One of the Six Hundred: A Novel
flag of truce displayed upon a lance to protect him from the savage and
vindictive Cossacks who were hovering about, that self-devoted man
worked without ceasing in the care and cure of those miserable
creatures, who were all lying side by side, collected in one place--the
acre of wounded--a task which proved too great in the end for his
energies, as he died of fatigue and cholera soon after the battle.
The day after we marched, Death, who had hovered beside the great French
marshal, even while his baton directed the movements of his zouaves and
riflemen, seized more firmly on his victim, and on the 29th St. Arnaud
died of cholera--that fatal pest, which still hung upon our skirts.
Our wounded, after the Alma, were conveyed in great numbers in those
_kabitkas_, some of which I had personally secured; and these, after
delivering their suffering and dying loads to the boats' crews, had to
bring back supplies to the camp. Many of those open carts broke down,
and were abandoned on the road with their contents; and thus, after we
marched, it was no uncommon event for us to find seven or eight
soldiers, dead, or dying of wounds and cholera, above the bags of
biscuit intended for the use of the troops.
The morning of the 23rd beheld us set forth hopefully on our march to
Sebastopol, where we hoped to crown our efforts by its speedy capture
and destruction.
No enemy was visible to oppose our advance, and save here and there a
broken-down _kabitka_, a dead Russian, who had fallen in his flight, and
lay by the wayside in his leather helmet and long coat, with the
vultures hovering over him; save these, and a deserted cannon, and the
deep wheel-tracks in the rough old Tartar road, no trace remained of the
great host we had swept before us in disorder and dismay.
In the afternoon of that day, we reached the beautiful valley of the
Katcha (seventeen miles from Sebastopol), a river which has its source
among the mountains of Taurida, and flows into the Black Sea, a little
below Mamachai.
The valley is fertile, and we had all the enjoyment of abundant
provender and water. We occupied the pretty little village of Eskel,
which Baur and Kiriakoff's retreating Cossacks had plundered and
partially destroyed, and piles of broken furniture around the
tastefully-decorated villas of the more opulent residents evinced their
destructive spirit.
Studhome, Travers, Sir Harry Scarlett, and I possessed ourselves of a
pretty little villa, with painted lattices of coloured glass, and rooms
neatly--even handsomely--furnished. A piano, and some pieces of music
from Rossini's "Guillaume Tell," Strauss's waltzes, &c., were scattered
about, showing that the fair occupants had fled at our approach; but
nearly all the furniture and every utensil had been destroyed.
With his carbine, Pitblado had shot a brace of fine fat ducks, just in
time to anticipate those most active of foragers, the Zouaves, and they
were stewed in a warming-pan, which he had luckily discovered, and
utilized for culinary purposes, the fuel used being the front door of
the villa, the wood that came most readily to hand.
We had a comfortable supper, and Travers and Scarlett, who were wont to
be fastidious enough with the mess-waiters about the icing of their
sparkling hock or Moselle, were now content to wash down their stewed
duck with a draught of water from a stale wooden canteen. But then we
had gorgeous bunches of emerald green and dewy purple grapes, from the
vineyards close by, and melons and peaches, too; and these we ate in
defiance of prudence and the cholera.
We had just lit our cigars, and my cornet, Sir Harry, was trying his
hand on the piano, through which some inquiring Cossack had poked his
lance two or three times, when the trumpet-major arrived with letters
for us all; the mails from England had just come in and been
distributed. Many a letter was there for those whom we had left in
their graves behind us!
A letter from Sir Nigel! I recognised his bold, old-fashioned
handwriting. There was none from Cora (but she had scarcely ever
written to me), and there was none yet from Louisa Loftus!
Alas! I had ceased to hope for one from her. Yet I paused with good
Sir Nigel's letter unopened in my hand, while my friends were busy with
theirs.
How was it that, as doubt, jealousy, and irritation gathered in my mind
concerning Louisa, I thought more of Cora, and that her soft features,
her sweet, earnest expression, her nose, that bordered on the retrousse,
her thick dark hair, and brilliantly fair complexion, came before me?
I opened my uncle's letter. It contained little else than country
gossip, and his usual ideas on things in general; but some of these
seemed odd and startling to me then, as I read them in that Russian
villa, far away in Crim Tartary, with the hum of our camp mingling in my
ears with the rush of the mountain Katcha, as it poured through its
stony vale towards the sea.
The letter had been posted before news had reached Calderwood of our
departure from Varna.
"So the army is to remain inactive till half its number die of cholera;
and then the rest are to open a campaign against Russia at the beginning
of winter. History has no parallel for such--shall I call it madness?
But I tell you," continued the furious old Tory, "that the Whigs--a
party which never yet made war with honour--have sold you to the
Russians, and _Punch_ alone dares boldly to expose it." (Pleasant,
thought I, to read this within a short ride of Sebastopol!) "Every
Scottish statesman had, and still has, his price. In the olden time
they were always ready to sell Scotland to England, and why should one
of the same brood hesitate in selling both to the Russians now?
