One of the Six Hundred 13One of the Six Hundred (part 13)
18
Literature · Romance
One of the Six Hundred 13
One of the Six Hundred (part 13)
GrantEnglish
"And when the command travelled along the ranks of the Highlanders, it lit up the faces of the men one after another, assuring them that now, at length, and after long expectance, they indeed would go into action. They began obeying the order, and with beaming joy, for they came of a warlike race; yet not without emotion of a grave kind. They were young soldiers, and new to battle."
But now the trumpets recalled us to our brigade in rear of the infantry, who had the chief work of that bloody day to do. And just as we wheeled into our places, a roar of musketry on our right announced that the impetuous French had commenced the attack! The enemy's shot and shell were coming souse among us now, and many heard for the first time the fierce rushing sound, and then the mighty shock, as a bullet ripped up the earth, or swept a man away; while shells that burst in mid-air fell in hissing showers, that tore our clothing with their jagged edges, when they failed to wound. Dashing through the Alma, in front of the steep cliffs, under a terrific shower of round shot, grape, and musketry, which clothed the whole face of the slopes with spouting lines of white smoke, streaked with flashes of fire, waking a thousand echoes in the sky above and earth below, the French poured forward in yelling and impetuous masses. Fresh from their campaigns and conquests in burning Algeria, those fierce little Zouaves, in their blue jackets, red breeches, and turbans, active as mountain goats, were seen swarming up at the point of the bayonet, and forming in two lines, which charged with headlong rush on the astonished Muscovites, whose general, being thus completely outflanked on the cliffs being scaled, sought, but sought in vain, to change his front, and drive the French from those hills they had taken so rapidly and so gallantly, but at awful loss.
"Allah-Allah Hu!" was now the cry that rent the air, as the Turks advanced.
Under their green standards--the holy colour--with the crescent and star, massed in close column at quarter distance, the Turkish troops came on; and through the sea of red fezzes the cannon balls made many a deadly lane, until the battalions deployed into line, sending, as Studhome said, "many a believer to Paradise in a state of mutilation such as the houris wouldn't appreciate." But on they went against that sheet of lead and iron, shoulder to shoulder with the French; and many a shaven crown and many a scarlet fez, with its broad military button and blue tassel, were lying on the turf, while, with visions of the dark-eyed girls of Paradise waving their green scarves from their couches of pearl, and crying, "Come, kiss me, for I love thee," many a grim, Turkish soul passed forth into the night of death. On the other flank were the French linesmen, crying on "Dieu, et la Mere de Dieu," to help them in their last agony, while the sisters of charity and the vivandieres rivalled each other in the rear in their attention to the wounded and dying.
*CHAPTER XXXIX.*
Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,
And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills
Like hail to make a bloody diuretic.
Mortality! thou hast thy monthly bills;
Thy plagues, thy passions, thy physicians, yet tick,
Like the death-watch, within our ears the ills
Past, present, and to come;--but all may yield
To the true portrait of one battle-field. BYRON.
At half-past one the British infantry advanced into action; like lightning the order flew along the line, for it was borne by Nolan, the impetuous and the gallant.
The village of Burliuk, the centre of our position, was still in flames that rose to a vast height, especially from the well-filled stackyards.
To the right of the conflagration, two regiments of Adams's brigade, the Welsh and 49th, or Hertfordshire, crossed the river by a deep and dangerous ford, under a galling fire from the Russian Minie Riflemen, who were ensconced among the vineyards on the opposite bank. The remainder crossed on the left of Burliuk, and, both uniting beyond it, the whole division of De Lacy Evans found themselves engaged in sanguinary strife, while we, the cavalry, could but sit in our saddles and look on, but burning with impatience to advance.
41st--so called since 1831.
On the extreme left of the British advance, the Light Division, under Sir George Brown, G.C.B. (a Peninsular veteran of the old fighting 43rd), crossed the stream in their immediate front. Rugged and precipitous, the bank rose above them. So steep was it in some places that one of our officers, when in the act of climbing, was mortally wounded by having his entire spinal column traversed by a ball, which had been fired perpendicularly down from the Russian ranks above. Dense vineyards and abattis of felled trees partially obstructed the advance of our gallant Light Division; but in vain, for the 7th, the 33rd, and Welsh Fusiliers, the 77th, and Connaught Rangers pressed on under the volleying fire; and such was their coolness, that the soldiers threw to each other bunches of the delicious crimson grapes, to quench their thirst, for they had been long in marching order under a burning morning sun. The Minie balls were showering past like hail; caps, epaulettes, ears, fingers, and teeth were torn away, and every moment the men fell fast on every hand; but from right to left the cries of "Forward! on! on! forward!" were incessant, and the human surge of the Light Division swept on, bearing with it the whole 95th regiment. Rapidly they formed in line beyond the broken ground--rapidly and magnificently--and threw their steady fire into the strong redoubts with terrible effect; but hundreds were falling on both sides, and now commenced that ever memorable charge up hill by which we won the Alma. Faintly in the air came a yell of defiance from the Russians; it was very different from "the strong-lunged, massive-throated, deep-chested outbursts of cheering" that ran along the ranks of the British infantry.
Conspicuous on a grey horse, amid the clouds of passing smoke, we could see old Sir George Brown, riding as he had ridden with the Light Division of other days, at Busaco and Talavera. A deadly sheet of fire now tears through the 7th Fusiliers--led by Lacy Yea--they waver, but re-form! By the same fire the 23rd are decimated, and Colonel Chester falls at their head, shouting, "On, lads, on!" Relief after relief is shot down under the colours of the 7th. One is lost for a time; but, hurrah! it is safe among the soldiers of the Royal Welsh!
Under their colour, young Anstruther (the son of my uncle's neighbour, Balcaskie) is shot dead, and the poor boy rolls down the hill, enveloped in its silken folds; but again it waves in the wind, as Private Evans snatches it up, and bears it on towards the Great Redoubt.
Thicker fall the dead on every hand, for it is all musketry, and the deep, hoarse boom of the cannon, surging like a stormy sea, roll upon roll. The wounded are crawling, limping, and streaming to the rear; the dead lie close as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa. On stretchers and crossed muskets, officers and men are borne to the riverside, and, reeking with blood, the stretchers return for other victims. Hythe is forgotten now, and all her science of musketry; for no man thinks of sighting his Minie rifle, but all load, and cap, and blaze away at random, though many an officer is shouting, "Steady, men, steady, and aim below the crossbelts."
