Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
made," said I, "the slaughter will be frightful."
"Bah!" replied he, cynically, while tipping the white ashes from his
cigar, "a few thousands are not missed among the millions of Russia; I
presume we only get rid of those who are unnecessary in the general
scheme of creation."
"Peasants and serfs, I suppose?"
"Well, perhaps so--peasants and serfs, as you islanders suppose all
our people to be."
"Nay, as you Russians deem them."
"We shall not dispute the matter, please," said he, coldly; and now,
as I sat looking at him, a memory of his face and voice came over me.
"Count Volhonski!" I exclaimed, "have you quite forgotten me and the
duel with the Prussian at Altona?"
He started and took his cigar from his mouth.
"The Hospodeen Hardinge!" said he, grasping my hand with honest
warmth; "I must have been blind not to recognise you; but I never
before saw you in your scarlet uniform."
"It is more purple than scarlet now, Count."
"Well, our own finery is not much to boast of, though we are in a
city, and you are under canvas. But how does the atmosphere of Crim
Tartary agree with you?" he asked, laughing.
"A little too much gunpowder in it, perhaps."
"I am sorry, indeed, to find that you and I are enemies, after those
pleasant days spent in Hamburg and Altona; but when we last parted in
Denmark--you remember our mutual flight across the frontier--you were
but a subaltern, a praperchick, a sub-lieutenant, I think."
"I am a captain now."
"Ah--the Alma did that, I presume."
"Exactly."
"You will have plenty of promotion in your army, I expect, ere this
war is ended. You shall all be promoted in heaven, I hope, ere holy
Russia is vanquished."
"Well, Count, and you--"
"I am now Pulkovnick of the Vladimir Infantry."
"Did the Alma do that?"
"No; the Grand-Duchess Olga, to whom the regiment belongs, promoted me
from the Guards, as a reward for restoring her glove, which she
dropped one evening at a masked ball given in the hall of St. Vladimir
by the Emperor; so my rank was easily won."
A knock rang on the door; spurs and a steel scabbard clattered on the
floor, and then entered a stately old officer in the splendid uniform
of the Infantry of the Guard, the gilded plate on his high and
peculiarly-shaped cap bearing the perforation of more than one bullet,
and his breast being scarcely broad enough for all the orders that
covered it. He bowed to Volhonski, and saluted me with his right hand,
in which he carried a bundle of documents like lists. The Count
introduced him as "the Pulkovnick Ochterlony, commanding the
Ochterlony Battalion of the Imperial Guard." He was not at all like a
Russian, having clear gray eyes and a straight nose, and still less
like one did he seem when he addressed me in almost pure English.
"I have," said he, "gone over all the lists of officers of the Allies
now prisoners in Sebastopol, or taken since the siege and sent towards
Yekaterinoslav, and can find among them no such name as that of Major
MacG--, of the 93rd Regiment of Scottish Highlanders. If traces of him
are found, dead or alive, a message to that effect shall at once be
sent to my Lord Raglan."
"I thank you, sir," said I, rising and regarding him curiously; "you
speak very pure English for a Russian!"
"I am a Russian by birth and breeding only; in blood and race I am a
countryman of your own."
"Indeed!" said I, coldly and haughtily, "how comes it to pass that an
Englishman--"
"Excuse me, sir," said he, with a manner quite as haughty as my own,
"I did not say that I was an Englishman; but as we have no time to
make explanations on the subject, let us have together a glass of
Crimskoi, and part, for the time, friends."
His manner was so suave, his bearing so stately, and his tone so
conciliating--moreover his age seemed so great--that I clinked my
glass with his, and withdrew with Volhonski, who, sooth to say, seemed
exceedingly loath to part with me.
"Who the deuce is that officer?" I asked.
"I introduced him to you by name. He is the colonel of the Ochterlony
Battalion of the Guard, which was raised by his father, one of the
many Scottish soldiers of fortune who served the Empress Catharine;
and the man is Russian to the core in all save blood, which he cannot
help; but here is the gate, and you must be again blinded by Tolstoff.
Adieu! May our next meeting be equally pleasant and propitious!"
As we separated, there burst from the soldiery who thronged near the
gates a roar of hatred and execration, excited doubtless by the
bishop's harangue; and poor Dicky Roll shrunk close to my side as we
passed out. The ancient Scoto-Muscovite, I afterwards learned, was
styled Ochterlony of Guynde, the soldiers of whose regiment had
enjoyed from his father's time the peculiar privilege of retaining and
wearing their old cap-plates, so long as a scrap of the brass
remained, if they had once been perforated by a shot in action; and it
is known that this identical old officer--who had some three or four
nephews in the Russian Guards--had been visiting his paternal place of
Guynde, in Forfarshire, but a few months before the war broke out.
In a few minutes more, Dicky Roll and I found ourselves, with our eyes
unbandaged, once more in that pleasant locality midway between the
abattis and the trenches, towards which we made our way in all haste,
that I might report the issue of my mission concerning the Scotch
major, who, as events proved, was found alive and unhurt, luckily; and
the moment my white flag disappeared among the gabions--where all
crowded round me for news, and where I became the hero of an
hour--again the firing was resumed on both sides with all its former
fury, and the old game went on--shot and shell, dust, the crash of
stones and fascines, thirst, hunger, slaughter, and mutilation. That
the Russians had some great essay _in petto_, the words of Volhonski
left us no doubt, nor were we long kept in ignorance of what was
impending over us.
