‘THE SOLDIERS’ BATTLE.’
The crashing volleys with which the picket Jack and Will had alarmed
greeted the Russians were quickly echoed from right and left. The
rattling of musketry was soon interrupted by the sharp, ringing report
of field-guns, and along a great part of the British lines a heavy fire
was opened.
The picket of the 41st were outnumbered a hundred to one; but they
refused to give ground. For half-an-hour they maintained their position,
and long before that time had elapsed both Jack and Will, possessing
themselves of the rifles and cartridge-pouches of two men who had
fallen, were bearing their part with their comrades of the line.
During the half-hour in which the picket stuck to their post, the
Russians placed twenty-two heavy guns on the height known as Shell Hill,
just in front of them. When these opened fire, and not till then, the
gallant picket retired, not falling back, but moving away to their
right.
A fierce struggle was then taking place between other Russian columns
and a company of the 49th. Jack’s party joined these, and presently a
British field-battery came groping its way through the mist in order to
find a suitable place on which to unlimber and open fire. The ground was
much encumbered with thick brushwood, and it was some time before they
could unlimber. Even then they paused before opening fire, for the mist
was so thick that they could not see whether Russians or English were
before them.
Presently the 49th were assailed with so tremendous a fire that they
fell back with loss, retiring to reform behind the guns. Before these
latter could open fire, with yelps and shouts, dense masses of
gray-coated, flat-capped Russians threw themselves upon the gunners, and
a terrific hand-to-hand combat commenced. The men fired literally in
each other’s faces; then muskets were clubbed, and a fierce mêlée
ensued.
‘Fire a round of case,’ yelled the officer in command of the guns; but
the enemy was in amongst the gunners.
A young lieutenant of artillery drew his sword, and crying to his men to
do likewise and follow him, charged at the enemy. A shower of bullets
greeted him and those who followed him, amongst whom were Jack and Will.
Then the Russians, as though bewildered by the suddenness of this
onslaught, halted, and in an instant men with swords, rammers, and
sponge-staves were in amongst them, smiting them and hurling them back.
One enormous gunner, having smashed a rammer on a particularly thick
Russian skull, stood alone for some time, felling Russian after Russian
with tremendous sledge-hammer blows of his fists. Then the Russians
rallied, rolled on in irresistible numbers, drove back the defenders,
and three of the guns were in the enemy’s hands.
The artillery lieutenant, borne back with the sullenly retreating
infantry, loudly bewailed the loss of his beloved guns, and the men of
the 41st and the 49th, reforming, poured such a galling fire upon the
advancing Russians that they halted and wavered.
‘Men,’ cried the officer in command, ‘the enemy pauses; give them one
more volley, then let them have the bayonet.’
The men answered with a wild cheer, and soon along the whole line a
crashing volley rang out.
As was frequently the case during the day, the fog lifted for a few
minutes and showed the little band of Englishmen that they were opposed
to several whole battalions fully six thousand strong. They also saw
that four slender companies of the 77th Regiment, barely two hundred and
fifty strong, coming down the crest, had as it were come unexpectedly
upon the huge horde of Russians. Not for one instant did they pause,
however. They delivered a crashing volley; then, led by several mounted
officers, with a soul-stirring cheer they charged with the bayonet. They
dashed in amongst the dense masses of Russian infantry, literally
rolling them up. The gray-coated battalions broke and wavered.
‘Now is our time, men,’ cried the officer in command of the mixed party
with which were Jack and Will, and bringing their bayonets down to the
charge they sprang forward to complete the work so gallantly begun by
the 77th.
The Russians had faced half-about to meet the 77th, and Jack’s party
took them in flank, bayoneting and driving them backward like sheep. The
great battalions broke and fled for their lives, leaving hundreds of
dead behind them. The captured guns, which had been left where they
were, were retaken, and the artillerymen almost wept with joy to find
their weapons had not been spiked.
The defeated battalions were pursued down to the very slopes of Shell
Hill, and it was only when the Russian artillery posted on the crest
began to hurl showers of shot and shell amongst the handful of British
that the bugles sounded the rally, and the men retreated to the ground
they had originally occupied. Then those two Russian battalions, the
Catherinburg and Tomsk, retreated from the field and took no more part
in that day’s fighting.
‘Cavalry work is brilliant,’ said Jack; ‘but after all it’s the infantry
that do the real business. That charge was grand, Will.’