On, yet on, rolls the human surge, for what or who could withstand them--our noble infantry, our 19th and 33rd, our 77th and 88th, as they rush on, with colours flying and loud hurrahs!
But now there is a louder cry!
Their leader falls! In a cloud of dust both horse and man go down, and for a moment the advance is paralyzed--but for a moment only.
Again the grand old soldier is at their head on foot, his sword glittering above his white head, and, reckless of the tremendous fire which sweeps through them, our troops dash at the redoubts--a mighty torrent in scarlet--the flashing bayonets are lowered--man seeks man, ready to grapple body to body with his foe, and the sparks of fire rise in the midst as steel clashes on steel, for the Russian hearts are stout and their hands are strong as ours; the dead and the dying are heaped over each other, to be trampled on and smothered in their blood.
Nine hundred of our officers and men fell, killed and wounded, amid the terrible melee in the Great Redoubt, and all up the scorched slope that leads to it. In the torn vineyards, and among the leafy abbatis, the poor redcoats are lying thicker than ever I have seen the scarlet poppies stud the harvest fields in Lothian or the Merse!
The red dragon of the Royal Welsh is flying on that fatal redoubt, but not yet is the victory ours!
Descending from the higher hills, a mighty column of Russian infantry--a double column, composed of the Ouglitz and Vladimir battalions, bearing with them the image of St. Sergius, a solemn trust given to them by the Bishop of Moscow--a supposed miraculous idol, borne in the wars of the Emperor Alexis, of Peter the Great, and Alexander I.--came rushing to the mortal shock, in full confidence of victory.
Deploying into line, the great grey mass, with their flat caps and spiked helmets--for the corps were various--came boldly on, and followed up a deadly volley by a powerful bayonet charge. Then the ranks in scarlet, exhausted by their toilsome ascent, began to waver and fall back, followed down hill by the yelling Russian hordes, who had a perfect belief in their own invincibility, and barbarously bayoneted all our wounded as they came on.
Terribly fatal was this temporary repulse to the gallant Welsh Fusiliers in particular; but now the 7th and 33rd, with the Guards and Highlanders, advanced, and again the struggle was resumed.
Of the 33rd, nineteen sergeants fell, chiefly in defence of the colours; and fourteen bullet holes in one standard and eleven in the other attested to the fury of the conflict.
Throwing open his ranks to allow the retreating regiments to re-form and recover breath, the Duke of Cambridge now brought up his division, though there was a momentary fear of its success, for an officer high in rank exclaimed--
"The brigade of Guards will be destroyed. Ought it not to fall back?"
"Better that every man of her Majesty's Guards should lie dead upon the field than turn their backs upon the enemy!" was the stern and proud response of grim old Colin Campbell, a veteran of the old and glorious wars of Wellington, as he galloped off to put himself at the head of his Highlanders, whom he had had skilfully brought on in echelon of regiments. They reserved their fire, and advanced in solemn silence.
Terribly was our splendid brigade of Guards handled, when the Highlanders came up, and then, as Kinglake tells us, a man in one of the regiments re-forming on the slope cried, in the deep, honest bitterness of his heart, "Let the Scotsmen go on--they'll do the work!" and, with three battalions in the kilt, Sir Colin (whose horse was killed under him) advanced to meet twelve of the flushed and furious enemy.
"Now, men," said he, "you are going into action, and remember this, that whoever is wounded--I don't care what his rank is--must lie where he falls. No soldier must carry off wounded men. If any one does such a thing, his name shall be stuck up in his parish kirk. Be steady--keep silence--fire low! Now, men--the army are watching us--make me proud of my Highland brigade!"
The brilliant author of "Eoethen," an eye-witness of this part of the field, describes their movements so beautifully that I cannot resist quoting him again.
"The ground they had to ascend was a good deal more steep and broken than the slope close beneath the redoubt. In the land where those Scots were bred, there are shadows of sailing clouds skimming up the mountain side; and their paths are rugged and steep; yet their course is smooth, easy, and swift. Smoothly, easily, swiftly, the Black Watch seemed to glide up the hill. A few instants before, and their tartans ranged dark in the valley; now their plumes were on the crest."
Another line in echelon, and another--the Cameron and the Sutherland Highlanders; and now, to the eyes of the superstitious Muscovites, the strange uniform of those troops seemed something terrible; their waving sporrans were taken for horses' heads; they cried to each other that the Angel of Light had departed, and the Demon of Death had come!
Close and murderous was the fire that opened on them; then a wail of despair floated over the grey masses of the long-coated Russian infantry, as they broke and fled, casting away knapsacks, and everything that might encumber their flight, and, for the first time, rose the Highland cheer. "Then," says the great historian of the war, "along the Kourgane slopes, and thence west almost home to the Causeway, the hill-sides were made to resound with that joyous and assuring cry, which is the natural utterance of a northern people, so long as it is warlike and free."
Kinglake, vol. ii.
The Heights of the Alma were won!
*CHAPTER XL.*
Had ye no graves at home,
Across the briny water,
That hither ye must come,
Like bullocks to the slaughter?
If we the work must do,
Why the sooner 'tis begun,
If flint and trigger hold but true,
The quicker 'twill be done,
By the rifle! the good rifle!
In our hands it is no trifle!
The battle was fought and won; the thunder had died away along the heights of the Alma; it was all over now--that "hell of blood and ferocity" was past; and little more remained but to number the dead, and lay them in their last ghastly homes. The agonies even of the wounded--that terrible grey acre of Russian wounded--were half forgotten by the untouched; but many a bright-eyed girl in England far away, and in that northern land which was to me the dearest half of "sea-walled Albion," who was wearing her gay muslins and flowers, would be coming forth, ere long, in the crape and sable livery of grief; for many a father and mother's hope and pride were among the redcoats that lay so motionless and still along those fatal slopes.
The sun was verging westward, the smoke of the villanous saltpetre hung like a lurid canopy over the summit of the Kourgane Hill, and that final scene of slaughter in the Great Redoubt; and now men, who had been separated in the confusion and hurry of the conflict, were meeting again, and congratulating each other that they were spared.
