MISERIES ACCUMULATE
When Jack got back to the lines of his regiment he found that Will, not
much the worse for his broken head, had already returned.
It was more than likely that the timely warning they had been able to
give the picket of the 41st saved a surprise on the part of the Russians
which might have been most awkward for the British.
Jack and Will had, however, been ‘absent without leave;’ and though in
their own regiment the part they had played became known, yet no
official mention was made of it, for awkward questions might have been
asked.
The next morning was bright and cold, and the whole of the battlefield
could be seen. It was then, and only then, that the terrible nature of
the struggle of the day before could be realised; and it was seen that
the fog, though most confusing at the time, had yet been a blessing, for
it had prevented the British from being disheartened by the tens of
thousands who had been pitted against them, and the Russians from
discovering the mere handful of British by whom they were opposed.
Early in the morning shoals of people from Balaclava--Greeks, Armenians,
Turks, sailors from the fleet, and others--came to visit the
battlefield, taking medals, ribbons, crucifixes, chains, and so on as
mementos of the great fight.
To prevent this the cavalry were ordered to turn out as patrols, and to
keep every one off the battlefield but those engaged there. All day long
Jack and Will were thus engaged, and a terrible duty it was.
‘It’s worse than fighting,’ said Jack. ‘Just look there, Will, where we
fought so long at the Sandbag Battery. The dead are literally in
heaps--see, eight deep! English, Russians, and French, all one on top of
the other!’
The groans and cries of the wounded as they were borne past were
heart-rending. The Russians lay around in thousands, and it seemed as if
the task of gathering them in would never finish. The wounded were seen
to first, being carried to the hospital tents. The dead Russians were
placed side by side in long trenches. Even while thus engaged, the enemy
on several occasions opened fire from Sebastopol on the burying-parties,
much to the indignation of officers and men.
On the second day Jack’s regiment had to go down to Balaclava for
stores. Near the town they heard the cheery tones of a band playing
‘Cheer, boys, cheer!’ the words of which the men were singing, and saw
an infantry regiment, just landed, marching up to the front.
The fresh-coloured, smart-looking lads were cheering loudly, for they
had heard of the glorious victory of Inkermann. Presently they came
abreast of the Lancers, and they stared hard at the handful of war-worn,
tattered, bearded, dirty horsemen, with battered caps and rusty arms.
One youngster said to another as they passed Jack, ‘What troops are
these, Bill, old man?’
‘Look like the “Beggars’ Own,”’ answered Bill. ‘I reckon they’re
Frenchies.”
‘No fear,’ said another; ‘they’re English; look at their faces.’
‘Crikey, Bill!’ said the first speaker, ‘they ain’t much to look at; a
wash ’u’d do ’em good,’ at which there was a laugh, and several of the
troopers who had ridden down the Valley of Death coloured redly.
‘Poor fellows!’ said Barrymore to Jack, ‘wait till they’ve been in the
Crimea a fortnight and taken a turn at trench and picket duty, they’ll
understand things a bit then.’
Alas! within a month that regiment had lost two-thirds of its number,
mostly from cholera.
The work in the trenches was being pushed forward rapidly; but there was
no longer any hope that Sebastopol could be taken by assault. True, the
Russians had lost heart over Inkermann, and it was doubtful whether they
could again be got--at least for months--to come out in the open and
face the English, and all felt that the siege must be a long and
protracted affair.
The losses in the trenches and from sickness were nearly a hundred a
day, and the handful of men before Sebastopol knew that unless speedy
reinforcements arrived they would be absolutely at the mercy of the
enemy. A week after Inkermann, had the Russians attempted another sortie
the result might have been different.
The weather changed, and it began to get bitterly cold, and rain fell in
torrents.
‘I believe we shall have to winter here,’ said Will to Jack one night as
they shiveringly turned into their tent.
‘Then may the Lord help us,’ replied Jack, ‘for few of us will live to
see the spring again.’
‘It almost seems as if the people at home had forgotten us.’
‘It’s easy to do that, sitting before a cosy fire after a good dinner,
your feet in slippers, a book in your hand, and’----
‘For goodness’ sake shut up, Jack, or I shall murder you,’ said Will,
‘to draw such a picture with us here, hungry, cold, and wet, with
nothing but the sodden ground to sleep on. Ugh, it’s awful!’
Jack and Will occupied a tent together. Since Balaclava all troop
distinctions had been lost. The handful of survivors formed themselves
into one regiment, the men of different corps making troops. Since that
day in the North Valley the survivors seemed drawn together by a mutual
bond of sympathy, and in place of the jealousy often existing between
regiments there was a feeling of good-fellowship.
On the particular night on which Will had his grumble it poured with
rain, and the canvas getting saturated, the water soon began to leak
through. Jack and Will wrapped their cloaks round them to keep some of
the rain off, and so inured to hardships were they that they managed to
sleep.
