RED-TAPE
The siege of Sebastopol was quite out of the ordinary run, and about
as curious a business as ever was. For one usually thinks of a
besieged town as surrounded by the enemy and cut off from the rest of
the world. And, that was never the case with Sebastopol.
The allied forces drew a ring round the south and east sides of the
town, and the sea guarded it on the west, but by way of the north and
north-east the Russians had free passage at all times, and could
introduce fresh troops and provisions and all the material of war at
will, and so the defence was in a state of continuous renewal, and
fresh blood was always pouring in to replace the terrible waste
inside.
By those open ways also they sent out army after army to creep round
behind the besiegers, to harry and annoy them, and this it was that
led to some of the fiercest battles of the campaign. The knowledge
also that great bodies of Russians were at large in their rear, and
only waiting, opportunity to attack them, kept the Allies perpetually
on the strain, and hurried musters in the dark to repel, at times
imaginary, assaults were of almost nightly occurrence.
Failing complete investment--when starvation, added to perpetual
and irretrievable wastage, must in time have brought about a
surrender--the Allies could only pound away with their big guns, and
hope to wear down the heart and pride of Russia by the sheer dogged
determination to pound away till there was nothing left to pound at.
The later attempts to breach and storm, to which all these gigantic
efforts were directed, were but a part of the same policy. Russia was
to be crushed by the combined weight of England and France and Turkey,
and, later on, Sardinia. It was very British, very bull-doggy, but it
was also terribly wasteful and costly all round.
The Russians had expected the attack on the north side, and had made
it almost impregnable. When, by their flank march, the Allies came
round to the south, the town was absolutely open and unprotected, the
streets running up into the open country. Before the Allies could gird
up their loins for a spring, earthworks and forts had sprung up in
front of them as though by magic, and the only means of approach was
by the slow, hard way of parallels, trenches, and zigzags. And all
this it was that made up the Crimean War.
But our boys were busy, and so kept happy in spite of discomforts
without end.
Every single thing the army heeded, either for fighting or for sheer
and simplest living, had to be brought to it by sea, and the one door
of entrance was tiny Balaclava Bay--with the natural consequence that
Balaclava Bay became inextricably blocked with shipping discharging on
to its narrow shores, and its shores became inextricably piled with
masses of war material and stores, with no means of transport to the
camps six and eight and ten miles away. And so confusion became ten
times confounded, and brave men languished and died for want of the
stores that lay rotting down below. Add to this the fact that every
British official's hands were bound round and round, and knotted and
thrice knotted, with coils of stiffest red tape, and no man dared to
lift a finger unless a dozen superiors in a dozen different
departments had authorised him to do so, in writing, on official
forms, with every "t" crossed and every "i" carefully dotted, and you
have the simple explanation of the horrors of the Crimea.
Our own red-tape and sheer stupidity wrought far more evil on our men
than all the efforts of Menchikoff and Gortschakoff with all the might
of Russia at their backs.
The trenches wormed their zigzags slowly down the slope, towards the
Russian lines, and never was there more zealous zigzager than Jack.
The Russians poured shot and shell on him and his fellow moles; but
they dug on, mounted their heavy guns, and dosed him with pointed
Lancaster shells, which were new to him, and impressed him most
unpleasantly.
And Jim galloped to and fro and worried more over his horse's feeding
than his own, and kept very fit and well.
He went over now and again to the Heavies, to see how George Herapath
and Ralph Ruben were standing it, and found them generally on the
growl at having so little to do and none too much to eat, and they all
condoled with one another, and expressed themselves freely on such
congenial subjects as the Transport and Commissariat Departments, and
felt the better for getting it out.
Letters from home came with fair regularity now, and they swapped
their news and had time to write long letters back--except Jack, whose
whole soul was in his trenches, and who was too tired and dirty for
correspondence when he came out of them.
So upon Jim devolved the duty of keeping Carne and Wyvveloe posted as
to the course of the war, and his painfully produced scrawls were
valued beyond their apparent merits by the anxious ones at home, and
treasured as things of price.
For Gracie, at all events, said to herself, when each one came, "It
may be the last we shall ever get from him"; and, "They may both be
lying dead at this moment. This horrible, horrible war!"
But she wrote continually to both of them; and if the dreadful feeling
that she might only too possibly be writing to dead men was with her
as she wrote, she took good care that no sign of It appeared in her
letters. They were brave and cheery letters, telling of the little
happenings of the neighbourhood, and always full of the hope of seeing
them again soon. And if she cried a bit at times, as she wrote and
thought of it all, be sure no tear-spots were allowed to show. They
had quite enough to stand without being worried with her fears.
And she prayed for them every night and every morning with the utmost
devotion, though, indeed, at times she remained long on her knees,
pondering vaguely. For she knew that what must be, must be, and that
her most fervent prayers could not turn Russian bullets from their
destined billets--that if God saw it well to take her boys, they would
go, in spite of all her asking. And so she came to commending them
simply to God's good care, and to asking for herself the strength to
bear whatever might come to her.
When the Alma lists came out, she and the Rev. Charles scanned them
with feverish anxiety, and with eyes that got the names all blurred
and mixed, and hearts that beat muffled dead marches, and only let
them breathe freely again when they had got through without finding
what they had feared.
And both of them, grateful at their own escape, thought pitifully of
those whose trembling fingers, stopping suddenly on beloved names, had
been the signal for broken hearts and shattered hopes and desolated
lives.
And, any day, that might be their own lot too; and so, like many
others in those times, they went heavily, and feared what each new day
might bring.
Margaret Herapath spent much of her time with them, and Sir George was
able to bring them news in advance of the ordinary channels.
And the grim old man up at Carne read the news-sheets and the lists,
which smelt of snuff when he had done with them, and was vastly polite
and unconcerned about it all when Gracie and Eager went to visit him;
but Kennet led somewhat of a dog's life at this time, and had to find
consolation for a ruffled spirit where he could.