each other from behind stones, caper-bushes, sand-bags, and sap-rollers; and shimmering through haze and smoke--the blue smoke of the "villainous saltpetre"--rose the city itself, with its green spires and domes, white mansions, and bristling batteries.
And so I saw it through the tent-door as the morning drew on, and the golden sunshine began to stream down the long valley of Inkermann, "the city of caverns;" while our foragers were on the alert, and Turkish horses laden with hay, and strings of low four-wheeled arabas, driven by Tartars in fur skull-caps, brown jackets, and loose white trousers, would vary the many costumes of the camp. And the morning sunshine fell on other things which were less lively,--the long mounds of fresh earth where the dead lay, many of them covered with white lime dust to insure speedy decay. And then began that daily cannonade against the city--the cannonade that was to last till wealoneexpended more than one hundred thousand barrels of gunpowder, and heaven alone knows how many tons of shot and shell.
Often I lay in that tent, with the roar of the guns in my ears, pondering over the comfort of stone walls, of English sea-coal fires, and oftener still of her who was so far away, she so nobly born and rich, surrounded, as I knew she must always be, by all that wealth and luxury, rank and station could confer; and I thought longingly, "O for aunt Margaret's mirror, or Surrey's magic glass, or for the far-seeing telescope of the nursery tale, that I might see her once again!" Estelle's promises of writing to me had not been fulfilled as yet, or her answers to my loving and earnest letters from Malta and the Crimea had miscarried.
"Welcome, Caradoc! welcome, Gwynne!" cried I, springing off the camp-bed as my two friends entered the tent, of which I was the sole occupant, as my lieutenant was on board the Hydaspes ill with fever, and my ensign, a poor boy fresh from Westminster school, was under one of the horrid mounds in the shot-strewn valley.
"Harry, old fellow, how are you?--how goes it? Missed the Alma, eh?" said they cheerfully, as we warmly shook hands.
"All the better, perhaps," said Mostyn, who now joined us, while Price and Clavell soon after dropped in also; so two had to sit on the camp-bed, while the rest squatted on chests or buckets, and as for a table, we never missed it.
"And you were hit, Caradoc?"
"In the calf of the left leg, Harry, prodded by the rusty bayonet of a fellow who lay wounded on the ground, and who continued to fireafterus when we had left him in the rear, till one of ours gave him thecoup de grâcewith the butt-end of his musket. Would you believe it?--the goat went up hill with us, and I couldn't, even while the bullets fell like hail about us, resist caressing it, for the sake of the donor."
"Poor Winny Lloyd!"
"Why poor?" asked Phil.
"Well, pretty, then. I saw her just before I left Southampton."
"This goat seems to be the peculiar care of Caradoc," said Gwynne; "he rivals its keeper, little Dicky Roll the drummer, in his anxiety to procure leaves, and buds of spurge, birch, and bird-cherry for it."
Phil Caradoc laughed, and muttered something about being "fond of animals;" but a soft expression was in his handsome brown eyes, and I knew he was thinking of sweet Winifred Lloyd, of his bootless suit, and the pleasant woods of Craigaderyn.
"And you, Charley, were hit, too? Saw your name in theGazette," said I.
"A ball right through the left fore-arm, clean as a whistle; but it is almost well."
"And now to breakfast. Look sharp, Evans, there's a good fellow! A morning walk from Balaclava to the front gives one an appetite," said I.
"Yes, that one may not often have, like us, the wherewith to satisfy. An appetite is the most troublesome thing one can have in the vicinity of Sebastopol," replied Phil.
A strange-looking group we were when contrasted with our appearance when last we met.