But the tremendous fire from the guns on Shell Hill was so rending and
tearing them that this gallant band had to retire, and but few would
have lived to tell the tale had it not been for the English artillery,
which silenced some of the Russian guns.
The remainder of the 41st Regiment, under General Adams, advancing,
Jack’s party formed in their rear and marched with them towards the spot
known as the Fore Ridge, which was being assaulted by an overwhelming
force of Russians. Marching along the ridge, the gallant seven hundred
descended the slope, meeting on their way the pickets driven in from the
front.
Then through the fog they saw looming enormous columns of Russians,
thousands strong. The English fired a volley, and while they were
reloading the Russian bugles began to sound and the men to face about
and retreat.
The voice of the gallant Adams rang out, but only those near him could
hear, ‘Another volley, lads; then charge!’
Those near him started; the others followed the example, and the line
dashed downhill, crashing into the Russian column, which turned and
fled. They were the Taroutine and Borodino regiments, the same that the
British had taught such a terrible lesson to on the day of the Alma.
Disheartened by their previous experience, their hearts failed them;
leaving hundreds of dead and wounded behind them, they too fled, and
were no more seen that day.
It was with difficulty that the pursuit by the victorious English could
be stopped; but at last they were brought back and took up their
position in what was known as the Sandbag Battery, which was simply a
dismounted earthwork having a parapet about eight or nine feet high, but
no _banquette_ on which the men defending it might stand to fire over
the top. It had afforded a shelter from the wind to the pickets
stationed there; but for defensive purposes it was useless. Yet it was
for the possession of this useless work that the fiercest struggles of
the day took place.
Hardly were the defeated battalions out of range than ten thousand fresh
men, with ninety-seven more guns, came forward to the attack. So quickly
did they appear through the fog, and so much were all the Russian
soldiers alike, that the English thought it was the same force they had
defeated returning to the attack.
These fresh troops, stern-looking, resolute men, came on with great
determination, and soon a terrific combat began. The guns on the Home
Ridge behind did good work by pouring in their fire on the Russians, the
vivid, searing flashes showing up through the mist.
Often the opposing bodies met bayonet to bayonet; then the Russians
would be hurled back and the English would coolly load and pour in a
volley. Again the bayonet, a struggle, heaving first this way, then
that; the repulse of the enemy, another volley, and another attack.
But the hundreds who were holding their ground against the thousands
were feeling the stress. A seventh part of their number was down, and
though they had done fourfold the damage they had suffered, yet as fast
as they shot or bayoneted a foe, other two high-cheek-boned, pasty-faced
soldiers seemed to take his place. Masses had also worked round on their
right and left flanks and rear.
The position was desperate. All cohesion was lost; the men were acting
together in tens and sixes, or even singly. Every man had set his teeth
and determined to fall where he stood. The British had their backs to
the wall; they knew that on them depended the fate of the army, of the
whole expedition; defeat meant disaster, so they fought on till they
died.
Jack and Will, with two privates and a sergeant, a man of great stature,
fought in one group, and terrible were the combats they had.
Spite of all, the British had to give ground foot by foot; but they hung
on with the bull-dog tenacity of their race. Twice they were driven from
the Sandbag Battery, and twice did they retake it, only again to be
driven out. Then four officers sprang forward, waving their swords.
‘Follow us, men!’ they cried.
They sprang in among the foe, and for a moment no one followed. Two were
at once slain. Then Jack ran forward. ‘They will all be killed!’ he
cried. ‘To the rescue!’
A rush followed, the Russians were driven back, the bayonets went to
work till they dripped blood, and the battery was again in British
hands, though at a terrible cost. But now the ammunition failed, and
men cried out to General Adams to ask what they should do.
‘You have still your bayonets, boys,’ he replied; and with these they
fought on. But numbers told; and, unsupported as they were, they had to
fall back, carrying their wounded with them, for they had seen that day
that the Russians brained or bayoneted every wounded man they saw.
While they were sullenly retreating, General Adams received a mortal
wound, and a cry of sorrow went up from the men. Then suddenly, three
field-guns behind them opened fire, and instantly the advance of the
Russians was checked, the round-shot crashing through their ranks; but
presently, being reinforced by yet another battalion, they again
advanced, moving cautiously in skirmishing order through the brushwood.
Then the guns opened with ‘case,’ and they retreated.
