Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
the two now decimated regiments were compelled to retire. Their number
and force were as overwhelming as their courage, inflamed by raki and
intense religious fervour, was undeniable; for deep in all their
hearts had sunk the closing words of the bishop's prayer: "Bless and
strengthen them, O Lord, and give them a manly heart against their
enemies. Send them an angel of light, and to their enemies an angel of
darkness and horror to scatter them, and place a stumbling-block
before them to weaken their hearts, and turn their courage into
flight." And for a time the Russians seemed to have it all their own
way, and deemed their bishop a prophet. Our whole army was now under
arms, but upon our right fell the brunt of the attack, and old Lord
Raglan was soon among us, managing his field-glass and charger with
one hand and a half-empty sleeve. Under Brigadier-general Strangeways,
who was soon after mortally wounded, our artillery, when the mist
lifted a little, opened on the Russian batteries, and soon silenced
their fire; but the 20th and 47th Lancashire, after making a gallant
attempt to recapture the petty redoubt, were repulsed; but not until
they had been in possession of it for a few dearly-bought minutes,
during which, all wedged together in wild _mêlée_, the most hideous
slaughter took place, with the bayonet and clubbed musket; and the
moment they gave way, the inhuman Russians murdered all our wounded
men, many of whom were found afterwards cold and stiff, with hands
uplifted and horror in their faces, as if they had died in the act of
supplication.
Driven from that fatal redoubt at last by the Guards under the Duke of
Cambridge, it was held by a few hundred Coldstreamers against at least
_six thousand_ of the enemy. Thrice, with wild yells the gray-coated
masses, with all their bayonets glittering, swept madly and bravely
uphill, and thrice they were hurled back with defeat and slaughter.
Fresh troops were now pouring from Sebastopol, flushed with fury by
the scene, and in all the confidence that Russia and their cause were
alike holy, that defeat was impossible, and the redoubt was
surrounded.
Then back to back, pale with fury, their eyes flashing, their teeth
set, fearless and resolute, their feet encumbered with the dying and
the dead, fought the Coldstream Guardsmen, struggling for very life;
the ground a slippery puddle with blood and brains, and again and
again the clash of the bayonets was heard as the musket barrels were
crossed. Their ammunition was soon expended; but clubbing their
weapons they dashed at the enemy with the butt-ends; and hurling even
stones at their heads, broke through the dense masses, and leaving at
least one thousand Muscovites dead behind them, rejoined their
comrades, whom Sir George Cathcart was leading to the advance, when a
ball whistled through his heart, and he fell to rise no more.
The combat was quite unequal; our troops began slowly to retire
towards their own lines, but fighting every inch of the way and
pressed hard by the Russians, who bayonetted or brained by the
butt-end every wounded man they found; and by eleven o'clock they were
close to the tents of the Second Division.
The rain of bullets sowed thickly all the turf like a leaden shower,
and shred away clouds of leaves and twigs from the gorse and other
bushes; but long ere the foe had come thus far, we had our share and
more in the terrible game. Exchanging fire with them at twenty yards'
distance, the roar of the musketry, the shouts and cheers, the yells
of defiance or agony, the explosion of shells overhead, the hoarse
sound of the round shot, as they tore up the earth in deeper furrows
than ever ploughshare formed, made a very hell of Inkermann, that
valley of blood and suffering, of death and cruelty; but dense clouds
of smoke, replacing the mist, enveloped it for a time, and veiled many
of its horrors from the eye.
Bathurst and Sayer, Vane and Millet of ours were all down by this
time; many of our men had also fallen; and from the death-clutch or
the relaxed fingers of more than one poor ensign had the tattered
colour which bore the Red Dragon been taken, by those who were fated
to fall under it in turn. I could see nothing of Caradoc; but I heard
that three balls had struck the revolver in his belt. Poor Hugh Price
fell near me, shot through the chest, and was afterwards found, like
many others, with his brains dashed out. In the third repulse of the
Russians, as we rushed headlong after them with levelled bayonets, I
found myself suddenly opposed by an officer of rank mounted on a gray
horse, the flanks and trappings of which were splashed by blood,
whether its own or that of the rider, I knew not. Furiously, by every
energy, with his voice, which was loud and authoritative, and by
brandishing his sword, he was endeavouring to rally his men, a mingled
mass of the Vladimir Battalion and the flat-capped Kazan Light
Infantry.
"Pot that fellow; down with him!" cried several voices; "maybe he's
old Osten-Sacken himself."
Many shots missed him, as the men fired with fixed bayonets, when
suddenly he turned his vengeance on me, and checking his horse for a
second, cut at my head with his sword. Stooping, I avoided his attack,
but shot his horse in the head. Heavily the animal tumbled forward,
with its nose between its knees; and as the rider fell from the saddle
and his cap flew off, I recognised Volhonski. A dozen of Fusileers had
their bayonets at his throat, when I struck them up with my sword, and
interceding, took him prisoner.
"Allow me, if taken, to preserve my sword," said he, in somewhat
broken English.
"No, no; by ----, no! disarm him, Captain Hardinge," cried several of
our men, who had already shot more than one Russian officer when in
the act of killing the wounded.
He smiled with proud disdain, and snapping the blade across his knee,
threw the fragments from him.