Probably not one of us had enjoyed the luxury of a complete wash for a week, and the use of the razor having long been relinquished, our beards rivalled that of Carneydd Llewellyn in size, if not in hue. The scarlet uniforms, with lace and wings[3]of gold, in which we had landed, we had marched and fought and slept in for weeks, were purple, covered with discolorations, and patched with any stuff that came to hand. Our trousers had turned from Oxford gray to something of a red hue, with Crimean mud. Each of us had a revolver in his sash (which we then wore round the waist), and a canvas haversack or well-worn courier-bag slung over his shoulder, to contain whatever he might pick up, beg, borrow, or buy (some were less particular) in the shape of biscuits, eggs, fowls, or potatoes. Caradoc carried a dead duck by the legs as he entered, and Charley Gwynne had a loaf of Russian bread hung by a cord over his left shoulder, like a pilgrim at La Scala Santa; while Price had actually secured a lump of cheese from the wife of a Tartar, a fair one, with whom the universal lover had found favour when foraging in the lovely Baidar Valley. We were already too miserable to laugh at each other's appearance, and our tatters had ceased to be a matter of novelty. If such was the condition of our officers, that of the privates was fully worse; and thanks to our wretched commissariat and ambulance arrangements, the splendidphysiqueof our men had begun to disappear; but their pluck was undying as ever.
On this morning we six were to have a breakfast such as rarely fell to our lot in the Crimea; for Evans, my Welsh factotum andfidus Achates, was a clever fellow, and speedily had prepared for us, at a fire improvised under the shelter of a rock, a large kettle of steaming coffee, which, sans milk, we drank from tin canteens, tumblers, or anything suitable, and Gwynne's loaf was shared fraternally among us, together with a brace of fowls found by him in a Tartar cottage. "Lineal descendants of the cock that crew to Mahomet, no doubt," said he; "and now, thanks to Evans, there they are, brown, savoury, appetising, gizzard under one wing, liver under the other--done to a turn, and on an old ramrod."
And while discussing them, the events of the siege were also discussed, as coolly as we were wont to do the most ordinary field man[oe]uvres at home.
"The deuce!" said I, "how the breeze comes under the wall of this wretched tent!"
"Don't abuse the tent, Harry," said Caradoc; "I am thankful to find myself in one, after being on board the Hydaspes. It must be a veritable luxury to be able to sleep, even on a camp-bed and alone, after being in a hospital, with one sufferer on your right, another on your left, dead or dying, groaning and in agony. May God kindly keep us all from the 'bloody hospital of Scutari,' after all I have heard of it!"
"You were with us last night in the trenches, Mostyn?" said I.
"Yes, putting Gwynne's Hythe theories into practice from a rifle pit. I am certain that I potted at least three of the Ruskies as coolly as ever I did grouse in Scotland. All squeamishness has left me now, though I could not help shuddering when first I saw a man's heels in the air, after firing at him. You will never guess what happened on our left. A stout vivandière of the 3rd Zouaves, while in the act of giving me apetit verrefrom her little keg, was taken--"
"By the enemy?" exclaimed Price.
"Not at all--with the pains of maternity; and actually while the shot and shell were flying over our heads."
"And what were the trench casualties?" asked Gwynne.
"About a hundred and twenty of all ranks, killed, wounded, and missing. A piece more of the fowl--thanks."
"A guardsman was killed last night, I have heard," said Hugh Price.
"Yes; poor Evelyn of the Coldstreams; he was first blinded by dust and earth blown into his eyes by the ricochetting of a 36-pound shot, and as he was groping about in an exposed place between the gabions, he fell close by me."
"Wounded?"
"Mortally--hit in the head; he' was just able to whisper some woman's name, and then expired. He purchased all his steps up to the majority, so there's a pot of money gone. I think I could enjoy a quiet weed now; but, Clavell, there was surely an awful shindy in your quarter last night?"
"Yes," replied Tom, who, since he had been under fire, seemed to have grown an inch taller; "a sortie."
"A sortie?" said two or three, laughing.
"Well, something deuced like it," said Tom, testily, as he stroked the place where his moustache was to be. "I was asleep between the gabions about twelve at night, when all at once a terrible uproar awoke me. 'Stand to your arms, men, stand to your arms!' cried our adjutant; 'the Russians are scouring the trenches!' I sprang up, and tumbled against a bulky brute in a spike-helmet and long coat, with a smoking revolver in his hand, just as a sergeant of ours shot him. It was all confusion--I can tell you nothing about it; but we will see it all in theTimesby and by. 'Sound for the reserves!' cried one. 'By God, they have taken the second parallel!' cried another. 'Fire!' 'Don't fire yet!' But our recruits began to blaze away at random. The Russians, however, fell back; it might have been only a reconnoitring party; but, anyhow, they have levanted with the major of the 93rd Highlanders."
