One of the Six Hundred: A Novel
cattle stabled below; the men told off to their messes and watches; the
lances, swords, and other arms stowed away in racks; the valises and
hammocks slung to their cleats, and so forth. In the stables one stall
on each side was left vacant, with spare slings, in case of accidents at
sea.
Fortunately, I was spared the annoyance of Berkeley's society on the
voyage out, as there was not space for more than one troop on board the
clipper; so he was with Wilford's on board the _Ganges_. He was not
exactly "in Coventry," but somehow our mess disliked him, and could not
exactly comprehend, as they phrased it, "what was up" between him and
me.
Now that I was again in favour with Louisa Loftus; now that the untoward
affair at the Reculvers had been completely explained, and that the
victory was mine, and his the shame, defeat, and rejection--nearly all
emotion of hostility against him had died away, or been replaced by
settled contempt. Yet the hostile meeting was still looming in the
future, and would have to ensue on the first suitable opportunity.
I was not sorry when the bustle of embarkation was over, and the clipper
was towed out to the famous reach or roadstead at Spithead, where she
came to anchor for a time, under the shelter of the high lands of the
Isle of Wight.
The noblest army that ever left the shores of the British Isles was,
undoubtedly, that which departed under Lord Raglan's orders for the
East.
It was the carefully-developed army of forty years of peace, during
which the world had made a mighty stride in art, in science, and in
civilization--greater than it had done, perhaps, between the days of the
Twelfth Crusade and the last day of Waterloo.
"War," says Napier, in his "Peninsular History," "war tries the military
framework; but it is in peace that the framework itself must be
formed--otherwise barbarians would be the leading soldiers of the world.
A perfect army can only be made by civil institutions."
The same magnificent writer says elsewhere, with terrible truth, "In the
beginning of each war England has to seek in blood the knowledge
necessary to insure success; and like the fiend's progress towards Eden,
her conquering course is through chaos, followed by Death!" and that
such was her course in the Crimea, let the errors of general routine,
the trenches of Sebastopol, and the criminal red-tapism at home bear
witness.
Of the morale of that army there can be no higher evidence than the
voices that came from the poor fellows in our ranks--the letters with
which they filled the newspapers of the day, detailing with spirit,
simplicity, and pathos their humble experiences in the great events of
the war.
All our men loved Beverley, who was a model commanding officer, and my
troop deemed themselves (as I did) peculiarly lucky in being with him
and the head-quarters staff. He took great care of his regiment, and a
strict supervision of the horses.
He had left nothing undone while at home, by the establishment and
encouragement of a school, a library, and so forth, to raise the moral
tone of the lancers, their wives and families; hence some of the
contributions of our privates to the newspapers were fully equal to any
that emanated from Sir Colin's famous Highland Brigade. Beverley
regularly visited the sick in hospital, and cheered them by his kindly
manner; and all the little ones who played in the barrack square smiled
and welcomed the approach of the colonel, who was seldom without a few
small coins to scatter among them, and cause a scramble; yet, as I have
said, he was somewhat of a dandy, and not without a tinge of affectation
in his tone and manner.
Next evening saw us at sea.
The Nab Light had sunk far astern, and the pale cliffs of the Isle of
Wight had melted into the world of waters.
Old Jack Bloater, the pilot from Selsey, had drunk his last horn of grog
at the binnacle, and left us with every wish for "an 'appy journey--a
bong woyage, as the monseers called it, and that we would soon give them
Roosians a skewerin'."
And now I knew that many a day, and week, and month, it might be years,
filled up by the perils and stormy passages of a life of campaigning,
must inevitably pass ere I should again hear Louisa's voice, before I
had her hand in mine, and looked into her tender eyes again--if I was
kindly permitted by Heaven to return at all. But little knew our
departing army of the suffering and horrors that were before it--horrors
and sufferings to which the bayonets and bullets of the Russians were
but child's play.
I was now away from her finally, and without the least arrangement
having been made for that which alone can soothe the agony and anxiety
of such a separation--correspondence! I clung to the hope that she might
write to me; if not, I could only hear of her from Cora, or perhaps when
Miss Wilford wrote to her brother Fred; and, it might be, from some
stray paragraph in the _Court Journal_ or _Morning Post_, if either ever
found its way beyond the Dardanelles, which seemed doubtful.
I had her treasured lock of hair and the miniature, on which I was never
tired of gazing, especially when I could do so unseen in my swinging
cot, for a crowded transport is the last place in the world for
indulging in lover's dreams or reveries. It was a poor, feeble
daguerreotype, yet there were times when, by force of imagination, the
pictured face seemed to light up with Louisa's smile, and when the fine
feminine features became filled by a blaze of light and life, so like
the original that they became perfectly lovely.
Then I would think of Cora, too, and when I reflected over all her
bearing towards me, the light which broke upon me at first became
clearer.