About five o’clock, however, they were both awakened by the streams of
water which flowed underneath the flaps of the tent and were saturating
them. Cold and miserable, they both sat up, listening to the wind
howling through the camp. It got louder and louder; the sides of the
tent began to rise and flutter, the rain driving right into the lads’
faces. The cords creaked and the pole began to bend.
‘Blest if I don’t think the lot’ll come down directly,’ said Will.
‘No fear,’ replied Jack; ‘it’s weathered as bad before; this pole is
very strong.’
The wind simply shrieked, while the rain was dashed in sheets upon the
side of the tent.
‘It certainly _is_ violent,’ said Jack. ‘I’ve heard they get bad storms
here, but’----
_Snap--crash!_ the pole of the tent had broken off close to the ground,
and Jack and Will were struggling under a heap of wet, cold canvas.
Painfully, and at considerable risk, they fought their way out, and at
last stood erect.
Heavens, what a sight met their gaze! Nearly every tent was down; many
were being whirled sky-high in the blast; others covered the struggling
forms of their former occupants. Men in every state of dress and undress
were to be seen, some trying to chase their belongings, others having as
much as they could do to stand up against the blast, many only staring
blankly at each other. All round was a sea of mud; this was picked up by
the wind, and being whirled along soon covered everybody and everything
with a wet, freezing coating of earth.
Everything that Jack and Will possessed was under the wreck of their
tent, and they fought manfully to rescue some of their things. Jack at
last got his boots; but he had to sit down in mud almost to his waist to
put them on. His fur-jacket, spoil from the convoy at Mackenzie’s Farm,
he also got, and his dress-cap. Will rescued part of his things too;
then the wind picked up the tent and whirled it away.
Tentless, Jack and Will looked around them. A captain of Hussars, in his
shirt only, was tearing after a pair of overalls, which he at last
captured only to find they were not his own. Men everywhere were
chasing articles, while the air was filled with headdresses, caps,
coats, wet blankets, even pieces of furniture from the officers’ tents.
And still the force of the wind increased. Wagons were overturned; the
horses were knocked down and rolled over, then getting up, they broke
loose from the picket-ropes and rushed madly out over the plain. The
skies were leaden-coloured, the wind howled fiercer and fiercer; snow,
sleet, rain all fell together; every one was soon knee-deep in mud.
Presently a cry arose, ‘The hospital-tent is down!’ and this was seen to
be the case. Hundreds of poor fellows suffering from ghastly wounds
received at Inkermann and in the trenches since were exposed to all the
fury of that dreadful storm, and many succumbed.
All who were able to stand fought their way over to the hospital-tent,
and, moving up to their knees in mud, lashed by the storm, they helped
to carry the poor, uncomplaining fellows behind walls, into barns and
stables, anywhere, so that they could get a little shelter until the
fury of the elements abated.
All the morning Jack and Will worked at the hospital; and when they had
finished, a good-hearted doctor took the lads into a hut which had been
erected for his stores, and there gave them a hot cup of tea
each--luxury of luxuries--some beef and ration-biscuits, and then a
glass of brandy. To the doctor’s kindness the two lads always attributed
the fact that they took no serious harm from the effects of the storm.
About midday the wind changed; it got piercingly cold, and snow fell
heavily, soon covering everything with a mantle of white. During the
afternoon the wind abated somewhat, and some attempts were made to
recapture and re-erect tents; but only a few were recovered, and the
ground being literally turned to mud the pegs would not hold. A few were
got up by some means or other; but, the wind again rising, they were all
blown down again.
Night approached, and the storm showed but small signs of abating. Jack
and Will, huddled up in their cloaks, wet through and through, were
sheltering from the wind under the lee of a wall, when a sergeant of the
8th Hussars whom both knew passed them.
‘Hallo, boys,’ he said, ‘there’s small comfort there. Have ye no better
shelter?’
‘No, Flannigan,’ replied the lads.
‘Come with me, then. I’m going up to the barn used as a stable by the
men of “Ours” who are Lord Raglan’s escort.’
The lads gladly followed the kindly sergeant, and presently reached the
great barn. Here they found a mixed company, Hussars, Lancers, linesmen,
officers, privates, all mixed up together, huddling round two fires
which they had managed to light. There were a number of horses in the
barn which the smoke from the fires made very restless. It is impossible
to describe the combination of smells in the place; but it was heaven
compared with outside, and thankfully Jack and Will squeezed up to a
fire, and standing in their steaming garments thankfully accepted the
bit of fried ration-pork offered to them, and drank a tot of rum.
Dozing by fits and starts, disturbed by the constant going and coming of
different people, the neighing and stamping of the horses, and a
tremendous cannonading opened by the Russians on the French lines, they
passed the night, and awoke in the morning to find a bright, cold sky,
the country covered in snow, every place ankle-deep in mud; but oh,
blessing of blessings! the wind gone, and the sun, the genial sun,
shining gloriously!