"The deuce they have!" we exclaimed. And this episode of the major's capture was to have more interest for me than I could then foresee.
"These cigars, five in number," continued Tom, "were given to me by a poor dying Zouave, who had lost his way and fallen among us. I gave him a mouthful of brandy from my canteen, after which he said, Take these, monsieur l'officier; they are all I have in the world now, and, as you smoke them, think of poor Paul Ferrière of the 3rd Zouaves, once a jolly student of the Ecole de Médecine, dying now, like a beggar's dog!' he added, bitterly. 'Nay,' said I, 'like a brave soldier.' 'Monsieur is right,' said he, with a smile. Our surgeons could do nothing for him, and so he expired quite easily, while watching his own blood gradually filling up a hole in the earth near him!"
"Well, the Crimea, bad as it is," said Caradoc, as he prepared and lit one of the Frenchman's cigars, "is better than serving in India, I think; 'that union of well-born paupers,' as some fellow has it, 'a penal servitude for those convicted of being younger sons.'"
"By Jove, I can't agree with you," said Mostyn, who had served in India, and was also a younger son; "but glory is a fine thing, no doubt."
"Glory be hanged!" said Gwynne, testily; "a little bit of it goes a long way with me."
"See, there go some of the Naval Brigade to have a little ball practice with a big Lancaster!" cried Tom Clavell, starting to the tent-door.
"Getting another gun into position apparently," added Raymond Mostyn.
As they spoke, a party of seamen, whiskered and bronzed, armed with cutlasses and pistols, their officers with swords drawn, swept past the tent-door at a swinging trot, all singing cheerily a forecastle song, of which the monotonous burden seemed to be,
"O that I had her,Othat I had her,Seated on my knee!O that I had her,Othat I had her,A black girl though she be!"
"O that I had her,Othat I had her,Seated on my knee!
O that I had her,Othat I had her,A black girl though she be!"
tallying on the while to the drag-ropes of a great Lancaster gun, which they trundled up the slope, crushing stones, caper-bushes, and everything under its enormous grinding wheels, till they got it into position; and a loud ringing cheer, accompanied by a deep and sullen boom, ere long announced that they had slued it round and sent one more globe of iron to add to the hundreds that were daily hurled against Sebastopol. On this occasion the fire of this especial Lancaster gun was ordered to be directed against a bastion on the extreme left of the city, where the officer in command, a man of remarkable bravery, who had led several sorties against us, seemed to work his cannon and direct their fire with uncommon skill; and it was hoped that we should ere long dismount or disable them, and if possible breach the place.
It was while the infantry and Naval Brigade were still before Sebastopol, toiling, trenching, and pounding with cannon and mortar at all its southern side, we had our ardour fired, our enthusiasm kindled, and our sorrow keenly excited by the tidings of that glorious but terrible death ride, the charge of the six hundred cavalry at Balaclava; and of how only one hundred and fifty came alive out of that mouth of fire, the valley where rained "the red artillery"--the 13th Hussars were said to have brought only twelve men out of the action, and the 17th Lancers twenty--and how nobly they were avenged by our "heavies" under the gallant Scarlett; and of the stern stand made against six thousand Russian horse by the "thin red line" of the Sutherland Highlanders.
On the day these tidings were circulated in the trenches by many who had witnessed the events, we seemed to redouble our energies, and shot and shell were poured with greater fury than ever on the city, while sharper, nearer, and more deadly were the contests of man and man in the rifle-pits between it and the trenches. Then followed the sortie made by Menschikoff, supposing that most of the allied forces had been drawn towards Balaclava--a movement met by the infantry and artillery of the second division under Sir De Lacy Evans, and repulsed with a slaughter which naturally added to the hatred on both sides; and innumerable were the stories told, and authenticated, of the Russians murdering our helpless wounded in cold blood. On the night of the 2nd November I was again in the trenches opposite to the eastern flank of Sebastopol, the whole regiment being on duty covering the batteries and working-parties.