Soon, coming through the mist, tall black headdresses were seen, and a
cheer went up from the sorely smitten 49th as they recognised the
Guards. The Grenadiers were moving down grandly to the attack, and the
remnants of the 49th and 41st, not waiting to replenish their
ammunition, but depending alone upon their bayonets, formed up and
advanced on the left of the Guards.
Upon coming up with the enemy, the Guards tried to open fire; but the
chambers of their rifles were wet and the caps only snapped, failing to
explode the cartridges.
Low, angry growls burst from the Guards till a cheery voice rang out,
‘Never mind, Grenadiers; the steel will do it.’
Then they brought their rifles down to the charge, and without any word
of command dashed down upon the Russians, sweeping them from the battery
and from the ground on its flanks. The Grenadiers used the few minutes’
respite they had won in drying their rifles by firing caps, and by then
the Russians had returned to the attack.
The Guards soon found that the wall of the battery, having no
_banquette_ on which the defenders might stand, though it might be a
protection, yet hindered them from inflicting harm on the enemy, so they
left it and engaged the Russians on the flank of it. Again and again did
they charge the countless hordes, again and again did the Sandbag
Battery change hands, till the slain around it lay in heaps. The Scots
Fusiliers joined in the fight, and for two hours a struggle went on that
is almost impossible to describe.
The English fought mostly in grim silence; but the Russians, roused to a
wild, religious enthusiasm, and maddened by _vodka_, yelled and howled
like demons.
At last the Russians brought up an overwhelming mass of artillery, which
opened on the defenders and so played on the slopes behind them that it
would have been impossible to bring up reinforcements, even were there
any to bring; but all were engaged. Under cover of this fire, six
thousand fresh troops were hurled against the remnants of the Guards,
less than eight hundred strong at the beginning of the fight; and, the
fog again lifting, the colonel of the Grenadiers saw the columns upon
columns of flat-capped, white-faced soldiery, with their close-cropped
bullet-heads, and their high cheek-bones, throwing up their right
shoulders to outflank him. He knew the Sandbag Battery was useless to
him, and he moved his men so as to form his line to meet the Russians.
Just then over the crest came a long line of bearskins. Jack saw them as
quickly as any one.
‘Hallo, Will,’ he cried, ‘what troops are those?’
A sergeant of Grenadiers answered that question. ‘They’re the
Coldstreams, sonny’ he said; ‘now we’ll show these long-gowned
putty-faces’--alluding to the Russians’ greatcoats, which reached to
their feet--‘what stuff the Guards are made of.’
The ‘long gowns,’ finding the Sandbag Battery deserted, had already
rushed in with wild yells of delight. This sight made the Grenadiers
chafe.
‘Boys,’ said the sergeant who had just spoken to Jack and Will, ‘are we
going to let the Coldstreams get back the battery? Who’ll follow me? The
Grenadiers have held it and they’ll keep it.’
With a wild cheer a hundred of them dashed down, bayoneting the
Russians; and, before the Coldstreams came up, for the seventh time the
Sandbag Battery was retaken. Neither Jack nor Will had followed the
impetuous sergeant; but they took part in the forward movement which
presently set the Okhotsk and Selinghinsk battalions reeling down the
hill. And so the fight went on; but slowly the force of thousands
against hundreds began to tell, and though every man in the British
force was a hero, he could not maintain for ever a struggle against odds
ten to one. Russians seemed to spring up on all sides; and, though the
earth was cumbered with their dead and wounded, in countless hordes they
still came on.
It presently became imperative that the Guards and the remnants of the
49th and 41st should receive reinforcements. The Duke of Cambridge
himself had gone some time before to find men to come to the assistance
of his beloved Guards; but not a man had arrived.
A desperate attack had just been beaten off, in which Will had received
a blow on the head from the butt-end of a rifle which had laid him
senseless for a few minutes.
Jack was kneeling beside his injured comrade when a mounted officer
tapped his shoulder with his blood-stained sword.
‘Sergeant,’ he said, ‘I’ve several times noticed you and your comrade
to-day using a rifle and bayonet with the best of us, and you’ve done
good service, though how on earth you got here I can’t tell.’
‘Accident brought us here, sir,’ replied Jack.
‘Well, it was a lucky chance, and you can render us further service if
you will. You’re a cavalryman. Mount my horse, go back to the ridge, and
find General Pennefather. Ask him to send us what men he can spare,
we’re hard pushed.’