Her tears when she first told Sir Nigel of her suspicion that I loved
Louisa; her sudden changes of colour, from pallor to ruddy suffusion of
the cheek; her hesitation in addressing me at times, her abruptness at
others, or her silence; her vehemence in defending me against the
accusations of Berkeley, and her joy at my victory; her occasional
coldness to Louisa and her silent sorrow at my departure; all that had
at any time puzzled me was explained now.
Cora loved me with a love beyond that of cousin, and I must often have
stabbed her good little heart by my impertinent confidences regarding my
passion for another.
Well, well, Cora's love and my regrets were alike vain now, for the
swift clipper ship was running on a taut bowline by the skirts of
Biscay's stormy bay, as she bore us on "to glory" and Gallipoli.
*CHAPTER XXV.*
A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast.
And bends the gallant mast, my boys.
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.
The cabin was spacious and comfortable. Binnacle, the skipper, was a
short, thick-set little stump of a fellow, with a round, good-humoured
face, which had become browned by exposure in every climate and on every
sea under the sun. He was very anecdotical, perpetually joking and
laughing, and had one peculiarity, that he never in conversation
inter-larded his remarks with nautical phraseology, like the
conventional or orthodox sailor of romance and the stage.
He had never sailed before with a horse on board, and now that he had
actually one hundred of those useful quadrupeds under his hatches, he
spent a great deal of his spare time among them, tickling their ears and
noses--more, perhaps, than some of them quite relished, if one might
judge of the manner in which they occasionally showed the whites of
their eyes, and lashed out at the rear end of their stall-boxes.
On board we smoked, of course, played chess, loo (_rouge-et-noir_, a
little), and daily watched with interest the steamers which passed us,
full of troops, British or French, all on their way to the East. Some
of us kept diaries and made memoranda for friends at home: but some grew
tired of doing so, or reflected that they might not live to record that,
on such a day, the white cliffs of old England were again in sight.
We had quite a bale of the "Railway Library" on board; but to reading we
preferred telling stories, to kill time, or watching, telescope in hand,
for bits of continental scenery, as we ran along the coast of Portugal,
spanned the Gulf of Cadiz, and hauled up for the Straits of Gibraltar,
after passing the rocky promontory of Cape St. Vincent, which we saw
rising from the sea north-north-east of us, about ten miles distant, on
the fifth day after we sailed from Spithead.
During the day we had not many leisure hours, as there is no situation
in which troops more urgently require the personal superintendence of
their officers than when on board ship.
All the lancers were supplied with white canvas frocks, to save their
uniforms, and were divided into three watches, each of which in turn was
on deck, with at least one officer. We had an officer of the day and
guard, who posted sentinels, armed with the sword, at the breaks of the
poop and forecastle, to maintain order, and, when the weather permitted,
we had an hour of carbine and sword exercise, to the great edification
of Captain Binnacle and his crew. Every morning the bedding was brought
on deck and triced in nettings alongside; no smoking was permitted in
the stables or between decks.
The cattle were of course our chief care, and Beverley was always
particular about his mounts. Experience and theory had long convinced
him that the sire dominated in the breed of chargers; thus he ever
eschewed the produce of half-bred stallions and stud horses. We gave
them mashes dashed with nitre, and mixed bran with their corn; daily we
had their hoofs and fetlocks washed in clean salt water, their eyes and
noses sponged, and when at times the windsails failed to act, and the
hold became close, we washed the mangers with vinegar and water, and
sponged the horses' nostrils with the same refreshing dilution.
Notwithstanding all our care, however, before we sighted Malta we lost
three--one of which was my uncle's present, the black cover-hack with
the white star on her counter. It became glandered.
Pitblado, who had seen the nag foaled, and had many a day taken it to
graze in Falkland Park, and on the green slopes of the Mid Lomond,
flatly refused to shoot it when I ordered him to do so, but gave his
loaded carbine to Lanty O'Regan, who had fewer scruples on the subject.
When this episode occurred, Cape Espartel was bearing south-east of us,
about twelve miles distant; and by our glasses we could distinctly see
the features of that remarkable headland of Morocco, the north-western
extremity of the mighty continent of Africa, with its range of basaltic
columns, which nearly rival in magnificence those of Fingal's Cave at
Staffa; and the noon of the following day, as we bore into the
Mediterranean, saw the great peak of Gibraltar rising from the horizon
like a couchant lion, with its tail turned to Spain.
When my poor nag, previous to its slaughter, was being slung up from the
hold, Beverley was much impressed by the real grief of honest Pitblado
for its loss; and told me an interesting Indian anecdote of a pet horse
that belonged to the 8th Royal Irish Hussars.
Beverley seldom spoke of India, for it was a land that was not without
sorrowful recollections to him; and we all knew that he wore at his neck
a large gold locket, containing a braid of the hair of his intended
bride--a lovely girl, who was shot in his arms, and when seated on his
saddle, as he was spurring with his troop through the horrors and the
carnage of the Khyber Pass--on that day when nearly our whole 44th