We, the small force of cavalry, a thousand sabres and lancers, who had hitherto been impatient onlookers, now dashed through the river, without Lord Raglan's authority; and, though the upsetting of a field-gun, and the slippery nature of the ford, were the cause of much delay, we reached the summit of the Kourgane Hill soon after the Highlanders had swept the foe from it. We had six guns with us, and their fire told fearfully upon the retreating masses of the Russians, who left mangled piles of dead in their rear. The battery was divided; one half our force, led by Lord Cardigan, escorting those on the right, while Lord Lucan, with the rest, conducted those that were on the left. Our orders were, also, to glean up cannon, prisoners, and other trophies.
The earl rode in advance with my squadron of lancers. We picked up a good many prisoners, who sullenly threw down their arms and submitted. These men were all light infantry, wearing flat forage-caps, and long grey coats that reached to their ankles.
On this duty we had to traverse a great portion of the field, and its aspect was harrowing; a day of slaughter was to be followed by a night of agony.
Here and there were pools of blood, in which the flies were battening, and from whence the honey-bee and the snow-white butterfly strove in vain to free their tiny pinions; and on the glacis of the Great Redoubt, where men of all regiments--but chiefly Welsh Fusiliers--lay blended together, were bodies to be seen without heads, or legs, or arms, bowels torn out, brains crushed, blood oozing from eyes, or ears, or mouths--blood, blood everywhere: for it was there that grape, canister, and round-shot had bowled through the advancing columns.
Among those ghastly piles lay an ensign of one of our line regiments--a poor boy, fresh from Eton or Harrow, struck down in his first red coat. He had a miniature in his hand--a young and beautiful girl, thought I. But Pitblado handed it to me, and then I saw that it represented a grey-haired woman, of comely and matronly aspect.
She was his mother, no doubt. Could she have seen him there!
A ball had pierced his chest. He was not quite dead; for when Pitblado poured some water between his lips, his eyes opened, and he began to mutter as if speaking to his mother--that his head lay on her breast, and he heard, in fancy, her replies.
True, in the end, to the first instinct, or first tender impulse of nature, as, when a little child, he had, under pain or wrong, hid his weeping face in his mother's lap, the old spirit came over him; and as his dying ear seemed to hear that mother's voice, a holy light shone over his livid face, and the poor lad died happily.
He must have been shot under his colours, for the standard belt was yet over his left shoulder.
The roar of battle was gone now, and the bushes where the dead ensign lay were literally alive with larks, thrushes, and linnets in full song.
Many of the Russian slain had half-bitten cartridges in their open mouths. Many who were shot in the head lay with their faces on the sod, and their muskets under them; and when struck in the heart, death was so instantaneous that all retained the position in which they had been shot. By their attitudes, we might know the time they had been in dying.
In one place seven of the Russian 26th--for that number was on their glazed leather helmets--lay all in a line, with their bayonets at the charge. All these men had been slain by a shower of grape, and were shot in the head or breast.
As we rode on we secured many prisoners and several battery guns; all the cannon were on stocks of wood, painted green, with white crosses on the breeches and muzzles.
And now we were traversing the Kourgane Hill, where the fine fellows of our household brigade, in their bright scarlet and black bearskins, were lying in great numbers, and close by were many of the Black Watch, but all dead. I reined in my horse, and looked at them earnestly.
The countenances of some seemed as if still in life, so far as expression went. Some were calm and resigned; some as if in prayer. Others were fierce and stern; but all were pale and white as the cold Carrara marble. The evening breeze passed over them; it lifted their hair and the black plumes in their bonnets. Then the dead seemed as if about to stir. There they lay, with the blood stiffening on their tartans. My heart was very full.
In some faces I could read a ghastly and defiant smile, and several were stretched at length, as if the friends that would ere long be sorrowing for them in their distant home were about to commit them to their winding-sheet.
Where our cannon had mauled their retreating cavalry, the horses lay in close ranks, with their long necks stretched out, and their riders beneath them, all torn, brained, or disembowelled alike by the iron storm of grape-shot that had swept through the squadron. In some places we saw only a red, muddy pulp, composed of flesh and bones, where the enemy's brigade of guns had traversed the ground.
"War!" says a French writer; "those by whose will war comes--those who make men resemble the savage beasts--will have a fearful account to render to the righteous Judge above!"
As we passed along with our prisoners, many of our wounded reviled and execrated them, for on all hands we heard stories of Russian treachery.
Our soldiers, in some instances, when supplying their wounded enemies with water from their canteens, were shot down by the very wretch whose thirst they had just quenched. Captain Eddington, of the 95th, was murdered in this fashion by a Russian rifleman, in sight of the whole regiment, and of his brother, a lieutenant, who rushed in advance to avenge him and fell riddled with bullets. Maddened by several such incidents, our soldiers, with their musket butts, dashed out the brains of several of the wounded, slaying them like reptiles, and undeserving of mercy.
Such details are only calculated to weary and revolt; but the stern scene was not without its brighter features.
Already the surgeons were busy among the wounded, and our gallant seamen were all tenderness, sympathy, and activity, as they conveyed them on board the ships, from the rigging of which the events of that exciting day had been witnessed by thousands.
"Cheer up, sodjer," I sometimes heard them shout, as they bore a maimed victim, pale and bloody, to the boats; "we shall all eat our Christmas duff in Sebastopol."
Many whom they bore away were "booked" for Chelsea, "the poor soldier's last home in the land of the living;" but many were fated to die of their wounds ere the sun of the morrow lit up the waters of the Euxine.
We were now far in the rear of the original Russian position, and were actually riding along the Sebastopol road, when Captain Bolton, of the 1st Dragoon Guards, whose sword hand was muffled in a bloody handkerchief, came galloping after us, to explain that Lord Raglan desired we should fall back at once.
"His lordship fears that you are going too far in advance," said he, "and that the Russian flying artillery may halt and open on you. Give up all pursuit of prisoners; set loose those you have, and simply escort the guns."
On this we halted and liberated more than a hundred prisoners of all ranks, several being officers. Some of the latter shrugged their shoulders contemptuously at the commiseration we expressed for some of the Russian wounded, who lay on the road expiring of weakness and thirst.
"Bah!" said one, in French, to me; "they are only private soldiers--peasants--and will soon die."