CHAPTER XXXIV.--GUILFOYLE REDIVIVUS.
Quietly and before day dawned the trench-guards were relieved, and
we marched wearily back towards the camp. I had dismissed my company,
and was betaking me to my tent, threading my way along the streets
formed by those of each regiment, when an ambulance wagon,
four-wheeled and covered by a canvas hood, drew near. It was drawn by
four half-starved-looking horses; the drivers were in the saddles; and
an escort rode behind, muffled in their blue cloaks. It was laden, no
doubt, with boots warranted not to fit, and bags of green or unripe
coffee for the troops, who had no means of grinding it or of cooking
it, firewood being our scarcest commodity. An officer of the Land
Transport Corps, in cloak and forage-cap, was riding leisurely in rear
of the whole, and as he passed I heard him singing, for his own
edification, apparently: the refrain of his ditty was,
"Ach nein! ach nein! ich darf es nich.
Leb'wohl! Leb'wohl!"
"Heavens!" thought I, pausing in my progress, "can this be my
quondam acquaintance, the _attaché_ at the Court of Catzenelnbogen
here--_here_, in the Crimea!"
"Can you direct me to the commissariat quarter of the Second
Division?" asked the singer, a little pompously.
"By all the devils it is Guilfoyle!" I exclaimed.
"Oho--You are Hardinge of the 23rd--well met, Horatio!" said he,
reining-in his horse, and with an air of perfect coolness.
"How came _you_ to be here, sir?" I asked, sternly.
"I question your right to ask, if I do not your tone," he replied;
"however, if you feel interested in my movements, I may mention that I
was going to the dogs or the devil, and thought I might as well take
Sebastopol on the way."
"It is not taken yet--but you, I hope, may be."
"Thanks for your good wishes," was the unabashed reply; "however, I am
wide enough awake, sir; be assured that I cut my eye-teeth some years
ago."
To find that such a creature as he had crept into her Majesty's
service, even into such an unaristocratic force as the Land Transport
Corps, and actually wore a sword and epaulettes, bewildered me,
excited my indignation and disgust; and I felt degraded that by a
reflected light he was sharing our dangers, our horrors, and the
honours of the war. I had never seen his name in the _Gazette_, as
being appointed a cornet of the Transport Corps, and the surprise I
felt was mingled with profound contempt, and something of amusement,
too, at his _insouciance_ and cool effrontery. This made me partially
forget the rage and hatred he had excited in me by the mischievous
game he had played at Walcot Park, his plot to ruin me with Estelle
Cressingham--a plot from which I had been so victoriously
disentangled. Hence circumstance, change of position and place,
induced me to talk to the fellow in a way that I should not have done
at home or elsewhere.
"How came you to deprive England of the advantages of your society?" I
asked, in a sneering tone, of which he was too well-bred not to be
conscious; so he replied in the same manner,
"A verse of an old song may best explain it:
"'A plague on ill luck, now the ready's all gone,
To the wars poor Pilgarlick must trudge;
But had I the cash to rake on as I've done,
The devil a foot I would budge!'
"And so Pilgarlick is serving his ungrateful country," he added, with
the mocking laugh that I remembered of old.
"You can actually laugh at your own--"
"Don't say anything unpleasant," said he, shortening his reins; "I do
so, but only as Reynard, who has lost his brush, laughs at the more
clever fox who has kept his from the hounds," he added, with a glance
of malevolence. "So you were not at the Alma? Doubtless it was
pleasanter to break a bone quietly at home than risk all your limbs
here in action."
Disdaining to notice either his sneer or the inference to be
drawn from his remark, I asked, "What has become of that unhappy
creature--your wife?"
"As you call her."
"Georgette Franklin--well?"
"It matters little now, and is no business of yours."
"That I know well--I only pitied her; but why do I waste words or time
with such as you?"
"So you would like to know what has become of her, eh?"
"Very much."
"Well," said he, grinding his teeth with anger or hate, perhaps both,
"there is a den in the Walworth-road, above a rag, bone, and
old-bottle shop, the master of which was not unknown to the police, as
apt to be roaming about intent to commit, as no doubt he often did,
felony; for a few articles of bijouterie, such as a bunch of
skeleton-keys, a crowbar, a brace of knuckle-dusters, and a 'barker,'
with a piece of wax-candle, were found upon his person, after an
investigation thereof, suggestive that his habits were nocturnal, and
that the propensities of his digits were knavish; and the landlord of
this den gave her lodgings--and there she died, this Georgette
Franklin, in whom you are so interested--died not without suspicion of
suicide. Now are _you_ satisfied?" he added, holding a cigar between
the first and second fingers of his right hand, and gazing lazily at
the smoke wreaths as they curled upward in the chill morning air.
There was something sublimely infernal--if I may be permitted the
paradox--in the gusto with which the fellow told all this, and in the
sneering expression of his face; and I could see his green eyes and
his white teeth glisten in the light of a great rocket--some secret
signal--that soared up from Fort Alexander, and broke with a thousand
sparkles, curving downward through the murky morning sky.
"Pass on, sir," said I, sternly; "and the best I can wish you is that
some Russian bullet may avenge her and rid the earth of you."