"My friend, Spittal of Lickspittal, the M.P., of course ridicules this
idea; but that is no proof of our suspicions being incorrect. He and
the Lord Advocate--that especial ministerial utensil for Scotland--have
put their small brains in steep to prepare some bill for the
assimilation of our laws; but strive though they may, they can never
assimilate them. And while Englishmen may bow with respect to the
decision of Mr. Justice Muggins, to our ears an interlocutor sounds
better when delivered by my Lord Calderwood, Pitcaple, or so forth.
"By the way, Cora has had a dangler, a new admirer, for some time past;
and who the deuce do you think he is? Young Mr. Brassy Wheedleton, son
of old Wheedleton, the village lawyer here--one of those fellows who
should be in front of Sebastopol just now, with sixty rounds of
ammunition at his back, instead of loafing about the Parliament House
with his hands in his pockets.
"He is a greater snob than your brother officer, Mr. De Warr Berkeley
(whose patronymic was Dewar Barclay, and who once asked, when I was
fishing six miles up the Eden, if I ''ad 'ooked many 'addocks').
Whenever little Brassy comes here anent that d----d bond, he lays close
siege to Cora, with flowers, books, music, and pretty nothings; but she
only laughs at this Edinburgh goose, who neither speaks English nor
Irish, Scotch nor the unknown tongue; who pronounces lord 'lud,' and
cat, what, or that as 'ket, whet, or thet,' and so forth. Believe me,
Newton, there is no more grotesque piece of human carrion than a genuine
Scotch snob, in a high state of Anglophobia.
"I am sorry to say it, but the honourable position of the Scottish bar
is simply traditional--a thing of the past. To the English barrister,
the House of Lords, the woolsack, and the highest offices of the state
are open; but to his poor Scotch brother, since the Union, after
blacking the boots of the Lord Advocate, and scribbling in defence of
his party, whatever it may be, a wretched sheriffship is all he may get,
unless, like Mansfield, Brougham, or Erskine, he casts his gown inside
the bar, and crosses the border for ever.
"Any way, I don't like Cora's dangler; but the fellow is plausible, and
will be deuced hard to get rid of, unless Pitblado could mistake him for
a partridge, or Splinterbar bolt across country with him, after we have
given her a feed of oats, dashed with brandy.
"I wish you could see Cora, as the good girl sits opposite me just now,
reading. Her dark hair smoothly braided over her tiny ears; a muslin
dress of pink and white, fastened by your old Rangoon brooch; and she
blushes scarlet with pleasure as she desires me to send her love to
you."
So ended this eccentric letter.
I felt irritated. But why should I? Cora might have a lover if she
chose. But then to throw herself away upon old Wheedleton's son--old
Wheedleton, whose father was the village tailor!
Something like an oath escaped me; but at that moment Sergeant-Major
Drillem made his appearance, to announce that my squadron, with that of
Captain Travers, was detailed for the advanced guard of cavalry on the
Belbeck road, and that the trumpets would sound "boot and saddle" an
hour before dawn to-morrow.
In the dusk we got under arms, mounted, and, with the troops riding in
sections of threes, I rode from Eskel at a slow pace, crossed the
Katcha--a position stronger, in some respects, than the Alma, and which
the Russians might have disputed by inches, had we not cowed them; and
then we took the road towards Belbeck, while the whole army was getting
under arms.
My orders were simply to be on the alert, to advance in line when the
ground was sufficiently open for such a formation, and to "feel the way"
towards Belbeck, which lay only four miles distant. Such were the
instructions given to me by Colonel Beverley, whose eyes sparkled at the
coming work, for he was one of that race of men "known by the kindling
grey eye and the light, stubborn, crisping hair--disclosing the rapture
of instant fight."
As we moved off we nearly trampled down a wounded cornet of the 11th
Hussars, who lay under a tree.
"That wretched little cornet of yours," said Berkeley to a captain of
the 11th; "he reminds me--haw--of one of the new Minie rifles."
"How?" asked the other, coldly.
"He is a small bore--haw--what do you think of the pun?"
"That it is poor, and the occasion is bad," replied the hussar, sternly.
"The poor boy will be dead before sunset."
"A doocid good thing for himself, and--haw--for us, too. He always beats
us at billiards," was the heartless response of Berkeley.
"Is it true," said I, "that Lieutenant Maxe, of the navy, has opened a
communication with our fleet at Balaclava?"
"Yes," said Travers. "Bolton and Nolan informed me that the allied
generals were most anxious to secure it by a flank movement, especially
as it is slightly defended; and to announce this intention to the
fleets, which follow our movements, became the task of Maxe, who rode by
night through a woody district, literally swarming with Cossacks,
skirting Sebastopol; and with no aid but his brave heart, his sword and
pistols, arranged the combined sea and land movements so essential to
our success."
"Gallant, indeed!" we exclaimed, as we rode off.
On our right lay the ocean, its waves, as they rose and fell, beginning
to be tipped with light, as the dawn brightened over the high ground
that rose on our left. The country became hilly in our front, and, as
it was open for a time, I formed the squadron, and advanced in line,
diverging a little to the east, in the direction of Duvankoi, a village
which is exactly five miles from Belbeck.
In fact, we advanced straight between these two places towards the
valley through which rolls the river that bears the latter name, and
which comes from the lofty table land of the Yaila, fed on its course by
all the mountain streams of the Ousenbakh.
The birds were singing merrily among the trees when the sun burst forth,