BY THE MORAVA.
Sunset, red and glowing, in a lovely land where a long spur of the
Balkan mountains overlooks the current of the Morava, and where fair
fields of rice and maize, hemp and tobacco, cover the upland slopes,
for it is early in September, and the days are of great heat still.
The golden shafts or rays of the setting sun shot upward from the
flank of the mountain range, and shed their ruddy gleam upon the
shining river. Slowly sank the glorious sun, as if reluctant to quit
the strange and terrible scenes it was leaving: on one side the camp
and bivouac of an army, with its fires for cooking and scaring wild
animals, its piles of baggage and arms, groups of soldiers in
thousands; on the other, the awful _débris_ of a newly-fought field,
covered with killed and wounded men and horses, broken caissons and
gun-carriages, drums and standards, pools of blood in which the flies
were battening; and paler then grew the upturned faces of the dead,
as the last segment of the sun disappeared, and the brightness it
left behind began to deepen from gold and red to sombre violet in the
plain, though light yet lingered on the mountain summits.
In the tents and around the fires, men spoke little of the artillery
duel that had preluded the conflict, of whether the Servians had
broken the armistice, or the Turks had done so by opening with their
guns, and little even of the victory; for the soldiers fresh from it
and flushed with triumph and carnage, Servians and Russians alike,
spoke only of the gallant but nameless British volunteer who had
saved the life of the general, the terrible old Tchernaieff, and that
of his chief aide-de-camp, the gallant Count Michail Palenka, and who
had been made a sub-lieutenant on the field, and decorated after it
with the gold cross of the order called the Takovo of Servia, and
welcomed back with shouts of,
'Dobro--dobro! Ghivo--ghivo! (Well done--long life); hourah!'
In one of the terrible charges of cavalry, led by himself,
Tchernaieff had his horse killed under him by a cannon shot, but this
volunteer had remounted him on his own, and also dragged Count
Palenka out of the terrible _mêlée_.
The Turkish horse were led, not by a Pasha or other officer, but by a
frantic dervish, wielding on high a long staff, furnished at the end
with a shining brass knob, and shouting:
'Allah is here! Allah and the angels who fought at Bedr!'
The Servian Hussars and Lancers, with the Russian Dragoons, advanced
to join issue in the charge for a third time, not sorry to exchange
close quarters for a desultory carbine-fire. Both sides came
thundering on, the Lancers with their spears in the rest, the
Dragoons with swords pointed to the front, and all with their horses
well in hand, till within a few yards, when they let them go at
racing speed, and dashed with terrible force and fury among the
Turkish squadron.
Anon the Lancers, finding their weapons useless at such close
quarters, slung them, and smote heavily on every side with their keen
bright swords. Long and hard was the fight, and for a time the
mingling masses were too closely wedged in some places to use even
their swords, and grappled with each other, while the entangled
chargers, enraged and frightened, reared, plunged, struck out and
brained or trampled into gore the dead and wounded.
Here it was the volunteer saved the general and his faithful
aide-de-camp, covering them as they struggled back, faint and
breathless, out of the _débris_; thrusting with his lance till it
snapped in two, and then hacking his way out with the sword; and it
was only after it was all over, and he came afoot out of the field,
dazed in aspect, with teeth set, eyes dilated and glaring with the
fierce fever of battle, and clutching a sword, the blade and hilt of
which were literally covered with blood, that he fairly knew what he
had done, and the burst seams of his uniform showed all how well he
had plied his weapon that day.
Thirstily and gratefully he took a draught from a tin canteen of
Negotin wine, which a passing sutler gave him.
Cecil Falconer, for the volunteer was he, though in that
blood-stained foreign uniform few would have recognised the once
fashionable Cameronian officer, was sorely changed in aspect. He was
browner visaged, bearded to the eyes, yet his face was worn and
lined, and his eyes seemed sunk and keen, with the wolfish expression
worn by those of men who are daily facing peril and death.
As a volunteer, he wore the uniform of a private--a brown tunic faced
with scarlet, crimson pantaloons, now covered with blood and mud, and
a grey cloth cap, not unlike the Scottish glengarry. Fighting in a
cause for which--and in that of a prince for whom--he cared nothing;
fighting in battle as a weaker spirit might have betaken itself to
alcohol to drown the past and give oblivion to the present, poor
Cecil had found his way to Servia, and had that day done wonders,
setting little store on the lives of those he fought against--the
barbarous and brutal Turks--and certainly none whatever on his own
life.