His sentiments were worthy of a Russian aristocrat; but he was a grim, stern, and white-moustached officer, evidently of high rank, for his breast was covered from epaulette to epaulette with stars, medals, and crosses.
I had afterwards reason to know that this officer was General Baur, who had commanded the reconnaisance at Bulganak.
As we were retiring, we came among some of the French, and I recognised Mademoiselle Sophie, the vivandiere whom I had seen at Gallipoli and Varna, and who immediately offered me a petit verre of cognac from her little store, which I gladly accepted. She looked pale and excited, and her eyes were bloodshot.
"Our regiment has suffered heavily to-day, monsieur," said she. "I was thrice under fire with it; but so many of my comrades fell--that--that--mon Dieu! it proved too much for me."
"Your friend, M. Jolicoeur, of the 2nd Zouaves," said I; "he, I hope, has escaped to-day?"
"Helas! mon pauvre Jules! he is lying yonder with ever so many more of ours," she replied, pointing with her trembling hand to the Telegraph Battery.
"Wounded?"
"Dead, monsieur, dead! He fell when planting the standard of the 2nd Zouaves on the summit, where you may still see it flying. Poor Captain Victor Baudeuf, who used to flirt so terribly with Rigolboche, and pay such frightful sums for a fauteuil every night she danced, till Mademoiselle Theresa took her place at the cafes chantants--well, he, too, and two hundred of our rank and file, are lying there."
The vivandiere wept and wrung her hands.
All great excitements are followed by a painful reaction; and I shall not readily forget the dreary night that followed the day of the Alma.
My troop bivouacked near the old ruined walls that lie on the western flank of the Kourgane Hill.
Vast numbers of dead were lying near; they disturbed us not. But the wounded, the dying--ah, their moans and cries were frightful! I muffled my head in my cloak, and strove to shut out the piteous-sounds, and court sleep beside my jaded charger, close to whose side I crept for warmth.
*CHAPTER XLI.*
Mine own one! years have passed away
Since I have seen your thoughtful face;
Yet could I every feature trace--
Your image haunts me night and day.
A song brings back the time we walked
Above the brown cliff's sloping lawn;
From music I have even drawn
The very words we used to talk.
The crumbling church, the upland lea,
The river wimpling round the bridge,
The brave grey wold--the far-off ridge,
The mournful singing of the sea.
A few days after the startling telegram reached Calderwood, the newspapers teemed with despatches and details of the victory at the Alma, the flight of the shattered Russian Army towards Baktchiserai, and the advance of the Allies on Sebastopol.
Among those details were the official lists of the killed, wounded, and missing, furnished by the adjutant-general. How many a home in the British Isles did these fatal lists fill with grief? how many a heart they wrung?
Cora Calderwood, pale, and still suffering from the recent shock, read over the lists; but looked in vain for the name of her cousin Newton. It was not among the killed; neither was it among the wounded or the missing. There was no casualty among the officers of the lancers, save the death of Lieutenant Rakeleigh, who was killed by a cannon shot in the affair of Bulganak, on the evening preceding the great battle of the Alma, "and whose body Captain Newton Calderwood Norcliff, with a few lancers, made a gallant attempt to rescue and carry off."
Poor Rakeleigh! She remembered how well he waltzed, and what desperate love he made to her at the lancers' ball, when flushed by a furious galop and a bumper of the mess champagne. What mystery was this? Dared she hope? Might papa prove right, after all? And might Newton "turn up" as their old friend Dunnikeir had so often done, from under a pile of dead men and horses, in the old Peninsular days? Sir Nigel instantly wrote to the War Office requesting some information regarding Captain Newton C. Norcliff, and was promptly informed that the telegram should have been, "The name of your nephew is NOT among the killed."
So the omission of those three letters--one little word--made a mighty difference to poor Cora's anxious and affectionate heart; but the letter from the War Office added, after an apology, "We regret to state that, a day or two after the passage of the Alma, Captain Norcliff was severely wounded, mutilated, and taken prisoner in a skirmish with the enemy's cavalry--an affair of which no detail has yet reached headquarters."
Mutilated and taken!--taken by those odious, savage, and terrible Muscovites, of whose barbarities the newspapers were daily giving fresh details! Here was a new horror--another source of anxiety and grief; and Cora and Sir Nigel were never tired of surmising or conjecturing what might be the fate of their kinsman, or of searching the public journals, and the letters from the army with which their columns teemed, for some scrap of information regarding the lost one; but they searched in vain. Time passed on; the Russians sank their fleet across the mouth of the harbour of Sebastopol; Balaclava was captured by the British; and the second week of October saw the first bombardment of the beleagured city. These were important facts; but one was more important still to Cora Calderwood--there came no tidings of her lost cousin Newton. Had he died in the hands of the Russians, or been sent to dig copper in the mines of Siberia?--a place of which she had rather vague ideas, and of which, with its capital, Tobolsk, she had read such thrilling accounts, when at school, in Madame Cottin's celebrated "Elizabeth, or the Exiles," &c. Her heart sank within her at this conjecture, and all that such a fate suggested. She penned several letters on the subject to Lady Louisa Loftus. Now, they could mingle their tears, she wrote; now they could commune and sorrow in common; now----. But she could not tell her that she loved Newton, too, and could only profess a sisterly affection for Louisa.
The responses of the latter were cold--singularly so. She was greatly shocked, no doubt; it made her quite nervous, and all that sort of thing, to think that Captain Norcliff should be mutilated. Had he lost his nose (it was a very handsome one)?--or his ears?--or what had the Russians cut off? If it was a leg, Lord Slubber jocularly suggested that it would mar his fox-hunting and round-dancing for the future; and to think of a husband with a wooden leg, or an iron hook for an arm, like the poor old creatures one sees at Chelsea, would be so funny--so very absurd!
"Oh," exclaimed Cora, "to write thus, how heartless! To write thus, when now, of all men in the world, he most requires commiseration! How horrible! How worldly and selfish she is! She never loved him--never, never loved him--as--as--I do," she dared not add, even to herself.
Then the letter described the new lining of the carriage; the last thing in bonnets, and--but here Cora crushed it up in her quick, impatient little hand, and, with a gesture of impatience, flung it in the fire. November kept on, and the woods in the old sequestered Glen became leafless and bare.
