THE 21ST OF SEPTEMBER.
It was not until the next day that Horace could discover--and only
after a long, painful, and exciting search--where his cousin Cyril
was lying, and had lain all night, in extreme suffering and misery.
The night after the storming of the Russian intrenched camp, Horace
slept soundly--the deep sleep of that utter exhaustion consequent to
intense bodily toil, the heat of the march before the engagement, and
over exhaustion of the mind. He did awake once or twice, to see
around him, as in a confused dream, the darkness of the chilly night,
and, that something of the picturesque might not be wanting, groups
of soldiers, lying or sitting, and smoking or chatting round fires of
turpentine, olive and willow trees, of Russian muskets and gun
carriages, that flamed high above their heads, and caused the piles
of muskets to glitter in light. These were the men who, but a few
hours before, had been amid all that wild carnage, and were now
quietly toasting little scraps of food in the blaze by which they
warmed themselves, and which lit up their bronzed faces with a ruddy
glow, and displayed their varied and, in many instances, torn and
blood-stained uniforms.
Some were moaning over a wounded arm, or a bloody and recently
bandaged stump, which they rested on a bed of branches, and thousands
were lying about, in every attitude expressive of exhaustion.
So most of the army passed the night after we won the Alma; though
some who were less worn out than others spent it in seeking over the
field for those whom few or none could help them to find.
By the first ray of dawn, and while the red sun was rising above
those hills that, on one side, look down on Simpheropol, and on the
other overhang the windings of the fatal Alma, Horace, with a few of
the Fusileers, had left the bivouac, and, without seeking food or
refreshment, engaged in the melancholy and heart-rending task of
searching over the field for his cousin, Cyril Wedderburn.
The two bandsmen by whom he had been borne away had been killed
subsequently, and no one could say where they had laid him down, to
bleed to death of his wounds, too probably.
Horace thought sadly of the many fine fellows gone for ever--those
whose faces he should never look upon again; Jack Probyn, with whom
he had played so many keen games at billiards; Bingham, whose
handsome figure and winning manner made him a favourite with all
women; Joyce, poor old Singleton (the man with the secret sorrow),
and merry little Meredyth Pomfret, who was such a first-rate "bat,"
and so many of the brave rank and file too. He was full of
depressing and harrowing thoughts.
Unstripped by "death-hunters," or a plundering peasantry (as those
were who fell in the wars of Wellington, and left bare and ghastly
under the eye of heaven), the soldiers here were all lying, whether
dead or wounded, fully clothed and accoutred, just as the shot had
struck them down in their ranks.
Many of the killed lay on their back, with their arms uplifted, as if
still levelling their muskets, in all the cataleptic stiffness which
so often results from gunshot wounds. "The upstretched arms of dead
men were ghastly in the eyes of some; others thought they could envy
the soldier released at last from his toil, and encountering no
moment of interval between hard fighting and death." And over this
scene rose the cloudless sun of a lovely September morning, glowing
on the tender green of the willow and olive groves tossing their
leaves in the warm, soft breeze, and suggestive of delicious
tranquillity rather than the carnage of war.
The unfortunate braves of the Welsh Fusileers lay over each other
literally in piles, amid dark pools of blood, in which the flies were
battening; and wherever the cannon shot had bowled in their deadly
career, lay bodies without legs, or heads, or arms, crushed, rent,
and torn in some instances out of all semblance of humanity; and
there were grey haired officers who had fought in other lands, in
India, Persia, and Afghanistan, lying side by side with our poor
boy-subalterns, slain in all the splendour of their _first_ red
coat--fresh from school and from their parents' arms.
Many a familiar face of his own corps was seen by Horace as he passed
along, but they were pallid and still; no glance of recognition came
back from the fixed and glazed eyes; no smile was on the open marble
mouth. Among others, he saw young Meredyth Pomfret, lying dead with
his hands as if yet clutching the colour-staff, the belt of which was
still over his shoulder. He turned away with a sinking heart, and he
knew that Cyril could not be there.
All who could speak were inquiring for water, or to learn when they
would be taken to the rear and have their sufferings alleviated.
Others begged only for a match or a pipeful of tobacco.
In their long grey coats, in many instances cuffed and collared with
scarlet, the grim Russians lay thick, like swathes in a harvest
field, along the Kourgane Hill, and all about the great redoubt.
Many had fallen in the act of reloading, and lay with a steel ramrod
in their hand, or a half bitten cartridge between their teeth. A
ghastly grin or defiant smile was visible in some of their dead
faces: and in many instances there were men of the 23rd and other
corps of the Light Division, who appeared to have perished in the act
of supplication or entreaty.
These were the wounded whom the merciless Russians butchered, when
the division wavered on the crest of the hill.
