One of the Six Hundred: A Novel
cucumbers and gourds, medlars, and filberts, which Willie Pitblado had
found in the deserted garden of a Tartar, formed, all things considered,
a sumptuous repast, and what it lacked in style and equipage was amply
made up for in fun and jollity, for "men accommodate themselves
unconsciously to the modes of living that are forced upon them. It is a
law of our being, and it is well that it should be so. A bomb bursting
in the midst of a fashionable London dinner party would do no more
mischief than one of the numbers which used to burst daily within the
walls of Lucknow; but assuredly it would produce a far greater
impression."
"This is really the tug of war!" exclaimed Wilford, who, after various
ineffectual efforts to uncork a champagne bottle, adroitly struck off
its head by the stroke of a knife.
"Yes, by Jove! and think of the mess!" added Jocelyn.
"To feel," said the colonel, "that one has a soul--and what is more, an
appetite, a taste, and decided predilection for turtle soup and
_recherche entrees_--and yet compelled to appreciate this style of
thing!"
"I can appreciate everything and anything," exclaimed the paymaster.
"Even an 'aggis, eh?--haw!" said Berkeley.
"Yes, even a haggis. My stomach is as empty as a kettledrum," replied
the paymaster, as he sliced away at the ham.
"I think there is something going on in front," observed Wilford,
pausing in the act of dissecting a fowl.
"Yes," said Beverley; "Lord Raglan, with some squadrons of the 11th and
13th, has crossed the river to reconnoitre; but let us make the most of
the present, our turn will come all in good time. Pass the wine,
M'Goldrick; a slice of meat, Studhome--thanks."
"Ugh!" remarked the paymaster; "'the bed of honour,' as Jean Paul
Richter says, 'since whole regiments lie on it, and frequently have
received their last unction, should really be filled anew, beaten and
sunned.'"
"What--aw, haw--does that quotation mean?" asked Berkeley, adjusting his
eyeglass, contracting the muscles of his eye, and giving our old Scots
paymaster an inquiring and quizzical stare. "It sounds doocid queer,
and--haw--unpleasant."
"I was thinking of the hard bed I shall sleep on to-night, sir," replied
M'Goldrick, rather sternly.
"By Jove, some of us may sleep sound enough to-night yet," said the
colonel, half starting up. "There is a decided movement in front, and
here comes a French mounted officer."
At that moment a subaltern of Zouaves, mounted on a French dragoon
horse, in a somewhat excited manner, dashed up to where we lay lounging
on the grass, reined his trooper sharply in on the bit, shouting
something of which I could only make out the prefix, "_Messieurs les
officiers_!"
"_Diable!_ you don't speak French?" he added, in English, to Travers of
ours.
"No, sir; I am sorry----"
"_Peste!_" interrupted the Frenchman; "every staff officer should speak
at least two European languages."
"_Dioul na bocklish_! There, I can speak my mother tongue, being an
Irishman; and if that won't do, the devil is in it. But I am not a
staff officer," he added, to the stranger, in whom I now recognized M.
Jolicoeur, of the 2nd Zouaves.
"The enemy is in great force in front, and your commander-in-chief, with
the two regiments of your advanced guard, will be surrounded and cut
off."
"Lord Raglan, with the 11th and 13th!" we exclaimed, starting to our
feet; and just at that moment an aide-de-camp, Captain Bolton, of the
1st Dragoon Guards, came galloping up, and exclaimed--
"Boot and saddle, Colonel Beverley; the 11th and 13th, under Lord
Cardigan, are engaged in front. Cavalry supports and horse artillery
are instantly required."
The trumpets sounded, the regiment formed by troops, and joined the
brigade, which formed in squadrons, and advanced rapidly in search of
the enemy.
"Aw--doocid bore, after our pleasant little tiffin," I heard Berkeley
say, with a bantering air; but I could see that he looked very white for
all that, and Beverley only smiled superciliously, as he twisted his
thick moustaches.
"I wonder Berkeley has not his white gloves on," he whispered to me, and
I saw some of our men smiling, for it was a regimental joke, or
notoriety, that he was in the habit of pencilling on his gloves the
words of command he had to issue in succession.
As the junior regiment, we were in the centre of the brigade, the senior
corps being on the right, and the next in seniority on the left; and we
advanced at a rapid trot, in a column of squadrons at wheeling distance,
while the artillery, making a dreadful clatter, with all their tumbrils
limbered up, their spare wheels, forge waggons, rammers, sponges,
buckets, and other apparatus, went thundering at full gallop to the
front.
"In a few minutes, my lads, we may be hand to hand with the enemy,"
shouted Beverley, as he stood up in his stirrups and brandished his
sword; "let us be true to the old motto of the regiment!"
All knew what he meant, and responded by a long and ringing cheer, for
our lancers had been raised as light dragoons in 1759, by Colonel John
Hale, the officer who came to London with the news of Wolfe's fall and
victory at Quebec; and in that year it was ordered by his Majesty George
II. that "on the front of the men's caps, and on the left breast of
their uniforms, there was to be a death's head, with two crossbones over
it, and underneath the motto, '_Or Glory_.'" And this grim but
significant badge we still wear on all our appointments.[*] It would
appear that, early in the afternoon, and before the whole army had
halted, our old and one-armed leader, the good Lord Raglan, who had
ridden far in advance of the first division of infantry, observed a
group of Cossacks hovering on the brow of a green hill, towards the
south, on which he ordered part of Lord Cardigan's command, the 11th
Hussars and 13th Light Dragoons, forward to reconnoitre. On this
occasion Lord Lucan was also present.