The day passed as usual in exciting and desultory firing, the Russians and our fellows watching each other like lynxes, and never missing an opportunity for taking a quiet shot at each other. A strong battalion of the former was in our front, lurking among some mounds and thickabattis, formed of trees felled and pegged to the earth with their branches towards us; and above the barrier and the broken ground that lay between it and the advanced trench-ground, strewed with fragments of rusty iron nails, broken bottles, and the other amiable contents of exploded bombs, torn, rent, upheaved, or sunk into deep holes by the explosion of mines and countermines, shells and rockets, we could see their bearded visages, their flat caps and tall figures, cross-belted and clad in long gray shapeless coats, as from time to time they yelled and started up to take aim at some unwary Welsh Fusileer, heedless that from someotherpoint some comrade's bullet avenged him, or anticipated his fate. To attempt a description of the trenches to a non-military reader, in what Byron terms "engineering slang," would be useless, perhaps; suffice it to say that we were pretty secure from round shot, but never from shells, the trenches or zigzags being dug fairly parallel to the opposing batteries, with a thick bank of earth towards Sebastopol, a banquette for our men to mount on when firing became necessary.
Near us was a battery manned by our Royal Artillery--the guns being run through rude portholes made in the earthen bank, with the addition of sand-bags, baskets, and stuffed gabions, to protect the gunners. All was in splendid order there: the breeching-guns ever ready for action; the sponges, rammers, and handspikes lying beside the wheels; the shot piled close by as tidily as if in Woolwich-yard; the carbines of the men placed in racks against the gabions; the officers laughing over an oldPunch, or making sketches, varied by caricatures of the Russians, their men sitting close by in their greatcoats, smoking and singing while awaiting orders, and listening with perfect indifference to the casual dropping fire maintained by us against the enemy in the abbatis or pits along our front, though almost every shot was the knell of a human existence.
Death and danger were now strangely familiar to us all, and we cared as little for thewhishof a round bullet or the sharppingof the Minie, while it cut the air, as for the deep hoarse booming of the breaching-guns; it was the cry of "bomb!" from the look out men, that usually made us start, and sprawl on our faces, or scamper away, for shelter, to crouch with our heads stooped in our favourite or fancied places of security among the gabions, till a soaring monster, with death and mutilation in its womb, with its hoarse puffing that rose to a whistle, concussed all the air by the crash of its explosion.
Our men were all in their greatcoats, with their white belts outside; and, save when a section or so started angrily to arms, as those fellows in the abattis became more annoying, they sat quietly on the ground or against the wall of the trench, smoking, chatting with perfect equanimity, and occasionally taking a sip of rum or raki from their canteens; for, after weeks and months of this kind of duty, especially after the severity of the Crimean war set in, our older soldiers seemed utterly indifferent as to whether they lived or died.
All of them, even such boys as Tom Clavell, had been front to front with death, again and again. Among ourselves, even, there was an incessant scramble for food; hence in the expression of their faces and eyes there was something hard, set, fierce, and undefinable--half-wolfish at times, devil-may-care always; for in a few weeks after the landing at Eupatoria, they had seen more and lived longer than one can do in years upon years of a life of peace.
"What do you see, Hugh, that you look so earnestly to the front?" I asked of Price, who was lying on his breast with a rifle close beside him, and his field-glass, to which his eyes were applied, wedged in a cranny between two sand-bags.
"A Russian devil has made a bolt out of the abattis into yonder hole made by a shell."
"And what of that?"
"I am waiting to pot him, as he can't stay there long," replied Price, usually the best of good-natured fellows, but now looking with a tiger-like stare through the same lorgnette which he had used on many a day at the Derby, and many a night at the opera; "there he comes," he added. In a moment the Minie rifle, already sighted, was firmly at the shoulder of Price, who fired; a mass like a gray bundle, with hands and arms outspread, rolled over and over again on the ground, and then lay still; atanothertime it might have seemed most terribly still!
"Potted, by Jove!" exclaimed Hugh, as he restored the rifle to Sergeant Rhuddlan, and quietly resumed his cigar.
"A jolly good shot, sir, at four hundred yards," added the non-commissioned officer, as he proceeded to reload and cap.