The snow powdered white the bare scalps of the hills, and old Willie Pitblado, the keeper, predicted that the coming winter would be a bitter one, for numbers of strange aquatic birds had been floating on Lochleven and in the Forth above Inchcolm; and one morning the woods round the Adder's Craig, and all the slopes of the Western Lomond, were covered by flocks of wild Norwegian pigeons--large white birds, whose appearance in Scotland always indicates a severe winter in the Scandinavian peninsula--a winter in which all the north of Europe is sure to share; so Cora trembled, in her tenderness of heart, as she thought of our poor soldiers before Sebastopol, and her secret love, Newton, who, if surviving, was a suffering prisoner in the hands of the Russians.
Cora often visited the cottage of old Willie, in the copse near King Jamie's Well (though the rows of half-decayed hawks, wild cats, and weasels, with which its eaves were garlanded, made the atmosphere thereabout redolent of anything but perfume), for Willie's heart, like her own, was with the army of the East; and he "devoured" all the newspapers she gave him for intelligence of the war. But he used to shake his white head, and speak often of the old times of Wellington and his boyhood--of the many fine lads who had gone forth to Spain and Holland--"forth frae the Howe o' Fife, to return nae mair," and he greatly feared such would be the fate of his Willie, now that the poor young master was gone.
The veteran keeper's spirits had sunk considerably. He was rheumatic and ailing now; but he still crept about the woods and preserves with his old double-barrelled Joe Manton and his favourite dogs, and said hopefully, at times, "Aye ailing, ye ken, never fills the kirk-yard, Miss Cora."
But Cora's visits to the gamekeeper's lodge, to the Adder's Craig, the ruined castle of Piteadie, and other old familiar haunts, became circumscribed, when she had the annoyance of Mr. Brassy Wheedleton's company. For there were times when that legal sprout came on the circuit, or visited Sir Nigel on business "anent the bond," or begged leave to have a few blundering shots at the pheasants; and he seldom failed to combine these objects with a more ambitious one, by a pretty close attention upon Cora, and a marked attention, that to her was only productive of extreme annoyance.
Yule-tide had come and gone at Calderwood; again Cora's pretty hands had spiced the great wassail bowl, and all the household had partaken of its contents; but there were heavy hearts at the Glen, as in many a home circle elsewhere. For every icicle that hung from the eaves; every flake of snow that drifted past; every biting gust that swept through the bare woods, made old Sir Nigel and his people think of the horrors our poor fellows were enduring among the frozen trenches of Sebastopol. The golden pheasants and the brown partridges were alike forgotten, and old Pitblado wandered about, alone and forlorn, among them, "though sic a season for breedin' he couldna ca' to mind!"
The meets of the county pack took place at Largo, at Falfield, and elsewhere. The foxes, tan, grey, and brown, were thick as blackberries in Calderwood Glen--ay, thick as the black rabbits on the Isles of the Forth--but the "M.F.H." heeded them little. He had only ridden to the hounds once that season, and preferred in the cold evenings his seat by the ruddy dining-room fire, with his steaming tumbler of toddy on a gueridon table close at hand; and there he dozed in his cosy easy-chair, with his favourite dogs at his slippered feet; or he beat time dreamily to Cora, as she ran her fingers over the keys of the cottage piano, and sang some such old-fashioned song as the "Thistle and the Rose."
*CHAPTER XLII.*
Alas! what evils I discern in
Too great an aptitude for learning!
And fain would all the ills unravel
That aye ensue from foreign travel.
Far happier is the man who tarries
Quiet within his household lares.
Read and you'll find how virtue vanishes,
How foreign vice all goodness banishes,
And how abroad young heads grow dizzy,
Proved in the under-written Odyssey.
RELIQUES OF FATHER PROUT.
The letter from the Under Secretary of State for War, which announced my capture by the Russians, unfortunately proved more correct in its tenor than the telegram; but the mode in which I fell into their hands, through the foul treachery of Mr. De Warr Berkeley, shall be detailed by myself in the following chapter.
On the 23rd of September, early in the morning, we bade adieu to the Alma, and to all those sad mounds that now lay along its southern bank, marking where seven thousand seven hundred and eighty soldiers were taking their last long slumber.
The dying Marshal St. Arnaud--for he took the field literally in a dying state--wished us to advance on the day immediately after the battle, as his intention was to be at Sebastopol by the 23rd, at latest.
"If," said he, in one of his letters, "I land in the Crimea, and it pleases God to give me a smooth sea for a few hours, I shall be master of Sebastopol and of the whole Crimea; I will push on this war with an activity and energy that shall strike the Russians with terror!"
But the humane Lord Raglan declined to advance until the wounded of all countries were attended to; and to that high-spirited hero and Christian gentleman, Dr. Thompson, of the 44th--still remembered in his native Scottish village as "the surgeon of the Alma"--was committed the care of seven hundred and fifty Russian soldiers, who had lain in their blood on the field for sixty hours. Accompanied by one attendant, with only a flag of truce displayed upon a lance to protect him from the savage and vindictive Cossacks who were hovering about, that self-devoted man worked without ceasing in the care and cure of those miserable creatures, who were all lying side by side, collected in one place--the acre of wounded--a task which proved too great in the end for his energies, as he died of fatigue and cholera soon after the battle.
The day after we marched, Death, who had hovered beside the great French marshal, even while his baton directed the movements of his zouaves and riflemen, seized more firmly on his victim, and on the 29th St. Arnaud died of cholera--that fatal pest, which still hung upon our skirts.
Our wounded, after the Alma, were conveyed in great numbers in those kabitkas, some of which I had personally secured; and these, after delivering their suffering and dying loads to the boats' crews, had to bring back supplies to the camp. Many of those open carts broke down, and were abandoned on the road with their contents; and thus, after we marched, it was no uncommon event for us to find seven or eight soldiers, dead, or dying of wounds and cholera, above the bags of biscuit intended for the use of the troops.
The morning of the 23rd beheld us set forth hopefully on our march to Sebastopol, where we hoped to crown our efforts by its speedy capture and destruction.
No enemy was visible to oppose our advance, and save here and there a broken-down kabitka, a dead Russian, who had fallen in his flight, and lay by the wayside in his leather helmet and long coat, with the vultures hovering over him; save these, and a deserted cannon, and the deep wheel-tracks in the rough old Tartar road, no trace remained of the great host we had swept before us in disorder and dismay.