Refused a commission in the service by the Servian minister of
war--for, by the influence of long conquest, there is much of the
Ottoman in the character of the Servian people, who are fatalists,
and as distrustful of all strangers as a John Bull of the last
century--he had joined 'Tchernaieff's Own' as a volunteer trooper,
and on that day by the Morava had won his commission, and the cross
of the Takovo; but what a mockery they were to him, and how little he
cared about them!
Since joining in the humble and apparently hopeless capacity he had
taken, he had undergone all the perils and miseries of the Servian
campaign; had been compelled to consort, at times, with fierce and
lawless comrades, who were most repugnant to his refined nature; he
had been generous to all with his money, when he had any, which was
not often now; he had nursed the wounded, buried the dead, and won
golden opinions from all; he had groomed his own horse and the horses
of others; had to hew wood, to cook coarse rations, when there were
any to cook; slept on the bare earth in the rain and the storm, or
sharing a _tente-d'abri_ when one could be got, and sharing it with a
comrade--some unsavoury and unwashed Servian trooper, whose vicinity
was, in itself, a horror.
As most people know, but a very short time ago the Christians in
Bosnia and elsewhere took arms against their oppressors, the Turks,
who were unable to suppress the insurrection, and soon after the
disturbance was intensified by a declaration of war against the Porte
by Prince Milano Obrenovitch of Servia, who, by his army, was
proclaimed King of Bosnia, and whose father, the alleged slayer of
the famous Cerni Georges, began life as a cattle-driver, and first
distinguished himself in battle so far back as 1807. Born in 1854,
Prince Milano succeeded Michail III. (who was assassinated); and as
the new war spread into Bulgaria, as we all know, it took the form of
atrocities unparalleled in modern Europe, unless we except the
Cromwellians at Wexford and the Williamites at Glencoe. The villages
of the Christians were plundered and given to the flames; their male
inhabitants slain without mercy, under nameless tortures; women and
girls carried off to slavery. The dead lay heaped in the churches to
which they had fled for shelter, and dogs and hungry kites tore their
flesh as they lay unburied by the wayside.
And now it was within forty British miles of that Bulgaria, where so
much wild work was being done, that on the evening of the 28th of
September, after Tchernaieff had crossed to the left bank of the
Morava below Boboviste, and fought one of the greatest battles in the
Servian war--a battle in which Prince Milan lost 3000 men, killed and
wounded, while the Russians lost in proportion, and had sixty dead
officers on the field--a battle in which the explosion of seven
Turkish powder-caissons added to the horror and slaughter--that Cecil
Falconer found himself warmly complimented, and again and again
shaken by the hand, by old Tchernaieff, as the saviour of himself and
his favourite aide-de-camp, Palenka.
'We shall never forget your services and your bravery this day!' said
the latter--a pleasing and handsome man--in French.
'And your promotion, monsieur,' added the general, in the same
language, 'will be my future care, either with the young King of
Servia, or with our Father the Emperor, if you choose to take service
in Russia, as so many, of your countrymen, like Bruce, Wilson, Greig,
and Ochterlony, have done, attaining fame and fortune.'
The offer was not an inviting one, but Cecil thanked the general for
his gracious notice of his service, and for the rank and cross
conferred upon him; and the former then rode off to his
head-quarters, accompanied by Count Palenka.
He was a short, thick-set man, reserved and haughty in manner and
bearing, and covered with Russian orders and medals, won in no petty
wars. His eyes were small, the lids heavy; his nose was large; his
complexion a ruddy bistre colour, and his hair and thick moustache
were somewhat of a mouse-skin hue. Whether it was the occasion or
not, we cannot say, but his face, figure, and voice dwelt long in
Cecil's memory. And now, to obtain some of that food and other
refreshment of which he stood so much in need after a day of such
terrible work, he joined a group of officers of his own corps, who
were lounging on the grass near a fire, at which their servants were
preparing a meal for them, and all made Cecil--the hero of the
hour--most welcome, proffering him their flasks and cigar-cases.
