VARNA.
"And so you and Gwenny are engaged? By Jove! Don't wonder at it!
She is a most attractive girl; and there are worse-looking fellows in
the service than you, Horace. But I've not been lucky myself lately
in this game of love-making. And you should hear old Conyers
Singleton of ours tell the story of the girl he left behind him. It
is quite a warning," said Cyril, as they trotted towards the line of
advanced sentinels posted round the British camp.
"Going to Varna?" asked Captain Joyce, of the Fusileers, whose guard
tent was in that quarter.
"Yes. What is the parole?"
"'Bomarsund.' Countersign, 'Baltic.'"
"Thanks. That Zouave heard you?"
"Perhaps; but it can't matter much. He is a captain, I presume?"
Had Horace not been full of Gwenny's letter, and had he not found
ample occupation in repeating to himself certain pleasant passages
thereof, he must have been aware that there was a forced or spasmodic
gaiety in the manner of Cyril Wedderburn that was not real, for he
tugged at his moustache nervously, and viciously switched at the
flies which buzzed about his horse's ears.
Troops of every kind; Lancers, with gay bannerets; Hussars, with
their glittering dolmans; Carbineers, with brass helmets and slung
carbines; Artillery, in dark blue; and Infantry, in red, covered all
the plain. Our Household Brigade of Guards, in their bright scarlet
coats, with large white epaulettes and bearskins; the Highlanders,
who were in the same division, in their varied tartans, with their
sturdy bare legs and tall-plumed bonnets, exciting the wonder of the
starved-looking little Arabs of the Egyptian Contingent. There, too,
were the Rifles, in their sombre green uniform, which looks almost
black at a distance.
All the bustle of preparing food went forward at hundreds of
impromptu fires, by soldiers in their shirt-sleeves; and the sound of
chopping wood was heard on very hand, while the sun of the afternoon
blazed hot in their fires from the unclouded Bulgarian sky. Fatigue
parties went to and fro, laden with bundles of sticks for the cooks,
or corn or swathes of grass for the horses; and songs and merriment
came at times from the tents where the soldiers lay smoking on the
sward. But the camp had its darker pictures.
Here and there a ghastly and attenuated sick man might be seen
carried on a stretcher to the hospital tents; and, ere long, the same
stretcher would be borne in another direction, with some victim of
the Fever King, to be cast into the graves which honeycombed the low
range of hills that overlook the Vale of Aladyn, or it might be to
yonder "City of the Dead," in the plain, where the solemn rows of
giant cypresses stand like guardians round the tombs of "the
Faithful."
Beyond the British lay the French camp, with all its gaily-clad,
untidy, but somewhat purpose-looking little soldiery. The Infantry
of the Line, in long blue tunics, with scarlet epaulettes, and brass
eagles on their tiny shakos; the splendid Cavalry and Artillery of
the Imperial Guard; the Chasseurs à Pied; the Tirailleurs Algériens,
dressed like Arabs, but in light blue; and the active Zouaves, in
their (to us) well-known uniform, which excited great surprise and
speculation among the stolid Turks and the Bulgarians who swarmed
about the camps in great numbers, clad in jackets of undyed wool,
wide white trousers, girt with sashes of silk, caps of brown
sheepskin, and sandals of hide; and who failed to comprehend how
Christians should be going to battle wearing the turban of Mohammed;
for the poor Bulgarians loathe the Turks, whose slaves they are; and
as such, dare not carry a knife, while all the former, down to the
lowest _hamal_ (or porter) go armed to the teeth, with pistols,
sabre, and yataghan.
Amid all its splendour and order of military array, this camp, like
our own, had also its dark features; the sick and dead were hourly
borne through it; and there too were the intoxicated, courting
disease and death, as they lay by the waysides, in ditches or
kennels, stupefied with raki or peach-brandy, their faces blistering
in the sunshine, and covered by clouds of odious flies. Others,
despite all warnings, might be seen gorging themselves with scarlet
pumpkins, cucumbers, gages and plums which the acquisitive Greeks
offered for sale; and the Turks of Omar Pasha were nearly as
reckless, for they were always eating of the perilous green fruit,
when not engaged in smoking, praying, or covertly reviling "the
Christian dogs," who had to fight their battles.
As Wedderburn and Horace were passing a mass of Araba carts, all
drawn up wheel to wheel, there darted from under them a long snake of
dark green colour mottled with white, and having bright protuberant
eyes that flashed like carbuncles. As the reptile came forward,
writhing, wriggling, and almost dancing on its tail, Cyril's horse
reared back upon its haunches; but a Turkish Yazboshi, or captain of
cavalry, who was riding by, drew a long brass pistol from his belt,
and with singular adroitness shot it dead; and with a pleasant smile
and a low salaam rode on. Once or twice the reptile quivered all its
length in the dust, and then lay still.
"Ma foi, mes camarades, but that was well done!" said a voice, and
they found themselves joined by the same Captain of Zouaves whom they
had seen near Joyce's guard-tent. He was now mounted on a stout
little Tartar horse and seemed to have made a _détour_ round the
French lines, instead of coming _through_ them. The cousins scarcely
noted the circumstance then, but subsequent events made them remember
it. "Going into Varna, Messieurs?" he asked, reining in beside them.
"Yes," replied Cyril.
"A horrid place--dull as a vast catacomb; even the French can
scarcely make it lively. Any word yet of when the troops are like to
take the field, or for what point?"