In the afternoon of that day, we reached the beautiful valley of the Katcha (seventeen miles from Sebastopol), a river which has its source among the mountains of Taurida, and flows into the Black Sea, a little below Mamachai.
The valley is fertile, and we had all the enjoyment of abundant provender and water. We occupied the pretty little village of Eskel, which Baur and Kiriakoff's retreating Cossacks had plundered and partially destroyed, and piles of broken furniture around the tastefully-decorated villas of the more opulent residents evinced their destructive spirit.
Studhome, Travers, Sir Harry Scarlett, and I possessed ourselves of a pretty little villa, with painted lattices of coloured glass, and rooms neatly--even handsomely--furnished. A piano, and some pieces of music from Rossini's "Guillaume Tell," Strauss's waltzes, &c., were scattered about, showing that the fair occupants had fled at our approach; but nearly all the furniture and every utensil had been destroyed.
With his carbine, Pitblado had shot a brace of fine fat ducks, just in time to anticipate those most active of foragers, the Zouaves, and they were stewed in a warming-pan, which he had luckily discovered, and utilized for culinary purposes, the fuel used being the front door of the villa, the wood that came most readily to hand.
We had a comfortable supper, and Travers and Scarlett, who were wont to be fastidious enough with the mess-waiters about the icing of their sparkling hock or Moselle, were now content to wash down their stewed duck with a draught of water from a stale wooden canteen. But then we had gorgeous bunches of emerald green and dewy purple grapes, from the vineyards close by, and melons and peaches, too; and these we ate in defiance of prudence and the cholera.
We had just lit our cigars, and my cornet, Sir Harry, was trying his hand on the piano, through which some inquiring Cossack had poked his lance two or three times, when the trumpet-major arrived with letters for us all; the mails from England had just come in and been distributed. Many a letter was there for those whom we had left in their graves behind us!
A letter from Sir Nigel! I recognised his bold, old-fashioned handwriting. There was none from Cora (but she had scarcely ever written to me), and there was none yet from Louisa Loftus!
Alas! I had ceased to hope for one from her. Yet I paused with good Sir Nigel's letter unopened in my hand, while my friends were busy with theirs.
How was it that, as doubt, jealousy, and irritation gathered in my mind concerning Louisa, I thought more of Cora, and that her soft features, her sweet, earnest expression, her nose, that bordered on the retrousse, her thick dark hair, and brilliantly fair complexion, came before me?
I opened my uncle's letter. It contained little else than country gossip, and his usual ideas on things in general; but some of these seemed odd and startling to me then, as I read them in that Russian villa, far away in Crim Tartary, with the hum of our camp mingling in my ears with the rush of the mountain Katcha, as it poured through its stony vale towards the sea.
The letter had been posted before news had reached Calderwood of our departure from Varna.
"So the army is to remain inactive till half its number die of cholera; and then the rest are to open a campaign against Russia at the beginning of winter. History has no parallel for such--shall I call it madness? But I tell you," continued the furious old Tory, "that the Whigs--a party which never yet made war with honour--have sold you to the Russians, and Punch alone dares boldly to expose it." (Pleasant, thought I, to read this within a short ride of Sebastopol!) "Every Scottish statesman had, and still has, his price. In the olden time they were always ready to sell Scotland to England, and why should one of the same brood hesitate in selling both to the Russians now?
"My friend, Spittal of Lickspittal, the M.P., of course ridicules this idea; but that is no proof of our suspicions being incorrect. He and the Lord Advocate--that especial ministerial utensil for Scotland--have put their small brains in steep to prepare some bill for the assimilation of our laws; but strive though they may, they can never assimilate them. And while Englishmen may bow with respect to the decision of Mr. Justice Muggins, to our ears an interlocutor sounds better when delivered by my Lord Calderwood, Pitcaple, or so forth.
"By the way, Cora has had a dangler, a new admirer, for some time past; and who the deuce do you think he is? Young Mr. Brassy Wheedleton, son of old Wheedleton, the village lawyer here--one of those fellows who should be in front of Sebastopol just now, with sixty rounds of ammunition at his back, instead of loafing about the Parliament House with his hands in his pockets.
"He is a greater snob than your brother officer, Mr. De Warr Berkeley (whose patronymic was Dewar Barclay, and who once asked, when I was fishing six miles up the Eden, if I ''ad 'ooked many 'addocks'). Whenever little Brassy comes here anent that d----d bond, he lays close siege to Cora, with flowers, books, music, and pretty nothings; but she only laughs at this Edinburgh goose, who neither speaks English nor Irish, Scotch nor the unknown tongue; who pronounces lord 'lud,' and cat, what, or that as 'ket, whet, or thet,' and so forth. Believe me, Newton, there is no more grotesque piece of human carrion than a genuine Scotch snob, in a high state of Anglophobia.
"I am sorry to say it, but the honourable position of the Scottish bar is simply traditional--a thing of the past. To the English barrister, the House of Lords, the woolsack, and the highest offices of the state are open; but to his poor Scotch brother, since the Union, after blacking the boots of the Lord Advocate, and scribbling in defence of his party, whatever it may be, a wretched sheriffship is all he may get, unless, like Mansfield, Brougham, or Erskine, he casts his gown inside the bar, and crosses the border for ever.
"Any way, I don't like Cora's dangler; but the fellow is plausible, and will be deuced hard to get rid of, unless Pitblado could mistake him for a partridge, or Splinterbar bolt across country with him, after we have given her a feed of oats, dashed with brandy.
"I wish you could see Cora, as the good girl sits opposite me just now, reading. Her dark hair smoothly braided over her tiny ears; a muslin dress of pink and white, fastened by your old Rangoon brooch; and she blushes scarlet with pleasure as she desires me to send her love to you."
So ended this eccentric letter.
I felt irritated. But why should I? Cora might have a lover if she chose. But then to throw herself away upon old Wheedleton's son--old Wheedleton, whose father was the village tailor!
Something like an oath escaped me; but at that moment Sergeant-Major Drillem made his appearance, to announce that my squadron, with that of Captain Travers, was detailed for the advanced guard of cavalry on the Belbeck road, and that the trumpets would sound "boot and saddle" an hour before dawn to-morrow.