"Though it is a disgrace alike for Russian to retreat or yield, I
yield myself to you, Captain Hardinge," said he in French, and
presenting his hand; but ere I could take it, I felt a shot strike me
on the back part of the head. Luckily it was a partially spent one,
though I knew it not then.
A sickness, a faintness, came over me, and I had a wild and clamorous
fear that all was up with me then; but I strove to ignore the emotion,
to brandish my sword, to shout to my company, "Come on, men, come on!"
to carry my head erect, soldierlike and proudly. Alas for human nerves
and poor human nature! My voice failed me; I reeled. "Spare me,
blessed God!" I prayed, then fell forward on my face, and felt the
rush of our own men, as they swept forward in the charge to the front;
and then darkness seemed to steal over my sight, and unconsciousness
over every other sense, and I remembered no more.
So while I lay senseless there, the tide of battle turned in the
valley, and re-turned again. But not till General Canrobert, with
three regiments of fiery little Zouaves, five of other infantry, and a
strong force of artillery, made a furious attack on the Russian flank,
with all his drums beating the _pas de charge_. The issue of the
battle was then no longer doubtful.
The Russians wavered and broke, and with a strange wail of despair,
such as that they gave at Alma, when they feared that the angel of
light had left them, they fled towards Sebastopol, trodden down like
sheep by the French and British soldiers, all mingled pell-mell, in
fierce and vengeful pursuit. By three in the afternoon all was over,
and we had won another victory.
But our losses were terrible. Seven of our generals were killed or
wounded; we had two thousand five hundred and nine officers and men
killed, wounded, or missing; but more than fourteen thousand Russians
lay on the ground which had been by both armies so nobly contested,
and of these five thousand were killed.
CHAPTER XXXVII.--THE ANGEL OF HORROR.
When consciousness returned, I found the dull red evening sun shining
down the long valley of Inkermann, and that, save moans and cries for
aid and water, all seemed terribly still now.
A sense of weakness and oppression, of incapacity for action and
motion, were my first sensations. I feared that other shot must have
struck me after I had fallen, and that both my legs were broken. The
cause of this, after a time, became plain enough: a dead artillery
horse was lying completely over my thighs, and above it and them lay
the wheel of a shattered gun carriage; and weak as I was then, to
attempt extrication from either unaided was hopeless. Thus I was
compelled to lie helplessly amid a sickening puddle of blood,
enduring a thirst that is unspeakable, but which was caused by
physical causes and excitement, with the anxiety consequent on the
battle. The aspect of the dead horse, which first attracted me, was
horrible. A twelve-pound shot had struck him below the eyes, making a
hole clean through his head; the brain had dropped out, and lay with
his tongue and teeth upon the grass. The dead and wounded lay thickly
around me, as indeed they did over all the field. Some of the former,
though with eyes unclosed and jaws relaxed, had a placid expression in
their white waxen faces. These had died of gun-shot wounds. The
expressions of pain or anguish lingered longest in those who had
perished by the bayonet. Over all the valley lay bodies in heaps,
singly or by two and threes, with swarms of flies settling over them;
shakoes, glazed helmets, bearskin-caps, bent bayonets, broken muskets,
swords, hairy knapsacks, bread-bags, shreds of clothing, torn from the
dead and the living by showers of grape and canister, cooking-kettles,
round shot and fragments of shells, with pools of noisome blood, lay
on every hand.
Truly the Angel of Horror, and of Death, too, had been there. I saw
several poor fellows, British as well as Russian, expire within the
first few minutes I was able to look around me. One whose breast bore
several medals and orders, an officer of the Kazan Light Infantry,
prayed very devoutly and crossed himself in his own blood ere he
expired. Near me a corporal of my own regiment named Prouse, who had
been shot through the brain, played fatuously for a time with a
handful of grass, and then, lying gently back, passed away without a
moan. A Zouave, a brown, brawny, and soldier-like fellow, who seemed
out of his senses also, was very talkative and noisy.
"Ouf!" I heard him say; "it is as wearisome as a sermon or a funeral
this! Were I a general, the capture of Sebastopol should be as easy as
a game of dominoes.--Yes, Isabeau, ma belle coquette, kiss me and hold
up my head. Vive la gloire! Vive l'eau de vie! A bas la mélancolie! A
bas la Russe!" he added through his clenched teeth hoarsely, as he
fell back. The jaw relaxed, his head turned on one side, and all was
over.
Of Volhonski I could see nothing except his gray horse, which lay
dead, in all its trappings, a few yards off; but I afterwards learned
that he had been retaken by the Russians on their advance after the
fall of poor Sir George Cathcart.
There was an acute pain in the arm that had been
injured--fractured--when saving Estelle; and as a kind of stupor,
filled by sad and dreamy thoughts, stole over me, they were all of
her. The roar of the battle had passed away, but there was a kind of
drowsy hum in my ears, and, for a time, strangely enough, I fancied
myself with her in the Park or Rotten-row. I seemed to see the
brilliant scene in all the glory of the season: the carriages; the
horses, bay or black, with their shining skins and glittering
harness; the powdered coachmen on their stately hammer-cloths; the
gaily-liveried footmen; the ladies cantering past in thousands, so
exquisitely dressed, so perfectly mounted, so wonderful in their