Singular indeed was the group, and striking too, on which fell the
fitful flashes of the adjacent watch-fire, for night had fallen, and
the firmament overhead was full of brilliant stars.
German, French, Italian, Serb, and English could be heard, amid the
group, chattered in turn, and sometimes all at once. Rich and
picturesque in contour and colour were some of the uniforms, and they
were worn by men of several nations who had come to serve the
newly-proclaimed King of Servia and Bosnia. In the uniform of his
infantry there was a Nassauer, who had won his laurels and his iron
cross at the gates of Paris, in the war of 1871; Guebhard, a captain
of Lancers, a man closely shaven save his moustache, with a silent
manner, and most unpleasant expression of face; a dark and handsome
Bohemian baron, armed with a quaint family sword of fabulous
antiquity, now captain of a Bulgarian band, wearing a sheepskin cap,
a richly broidered blue jacket, and loose trousers that had once been
white, with pistols and yataghan in his girdle. There were a couple
of Russian Lancers in red, and a Hussar in a sky-blue jacket, laced
with yellow, who wore Crimean medals and had been lads, no doubt,
when our troops went up the heights of the Alma, and were too
politic, or too well-bred, to show the real hatred they secretly bore
to all Britons; and in the Servian uniform, as captains, with three
silver stars on their scarlet-faced brown tunics, were two
ex-officers of our own Foot Guards, whom we shall call Stanley and
Pelham, who--in search of a new sensation--had come out to see life
(and death too) in Servia; there was an English ambulance doctor in
the truly awful chimney-pot hat of civilisation; and though last, not
least, the ubiquitous correspondent of a London paper, in a kind of
uniform--a frogged coat and forage-cap--with a revolver at his belt,
and a case of writing materials slung over his shoulder, as jolly and
as much at home with everyone as if he had first seen the world and
been weaned in a Servian bivouac, and ready to join with hearty
goodwill a few who struck up 'La Belle Serbe,' the national chant of
the country, to an air of great antiquity.
A light or two in the distance indicated the locality of the rather
meanly-built village of Boboviste; and ever and anon cries and
shrieks on the night-wind indicated that of the battle-field, where
the ambulance-parties, doctors and nurses, were at work among the
wounded and dying--Christians and Moslems alike.
The ex-guardsmen were chatting gaily together, and it seemed like a
leaf out of the book of his old life to Cecil as he listened to them.
'A regular wanderer's club this, by Jove!' said one, laughing; 'made
up of all sorts. I little thought to find you here, Stanley.'
'As little did I expect to find you.'
'Well, I suppose, with us both, it has come of backing the wrong
horse too often--the little villa and brougham at St. John's
Wood--the brougham with its three-hundred-guinea horses, and all the
rest of it.'
'Not with me,' said Stanley; 'I found myself riding sixteen stone,
and wished to bring down the flesh somehow. Besides, I was never
much of a home-bird.'
'No,' assented the other, expelling his cigar-smoke in long
concentric circles; 'but there is a novelty in all this new work
here, with a vengeance. Only think, Stanley, in London, a few hours
hence, would find us at the opera, at a crush in Belgravia, or
consecrating the time to billiards, to the joys of Bacchus, and the
chaste salutes of Venus, by Jove!'
'A devil of a business that last Turkish charge was,' said Pelham;
adding, in a low voice, 'I shouldn't have cared if that fellow
Guebhard had been knocked on the head--well, unhorsed at least,
to-day; he is a cantankerous brute--bad form, very.'
Cecil looked at the officer of Lancers indicated, but knew not then
that a time was coming when he would heartily share Pelham's wish.
'This is not your _baptême de feu_, I believe, even in Servia?' said
the latter to him, suddenly.
'No--I have received that baptism before,' replied Cecil.
'Where?'
'In India.'
'Indeed! What regiment?'
Cecil remembered the mode of his leaving the beloved corps; he felt
his cheek flush hotly, and, affecting not to hear the question,
turned to the war-correspondent of the London daily, who was making
notes for ulterior press purposes, and took from Cecil's own lips his
modest detail of the charge in which he saved the lives of General
Tchernaieff and Count Palenka:--all of which episode would doubtless
appear in the illustrated papers from sketches 'made on the spot, by
our own artist,' whose immediate whereabouts was Fleet Street.