Hairy knapsacks, glazed helmets, and the coarse, clumsy firelocks of
the Russian infantry lay scattered there in thousands, just as they
had been cast away; and clouds of ammunition paper were whirling over
the sward.
Many acts of perfidy, similar to that by which Cyril fell, had been
perpetrated by the enemy. In some instances our soldiers were shot
down by the wounded whom they were supplying with water from their
canteens. In this manner, Captain Eddington of the 95th perished
under the eyes of his brother, who fell in the attempt to avenge him;
and enraged by such treacheries, our soldiers clubbed their muskets
and dashed out the brains of the perpetrators, as creatures totally
unworthy of mercy or life.
Horace felt his heart growing more and more sick as he looked around
him, and heard the incessant and afflicting exclamations of
suffering, the result of wounds of every kind, and in all parts of
the tender human form; stabs by bayonets, cuts by swords, musket
shots, and the more dreadful casualties inflicted by cannon balls,
grape, canister, and splintered shells; and if his tongue clove to
the roof of his mouth with the intensity of his thirst, he thought,
"What must these poor creatures be enduring!" But ere long the
regimental and naval surgeons, with fatigue parties and seamen from
the fleet, began to be busy among them.
Wandering down from the heights by the extreme British right, he came
among the wounded of the French left flank, and there the Zouaves
were lying thick as leaves in autumn. Two, who had each a limb
bandaged tight by a bloody handkerchief, were seated with their backs
against a large stone, smoking cigarettes, while a pretty vivandière,
in a smart blue jacket and scarlet skirt, with the number of some
regiment embroidered on her cap and shoulder-straps, was tripping
about giving mouthfuls of brandy from her little barrel.
"Is she not charming--Pauline of ours!" exclaimed one of the smokers,
admiringly.
"_Mais certainement oui, charmante!_" responded the other, and with
great politeness they both saluted Horace as he passed them, though
unable to rise; "and like ourselves she has breakfasted _à la carte_
on grapes and cold water, most likely."
"Your regiment must have suffered severely," said he, "if we are to
judge by the numbers lying here."
"Oui, Monsieur, we have lost twice as many as we did at Constantine.
Diable! la fortune de la guerre est bien capricieuse!"
"True, Adrien," said the other, laughing; "but we gave those
Muscovites a sharp taste of our little Charlemagnes--our
cabbage-cutters;" for so the French soldiers name their
sword-bayonets.
A man on the ground with his head propped upon some loose stones,
attracted the eye of Horace at a little distance, for he was an
officer and in the scarlet uniform of the Royal Fusileers, and proved
to be Major Singleton!
He hastened to him, and found that he was just expiring of wounds,
which a staff-surgeon, a somewhat elderly officer, had just been
examining with great tenderness and care. The latter held up his
hand warningly to Horace, as if to say, "Do not speak--it is
useless." He had been pierced by two balls, each of which had
inflicted a mortal wound. His filmy eye dilated as Horace bent over
him; then his jaw fell, the breath passed away, and the brave soldier
who, yesterday had been face to face with the Russians, was now face
to face with--his Maker.
"We can but leave him till the burial party comes," said Dr.
Riversdale, with great emotion; for, by a singular fatality, it was
in his hands, almost in his arms, that the first husband of Isabel
Vane--poor Conyers Singleton, died! "Another officer of your corps,"
he added, "is lying near the river severely wounded--a Captain
Wedderburn."
"In which direction?" asked Horace, starting.
"Where those turpentine bushes are. I have just dressed his wounds."
"Oh, how shall I thank you! It is he I have been in search of. Are
the wounds dangerous?"
"One may prove so. A ball has entered the left breast, and injuring
the lung, has passed out under the shoulder-blade. I am not without
hopes of him, however."
Horace hurried in the direction indicated, and there amid the
turpentine bushes, the branches of which were quite alive with brown
larks and golden linnets, unscared by the din of yesterday, in full
melody, lay him he sought!
Cyril was lying on his back and breathing heavily; his handsome face
was pale as marble, and with his thick curly brown hair and
well-curved moustache, Horace thought he looked like a manly and
beautiful statue. His eyes were closed, but a quiver of agony at
times passed over his features. His epaulettes had been torn off,
probably by some passing Tartar of Burliuk. His uniform was open and
sorely soiled, for bloody bandages traversed his breast. His whole
aspect was intensely pitiable and forlorn. Alas for Cyril! once so
particular in his toilet, in the quality of his perfumes, the
exquisite fit of his gloves and boots, and the general perfection of
his apparel. His sword was still lying near his hand, and on hearing
a step, he instinctively clutched it nervously, thus causing the
blood to well forth anew from the wound in his breast.
Poor Horace was deeply moved.
"Oh, Cyril," thought he, "if that poor mother who dotes on you were
to see you thus, sodden and damp with dew, splashed with blood and
pierced with wounds! Cyril!"