At that time the life of a Russian was deemed by us of no more account than that of a hare or rabbit in the shooting season; but, if reckless of the lives of others, it must be remembered that we were equally reckless of our own; and, with all its horrors, war is not without producing some of the gentler emotions. Thus, even on those weary, exciting, and perilous days and nights in the trenches, under the influence ofcamaraderie, of general danger, and the most common chance of a sudden and terrible death, men grew communicative, and while interchanging their canteens and tobacco-pouches they were apt to speak of friends and relations that were far away: the old mother, whose nightly prayers went up for the absent; the ailing sister, who had died since war had been declared; the absent wife, left on the shore at Southampton with a begging-pass to her own parish; the little baby that had been born since the transport sailed; the old fireside, where their place remained vacant, their figure but a shadowy remembrance; the girls they had left behind them; their disappointments in life; their sorrows and joys and hopes for the future; the green lanes, the green fields, the pleasant and familiar places they never more might see: and officers and privates talked of such things in common; so true it is that
"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."
On the 3rd of November, Caradoc and I were sitting in a sheltered corner, between the gabions, chatting on some of the themes I have enumerated, when a little commotion was observable among our men, and we saw the adjutant and the major--the worthy holder of Toby Purcell's spurs, he who had carried off the first gun at Alma, B-- of ours, and who, since Colonel Chesters was killed, had commanded the regiment--coming directly towards us.
"What the deuce is up?" said I.
"Their faces look important," added Caradoc.
"Sorry to disturb you; not that there is much pleasure here, certainly," said the major, smiling; "but the adjutant tells me that you, Hardinge, are the first officer for duty."
"We are all on duty," replied I, laughing; "if we are not, I don't know what duty is. Well, major, what is to be done?"
"You are to convey a message from Lord Raglan into Sebastopol."
"To Sebastopol?"
"Yes, to that pleasant city by the sea," said the adjutant.
"To Prince Menschikoff?"
"No," replied the major; "to the officer commanding the nearest post."
"Under a flag of truce?"
"Of course; it would be perilous work otherwise."
"About what is the message?"
"The capture of Major MacG--, of the 93rd, who was carried off by a kind of sortie the other night, and who is supposed to have been afterwards killed in cold blood."
The seizure of the major of the Sutherland Highlanders, a brave old fellow who had on his breast medals for Candahar, Afghanistan, and Maharajapore, had created much interest in the army at this time, when we so readily believed the Russians liable to commit atrocities on wounded and prisoners.
"Lord Raglan wishes distinct information on the subject," added the adjutant, after a pause.
"All right, I am his man," said I, starting up and looking carefully to the chambers and capping of my Colt, ere I replaced it in its pouch; and knocking some dust and mud off my somewhat dilapidated regimentals, added, "now for a drummer and a flag of truce."
"You are to go to the officer in command of that bastion on the Russian left," said the major.
"To that wasp of a fellow who is so active, and whose scoundrels have killed so many of our wounded men, firing even on the burial parties?"
"The same. You must be sharp, wary, and watchful."
"His name?"
"Ah, that you may perhaps learn, not that it matters much; even Lord Raglan cannot know that; but, doubtless, it will be something like a sneeze or two, ending in 'off' or 'iski.'"
"Success, Harry!" cried Caradoc.
A few minutes after this saw me issue from the trenches of the right attack, attended by Dicky Roll, with his drum slung before him; in my right hand I carried a Cossack lance, to which a white handkerchief of the largest dimensions was attached to attract attention, as the Russians were not particular to a shade as to what or whom they fired on, and the cruel and infamous massacre of an English boat's crew at Hango was fresh in the minds of us all; consequently I was not without feeling a certain emotion of anxiety, mingled with ardour and joy at the prospect of Estelle seeing my name in the despatches, as Dicky and I now advanced into the broken and open ground that lay between our parallel and the abattis, amid which I saw head after head appear, as the white emblem I bore announced thatpro tem, hostilities in that quarter must cease, by the rules of war.
Dicky Roll, who, poor little fellow, had been fraternally sharing his breakfast and blanket with the goat, and did not seem happy in his mind at our increasing proximity to "them Roosian hogres," as he called them, beat a vigorouschamadeon his drum, and I waved my impromptu banner. I was glad when a Russian drum responded, as flags of truce had been more than once fired upon, on the miserable plea that communications under them were merely designed for the purpose of gaining intelligence, of reconnoitring Sebastopol and its outposts. Hence our progress was watched with the deepest interest by the whole regiment and others, all of whom were now lining the banquette of the parallels, or clustering at the embrasures and fascines of the breaching batteries.