Jack looked at Will and then at the officer.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said the officer; ‘but you can get your
comrade up before you on the mare. She’ll carry you both, and your chum
will be better in the rear. I can’t go myself, because my place is here
with my battalion. We shall have to fight for our very lives, and few if
any of us will get out of this. When you find the General, impress upon
him that we are almost out of cartridges.’
This amounted to an order, and so, reluctantly, Jack climbed into the
saddle which the major vacated; and, two stalwart Guardsmen lifting up
Will tenderly and seating him before Jack, he turned his horse’s head
uphill. As he went along, bullets whizzed by his ears and several times
round-shot ploughed up the ground round him; but he reached the crest,
and having placed Will in safety, he had the good fortune to find
General Pennefather and his staff. He delivered his message, and the
genial Irishman, his face aglow with pleasure at the fight he was
enabled to wage against tremendous odds, untrammelled by superiors,
said, ‘And what the dickens are you doing here?’
Jack replied, and the General burst out laughing. ‘A lame excuse,
youngster,’ he said; ‘but any excuse that takes a man into the fight
will pass with me. Now we must see what men we can spare to help the
Guards. Keep with me, Lancer, you may be useful, for many of my staff
have been bowled over.’
Reinforcements in tens or twenties were found and formed up--men of the
20th, 21st, and 63rd Regiments who had wandered back for ammunition; men
who had been in the fight and been driven back, losing their companies;
men who were acting as camp-guard. These men, just driblets, fell in and
marched to the assistance of those in the Sandbag Battery, who, from the
occasional glimpses which could be caught of them, it was seen were
waging a stubborn fight.
Then immense masses of the enemy emerging from the Quarry Ravine
advanced against the right of the Home Ridge. Perceiving the movement,
General Pennefather galloped off there, and Jack, still on the charger
of the Guards’ officer, followed.
That part of the ridge was held by four hundred men only; but they were
men of historic regiments, the 20th and the 57th. When the Russians
came within striking distance the 20th delivered their fire; then, with
the old Minden yell, a cry practised by that regiment alone, they
swooped down on the Russians. The colonel of the 57th bade his men
prepare.
‘A volley, then the bayonet,’ he said. ‘Remember Albuera, men, and die
hard!’
That regiment, known since Albuera by the proud nickname of the ‘Die
Hards,’ needed no second bidding. They sprang upon the flank of the
Russians and rolled them up; but another battalion appearing, General
Pennefather ordered both the 20th and the 57th to retire to the top of
the ridge, where they lay down, and with concentrated fire held the
enemy in check.
For three hours, then, the battle had waged, and everywhere, in spite of
occasional advantages, the Russians had been defeated. A lull now
ensued; the enemy were preparing for their great final effort.
The weather cleared a little, so that surrounding objects could be seen;
and, riding behind heroic General Pennefather, Jack presently saw the
Russians coming up the slope towards the Home Ridge in enormous columns.
They covered the advance of their infantry with a raging artillery fire,
and the ridge was swept from end to end.
Presently, just by Jack, the head of a Russian column gained the ridge.
There were no English troops in sight; but a French regiment, the 7th of
the line, was moving along the crest. It was smitten by the Russian
artillery, it wavered and faltered. An English staff-officer rode up and
harangued them in broken French. Jack, speaking the language fluently,
also galloped up.
‘Comrades, brothers, stand firm!’ he cried; ‘prove that you are the sons
of the heroes who under the great Napoleon conquered half Europe.’
The battalion advanced; but the Russians poured in a volley when they
retreated down the hillside. The troops on the Home Ridge were in
danger, the victorious Russians were advancing, when two hundred men of
the 55th and 77th flew at the mass, charged it, tore through it from end
to end; and the Russians, paralysed by the very audacity of the attack,
retired down the hill. They were not defeated though; they rallied and
returned to the attack.
The French 7th Regiment advanced; some English troops who had been
driven back formed up beside them. The French deployed right in the face
of the advancing Russians. They delivered a volley and were reloading
when a panic seemed to seize them. They saw the Russians would be upon
them before they had finished loading, and they had not that calm
confidence in their prowess which enables the British to charge home
with the bayonet. They began to fall back, when General Pennefather, in
strong, vigorous language, bade them stand; many of his officers did
likewise, and the English soldiers on their left shouted out
encouragingly. The French soldiers listened; they took heart, but the
Russians were then only a few paces from them.