"I have heard nothing yet, Monsieur," said Cyril, with some reserve,
as the manner of the questioner seemed abrupt and authoritative.
"Your cavalry force is dwindling fast," resumed the Zouave. "Why,
diable! all your regiments put together would barely make one
efficient Russian corps of four squadrons," he added, with a mocking
laugh.
"I don't understand this Captain of Zouaves," said Cyril, in a low
voice: "he spends his whole time in our camp, and seems to have
fallen in love with perfidious Albion. What can his object be?"
"Are you sure that he _is_ a Captain of Zouaves?" asked Horace.
"I have no reason to doubt it--but hush; he may understand English."
It might have been some peculiarity of his dress which made Horace
think what he said, for the Zouave had features that were more finely
cut than usually appertain to Frenchmen. His eyes were black,
glittering, and closely set together; his nose was somewhat hooked
and a fierce moustache stuck sharply out on each side of it; but his
hair, which was dark as a raven's wing, was shorn close to the scalp.
"Sang dieu!" he exclaimed, as if he had penetrated their thoughts and
doubts, "but I am tired of this work. Ugh! when we pound the green
beans here, between two friable stones, which add dust in plenty to
the condiment, I think of the fragrant coffee I used to get at home,
and the little pats of sweet butter on a honey-cake, or on a cool
green ivy-leaf--the breakfast of my schoolboy days, at home in
pleasant Gascony. I have been a soldier for twenty years; but I have
never forgotten those days."
"He is a Gascon--ah, that accounts for his peculiar accent," said
Horace.
"I am not much of a gourmand," resumed the Captain of Zouaves. "In
Africa, I have often dined on a slice from an old trooper--a horse I
mean; but still I have a predilection for _fricassées_, and
_fricandeaux et galettes_, which mean _collops Ecossais_, or thin
cakes (though the Scotch stole all their cooking from us, in the days
of the old alliance), and I doat on broiled chicken and cream-tarts,
such as I used to get from my old mother in Gascony, before I betook
me to the rough-and-ready trade of soldiering."
"And now, Horace," said Cyril, whom the Frenchman's empty chatter
bored, "behold our thriving city of Varna!"
It was a dreary looking place, and rose from a bank of white sand
that stretched far along the flat Bulgarian shore.
Imagine a low and half-ruined wall, a mile in length, broken and
battered as the shot of the Scoto-Russian Alexis Greig had left it in
1828, but all loopholed and painted pure white. Before it lies a
ditch, over which a number of 68-pounder guns are pointed. Above it
rise the round leaden domes of four mosques, with their tall, white,
slender minarets, encircled by wooden galleries; the solitary
campanile of the Greek church, and round these a little sea of dingy
red-tiled roofs, and one may picture that Varna on which so many of
our soldiers looked their last, and before which Ladislaus of
Lithuania and Poland perished in a futile attempt to drive the stupid
and brutal Osmanlees out of Christendom.
Prior to the arrival of our troops, its filthy streets had been
deserted and silent as the grave. Save when a wild dog--the unclean
and forbidden animal of the Prophet--panting with out-lolled tongue
on a heap of decayed melons or festering offal, uttered a melancholy
howl; when a stork, with flapping wings, came swooping down on the
eaves of a dilapidated house, and loosened a tile or two, to fall
with a crash; or when a bare-legged saka (a water carrier), with his
brown feet, in low slippers, and his greasy buckets slung from a
shoulder-strap, shambled along the narrow and tortuous, yet sunbaked,
thoroughfares, no sound was ever heard there.
But now French and British soldiers filled every street and alley
with noise and bustle; the bazaars were crowded by Zouaves chattering
like magpies; by Rifles and Guardsmen; by grave and observant
Scottish Highlanders in search of food, _soochook_ sausages, and
kabobs, or little articles of finery for wives and sweethearts far
away at home; by quartermasters and sutlers, seeking corn and flour,
beef and mutton, Greek wine and peach-brandy; in short, everything
eatable and drinkable. Drums were beaten, bugles sounded
incessantly, and incessant too was the marching to and fro of guards,
escorts, pickets, and fatigue parties in their canvas frocks.
Tumbrils, limbers, cannon and tents, encumbered the five arched
gates; war-ships, transports, and pestilent looking little gunboats,
crowded all its once empty harbour. The black kites and mangy pariah
dogs were alike scared from its streets and market place. The lazy
and blasé Turkish householder secluded himself in his _divan hanee_,
or zenanah if he had one; and hourly held up his hands, or stuck his
fingers in his ears, at every fresh wonder, for to him it seemed that
the end of the world was nigh, for the sons of Anak, the children of
Perdition and the Devil himself, had all possessed the city together!
French names were actually painted up at the street corners, and to
crown all, an old deserted caravansera had been taken possession of,
_sans permission_, by a speculative Parisian _restaurateur_, who
papered, painted, and furbished it up gaily, and hung out an immense
sign-board, on which an artistic Corporal of Zouaves had painted the
French eagle, with the words, "_Le Restaurant de l'Armée d'Orient,
pour Messieurs les Officiers et Sous-Officiers_;" and under this
sign-board Wedderburn and Horace Ramornie dismounted, gave their
nags, with a few piastres, to two half-naked _hamals_ to lead about,
and then entered the café.
END OF VOL. II
LONDON:
SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
[Transcriber's note: Inconsistent and archaic spelling is as printed.]