In the dusk we got under arms, mounted, and, with the troops riding in sections of threes, I rode from Eskel at a slow pace, crossed the Katcha--a position stronger, in some respects, than the Alma, and which the Russians might have disputed by inches, had we not cowed them; and then we took the road towards Belbeck, while the whole army was getting under arms.
My orders were simply to be on the alert, to advance in line when the ground was sufficiently open for such a formation, and to "feel the way" towards Belbeck, which lay only four miles distant. Such were the instructions given to me by Colonel Beverley, whose eyes sparkled at the coming work, for he was one of that race of men "known by the kindling grey eye and the light, stubborn, crisping hair--disclosing the rapture of instant fight."
As we moved off we nearly trampled down a wounded cornet of the 11th Hussars, who lay under a tree.
"That wretched little cornet of yours," said Berkeley to a captain of the 11th; "he reminds me--haw--of one of the new Minie rifles."
"How?" asked the other, coldly.
"He is a small bore--haw--what do you think of the pun?"
"That it is poor, and the occasion is bad," replied the hussar, sternly. "The poor boy will be dead before sunset."
"A doocid good thing for himself, and--haw--for us, too. He always beats us at billiards," was the heartless response of Berkeley.
"Is it true," said I, "that Lieutenant Maxe, of the navy, has opened a communication with our fleet at Balaclava?"
"Yes," said Travers. "Bolton and Nolan informed me that the allied generals were most anxious to secure it by a flank movement, especially as it is slightly defended; and to announce this intention to the fleets, which follow our movements, became the task of Maxe, who rode by night through a woody district, literally swarming with Cossacks, skirting Sebastopol; and with no aid but his brave heart, his sword and pistols, arranged the combined sea and land movements so essential to our success."
"Gallant, indeed!" we exclaimed, as we rode off.
On our right lay the ocean, its waves, as they rose and fell, beginning to be tipped with light, as the dawn brightened over the high ground that rose on our left. The country became hilly in our front, and, as it was open for a time, I formed the squadron, and advanced in line, diverging a little to the east, in the direction of Duvankoi, a village which is exactly five miles from Belbeck.
In fact, we advanced straight between these two places towards the valley through which rolls the river that bears the latter name, and which comes from the lofty table land of the Yaila, fed on its course by all the mountain streams of the Ousenbakh.
The birds were singing merrily among the trees when the sun burst forth, to light the glancing bayonets of the advancing columns in our rear; and now before us opened the vale of the Belbeck, with all its groves of vine and olive, as we crowned an eminence, from whence we could see the woody ravines of Khutor-Mackenzie, and, ten miles to the westward, the gilded dome of Sebastopol shining like a huge inverted bowl. From this point the road lay through woods so thick, that we found it impossible to preserve much military order, and the utmost vigilance was necessary on the part of our exploring squadron, as scattered troops of the enemy were supposed to be in our vicinity.
Lord Raglan, with his staff, usually rode in advance of our main body; but on this morning my little party was in advance of the whole. As we defiled between the trees, that covered all the slope, by sections, by subdivisions, and frequently by single files, struggling along at a slow pace, but with our horses well in hand, I had repeatedly to address Berkeley in a tone of reprimand, for the loose and unnecessary manner in which he was permitting the men to straggle, and his mode of response was rather sullen, defiant, and, on one occasion, jeering.
"Aw--the dooce! very easy for you to speak. I didn't make the road to Belbeck," he would mutter. And once he added, "A demmed fool I not to send in my papers long ago--aw--aw--doocid deal too good-looking to be shot in a ditch."
Suddenly I called out--
"Front form troops at wheeling distance, and halt!" for now I perceived that Sir Harry Scarlett, who was in advance with four lancers, halted them, and sent back a corporal, who came along at a hand-gallop.
"Hullo, Travers, old fellow, what's up, do you think--aw--aw--what's the row in front?" asked Berkeley, with haste and anxiety, as he stuck his glass in his eye, and fidgeted in his saddle.
"The Russians, no doubt," said Travers, drily, as his handsome face brightened with courage and excitement.
"Ah, I thought so," said I. "Are they in force, Corporal Jones?"
"We can't tell, sir; but lance-heads, and bayonets too, are visible among the coppice in front."
By this time the two troops had formed, and halted in open column, quietly and orderly, the leading three files of each having advanced for three horses' lengths, and then reined in as if upon parade.
"We can't well use the lance here. Unsling carbines! Remain where you are, Travers," said I. "Mr. Berkeley and two files from the right, forward with me--trot!"
I drew my sword, cast loose my holster flaps, and rode on with the little party, all of whom followed me willingly enough, save one.
On joining the advanced party, we made ten horsemen altogether. Proceeding farther, to where the ground dipped somewhat suddenly down towards the Belbeck river, we could see, about a mile distant, a body of Russian cavalry, whose spiked leather helmets and lance-heads glittered in the sun. They were drawn up in line, their flanks being covered by thickets, which concealed their actual strength, so that we knew not whether they were a mere squadron or an entire brigade.
Berkeley, who was nervously busy with his powerful racing-glass, muttered--
"I see an officer on a white horse. By Jove! a doocid swell--aw, aw--all over decorations."
After using my own telescope, I exclaimed--
"He is the same fellow we released in the evening after the Alma, when Bolton came up with orders for the cavalry to fall back and abandon prisoners. I know him by his grim visage and enormous white moustache."
"Aw--aw--a general officer, I take him to be."
"Now, lads," said I, "be steady. I think I saw the glitter of a bayonet among that brushwood in front. There may be an ambush prepared thereabout, and into that we must not fall."
I could not help thinking how useful a few hand-grenades would have been on this occasion, as they would soon have solved our doubts.
To have fallen back would have served only to draw their fire upon us instantly, if any men were concealed there.
"Follow me, lads!" I exclaimed. "Mr. Berkeley, keep the rear rank men in their places."
"Captain Norcliff, asthore!" cried Lanty O'Regan, shaking his lance, "lead the way, and, be me troth, we'll ride through the whole rookawn o' them Roosians!"
Followed by my nine horsemen, I rode resolutely forward a few lance-lengths, my heart beating wildly with excitement; but a climax was soon put to that, for a hoarse voice in a strange language suddenly rang among the underwood; fire flashed redly on both sides of us; I heard the whistle of passing bullets, and amid the explosion of thirty Minie rifles a double cry, as Berkeley and one of my men fell heavily on the turf. The horse of the former was shot; but the poor lancer was mortally wounded, and his charger galloped madly away.