[*] Our predecessors in the service were the old Scots 17th Light
Dragoons, raised at Edinburgh in the winter of 1759, during the alarm of
the projected invasion under the Marechal Duc d'Aiguillon, by Sholto,
Lord Aberdour, afterwards sixteenth Earl Morton, who died in Sicily in
1774. This corps, which never consisted of more than two troops, served
in the Seven Years' War, and was disbanded in 1763. One of its
officers, Lieutenant the Honourable Sir T. Maitland, son of the Earl of
Lauderdale, died so lately as 1824, a lieutenant-general, G.C.B.,
governor of Malta and the Ionian Isles.
Where the road from Eupatoria to Sebastopol crosses the Bulganak, the
bank of the river rises for several hundred yards, and then the ground
slopes down into a valley, beyond which rises a succession of grassy
undulations. The hussars and light dragoons rode boldly forward.
Formed in four squadrons, they splashed through the stream, galloped up
the bank, and descended into the hollow, before they became aware that
no less than two thousand Russian cavalry were advancing to meet them,
with a line of skirmishers in front in extended order.
"Forward, skirmishers!" was now the command.
The trumpet sounded, and from the flanks of each squadron, as it halted
to form line, the few selected men for this duty spread at intervals of
twenty yards from each other, at the distance of two hundred yards from
the column; sheathing their swords and unslinging their carbines, as
they took up their dressing from the right. Beyond the crest of the
second eminence, a steady glittering in the sunshine revealed to the
keen eyes of General Airey that it came from the points--the mere
tips--of fixed bayonets, and that there were concealed in the hollow way
many battalions of an infantry force, quietly waiting to open a close
and murderous fire upon our little body of cavalry, when they were lured
sufficiently far forward to secure their total destruction. In fact,
our advanced guard, composed of only two slender regiments, was thus
suddenly opposed to six thousand men of the 17th Russian division,
posted in ambush, with two batteries of artillery, a brigade of regular
cavalry, and nine sotnias of Cossacks, the whole under General
Carlovitch Baur. It was a perilous--a terrible dilemma! Lord Raglan
knew that he must avoid an action on one hand, and secure the retreat of
the 11th and 13th with complete honour on the other. To the
roughly-mounted and loosely-handled Russian horsemen, the beautiful and
ceremonious formation of our gay hussars, with their glittering dolmans,
and our smart light dragoons in blue and buff, with all their swords and
bright appointments flashing in the sunshine, was a cause of hesitation.
They could not suppose but that this slender force had a greater body of
troops at hand, and feared the very snare they were preparing for
others; thus they were quietly and tranquilly confronting each other,
out of musket-range, when we, with the light and second division, the
8th Hussars, and nine-pounder batteries, came up at a gallop, to succour
our comrades, and got into position. After this, the wily and savage
Muscovites found their opportunity gone, and the gallant Baur was rather
nonplussed.
When the regiments of the infantry divisions came up, they deployed into
line, and all their bright steel ramrods glittered in the sunshine, as
they loaded with ball cartridge and "capped." We, the cavalry support,
took up a position in the left rear of the advanced force under Lord
Cardigan, and rapidly loaded our pistols and carbines, awaiting further
orders. In each of my holsters I carried a six-chambered revolver. So
close were we to our advanced guard, that we could hear the officers of
the 11th and the 13th recalling their skirmishers.
"Retire the skirmishers," rang again and again on the clear air;
"shorten stirrups--girth up--reload and reform."
Every heart was beating high, for we were now face to face with an
enemy--many among us for the first time.
"Keep your dressing, squadron leaders," said Colonel Beverley, whose
eyes were lit up by a strange brightness--indeed, it seemed to spread
over all his handsome and sunburned face; "close up, gentlemen. We have
all been used to ride to hounds, and that is more than any of those
Russian fellows have done. By Jove! I should like to see them crossing
a stiff stone-wall country. In a few minutes, lancers, I repeat we may
be hand to hand with the enemy; so, when we come to close quarters,
remember the old fencing-school advice, 'Watch your antagonist's eyes,
not his blade.'"
I was leader of our left squadron, and had my post, of course, half a
horse's length in front of the standard, which was carried by Sergeant
Stapylton. It was a white swallow-tailed pennon, with a skull, and the
words, "Or Glory" embroidered beneath--terribly significant at such a
time, as it rustled out in the breeze. My secret enemy, Mr. Berkeley,
was a troop leader on my left, at some little distance, and at this
exciting moment there was a singular expression in his eyes. I thought
he was about to ride up and extend his hand to me, for I had known of
forgiveness being often asked and accorded when men were face to face
with death; but if it were so, I was pitiless. I remembered Lady Louisa
Loftus, and the cottage by the Reculvers, and resolved that the hard
expression of my glance should chill him. Little did I know the ideas
that were in his mind, and the mischief he was yet to work me, ere we
passed the heights of Alma. On this evening, so cool were some of our
fellows, that I detected several of the rear-rank men tickling the
front-rank horses, to make them kick. Lord Raglan now became
apprehensive that the numerous cavalry of General Baur, in their longing