Suddenly the enemy’s leading battalions halted, and began to gaze
nervously over their shoulders. A tremendous tumult broke out behind
them. They saw their supporting battalions reel and stagger, then
weaken.
The English around their General, looking from the vantage of their
seats on horseback, saw the gallant Daubeney with thirty men of the
55th dash at the flank of the whole Russian battalion, strike in, lose
itself in the horde of Russians; then--by stabbing, kicking, punching,
heaving--literally tear a way through from flank to flank, throwing them
into fearful disorder. This disorder spread to the first battalion of
Russians, who, thinking they were attacked by numbers, wavered.
General Pennefather gave a tremendous cheer, those with him took it up;
the handful of English on the flank of the French sprang forward, and a
fierce fight began. The French officers cried out, ‘Drummers to the
front.’
In an instant they were beating a _pas de charge_; the French gave a
cry, and with levelled bayonets dashed on the foe, who were driven down
the hill with great slaughter.
The Russians this time, however, were in grave earnest. They rallied,
and again attacked along the whole line with great vigour. But the
British artillery had gained the ascendant, and was doing enormous
damage with two eighteen-pounders which Lord Raglan had caused to be
dragged up to the front.
The whole of the Russian battalions concentrated their fire on these
guns; and although they struck down one-tenth of the men working them,
so magnificently were they handled that they smashed up gun after gun of
the Russians and effectually quieted their fire.
It was then that every available man was brought up to repel the final
Russian attack. More French troops arrived, with them being a cavalry
regiment, the 4th Chasseurs d’Afrique.
They passed close by Jack, and to his surprise he saw the remnants of
the Light Brigade, the whole only two hundred strong, acting in support
of the French cavalry.
Barrymore saw Jack, and immediately called him, and Jack took his place
in the ranks. There was no time then for explanations, and he rode on
with his regiment till they came under a tremendous artillery fire. A
shell burst right in amongst them, and several men and horses fell.
‘Poor Harry Scarfe is down,’ cried Jack.
‘Ay,’ growled Barrymore, ‘and so is our cornet; that leaves us only two
officers.’
Unfortunately both men were killed; and, several other casualties
occurring, the cavalry was retired.
The French General decided to recall his troops, for they had all met
with discomfiture. One regiment of Zouaves, however, remained, and with
the remnant of our Guards they advanced towards the Sandbag Battery.
So fierce was the attack the thus allied brigade delivered that the
Russians were hurled back against the wall. The only outlets were the
two embrasures; and, encumbered by their long coats, the Russians tried
in vain to force themselves through. They were caught in a trap and a
terrible slaughter ensued, the pursuit following them right down to the
Quarry Ravine.
Along the whole line the British were equally successful, the Russians
were hurled back; and the eighteen-pounders continuing to do grand work,
the Russian artillery fire was gradually overcome.
General Pennefather ordered a fresh advance of his handful of men, only
a few hundreds being left of his three thousand six hundred of the
morning.
‘Forward once more, boys,’ he said, ‘and we’ll lick ’em yet--lick ’em to
the devil!’
Once more they advanced, once more crossed bayonets with the sulky foe,
no longer yelling like demons, but now fighting with the stubbornness of
despair. Gradually they drove them back, the Russians again giving vent
to that wailing cry of despair that had been heard on the heights of the
Alma.
About one o’clock a staff officer with Lord Raglan observed the Russians
beginning to withdraw their artillery; then the news flew round that the
enemy acknowledged his defeat, and at last the battle, the great
‘Soldiers’ Battle,’ was won.
A mass of two thousand men, all gathered closely together, formed to
cover the retreat of the Russian artillery. The eighteen-pounders were
turned upon them, and the balls tore through, carrying cruel destruction
with them.
The moment had arrived for pursuit; but the fasting British were too
exhausted to move, the French General refused to advance his troops
unless the British supported him, and the Russians were allowed to fall
sullenly back.
There was no semblance of riot or disorder. The defeated battalions,
still in their thousands, retreated in good order.
By three o’clock Mount Inkermann was free of Russians, all but the
ghastly thousands of dead and wounded.
The French artillery followed the foe and did them some damage; but the
ships from the harbour opened on them, and they retreated.
Night settled down in mist and fog and gloom, hiding the horrors on
those blood-stained slopes. By eight o’clock the last gun had passed
back into the Russian lines of defence.
The great battle of Inkermann was lost--and won!