He opened his eyes, and a faint smile of recognition passed over his
face as he took the hand of his cousin, who knelt by his side.
"Thank Heaven you have escaped, Horace," said he.
"Yes, Cyril, my dear fellow. Would to God that you had been so
fortunate. I had my left epaulette shot away by one bullet, my cap
knocked off by another, and my sword hand grazed by the splinter of a
shell, but I am untouched. If that Russian scoundrel--the spy----"
"He may have got his deserts by this time and be lower than he has
brought me. You will write to my father--say, to break all this
gently to my mother; but then she will unfortunately see the Gazette
first!" said Cyril, and now his voice failed him.
After a time he asked--
"Who of ours have fallen, and who escaped?"
"I know not who have escaped, but I know that Bingham, Jack Probyn,
Joyce, and Pomfret are all gone. Ned Elton had a leg smashed under
the colours, and poor Conyers Singleton is lying dead among some
stones yonder."
"Poor Joyce--his wife and children--he loved them so!"
"The Colonel had his black horse shot under him, and then led the
regiment on foot."
"I feel utterly sick of life, Horace. I hope I shall die--and I
must, if this agony endures," said Cyril in a low voice through his
clenched teeth.
"Do not speak or think thus. You shall soon be comfortably cared
for. The wounded are ordered to be sent on board the fleet, and I
shall see you off among the first."
Yesterday Cyril really had a mad desire to court danger--to tempt
death, but not to be stricken down thus--almost assassinated, when
assisting in an act of mercy! Yet why should he have wished for
death? he began to think now. Did not his tender mother, his
affectionate and manly father, love him, and Bob too, after his
somewhat cold and legal fashion? All his brother officers were his
friends. The passing emotion was morbid and ungrateful; yet, as he
lay there, he sighed in his soul for one glance from Mary's eye--one
touch of Mary's hand again!
Just as Horace was about to leave him in quest of assistance, a
little midshipman with four seamen bearing stretchers passed near,
and he hailed them. Into one of these he was carefully, even
tenderly, lifted, and conveyed towards the shore, while Horace, with
a prayer of hope that he might recover soon--for he and Cyril were
especial friends--turned away to attend to his duties with the now
shattered regiment--and these duties were the reverse of cheerful.
Many vessels sailed with their melancholy freights for Scutari; but
on the voyage of three hundred and thirty miles which lie between
that place and the mouth of the Alma, many a body was committed,
coffinless, to the waves of the Euxine; for many brave fellows were
uselessly shipped who were mortally wounded, and through routine,
circumlocution, and infamous parsimony, "there were not medical
necessaries on board for five out of fifty sufferers."*
* Letter of a medical officer.
"Ten men per company to bury the dead!" was the order issued to each
regiment on the morning of the 21st September.
During the two days subsequent to the battle, Horace was so busy with
one of the working parties who were ordered to separate the dead from
the wounded; to bury the former and get the latter out of the field;
collecting the abandoned Russian arms and destroying them by fire, or
otherwise, that he could barely snatch a few minutes to dispatch a
letter to Gwenny--think what his aunt might of it, he could not
resist the temptation of writing to _her_--with a brief detail of all
that had transpired.
And from this pleasant office which brought her bright face and sweet
presence and all the distinct _individuality_ of the girl so vividly
before him, it was hard to turn to the grim task of having those
ghastly trenches dug, tenanted, and filled up.
Though reflective, he was not much of a sentimentalist; yet as he
stood by one of those hecatombs and heard the solemn words of the
surpliced regimental chaplain, reading the English burial
service--now that the fury of the battle had passed away, his soul
was stirred. "The bitter pains of eternal death;" "The certain hope
of a resurrection to eternal life;" "For a thousand years are in Thy
sight as yesterday, seeing that is past as a watch of the night. As
soon as Thou scatterest them, they are even as a sleep, and fade away
suddenly like the grass."
An old sergeant of the Welsh Fusileers, whose son lay in that grave,
all belted and accoutred as when in life, made the responses
tremulously, and Horace felt moved by an emotion of great pity.
To what end, or for what useful purpose, had all this carnage been?
Why had all those strong and, many of them, handsome young men been
cut off thus in the flower of their manhood? For a time he thought
war horrible--an utter desecration of God's fair earth; but anon the
trench was filled, the drums beat for dinner, and the living soon
forgot those dead with whom they might be sleeping on the morrow.
"My poor fellows! there lie one hundred and sixty of them!" said Sir
Edward Elton, as he stood at the head of the long trench, with his
sword-arm slung in his crimson sash; "by this time they have learned
the grand secret that lies between Time and Eternity. Well--well!
God rest them! General and drum-boy, king and clown, we must all lie
alike in our graves; there is no distinction there!"