'How those Montenegrins fought to-day!' exclaimed Pelham, after a
pause; 'armed with their sharp yataghans they came on like a living
flood, after delivering their musketry-fire, and then flinging away
their firearms, fell on with their blades in the smoke, precisely as
the Scottish Highlanders used to do of old.'
'We'll have to write home about all these things.'
Cecil smoked in silence, and thought what home had he, or to whom
could he write save to one who dared not receive his letter!
Amid this easy kind of talk, ever and anon the cries of
pain--long-drawn moans, ending in a half-scream--came on the breeze
from the adjacent battle-field.
'We shall hear the howling of the evil _vilas_ to-night,' said
Guebhard, with a grim smile, as he took the meerschaum from his
moustached mouth.
'Who are they?' asked Cecil, whose knowledge of Italian and German
stood him in good stead amid the polyglot kind of conversation that
went on around him.
'Don't you know?' said Guebhard, a little superciliously; 'but it is
a Servian idea--superstition if you will--that spirits so named come
at midnight to exult over the slain; these are the hideous and
fiendish _vilas_, for there are others that are handsome and good.'
Coffee and cigarettes discussed, and a bottle or two of vina drunk to
wash down mutton-chops fried in a flat earthen pot with a wooden
handle, stuck into the hottest part of the bivouac fire, Cecil
repaired to the place where his troop had picketed their horses, and
looked after his own, which Tchernaieff had sent back to the bivouac.
It was unbitted and munching some chopped forage; he relaxed the
girths, and, rolled in his great coarse trooper's cloak, lay down on
the bare earth beside it, though rain was beginning to fall. He was
sore in every limb, and weary with the events of the day. He was
without a wound, but many a buffet, blow, and strain, got he knew not
how, began to make his bones ache now, as he thought over the
stirring events of the day, and gave himself up--as he too often
did--to sad and harrowing reflections.
Mary and the Cameronians--the regiment and Mary! was it the past life
or the present one that was a dream? So far away did the old life
seem now, that though some of the events we have related happened but
a few months since, years seemed to have elapsed since Mary's last
love-kiss lingered on his lips on that twilight evening in Edinburgh,
and when he listened for the last time to the sound of her voice--the
voice that had been for a time, and was still, the music of his life.
Oblivious of the pouring rain and sodden bivouac, he lay there
thinking not of the past battle, or the present glory now; he was
remembering the regimental ball--the lights, the music, the swift
tender expression of Mary's eyes as she swept through the dance with
him--their first and last dance, the returned pressure of her soft
hand, the touch of her hair on his cheek; all the exultation of the
time, and more than all, her secret visit to him in the old grey
fortress of the city!
Could she but see him now!
His hopes--if he had any--his plans and desires, the scenes around
him, his companions and his circumstances, were all changed now, as
thoroughly as if he had been born in a new, or other age. The world
rushes past so fast now (for steam destroys time and distance), that
his troubles were beginning to seem old; or as if the whole of his
former life had passed away, and that if he was to cut out fortune,
fame, and at least food, in the new one, the old life could not be
forgotten too soon.
But Mary Montgomerie was the central figure in that former world
still.
'How completely the romance has died out of my life!' he thought;
'and our love, it seems so like a dream to me now--but a sweet and
beautiful one; a dream that can come no more, yet I am glad that I
have had it. I would that I had a flower her hand has touched--a
glove or a ribbon she has worn! Could I but know, that on my dead
face such tears as hers might fall!' he added as he gave way to his
dismal thoughts, and sooth to say his other circumstances were dreary
enough.
The pouring rain had long since extinguished all the camp and bivouac
fires, and was adding to the miseries of the wounded and the dying.
He had covered his horse with a blanket, and made a pillow of his
holsters, and, with the flaps of his Servian forage cap tied over his
ears, lay there sleepless and heedless of whether he was kicked, or
trampled upon, by his charger's hoofs, or the hoofs of others, while
ever and anon the deep thunder grumbled over the spur of the Balkans,
and the red lightning flashes lit up vividly, for a moment, the
waters of the fast-flowing Morava, and a strange tower close by--a
tower of human skulls, erected to commemorate a victory over the
Servians by the Turks under Comourgi.