"Good-bye, old nag. You will never carry Bill Jones again, I fear," cried the bleeding corporal, as he was hurrying to the rear with his lance on his shoulder, when a second shot pierced his back, and finished his career.
"Retire, Travers, retire!" I shouted at the fullest pitch of my voice; "right about, lads, and away!"
The firing from the thicket was resumed, and another lancer fell dead from his saddle.
"Aw--aw--for Heaven's sake, don't leave me here!" cried Berkeley, piteously, while we heard the steel ramrods ringing, as the Russians cast about and reloaded.
While the rest of my party retired at a gallop, I caught the fallen lancer's horse by the bridle, and--in less time than I take to write it--dragged up the pale and crestfallen Berkeley, who scrambled rather than mounted into the blood-covered saddle, and we galloped off together, another shot or two adding spurs to our speed, and strewing the leaves about us. So close were we to this ambush that I heard many of the percussion caps snapping, as the Russian muskets doubtless remained foul since the Alma.
Berkeley's fresh horse carried him half its length before mine; he was riding with wild despair in his heart; and bitter malice glittering in his eye, for he felt that I had been heaping coals of fire upon his head. I could read the double emotion in his pale face, as he glanced fearfully back.
He had drawn a pistol from its holster, and, inspired by the spirit of the devil, the unnatural wretch discharged it full into my horse's head!
Wildly it plunged into the air, and then fell forward on its head, and, as its forelegs bent, I toppled heavily over, and fell beneath it.
The whole affair passed in a moment, and the next saw me surrounded by fierce and exulting Russian riflemen, with muskets clubbed and bayonets charged.
*CHAPTER XLIII.*
ALBANY. O save him! save him!
GONERIL. This is mere practice, Gloster:
By the law of arms, thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquished,
But cozened and beguiled. SHAKSPEARE.
The prayer of Hezekiah for the prolongation of life flashed on my memory, and rose to my lips, as with rage, and almost with despair at my heart, I struggled to my feet, half-stunned, and groping blindly for my sword-hilt, which hung from my wrist by its gold knot and tassel.
Just as I grasped it firmly, the nearest rifleman charged me with his fixed bayonet, which ran through the left side of my full-dress jacket, and came off. Clutching his weapon by the barrel, I closed in, and plunged my sword twice into his breast. As he fell back, groaning heavily, the bayonet of another struck me; but luckily, those fellows, who belonged to the Kazan column, had blunted their weapons by broiling beef on them over their wood fires.
A third rifleman fired full at my head; but, by a singular chance, the nipple of his rifle was blown out by the explosion, and buried itself in his forehead, just above the nose, severing the optic nerve, and nearly forcing his eyes out. (In two hours after he died, raving mad.)
This incident created, for a moment or two, a diversion in my favour; but a Cossack officer, armed with a great crooked sabre, assailed me. Like one of Caesar's Legionaries of old, this fellow seemed bent on cutting only at my face; and having some regard for my personal appearance, I was not sorry when he fell backwards over my dead horse, and in doing so, snapped his blade off near the hilt.
Could I have reached my holsters, in which were a pair of six-chambered Colts, I might have escaped; but now I was hemmed in on all hands by a band of fierce, ugly, beetle-browed, and snub-nosed Russians, in flat caps and long great-coats.
In an instant my gold epaulettes, my rings--Louisa's miniature and her ring, the treasured pearl in blue enamel--my purse and watch, were rent from me as if I had been in the hands of common footpads; and one of those who assisted in such work was the Cossack officer, whose name I afterwards ascertained to be Lieutenant Adrian Trebitski of the Tchernimoski corps.
In fact, he made himself very busy about the knees of my trousers in search of my portmonnaie (as the Russians usually carry their purses strapped to the knee), while his Corporal found it in my pocket; and each acquisition was greeted by a torrent of uncouth sounds, expressive, I presume, of great satisfaction.
My sabretache was torn away. It contained only my uncle's letter, which I afterwards learned, was duly translated into choice French for any secrets it might contain, and for the information of Princes Menschikoff and Gortschikoff, who, I hope, were much edified by Sir Nigel's description of Mr. Brassy Wheedleton, and of Scotch prigs in general.
Having stripped me of every article of value, and ripped all the gold lace from my lancer jacket and blue pantaloons, I have no doubt those savage wretches would soon have despatched me; but a wounded officer rode up--the same personage with the many decorations and long grim moustache. He ordered them to desist, striking those who were near him with a whip that was attached to his bridle. He then placed me in charge of his aide-de-camp, Captain Anitchoff, a fashionable-looking young Muscovite, who wore the light blue and yellow-laced uniform of a hussar corps (the Princess Maria Paulowna's), and who has since that time published a work on the Crimean campaign. He courteously informed me, in French, that he was on the general staff of the Russian army, and that the name of my preserver was Lieutenant-General Karlovitch Baur.
He also desired me to remain close by his side, while we proceeded quickly to the rear. By this time, every trace of Travers and my squadron had disappeared.
And so I was actually a prisoner!
I was, perhaps, the sole trophy of the Russian army, so they were disposed to make the most of me. I had a special escort of a corporal and two well-bearded and ill-washed Cossacks, who rode one on each side of me, and one in the rear, each trussed up among his forage plunder and fleas--their shaggy little horses being so laden that little more than their noses and tails were visible. If I lagged, the corporal used to grin and shake his lance ominously; and when not occupied in scratching themselves, they were very merry and not unpleasant, though totally incomprehensible companions.
I knew not in what direction they were conveying me, and our mutual ignorance of each other's language prevented me from discovering. I could but trust to chance and patience.
Meanwhile, my friends were, I am pleased to say, under no small concern on my account elsewhere.
The army halted at Belbeck, where five hundred sick--among whom were many of my lancer comrades--were left behind, all ill with cholera. Lord Raglan occupied the chateau of a fugitive Russian noble, and there Travers rode to report that he had seen the Russians in strength among the woods between Belbeck and Khutor-Mackenzie, where, as all the world knows, a sharp engagement took place with them soon after, and where they were driven back with the loss of baggage and ammunition for more than twenty-five thousand men. Among the former were a great quantity of watches, jewellery, and gay hussar jackets, in which the artillery and Highlanders masqueraded for a time.
